Lucid Dreams

LUCID DREAMS

By

Josephene Stull

Smashwords Edition

Copyright: Josephene Stull 2013

No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the author, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in reviews. This is a work of fiction. All names, characters, places, and events are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to real persons, places, or events is coincidental.

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. It may not be re-sold or given

away to other person. If you would like to share this book with another person, please

purchase an additional copy for each person you'd like to share it with. Thank you for

respecting the work of this author.

ISBN-10: 0991408209

ISBN-13: 978-0-9914082-0-7

Acknowledgments

I would like to acknowledge Lucas Xavier Stull for his excellent work designing the cover for Lucid Dreams.

I would also like to thank Stefan Vucak for a superb editing job. I found him knowledgeable, easy to work with and highly professional.

CHAPTER ONE

The smell of perspiration, stale cigar smoke, and something else Angel McKeough’s sleep induced brain processed as rancid semen stung her nostrils, although logically, semen would not have such a vile discernible odor. She willed her body to remain still while her eyes adjusted to the semi-darkness. Her heart thumped wildly. Some pervert must have followed her home from work. She rotated her eyes, expecting to glimpse a dark figure lurking in a corner, but there was nobody.

She flicked on the bedside lamp and sat upright, hugging a pillow against her chest. Her pupils grew round. She was completely naked, except for a fishnet pantyhose hanging precariously half on, half off, her left foot.

Her hair clung to her face and bare breasts. She raked the sweat-drenched strands of hair aside. The scream rising in her throat changed to a self-conscious giggle. The malodor was emanating from her. Her long locks had soaked up the pungent stench of Club Venus like a sponge. Thanks to her sweatbox apartment, her scalp had an extremely unpleasant odor.

Ugh!

After a double shift at the titty bar, she must have been so exhausted, she’d stripped down and passed out on the bed. Angel shook her head. She vaguely remembered dumping Alex, her three-year-old son, onto his bed and twisting the shower knobs full on.

The sound of running water sent her sprinting to the bathroom au naturel. She twisted the shower knobs backward and stood stock still in the middle of the floor staring at water droplets hanging from the ceiling. The shower had run full blast all night.

Damn!

More overtime hours at the club.

She reached for a hairbrush and began to stroke her tangles into long, velvet black strands that framed her face.

She once again turned the water on and stepped underneath the showerhead, gasping as icy water washed over her body. She lathered quickly; then stepped out and toweled vigorously until her skin glowed a tantalizing pink and her nipples were vivid rubies.

Loosely pinning her hair on the back of her head, she rummaged through the small hole in the bedroom wall that served as a closet. She chose a well-worn pair of blue jeans and a Disney tweety bird T-shirt Alex liked. She moved to the chest of drawers and took out a pair of white cotton briefs.

Peachy! About as exciting as a dirty sock, she muttered, pushing the drawer shut.

A sudden surge of recklessness hit her. She pulled the drawer open a crack and stuffed back the plain briefs. Her fingers hovered near the top drawer. Biting her lip, she slid the drawer wide and removed a six by eight black lacquered box inlaid with tiny mother of pearl roses. She closed her eyes, tracing the outline of each tiny delicate flower with her fingertips. She sucked in a gulp of air and exhaled slowly before lifting the lid to disclose a pair of black lace panties and matching brassiere neatly folded on a lining of white satin.

Tears spilled over and ran down her cheeks as she stared at her wedding attire. Charlie had called her a naughty girl for wearing black underneath the beautiful white wedding gown, but it didn’t stop him from stripping those same panties from her body with his teeth. She smiled slightly and rubbed the flimsy scraps of lace against her cheek, remembering.

Angel wiggled into the low-cut panties, adjusted them over her crotch and fumbled with the brassiere. Her trembling fingers struggled to connect the hook as she attempted to fit her D-size breasts into C-size cups.

Suddenly, she froze. The hair on the back of her neck started to rise and a lump lodged in her throat. She had an overwhelming sensation that someone was watching her.

She picked the family bible off the bedside table and moved cautiously from room to room, but found nothing. Weird things had been happening much too often lately and the tempo was picking up.

Stress. It’s got to be stress, she muttered.

Looking at bare breasts, g-stringed butts and horny peckers for up to ten hours a night was affecting her badly. Not the blatant slap and tickle action in itself; she was finished with men and that type foolishness. Their lewd conduct was vile and disgusting.

The sense of an invisible eye watching her was psyching her out. Her search of the rooms had turned up empty, just as it had numerous times before. She shrugged. Sleep deprivation was kicking her imagination into overdrive. She breathed a sigh of relief and giggled at her choice of weapon. The bible was big and heavy. In the event she encountered something unholy, not that she believed in ghosts and demons, she would have the means to banish them, and if the perpetrator was human, she had the ability to knock the Peeping Tom on his backside.

You gotta stop that, girl, she said, frowning when she realized she was talking to herself again.

She wanted Charlie back. At the thought, her face darkened. Charlie had promised he’d always love her and never leave her, but he lied. All men were liars!

She fingered the revealing strips of her lacy bra, cupping the voluptuous breasts in her hands. Without Charlie’s touch, these excessive mounds of flesh just weighed her down. Her hands slid across her abdomen, glided over the scanty lace panties and around the contours of her well rounded buttocks. She liked the feel of satin and lace against her skin. These undergarments had been reserved for Charlie’s eyes only, but he would not be coming back. He had put on his little golden halo, spread his angel wings and flown away, leaving her to carry on without him.

She laughed bitterly. He had been her pillar of strength and an anchor when storm clouds gathered in her perfect little world. Leaving, he left her lonely, vulnerable, and afraid of her own shadow...and an imaginary stalker.

She screamed shrilly as the strap snapped on her brassiere and one breast burst free. After her heart had settled, she found the situation immensely funny.

Hey! Invisible presence, get a load of this. She giggled.

She slipped on jeans and T-shirt. The tingling sensation of goose pimples made her wish she’d held her tongue.

CHAPTER TWO

All festivities ground to a halt the moment Garmin Maximilian stepped through the entrance to the great hall of Hel’s Castle. The voices dwindled to an occasional whisper spoken into cupped palms. When the Number One Hellhound, a title conferred by the Mistress of Hell because of his extraordinary abilities and demon ancestry, honored a social gathering with his presence, he was usually on the hunt for runaway dishonored dead that were attempting to escape the endless torment of the lowest level of hell for a more desirable realm of the underworld.

All eyes turned in his direction, and lips stretched into practiced smiles, but he did not acknowledge a single presence with as much as a nod.

His gaze swept the room. He didn’t give a rat’s ass about the assemblage of servile court sycophants, and he didn’t have any intention of engaging in conversation with these double-tongued dregs of society.

He gestured with his hands and, on cue, the festivities resumed. He kept to the shadows, out of sight of the probing gaze of social wallflowers whose timid smiles didn’t quite mask the frustration and natural urge to merge reflected in their china doll faces.

The air reeked of musty armpits, yeasty loins, and the pungent fusion of dozens of aromatic fragrances intended to mask these malodorous discharges.

Court jesters jingled their bells and frolicked around him, and musicians twanged their instruments loudly, but he didn’t hear them.

Painted ladies circled the ballroom in their lace and velvet gowns and cast amorous glances over the shoulders of their dance partners at the solitary figure, but Garmin turned a blind eye to their suggestive behavior.

The heels of his boots echoed eerily on the cold marble tiles as he shouldered his way through the crowd, moving to stand by a window scarcely larger than an arrow slit. His knuckles whitened as he gripped the stone ledge and stared out at the well-traveled bridge a stone’s throw from the main gate. The bridge served solely as a one-way passage for the dead to enter the realm of the underworld where they were destined to remain for all eternity. It had remained an impregnable fortification for thousands of years, but he was not daunted by the architectural ingenuity of the ancients.

Today was the day of reckoning. A cold chill ran along the length of his spine as Garmin stared at the formidable dank cloud hovering above the ancient castle. Even inside the stone walls, he could hear the river clamoring incessantly under hand hewn logs that gave rise to massive wooden timbers.

Turbulent waves slapped against the bridge with hurricane force as the water continuously churned against a sea of bones long since gnawed clean by the largest serpent ever to draw breath and its smaller kin.

His face clouded. If his mission failed, his lot would be cast. He, too, would be left to the mercy of the gigantic, venom spitting sea serpent lurking in the river’s depths, and the mighty serpent knew no mercy.

The hollow sound of bone grating against bone made him question his timeless existence. He was certain he had not been born in the misty abode of the dead, but this place had literally laid claim to his state of being as it had those souls who had been cast down into this hellish existence.

Part man, part beast, he was unlike any other in the vast realms of the Kingdom of the Dead. He had no beginning and no end. He just was…the last seed of his kind. The only thing he could justifiably attest to his existence was his name. It was an honorable name carried forward