[kiasusam]

Sometimes it felt exactly as though a hand was touching my leg, or my shoulder. Sometimes I could feel a thigh pressing along the length of my own as I sat on the couch. But it was only a feeling. There was never a wrinkle in my clothing where I was touched. There was never a depression in the couch cushion next to me. It was only my flesh that seemed to be effected. Although it felt like a warm hand resting on my shoulder, there was nothing at all there when I touched the spot with my own hand.

And then there were the tingling, electrical feelings. I can't even begin to describe these accurately. It was like a wave of sensation passing through random parts of my body, sort of like the pins and needles feeling you get when your arm goes to sleep. But not really. I just can't describe it. The closest I can come is to say that I felt like there was movement happening, if that makes any sense. Movement through me, somehow.

I can't tell you how many times I worried that I was going crazy, or had been slipped acid or something. There was nothing painful about it at all, but it was horrifying just the same.

Horrifying and... intriguing.

I went back to work, resumed life as normal in most every way, but the odd feelings never left. I thought about going to the doctor, but thought about how foolish I'd sound. I didn't decide not to go, exactly. I just kept putting it off.

I realize as I'm telling all this, that you don't really know much about me. There's not really that much to know. I'm just an ordinary guy, for the most part. You know, moved away after college for work. I'm a chemist by trade, working for a company that makes herbicides and such. I'm always looking for a safer weedkiller. Exciting, huh?

I date a little bit, but haven't really found anyone I want to get serious about. I'm a little bit of a loner, but I hang out with the guys and watch football on the weekends. Pretty boring, really. Like I said, I hadn't really thought about the supernatural in years. I'm a here-and-now kind of guy. A scientist. If I can't see it, touch it, smell it, it doesn't exist, you know what I mean?

So this weirdness was really throwing me for a loop.

Then, after a week or so, the dreams started. Well, I should say I had the first dream. It was a pretty simple dream. It was about a woman, lost in a fog that seemed to wrap all around her no matter where she moved. She was waif-thin, with blonde hair and dark, dark eyes. Her white dress was stained around the hem, as if she had been running through the mud, and it looked as if it were from another age. Someone seemed to be following her, because she kept looking behind her and starting with fright, then hurrying on. I seemed to be some kind of disembodied spirit or something, because she was always looking up at me, like I was floating in the air. I didn't seem to be in just one spot, because she would look in different directions, but her face always seemed to be turned towards me. You know how dreams don't make sense. And she kept calling to me.

"Take me! Please, save me! Take me now! Oh, please!!"

I awoke, sitting up straight in the bed, gasping for breath. I felt the shadow of a weight that had been pressed against me in my sleep, pressed against the full length of my body and crushing the wind from me, though there was nothing there now. I remembered the voice from the séance, speaking the same words. I trembled all over.

Even then, I made no connection between the woman in my dream and the physical sensations I had been feeling. At least, not consciously. I mean, I knew the dream was caused by the stuff I experienced at the séance, but I've also dreamed about game shows I just watched. It doesn't mean I'm haunted by the astral projection of Pat Sajak, right?

Though I didn't realize it right away, the physical experiences changed in nature after that dream. I no longer just felt a brush on the arm or a hand on my thigh. The touches seemed to take on a decidedly sexual nature. I was in traffic one morning, heading for work, and I damn near swerved into oncoming traffic when I felt a hand cup my balls and give a gentle squeeze. I was sitting in a meeting the next afternoon, trying not to let my eyes roll back into my head, when I felt my nipples being rubbed until they were hard, and then pinched and pulled! I was so alarmed I looked down to see if my shirt was moving. Unbelievably, my shirt just sat there like it didn't know a thing, although my nipples were clearly perky. I futzed with my tie and held my coffee in front of my face until the feeling went away, but my ears burned the rest of the meeting.

The weirdest sensation of that week -- a transition week, I've come to think of it -- was when I was at my buddy Kurt's house watching a game, and I had the distinct feeling of being kissed. Not just a little peck on the lips, either. Oh no. I felt a long, lithe, and slender tongue probing my mouth, teeth nibbling my lips and sucking on them, the whole deal. I had that same feeling of panic I had in the meeting, the thought that anyone could see what was happening to me. At one point Kurt looked over and asked if I wanted another beer, but if he noticed anything, he didn't say a word. And if you knew Kurt, you would know that I'd never hear the end of it, had he seen anything. Nice guy, but he still has the mentality of a high school jock sometimes. Any hint that I was puckering like a fish because I was kissing some ghostly lover would have brought down scorn and ridicule on my head like you wouldn't believe. Thank goodness, whatever I was feeling, wasn't showing.

It was a bit of a learning process, figuring out what other people could and couldn't see. But that comes later...

After a week or so of what could only be described as foreplay, I had another dream visitation. This dream was what finally made me realize that the girl in my dreams was, in fact, connected with the physical symptoms I had been having since the séance. What can I say? I'm a slow learner.

In this dream, she was no longer running, but she was still ethereal and fragile-looking. Her blonde hair floated about her face as if she was underwater. She spoke to me with urgency and passion, but not so much fear this time. I couldn't understand, or can't remember, most of what she was saying, but at least part of it had to do with thanking me, and telling me she knew I was the one, she knew. She kept saying that, and I got the feeling I was supposed to do something, help her in some way, but I couldn't understand how. And then, she kissed me. I knew right away this was the same person who had kissed me, unseen, while I watched the football game at Kurt's. She pushed me gently down on my back, where I seemed to float in a room with no defined features, only glowing light. As I lay there, she moved her hands over my body, my chest, and down to my groin. I felt the now-familiar cup of her hand around my balls, and then she took my cock in her hand and began to stroke me.