Red Silk

John Harris woke in the dark bedroom.

His wife, apparently also awake, sat still and upright next to him. Though the bed was warm, he could feel a slightly warmer body heat emanating from Megan through her red silk negligee.

“Megan? Are you all right, Hon?” he asked. She hadn’t woken in the middle of the night, since the breakthrough. Or if she had, John slept through it.

Megan made a strange, hoarse noise, like clearing her throat.

“Go back to sleep,” Megan said.

John’s eyelids, suddenly incredibly heavy, fluttered as his body hastened to obey the psychic command which the woman next to him wasn’t even aware she’d given.

“You sound… like… you’re getting… a cold,” he murmured as sleep claimed him. Yet even as he drifted away, impelled by an irresistible force, he realized something was wrong.

Megan was never ill.

Carefully, slowly, Megan lifted the covers and stepped out of the bed. She padded noiselessly through the open door into the night light-lit bathroom. Closing the door, she turned on the light and inspected herself in the wall-length mirror above the long counter and its two white porcelain sinks.

She caught her breath just a bit at her appearance as she raised a slim, semi-long-nailed hand to the thick and glossy but short, sleep-rumpled black hair. It framed well her patrician face, the big brown eyes under arched brows, the straight nose, full lips, and strong, rounded chin.

She saw the hairbrush in its holder by the counter, and reached for it, but then hesitated and withdrew her hand. The brush wobbled in the holder for just a second. Then it rose into the air and drifted into Megan’s waiting hand.

Her eyes on her mirror reflection, the red silk-clad woman brushed her hair, slowly. She released the brush. It continued its work without her guiding hand; short slow strokes restoring some order to the black, tousled hair.

She looked upward to where she knew a tiny web-camera recorded the scene.

“Edward,” she breathed. “Do you see? We have done it!”

She nodded in the direction of the brush-holder on the counter. Obediently, the brush left off its stroking, flew back to the holder and settled itself in.

“No need to be sloppy with your things,” she said to someone who appeared not present.

She seemed to listen for a moment, then she laughed softly.

“But I will do as I please with him,” she said.

She looked again at her reflection, then down at her own red silk-clad body, as if to confirm what she saw in the mirror. The negligee fit her loosely, v-necked, with three-quarter sleeves and dropping midway down her bare thighs.

She noted Megan’s pink toenails with amusement.

Melnikova, in total control of the body and abilities of Megan Harris, stepped out of the bathroom. A helpless prisoner in a remote corner of her own mind, yet one who could clearly see, hear and feel, Megan screamed, wept and fought. Silently. Uselessly. Helplessly.

Please don’t hurt my husband, she begged.

“Husband,” said Melnikova in Megan’s voice. “Awake!”