Panick attack & imagination

Night crept up on Mike as he whittled away his evening on his laptop. Using his neighbor's unprotected Wi-Fi, he checked on several sites he had been maintaining, answered some of his emails, and opened up his bank statements. None of the money his Great Aunt left him had been transferred in yet, but he pictured the new amount in place of his current one and wondered.

What would he even do with all that cash? If he were to sell the home, he would be walking around with several million and nothing to spend it on. He had been poor as a child, poor enough that by the time he worked his way through college, he was simply used to the survivor's lifestyle. All the clothes he owned would easily fit in two suitcases, and the bulk of his belongings were made up of a couple of desktop PC's and a tablet at his apartment.

He finally noticed the time near the bottom of his screen and shut down shop for the night. It was nearing eleven, and he still hadn't even eaten dinner. A quick search on his phone revealed a nearby pizza place, and he ordered himself a medium sausage with a 2 liter of Sprite. He wandered the lonely rooms, eventually tossing his bag in his Great Aunt's bedroom. He drifted through the house, picking up random belongings, trying to envision the woman his Great Aunt was.

He had looked her up on line. She had inherited the house from her own aunt (a notorious spinster) at a young age, living off of several very own railroad bonds that had paid off big in the 1940's. A job as a librarian supplemented her income through her fifties, and then she had simply shut herself away.

Not completely, though. Mike noted that some of the purchases in the home must have been made in the last couple of years. A few of the books in the library had tipped him off. She must have left on rare occasions, or at least hired somebody to shop for her. To be honest, the thought was pretty appealing to him.

The doorbell startled him out of his reverie, and he nearly dropped a clown figurine he had pulled from the shelf in front of him. He put it back and walked to the front door.

"Hi!" The pizza delivery man was, in fact, a gorgeous blonde girl, likely a college student. Her hair had been swooped back into a ponytail, and she was wearing a stylish pair of black rim glasses. The name-tag on her jacket said Dana. "Your house is gorgeous!" She handed him his soda.

"Uh, yeah." He leaned forward to help her take the food from its special cooler, and accidentally brushed against her breast through her jacket with his hand.

"I don't think I've ever delivered here before," she added, staring past him into the home. "Are you new in town?"

"First day." He handed her a pair of tens. As she dug into her pouch for change, he caught just a whiff of her perfume. His world started closing in. "No worries, keep it?"

"Seriously?" Her eyes were huge as he nodded.

"Yeah, no problem." He let the door close as she thanked him. Placing the pizza on the coffee table, he took a few deep breaths. The sensation of her breast against the back of his hand, the sheer firmness of it, accompanied by the scent of her perfume had given him a surprisingly hard erection.

He ran through the house, flipping on all of the lights. His mother's voice attempted to rise up in the back of his mind, but he shut it out. Years of sharing a bed with her had inevitably led to an incident, shortly before his eleventh birthday, when he had awaken suddenly to a slap in the face. In his sleep, he had managed to roll into his own mother while sprouting wood.

The physical abuse was immediate, but the verbal abuse continued. Whenever he got aroused in his sleep, his mother would slap him awake, or call others in to make fun of him. Often, this led to a sudden change in address, as most normal people recognized her behavior as appalling. Her constant teasing in front of anyone who would listen had led him to a largely celibate lifestyle. The few women he had been with had been unsympathetic to his sexual panic attacks, or his mommy issues, as one had called them. Now, in an unfamiliar setting, he found those old emotions resurfacing, attempting to claw away at the protective shell he had put around himself.

His imagination was his own worst enemy. Picturing her specter hiding in the shadows, waiting to pass judgment, had simply clenched the deal. Now, though, with all of the lights on, she couldn't afford to surface. His panic attack subsiding, he picked up his food and made his way to the kitchen.

Mike consumed his meal while streaming a movie on his computer, leaving the last five slices for tomorrow. The fridge looked painfully bare, occupied by a sole pizza box and a soda bottle. Mike returned to the table, watching for another half an hour as the generic action star did something to confound the villain. His mind kept flipping back and forth to the feel of the pizza girl's breast and his mother's demonic memory.

He pulled out his phone and flipped down to Dr. Gorman in his contacts. He hadn't sat with his therapist in over three years, but the urge to reach out had surfaced. Hands shaking, his thumb hovered over the call button.

"Fuck it." He closed his contact list. His mother was dead, the past was the past, and he needed to get over it. Years of being told that arousal was natural, that everybody did it, that it was okay to fantasize. He closed his eyes, recalling the cute appearance of Dana the pizza girl. He unleashed the memory of her scent, the firmness of her breast, the surprised expression she had made when he had tipped her eight bucks extra. It was probably the same face she made during her first orgasm, or perhaps when her lover's lips first touched the nipples of her firm breast...

That did it. His body was back in full swing, he was back in control. Well, almost. The urge to watch porn to help get off was strong, but Dr. Gorman had reminded him that porn could be too much of an escapist fantasy. It was better for him to visualize on his own; he was less likely to panic in bed with a real woman. However, porn wasn't so much the issue, but rather location.

He was in a stranger's house with a major hard on. Technically, he could jerk off in the hallway for all anybody cared, but just because the house was now his didn't mean it was home. It definitely didn't feel safe.

Mike closed his computer and proceeded up to the bedroom. He could take care of his own needs in there. That wasn't much different than a hotel room, or new apartment, really. The more he told himself these things, the more he was ready to get off. Stepping into the room, he took one look at the bed and shuddered. Beds were sometimes just as bad, and today was no different.