1. Her lonely world

New York City.

Janey Philips was in love. Had had been more than five months now. It was what got her through the days and filled her lonely nights. Knowing the tenderness of his touch,the patience and passion of his lovemaking, and the fulfilment of dying bit by bit each night in his arms as he took her breathless and often trembling,was more than shed ever hope to have in life.

And tonight was no exception.

After another long and seemingly endless night of playing hostess for her father, federal prosecutor Peter Philips,it had been all Janey could do to get undressed before crawling into bed.

She wanted her lover with Anees that made her shiver. Longed for the mindless, weightless feeling of coming apart beneath him. Yet, even in the deepest part of her soul, she was sorry for the fact she saw him only in her dreams.

But how could she regret someone who, nightly, was breathing life and reminding her why she'd been born a woman? She needed him as much as she needed oxygen to survive, craving the freedom of his touch, getting lost in his kisses and ultimately experiencing the mind numbing shock of sexual release. No one knew he existed, and she would not admit, even to herself, that he was not real. Tonight was no exception.

It was with eagerness that she crawled into bed, rolled over on her side and warily closed her eyes,waiting for consciousness to subside, waiting for him.

And as she waited,her subconsciousness smiled between the state between cognizance and sleep, bringing her to the joke of her existence, wondering why she'd been born different from other women and always the butt of jokes. Tolerated only because of her father's status in the upper echelons of the city policies.

She rolled unto other side and plumped the pillow beneath her head, trying to block out the pain but it was with her as surely as the blood that flows through her veins.

People smiled to her face, but she knew they talked when her back was turned. She knew what the people in the elite circle o her father's life talked about her. They said she was unbalanced. Some even called her crazy. The kinder ones thought she was just giving to high flight of fanciful imaginations, but nearly all often figured she would end up in an expensive but distant institution, just as her mother, Josie, had done before she had taken her own life.

No one have credience to the provenance of Janey family, or to the legend that the oldest daughter in every family directly related to Mandy who had disappeared from her family plantation in Wisteria Grove in 1850, had the gift of 'sight'.

Janey so called gift had been an embarrassment to her father since the day she learnt to talk. It had ostracized her during her school years and made her something of a cult audity in college. Her reputation became the source of amusement at parties, as her so called friends urged her to 'see' into her future. But the day she 'saw' one commit a crime before it happened was the day her popularity came to an end.

Trying to hide her disability, as soon as she graduated college,she got a job at a local newspaper, but that too soon ended, along with her three months engagement to the editor's oldest son. Her second engagement to a stock broker occured two years later and lasted untill he began urging her to give him tips of the market.

For Janey, it was the last straw. Having to face the fact that he'd believed in her only enough to further his own goals had soured her ever possessing she would find someone who could ignore the gossips and love her for who she was. Now, at 25, and sick of the vicious circle that had become her life, she was ready for a change.

Unknown to her father, she was planning to leave New York but untill she could decide what she wanted to do, and where she wanted to go, having an affair with a man who existed only in her mind seemed like a damned good idea. For now, sleep had become her escape.

And so she waited with expectations, praying for sleep to come. She took slow, deep breath to clear her thoughts from the meaninglessness chit chat she'd endured throughout dinner, then inhaled softly. Moments later, she was asleep.

And, just as she'd had hoped, he came to her in her dream… in her world… in her mind, Slipping into her thoughts without warning. One minute she was alone and dreamless, the next thing she knew, she felt something wet and hot on her lips, it was a foreign feeling yet sweet. His lips was tasting mine. Savouring it gently and they moaned in between the kisses. Then his to give entered her mouth, devouring everything inside.

Before she knew it, his hands were on he body, caressing her shapes. Then his mouth touched her skin, leaving a thin, wet trails on her breast as he traced it's shape with the tip of his tongue.

Janey moaned and then sighed as she unconsciously rolled over into her back and parted her legs, she felt his hands on her waist, moving slowly towards her belly, pausing just long enough above the juncture of her thighs to make her moan with longing.

She wanted more.

She wanted him.

She wanted it now.

As if he had sensed her thought, he moved from beside her to on top of her. She thought he whispered something shameless as he slid in between her legs, but she couldn't quite hear the words. For a heartstopping moment, he held himself poised above her; then she wrapped her legs around his waist and pulled him in, arching uncontrollably towards the hard, pulse length of him as he began to rock her world. Moonlight filtered through the pale blue sheers of the third storey building, bathing the room in a dim light, but Janey did not know and would not have cared. She felt nothing but the impact of their bodies in the ebb and flow of making love.

Hee climax came without warning and in the form of a belly deep moan, shattering Janey's dream,eaving her awake and shaken and trying to reconcile the loneliness of her existence with the I timacy of where she'd had just been.

With a stiffles sob, she thrust her fingers through her hair, swept the bright red curls away from her face and then rolled out of bed. She stumbled as she got up, the staggered to the bathroom, hoping to salvage her sanity with the shock of a cold shower.