Page 10 of Restraint

Because it was a dream. Just a dream.

Just a dream he thought he was awake for, that he wasn’t still tasting on his tongue.

***

A week later Jamie was still wearing the sunglasses. He’d even grabbed a second pair at a gas station during a work break, so he could leave one pair in the work truck and have one for home.

He’d never really been a sunglasses person, but he understood now why Rick had such a wide collection. They were so helpful in transitioning from inside houses and apartments to the bright outdoors. He’d quickly grown so used to wearing them that if he went outside without them, he’d squint painfully against the sunlight and have to go right back upstairs to retrieve them.

“Hey,” Jack said, interrupting his thoughts. The tone implied it wasn’t the first time he’d tried to get Jamie’s attention.

“Sorry, what?” Jamie turned to look at Jack who was standing by the breakroom door.

“Earth to Jamie,” Jack said with a small smile. “You going to finish lunch? It’s time to go.”

Jamie looked down and–oh. Right. He’d been eating lunch. Except most of his lunch was still there, only a few bites taken out of his sandwich and the bag of chips half eaten. He’d been picking at it when he’d gotten distracted.

It was happening more and more now. The dreams hadn’t let up, and although they hadn’t ventured into any new territory, the tentacles and the rope bondage were enough to continuously haunt his waking thoughts. Every night he dreamt of the monster who caressed and touched and fucked him. Everynight he had body shuddering orgasms and woke well rested and without a mark on him.

It was confusing.

“Sorry, I’m ready,” Jamie said as he started packing up his stuff. In every moment of downtime his brain wanted to go back to the dreams. Wanted to ruminate about it. He tried to pull apart every detail and figure out how they could possibly be real. Because they feltso real.

But monsters weren’t real.

Jack frowned at him. “You didn’t finish eating.”

“It’s fine,” Jamie said quickly as he tucked everything back in his lunch box. “I wasn’t really hungry anyway.”

He could see how that didn’t sit so well with Jack after he’d already spent so much time worrying about Jamie getting enough food while he’d lived with his mother. Jamie felt bad about Jack worrying, but he really wasn’t hungry. Since the dreams he’d been… more energized throughout the day. Like he was getting real, restful sleep, and he hadn’t needed to fill the lack with food.

Jamie’s weight was holding steady, even if his portions were smaller, so he hadn’t bothered to be concerned.

“Anyway,” Jamie said as he stood, trying to placate Jack, “I’ll just bring it and have some later when I get hungry.”

Jack gave him a long look, like he wanted to ask something, but then just nodded. “Alright.”

He headed out and Jamie gave himself a second to breathe. This was far from the first time they’d caught him zoning out on the job, and he didn’t like it. They were justdreams. Jamie didn’t understand why he kept thinking about them so much.

So what if they were weird? People had weird dreams all the time. At least, that was what the Internet said. Jamie had done some mild research, and been both relieved and annoyedto find that other people also regularly had monstrous sex dreams.

But he really, really needed to not let it affect his work.

Lunch box packed up, Jamie hurried out of the room, flicking down his sunglasses as he walked outside. Rick was already in the truck and Jack was climbing in. They had a four bedroom house next, and it was going to be a big job. It’d take the rest of the afternoon.

“Hey, there he is,” Rick said as Jamie slid into the truck. “You good kid? Looked like you were doing some heavy thinking when I popped my head into the break room.”

Jamie almost cringed. So Rick had noticed too. “Sorry. Just distracted I guess.”

“Anything you want to share with the class?” Rick asked.

Oh yeah sure,Jamie thought sarcastically to himself.Just that I've been having all kinds of monstrous dreams and they're so good and so horrifying that I find myself thinking about them multiple times a day.

“Nope, just… gathering wool,” Jamie said. It was something his mom used to berate him about, that sometimes Jamie would be up in his head instead of listening to her scream at him. He’d hated when she’d said it, as if he were some sort of simpleton with cotton for brains. It was an easy excuse to use now.

“Alright,” Rick said, letting him off easy. “Let’s do this. Big job, here we come.”

***

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