Ansuya was deep asleep. He had already gotten dressed and gently opened the curtains to their bedroom window. The sun was shining off the dew-covered leaves and grass of the early spring. He looked out over their small suburban street. One of the neighbors was sprinkling their yard and that nice kid, Jimmy was making his newspaper rounds. He smiled into the warmth of the light through the window. Behind him Ansuya was rousing herself.
He turned around to face her, smiling, bathed in sunlight, “Good morning, beautiful. How did you sleep?”
The woman looked confused. She looked down at the deep red sheets as if she had never seen them before. She slowly surveyed the room and their furniture.
“Beautiful? What’s wrong?” Kenneth’s smile had turned to a frown of deep concern.
The woman glanced under the sheets quickly and turned her gaze to him. She nodded toward the sunlight and the man standing in it. “Your kind has learned to resist the sunlight.”
It wasn’t a question.
He glanced back out the window at the nice spring day. “Beautiful, I have no idea what you’re talking about, ‘learned to resist the sunlight’?” He laughed awkwardly, “I love being outdoors. You and I went camping just last week, don’t you remember?” He locked eyes with her; her brown eyes were gorgeous in the early morning light. “Now, hurry up and get dressed you’ll be late for work.” Kenneth left the room and shut the door behind him.
He stood for long moments in the hallway, listening and focusing on the woman in the room. This was as deep and as elaborate a trap as he had ever attempted. The world was his own creation and it was held together by his will and the connection that he had bridged between himself and the Shape shifter. He was already beginning to tire. He wasn’t worried about that though, he had faith in his endurance.
He felt the woman move cautiously around the bedroom. He could almost read her thoughts here. The setting at least had caused some doubt in her mind, which was good. The more unbalanced she was, the less she would be able to resist him.
He moved down the stairs and began cooking breakfast. He could simply will the breakfast into existence, but that would take concentration and he was fully focused on his ‘wife’ upstairs. Besides, the act itself, the smells it produced, and the actual time it took to prepare would only serve to deepen the fantasy and draw her deeper into his control.
It was a long time before she came down the stairs. He was eating a piece of honey and butter coated toast, reading a newspaper when she came around the corner into the kitchen. She was wearing a modest charcoal grey business suit, with a black undershirt. She had on dark nylons, which accented her brown skin. Her black hair was curly and full of volume as one side of it bounced gently off her shoulders and rested over her rounded chest. She wasn’t wearing any shoes.
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He immediately stood up and quickly kissed her on the cheek, “Good morning, sleepy head. I wish I could stay, but I have to get to work. Today is that big development proposal I’m presenting.” He reached for the back of his chair and yanked his suit jacket off it and slung it over his shoulder. “I made you some eggs and toast too, if you want it.” He glanced toward the happily bubbling machine on the counter, “Coffee’s almost ready too.” He leaned in for one more kiss but she jerked her head away from him, “Okay…I have to go, bye Beautiful.” He rushed out the door.
The sunlight glared evilly at him between the leaves of the tree. The whole world almost rippled. He kept his eyes down at his feet and tried to keep focused. The weight of this world was pressing down on him. He could feel her fighting him, trying to find cracks in the walls in this reality. He was too careful for that, but even so maintaining the world against her strong will was draining him quickly.
He walked toward his metallic blue Lexus GS. The car reflected the false sunlight right into his eyes. He felt his anger rising and his control almost slipped. He knew that she was watching him, studying this fabrication that he had created. He had to get away from her. The closer he was to her, the harder it was to maintain the fiction.
He reached for the car doors and his hand slipped off the handle. He grabbed at it again and door remained stubbornly closed. He fumbled in his pockets for the keys. He looked at the car and down at his keys. The door was supposed to unlock automatically. He was standing in direct sunlight now and he was sweating. His head felt lighter and it was hard to concentrate. He stared down at the key chain in his hand and calming himself he inserted the keys into the door lock and opened the lock manually. He heard the reassuring sound of the locks clicking to open and he gratefully opened the door. He slid into the driver’s seat and closed the door.
The heavily tinted windows of the car hid him from view from the outside. He spent long moments just focusing on his world, and the woman trapped inside it. He was shaken and still a little light headed. Even fake sunlight was fatal to him it seemed, or at least that reptilian part of his brain that feared it thought so. He was fighting to maintain this illusory world, Ansuya, and now his own limbic system. He would have to be more careful from now on. Flexing his hands and stretching his neck he pressed the ignition button. The engine purred to life and he backed out of the driveway.
The car was nice, he might have to get one soon. He pulled into the street and shifted into drive. He looked back at his facsimile of a house and drove down the street. The street was long and ended in a T-junction at both ends. He had to be careful with the illusion, he couldn’t short change anything that Ansuya might see or perceive as false but his powers, especially against her were not limitless.
He drove down the street and turned left at the T-junction. Once out of site of his ‘home street’, he pulled into an open garage and parked his car. He got out and walked up to the concrete wall and pressed the large white button next to the door and the large garage doors blessedly closed. He closed his eyes for a moment and breathed deeply and evenly.