"But you can't tell anyone, ever, okay?"

"Sure."

"Promise?"

"Sure, promise." Lisa frowned. They were sitting cross-legged on her bed, facing each other, their foreheads so close they almost touched. "I'm your best friend, forever. Whatever it is, it's safe with me. You know that."

"I know." Rachel sighed. "It's just... it's so weird, it really freaks me out."

"But you said it was a dream, right? Whatever it is, it's just a dream. You can tell me. It's not like I don't have gross dreams once in a while. Remember when I told you..."

"But it's not just that! It's... okay, I'll just tell you. But you must promise that you won't be... that you won't think I'm crazy and run off screaming, okay?"

"I won't," Lisa said solemnly. "I'll always be your BFF, no matter what."

"Okay." Rachel swallowed and put a hand to her forehead as if to shield her eyes from Lisa's, then thought better of it and instead grabbed a pillow, hugged it hard and forced her body to relax. "Alright, so I was in a huge building of some kind, like school, only it wasn't school. I think you were there, too, but I'm not sure... you know how it is with people in dreams."

"They come and go."

"They come and go. I think you were with me when we went up the stairs, endless stairs and this dream-feeling like you're dragging your feet through jelly. Then we're on the second floor and this woman is calling from one of the classrooms, she's kind of like Mrs Rumbach only about three times more fat and her voice is ten times louder. Says I'm late and I need to come in and I don't want to but it's dragging me there, and when I'm in it's something like a theater, there's a huge auditorium and a small stage where Mrs Rumbach is doing some kind of magic show, you know with bunnies in top hats and cutting people in half and stuff. I think I got that from the stupid movie we watched the other day, Risa and I, I don't remember the name. Whatever. She drags me up the stairs to the stage and then it's not Mrs Rungen anymore but an old guy with an incredibly long face like from a cartoon, and he's dangling this thing in front of my eyes, I think it was one of those magic eye pendants like the one Jenny has, and he's making all those humming noises to make me fall into a trance. But I don't, I resist, or well I try to resist and I hear him saying that when he touches me I'm gonna fall asleep and when I wake the first man I see will be the love of my life..."

"Whoa," Lisa breathed into the silence after Rachel's voice had trailed off unexpectedly. "I never remember that much, I mean, you could write novels..."

"But that's not it, that's not it. It's... okay, so he says that and I try to make fun of him but it gets dark, he's coming closer and his hand is coming closer and it's pale and with these ugly long and dirty fingernails, like Paul's only much grosser, and then... damn it."

"Damn what?"

"Do you ever have these times when you awake like you've been drowning and not noticing it and it feels like you have to fight for your life the moment you wake up? When you're so full of adrenaline that you feel like you could start running away or punching someone in the face but in fact you're so shocked just by this moment, this moment of waking up that you're glued to the spot, sweating and cursing and catching your breath and hating the person or thing that woke you up?"

"I think so... I tend to forget things like that. But I know what you mean. Whoa."

"Yeah, whoa. Only it's... alright, so something touches me on the cheek, there, just where this creepy magician guy was going to, and I wake up and gasp and almost kick the hand away, if you know what I mean, but it's just Dad coming to get me because I forgot to turn on the alarm clock after the weekend. You'd think I'd know better by now, but it's..."

Lisa blinked into the silence left by Rachel's unfinished last sentence, frowning. "Wow, I mean, sounds like a real fright. But what..."

"It worked."

"What do you mean, it... oh."

"The hypnosis thing. It's... it's crazy, I know, but when I woke up and I stared up at my father's face..." Rachel buried her head in her hands, shaking with silent sobs. "It's so stupid, because I know it's just a stupid dream, and even in reality this wouldn't work, but now I can't stop thinking about..." She looked up, her eyes red-rimmed and wide open, staring at Lisa as if looking for salvation in her face. "I think I'm in love with my Dad," she whispered, as if she couldn't believe it herself.

"Oh," Lisa repeated. Then, with a thoughtful glance somewhere to her right, she said, "Well, he is kind of cute."

Rachel stared at her friend for a few seconds, at a loss for words. "What?" she finally managed.

"I mean, okay he's graying at the temples, but he's handsome for his age, and he's nice... or at least he's nice to me when I'm at your place, so..."

"But he's my Dad!" Rachel protested, her anguish and confusion finally boiling to the surface. "I mean, I'm telling you that I'm in love with, with my Dad, and all you're saying is, he's nice? I mean..."

"Hey. Hey." Realizing that Rachel was close to tears, Lisa moved closer to her, laid an arm around her shoulder and hugged her reassuringly. "Hey, I'm your BFF, okay? What am I gonna say, call you a crazy pervert?" She said the last words with a laugh to take the sting out of them, but to her surprise Rachel just nodded. "Yeah, something like that. Because it is! I mean, it is perverted, isn't it? It's..." -- she whispered the word -- "incest."

"Yeah... so what." Rachel shrugged, giving her friend another hug, then cupped Rachel's face in her hands. "Look at me. It's okay, okay? It's not like you're to blame for anything. I mean, love comes and goes, you know that. And even if it doesn't go away, hey, it's not a catastrophe. Really. I mean... listen."

Composing herself, Lisa sat back and looked at her friend. "I don't know if that'll make you feel better, but I think everybody has feelings like that once in a while. I mean, I was completely sure that I wanted to marry Daddy up until I was, like, nine years old... but yeah, I know what you're going to say. That's different. But, listen. I didn't tell you this becaus I thought it was kind of gross, but of course that was stupid, I mean, you're my BFF, you should know everything. And you can tell me everything, 'cause that's what friends are there for, right? So. A few weeks ago, I think it was that Saturday after we watched the Pirates of the Caribbean movie, I was, well... I was here, doing myself, if you know what I mean."

Rachel flushed a little, thinking of the times she'd done it, hiding herself under her bedsheet, face and all, and biting her lips so she wouldn't make a sound. As if reading her thoughts, Lisa said, "Well, we all do it, don't we?" and gave a little laugh. "Anyway, I think I must have rocked the bed a little, or I don't know what, but somehow Rick must have noticed."

Rachel's eyes widened in surprise. Rick was Lisa's older brother; he was twenty-one and Rachel thought he was a little stupid, even though she'd had a crush on him once in her early teens. "At least I think so," Lisa continued, "because he suddenly crashed into my room, all flushed and breathing heavily and I swear there was quite a pole under his pajama pants... I guess he'd heard something and listened at my door and got some fantasies about, like, joining in." She gave another laugh, this one even a little more uneasy-sounding than the first. "Anyway I asked him what he was thinking he was doing and he got all confused and stuttered something I couldn't understand before he chickened out and ran. I almost pitied him then and there, but I mean, come on. What did he think, that I'd just say, I'm in the mood already so come on and fuck me?"

Rachel could not suppress a giggle at her friend's shameless use of language, and from the grin Lisa cast her in return she could tell that this had been her point exactly.

"So... you think he's... I mean, Rick wants to have sex with you?"

"From the size of his hard-on, I'd say that's a yes," Lisa replied, still grinning. "But anyway, what I was saying is that it's really nothing to be ashamed of. To be completely honest, I was actually considering taking him up on it, Rick I mean, like going to his room just to see what would become of it right after I chased him away... I mean I didn't, but the thought was there, you know?"

"Wow," Rachel said after a moment's consideration. "I wouldn't have thought... I mean..."

"And then, let's be honest," Lisa interrupted her with a mischievous smile, "you've always had something of a soft spot for the older guys, didn't you?"

If Rachel had been flushed before, now she turned positively pink and shivered. Her first time had been with a PE teacher during sports camp, a youngish-looking thirty-something who'd clearly had some experience seducing little girls; he had fondled and kissed and licked her all over until she came, then taken her virginity while she was basking in the afterglow, so soft and wet it almost didn't hurt. Then there had been the brief but intense episode with her singing teacher, a somewhat less-than-attractive middle-aged guy who liked touching his female students' breasts as he corrected their pose; emboldened by her experience at the sports camp, she had positively seduced him, and for some weeks she'd spent almost every other night at his place doing unspeakable things while her parents thought that she was staying over at Lisa's, who covered for her with what seemed like improper amusement at her friend's rut.

"Well, yeah, but..." Rachel began.

"What kind of love?" Lisa asked before she could finish the thought. "I mean, do you love him like, oh he's so nice, I want to spend my life with him? I don't think so, right, because let's face it, you are spending your life with him already. Do you love him like, I want to kill my Mom and take her place? No, didn't think so. So it's what, he's so hot and I want to have sex with him all day if everybody else would please just look the other way?"

"I, erm..."

"You're having fantasies about him?"

Rachel could not look at Lisa anymore; while she was thankful for her friend's high spirits and her easy-going manner, she still felt uneasy talking about these things in such a way. "I keep getting those dreams," she finally replied, still staring at a random boy group poster on Lisa's bedroom wall. "I'm..."

"Daydreams, right? And you get off on them?"

"I..." Rachel thought of the hours spent under her blanket, hiding from the world, her own breathing her sole companion while she indulged in her guilty fantasies and rubbed and pinched herself to orgasm. "Well, yes," she finally admitted with a sigh. "But I can't... I mean, we can't..."

"Look." Once again, Lisa regarded her with an expression that seemed to say 'this is serious business now, so you better listen closely and shut your mouth'. Rachel blinked, shut her mouth, and listened closely.

"There's something else I never told you. It's not about me, I've got no secrets from you anymore, okay? It's something somebody else told me, under threat of murder if I ever told anyone else. Now if I tell you anyway, that doesn't mean I'll do the same with what you told me, because you're my BFF and that girl wasn't, isn't, and will never be, no matter what she imagines in her head. Besides, I only tell you this because I think you really need to hear it. Okay?"

"Okay."

"Cynthia from B class? She and her dad, they're an item. Sexually, I mean."

"What?"

"Christine told me, because she said she had to share it with someone or she'd explode. I don't think anyone else knows, because well, if it got out I guess that would be pretty much the end for both of them. But from what Christine said, it seems like they're pretty much a permanent arrangement, if you can believe it."

"What?" Rachel felt dizzy, dumbstruck. "I mean, how..."

"I'm afraid she was a little sketchy on the lurid details. But according to Christine they've been going at it for some time now and she says it's mutual, so it's not like he's sexually abusing her or anything. If you can believe it, that is. But then apparently she had some sort of breakdown at one point and told Christine, who told her to get professional help, effectively breaking up their friendship."

"Wow," was all Rachel could say as she tried to wrap her head around the idea. She thought of Cynthia, tall and blonde and self-assured as hell, coming home after school to greet her father with a passionate kiss; she imagined the sexual tension between them growing as they went about their day's work, finally culminating in a spontaneous fuck on the couch, and she felt a familiar itch beginning to burn between her thighs at the thought.

Lisa must have guessed from the look on her face, because she gave a dirty smile and said, "Girl, I think you really need to get laid."

"I know!" Rachel protested. "I've been trying to work up a mind to hook up with somebody, you know, more normal, more realistic, for ever since... I've even tried to feel something for Mike again, but..."

"I know," Lisa said comfortingly. Mike had been Rachel's first and as yet only 'official' boyfriend, but their affair had lasted no longer than a few weeks. "You can no more make yourself fall in love than you can make yourself fall out of love. You're always thinking about Him, aren't you?"

Lowering her gaze like the penitent sinner she was, Rachel said, "Yes."

"So the matter is clear. You need to get laid by him."

"What?" Rachel's hazel eyes went wide with shock. "No! I mean, I can't..."

"Oh yes, you can. And you must. Because I see how this is breaking you apart, and I won't let it. And before you start to scream, listen. If it doesn't work, fine, then at least your illusions will be shattered and you will be free to go on to something else. Someone else, okay? And if it does, well, all your dreams will be fulfilled."

"But it's..." Rachel looked for the word to best describe her agony, could not find it, and settled for "perverted!"

"So? I'll tell you what. Pervertedness is what good sex is all about. If it were normal and ordinary and everybody would say, hey, why not, it couldn't be good sex; I mean, there is a reason why we do it in the night with nobody looking. Well, most of us do." She laughed. "So just sit back and listen for a moment while I tell you how."

Rachel sat back and listened with growing disbelief to her best friend's impromptu plan for hooking her up with her father. "No," she said when Lisa was finished, trying to keep her thighs from clenching together rhythmically to scratch her itch; "No way in hell that's gonna work."

"Oh but it will," Lisa insisted, grinning broadly now with what seemed like very inappropriate satisfaction. "And I'm ready to wager."

"What?"

"A bet. You try it, do what I just told you, and if for some miraculous reason it doesn't work... I'll do the same with Rick."

Rachel realized that she was getting repetitive, but all she managed was another "What? You're..."

"You heard me right. If your dad doesn't fall for it, I'm gonna let Rick screw me. Deal?"

The crazy itch was spreading through Rachel's belly and abdomen now and threatening to take over her entire body; it was all she could do to keep herself from shaking. "You're... you're crazy, Lisa. Crazy. And I need to go pee."

Interposing herself between Rachel and the edge of the bed, Lisa held out a hand for her to shake. "Deal?"
Her vision spinning from getting up too quickly, Rachel shook her head but took the hand anyway. "I don't... okay. Deal."

"Deal." Lisa grinned, anticipation in her eyes. "Now you can go."

(to be continued -- if you like it)