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appealing that she found in it. It was a kind face.
    “Cups?” he asked. “Or a couple of straws. Or we could just take turns.”
    She found a couple of paper cups in the bathroom, unwrapped them and placed them on the nightstand next to the alarm clock flashing twelve. She sat at the edge of the bed. Brad filled the cups and sat next to her.
    “Just a glass of wine,” she clarified.
    “Believe me, that’s all I have the energy for anyway. This truck driving business is thirsty work.”
    They toasted with their paper cups and sipped the wine. He made a face.
    “Not great.”
    “Yeah, well I didn’t take the manager for a closet sommelier.”
    But they sipped again.
    “It’s actually quite bad,” she said.
    “Yeah,” he said.
    They sipped again.
    “I think your bath is full.”
    And it was. She got up and turned it off.
    When she returned, Brad was standing by the door. A mixture of disappointment and relief shot through her. It would have been nice, she thought, to do something normal-ish on a bed with him. It would have been even nicer, right then, to just lie in each other’s arms for an evening and fall asleep like that. But who knew what sort of thing might trigger the sphere’s effects again? Maybe it could read sexual energy as well as project it. Maybe both their dreams together would shift it into overdrive. It’s not like it came with a manual—or even an off switch.
    It was possible that a similar thought process was taking place inside Brad’s head as well. “Probably smarter if I head back to my own room now,” he said.
    “Sure. I guess it wouldn’t hurt to be smarter for a little while.”
    He lingered for another moment, then opened the door. “Enjoy your bath,” he said and was gone.
    Beth sighed, undressed. Before she got in the tub, she called the governor to give her an update. It didn’t take long—there were not a lot of details to their plan. They had a truck and a place to drive it to. They had made a good enough amount of miles on the first day and things had normalized a bit, at least for the time being. The governor took a little convincing on this last part but eventually she was swayed by the fact that Beth had booked a room to herself.
    “So what do you do now?” the governor asked.
    “Now I take a bath and go to sleep,” Beth said, and the fact that she did not tell the governor that she was at that moment sitting naked on the edge of the bath as she talked to her was further evidence that things had settled down. There had been, after all, that one night in college…
    “I won’t keep you from it then, Elizabeth,” the governor said and Beth grunted something like goodbye.
    She set the phone on the edge of the sink and slipped into the hot waters of the bath. Almost unbearably hot, just the way she liked it. A hot bath was exactly what she needed. She closed her eyes, leaned back, resting her head against the edge of the tub as her hair fanned out in the water around her, tickling at the sides of her breasts that rose from the waters like perfect twin flesh islands. She half opened her eyes. Her nipples were rock hard. She let the palm of one hand graze over the top of one breast before sliding down the firm, curving line of her body, settling finally upon the mound between her legs. She slipped her finger absently between her pussy lips but, though it felt amazingly good there, she took it no further. She was suddenly impossibly tired. Her eyes closed in earnest. The motel bathroom dissolved around her.
     
    * * * *
     
    When she opened her eyes again, she was no longer in the tub but lying naked upon a hill beneath a turquoise sky streaked with elongated emerald green clouds. The hill was covered with a purple, moss-like plant that was softer than any mattress she had ever known. She sat up. In the distance were spiraling trees of a different, paler shade of purple than the moss, and beyond that, a calm black sea.
    Clearly this was a dream . But in thinking