Chapter 7:

Victoria looked out the window of the hotel room she was sharing with Jack. She could barely keep her mind on one thought or worry, it was like trying to grab snakes while pumped full of Novocain. Playing in her mind over and over like a Youtube video set to repeat, the scene from the garage haunted her like the guilt of a crime. Her emotions were a sea of confusion, struggling to define her feelings for Jack. After seeing what he was capable of, she felt fear; after realizing the secret he had kept from her, she felt distrust and resentment; and after hearing his words and seeing him smile… she felt love.

As Jack came up behind her, putting his hands on her shoulders and kissing her neck, she stirred and pulled away, almost with disgust. Biting his lip, he wrapped his arms around her waist, and while she gave a half-hearted struggle for a few seconds, she soon became docile.

“Victoria, what do I have to do to make your forgive me?”

“You don’t get it, you just don’t get it. It’s not a matter of whether or not I can forgive you, it’s a matter of what this means for our relationship. I have no idea who or what you are and you won’t answer any of my questions.”

“No, this is about forgiveness. You’re angry with me for keeping this secret from you. You’re angry with me for complicating things. You’re angry with me because I can’t give you any answers right now. But what angers you the most is that things had to change when they were so perfect just an hour ago. Speak your mind Victoria.”

“How can I trust you? How can I believe you when you say you love me or start preaching your psycho bullshit?! How do I know that you’re not just stringing me along, thinking of me in the same way that a human thinks of an animal or an insect? How can I ever trust you when I can never be your equal?”

“Victoria, I am human. I have a human brain and a human body, and the way I feel and think is possible for any other human. Except for my powers, any other human can become like me, it all depends on how they choose to see the universe and how they choose to shape their perceptions. The love I feel for you is just like the love anyone else would feel in my position. I love you and I care about you.”

“But why have you hidden the truth from me?”

“Because of this, right here and now. Can you imagine what your reaction would have been before we started our relationship? We’ve been together for so short a time, can you really say that you would have handled this better in the past?”

“If you can bring back the dead, why didn’t you bring back your mom?”

His hold loosened. “I do not see life and death in the same way you do, everything I have said about existing forever has been honest and true. The only reason why I revived those thugs is to make up for the violence I committed against them in the first place. What happened to my mother was an accident, but what I did to them was on purpose. Admittedly, I let my temper get the best of me, and recreating them was my penitence for it.”

Taking a step forward, Victoria turned around and placed her hands on Jack’s chest. “Do you really love me?”

“With all of my heart.”

“Then I trust you.”

Leaning forward, she buried her face in the side of his neck and held onto him for dear life. Jack wrapped his arms tightly around her, his fingers tented against the back of her head and the sweet fragrance of her hair dominating his senses. Both humming like newborn pups, they tightened their grasp on each other, holding themselves so close together that they could feel each other’s hearts beating. As if surrendering, Victoria released her hold and raised her head, glanced up with a small content smile and blushing face. Looking like a cat getting rubbed in just the right spot behind the ear, she completely let go and almost became limp, fully giving in to the feeling of being embraced.

Slowly, Jack let go and the two teenagers stared into each other’s eyes, waiting only a few moments before they started kissing. Panting heavily from their growing arousal, they moved over to the bed without ending heir kiss, undressing each other before lying down. Without using his hands, Jack entered Victoria with one great push, drawing a gasp of joy from the young beauty. Their naked bodies pressed together and interlocked, the two lovers began panting and trembling in bliss with Jack taking point, thrusting into Victoria with machine-like strength.

Victoria’s body was indescribable in its physical beauty and feeling. Her firm rolling breasts jiggling against his chest, her soft flat belly lapping against his like waves on the beach, her long smooth legs wrapping around his waist and holding him tightly, her beautiful scarlet hair smelling like roses and fruit, and her red lips, as soft and delicate as wisps of ice cream. He loved every single centimeter of her body, and she could feel his love. She could feel his feelings being injected into her with each penetration, as well as with each breath they shared while they kissed.

Jack began to pick up speed, driving into her like a woodpecker and causing the mattress to rock back and forth and bounce on its frame. Feeling her barriers crashing down with each thrust, Victoria stopped kissing him and lied back, relishing the feeling of her approaching orgasm. Knowing the signs, Jack changed his movements, stirring his cock inside her with each thrust instead of relying on deep penetration. At last, Victoria cried out in ecstasy and Jack could feel her pussy shaking with wet arousal.

“Oh Jack!” she moaned over and over again.

Not done, Jack rolled off and got behind her with the two of them on their sides. Lifting up her leg, he re-entered her and resumed fucking her, giving her a wide excited smile from the switch to the new position. Grinning and licking her lips, Victoria looked back and resumed hissing him, while placing one hand on his cheek and using the other hand to rub her clit. With the threshold reached, Victoria was quick to have another mind-numbing orgasm.

“Victoria, I’m going to cum,” he grunted in her ear.

“Well you’ve certainly deserved it. Give to me, darling, pour all of your semen into me.”

Happy to obey, Jack put all of his remaining strength into twenty more brutally-fast thrusts, forcing his cock into her with so much speed that his balls were basically being slingshot back and forth almost painfully. In tandem with the twentieth thrust, Jack gave a low growl and emptied all of his reserves into her, filling her up to the point where sperm was overflowing and oozing out of her pussy. His erection deflating, Jack pulled out of her and laid his head on the pillow.

“I love you, Jack, and I just want to be with you,” Victoria whispered, pressing herself against him.

“Don’t worry, we’ll be together forever,” he replied, holding her close and slowly drifting to sleep.

——————————————————

“For as long as I can remember, my mom has been an overachiever with high expectations of me. You could say that she is a workaholic, always spending her time at one job or another, coming home late each night because she would rather work 5 to 9 instead of 9 to 5. It’s not like we needed the money, we would have been fine if she had worked better hours. When I asked her why she was never home and why she was so obsessed with work, she said that adults have to work, that’s just the way it is. Knowing what you have to do and doing it is all a part of growing up. She drilled that into my mind over and over again: know what you have to do and then do it, it’s time for you to grow up. I used to think she just hated my dad and I, but now I’m old enough to know that she’s just crazy. Oh well, with me being a whore and my mom always gone, it’s no big surprise that I started screwing my dad every night,” Kelly said with a bitter laugh, sitting on the invisible ground with her back to Jack.

“How Freudian, very interesting,” Jack said, walking towards her from across the dreamscape.

“What do you mean?”

He sat down behind her, back to back. “Freud believed that early childhood experiences dominated the shaping process of the human mind, and that most inner conflicts stemmed from the instinctive desire to have sex gone wrong. Many of these issues deal with the parents of the opposite gender. To be frank, you’re Freud’s wet dream. He got a lot wrong, but not everything.”

“So how does that help me?” Kelly asked, leaning her head back against his shoulder.

“Well we have two aspects as to the development of your identity crisis. On one hand, you have an uncaring mom who would rather stay at the office long into night than take her role as a wife and mother, leaving that role open, and you have her forcing a concept into your mind that terrified you and gave you a deep-seated fear of growing older. The family is the greatest basis for the development of our personalities: we mirror ourselves after our same-gender parent or rebel to create our own personality, in this case, your mother. We then use our opposite-gender parent as a model in which we develop our expectations for everyone of the opposite gender.

Quite simply, your father is the first man you have ever known and you used him as a model to set your expectations for finding a mate. With this, it’s clear that since you didn’t really have a mother in which to mirror or rebel against, you instead saw the role that she left wide open. Because you had no identity of your own, you sought to take your absent mother’s, at least in terms of responsibility. This can often take place in single-parent families, but it is because of your complete lack of an identity that you took it so far. This is why you never really felt shame when being intimate with your father; it was because you had not established your role as the daughter.

Then, there is the second aspect. From what I understand, you loathe your mother and you rarely ever saw her. From this, I can assume that you naturally rebelled against becoming like her, using only what you were able to gleam from her. She said that she drilled into your mind the concept that growing up involves total self-knowledge and the stoic sense of what has to be done. You hated your mother, so you hated what she believed in. You didn’t want to prove her right and become what she wanted, so you turned your back on knowing yourself. You tried to fight against the aging process, you wanted to stay young, immature, and carefree to rebel against her, and to do that, you had to stay ignorant of who you are and “what you needed to do”. Basically, your feelings for your mother triggered and energized humans’ natural fear of death and aging.

The fact that you were so desperate to stay young also helps explain why you chose the role of a prostitute. By becoming a sex object, you made yourself feel wanted and attractive, which is the main desire and fear that people normally develop, as they grow older.”

“So what should I do?” Kelly asked, feeling the last and greatest weight basically melting off her shoulders.

“Nothing. You now know the source of your problems, and with that, you will naturally and subconsciously work to fix it. You have discovered your identity, so you’ve solidified your core and know where you stand. All that’s left is to overcome your anger and resentment for your mother and come to terms with your fear of death and aging, which you will achieve when I teach you to unlock the Self. For now, you are done.” H

Getting up on her knees, Kelly turned around and leaned on Jack, wrapping her arms around him. “Jack, you’ve helped me more than anyone else in my life. No one has ever been so kind to me and done so much for me.”

“You don’t have to thank me, we’re friends after all,” he said with a smile while reaching back stroking her hair.

“Jack, I think I love you.”

Jack’s hand stopped, and he moved it down from her hair and placed it on her hand. “Kelly, you know I am with Victoria. I love her and I promised her that I would be with no one else.”

“But you love me too, I know you do! You wouldn’t have done all this for me if you didn’t!” she said desperately with a tight hold.

“You’re right, I do care about you, but not in the same way I care about Victoria. Please Kelly, don’t make this difficult.”

“You told me that you love to help people, to fulfill their potential. If I could be with someone I love and who loves me, just for one night, I think I may finally understand who I truly am. Be my mirror, show me my reflection.”

Jack sighed. “Speak to Victoria, I won’t do anything unless she wants me to.”

——————————————————

The four teenagers were sitting on the floor in Jack’s room, taking advantage of the time after school. “In order to discover the Self, you must see through the Superego. You must see through the display you use to project who you are, the part of your personality that is shaped by events and experiences. Think of your mind as like a planet, with your Self as the pure molten core, free of all characteristics or distinguishable features. Your Superego is the surface, shaped and morphed by the tectonic collisions of your life and decorated by life. All three of you have gone through this process: Victoria, you removed the barriers you had created around yourself out of fear of assimilation and have learned to trust others; Kelly, you discovered your identity and came to terms with your innate fear of growing up; Tyler, you faced the death of your sister, learned that pain is in the mind, and that there is no possible course of action, except for the one taken, all resulting in the loss of the guilt that has plagued you for years.
Now, you all know that I am different, and I have promised you all of your answers on my birthday. That said, it would be better for you to complete this before then, which means that we have four days. Today I will begin going over with you the main concepts of the self and give an overview of the Tree of Life, something I have instructed Kelly to research. After that, we will closely examine the concepts, and hopefully, you will all be ready to accept my answers. Are you all ready?”

Everyone nodded.

“Good, I’ll start off summarizing what I have told you all already. The Self is the core of your personality, the untainted source of all your honest likes and dislikes. When I say honest, I mean that the social factor has no effect on it. If you give into peer pressure, you could say that your Superego is the need to impress others, but the Self is your conscience, telling you not to give in, or in reverse, your Superego is the need to maintain your strong moral appearance, while the Self is the instinct to go after all forms of pleasure. The interesting thing is that with this example, your conscience is acting, but not specifically your morals. Basically, the Self does not recognize rules or laws unless you adhere to them by nature.

The Self has a very instinctual and biological origin, as it controls how we perceive our world and essentially regulates the flow of chemicals and neural pulses in the brain. It is like a combination of your physical desires and your pure emotions, basically the Id and Ego to your Superego, as Freud would say. However, the Self is also the source of higher-level thinking. I don’t mean that unlocking the Self makes you a super-genius, but it is instead the medium we use to conceive our place in the universe. The Superego looks only at the tiny world we live in, but the Self takes in our acknowledgement of the entirety of creation and gives birth to true philosophy.

As I said before, the Self controls our perceptions, labeling everything as good or bad, basically working on autopilot. However, if you can achieve the Self and see the truth that it provides for you, then you can see something from every possible angle, both positive and negative, and truly choose to be happy. People often ask me why I am so happy. Quite simply, I am happy because I am able to see the light in everything. They say that every problem is an opportunity in disguise, well that’s basically how I see the world. I only lower my smile out of respect for people grieving or when it is socially needed.”

“So how exactly do you discover the Self?” Kelly asked.

“You must overcome every assumption and unwritten rule that society has given you, you must realize your true value in the universe, and you must learn to go beyond black and white perceptions and see the gray in between. Many of the lessons on the Self, you have each already learned, albeit separately. I’ll go over all of them again so that you each get the same lesson, but not now. Now, we focus on the Tree of Life, also known as the Kabbalah and the Sephirot Tree. I figure since you know what I am capable of, there is no point in hiding it.”

On the wall behind Jack, three diagrams of light appeared, each the size of a table. All three of his students gasped in amazement, even Victoria, who had seen him block a knife, dematerialize bullets, and rip humans apart atom by atom and then resurrect them. The first diagram was of the simple Tree of Life, no more than a web with eleven bubbles, a name in each one. The second one was more complex, with explanations and directions around and between each bubble, as well as multiple symbols. However, due to the language of its origin, it was completely unreadable. The third looked downright strange, resembling an upside-down palm tree with branches extending from the trunk and a label imprinted on each of the ten leaves. Each branch had its own Sephirot bubble, as well as the heart of the roots and the knot of the tree.

“The tree has multiple interpretations, not only in translation but in appearance. One of my favorites is the work of Robert Fludd, the one who created the third diagram. The Tree of Life is one of the foundations of all religion, serving as the pathway to God. Now before you start worrying, I want to assure that I’m not trying to indoctrinate you into a cult,” he said with a laugh, which was joined by the others. “I use the Tree of Life as a reference because I find it to be truly a fascinating concept and a perfect example for my methods. I am in no way religious. You all know my motto; half of reality is how you perceive it. When I say it, I mean that it is only through consciousness that things can be labeled and categorized. You can’t deny that a star is a colossal mass of nuclear fire, but you need a mind to actually label it as ‘hot’. This ability, born to everything that thinks, could almost considered a divine power. Quite simply, the gods that humans try so hard to find are actually the humans themselves.

That’s why the Tree of Life is such a good example for my teachings; you can replace God with the Self for the achievement that it leads you to. Since God and man are one in the same, the Tree of Life leads back to the same goal. Now, we move onto the definition. Each Sephirot on the tree corresponds to a virtue, a state of mind that must be attained to form a path. The tree has many different translations, but the overall idea is the same. Try to remember these, at least the definitions.

Keter, the first Sephirot, is our direct connection to our higher self. It links us to the higher dimensions through which only the mind may enter, since the mind creates them. It also consists of things that the human mind cannot comprehend. It represents the primal stirrings of intent in the Ein Soph—the Ein Soph being both the origin of everything and the divine nothing—or the arousal of desire to come forth into the varied life of being. But in this sense, although it contains all the potential for content, it contains no content itself, and is therefore called ‘Nothing’.

Chokhmah, the second of the ten Sephirot, is the first power of conscious intellect within Creation, and the first point of ‘real’ existence, since Keter represents emptiness. It is the power of intuitive insight, as well as wisdom. The “wisdom” of Chokhmah also implies the ability to look deeply at some aspect of reality and abstract its conceptual essence till one succeeds in uncovering its underlying axiomatic truth. These seeds of truth can then be conveyed to the companion power of Binah for the sake of intellectual analysis and development. Consider this our ability to comprehend and define.

Binah is ‘understanding’ or ‘contemplation’. It is likened to a ‘palace of mirrors’ that reflects the pure point of light of Chokmah, increasing and multiplying it in an infinite variety of ways. In this sense, it is the ‘quarry’, which is carved out by the light of wisdom. On a psychological level, Binah is “processed wisdom,” also known as deductive reasoning. It is davar mitoch davar -understanding one idea from another idea. While Chockmah is intellect that does not emanate from the rational process (it is either inspired or taught), Binah is the rational process that is innate in the person, which works to develop an idea fully.

Da’at is considered the point of creation, when the active principle of Chokhmah (wisdom), meets with the passive principle of Binah, ‘understanding’, and creates the archetypal idea of knowledge. These three are sometimes referred to as the “super-conscious”. You could say that Da’at is an unofficial Sephirot, serving as the keystone between all of them. Consider it your anchor, the balance in which you retain your humanity so that the knowledge of the Tree of Life doesn’t fuel your ego and give you delusional ideas of grandeur.

Chesed is loving-kindness, a simple virtue that can never be underestimated in its value. Like Da’at, it is an anchor to remind you that you are human, as one who is cruel seeks to separate himself from others, while someone who is kind opens their heart and places trust.

Gevurah is understood as God’s mode of punishing the wicked and judging humanity in general. But like I’ve said before, man and God are one in the same, therefor, it is the ability of humans to judge other humans. It is the foundation of stringency, absolute adherence to the letter of the law, and strict meting out of justice, essentially making it the key to mankind’s ability to create civilization. This stands in contrast to Chesed. Gevurah is associated in the soul with the power to restrain one’s innate urge to bestow goodness upon others, when the recipient of that good is judged to be unworthy and liable to misuse it. I used Gevurah when Victoria and I were attacked, knowing there was no time to talk. As the force that measures and assesses the worthiness of Creation, Gevurah is also referred to in the Kabbalah as midat hadin (the attribute of judgment). It is the restraining might of Gevurah which allows one to overcome his enemies, be they from without or from within (his evil inclination).

Tiferet is the force that integrates the Sephirot of Chesed (“compassion”) and Gevurah (Strength or Judgement). These two forces are, respectively, expansive (giving) and restrictive (receiving). Either of them without the other could not manifest the flow of enlightened energy; they must be balanced in perfect proportion by balancing compassion with discipline. This balance can be seen in the role of Tiferet, wherein the conflicting forces are harmonized, and creation flowers forth. This is what will grant you the knowledge to know when to talk down a terrorist who has shot you in the chest and is trying to crash a plane and when to do what you can to ensure your safety or the safety of someone else. Tiferet also balances Netzach and Hod in a similar manner. In that case, Hod can be seen as the intellect where Netzach is seen as emotion.

Understanding the attributes of Netzach and Hod gives us a new perspective into understanding what is happening in the world. No longer do we merely look at an act at face value and attempt to understand it as such, but we must look at it also in terms of “a means to an end.” These Sephirot mark a turning point. Whereas the first two groups of Sephirot deal with intrinsic will and what it is that we desires to bestow upon other people, these Sephirot are focused on man: What is the most appropriate way for man to receive God’s message? How can God’s will be implemented most effectively? In essence, it is the innate desire to find the Self, balancing intellect and emotion to uncover your core.

All the Sephirot are likened to different parts of the body, and Netzach and Hod are likened to the two feet of a person. Feet are usually only the means for a person’s activity. While the hands are the main instrument of action, the feet bring a person to the place where he wishes to execute that action. However, Hod is seen as form of “submission”; being explained that instead of “conquering” an obstacle in one’s way, (which is the idea of Netzach), subduing oneself to that “obstacle” is related to the quality of Hod. Tyler, what you and I discussed about how time dictates all actions fit into this category. It is the humble acceptance of one’s role and value in the universe.

The Sephirot of Yesod translates spiritual concepts into actions that unite us with God, or as I’ve said, the Self. It plays the role of collecting and balancing the different and opposing energies of Hod and Netzach, and also from Tiferet above it, storing and distributing it throughout the world. It is likened to the engine-room of creation. Think of it as the hub between the Self and the Superego, creating the compromises between our true desires and society’s needs that we experience every day. When the Self tells you that you are hungry but your Superego reminds you that you are on a diet, the principal of Yesod comes into play in the form of you deciding to eat something healthy.

Malkuth is the final Sephirot, and unlike the other nine, it is an attribute of mankind, which does not emanate from mankind directly. Rather it emanates from mankind’s creation—when that creation reflects and evinces mankind’s glory from within itself. Think of it as the final anchor, the link between the world outside your body and the world inside your mind. It is associated with the realm of matter and relates to the physical world. It is important not to think of this Sephirot as merely “unspiritual”, for even though it is the emanation furthest from the divine source, it is still on the Tree of Life. As the receiving sphere of all the other Sephirot above it, Malkuth gives tangible form to the other emanations. It is like the negative node of an electrical circuit. The divine energy comes down and finds its expression in this plane, and our purpose as human beings is to bring that energy back around the circuit again and up the Tree.

Now, that is it for today. Go home, mull over what I have told you, and see what progress you can make on your own. I’ll leave you all alone tonight.”

Everyone nearly rolled back onto the floor like water if its container suddenly disappeared. They had been sitting still for so long and paying so much attention to Jack that they had lost all feeling in their muscles. They all stood up and stretched, moaning in joy at the feeling of finally being able to ease the tension in their bodies.

“All right, ladies, I’ll drive you home,” Tyler said with a yawn.
“Actually I live just down the road, so I’ll stay with Jack a little longer and then walk home. But thank you though,” Victoria said gratefully.

“Kelly?” Tyler asked.

“Yeah, that would be great. But, uh, Victoria? Could I talk to you for a minute?”

Victoria raised an eyebrow in suspicion. “Sure,” she said, following Kelly out of the room and deep into the hall.

“So, what do you think they’re talking about?” Tyler asked.

“I don’t have the heart to listen in,” Jack said, standing up and stretching.

“You’ve certainly recovered from your wound quickly.”

“Well now that you three know, I don’t have to pretend anymore. Really, I just walk with the cane for everyone else’s sake.”

“So when I discover my Self, will I get powers like yours?”

Jack laughed. “No, my abilities and the Self are completely unrelated. Don’t worry my friend, you’ll get your answers soon enough.”

——————————————————

“So what’s up?” Victoria asked, standing in the bathroom with Kelly.
“You told me about what happened with those guys in Washington, but there is something I need to tell you. You know that I used to be a whore and a drug addict… well I’m not anymore. I mean that literally; I’m a virgin and I’ve never had any drugs in my system.”

Victoria looked at her quizzically. “What do you mean?”

“Jack cured me of all my problems. He cured me of all my STDs, my withdrawal symptoms, he removed my scars, and he even gave me my virginity. Basically, I haven’t been this pure since I was nine years old. I told you that so I could tell you this. I don’t know how to say it, so I’m just going to be blunt. I’m in love with Jack, and with your permission, I’d like to have a three-way.”

Victoria took a slow deep breath, trying to keep her emotions in check and not feel overly protective. “Go home, Kelly,” she sighed, walking out of the bathroom.

“Nice chat,” Kelly said with a click of her tongue.

——————————————————

“So, did you get what you were looking for?” Kelly asked, sitting in the passenger seat of Tyler’s pickup truck as they drove towards her house.

“I guess. I got a lot of information but no real answers. Though I guess I can understand, I mean he did basically give us the tools to achieve our goals, now he’s going to let us experiment with them before telling us what they’re for. I just wonder if we’ll really accomplish something before the 21st.” T

“I’ve been wondering about that. You know what the 21st is, right?” Kelly asked.

“Of course, 12/21/2012, the Mayan doomsday that everyone has been talking about. What, you think it’s real?” Tyler laughed.

“Well maybe not the Mayan thing exactly, but haven’t you noticed that he wants to get everything done before then, like he’s not expecting anything after? What if he knows something that we don’t.”

“Girl, from the moment we met, I’ve known that he knows something that I don’t know.”

——————————————————

Jack and Victoria lay on his fold-out mattress, painting heavily with their bodies glistening with sweat and their clothes scattered across the room.

“Kelly asked for a three-way,” Victoria said out of the blue.

“Really? I didn’t think she would go that far.”

“So you knew?”

“Of course I knew. I’m the one who sent her to ask you. She said she wanted to sleep with me, I turned her down because I’m with you, she insisted, and I told her that she would have to talk to you if I were to break my promise. I must say, the suggestion was a good idea on her part. Make you feel more comfortable by letting you watch and intervene however you like, let you remain a part of it. It seems she really trusts you, after all, you’re one of her first real friends.”

“You’re such a gentleman.”

“So what was your answer?”

“I said no. I’m not into women and I hate the idea of sharing you,” she replied, sitting up with a blanket wrapped around her.

“With how hungrily you lick your fingers clean after each session of playing with yourself, some would say otherwise. Besides, maybe this would help you finally eliminate your trust issues.”

Victoria shot him a dirty look. “I’m going home.”

——————————————————

Kelly was lying in bed, staring up at her ceiling with her mind abuzz with questions, all of which about Jack, the 21st, or his teachings. What was going to happen on Friday? Would Victoria change her mind if she pressed the matter? How was she supposed to make sense of what Jack had told her. She had studied the Tree of Life over and over, but she just couldn’t figure out how it worked.

‘Calm down, you aren’t helping yourself by getting all worked up. Jack told you to try and make some progress on your own, so do it and quit complaining. We have to do whatever he says; he’s our teacher. Holy shit, we may be a cult after all.’ That last thought made her laugh.

Her nerves steady, she took a deep breath, closed her eyes, and interlaced her fingers with her whole body becoming calm. Lying on her back, not moving, she slowly felt sleepiness crawling up her body like frost. But it was mental tiredness she wanted, not physical tiredness. More and more, she calmed her mind, focusing only on her breathing until she felt herself beginning to fall back towards the world of dreams.
‘Ok, Jack isn’t coming tonight, so I can’t rely on a dream to help me. So… visualize it,’ Kelly thought, imagining the Tree of Life.

No matter how many times she looked at it, it always seemed familiar, like it was tickling some long-lost memory.

‘Focus on the first one, Keter, focus. He said… he said that it dealt with higher planes, those that only the mind could reach and the ones that surpassed all human understanding. He said it was nothingness, the bleakness from which creation originated. Ok, not sure what to do with that. Oh well, I guess I’ll just have to try…’

Like sweat from pores, liquid darkness began to ooze forth from every surface in her room like ink. She was sinking into her mind, bypassing all stages of sleep and landing right in the REM stage. As she sank further and further into the dream, her mind was losing its grip on reality. Within minutes, she began to sink into her bed as well, losing her sense of what it felt like and her knowledge that it was really there. Finally, her sheets opened up beneath her and she fell into space, surrounded by stars and galaxies.

“Planes that only my mind can reach and planes that I cannot comprehend… The bleakness from which creation originated…” she murmured as her bra and panties slowly slipped off her body and transformed into gas.

“The limits of what I can understand, the edge of my mind… The edge of the universe…”

Taking a deep breath, Kelly felt no fear or shock as cells began to bud off her. At first they were no more than the usual dead skin cells, but in seconds, entire layers of skin were flaking off, revealing the muscles and veins beneath. As if being eaten by acid, all the veins began to corrode, their cells being jettisoned off like the escape pods of a space ship. In a silent splatter, her veins all popped, emptying her blood into space. With the biological cloud expanding, her muscles became the next material to fall apart, followed by her organs, and at last, her skeleton.

Shooting off like photons, her cells spread out in all directions, flying off through space. Each cell, intact and immune to damage, contained all of her senses and was linked to the rest in one great hive mind. Kelly could feel them all, as if they were billions of tiny hands with eyes in the palms, letting her see and touch everything. And yet, there was no brain or top cell for the information to be received. It felt like she experienced everything through each cell all at once.

Her cells continued to spread out, some picking up speed and others slowing down. Time passed, Kelly didn’t know how long, it barely felt like an hour to her. But regardless of time or the elements, her cells survived the wraths of space, being sucked into black holes, landing on planets and asteroids, getting caught in space storms and gas giants, or just flying off into the darkest corners of the cosmos, never to see or be seen again. Over the course of what felt like barely a couple of hours but were really several billion years, Kelly’s cells were stretched across the entire universe like a 3D minefield, her existence spread out across the entirety of the universe.

But… it was too great. She could see from each and every one of her cells, but it was like she couldn’t communicate with them. Whenever she focused her attention on one, she would completely forget about what she saw with the others. She would look through one, find she couldn’t contact the one closest to it, and completely forget about everything she had seen in the first. It was like each and every time she applied the tiniest amount of focus or attention, her memory completely slipped, like a goldfish swimming in circles because the bowl seemed completely new to it with each lap.

But there was more, she new there was more to see. She had to go beyond the horizon, go beyond the edge of the universe. She willed herself to go further, expand her parameters to new sizes. Her cells continued to fly out in all directions, approaching the very rim of the universe. But the farther they flew, the foggier their vision came. Each one was essentially failing like a broken security camera, but she couldn’t stop, she had to see more! She was so close, she had just about reached the edge of the universe. Finally, she broke through into the realm of Nonexistence,

Suddenly, her universe began to condense, closing in on itself, being devoured by true Nonexistence. Kelly’s cells were all being pushed back into the universe, watching as the colorless Nonexistence washed over the universe like a tsunami. It was all shrinking, the universe collapsing to half its size, then a quarter, the size of a galaxy, a nebula, a black hole, a star, a planet, a house. Pushed back to the point from which she originated, Kelly was forcefully reformed by the pressure of Nonexistence, before it finally devoured her.

SNAP!

Kelly bolted up with such intensity that she basically jumped out of bed and landed on the floor, gasping like someone had just tried to drown her. Never in her life, even with Jack, had any dream been that vivid or realistic. Had she inadvertently scratched the surface of the Self? Is this what it was capable of?!

——————————————————

Tyler knew this was a dream, but he still felt like he was going to spontaneously combust from the rage boiling in his veins. He was in the parking lot of the local movie theater, behind the building and in a dark corner. It was late at night, and in front of him, not two feet away were his thirteen year-old self, his naked sister, and the two men raping her while the third guy kept Tyler pinned down. Both Tyler and Elsa had been bound and gagged with duct tape so that they couldn’t fight back or call for help, but that didn’t keep them from getting beaten and roughed up.

Tyler had suffered this dream over a thousand times, but he could never get over it. Only through repeating what Jack had taught him did he maintain his cool and keep from falling apart. But this time, what was hurting him the most was the fact that he was still having the dream. He thought he had come to terms with his sister’s death, he thought the dreams would stop after Jack’s mom’s funeral, and yet he still had to endure this nightmare. He knew what was going to happen, it had been burned in his mind, yet he couldn’t look away. He watched as one of the men taking turns with his sister pulled her up onto her hands and knees, smacked her ass, and the inserted herself into her anus. She cried until tears were streaming down her face from the sodomy, having never experienced it before and received no warning. While she was anally raped, the other two men switched places, giving Tyler a new captor while the one who had been standing on top of him moved in front of his sister, pulled out his dick, and started jacking off. It didn’t take long, he showed no hesitation in ejaculating right on her face at pointblank range.

After several minutes, the man raping her pulled out with a long string of semen leading from Elsa’s bleeding asshole to the head of his cock. “All right, I’m done, let’s get out of here.” He then pulled out a knife and proceeded to stab both Elsa and Tyler in the chest.

Tyler winced and put his hand on his side, feeling like the blade had just entered him for real all over again. With the young Tyler and his sister Elsa lying on the cold pavement, their blood pooling beneath them and blending together, the thugs grabbed the money they had stolen and began to run off. However, after only taking a few steps, they stopped dead in their tracks, time having completely stopped. This always happened, this was the point where his memories stopped. Whether he blacked out or just repressed it, he had no idea.

He turned back to his past self and Else and felt his jaw drop. The two of them, together in that one small space in the parking lot, was the only area in which time was still moving. Elsa, scrapping her naked body on the cold hard pavement and gushing blood, wiggled over to her younger brother. The young Tyler, on the verge of passing out, began to feel his eyes drooping. The present Tyler looked around, seeing the dream being consumed by darkness and reaching the end of his memory. No, he had to see the rest! Tyler crouched down, watching Elsa scrape her face against the ground until her lips and nose were bleeding profusely, but succeeded in pulling the duct tape off her mouth.

At that moment, everything became dark, the young Tyler having closed his eyes and ended the visual component.

“No! NOOOO!” Tyler screamed.

“Tyler…” he heard. It was his sister’s voice, Elsa’s! His eyes had closed but he hadn’t lost consciousness yet. There was more to the memory!

“Elsa!” he cried out with tears running down his face.

“I’m sorry, Tyler, I’m sorry for everything. I’m sorry your special night got ruined. I know you’re hurt, but I also know that you’ll survive. So please, promise me, promise me that you’ll live your life happily and carefree. Don’t let this screw up your future and make you bitter. I’m not angry and I don’t want you to be. I know it’s your birthday, but please, do this for me as an early gift for mine. No matter how much you’re hurt, please, just be happy. No matter how bad things may get, always be happy. I love you Ty, and happy birthday.”

Falling to his knees, Tyler sobbed like never before, not even noticing as the scene returned to its original frozen moment. Looking back at the three criminals, he finally understood. This was the last time he would ever have this dream, it hadn’t come back to haunt him from the past, but to make sure he understood everything before moving onwards into the future. He had finally heard his sister’s dying message, the last chapter in the story, telling him how to live his life. He finally knew what he had to do.

“Chesed, Sephirot of loving kindness,” he said to himself.

‘So please, promise me, promise me that you’ll live your life happily and carefree. Don’t let this screw up your future and make you bitter. I’m not angry and I don’t want you to be. I know it’s your birthday, but please, do this for me as an early gift for mine. No matter how much you’re hurt, please, just be happy. No matter how bad things may get, always be happy.’ He thought to himself. He then turned to the three frozen figures, caught in mid-sprint. He knew what he had to do from now on, and he had to start with them.

“I forgive you,” he said softly.

——————————————————

Victoria was walking down the street of Portland, breathing into her hands to keep her fingers warm. The sidewalk was unusually packed and the sounds of traffic were practically overpowering on this day. It was freezing outside with a bitter sea breeze rushing between the buildings. About to press the button on a street lamp at an intersection, Victoria and everyone else in the city was nearly blinded by a bright light in the sky. Looking up while trying to shield her eyes, Victoria gazed in amazement at the object falling down from the heavens. It looked like the Tree of Life, but almost in the form of a neon sign that was several miles in diameter. Among them, the Malkuth and Yesod Sephirots were on fire.

Piercing layer after layer of the earth’s atmosphere, the tree rapidly heated the air around it and in Portland, so much so that buildings and people began to catch fire. Crashing into the sea, the Tree of Life created another blinding flash, similar to a nuclear explosion, and summoned a mushroom cloud of water that reached all the way up into space. Simultaneously, a molecule-shattering shockwave and deluge of fire washed over Portland. With nothing to shield herself with but her own arms, Victoria had no way to prevent her own body from being reduced to ashes.

Moving at speeds that made sound look like a mentally challenged slug, the incinerating pulse spread out in all directions, obscuring the northern Atlantic, eastern Canada, and New England. It continued to expand, quickly consuming the hemisphere, and then the whole planet. Anything standing was instantly shattered like a sugar cube and anything flammable was completely incinerated in less than a second. With fire raining down from the sky and the lakes boiling, earth looked more like hell, completely devoid of life in only minutes.

Victoria’s eyes bolted open and she looked around wildly, finding that she was floating in space. With her was the entirety of earth’s population, not just humans but all life, including animals, plants, insects, and even germs. Everyone was naked, but lucky for Victoria, she was the only conscious one, save for Kelly. The dream-Kelly was floating in front of her, wearing the same smile that Jack always wore.

“What, you turned into Kelly and now you’re visiting me? I thought you were leaving all of us alone tonight,” she said, still angry with Jack.

“Actually, for once, I’m not Jack. I’m your real subconscious, which you thought was your dream-Jack the whole time. Jack did tell you that contact with the Self was the source of all philosophy.”

Victoria looked at the apparition, soon realizing that it really was just a figment of her imagination. It felt nothing at all like the dreams in which Jack had visited her. It lacked a certain power that she hadn’t noticed until now. “Well what was all that just now?”

“That is your mind processing the information of two of the Sephirot and turning them into a similar image. Yesod, the link between the Self and the Superego. Malkuth, the link between the mind and the physical world. I’m here to teach you what you already know, using information that Jack has already told us, mixed with your own philosophical knowledge.

Quite simply, all this is the result of death, allowing all life on Earth to return to what it once was: matter and energy. Though technically, it never really was anything but that.”

“Ok, so what does this have to do with anything?”

“It is meant to show you that regardless of the species, all life is life. We are all made from the same matter and energy, the same atoms forged in the stars and the same power born from the birth of the universe. Regardless of different thoughts, opinions, ideas, beliefs, genders, ethnicities, and even species, we are all exactly the same, all part of the super organism known as Life. Think of how close you are with someone if you are able accept their blood transfusion. Now realize that everyone is made of and can exchange the same biomass, as long as the pieces are small enough.”

The dream-Kelly then floated forward and placed her hand on Victoria’s chest, causing her to shiver and blush.

“What are you doing?” Victoria asked, looking away.

“Showing you how close we really are,” Kelly said before leaning forward.

In the skin in her hand and the skin on Victoria’s chest, the cells began to break down into the pure molecular components. DNA chains were reformed and connected with each other, linking Victoria and the Kelly at the biological level. Victoria trembled and panted as Kelly’s hand completely merged with her chest, entering her torso cavity as a splash of primordial ooze. The flesh on Victoria’s back began to rise up, being shaped into fingers with the DNA inside turning back to the original Kelly’s.

Kelly pressed forward, inserting her whole arm into Victoria’s chest, with her flesh, blood, and bone becoming Victoria’s, before reforming from her back from Victoria’s own flesh, blood, and bone. Kelly continued to lean forward, interlacing her long smooth legs with Victoria’s before they melted together. Victoria panted and shook as she felt her breasts and pussy being touched by Kelly’s. She knew this was a dream, she knew that this wasn’t some trick by Jack or the real Kelly (that being impossible), but she had never touched another women like this. Kelly’s breasts felt so soft and warm against hers, their nipples practically fencing before merging. For only a few seconds, Victoria could feel her own slit against Kelly’s, the two pairs of lips kissing sensually and gently before they too formed.
With a soft smile on her face, Kelly closed the gap between her and Victoria and kissed her, inserting her tongue into Victoria’s mouth and filling it with her own flavor. Victoria struggled to describe the taste of another woman, it was so sweet and wet, like hot tea with extra sugar. Then, Victoria and Kelly fully joined together, their bodies becoming one large human-shaped blob of living flesh, with the DNA of the two women unwinding and reforming to a new level of compromise, joining together like grasping hands. Even their bones were basically turning into neutral biomass, as the core of their shared bodies just became a well of primordial ooze, a concoction of biological information and chemical materials.
The two women joined together completely, neither one of them could breathe, but they didn’t need to. Every cell was basically breaking down into proteins and molecules, simplifying to the point where oxygen was no longer required. And yet, each particle could be felt as if the nervous system was still fully operational. Their heads completely merged, Victoria could feel their brains became one, the DNA shuffling but the matter remaining the same. With neural networks being completely rewired and formed for the brief merging process, it was like Kelly’s mind was pouring into her own. She could feel their personalities joining, see her memories (well to be clear, the memories she was projecting onto the Kelly), and feel her own identity melting.

Finally, like one light beam passing through another, Kelly’s face began to form in the back of Victoria’s head, leaning out as their bodies began to separate one again. Her limbs broke free of Victoria’s, her breasts reforming as their torsos differentiated, and at last, Kelly stepped out of Victoria, the two women separate once again with their DNA back to their original forms. Victoria was practically going into shock, unable to process what had just happened. It felt almost like dying, her mind losing sense of what it was and unable to connect to the rest of the body, and yet, it also felt like rebirth, like her mind was re-entering the real world as it became one with Kelly’s. It was terrifying and yet euphoric. This entity before her was her true subconscious, so in merging with it, she had brushed up against the power of the Self.

“As Jack always said, the only real differences are the ones we create ourselves. At our core, we are all exactly the same, each a cell in the one organism known as life. You could go through that same process with an animal or plant, your biological identity being lost as it merged with that of the other organism. Watch,” Kelly said.

Around her, all of the people and organisms that had died in the first stage of the dream began to fly through space to a single point, as if drawn in by a black hole. Bodies slammed into each other and melted together, becoming a great mass of human flesh. Then, animals began to join in, further melting the biological identity of the mass as they became one with it and the entire system compromised to their DNA. The animals were followed by plant life, with trees, weeds, flowers, and grass crashing against the small moon of biomass and becoming one with it. By the time all the insects and germs had joined with it, the living sphere was the size of earth’s moon, completely anatomically neutral, the sum of all life born into one single organism.

“Should I take the rest of the life in the universe and add them? The aliens from across the galaxy? I’m sure you know now that they would become one with all other life without any other problems.”

“Oh my god,” Victoria gasped.

She could then feel herself being pulled forward, drawn to the living sphere as if by gravity. But after merging with Kelly, she no longer felt any fear. Completely calm, she let her body crash into the surface, being absorbed on contact without any sort of impact. As if sinking in acid, Victoria could feel her body being dismantled as she sank deeper and deeper into the mass, and yet it was completely painless. Instead, she felt like her body was almost growing, picking up the sensory information from the sea of biomass around her. The deeper and deeper she was pulled in, the more of her cells were pulled away. Finally, reaching the core, Victoria’s mind basically melted, being replaced with the collective hive mind of the entire organism.

She didn’t know where she ended and everything else began, she didn’t even know who she was. There was too much information floating around and through her to keep her identity. It felt… so good. It felt like all of her problems and conflicts were disappearing, being dematerialized as she became one with all life of earth. Her identity was gone, now filled only with the pleasure of being a part of everything.

SPLAT!

In one great explosion, the moon ruptured and sprayed biomass in all directions like a colossal pain balloon. Cells were jettisoned in all directions, each one falling apart and crumbling into its atomic components. Gasping for air and feeling like her mind had just gone through a blender, Victoria was tossed aside, back in her original body. She looked around wildly, hovering in space with Kelly still with her.

“What the hell? What happened?” she asked, looking around but seeing only stars and galaxies.

“The sphere is still what it was, only in one of its simplest forms. You’re still in it, but not in the way you think. While you can’t exactly see each one individually, you are floating in a sea of atoms. Each atom around you was in the biomass moon, and around us, undetectable by your human senses, is the energy that flowed through it and all life on earth. In essence, this is what all life is: atoms and energy joined together in a specific way. Even between life and inanimate matter, there is no real difference, save for what shape it’s in. It’s just like what Jack said at his mom’s funeral. If you want, the sphere can be reformed, or you as well can be turned into pure atoms and energy.”

Victoria took a deep breath. “So what now?”

“Now you have to understand. Yesod, the link between the Self and the Superego. Malkuth, the link between the mind and the physical world. You now understand through Malkuth that life and death are one in the same, that our form and shape is the only difference between our living cells and the earth beneath our feet. The mind and the physical world are one in the same. And through Yesod, you know that your Self and your Superego are your identity and how you differentiate yourself from all matter and energy around you. It is the source of your natural definition of what the difference between life and death are, it’s what let’s you feel emotions and draw meaning from the physical world.”

“Alright, I understand.” Victoria said, taking another deep breath.

“Do you? Because if you do, then you won’t feel any discomfort from this…” Kelly said as she floated over to Victoria.

Her hand on the back of Victoria’s head, Kelly brought their lips together and kissed her, softly at first but then with more passion. For the first second, Victoria was numb to the feeling of the soft feminine lips against her own, but in a flurry, waves of pleasure shot through her whole body. This apparition of Kelly tasted so sweet, so unique from Jack, so deliciously different. Victoria had never been with a woman before or even thought of one, but now with Kelly… she suddenly didn’t care. Sexuality no longer meant anything, preference had no worth now that she knew the truth about all life. All that mattered right now was pleasure, and feeling as good as she could while exploring the body before her. Besides, it was just her subconscious.

Victoria wrapped her arms around Kelly and the two women’s bodies became interlaced, trying to create as much surface contact as possible while they both began to suck on each other’s tongues. To Victoria, it felt like she was kissing herself, like she was locking lips with a clone of herself that had a different appearance, as that was essentially what she was doing, but it still felt as real as if she was being intimate with the real Kelly. All life is one in the same, the only individuals are those who want to be individuals, all bodies are fundamentally compatible at the biological level, and all that mattered was the preference of the person. After everything she had seen and experienced in this dream, Victoria couldn’t care less about the gender who she was with, as long as they were someone she cared about. A body was a body, what mattered was the mind inside of it, and even though she only felt love for Jack, this new experience of being with a woman was driving her wild with lust.

As she resigned herself to what was about to happen, she felt a surface against her back and gravity take affect on her. She was lying on an invisible floor, which immediately told her what was going to happen. Kelly ended their kiss and began to run her tongue across Victoria’s cheek and down her neck. Even if it was a dream, Victoria could not even begin to describe the feeling of a woman’s tongue on her naked body, so soft and delicate. Compared to Jack, who was as gentle and loving as she could ever want, Kelly was just so femininely sweet. Victoria gave a soft coo as she felt Kelly begin to massage her breasts with her hands, giggling and covering them with soft kisses.

As Kelly wrapped her lips around Victoria’s left nipple and began sucking it lovingly, Victoria looked down and they made eye contact, the two of them smiling. Kelly moved back and forth, licking Victoria’s breasts like they were two mounds of ice cream. She then moved down, running her tongue down Victoria’s flat belly. With a girlish laugh, Kelly began petting Victoria’s wet pussy, teasing her and licking her lips before finally coming down and flitting her tongue up the middle of the entrance. Feeling a woman touch her most precious and sensitive spot, regardless of how gently, made Victoria give a soft whine and blush. Lying on her stomach on the invisible ground with Victoria’s thighs against her ears, Kelly began sensually running her tongue through Victoria’s cunt, licking up her juices and energizing every nerve in her body.

“Oh god, that feels so good!” Victoria whimpered as she ran her fingers through Kelly’s hair. She then yelped as she felt Kelly insert her thumb into her anus.

“Come on, baby, cum for me,” Kelly purred, working her thumb back and forth in Victoria’s tight asshole.

She continued eating Kelly out, sending her tongue as far up into Victoria as possible while working her lips against the entrance. Victoria’s face was bright red and it almost looked like she was crying in joy, writhing with each flick of Kelly’s tongue and squeezing her large breasts for added stimulation. As Victoria approached her first orgasm, Kelly suddenly stopped, nearly causing Victoria to beg and plead for more.

Getting up on her knees, Kelly wrapped her arms around Victoria’s legs and lifted up her lower body so that her ass was in the air. With a giggle, Kelly ran her tongue around Victoria’s asshole, teasing her and causing her to whimper from the new ticklish sensation. Reaching up, Victoria started fingering herself frantically, her hand barely an inch from Kelly’s face as she gave Victoria her first rimjob. Taking it even further, she spread open Victoria’s ass cheeks and spat down into the darkness of her asshole, nearly making her cum from the visual feeling of having Kelly’s saliva so deep inside her. Holding her willing recipient open, Kelly inserted her tongue into Victoria’s anus, using it to try and sodomize her while Victoria fingered herself into her first orgasm.

Without a doubt, it was one of the greatest climaxes of her life, with her hand basically a blur as she came so hard that pussy juice actually splashed out from her slit and soaked her face. With Victoria taken care of, Kelly moved aside and got on all fours, shaking her ass at Victoria.

“Come on, baby, you know you want to…”

Like a crackhead spotting from cocaine on the floor, Victoria crawled over with her whole body twitching and buried he face in Kelly’s pussy, licking it like there was a gun to her head. Both women began to moan in happiness, Kelly moaning to fit the situation of the dream, and Victoria moaning from the delicious taste of Kelly’s snatch and the erotic realization of what she was doing. For years, Victoria had wished she could lick her own pussy, dreaming of the pleasure it would bring, but here and now, her subconscious flashed with the discovery and acceptance that what she had really wanted was to experiment with a woman. With this knowledge, she doubled her efforts, gorging herself on Kelly’s sweet cunt with undeniable aggression, as if trying to force herself inside of her.

Before long, she could feel Kelly beginning to tremble. She knew what it meant, she knew it all to well. But instead of continuing what she was doing, she stopped and moved upward, working her tongue into Kelly’s asshole while fingering her cunt. Kelly moaned in euphoria as Victoria expected and even began shaking her rear so that her young soft ass cheeks would jiggle against Victoria’s face.

“Oh god, I’m cumming!” Kelly shrieked with Victoria ass-fucking her with her tongue. After soaking Victoria’s hand with her juices, Kelly rolled onto her back.

“Get on top of me.”

Knowing exactly what she meant, Victoria turned around and moved on top of her in the 69-position. She lowered herself down, burying her face in Kelly’s cunt while setting her ass down on her partner’s face. Getting to both taste Kelly’s pussy while getting her own pussy licked, Victoria was in complete nirvana, unable to voice the sheer amount of sensual pleasure was experiencing with her body interlocked with Kelly’s. Her body instead spoke for her, giving her another orgasm, which Kelly matched in timing and intensity. Drinking up each other’s juices desperately, the two women waited until they had stopped shaking before separating.

“So, have you changed your mind?” Kelly panted.

“Definitely.”

To be completed in the final chapter! Please comment and tell me your thoughts!

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