The Gate

The Gate

By

Kaitlyn O’Connor

(C) copyright by Kaitlyn O'Connor,
December 2011

ISBN 978-1-60394-671-1

Smashwords Edition

Published by New Concepts
Publishing

Lake Park, GA 31636

www.newconceptspublishing.com

This is a work of fiction. All
characters, events, and places are of the author’s imagination and
not to be confused with fact. Any resemblance to living persons or
events is merely coincidence.

In loving memory of my son. I miss you
more every day not less.

For my favorite Arapaho, Ben. There’s
always a silver lining in every black cloud and he’s
mine.

&

For my fans, who’ve been far more
patient and understanding than I probably deserve. Ben’s teaching
me how to find the joy and laughter in life again. I hope soon I’ll
be able to pass it along to my friends in the stories I write for
them so everyone won’t think I’m Miss Doom and Gloom … at least not
all the time!

Chapter One

The sound that escaped Carly’s throat
was low, barely more than a breath of sound in the darkened room
and still carried a wealth of emotions—anticipation, frustration,
pleasure, agony ….

It was always like that. There was
always the doubt as she struggled to reach that special place that,
this time, she might not reach it and she would be left with a
hollow sense of defeat and disappointment. She would be left aching
and miserable instead of gaining the sense of fulfillment and peace
she needed.

But then that was part of the appeal,
the realization that it was a gift that was only dispensed when
everything came together in just the right way. It couldn’t be
taken for granted.

As if he sensed that she was teetering
on the brink and could fall either way, he cupped one of her
breasts and sucked the nipple into his mouth, pulling on it in just
the right way to produce an electric current along her nerve
endings. Sensation arrowed downward through her belly and her womb
contracted. It set off the avalanche of glory she’d been struggling
to capture and Carly sucked in a sharp breath, going rigid for a
moment as every muscle in her body seemed to contract at the same
time. A shudder traveled through her when the contraction eased and
she sucked in another harsh breath.

“Daniel! Oh god! Oh my god!” she gasped
as the contractions reached a peak that snatched her breath away,
curling her arms tightly around the man above her to anchor herself
to the world as she was swept away on the glorious rapture of her
climax.

But of course, her arms were empty. The
sense that she was holding the weight and warmth and flesh other
than her own began to vanish as quickly as her climax dissipated.
By the time she’d reached the lower plateau once more and her body
began to cool the illusion had vanished.

“Sim off,” she whispered, even though
the command was completely unnecessary. She’d achieved orgasm. The
computer would have registered that because she could never keep
quiet enough to fool the damned computer.

Carly allowed her arms to drop to the
bed at her sides, struggling to close her mind to the emptiness
around her and hug the illusion to herself just a little longer. A
shiver raked through her as the heat left her. Feeling sluggish,
she struggled to find her coverlet and pull it across
her.

“He isn’t gone,” she muttered to
herself. “He was never there at all.”

Rolling on to her side, Carly squeezed
her eyes closed, trying to force her mind to empty itself so that
she could find the rest she’d sought when she got into
bed.

She was too tense—not still, but rather
again. Disappointment gathered at the fringes of her mind as it so
often did these days … afterward. She struggled with the urge that
struck her and finally yielded to it. “Trude … who is Sim Daniel
378251?”

She didn’t know why she’d given her
Home Entertainment and Surveillance System—HESS—a name at all, let
alone the one she’d settled on—Trude the Prude—but the computer had
assimilated the reference to it and responded immediately. “Sim
Daniel 378251 is a sexual simulation, Carly.”

Irritation flickered through Carly.
“But it’s based on a real person, right?”

“Unknown. There is a high probability
that the Sim is a hybrid.”

“What do you mean by that? You can’t
simulate human behavior without a human.”

“That is correct. However, the central
entertainment center has catalogued human behavior and
characteristics. It is most likely that Sim Daniel 378251 is a sim
created specifically for you, based upon your personal
preferences.”

Carly’s disappointment was
disproportionate for the situation. She was certain of it. Trude
was liable to recommend a psyche evaluation if she pursued it. She
debated with herself briefly. “Just out of curiosity … I would like
for you to assimilate the data associated with Sim Daniel 378251
and give me a list of the humans who contributed to the
Sim.”

The computer didn’t respond. Uneasiness
trickled through Carly. “The purpose of the report?”

Carly’s heart skipped a beat but
frustration was hard on the heels of her anxiety. “Curiosity,” she
said, struggling to keep any inflection from her voice, “like I
said.”

“When would you like the
report?”

Carly resisted the urge to demand it
immediately. Instead, she faked a yawn. “It’s late, Trude. Won’t it
be easier to access the data during low demand hours?”

“Affirmative, Carly. However, everyone
does not share your sleep cycle. Minimal output demand hours are
between 0400 and 0500.”

Disappointment bit deeply, but Carly
managed to keep her heart rate from reflecting that and the surge
of excitement that followed. “Well—I guess you could give me the
report with my coffee in the morning?”

“If the data is available and I’m
allowed to compile the report, I will give it to you
then.”

Why wouldn’t it be available? Why would
there be a problem accessing the information if the central system
had it?

Carly decided not to ask. The yawn that
time wasn’t faked. “Good night, Trude.”

“Good night, Carly.”

* * * *

The dream was always different and yet
there was one aspect that remained the same—HE was always there.
Well two. The dream always started with Daniel making love to her,
but the focus wasn’t on the sex act itself. It was the way she felt
afterwards, when she was wrapped in the warm afterglow of a
satisfying climax and wrapped in Daniel’s arms while the two of
them struggled to catch their breath and waited for their heart
rate to slow.

Daniel dragged in a final, deep breath,
and released it gustily against her throat, following with a
gnawing kiss along her neck. The warmth of his breath and the faint
abrasion of his teeth raised an army of pebbled flesh that traveled
upwards along her neck and made the hair on her head prickle,
downward along her arm, and across her chest so that her nipple
puckered and stood erect. He chuckled. She liked the sound of his
chuckle and felt herself smiling.

“What’s this?” he murmured, finding the
hard nub with his palm and kneading her breast. “Woman, you’re
insatiable.”

Carly chuckled. “Erectile tissue. I’m
completely satisfied so don’t get your hopes up.”

He humped her thigh with his hips and
she felt his flaccid cock stir to life. “You sure?”

“Positive. Put that away. I’m
hungry.”

“Well … if you’re hungry ….”

“Not for that! Food!” Carly responded
with a laugh.

He rolled off of her with a show of
reluctance and a theatrical sigh. “Alright. I know when I’m not
wanted. Guess I’ll go.”

Dismay instantly filled her. “Don’t!
Aren’t you hungry?”

This time his sigh wasn’t feigned. It
was filled with … regret? “I don’t need food.”

There was an edge to his voice. “What’s
wrong?”

“I have to go.”

“Daniel?” She couldn’t help the note of
pleading that entered her voice even though she knew it would
probably only make him more anxious to leave. “Stay. We’ll do
something together.”

“Like what?”

The anger was more pronounced now. “I
don’t know. What do you want to do?”

“I want my life back!”

* * * *

Carly woke with a sense of falling and
an allover jerk.

“My sensors indicate that you were
dreaming.”

Carly opened her eyes when Trude’s
voice intruded. Her eyes burned, though, felt as if they were full
of grit, and she closed them again, tightly, to ease the sting.
“What time is it?” she asked, pushing herself upright and turning
her head toward the window to try to discern from the light what
time of day it was, never an easy task on the moon colony when the
sunrise and sunset was nothing like Earth.

“The time is 0700.”

The information sent a jolt through
Carly. Her eyelids flew open. “Seven?” she echoed with a mixture of
dismay and dawning anger, scrambling out of bed. “Why didn’t you
wake me up! Damn it! I’m going to be late.”

Never at her best when she was woken
abruptly, Carly wavered once she was on her feet, trying to find
her equilibrium, and then staggered a little drunkenly toward her
bath.

“Take care! You are not sufficiently
awake. Your motor functions are sluggish. Did you imbibe anything
with an alcoholic content last evening?”

“No,” Carly said crossly as she reached
the bathroom door and it slid open. “You woke me out of a sound
sleep and I’m not awake enough yet to have any
coordination.”

“I did not wake you,” the computer
reminded her.

“Exactly!” Carly snapped. “You should
have woken me thirty minutes ago!”

Her argument wasn’t reasonable, she
knew, and she didn’t give a shit. Stepping inside the tiny room,
she hit the door close mechanism and cut Trude off in the middle of
a query as to her mental state. “Bitch!” she muttered.

The bathroom was her inner sanctum.
She’d insisted on having it completely mechanical and excluding the
computer’s intrusion in this one area of her apartment. She knew
the tech and workmen she’d hired to block the computer from access
to the bathroom had thought she needed a psyche evaluation, but she
didn’t care! She had to have one space, one little place, where she
felt like she had complete control and complete privacy. She’d
responded to their suggestion that she needed some way to access
the computer in case of emergency—if she collapsed for any reason
or slipped and fell—by allowing them to install several emergency
call buttons. She’d also had her computer programmed to allow her
no more than thirty minutes outside its sensor range. If she
exceeded that limit, the computer could override and scan the
bathroom for evidence of an emergency.

Turning the shower on, she peeled her
night shirt off and stepped in as soon as the water was tepid. A
shiver skated through her and every inch of skin prickled when the
cool water hit her far warmer skin, but her muscles relaxed as the
water reached the desired temperature.

Two minutes into the shower, her brain
began to function more normally and she dismissed the rambling of
her mind, which had been sorting images from her dream as
uneasiness filtered through her.

Trude was suspicious. That was what was
‘off’ about the computer’s questions and unsolicited
comments!

It took her a few minutes to figure out
what the computer might be suspicious of.

It was the dream!

Thankfully, they hadn’t fucking figured
out yet how to program the computer to read her mind! Nevertheless,
the computer knew enough about human psychology and physiology to
determine when a person was dreaming and ‘guess’ at what sort of
dream it was. She’d been dreaming Daniel was making love to her,
she recalled. That would’ve raised her heart rate and she didn’t
doubt the computer had figured out she was having an erotic
dream.