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Well Simone- this was everything I was hoping for in the dreamy erotica thread.

it helps to know FF is not new to her & that she is compliant with every sensual/carnal touch she’s experiencing.

What taps into my preferences is the suspicion that someone/something otherworldly is messing with her mind - delicious duplicity, I can’t wait for more

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Oh someone/something otherworldly is definitely out there.

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Well, Kate's been lured into a "La Belle Dame Sans Merci" situation here, I think. Whether she's in a dream state, waking dream, or in reality remains to be seen. I'd say at this point, some fantastic, delirious mixture of all three. The ruined chapel is spot-on, given the clues from the prior episode, the book-shaped "gravestone" set into the floor may be significant (I don't have enough info to make a competent ruling on that one yet). The altar is an obvious chapel furnishing, but perhaps not "that obvious." I'm reminded of the scene from the classic 1973 folk-horror film "The Wicker Man," where Edward Woodward's very uptight police sergeant is informed that the ruined chapel is "no longer used for Christian worship." The same case may apply here--too much raw natural imagery and energy on scene--Kate's sexual delirium and drunkenness on desire and sense experience (Simone, I recalled the scene in "Painted Stripes," when Jocelyne was so inebriated after one scene with a couple that she simply collapsed into a lovely, narcotic "no more."). Her environs are feral, primal--she doesn't want to return to the cottage (a sign of civilization, her past--or her repressed self, perhaps--there's the whole icy, Machiavellian businesswoman thing we're still not privy to, nor are we clear on what the hell she's doing out here in the middle of Yorkshire at this cottage).

We know she's bisexual, or at least has no hang-ups about making love with women (at least in this nebulous realm, where things aren't as they usually are for her), so she's loved by this feminine being, who is joined by something else--Kate's not frightened by the experience--in fact it blows her out of reality into unconsciousness.

OK Simone, as of now, my surmise is that Kate's been taken into custody by some sort of faerie-esque beings, based simply upon the setting, and what she's been through thus far. However, I can't help but rule out the old incubi-succubi tag team at work here for two reasons: the dark, brutal sensuality of her bondage-themed dreams from the prologue (and how they seemed to drill right down through all of her daylight, hard-cased personae into a realm she keeps locked away in a place even she won't admit to existing--where she derives passion and pleasure from her humiliation, captivity, and pain--the inversion of her reality), and your letting the cat out of the bag, informing us that the next Episode will, in fact, be darker! And, obviously, you've got an established track record of horny, demonic beings roaming around your titillating stories getting up to all kinds of sizzling mischief, getting mortals hot and bothered, then sucking the souls right out of them, which tends to ruin an otherwise fine day. Which is what makes the stories great to begin with. Perhaps Kate's not all that honest a businesswoman, and has been thieving her way across the UK--on the run and all that--hiding out from the law, and we may be in for a bit of "Satanic Vigilantism" a la "The Confession?" Probably not, but I can dream, can't I? I know that you've dropped the third installment, so I head there right now to survey the landscape. But as always--top shelf, sensual writing, with a stimulating touch of occult surreality!

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As always John your comments are a writers dream; telling me I am on the right track and picking up some of the clues I have dropped (as well as some of the unanswered questions). The book is a Chekov's gun but it does not go off until the last episode.

I'm trying to steer clear of the incubi-succubi tag team. There's a rewrite going on as I publish each episode. Without giving too much away these entities are more in the darker site of preternatural rather than all out demons.

There's a little bit more about Kate's in the episode that follows the one I've just published. Without revealing too much I will say my theme here owes more to 'Painted Stripes' than 'The Confession.'

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Ah, interesting...I think I may have picked up on the "Pained Stripes" bit in part...I just read and commented on Episode 3!!!

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