Daniel forced himself to stay rooted to the spot in his living room. He wanted to turn around and grab Kate into his arms, plead with her not to hate him, not to think he was insane…
He stayed facing away, knowing her eyes would be kind and sympathetic but still have that flicker of fear that people always had. Anyone who knew always had that flicker of fear in his or her eyes…
"Daniel," Kate said softly, bringing him back. He stayed where he was. "Daniel… could I ask you something?" He nodded, not trusting himself to speak. "Do you… do you remember the first hallucination you ever had?"
After a moment, Daniel swallowed hard. "I-I do. Well, I r-remember the first time I knew I'd had one, I should say…"
Loud music blared from speakers in the basement of the dorm building. Nineteen-year-old Daniel Pierce knew it would only be a matter of time until the campus police came to shut down the party, but he didn't care.
He was on keyboard, playing a song he'd composed for his rock band. Sadly the instrument was a cheap one he'd had to borrow… There was no way he was bringing his baby to a frat party.
The basement was packed, students were all cheering incoherently due to the massive amounts of alcohol they had consumed and that were being provided there.
His eyes eventually locked on to a beautiful young redhead. She was tall, and somewhat lean without looking anorexic. She was one of those unique redheads that have no freckles but still have the beautiful color in their hair. She was wearing a short dark blue dress with a small gold chain around her neck. Her hair was pulled back in a high ponytail that showed off her broad chest. Daniel had seen her in the back of one of his classes, but had never seen her close enough to see exactly how beautiful she was. And she was keeping her eyes on him too.
After two more songs, a rather drunk frat boy stumbled down the stairs and hollered: "Beer pong upstairs!" This drew a huge crowd back up the stairs, so their audience was greatly diminished.
"Really?" Robert, the guitarist spat. "They told us eight songs! We haven't done five!"
Daniel rolled his eyes. "Their loss. Idiots." He played a couple of discordant notes (on purpose, of course) and then picked up his bag.
"You rolling out?" Robert asked.
"Nothing here worth staying for," Daniel said. "I'll find some other place." His eyes wandered, and noticed the redhead was over by the basement door, leaning against the wall. "Or something else to do…"
Robert followed Daniel's gaze, and turned back with a quizzical expression. "Well, we still on for MCAT studying tomorrow afternoon?"
Already on his way, Daniel said, "Sure, whatever. See you."
He made his way over to the beautiful redhead and leaned against the wall beside her. "You stalking me?" he asked.
She chuckled at this. "Hell of an opening line, Daniel. Sounds a little… paranoid."
By now he was standing next to her, leaning against the frat house too. "You can never be too careful. Besides, you already know my name, but I don't know yours."
"Hannah Lyon," she said, holding out her hand. "So you play keyboard?"
"Yeah, I'm good with my hands."
Hannah raised her eyebrows at this. "Really, Daniel? Cocky much?"
"Well, I'm just repeating what I've heard from other sources," he said, moving in front of her and putting one arm on either side of her.
Looking right into his eyes, Hannah said, "I like to judge for myself…" And with that she locked her lips onto his. Daniel thanked a non-existent God that his roommate was out for the weekend.
"Two blocks. My dorm," he said, briefly breaking their lips.
They barely made it there. As soon as he shut the door, she pounced on him and began unbuttoning his shirt. Her hands rubbed large circles on his almost chest, and their lips never parted. He found the zipper for her dress and slid it down. Before he could slip it off of her, she stopped him.
"My turn," she said. She began tugging at his pants that were growing very tight. She unbuttoned them and pulled them down. He stepped out of them and went back to her dress. He slid it off of her, then picked her up and lay her on the bed.
He rubbed his broad hands over her breasts through her bra, eliciting low moans from Hannah. She rubbed her hands through his hair. His hands found their way to the back of her bra and undid the clasp. He pulled her straps down and tossed the bra to the side. He moved his kisses to the spot directly at the nape of her neck as his hands returned to her newly exposed breasts.
Finally his hands explored further down her body. He lay a hand on her center through her underwear and began gently rubbing. This made Hannah moan loudly, and he could feel her wetness grow.
"Daniel…" she groaned. Daniel found himself getting more aroused with every moan, every mewling Hannah made. "Daniel… stop… stop teasing."
He began kissing down between her breasts and down her stomach as he began pulling her underwear slowly down to her feet. As he made his way closer to her core, her breath got faster. Finally he said, "No teasing…" as he slid one finger into her.
Hannah gasped loudly and involuntarily thrusted. "Oh God…"
Daniel began petting her on the inside, making her turn and almost writhe in pleasure. Daniel felt himself getting close, but he kept petting her.
Finally she grabbed his hand and gently pulled it out of her. "… not… enough… need… you…" She tugged down his underwear to reveal how ready he was.
He pressed their lips together and he guided himself into her. This made both of them gasp. Daniel began slowly thrusting himself against her.
She shook her head. "No… don't… be gentle…" And she thrust herself farther on him.
Daniel took her at her word and began thrusting faster. Hannah was panting, moaning. "God, yes… so… perfect…"
Finally with one last thrust, they both exploded. Daniel's vision blurred completely as all his muscles contracted and released in ecstasy.
They looked at each other for a few moments, both still breathing heavily. Finally she closed her eyes and lay her head under his chin. She brought her arms in to her chest, and snuggled closer to him. Daniel wrapped his arms around her and held her as they fell asleep in each other's arms.
The next morning, he woke to find her still asleep. He closed his eyes and sniffed deeply, inhaling her scent. Somewhat flowery combined with sweat from the night before. It was intoxicating… different from the few women he'd slept with before. She seemed different herself… like they were two parts of a whole. He'd never felt that connection with anyone before…
After a while she woke up slowly. "Mmm… morning, Danny."
At this Daniel tensed slightly… his mother had always called him "Danny."
"Morning. How… how'd you sleep?"
"Like a baby," Hannah answered, stretching. She rolled over and looked at Daniel. "You?"
"Um… fine," he said. After a moment he asked, "Do you… want breakfast?"
Hannah chuckled and shook her head a little. "I'm afraid I have to head out. But I'll leave you my number?"
"Um.. sure, okay," Daniel murmured.
With that, Hannah rolled out of bed and started getting dressed. As she headed out the door, she handed Daniel a piece of scrap paper with her number scrawled in black ink. Daniel held it in his hands, and then stuck it in the top drawer of his desk.
After a few minutes later, Daniel grabbed his headphones and plugged them into his baby, his keyboard. A slew of new songs had popped up into his head, and he grabbed his music notebook to start writing down the songs as they were coming to him.
Hours later, urgent loud knocking interrupted Daniel. He took off the headphones and opened the door. "What?" he said rather abruptly.
Robert was standing in the door. "Jesus, Daniel!" After a moment he added, "Did you forget the MCAT studying? That was three hours ago."
Daniel rolled his eyes. "Got distracted. I have new music for us."
"You said we were going to study for MCATs together," Robert said. "This is a big deal, Daniel!"
"Whatever."
"What's going on with you? You miss the studying, you run off last night –"
"I didn't run off. I brought that redhead from our concert back here," Daniel said.
Robert frowned. "Redhead? I didn't see any redhead last night."
"The one who was over by the basement door when the frat idiots all left. You looked right at her!"
"Daniel, there was no redhead. Just a couple groups of sorority girls… all blond."
"What the hell are you talking about?" Daniel said, getting agitated. "There was a redhead! Her name was Hannah Lyon – "
"There were just the blonds…"
Daniel started digging through his desk. "You're fucking kidding me! Look, she gave me her…" He paused as he opened his desk and didn't see the paper he'd carefully placed in the drawer. "Wh-where'd it go?"
Daniel began picking things out of the drawer. "She left it, and I put it right… what the hell happened to it?" He began throwing things out of the drawer. "It was here! She wrote it – "
Robert started toward him. "Daniel…"
Daniel spun to face him. "Did you take it, Robert? Did you take her number?"
"Why would I –"
"WHERE IS IT? WHERE DID YOU FUCKING PUT IT?" Daniel screamed, rushing toward Robert.
Robert dodged Daniel. "Daniel, calm down!"
"You're screwing with me! Stop screwing with me!" Daniel started screaming.
"Daniel! Stop it! Calm down!"
"Get out! Leave me alone! LEAVE ME ALONE!"
Robert backed out of the door and shut it slowly.
Daniel started tearing the entire dorm room apart, including his roommate's half. He didn't understand where the phone number had gone…
"Daniel."
He nearly jumped out of his skin. He spun around, and standing there in front of the (still closed) door was Hannah. She was wearing the same blue dress as the night before. This time she also wore a concerned expression.
Daniel frowned. "H-Hannah? How did you get in? What the hell is going on?"
"Come on, Daniel. Robert didn't see me. My phone number disappeared. You're smart. You know what's going on."
Daniel froze for a moment. "You… you have to be real."
"Daniel – "
"No! That doesn't… doesn't make sense. You're real!"
Hannah tried to reach out and lay a hand on his shoulder, but Daniel grabbed it.
"I can feel your hand! You're real." He grabbed her shoulders and held her head. "I feel you. You… you can't be…"
"A hallucination?"
"I'm not crazy!" Daniel shouted, shoving Hannah back. "We… we fucked for God's sake! I'm not crazy!"
"I'm sorry, Daniel. I didn't mean to hurt you."
"Go away!" Daniel said, shutting his eyes. "GO AWAY! Get out!"
He heard Hannah say, "I'm sorry, Daniel" one last time. Daniel threw his hands up over his ears.
"LEAVE ME ALONE!"
After a moment he opened his eyes and saw he was alone.