Pam spent most of the night tossing and turning. Sleep was deluding her for the last few hours – perhaps hitting the bed earlier than normal was indeed not a very good idea, in the hope that she could sleep her turmoil away. She almost regretted her refusal to join her friends for a drink that night, considering that it might make the sleeplessness worthwhile. But was she willing to go out that night under a false façade of excitement to fake amusement on a Saturday night only to convince herself that she was still the woman she was the week before? Perhaps she rather not. Staying in and fruitlessly trying to sleep would at least spare her the trouble of challenging her acting skills, if not help make her run from the truth. It was too inevitable to deny anymore that she was hopelessly attracted to Nathan Knight. The kind of attraction that felt quite unprecedented and absolutely inexplicable. Ever since the day before, she had been preaching herself that it should be nothing more than a superficial physical attraction towards an extraordinarily good-looking bloke; but how could she overlook the massive tidal emotions that the visions associated with him spawned? She sat up, swung her legs out of the bed and onto the floor. With a sigh of forfeiture, she accepted her attraction towards him. There wasn't a way she could delude her subconscious any longer. Consequence aside for a while, the acknowledgment calmed some of the chaos that ignoring the blazing truth was creating. She grabbed a bottle of water from her bedside table to take a few sips. The cold water chilled the length of her oesophagus, refreshing her from inside out. As with any sleepless night, a trip from the bathroom was her ideal remedy. Pam staggered out of her bedroom to find herself in the coldness of her bathroom, her nighty top hardly providing any modesty, let alone warmth. Should modesty even cross her mind at this hour, specially when she lived alone? She looked at the large mirror hung over the sink; some red dishevelled locks curled down on her pale arms, some frontal layers on her shoulders and chest and some caressed down her nearly bare back. Demurely she envisaged paler long fingers softly brushing across her upper chest, gently swiping her hair away, exposing her skin underneath. One envisioned hand stopped on her left shoulder, while another gently removed the hair from her back; just as an imaginary stubbly face grazed at the exposed skin of her back, she shuddered with an unexpected climax that seized through her. She ran her hands over her upper arms, massaging and squeezing, finding the newfound warmth in her hands amply comforting. Grabbing a hair-tie, she pulled her hair up in a bun and sat on the edge of the bath, the cold marble cutting through her now flushed skin.

Pam's recollection

There is no way I can shove last Friday on the back seat of my mind, even for the slightest moment. It seemed to haunt every beat of my waking hour. As much as I research for an explanation, I am well aware that I fervently need some expert advice to help decipher it into any reasonable sense, if there existed any. But wherever I seek help from, I need to discuss it with him before any further exploration. That mystical acquaintance with his eyes and touch, the unearthly visions in his presence and the week long encounters strongly suggest that he might have valuable information and insight into all of this. But even if he does, how much is he willing to disclose? Going to work this Monday sounds like a penalty amidst this frenzied wilderness that somehow is immensely intriguing me. I wanted to remain introspective for a little longer and the very thought of a tedious shift, that will demand every bit of my physical and mental energy, was depleting. But going to work is the only opportunity to see him again, if ever. We didn't even get to exchange any contact details. I gathered that he was quite cautious and reserved, therefore I need to rise over my sheepishness to establish a better connection with him, for my own benefit. His cooperation seems to be of paramount significance if I am to find the missing pieces of the jigsaw puzzle. As much as it sounds bizarre, I am intuitive that I harbour something that he might want? He doesn't even work in the hospital, nor did he mention that he had anything to do with it at all; although variables can exist, the odds favour the notion that he had something to do with me, where the odds are oddly backed up by my instincts.

Feeling oddly sanguine, Pam rose from the edge of the bath and started to freshen herself with her usual late-night-bathroom-trip rituals, preparing for a very late sleep. Once back in her bedroom, she picked her fully charged phone to have a little scroll through social media, as she climbed under the comforts of her blanket. The welcoming warmth underneath was sufficiently blissful to bring about a yawn, signalling an impending drowsiness. With some effort, Pam kept her eyes peeled to search for a Nathan Knight on social media, only to get a myriad result, none of it apparently showing any pictures of him. She was too tired to check a few results individually, therefore she quitted the search, had a short scroll and finally set her phone aside. Pulling her blanket higher, she rolled to her back and took a deep calming breath, which induced another yawn. Soon a deep set relaxing sensation radiated throughout her body, which almost felt sensually pleasurable and a lot more gratifying, because she knew from previous experience that this sensation was the threshold just before drifting off. She summoned, almost involuntarily, a few sparks of her remaining consciousness to fantasize the presence of an unclad man under the same blanket, his strong encompassing arms rooting her close to himself, as she peacefully drifted beyond that threshold.