Dimensionality - Introduction

There was an annoying fly buzzing about overhead, circling for whatever unfathomable reason one of the lamps hanging off the ceiling. The fly could have flown off to the kitchens or out the windows, which were open due to a perpetually broken air conditioning, but no. There it was, buzzing above Jake’s seat, eyeing up the sweet, sweet bits of syrup and the delicious grease that were left on his plate after a course of bacon, eggs and waffles.
Jake had been in the diner for about two hours now, and he had lost count of the refills he’d taken on his coffee. Nobody was paying his presence much mind though, and he had half a mind to order a sandwich too. He wasn’t exactly famished, but eating alleviated boredom. Used to be he was never bored. Long ago. He’d gotten softer since then, in more ways than one. Maybe not a sandwich. Just some toast.
After placing his order Jake tried to tune out the fly so he could listen to the ancient jukebox playing Elvis. There was a big, fat trucker in the diner who had picked up a hitch-hiking preacher from God-knows-where, and the two had a small wager on the lyrics of one song by the King or another. Jake didn’t know and didn’t care. For all he knew this was one of the favourite haunts of the fat ex-rex. They weren’t that far from a whole bunch of UFO-sightings right about now. These little factoids made him smile to himself. If this was five years ago, he might’ve gone out there, done some footwork, talked to the people who claimed to have seen it all. But then he wouldn’t have been alone to do it five years ago.

It hadn’t been front-page news in any paper. Of course it hadn’t. But there had been an article by a colleague – that is, a colleague of the more superficial kind, a bread-and-butter type of reporter – about the death of Hugo Fletcher. Crackpot conspiracy theorist and globe-trotting adventurer, part-Tintin, part-Hunter S. Thompson, a drugged out schizophrenic and a rock-star, that’s what he was called. Nice eulogy, for the most part. Then again it might’ve been slander too, but Fletcher wouldn’t have cared. He probably would’ve cursed them all out for trying to cash in on his popularity in certain circles by publishing the damn article, but then leaving out all the important stuff he’d done during his life. Stuff he’d done with ol’ Jake “The Badger” Julian. Stuff the sheep of this society could’ve used. Stuff they wouldn’t have believed.
The paper was on the bench by his side. Jake had read all of it during his wait and with some dexterity of fingers and an application of a dull knife he’d managed to remove the eulogy from it. The paper was his property, not the diner’s, so it was fine. He’d hold on to the last story of Hugo Fletcher, and add it to a scrap-book when he got home. It’d be something to get mad about when he was in an old folk’s home.

Jake checked his watch. It was 13:41. His toast arrived, and he got another refill of coffee. The trucker and the preacher had stepped outside, and by the sound of it were settling their score with their fists. The fly kept buzzing. Eating as slowly as possible was a challenge, but a boring one. Nothing but an empty road, far-out clouds and endless flat plains outside the window. Boring, boring, boring.

It had never been boring with Fletcher, Jake reminisced. Well, of course it had during stake-outs or when digging through old archives or when talking to unreliable witnesses who liked to ramble about the dog that took a shit on their lawn instead of the Secret Society of Vampire Sex Mistresses. That one had taken the two of them into some hot spots, most of which were fetish clubs. Not a bad job, considering they never found their mark.
Slurping his coffee to hide his grin from anyone who might’ve been interested, Jake thought back on the time Fletcher decided they should hit the injun sauna tent until they were dehydrated, then take some peyote and run around the woods in the nude in the hopes of attracting Wendigos of Sasquatch or whatever there might’ve been in those woods. They got rash from poison ivy and a lot of bug bites for their trouble, but the article they worked out of that won some kind of award for being a genre-defying short story.
No more of that type of thing though, not ever. Not with Fletcher, and no way did Jake have the imagination to get at it on his own. Or the will, for that matter; he’d gotten used to the easy life in recent years, and there had been no drug-use involved in that. The only even remotely interesting aspect about his life had started as just another way of alleviating boredom. Jake had, almost three years ago, gotten the need to bring back some of the romance and magic of his former life, and rather than hopping on the next plane to Kathmandu or raiding a haunted house he had began to make origami, a single crane every day. Legend has it that you fold a thousand of those buggers and you get to make a wish. Who knows, maybe the effort put into making a thousand cranes by folding a square of paper has more effect on the fabric of reality than throwing a nickel down a well or seeing a shooting star – or satellite, which was more likely these days.

It was the day before yesterday that Jake had finished his thousandth crane, and he’d spent most of the day wishing for something to happen. Something great. Something very definitely not boring. At 3:33 AM he was woken up by a phone call, and now he was here, in this diner, which he had spent much of yesterday looking for. He’d done some research, trying to find out if it was an exciting place, the kind of place that he’d have gone for in the old days. Apart from the greasy food, thick coffee and low prices, it had nothing of interest. The UFO-sightings may have been a lead, but he’d learned long ago how worthless those kinds of stories were. It had been part of why he and Fletcher had fallen out. Jake didn’t want to waste time on stories that never went anywhere, and UFO shit never went anywhere. There was that, and there was the cancer. Jake had never been a smoker, but Fletcher had been a goddamned chimney. He’d said it didn’t matter because he was going to die young and leave a gorgeous corpse behind.
Of course then he’d grown old too, and gotten lung cancer. Jake couldn’t help feeling like shit about it all. If he hadn’t made that damn wish of his, maybe he wouldn’t have gotten a phone call about… well, Fletcher would’ve died anyway, what did it matter? The door swung open, and that was when things got interesting.

There had been no sound of a vehicle outside. Jake would’ve noticed. But someone stepped inside nonetheless. Someone very… interesting.
She must’ve been close to seven feet tall, she had high-heeled boots, black jeans, a leather jacket, pale skin, a messy head of blonde hair, black – no, PURPLE – lipstick, and a sort of satchel hanging off her shoulder. Those jeans left very little of her figure to the imagination, and she was obviously fit under there. The front of her jacket was open and the shirt – black, of course – was barely containing her chest.
The woman did not break her stride as she walked right up to Jake – her heels making a rhythmic, furious sound on the floor – and without a word she sat down opposite him, putting her satchel on the seat next to hers. Up close Jake could tell her fingernails were painted the same dark purple as her lips and that there was a speck of orange or yellow mixed in with her green irises. A beautiful woman. Obviously strong. Fit the profile of a Vampire Sex Mistress to a T.
The waitress rushed over with a plate of pancakes, covered in strawberry jam. Jake hadn’t known they even had any in this place. The woman hadn’t ordered anything either. No words were exchanged between her and the waitress.
“I…”
She held up her hand, poured copious amounts of sugar on her meal and started to cut up huge pieces to fill her mouth with. She ate like a hungry wolverine, but somehow there wasn’t a single piece of her meal anywhere on her clothes or face, her make-up was unsmudged and she downright beamed when she smiled, her teeth showing. No unusually large canines, Jake noted with the faintest hint of disappointment. There was no longer any buzzing from overhead.

“Miss Bedrager?” Jake asked, somewhat off his game.
“Call me Renate” she replied, her voice deep and smooth. Her smile was contagious.
“Alright, Renate, I…” Jake tried again, but she interrupted him with another gesture.
“I know you’ve probably got something so much more interesting to do than talking to a fan, but I just had to get your autograph!” she blabbered as she pulled out a book from her satchel. It was a thick volume, tall and wide. This confused Jake a whole lot, as he’d never actually written a book.
“What is this?” he asked, feeling surreal.
Renate tilted her head like a dog.
“It’s your book. Look!”
She opened it up and right there, among the first pages, was clearly written “To my friend Jake ‘The Badger’ Julian. Keep digging!”
Jake held the book in his hands and stared at those words, then turned it around to read the back. It was blank. He turned to look at the front cover. “Dimensionality” it said. “Hugo Fletcher” it said. Jake set the book down on the table and looked at Renate.
“Who are you and what is this?” he asked, feeling a knot in his stomach and anger flaring up. His ears might’ve been burning.
“This…” she said, tapping the book, “is yours. It’s dedicated to you. And me? I’m a fan. Now can I please have your autograph?”
She offered him a pen that hadn’t been in her hand before, and Jake had not noticed her picking it up. Whatever.
“You’re not answering my questions at all, Miss Bedrager” Jake said, trying to keep his voice level. Someone was fucking with him, and he didn’t like that. He had come out all this way because this woman had asked to talk about Fletcher’s work, about HIS work. And now here she was asking for his autograph on a book that most certainly did not exist. Could not exist. It had to be a joke. He opened it up randomly to see what was actually in it.
There was a page with an illustration of a Centaur. It looked like it had been drawn with coal or something such like on parchment and then photograph, the photograph then scanned with a cheap scanner. The Centaur had a cloak on the human bits, was holding a scythe and had a hood and… was that a gasmask? Next to it were badly drawn stick figures, no, wait, those were letters. “Here lieth the Bayne of Dreames”. Under this there was a series of boxes containing diagrams and the sub-title “Dream catcher”.
Jake closed the book and crossed his hands over it. It was full-on Fletcher alright. A dream catcher built to catch a literal night MARE? Angry as he had been, he was smiling now.
“Where did you get this?” he asked, trying to be polite.
“From Hugo” she said with a shrug, playing with a strand of her hair.
“When?”
“Before I called you the other day” she shrugged.
“How much before?”
“Like, fifteen minutes? I guess?” her lips pursed and her brow furrowed. Either she was genuinely this adorable, or she was a good actor. Jake had seen both in his day, and couldn’t decide either way as of yet.
“You spoke to his ghost, perhaps?” he asked, pulling out the fresh, unused notepad he’d bought yesterday for this very interview.
“No way, he handed it to me. Said it was meant for, you know, this world” she said, then leaned over closer to him. Jake could smell a sort of musk off of her rather than perfume. It was nice, like she’d been having sex but not so much as to need a shower. Would explain the hair…
“He’s not actually dead” she whispered to him, winked conspiratorially and then leaned back again, causing Jake to inhale sharply to catch one last whiff of her scent before his brain comprehended her last statement. Anger returned.
“Miss Bedrager…”
“Told you to call me Renate”
“MISS BEDRAGER. My best friend in the whole world is dead. I do not approve of getting made fun of like this. The book I’m keeping, but if you intend to…”
“Hey you can’t have it unless you sign it!” she said pointing a slender, accusatory finger at him.
“…if you intend to joke at my expense, then this interview is over” he finished, pocketing his unused notepad.
Renate blinked, looking confused. Then she shrugged.
“And here I thought he meant what he said” she sighed, picked up her satchel and stood up, reaching for the book.
Jake moved it away from her.
“Said what?”
“What do you care? You think he’s dead. Some friend!” she moved to reach for the book again, and Jake had to stand up to keep it away from her.
“What. Did. He. Say?”
“He said that if I was ever bored, I should find you” she said, shifting from one foot to the other. Now that they were both standing, Jake really realized how big of a woman she was. Taller than him, her shoulders were wider, she probably had more muscle and less fat than he did. If it came to a tussle, she’d win, unless he played it dirty. He also noticed nobody in the diner was paying any attention to them.
“Bored?” he asked, taking a step backwards from the booth. Renate took a step towards him, sliding her feet along the floor without making a noise. There was something predatory about his stance now, her body was relaxed and tense all at once, like a cat waiting to pounce.
“Yeah. I’m bored, Badger-boy, and Hugo said you could help with that. Said you helped him with that. It’s why he wanted you to have the book. But you can’t unless you sign. So either sign it or give it back!” she hissed that last part, and Jake felt weak and slow, as if he were underwater. He noticed he had the pen in his other hand, the one he wasn’t holding the book in. He licked his lips. He was sweating from the heat but also feeling very, very cold in the pit of his stomach. This book belonged to him. It had to. Nobody else could have it but him; it was one of a kind, wasn’t it? This wasn’t something that had ever been published. It was put together just in this one copy, this one volume. It was unique. And the content was what Fletcher had wanted him to have. This woman, whoever she was, had no claim to it. But the things she was saying, it was as if she knew Fletcher better than he did, calling him by his first name and everything. Nobody called Fletcher by his first name but his mother. He was always H. Fletcher, never Hugo. If she knew him, she’d have known that. But had she stolen this book? Had she been a girlfriend who stole it when he died and was now playing some sick game? That’s what the sceptic, the cynic, in him was saying. It was logical. It made sense. It fit the way the world worked. The thing is, back when he’d been with Fletcher, none of that had mattered. Getting through the looking glass, down the rabbit hole, to the truth behind the veil of rationale, that’s what they’d been about. They hadn’t really ever FOUND anything, but they’d never stopped believing. Until he did, that is. Jake had stopped believing, he’d grown old and bitter and started thinking about politics and the economy and taxes and he’d thought all that crazy stuff had been just grown men playing at pretend like they were still kids. He’d grown out of it, and then Fletcher had gotten cancer and he had to stop too and get a job he hated. The dream had died. If this was, say, six or seven years ago, and this woman had walked in on them, saying she had a book Fletcher had written… well, that wouldn’t have worked without time-travel, but… but if Jake was younger, if he was still the man he’d been when he was with Fletcher, wouldn’t he have jumped at this chance? She was obviously a part of something very, very different from the mundane world he’d been living in. She was offering him something of the mystery he had always known existed.
The most important thing though was that she’d said that one word. Bored. She was bored. He was bored. Boredom. This had been an enemy Fletcher had always been able to beat. And he’d said to her, according to her words, that it was Jake who alleviated HIS boredom, and could do the same for her. Maybe she really was an old girlfriend of Fletcher’s, maybe he had even gotten steady with her so he wouldn’t have to deal with the cancer alone. His best friend wasn’t speaking to him after all. Maybe she was here because Fletcher had wanted to make up. Him still being alive was obviously not true, but… but the obvious didn’t matter back then, did it? It never had. The obvious had been the dirt under which the bones of truth lay. The man Jake had been in the old days would’ve taken the opportunity to follow this mystery to its very bottom without any hesitation. Who cares if anything comes of it, Badger? It’s the adventure that matters. At least it won’t be boring. No way could it be boring, you’re already holding the goddamn book in your hand, just go with the flow, it doesn’t matter if it makes no sense that she wants you to sign it, just sign it. Just let it happen. Like you did in the old days, Badger, dig, dig, and dig, dig until you reach the bottom of the matter.

Jake returned to his seat, popped the book open and clicked the pen.
“Here’s to you” he said, letting the pen dance on the blank page. He wrote his name, including the nick-name, and then added the sentence he’d said aloud above it.
Renate had made her way behind him so she could read what he was writing over his shoulder. She rested a warm hand on his back and leaned in closer, her hair tickling his cheek, her scent filling his head, her leather jacket creaking. When she spoke, her warm breathe tickled his ear.
“That’s a good boy, Badger”
She stood up and began to walk away, heels clicking and clacking, and Jake realized his pants must’ve shrunk at the crotch when his brain began to function again.
“Hey wait a minute, where are you going?” he asked, flabbergasted.
“Your car. I’ve got the keys” she said, dangling them from her index finger. Jake gasped, checking his pocket. They were indeed his.
“So let’s go already!” she said, stomping her foot.
“Ahh, right, but the check…”
“I paid it” she said, opening the door and stepping out. Looking at the table Jake saw that this was indeed so. With a shrug he grabbed the book and stood up, rushing in after her. The woman moved with long, fast strides, and it was hard to keep up. She’d already stepped in his car and started the engine when he was still a good distance off. She drummed her fingers on the wheel and admired his furry dice, dangling off the rear-view mirror.
Entering the passenger seat of his own car, Jake felt he was being swept along by a current of events that made his mind feel a decade younger. Shame he wasn’t getting any younger physically or he wouldn’t be out of breath.
“You forgot your newspaper back there” she said, checking her lipstick in the mirror. It was immaculate.
Jake hadn’t noticed, but that didn’t matter.
“I’ve got what’s important” he said, patting the breast of his coat. The pocket was on the inside of it, and in that pocket was…
“This is all lies, you know?” Renate said, pointing at him with two fingers, a slip of paper between them. A piece of paper with grease at the edges. No…
“When did you…?”
“THIS is not important” she said, deftly crumbling it and dropping it on the floor. “Only dead men need eulogies. Hugo’s not dead. He’s not insane either, never was. You know that”
The grief Jake felt for his friend was steadily turning into excitement, even if this all felt unreal. For all he knew she was just some insane… no. That’s the old Jake. Not the old young Jake, but the old plain-old Jake. Which is who he was now, in body at least. But not in mind. He had to think like the old young Jake.
“Alright, where are headed?” he asked when Renate drew out of the parking lot and headed off down the highway. “To meet Fletcher maybe?” he asked, smiling without much humour. His heart was still stuck in the past five years of cynicism and scepticism.
“No, we can’t do that” she replied, not looking straight at him.
“Why not?”
“Because he’s not around”
“What does that mean?”
“He’s gone”
Jake grunted.
“So he IS dead” he said, feeling the rush of excitement wane off.
“I didn’t say he’s dead, I said he’s gone”
“And there’s a difference? The idiom of ‘gone’ usually has the connotation of finality”
“He’s alive, just not on this plane of existence. He’s gone elsewhere. Somewhere the cancer won’t kill him”
Jake snorted, still with no humour in him.
“And if he’s gone to such a place, what’s to keep us from following?” he asked.
“You signed the book” she replied, still staring ahead. She had a nice profile, but damn if she wasn’t being annoying. Her scent slowly filling the car wasn’t helping Jake’s mood, he was too angry to be aroused right now, and the excitement of his loins annoyed him.
“And why does me signing the book matter?”
“Open it up, same page you signed” she answered, and Jake, deciding to humour her wish, did. His jaw dropped when he saw the previously empty page.

There were symbols running along the sides of the page now, runes or some such, very pretty. His signature wasn’t where he’d written it, but at the bottom of the page, in a rectangle with “sign here” written in red marker under it. There was text over the rest of the page. He read it.

“The undersigned hereby relinquishes all rights to enter the spatial dimension inhabited by one Hugo Fletcher, until such a time as he has understood the mysteries of Dimensionality, uncovered the secrets that lie beyond the veil of perceived reality and has found sufficient joy in his existence to never again lose sight of that which is important in life. At such a time, and not before, he may traverse to meet his old friend and drink as if he were a berserker in Valhalla.”

There was no ambiguity or doubt about it. This had been written by Fletcher, it was his handwriting and his inane blathering. It hadn’t been like this before. Invisible ink was one thing, but a trick like that couldn’t move his own writing down on the page. Jake slammed the book shut, closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and then turned to look at Renate.
“Who the fuck are you?” he asked.
Renate smiled her catchy, beaming smile as she turned to look him in the eye. He had no eye for her smile now. Only her eyes. Her eyes. There was no white anymore. The whites were black.
“I think the correct question” she purred, “is not ‘who’, but ‘what’”.

Rather than concerning himself with this new and pertinent question, Jake was overcome by another, even more immediate one.
“Stop the car” he said, his body rigid, his knuckles going white as he gripped the seat.
“Scared? Don’t be. I don’t bite… unless you want me to” Renate giggled.
“I’m serious. Stop the car” Jake repeated, gritting his teeth.
“Why?” she asked, one hand on the wheel, the other making its way to his thigh.
“Because I need to take a piss right now” Jake hissed.

Renate did not waste time in stopping the car, and tension was relieved in many ways. Jake unbuckled his seatbelt in record time and ran out of the car with great vigour, but he didn’t go far. It’s not that he worried Renate might give chase – which, to be fair, even in her high heels, she probably would’ve had no trouble with – but he had more urgent matter to attend to. A lot of coffee had been consumed in the past few hours after all.
While relieving himself Jake resisted the temptation of looking around. He resisted it when he heard the car door open and shut, he ignored it when he heard steps on the gravely ground approach him, and he ignored it when Renate’s musk entered his nostrils yet again. He gulped when he heard a hum from behind himself, but he didn’t turn. Sweat ran down his forehead when the back of his neck felt the movement of the air, and he closed his eyes when a warm breath tickled his earlobe. In the diner this had left him with an erection, and he did not want one now. He was finished with his business, but for whatever reason seemed unable zip his pants back up. He felt a throb, her scent grew stronger, he…
“Mmm, is that for me?” she asked, and her tongue made the slightest contact with his earlobe. Her firm breasts were squeezing against his back.
No you fucking bitch, he wanted to say.
“Nnhh” he said.
“Mmhm” she caught his earlobe between her teeth and her arms slipped around his torso while something caught his arms and… wait. What?

It wasn’t enough that her eyes had turned all spooky, oh no. Now she’d caught him in her, well. They had to be wings, didn’t they? Jake refused to open his eyes, but he could feel the warm, leathery bits covering him from shoulder to elbow, the bones and sinews and muscles gripping him far too strongly for him to resist and there was something crawling up his leg, oh god, oh god oh god-
“Hahh!” he gasped when the something shot up between his wrists, wrapped around first one arm and then the other, tightly and with irresistible force. Renate’s left legs was stuck between his so he couldn’t close them, and now at last he had no choice but to open his eyes to see what was happening to him.
The wings were of a very, very deep blue or purple, so that they appeared quite black, same as her lipstick and nail polish. What was shooting out from between his legs was of the same texture, and for a moment he feared it was some kind of tentacle-penis, but slightly more rational thought informed him that it must’ve been a tail. A very versatile tail, prehensile and such. He could feel Renate’s forehead touching the back of his head, and there were bony protrusions that definitely hadn’t been there before. Horns.
“Y-you’re a… Succubus?” he asked. He’d had a near encounter with one before. Long ago.
“Hmm” she answered cryptically, licking his neck. Her tail forced his hands aside from shielding the erection to let her hands feel it up. One hand gripped his shaft with just the tips of her fingers and squeezed hard, the other used only the middle finger to circle his foreskin.
“Stop it…” he said, gasping as she bit him. This was crazy. They were right on the side of the road, anyone could see… was he really thinking about being seen when a Succubus was about to rape him? A real Succubus?
“I-in the name of Jesus Christ…” he mumbled, and she caught his shaft with her entire hand rather and just the fingertips. She let out a purring sound that may have indicated amusement.
“Stick your tongue out for me” she ordered, and he did. Her free hand caught it between thumb and forefinger while the other worked his shaft.
“You need to learn something here, Badger-boy” she said, licking his cheek.
“You need to learn I can do whatever I want to you, whenever I want to. You can’t disobey a single order I give you. Cum!”
Jake did. His ejaculation wasn’t particularly satisfying and it came far too soon considering his state of arousal, but he did. Renate giggled and kept moving her hand, making him moan in discomfort. He wanted to tell her to stop, make her stop, but he couldn’t.
“Understand? I don’t need to make you cum again, do I? I could. Believe me?”
Jake nodded. He nodded with great enthusiasm.
“Thought so. I’ll still jerk you off though, just for fun”
Jake closed his eyes again. This was just a dream. A bad dream. Succubi didn’t exist. Even if they did, could they control someone like this? No. It was just a dream; his subconscious had conjured this fantasy before him because of some latent masochism. It would end soon. He’d wake up in his apartment and everything would be…
“To tell you the truth, I don’t know much anything about this world or the way things work here. I don’t know anything about what’s in that book Hugo gave you, either. Thing is, he wanted you to have it, and he said you’d help me not be bored. You signed the contract, so you WILL do that. You ever try to hold out on me, you ever try to fuck with me; I’ll remind you of your place. Like this”
Renate’s hand began to move like a piston and a second ejaculation escaped Jake. This seemed a rather ludicrous thing to happen and his rational mind, or what was left of it, assured him of the biological impossibility of it and reminded him that this was indeed but a dream and that was proof of it.
“I could make you do whatever the hell I wanted every moment of every day, Badger-boy” Renate said, slowly but forcefully rubbing his cock with her palm, her grip thankfully loosened.
“But I won’t. That would be boring. But you better make me have a good time in return. We have a deal?”
Renate let go of his tongue and Jake hastened to agree.
“Yeah, yeah. I’ll, yeah. Contract. Got to follow the contract” he said, breathing heavily. He was exhausted.
“Good. Now sleep”
Jake did.

			***