Free Dark Avenging Angel by Catherine Cavendish

care. Judging by their smiles and greetings, they knew me, but I didn’t recognize a single one.
    “Here, let me buy you a drink.” A tall man with slicked-back, glossy hair handed me a glass of champagne.
    “Thank you,” I said and sniffed it. It smelled of nothing. I tasted it. Nothing. A typical dream drink.
    He spoke with a pleasant European accent I couldn’t place at first. “Now we shall dance.” A band struck up. Where it came from, I had no idea.
    We whirled and twirled to the strains of “The Blue Danube”. As I don’t dance, I amazed myself with my perfect waltz.
    “You look familiar,” I said. “I don’t know why.”
    He laughed and said something in a language I recognized but didn’t understand. Italian.
    All eyes were on us as he lifted me up, twirled me around and set me down. A round of applause echoed around the room. I caught sight of my reflection in a floor-length, gilt-edged mirror and gasped. I never looked like that.
    I’d been transformed. My hair was expertly styled in a classic chignon. Diamonds glittered at my throat. My gown was pure-white, flowing Grecian style.
    The man whispered in my ear, “You can have anything you want. Everything. ”
    Night after night, I dreamed this scene. It always ended there, or on a variation of that.
    Sometimes, instead of the ballroom, he would come to me and hand me a plate of delicious-looking food in the dining room, which was laid out as a massive buffet. Always a glass of champagne. I would pick up a dainty salmon vol-au-vent, bite into it and taste nothing. Just as with the drink.
    The man always looked identical and seemed familiar. Not just because I kept dreaming about him, but because my dream self knew him, even if I didn’t. Oddly, he bore more than a passing resemblance to a singer whose music I would come to admire. But I didn’t know of that artist then. He only came to fame in the mid-1980s.
    This recurring dream disturbed me more and more as the days went on. Too many contrasts. A feeling of fear and loneliness at the beginning, culminating in a weird, inexplicable euphoria at the end.
    During the day I tried to put it out of my mind. I mostly succeeded too.
    Each day at work became a battleground. I never knew what new traps Stuart was going to lay for me.
    “I really need some training,” I said most days, hoping one day the message would get through. “Is there anything I should be doing that I’m not doing now?”
    “No,” he would say. “Carry on.”
    But apart from formulating and delivering the staff-training programs, I really had no idea what I should be doing to manage the department.
    As a result, I tended to lean more heavily on Rick and Steve, who had now become almost friends. It didn’t go unnoticed by some.
    “They’re after your job. You need to be careful,” Jane said. “If you don’t mind a little friendly advice, I’d say you need to assert yourself more. Keep a little distance.”
    I knew she meant well and I nodded and thanked her. But I had no idea how to follow her advice. This fish wasn’t just out of water; it was flapping about on the beach, lost and disoriented.
    The day of the dreaded first group-training session came all too quickly. I had begun to get on quite well with the telephone-sales staff. At least with them, I had landed in familiar territory. Many of them had received only minimal induction training and the art of professional selling was new to them.
    They chatted as they settled themselves down at chairs and desks in the training room. The sun had been shining through the windows on this warm June day and the heat would have sent even the liveliest of them to sleep. I opened windows and some of the girls followed my lead. Now, with a pleasant through draft, we were ready to begin.
    The door opened and Stuart strode in.
    The girls clammed up.
    He took his seat at the back of the room.
    I had my flip charts prepared, my notes rehearsed and in front of me, in case I got lost