Free Your Dimension Or Mine? by Cynthia Kimball Page B

dimensions before? I did when I was much younger. Unfortunately, I found it did not bode well for my temperament, so I stopped. My brothers Caifu and Stero spent a couple centuries doing it and it never affected them, though, so it might just be me. My youngest brother, Zenun, jumped once but found the shift too painful. He stayed in the Anjolan Sphere for fifty years before he was killed accidentally. We tried to get him to come back home before then, but he stubbornly refused.
    I was sorry to hear you lost your mother. Losing one’s parent must be a dreadful experience. My mother has just passed her millennial birthday and is stronger than ever. My father is close to his bimillenial. I am quite young at only 745 years. Within my direct family, I have two older brothers and seven younger. There are many other relations who I will not mention, as to do so would take far too much space.
    Besides the books I have read, I am unfamiliar with your particular dimension. Would you be willing to tell me about it? Or anything you wish to write about. I would just like to get to know you better.
    Looking forward to your next message,
    Terrian
    All her excitement about his message died as Ari read it. What was wrong with the men from IDS? Were they clinically insane? Maybe they were trapped in a mental ward somewhere and used this as their way to get to know people? Disappointed, her finger hovered over the delete button. Her ankle stung lightly, and she reached down to rub it. Maybe she would delete it later.
    Sighing, she looked at the unread messages from the other two sites. After deleting all of them, she glanced at DaringlyGauche’s. His message was innocuous and rather boring, but considering how disappointed she was, she barely noticed. Clicking on the link to view his profile, she looked at Orion’s messages.
    Maybe she should reply to let him know she had received them but wasn’t interested. He might think she hadn’t gotten them. He was weird enough. It might never have crossed his mind that someone would not be interested in him.
    Glancing at her browser, she saw only ten percent of Gauche’s profile had downloaded, so she opened Orion’s oldest message.
    Corruptible,
    Are you ignoring me? It won’t last for long, beautiful lady. I doubt you can resist my charms.
    Orion
    Snorting, she went on to read the next.
    Corruptible,
    Respond immediately.
    Orion
    …and the next.
    Write back now!
    Orion
    …and the next.
    If I do not hear back soon, I will be greatly displeased. And, pet, you do not want me to be displeased.
    Orion
    A shiver went down her spine at the fourth message. Pet? That was what he had called her in her nightmare. How could she have known he would call her that?
    Gulping, she opened his last message.
    Your master sends you a flower, and you do not even deign to acknowledge its existence? That is very bad behavior. Never fear. I still plan to collect you and turn you into the perfect pet. Your insolence will cost you at first.
    I must say, it does warm my heart that you have placed it where you sleep. Dream of me, pet.
    Orion
    “Oh, no. No, no, no, no,” she murmured to herself, reading and then re-reading the last message. Her eyes slanted toward her bedroom where the flower was and she became aware of a stinging pain in her ankle.
    Jumping up, she ran into the bedroom and grabbed the vase, letting out a little scream as the stinging pain became unimaginable agony. Gasping, she kept her hand around the vase and limped out into her living room, opened her front door, and tossed the flower—vase and all—out into the small garbage can nearby. After slamming the top down on it, she limped back into her apartment, confused when she realized her ankle no longer hurt.
    It was still thrumming, something it had been doing since she got out of the bathtub, but the pain was mostly gone.
    “Weird,” she whispered as she deleted all of Orion’s messages as well as the one from DaringlyGauche. When her finger