My class is playing the Exploration Game. We're dropped as usual through a warp gate into a wilderness. No warning what sort of land, or even what world, we'll find. all we're guaranteed is breathable air. We must survive, find or build safe shelter hidden from predators.

This time we land in a swamp with drier hillocks where redwood-like trees loom. The water tastes brackish, though we can't see the sea. We split up, hunt; some find huge logs and block the entrances of a couple of shallow caves and a dense redwood ring. Not that well-hidden--just from casual passers-by, not hunters.

I'm distracted by my attraction to a few women in the group. But I don't flirt--what if I created tension or mistrust or jealousy? Survival comes first.

While swimming in the water, I sense a couple of large salamandery things--not with my eyes, with sonar, like a dolphin. Are other group members transformed too? Unsure.

From the salamanders' wariness, I suspect big predators lurk in this swampy water. Cross and get out, soon as I can. Feel safer on land.

Finally we meet the predators atop the local food pyramid: big wheels or toruses that roll on their flattened rims thru the woods, attracted mindlessly to movement and warmth. You have to be well hidden to escape. See them mob a human caught in the open. Not that aggressive--they may just be programmed to approach, not truly predatory. But they're hard and heavy as stone or steel, with spiky sides that can cut you if you can't keep away.

Come across the two girls I'm most attracted to. One's in the woods, one in a clearing below what seems to be a ruined wall. So this world has people--or did! I peer around the wall theatrically, waiting to be greeted and encouraged to join them. Too shy to just walk up--afraid they'll reject me.

The nearer girl sees me but turns back to study the wall, neither friendly nor hostile.

She disappears into the wall!

I run over. A stone recess hides a narrow door. Crack it open, peer in. A locker room? I want to follow her in, feel it's my chance somehow. I do in, though I feel I'm trespassing until I see other boys too--always with a girl, and usually kissing. Is it a bathhouse or spa? A massage parlor, a sex club? Doesn't feel that explicitly erotic, just very free...

I suddenly get tired of feeling shy, and just wander through the warm maze looking for the girl I wanted. But I can't find her anywhere. So...

I just go up to the first girl sitting alone who intrigues me, and say hello. She's beautiful, but looks fragile and melancholy, huddled in a corner alone. Normally I'd stay away, but I walk up, say my name, and gently touch her despite her obvious nervousness. I ignore her reluctance and just hold her...

She relaxes! I kiss her, hug her tight.

Minutes later, we're tightly wrapped together, my hand up her skirt! She's wet and slippery, and I slide my fingers in. My erection's up her dress, though not inside her. Her fingers wrap around me, and we rub and tickle each other till we both come.

Afterward, inexplicably, we both get the giggles...

Then a mutual friend walks up and asks "Did you use contraception?" We blink at him, sticky and blushing. He didn't say condoms but contraception.... and as he says that, I realize that in THIS particular dream world contraception is herbal, and both sexes take the same herbs to block fertility, for double safety. I feel embarrassed, though obviously our petting session had zero risk of pregnancy. I say "No, but we both have herbs for next time."

And as I say that, a tiny rustle in my pocket tells me the herbs are there now.

What I say becomes true! Reality is... responsive.

Wish I'd known that before! All this fear... when it's SAFE for us to explore.

NOTES

• How many OTHER issues can I change just by stating them differently? I blurted this assertion almost by chance. Feels like I had this power all along and just didn't know! Do we all have it? Is the world we see just a compromise, an elastic net tugged at by a billion assertions?
• Men alone are suspect = Today, I caught myself on the street looking away from cute women because I'd SCARE them--just by appreciation! I was raised by a feminist so extreme she was sex-negative and antimale. Habit dies hard.
• Lockers, uncharacteristic sexual assertion = I just saw the TV show Boy Meets World. Shawn dreams he's trapped in a high-school horror movie with a girl named Feffer (Jennifer Love Hewitt). His fear of impending death overrides his inhibitions--he kisses her. She's not scared or repelled at all: reassured in fact.
• Feffer = not wish fulfilment, but the Reality Principle! My mom's extremism is as unreal as a horror movie. The truth is, not everyone fears or resents me(n) taking sexual initiative.
• Contraceptive herbs, equal-opportunity hormonal disruption = my housemate Lily complained of edema today, blamed it on her period, asked Alder and me for herbal diuretics and astringents. But I had the exact same aches Lily described! I assumed it was a cold or flu virus. Lily says "Oh, no, you're just feeling sympathetic pains again. You picked them up from me." Could be true--she's known me years, and says "When your friends get sick, you get symptoms even before you even know they're ill." Oh. Lucky me!

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