"'For Your Thoughts'."

Sitting on my couch, Cara read the front of the soft, purple, faux-leather-covered book she'd pulled from the gift bag.

"Aw, you shouldn't have," she said, smiling at me. I could tell it wasn't an entirely genuine smile.

I smiled back. "You only have a birthday once a year."

"Sure, but we've only been together like three weeks, right?"

I shrugged. "There's always time for a gift."

She smiled and turned the little silver key in the small lock, opening the book. "Ooh, there's even a spot for my name, right there on the inside cover."

I nodded. Just a little further.

"I love the paper. Feels nice."

I tried not to show my anticipation as she turned the page.

"Hey," she said in a bit of surprise. "There's something written here."

"Oh, is there? Did I buy you a used diary?"

I hadn't bought her a used diary.

"Yeah, yeah, see, hm..." she held it a little closer, trying to focus. "'I'm a twenty-eight-year-old woman with bright red hair and green eyes.' You didn't write this?"

"I'm not a twenty-eight-year-old woman with bright red hair or green eyes, am I?"

She laughed. "No, true." She looked back at the page. "'I'm pale skinned and freckled, about five and a half feet tall, and in pretty good shape.' Okay, that's weird, if you didn't write it..."

I said nothing. I didn't want to interrupt.

"'I've always been self-conscious about my body, even though I—' hey!" she looked up. "You didn't...?"

"I didn't."

"Then..." She paused a moment. "Then what..."

I shrugged.

I could see her struggling, but she looked back at the page and kept reading. "... 'even though I have decent tits and a cute ass, and only a little extra weight, which given that my job involves sitting around all day talking on the phone isn't all that bad.'"

She was getting red. Flushing. Angry. It didn't help her look any less cute.

"'My small glasses are an essential part of my look. I like how they make me more mature, since I have a child-like face, but secretly I enjoy getting asked for identification at the bar.' Gabe, what is this?"

She didn't look up from the book that time, and her voice was now more curious than it was upset.

"'I've had a share of romances, though my heart is still aching for my university girlfriend. I hope she's happy, but I wish she had been happier with me. Since then, I haven't had a relationship last a year. I'm not sure about this one. Gabe seems nice, but a bit weird. There's definitely a spark, and the sex is good. I'm thinking I'll stick it out a while, probably a few months, before I look for someone more normal.' Oh shit, Gabe? I don't..." Finally she tore her eyes from the book.

I just sat there smiling as she stammered a bit, flushing deeper. "It's alright."

"No really, I can't believe I j-just... um..." She blinked. "I just..." Her eyes drifted away from mine, then snapped back up. "I didn't mean to..." she said feebly, but her head dipped back down. "'Still, there's something mystical about Gabe, something I just can't put my finger on. Something curious and exciting.'"

Well that was flattering, at least. Cara turned the page and kept going.

"'My job sucks. I didn't spend four years studying anthropology to take complaints for a shipping company. I hope I can get away from it, but I'm not sure what else I would do. I guess it's a little bit better than being a housewife and a mother like my mom was. She seemed to be okay with it, but it looked like complete boredom to me. That's why I got the fuck out of the small town as fast as I could. My prospects there were awful. The city's been a whole lot nicer, more people, better friends, good food.' Yeah. Yeah, that..." Her voice was dreamy when it wasn't reading out what was on the page. "That sounds... like me."

"Like your thoughts."

"Like my..." She nodded. Her eyes were glued to the page. Her blush had faded. "'I want a lot of change. I want a better job, a better life, a better future. I want to leave my job. I want a long-term connection. I want a purpose. I want to feel like I'm actually accomplishing something every day.'" She paused for breath. "'I don't think that Gabe can give me that...' s-sorry...  '...but until the opportunity comes up, I'll hang around.'"

I smirked. There was a pause there, but she'd hardly moved. Her voice was light and animated when she was reading, and dull and flat when she tried to speak on her own.

"'I'm definitely not in love,'"—no surprises there, it had only been three weeks—"'but I think maybe I could be, in the future, if I can ever get over Sierra. I've wondered if Gabe is the one, but everything about the relationship is new, and I'm not jumping in too deep.'"

I fought to keep a chuckle down. I wasn't about to distract her. I was probably more 'the one' than she suspected.

"'Today is my birthday. Gabe brought me a cute little diary. I wasn't expecting anything, but really it's a little disappointing all the same. Getting nothing would have been better, probably.'"

She didn't even attempt to apologize for that. I was a little hurt, I'd put a lot of thought into the gift.

But then, she was putting a lot of thought into it, too.

"'Now the book is full of words and I feel strange reading them. I can't seem to stop. What I read, and what I say, seems to get stuck in the book. My thoughts are being kept safe in the book. That seems strange, and maybe a little scary, but my reasons for finding it strange and scary are getting stuck in the book, and now all I want to do is keep reading the book.' I... uh..."

The switch between the lively reading tone and the almost-asleep improvisation was impressive. And arousing. I shifted in my seat involuntarily.

She seemed to be trying to fight the book. Her words were slowing down, like she was struggling to read. More likely, she was struggling not to. "'Reading the book is turning me on. I don't know how, or why. I know it doesn't matter how or why, and that when I try to think about how or why those thoughts are in the book. Thoughts are safe in the book. I know that thoughts are safe in the book. When I think about why I know that my thoughts are safe in the book, all I know is that those thoughts are safe in the book. I'm getting more and more aroused by reading, especially knowing that Gabe is right there listening to me. Gabe must have given me the book as a trap. Gabe must have known what was in the book. But those thoughts are in the book. Thoughts are safe in the book. I don't have to think the thoughts that are in the book. That's why they're in the book.'"

It was always hot when they got to that part. I had to fight my own arousal, but I knew better than to rush things. Experience is a wonderful teacher.

Cara turned the page almost mechanically, her voice now free of the hesitation it had just held. "The book is for my thoughts. Anything in the book is something I don't have to think. All my worries go in the book. All my concerns go in the book. All my ideas and impulses are in the book. I don't have to think. The book is for my thoughts. All my thoughts are in the book. Reading the book knowing that Gabe is listening is making it harder for me to think. Reading the book is making it harder for me to resist. Reading the book makes me want to give the book to Gabe, give all my thoughts to Gabe, give everything to Gabe. I want to give everything to Gabe.

"'Gabe gave me the book. The book is for my thoughts. Gabe must have known what was in the book. That thought is in the book. Anything in the book is something I don't have to think. The book is for my thoughts. Gabe wants to see me read. Gabe wants to hear me read. Gabe wants me. Gabe wants my body. Gabe wants my mind. Gabe wants my love. I will give those things to Gabe.'"

There was hesitation. It was normal. She was processing how she wanted to express that. I'd seen a few people make a few different and interesting choices. It was the only suspense I'd felt for a while.

Cara put the book down, leaving it open on the coffee table, and stood up. The buttons of her blouse came undone with swift precision, and it fell on the couch. Her blush had returned. Her bra was next to fall, revealing her 'decent' (more than decent, in my estimation) tits. She looked over at me, turning slightly so that I could appreciate the view from the front, and I did, definitely.

She wasn't gone. Cara was still in there. The personality that I admired was there. It's just the thoughts that were... well, not gone, they were there. In the book.

The book that I could alter however I liked, at that point.

Her jeans were unbuttoned, and in one motion, jeans, panties, and socks came off.

It was getting very difficult to resist my own urges, but I knew better. I could see the struggle still there, as she sat back down, back straight, and her eyes fell back on the text.

"'Gabe wasn't always my owner.'"

Oh, that was new. I hadn't written that for anyone before. But if she was putting it in the book, it was something she was thinking—or had been—but also it might well have meant that the other part, the inverse of that, that I was now her owner, was something that she didn't need to think. It was something that she felt.

"'Gabe wasn't always my focus. Gabe wasn't always my love.'"

Cara moved quickly. My mouth ran dry. My hands shook. I could hardly keep my seat.

"'Gabe gave me the book to take control of me. The book is the best gift I could have ever got. The book is for my thoughts. All my thoughts are in the book. The book is mine. Gabe writes in the book. The book holds my thoughts.'"

She reached out and closed the book, then paused, opened it to the front page. She stood and moved purposefully to the kitchen. Curious, I watched. This, too, was unique behaviour.

I kept a paper pad and a small jar of pens on the edge of the counter. She grabbed one of the pens, walked back to the couch, sat, and immediately put that pen to the book with a large flourish. She held it up for me to see.

She had signed her name in the blank space waiting for it.

"'I am Cara O'Brien,'" she said. She closed the book, locked it with the little silver key, and placed it beside the book.

"Who are you?" I asked, only barely keeping my voice from shaking.

Her head turned slightly to see who had addressed her. "I am yours."

I stood. She stood. "Who are you?" I asked again.

"I am yours." Her tone was exactly the same as the first time I'd asked, the same excited and energized tone she'd been using when she was reading her thoughts into the book.

She was stunning. She was always stunning, much more than she thought she was, but with that thousand-mile stare it was all I could do not to shove her down onto the couch and fuck her right there.

Instead, I walked over, picking up the book and the key. The cubby over the television has a little glass jam jar with a handful of small silver keys. I opened the cubby and put the key from Cara's diary in the jar. A bookshelf held a half-dozen other diaries of a variety of shapes and sizes, and I put Cara's on that shelf along with the others.

The others. She would enjoy meeting them.

I looked at her. She looked at me.

"Here's how this works now," I said. Subtly, her back straightened and her gaze focused. "When we're not together, your thoughts is yours. You live your life normally. But when I'm around, when I'm talking to you, when it's just us..." I left the statement hanging.

"I am yours," she replied.

I nodded. I smiled. It was done. She wanted change, a long term relationship, a purpose. She was about to have them.

I pulled my shirt over my head and tossed it on the small pile of clothes on the couch. "Let's head to the bedroom."

Her smile widened. "I am yours."

And she was, so very much.