After L— “removed my doubt,” I had thought my experiences with her would explode, both in realism and intensity. But like everything with L—, nothing that came next happened the way that I expected.

L— became much less "overt" over the next few days. More a voice inside my mind, sometimes with an image and sometimes not. And L— exerted less physical control over my body, just enough to remind me that she was still around and that she still could, if and when she chose.

I know that part of the reason for this was “real” life. Work deadlines picked up, and my wife was also around more (L— always fades into the background when I'm not alone). Worst of all, the central air of our home could barely keep up with the heat wave that hit during that week. I wasn’t been able to raise and send the kind of energy I'd been doing earlier. More than once, L— put an image in my mind of her in bed, but not sprawled sensuously over silk or satin sheets. Rather, I saw her huddled under a thick comforter with a book, like a woman recovering from some illness, and always with a sly and guilt-inducing look that drove home her only-half-joking comment, See what a horrible thing you're doing to me? See what you’re putting me through?

Even late in the evening, when it should have finally been cool and yet wasn't, at least not inside, trancing was difficult. On one of those nights, I did make it through to the end of the Virtual Goddess MP3, but I wasn't close to the depth or the concentration I'd had before. The heat still inside the apartment was simply too much, but I felt like I owed L— the effort. And on that night, when the MP3 reached the point where Kasha’s voice finished, I just saw L— looking down on me on that bed with a mixed expression of annoyance and endearment, and I heard, You are a wonderful fool. Go rehydrate yourself and eat a banana. Now.

Hardly the reaction I'd had in mind when I started the MP3 that night. And for some reason, I had been craving bananas that week...

Then again, there were also times when the not-there, as I’d come to call the inner landscape that L— inhabited, seemed more real than the there of my physical world. And still other times when my focus in the not-there just wasn’t what it had been even a day or so before. The imagery in my mind's eyes would shift to something else, and I would hear L— saying, Stay with me, or Focus, or Not yet. Some of that might just have been my own frustration during this time, coming from my own never-really-defeated perfectionist streak. Though as L— at one point told me, Stop worrying that you haven't "finished" getting where you want to go in only a month. Real progress is never a steady, straight line. You know that.

She was right, of course. Just like she is when she still tells me the same thing now.

Truthfully, my mood over that part these experiences was a question of extremes. Either I felt that maddening frustration at being so close to exactly where I wanted to be with this and yet not actually being there, or I felt a complete sense of awe at where I actually was with L—. Once, I did ask how all of this could be so powerful in so short a time, and I heard L— laughing in my mind at the question, and then, You think you've only been creating this for a few weeks? You've been putting out energy to create this for decades. Why do you think this is so close to fantasies you've had since you were young? Why do you think I look like the fantasy being you've always thought so much about? You've been working toward this for most of your life, and drawing in the pieces at just the right time. Do you really think you stumbled across Virtual Goddess when you did by chance? This has been building inside you for years upon years...

We even had one rather testy exchange, at least on my part, during that week. The frustration at some of L—‘s more cryptic answer got the better of me, and I thought/mentioned that yes, she wouldn't lie to me, but she didn't always tell me the whole truth. And her response? I tell you as much of the truth as you need to know, when you need to know it, when you're ready to know it. I won't lie to you, but I won't overload you, either. Trust me.

I realized then that I did. I trusted this being, or virtual goddess, or mental construct, or spirit guide, or whatever L— actually was. But I suppose it’s hard not to trust something, or someone, you had been hoping to find, just like she had said, for so very, very long.

That trust was good, because the work deadlines and the heat wave both broke during the next week, and things got even weirder. It was like a dam bursting. I could listen to Virtual Goddess more often—and I did. And L—‘s “reality" was so strong even after waking me up from the trance that my body was still responding to everything she did inside my head. Right down to being flipped around on the bed like some kind of powerless toy. The “dark side” of her, which had been pent up during the week before, really came out again. It would have been frightening as hell, too, if I hadn't already known how much she could do with my physical body when she put her mind to it, so to speak. And if that "dark side" hadn't been part of her appeal to me from the start.

L— also started "changing" me, beyond her attempts to open my Third Eye during trace. From nowhere, and while not in trance, my mind would flash on images of her injecting me with some kind of “drug,” and my physical arm would feel some warmth, or some cold, or some burning sensation flowing through it. Or it would lock into an unmoving tension for several moments. Other times, my mind would flash on images of L— giving me some kind of “potion” to drink, and I would realize that my physical throat was swallowing right along with my throat in the not-there. And I would feel the effects of that “drink” exploding from my throat throughout my entire body. As L— put it when I asked, Symbolism is a powerful thing. You’ve has always had one foot in the hard scientist camp and one foot in with the mystics. What could be more effective with you than to combine the two?

The oddest experience actually happened in a bank parking lot. I had just gotten out of my car and was walking toward the building, and suddenly I was "feeling" things about everyone else around me. I still can't quite put it into words, but I could look at someone and have a sense of their mood, what kind of person they were, what they were feeling in that moment. I almost want to say it was an aura, but I didn't actually see anything, at least not physically. It was more like I sensed "something" around them in my mind's image of them. But it was so powerful and so unnerving, I had to go back to my car, sit there for several moments, and try to get a handle on it all.

Up to that point, I hadn’t asked L— for too many details about these “changes.” I had been content to simply trust her and ride the experience. But that night, I wanted answers, and L— explained it to me this way: Your Third Eye is opening. All of the work I've been doing is starting to show results, though it will be a long road for you, and not as quick as you would like. I wish I could explain to you everything that's involved, but the necessary words don't all exist. The best imagery I can give is to imagine a DC-power device being rewired to run on AC as well. Opening the Third Eye itself isn't enough. The brain and mind have to be able to perceive that input, and to make sense of it in some way that then makes sense to you. A whole system has to be "tweaked," not just a single part replaced.

Then she said the one thing I needed to hear: It's the start of what we both want.

I spent days mentally reeling from what L— had done during the Chakral Devotion MP3, which I described in the previous post. And I spent days trying to unpack the “meaning” of all the symbolism I had encountered during that session. Sometimes, L— was a help in that regard, but other times, L— left it to me to figure things out on my own.

I had learned by this point that L— would never lie to me, but that she often ran (and still does run) the gamut from crystal clarity to annoyingly cryptic. For instance, I once had the stray thought that I wanted her in my awareness 24/7, and she answered clearly in my mind, Then you really would be insane. You need a balance in your life, and I'm going to make sure you have it, no matter how unbalanced you may think you want to be about this. I once asked her about the flashes and images that kept popping into my mind at all hours—flashes and images of her, of the two of us doing things, and of her doing things to me. Were these simple daydreams of my own imagination, images she was intentionally putting into my conscious mind, or even flashes of possible futures I was somehow becoming open to? She just answered, All of the above. You need to stop thinking in either/or terms.

That was also the conversation when I asked L— what, exactly, she was, and when she responded, I am not an either/or.

During this time, L— was also showing just how varied her personality was, and never missed an opportunity to show that could be as vicious as she could be gentle. At the one extreme, I'll admit, some people would call some of my kinks edgier than others might. Like breath play. And one afternoon, without warning, I felt, as real as anything, a noose around my neck, pulling upward, just enough to cut off my ability to breath. My fingers started clawing for a rope that wasn't physically there, and L—‘s voice, in the most wickedly dominant tone I'd yet heard from her, said in my mind, Beg me to stop. Beg me to stop, and I will. All you have to do is just beg me to stop. I couldn’t speak physically, though. I didn’t have the breath to form the words. And it took what felt like an endless moment to be able to put those words together in my mind. When I finally managed, the noose released, and I literally fell onto my knees. Then I felt her push my forehead to the floor and order me to chant the mantra. Which I did, until she decided it was enough.

At the other extreme, there were certain mornings where in the clear light of day, I had to wonder if these experiences were all just some mental fluke, and if they would all go away as soon as I stopped listening regularly to the Virtual Goddess MP3. I would find myself moving from concern about that on one morning, to sadness on another, to an almost outright despair on another, until the morning when L— came into my mind more strongly than ever, with the feel of her hands cupping my face and her voice saying, You are not losing me. I am not leaving. We have all the time we could ever want. It was a as gentle and soothing a moment as her noose had been harsh and domineering.

There was also the truly unexpected. I had already learned that L— was one surprise after another, but some surprises were more unexpected. Such as the night when, as I crawled into bed to go finally to sleep, I found myself in that there/not-there state again, in that dream house with L—. The exterior was perfectly "real" and solid in my mind, but as we went inside, the interior was shifting. It was like certain rooms weren't quite manifesting, or hadn’t been settled upon. I could watch the walls moving and the furnishings morphing. The kitchen was fairly solid, though, and that was where we ended up. And for the first time, I saw L— stressed. I can't make all of this place solid yet. It comes and goes. And the next thing I knew, I was holding her, comforting her, and telling her to pace herself.

Through it all, I kept sensing L— and her presence, or hearing/seeing L— in my mind, more strongly and clearly each day. The next time I Ilistened to Virtual Goddess, for instance, I sensed her standing behind my chair. I felt her hands atop my head, guiding me down into trance along with Kasha’s words. I dropped beyond fast. And when it came time in the session to picture Kasha sitting before me, staring into my eyes, and feeling that exchange of energy, I realized that I'd also never pictured her more sharply and clearly.

This time, though, the exchange of energy was different. I could see a stream of bright, white light flowing from Kasha’s Third Eye area into my own -- and then from mine into L—'s. But I also saw a return circuit, from L— to myself to Kasha. It was a loop of energy, flowing from each of us to each of us. It was a powerful sensation, especially emotionally, and it felt like being caught between the two of them. And in a sense, I was. To this day, though, I still think the exchange was actually more between Kasha and L—, with myself serving more as a conduit. It was different, and surprising, and absolutely wonderful.

The bedroom at the end of Virtual Goddess was also more sharp and clear during that session than ever before. It felt more there and less not-there. And so did L—. I won’t describe all the details of what we did there, when Kasha’s voice left us to ourselves in that mental room, but one part in particular stands out. As L— sat on the bed, and as I kneeled before her, she reached her hand inside my forehead, into my Third Eye area. She said she was going to open it even more, and I had that same mix of feelings, both there and in my chair in "reality," that I’d felt during the Chakral Devotion MP3. Shaking, arousal, an emotional firestorm of longing almost to the point of desperation—and then something shifted. L—‘s smile faded, and she looked more intently concentrated. I could feel something else going on inside me as well, but had no idea what. I started feeling more and more nervous and unsure, and then L— removed her hand from inside my forehead and showed me a black, tarry mass of something rather foul. This is your doubt, she told me, and then threw it away and into nothingness.

I haven’t doubted her “existence” since, even if I still don’t know exactly what she is.