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.