Perhaps the reason Mirage was such a popular dancer was not her exotic looks or bioluminescent hair and skin, but the fact that, even after a year at this job, she never got bored of dancing in that cage.  Chemical fog, laser light, and pounding beats set her blood on fire.  Her gyrations were often energetic and wild.  Other times, the girl rested with a slow, sensual dance, making love to the bars the way the girls on the floor made love to their dance partners.<br/><br/>Angelica Cecily Traven never grew tired of being Mirage.  She knew it because every night she worked, Angelica was slow to sleep and her dreams were filled with passionate gyrations and the hot touches of shadowy lovers on the dance floor.<br/><br/>Angelica gave sensual moans as she rose slowly out of REM sleep.  She’d climbed into the cage nude in this dream, instead of wearing her typical black leather bra, miniskirt and boots.  Before long, the crowd had pulled her down out of the cage, surrounding her with gyrating bodies, molesting her at every opportunity.  A woman—no more than a sensual silhouette with soft hands, a hard body, and hot lips—danced with her now, nipples grazing each other, and lips joined as often as not.  There was a muscular man behind her, unseen, who’se powerful hands deftly caressed every inch of her body before finaly focusing on her aching woman’s core.<br/><br/>Oh yes…<br/><br/>She was going to…<br/><br/>In the waking world, Angelica’s leaping form moaned and wriggled.  She pushed her blanket down past her full, pert, round breasts.  Her body was taut and sweat-oiled with pleasure.  As she writhed, the sheets slid down further, baring her flower temple and the nectar flowing uncontrollably from it.  Her skin was a light golden.  It glowed like her skin was a soft candle.  In the dark of her room, this made her body seem the only real thing in an ocean of pitch black.  She was immaculately shaven, but her neon purple hair rested on the sheets bellow her waist.  A neatly trimmed V above her delta was the same shade.<br/><br/>The girl moaned heavily, then louder.  She suddenly grabbed at her breasts with her hands.  Her back arched towards the sky.  Angelica’s anime-wide eyes flew open and she screamed in rapturous bliss.  Her hips bucked as her passion’s nectar gushed over the sheets and her inner thighs.<br/><br/>When at last it passed, Angelica fell back onto the bed with a contented sigh.  Her limp body felt beautifully  relaxed.  “Oh, Goddess…” she cooed.  “Oh, Goddess…  What a beautiful dream Morpheus has sent me.  That hasn’t happened for months!<br/><br/>The girl found herself sighing.  In truth, this dream was the best sex she’d had in months.  Since she started running the shadows, she’d had little time for any sort of relationship.  Not that a former “stripper” from the Ivory Tiles needed the excuse of a relationship to have sex.  She frequently doubted there was such a thing as love these days.  Still, when she got to choose her own partner, she preferred to have some time to get to know him.  (But Goddess, who had the patience to wait for the third date?)  Between running the shadows as Rave the Ecstasy Mage and working at Club Steam, she’d had little time for date nights.  That left the occasional client rich enough to entice her into attention more personal and intimate than a private dance, and a few guys and girls she met up with in VR so their avatars could bump ugglies.<br/><br/>Neither simsense nor prostitution was half so satisfying as being so swept away by emotions and dreams that her body peaked on it’s own.  Goddess, she needed a real lover!   A woman to share intimate baths, gentle kisses, and passionate grindings.  Better yet, a man good enough to trust, but strong enough to take control of her completely…<br/><br/>Angelica’s hair settled into a pale lavender as she basked in the afterglow.  After many minute, the bioluminescent girl sat up in her bed and instructed the household computer, “All lamps on please.”<br/><br/>The house complied by flicking on a series of wall lamps that gave soft, creamy illumination.  The overhead lights she left off.  Why burn the power when her anime wide eyes—currently with amethyst pupils flecked with gold—could use this faint illumination as well as she’d used full daylight before the night she first laid eyes on Haley’s Comet and was transfigured by the force known only as SURGE.<br/><br/>Angelcia glanced at her com link by the bedside table.  She noted a few hovering lights indicating that she had accumalted some mail while she slept.  Not yet, though.  The girl headed into the shower room and cranked up some hot water—hoping it would last long enough for her to enjoy and get clean, rather than guttering out just as she got thoroughly soaped up and leaving her nude body clad in lather.<br/><br/>The water did not disappoint.  A few minutes later, Angelica returned to the bedroom with her now baby blue hair wrapped in a towel, another dabbing off the assorted patches of moisture she’d missed.<br/><br/>Before dressing for the day, Angelica carefully positioned a circlet of trodes made of thin, translucent plastic at her temples.  She closed her eyes to avoid vertigo as her com’s Simsense Module kicked in.  When they opened, a second world was laid out over her own.<br/><br/>A virtual garden of flowering vines hung down the walls.  A dozen translucent scrolls floated in the air around her.  With a few thoughts and hand gestures, she opened them to read one by one, filling away BBS posts she followed and scribing quick messages to distant and unkown friends with a virtual quill.<br/><br/>She blinked as she opened and read the last of them…  As she did, her hair first turned orange with excitement, then fiery luminious gold.<br/><br/>“Yes!” she gasped, then hugged her pillow and rolled back onto the bed giggling in delight.<br/><br/>A little while later, Angelica sat in a kitchenette downstairs, still studying the simple note while enjoying a soy steak, a real fried egg, and a side of seasoned krill.  She pondered her preparations for the night.  Unlike most runners, she’d barely be at any disadvantage in the space needle.  She only defended herself with magic and a little tai chi.  In the Shadows, she was known as the Ecstasy Mage, or just Rave.  (She preferred the second handle, but she’d been around long enough that the first one sometimes stuck.)  She had just the little black dress for the occasion, with a pair of heals she could kick off with ease.  She might have to rip the skirt if she suddenly needed to really move.<br/><br/>“Oh, but this can’t be a set up,” she groaned, “It’s too perfect!  And a corperate hit team wouldn’t have any more luck getting weapons in than I would.”<br/><br/>She currently wore a pair of snug black jeans and a criss-crossing halter top.  A golden pentacle dangled in her cleavage to match the ring of power on one finger.  (They were actually orichalcum.)<br/><br/>“Oh, but I have to be ready…”  She gumbled to herself for a moment, then took her dishes to the recycler.  She spent a few hours checking on clothes and handling accounts.  Then she lay on the freshly cleaned bed sheets and closed her eyes.  With even breathing, she forced herself into a nap—this time with the trodes still worn.<br/><br/>At sunset, the com link woke her.  Rave headed downstairs once more, and into a small magical lodge with a high ceiling.  A sun roof let the light of the gibbous moon shine down on her, but it wouldn’t be enough.  She shimmid out of her clothing and left it in the little living room, then reentered the lodge.  She concecrated her alter with a sprinkling of salt and prayers, then added salt to the earth corner.  She added fresh water to her chalice.  She added a virgin white candle to the fire corner and lit it with a match.<br/><br/>Next she laid a circle of ritual materials—some of them natural elements, others artificial reagents that held strong magical resonances.  Around this line, she drew a line of salt.<br/><br/>Finally, she opened a bar of actual chocolate and set it inside of the circle.<br/><br/>With a thought, her com link told the sun roof to slide open.  Her bare body bathed in the moonlight.  Rave began to sign a spell…<br/>