Byron wouldn't dare summon Serena to his dream again that night, but does go to the sleep with the strong hope that she might visit him of her own accord. So he is not entirely suprised to find himself in Castle of Dream movie set, where he dreamed of Serena last night. And she is there, waiting for him...

"Serena," he calls, reaching out to touch her shoulder, but she seems to not be there where he thought, now she's under that tree...well, it is a dream, he reminds himself..."Serena," he calls again, approaching her from behind.

She turns to face him, and she is not Serena at all. Byron doesn't know this woman, but at the same time, she seems very familiar. Is this just a regular dream, then? he wonders...or is this something else? "Why would you call me 'Serena'?" the woman asks him. "I'm sorry, I thought you were someone else," Byron explains. She laughs a mysterious & erotic laugh, "I am not the one you were looking for, but I may very well be the 'someone else' you really need." she says, "You can call me Odessa."

This must be a nightmare, Byron realizes. She's like a bad actress, looking for favors. "I don't need anything from you," he says, waving her off as though this were a movie set, and she was an actress.

But she recovers quickly & chuckles at him, husky & sensuous. "You are too smart, Byron, too turn down an opportunity for real greatness," she says, placing a soothing arm around his back. "You have awesome gifts, great powers, which you could use to achieve the magnificence you strive for in your work, if only you knew how. Your friend Serena knows how, but she won't help you. I could be your friend, Byron, and I would show you how..." she says, her voice hissing in his ear. Her hand rubs his back gently, hypnotically, and she moves her lips in close to his neck....and Byron breaks out of her arms & walks away.

She follows him, naturally. "I didn't think you'd be so timid or so foolish, Byron. You've only begun to tap into your true potential, what you learned in Nepal was just a taste," she says, holding her head high, shaking her shoulders at him. Very seductive, he thinks, excellent performance, and he wonders if he's dreaming of an actress he may have worked with, she seems familiar, but he can't place her. "What do you know about what I learned in Nepal?" he asks.

"I know everything about you, Byron," she says with a haughty laugh, "I know how much you need me. Think about what you could do if someone showed you how to use your gifts, someone who doesn't hold you back...You will see me again," she says mysteriously & disappears, like she was never there. And Byron wakes up, wondering if that was just a weird dream, or if that strange woman were somehow real, someone who, like Serena, could enter his dreams...He thinks of the dream, what it might mean, all day as he prepares to start shooting the first scene. He'd like to ask Serena what it might mean, except the woman in his dream accused Serena of holding him back. Serena is very secretive about the esoteric stuff, insisting he can't learn to use his gift if he doesn't use it in service of the goddess. Byron can't accept those terms. This woman, Odessa, said she could teach him what Serena wouldn't...but is she even real?

He meant to call Serena & ask her to come to today's shoot, and he actually believed he did.

NEXT