Dream Me(24)

Have any of you out there had an experience like this? Where you fall in lust with someone you meet in your dreams? Where that person feels more real and more interesting than anyone you know in your real life? Where that person keeps coming back again and again, night after night, until you feel you know him as well as you know anyone in your waking world? Maybe even better?

Yesterday I met a guy at the tennis club. He’s kind of awesome but I know it’s just his looks. The way he talks and carries himself. His style. With Zat, he’s awesome for sure. And he’s hot too. But he’s also attuned to me. My moods. My insecurities. My passions. And I’m attuned to him in the same way. So much that I can sometimes feel what he’s going to say before he even says it.

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THE DREAM, PART 4 or 5 or SOMETHING LIKE THAT (I’ve lost track) . . .

I run up the stairs of a huge cement building, keeping one hand on an old metal railing that smells like pennies. Each floor has four or five numbered apartments but I know which one I’m looking for so I keep climbing, out of breath, rushing to get there before the door’s locked. I see the number on the door, 758. It’s open just a crack. A beam of sunlight slices through the opening, a golden wedge that penetrates the gloom of the dark building.

I walk through the doorway and step into the room, which opens into a garden beautifully neglected by human hands. A tangle of pansies, snapdragons, daffodils and poppies grow helter skelter between the cracks of an old cobblestone path. The path, I know, will lead me to Zat if I stay on it. But sometimes, when the overgrowth is too thick, I have to bend down and push the grass aside so I can feel my way forward.

When I finally see him, he’s sitting on an old wooden bench. He looks up and smiles.

“You found me quickly this time,” he says.

“I knew where to look.”

I sit near him on the bench. The empty space between us feels as wide as a canyon. Then, once again the sky turns mean and black, and thunder rumbles in the distance. Cold silver pellets of rain fall from the sky, drenching my clothes and I shiver uncontrollably. Zat puts his arm around me and pulls me close. I lean into him, my cheek resting against his chest. I can hear the steady thump of his heartbeat. The steady pounding of waves. My spine tingles. He grazes the top of my head with his lips and my hair stands on end. His hand slides up my ribs until it’s resting lightly on the side of my breast. My breath comes out ragged and my mind’s a blissful mess of mush.

And then a thump on my window wakes me. Dang! A bat with faulty sonar? A prowling burglar? I don’t care. I only want to get back to sleep. Get back to Zat and whatever it was we were about to do.

Don’t move a muscle, Babe, I hear him say in my half-waking state. Don’t get up to pee. Don’t open your eyes.

Then he’s swimming beside me in a calm sea. I felt brand new, weightless, suspended in the warm salty water. This must be what it feels like to be in the womb, to be unborn and to only know sounds and sensations. Are we wearing clothes? I’m not sure. He holds my hand and turns me to face him. Our heads bob above the water while coral-colored minnows dart between my legs and brush up against my bare belly.

“Can I touch your hair?” he asks.

“Of course.”

He squeezes a handful of my hair which is curiously dry even though we’re in the water.

“It’s nice,” he smiles. “It feels . . .”

“Feels?”

“It feels fat.”

“Fat?”

“That’s a good thing, right?”

“Fat? My hair is fat?”

“I’m sorry. I can’t think of a word equal to your hair. This is the one that seems best. Full. Firm. Fat.”

“Okay,” I laugh. “I’ll take it.”

“Are we swimming?”

Until that point I’d forgotten we were in the ocean. I look down and see my legs and his legs, white and wavy beneath the surface. Distorted by the prism of the ocean’s surface.

“We’re treading water.”

“Is that swimming?”

“Sort of. You ask funny questions.”

“I’m a nuisance?”

“No, you’re just different.”

“Is it alright to hold you while we tread water together?” Without waiting for an answer he puts a hand on either side of my waist. We’re unbelievably buoyant, rising above the water from the waist up. I have a moment of relief when I realize I’m wearing a bikini top.

I’m a strong person, more athletic than a lot of guys. So it surprises me to feel delicate in his arms. And for the very first time with a guy, I realize I don’t have to surrender my power to enjoy his.

“I want to be with you always,” I blurt out.

“Why?”

“Now I know what it feels like to belong with someone.”

“You might change,” he said. “It’s still new. Everything’s new.”

“I’ll never change.”

“I’ve known you for a very long time, Babe. Sometimes it seems like I’ve been thinking about you my whole life. But you know nothing about me.”

“Then tell me.”

“I’m afraid you won’t like what you hear.”

“You scare me when you talk like that. Why wouldn’t I like what I hear?”