10/30/2003

I woke up in the Dreaming with my head resting comfortably on someone… He was stroking my hair gently. I knew that smell, that touch, the feel of his skin. I knew it all by heart. I lifted my head and craned my neck to look at him. He smiled down at me, and I shook my head in denial. This wasn’t him. It couldn’t be, yet he and my surroundings were just as real to me as the waking world is real. “You can’t be here,” I said to him. “Who are you?”

He lay a finger across my lips. “Shh,” he said. “Just enjoy this.”

And he made love to me. I won’t record the details here, of course, but suffice to say it was incredible. I have not felt like that in a very long time. He held me afterwards, until both of us drifted off into slumber. I slept there, in the dream world, and when I awoke again, I was facing the window. I saw his car in the driveway and it was the same as his car in the waking world, except that it was red. Someone was in the driver’s seat and they backed up and drove away. I sat up and looked to my side, expecting him to be gone. He sat, naked, at the end of the bed, staring at the floor. After a few minutes had passed, he looked up at me and said, “I’ve got to go now.”

I frowned. “I know.” I replied. I gathered up his clothes from the floor and threw them at him. I was suddenly angry. I stood and began to pace the room. He said nothing, which didn’t surprise me, and finally I fixed a glare on him. “It’s not fair, you know,” I said. “Doing this to me. It’s not fair. Not now when I’m trying to get over you… him…”

“I’m sorry,” was all he said. We locked gazes for a moment, until I sighed and whirled around, storming from the room. I was still naked, but I didn’t care. This was my dream anyway, so why should I care? I left the house just as his car pulled into the driveway again. Someone got out—I assume it was a mutual friend of ours, though I didn’t pay any attention to who it was—and I heard a voice say, “Uhh… you’re not wearing any clothes.”

“Fuck you,” I answered. “I don’t care. I want out of this dream.”

I think the unknown person said something like “what are you talking about?” but I ignored him and kept walking up the street. And then something very strange happened… I heard his voice—my lover’s voice—calling my name. I turned around to see him walking after me, and I was so taken aback that he was coming after me that I stopped with the intention of letting him catch up. But I reminded myself that it was a dream, and even in dream I didn’t want to feel what I feel in the waking world. I shouldn’t have to go through that twice over. Besides, I thought, that proved that it wasn’t really him anyway. He wouldn’t come after me if I stormed off like that. He would just let me go.

So I turned my back to him and left. I left the dream somehow. I’m not sure how I did it, but everything around me changed. I was standing in my Grammy’s kitchen, and she was there—alive—drinking an iced tea just like she used to in life. Nothing happened, neither of us spoke, but she was there and I felt a warm, comforting feeling of love wash over me. I basked in it. I wrapped it around me and held onto it for as long as I could. And then I woke up for real.