#10

In the dream the girl was draped across the bed like a discarded dress, as if she had been lying there for hours. As if she’d come over to waste the afternoon getting high with me, and now the sun had gone down and neither of us had shifted or spoken since she put the record on, and the record had ended a long time ago, the sound now coming through the speakers the palpable sound of nothing happening, of the vinyl rotating thirty-three times a minute, not a recording of a band now but simply a thing rotating, and the two us simply things, too, warm and breathing but completely void inside. The scene had that kind of feel, that kind of heaviness. But nothing had actually happened before this moment, because there was no before. This was the first moment of all.
Then the next moment happened: she sat up. She said something like:
–I’m paying you this visit to reassure you.
–You mean that we’re going to be together?
–Right. I am yours, you are mine. From now on. There’s no getting around it.
–I’m ok with that.
–I had to come here to tell you because I can’t say it when we’re awake. But the next time we see each other our eyes will meet, and we will both remember this conversation.
–Isn’t this exactly like that Miranda July story?
–Yes, but this is better because it’s actually happening.
–But this is a dream.
–Right, but it’s a real dream.
Then she took off her pants and rolled around on the bed like a girl in a commercial for one of those late-night singles hotlines. She was wearing white cotton panties. She made eyes at me and struck provocative, over-the-top poses. She made horrible faces and stuck out her tongue. I knew the only reason she was vamping like this was because she had the opportunity to, because it was the sort of performance that can only occur in the dreams of dumb, infatuated boys, and I felt embarrassed. At the same time, it was kind of hot. I tried to stand up and join her on the bed, but I couldn’t; I didn’t seem to exist physically. Then I was being tugged away, up towards the morning, and she waved like a woman waving from the deck of a departing cruise ship, and I knew that it really was just a dream, that telepathy is physically impossible, even for lovers, and then that moment ended, too, and I was awake.