Nancy must have dozed off reading her novel. It was a great book, filled with swordfights and werewolves and vampires and sardonic prose, but it must not have done enough to engage her because here she was, sound asleep on the couch. It was strange--she didn't remember feeling tired at all, not even a little bit. There weren't any moments where her attention wandered or her eyes closed and had trouble opening again or any of the things that usually happened when she nodded off in the middle of a rainy Sunday afternoon. But the evidence was incontrovertible. She was dreaming, ergo she was sleeping. QED.
It was the same dream she always had, practically the only dream she remembered anymore. The details changed here and there, but it always began the same way--she'd hear the doorknob rattle, and she'd suddenly realize that she forgot to lock it. Even if it was a room that didn't have a lock on the door, like her bedroom, or one that she knew for a fact was locked (Nancy had a very clear memory of sliding the deadbolt the second she got home) she always had that moment of terrified awareness that whoever it was, they could walk right in and she couldn't stop them. She would stare in horror at the twisting handle, wondering who was outside and what they would do when they came in.
It wasn't always the same person. Sometimes, it was her landlord. Sometimes, it was her neighbor from two apartments down, the one she always bumped into when she went to get her mail and who kept making awkward attempts to ask her out on a date. Sometimes it was a complete stranger. But they always came in and they always said the same thing. "Nancy, you're dreaming again." And just like that, she realized that it was true. The momentary rush of panicked adrenaline melted into smooth, comfortable relaxation as she remembered that this was just another dream, that she must have fallen asleep without realizing it and had that dream where she thought she was awake again.
It was so comforting, that wonderful flash of insight that swept through her when she heard those words from whichever stranger decided to visit her in her dreams. It was like falling asleep all over again, her muscles suddenly melting like warm butter into loose, liquid relaxation as she sagged onto the couch or the bed or sometimes just slumped to the floor in a drowsy faint. All that fear went away in an instant, replaced by sleepy, warm peace and pleasure that filled her tired brain and felt all the more better for its contrast against the bewildered dread she'd been experiencing just moments ago. Nancy was dreaming again. It was all just a dream. She was sound asleep and she could relax and let events unfold without any worry at all.
Today, it was her landlord sitting down next to her on the couch, gently helping her into an upright position so that she could reach down and languorously pull her shirt up and over her head to reveal her smooth pale skin. Nancy almost wanted to apologize for her pooched belly and pasty complexion, but then she remembered that all this was nothing but a dream. She didn't have to be ashamed of her body in dreams. She could feel wanted, desired, even lusted over. She could enjoy the hunger in her landlord's gaze, the excitement in his warm, trembling fingers as he undid her bra and cupped her heavy breasts in his hands. She could relax into the hot, tingling pleasure of his thumbs flicking her stiff nipples and dream the day away.
"That's it," he murmured softly, his voice a husky growl in her ears. "Deeper and deeper into peaceful sleep for me now." It reminded Nancy of the first time she had this dream, a few years ago when she first moved into the apartment. That was the weirdest one, the one that still came back to her sometimes when she was daydreaming on the bus or distracted at work or simply lost in thought in her own comfortable bed. The dream where he hypnotized her.
She didn't remember the door part in that particular iteration of the dream. Maybe it happened and she was just too sound asleep to remember it. Nancy rarely remembered any of the dreams that didn't involve home intrusions by her neighbors. She only knew that when her eyelids fluttered open, awakened by the sound of a low, breathy voice in her ears murmuring soft, comforting words, she found her landlord standing by her bed with a crystal pendant swaying from the end of a silver chain. And before her drowsy, confused mind could even process what was happening, he said, "Let your eyes follow that pretty, shiny gem for me, Nancy. Watch it as it sways back and forth, lulling that drowsy, sleepy mind right back down into dreamland for me."
