Fantasia Pt 04

"You look a bit out of it tonight, buddy," Eric says to me.

"I'm sorry, what did you say?" I ask him, although I think I heard.

"Did your fantasy chick dump you or something? You are not yourself at all," he says, rephrasing his earlier comment.

"Or something," I say.

Eric and I have a beer every Friday after work. But I am still shell shocked from Nina saying goodbye to me almost forty eight hours ago. She promised me that we would be together, but my rational side has a hard time accepting that. She was some sort of magical hallucination, but a powerful enough one to have effects on the real world. More than just my moodiness, I mean.

"Do you want to tell me what the something is?"

"I cannot go back to her again. Charles told me I cannot even go back to Fantasia. Not unless I need it again. Nina told me she was coming to my world. And she said goodbye with the exact same words Amy used as she died. And Charles wished good luck to the three of us."

"He wants you, me and Nina to have a threesome? Would you be up for that?"

"It's not all about you, nitwit. He meant Nina, Alexander, and me. I least I think he did."

"Who is Alexander?"

"Our son. I could feel him moving in her belly this time. I want to raise him so badly. At least as much as I want to be with Nina."

"My apologies for turning you on to that place. I think you are more screwed up now than you were when you first went. At least then you were only mourning your real flesh and blood wife. Now, you are still mourning her, plus a chick who doesn't exist and a son who wasn't even born yet, in a fantasy."

"It's weird. I am very torn right now but I think I will be better no matter how this works out. Part of me firmly believes that she will come into this world. Somehow, I just don't know how. Of course, I don't really know how I could get into her world either.

"Another part of me says that this is all some weird hallucination. But there are real world manifestations of the hallucinations, which means that can't quite be right either. Probably the simplest explanation is that it is all real magic, which means Nina will be here. But that can't be right."

"You really have twisted yourself around into a knot, haven't you. You should have just chosen the cheerleaders and avoided all this mess."

I shake my head at him. I am amazed that we are still such good friends.

"Endless meaningless fucks with beautiful women are not the meaning of life you know," I lecture him, "Nor are they the solution to many problems."

"It should be and it could be if people would give it a try."

We laugh together and have another sip of our beers.

"Why does Lily put up with you?"

"Because she knows I won't actually cheat on her."

"And with your attitude, how can she be so sure?"

"Because she knows I know she would cut off my balls in the middle of the night if I did."

I laugh again and drain my beer.

"See you Monday evening for tennis," I say.

"Seriously, bro, are you going to be okay this weekend?"

"I'm a little dazed, but I will be fine. I survived the last two days of work with about a quarter of a brain. I can make it through the weekend. I will text you if I have a crisis or something. Don't worry."

I make it through the night and the next morning alone at home, but I decide I need to see some other humanity and go to the local deli for lunch. I am still in a daze as I stand in line to order my sandwich, when I look at the people in line.

She is here. Nina is here. Standing two people in front of me. She is almost a month further along in the pregnancy than Nina was three days ago, but I already know time is weird between the worlds.

I step out of line and walk up to her and call "Nina!"

She turns to look at me, and says, "Excuse me? What did you call me?"

She looks at me and suddenly stops, a little shaken.

"I called you Nina. I have someone I am very close to named Nina who looks exactly like you. And is just about as far along as you are."

"Well my name is Paulina. So close, but no cigar. Have we ever met? Have you ever been to Houston?"

"I have never even been to Texas," I say.

"Well I have only been here for a week, so I guess not."

She turns away from me.

But I can't let her go this easily. I say, "I am sorry to bother you, but this is freaking me out a little bit. Do you know if it's a boy or a girl yet?"

"I just found out yesterday, it's a boy."

"Have you picked a name yet?"

"Yeah, I just decided standing in line here to name him for my fa-"

"Don't tell me, Alexander, right?"

"How did you know that? How could you possibly know that?"

"That was the name of Nina's baby she was expecting. I don't want to seem like I am creeping on you or something, but can I have lunch with you?"

"I guess so. It's a public place. But I have to say, this is the weirdest pickup schtick I have heard of."

We order our sandwiches and then grab a table together. I am noticing a perfume she is wearing. It smells like Miralea. This has to be her.

"Are you really serious about this Nina thing or is this all a big put on?"

"I can prove it to some extent."

I pull out my phone and call Eric.

What's up, bro?

"I have you on speaker phone and I have someone here with me that needs to hear your answers. Just answer my questions honestly. What is the name of the woman I have been talking about this week."

Um, something a little weird. Oh Nina, that was it. Like Nina Simone.

"And do you remember what I told you she had named her unborn baby?"

That one is easy. Alexander. That was my grandfather's name.

I pick up the phone and pull it off speaker.

"Thanks for helping me out, buddy."

Is that her?

"Yes. See you Monday."

I put the phone back in my pocket.

"So you think I really am Nina. Am I supposed to be lying to you?"

"No, the last time I saw Nina, she said we would meet again, but she would not remember. I could try to explain more, but you would never believe me. Can I ask you one more weird question? What is the scent you are wearing? It is a scent I strongly know because I associate it with Nina."

"It is from a boutique perfume designer made just for me. I guess she could have done it twice. Do you know who your Nina got her perfume from."

"I will tell you what. I will write down where I think she got it from and then you tell me about your designer and we will see how they match."

I write down a few words on my napkin and turn it over and then Paulina starts talking again.

"My designer's name is Myra Lee. The base is her fragrance called Fantasia. For my scent, I added wisteria and cherry blossom."

I turn my napkin over:

Miralea

Fantasia

Wisteria Lane

"I have to admit, this is getting a bit weird to me, too."

"Can I ask you one more very personal question?"

"As weird as this is going, I don't feel like I can say no. What is it?"

"I notice you are not wearing a wedding ring. What happened to the father?"

She blushes and looks around. "Now I am the one who can't really explain. I don't know who the father is. But not the way that that sounds. Maybe this is why I am willing to listen to how weird your story is.

"I know the night it happened. February twelfth. I was home alone in bed."

I gulp. "Did you say February twelfth?"

"Yes, is that important to you?"

"That was the day my wife died."

"Nina?"

"No, my wife was Amy. She died from cancer that night as I was holding her hand in the hospital."

My eyes are tearing up.

"I am sorry."

I wipe the tears out of my eyes and say, "Please continue. I need to hear your story. What happened to you that night?"

"Promise you won't laugh?"

I nod.

"Somehow, I think you might understand. In my heart, I believe I was impregnated in my dream. I had a very vivid dream, unlike any I ever had before. I was in a meadow with a creek beside me. I was sitting under a cherry tree. A man magically appeared and I somehow knew I was destined to be with him. We spent the day making love. When I woke up, I had clearly had sex over night -- a woman can feel that, you know -- and I knew I was pregnant. I have no idea how I knew, but I did.

"My rational thought was that I had been drugged and raped overnight. But it did not seem possible. The door was still locked. The windows were shut. There was no way for anyone to get in or out. I have never believed in astral projection or anything wu-wu like that, but that is what it feels like to me.

"The weirdest thing right now is that you look like him."

"Somehow, I think I am him. Just as somehow you are my Nina. I think maybe you will believe my story about Nina, after all. But I have to ask you a few more questions to see if this all lines up. And just to prove that something weird is happening with us. I am going to write something down again."

I scribble on the napkin some more and turn it over.

I ask, "Have you had any more dreams like that first one?"

"Yes, twice. Once about two and a half months after the first one. The last one was about three weeks ago, the day before my company told me I was being transferred here."

"Did you find anything after those dreams?"

She looks at me oddly and then says, "The morning after the second dream, I found a white button, probably from a shirt. And a pair of men's black socks after the most recent dream."

"Was there a food involved in any of the dreams?"

Now she is looking really uneasy. "Honey in the second dream. Cherries and something like an orange zucchini in the last dream."

She blushes thinking about that one.

I turn over the napkin.

2 more dreams, 2+ months later, 3-4 weeks ago

button and pair of socks

honey and orange cucumber/melon

She looks pretty shaken right now, just muttering to herself, "This is not possible."

"Before your mind goes there, I could fairly easily prove where I was the night of the first dream. I could not have done some Mission Impossible sneak into your place, given you some mind altering drug and then raped you. But that would seem more plausible than the story I am about to tell you.

"Five days ago, I was talking to my friend Eric, the one I just called on the phone. I was still fighting depression about losing Amy. He gave me an address of a place called Fantasia, on Wisteria Lane. I thought he was trying to get me to go to some whore house. That would be about his speed. He said, no it wasn't like that and it would be good for me.

"I got home and stared at the emptiness of my place for a while and then decided to do it. It turned out to be a creepy old mansion. I was led in to a small room with three doors out. Charles, the butler who led me in, said I had to choose one of the doors. I could only peep through a keyhole in each.

"Beyond each door was a physical impossibility. The first was a harem room. The second was, well another option, I don't need to go there. The third was you, sitting under a cherry tree, full of blossoms, beside a creek. I chose that door. I won't describe exactly what we did, but I expect that it matches your dream exactly. When the gong sounded, I had to return."

"The gong. I had forgotten the gong. Each dream ended with a gong. In my Mission Impossible version, that gong was some sort of hypnosis trigger or something. And wait, you said this was just a few days ago. My dream was six months ago."

"I expected a time shift. Let me keep going. Before I left that first time, you bit me on the hand to prove you were real. If this was a few days ago, I could have showed you the bite mark on my hand. And I suspect it would have fit your teeth perfectly."

"I remember doing that. I had forgotten that part of the dream."

"The bite mark haunted me. Without it, I could have convinced myself that the whole thing was a dream. But dreams don't leave bite marks. Eric thought I was overthinking everything, but I had become obsessed and went back the next night. But in Miralea -- that was the name of Nina's village -- time had moved on. It was more than two months later. We had another wonderful day together. Do you remember the pool?"

"The splash battle!"

She laughs as she says that. It is good to see her smile. This is the first time Paulina has smiled with me.

"And scrubbing the honey off with your sand."

She is now nodding her head with me as I talk about our shared memory.

"And then you told me you were pregnant. I was so happy. Amy and I had been trying to have children when we discovered the cancer."

"You told me that, in the dream. I remember now you telling me her name was Amy."

"I was so happy, I had to go back the next day, this Wednesday. You were wearing my button on a loop around your hips. I had popped the button on my second trip when you were distracting me."

She blushes, knowing exactly how she was distracting me.

"On that trip, you were just starting to show. And the cherries had ripened in the tree. And I had to pick you up so you could reach more. You said you were always hungry then."

"I still am. Are you going to eat the rest of your sandwich?"

I laugh and slide the last third of my lunch to her.

"For you and Alexander," I say.

"You said that in the dream, too, didn't you."

I nod my head.

"And you had to give me a special deposit to let me see you. I was quite sore from that for a while the next morning, you know. I had never done that."

"Don't blame me. It wasn't my idea. I had only done it once, the very last orgasm I gave Amy with me inside her."

My eyes start to tear up. She reaches a hand out and I hold on to it with mine.

"As I was leaving that time, you told me 'I will always be with you, Peter. Our love will carry us to new places. Goodbye.'"

She is reciting those words with me.

"You are Peter. I had forgotten that was your name. Those words clearly have meaning to you."

"They were the last words Amy said to me before she died. I was shocked when Nina said them to me. Then I was banished from her world forever. She promised me she would come to me in my world, but I couldn't fully believe. Until now."

"And I said we would raise Alexander together. Amy loved you very much, didn't she."

"We loved each other with all of our hearts."

"That is the root of this all, I am sure. I am not religious, but i believe she reached out with all that love to what ever power exists in the universe to try and spare you from the suffering she knew you would endure without her."

I nod my head and then ask, "And to bring me Alexander, the child I so wanted. But, are you okay with your role in this? It's odd to say this fifteen minutes after we have actually met, but I am in love with you. I don't want you to end up feeling like you were manipulated into this, used as a puppet or something."

"I can see your worry, but no, I'm fine with it. More than fine. I was kind of the romance trope. I always felt that there was someone perfect out there for me, but I could not find him. I found him in that first dream. I found you. I love you, too."

"Are you doing anything after lunch?" I ask. "Should we try to see if things work as well in real life?"

"I was planning on going apartment hunting," she says. "I am living in a hotel right now."

"Well, you could come check out my place. I don't have a tree to sit under, but there is running water."

She laughs and we head back to my place, holding hands.