What Dreams May Come Ch 04

Warning: I don't know how to give warnings, but there's some unexpected sex in here that one of the participants feels conflicted about. I don't know what that is, but I know it doesn't work for some, so if that's you - ummm... be warned. Plus, there's a lot of references to Tom Waits, who is kinda scary, but I think that's a good thing.

What Dreams May Come - Ch 04

"And the moon's all up, full and big, apricot tips in an indigo sky,

And I've been loving you, Rosie, since the day I was born

And I'll love you, Rosie till the day I die

Rosie, why do you evade? Rosie, how can I persuade? Rosie..."

Tom Waits' voice was grinding his yearning out into song, one of his best. The bar was quiet, holding its breath in riveted respect. Sir used to sing that song to me. Back when he was Sir. Back when I was his. I had to keep telling myself that I was not his anymore, that I was mine now. I dressed myself in the silky black dress tonight because it pleased me, not because it was his favorite. I wore my hair straight, sliding loose down my back like a white-gold river because I wanted to, not because he liked trailing his fingers through it as he caressed the bare skin of my back. I was not his anymore. I was free. I hadn't been his for a year, now, though I felt his eyes, heard his voice, craved his touch still.

I was walking back to my apartment when the flyer caught my eye. I told myself it was Waits' name that drew me to it, but I knew that was a lie. The hook that pierced my skin before reeling me in was the performance date. Just like you see your birthday jump out at you from the text of a book, like a secret message just for you, I knew that the anniversary of my freedom was the siren's call that drew me to this bar. It couldn't hurt to remember for one night. To hear his voice sing to me in the dark after he told me that I had done well, when he cradled me in his arms against the pain that had paid for the pleasure we bought. The pain he spent so lavishly until I had none left to offer at the altar where I worshipped him. This was the day I left him, one year ago. This night, I could remember being his.

The bartender served my Bittersweet Symphony with a sad smile. He said he didn't know the drink when I asked for it. He'd only heard the Verve song. I showed him a recipe on my phone. Wayne Collins himself had mixed one for Sir in London. He had given me sips from his glass, the taste a communion of the Bittersweet Symphony and the taste of his lips. The bartender waited for me to taste it tonight, waiting and watchful in hopeful anticipation. I smiled and nodded my thanks to him, though I could barely swallow. It wasn't the bartender's fault. He couldn't make it taste like Sir.

Waits lured in lurkers from the sultry street, crowding the dark smoky room and the stool where I sat at the end of the bar. Broad backs in expensive suits crowded my view, but I didn't mind. I preferred not to be seen. My black silk dress, my garters and stockings, my hair were not for their eyes. It was better to see their backs, anonymous and silhouetted by the light of Waits' stage.

I sipped again, drinking in the Bittersweet Symphony of life and the void left by Sir. 'No change, I can't change I can't change I can't change, but I'm here in my mold, I am here in my mold. But I'm a million different people from one day to the next, I can't change my mold no, no, no, no, no...' The drink was stronger than I remembered. I was no longer used to drinking, the luxury of intoxication packed away for the day I no longer felt his eyes behind the darkened windows of every limousine that passed by. I let the buzz settle into me, leaning against the bar, my eyelids heavy.

I felt a body behind me, the heat of it warming the bare skin of my back. I straightened on the stool, my buzz gone in a current of adrenaline. No one should be there. I had watched every person who came in the door. I told myself I was imagining things. There was no body warming my back. It was just a draft from the kitchen. It was moving the loose silk skirt of my dress, gathering it and brushing it against my garters. It felt like fingertips flowing through the hair down my back. I closed my eyes, feeling the goosebumps rise over my neck and arms. My nipples tightening under the black silk. I took another sip from my drink, stopped breathing, opened my eyes and blinked... the drink was perfect, now.

And again, Sir's lips were at my ear, his rasping whisper crooned with Waits:

"And I've been loving you, Rosie, since the day I was born

And I'll love you, Rosie till the day I die

Rosie, why do you evade? Rosie, how can I persuade? Rosie..."

I did not turn around as he pulled my skirt out from under me, hiding his hands as they moved my thighs, sliding me back on the tall stool to lean against him. The sensation of resting my back against him again was stronger than the drink. The feel of his hands on my body again snared my soul.

"You have missed me, Little One..." he whispered, his breath curling into the depths of my ear, making a home inside my head. I nodded without hesitation, closing my eyes as I felt his hand brush closer to where he mastered me. I could never lie to Sir. I could feel his fingers caressing my slit, leisurely enjoying the feel of my desire for him. I spread my legs slightly, feeling his chest growl with approval. I leaned my head back against his chest, feeling his warm breath in my hair. His lips moved from my hair to my temple, to my cheek, my ear, my neck, reclaiming each place he touched.

"Nobody, nobody

Will ever love you, the way I could love you

Cause nobody, nobody is that strong."

I knew Waits' 'Nobody' was just for me and I stifled a sob as Sir's fingers pushed inside, tasting me with them again after so long. He pulled me tighter against him, my bare bottom now off the stool, as he worked me slowly, meticulously, purposefully. I knew Sir would not release me until I came for him. It was my concession that he would always own a part of me, it was his consolation prize for letting me go. I would give him that, I owed him that, but only tonight. Only tonight.

"Love is bittersweet,

And life's treasures deep,

And no one can keep a love that's gone wrong."

I lost myself in his touch, rising and falling, breathing and shaking, but keeping his prize just out of reach. He had lost me for a reason and it would be a mistake to forget, but my memory seemed to fade under his fingertips. I had nearly reached the peak that would begin our goodbye, when he stopped and clutched me fiercely against him. His shaking breath breaking my heart, his kisses insatiable and driven, I felt him loose himself behind me. The back of my skirt lifted and then he was straining inside me, his prize no longer a consolation. Filled with him, furiously molding me to him again, I clutched at the bar, passive, yet pleading. Looking for escape, but seeing only Waits, and the backs, and the bartender's sad smile. He was looking at the Bittersweet Symphony he had played just for me. The drink he had known how to make all along. I knew then, I would not be returning to my new life, just out of its infancy. The bartender, the drink, and the backs were all his, and as he took me and shook me behind them all, again and again and again... so was I.

"Nobody, nobody

Will ever love you, the way I could love you

Cause nobody, nobody is that strong."

I woke up from that complete mindfuck of a dream with a raging hardon and serious concerns about my masculinity. I'd never been a woman in a dream before, much less one getting fucked from behind by some stalker ex while sitting on a barstool. Was she cool with it? Wasn't she? Seemed like she wanted him, but didn't want to. Women. I don't know. The closest I'd come to that was when Suki "Surprise Lubeless Painal Is Not Cool, Asshole" O'Holleran, the Japanese-Irish die-hard Sporting Kansas City fan I once met that handcuffed me to her bed, put her sky blue Sporting KC panties on me, and explained to me the finer points of etiquette about consent and Astroglide after an unfortunate misunderstanding the previous night. Through her prolonged Sloan-like applied-knowledge method of teaching, I learned that porn wasn't really a reliable guide to the nuances of interpersonal relationships. Go figure. She took videos and sends me gifs of it for my birthday, but she still won't take my calls. God, I miss her. Yearning... another feeling I try not to dwell on.

As my mind cleared, I recognized a voice nearby. It was Sloan and he was scolding someone that wasn't me, which was refreshing, but also weird.

"You can imagine my surprise, when in the middle of observing the pandemic response briefing, I saw our resident sociopathic pedophile's essence crash through the ceiling and proceed downward until he was out of sight!"

I didn't hear a response, but I began to suspect who my roommate was, and how Darkness Girl had learned my names.

Sloan continued his diatribe, "I realize this message may fall upon deaf ears coming from me, but you cannot simply do whatever you wish with another's life! While it may mean nothing to you, this place depends upon a common- WILL YOU DO ME THE COURTESY OF AT LEAST LOOKING AT ME WHEN I—" I was surprised when I heard Sloan lose his cool like that, but not quite as surprised when I heard him go crashing through the floor. I was feeling less and less special every time she did that.

I chanced opening my eyes and saw Darkness Girl standing over the place in the floor where Sloan had just been, her shoulders rising and falling with each breath. Without looking, she threw the suit jacket in her hand over the end of my bed, turned and dove back into her body. Her curtains were drawn back and I saw that she was a light, almost white, blonde. Natural, though, not bleached. Not the kind of blonde you'd find in a red Corvette, fueling the wet dreams of every teenage boy she met. No, she was more of a Grace Kelley type, cool and elegant. Certainly not the type you'd see throwing people through the floor, but maybe I just didn't see enough Grace Kelley movies. She also looked a lot like the blonde in the bar, come to think of it.

Either Sloan got the special treatment with his dumb waitering, or he was worse at climbing stairs than I was because it took him a long time to get back to the room. He stood there glaring at her body for several minutes. Then, he turned and snatched his jacket from my bed, noticing that I was awake. "So," he said, turning his glare on me, now. I've really never had a good conversation start that way, so I just smiled blandly, waited, and hoped for better things. "He lives," Sloan concluded, not sounding particularly happy about it.

"Um... was that in question?" I asked, confused.

"Your file says you failed two of your Glasgow Coma Scale tests, yesterday. How did that happen?" he asked, like I was supposed to know the answer.

"Well, I've never really done well on standardized tests... the instructions on those things are just sneaky, you know?" I said, in what I figured was a good all-purpose test failing excuse.

"YOU FAILED BECAUSE YOU WEREN'T IN YOUR BODY! I TOLD YOU TO BE IN YOUR BODY AT NOON AND TWO O'CLOCK! HOW DO YOU EXPECT YOUR BODY TO SHOW ANY CONNECTION WITH YOUR CONSCIOUS SELF WITHOUT BEING IN YOUR BODY FOR THE TEST! YOU ARE LUCKY YOU WEREN'T DECLARED BRAIN DEAD!" he yelled, reminding me more and more of my mom.

This didn't really seem to be the time to comment about the likelihood of me being declared brain dead even when I wasn't in a coma. Call it ESP, but I just had a feeling. "Um... so what happens if I'm declared brain dead?" I asked, instead.

Sloan stood over me, his face twitching. Then, he took a long breath with his eyes closed and started in again, talking in his condescending prick tone, which was actually a big improvement. "Your life support would be removed. Your ventilator would be shut off and your body would stop breathing. In the extraordinary event that your body began breathing on its own, with your feeding tube removed, your body would slowly die of thirst within a few days or as long as a couple weeks. Your essence here would gradually fade. First, you would begin to lose visibility and become almost transparent. Then, -"

"Oh! Oh! Oh! I know this one! Then, you start feeling really weak and kinda dizzy. Then after a bit, you can't really move around much, but you can still hear and talk because when I hit on Dark Girl over there, I still totally heard it when she called me an idiot before she got me into bed!" I yelled, excited to finally be able to answer one of Sloan's questions with something other than bullshit.

Apparently, Sloan wasn't impressed with all the applied learning I did yesterday, because he mostly ignored what I said, and the fact I almost died was not his first line of business, either. "She..." he said, then swallowed and tried again, "She spoke? She spoke to you?" he said quietly, incredulous. He glanced over at her bed, then he began fidgeting and tucking in his shirt, rumpled in his tour to the first floor. A silk shirt. Sloan was really dressed up today. He was just in jeans for my big welcome yesterday. Huh. That's... interesting. I decided to test a theory that was beginning to form in my head.

"Oh, sure... we had a couple conversations yesterday. Nice girl. Think she took a shine to me," I said casually, grinning at him. Sloan's face twitched again and I could see him itching to stick his head into mine again and find out exactly what we talked about without dealing with all my bullshit. I stretched my arms and folded them behind my head with a sigh. Now this, was fun, I decided.

Sloan was now looking like he wanted to beat me into a pulp, and the reason he did couldn't have been more clear to me: Sloan had the hots for Darkness Girl. He had almost zero cool about it, too. Man, he was so wound up about her that he couldn't even read through my bluff because by some miracle, I had found the chink in the armor of his unattainable girl. This was the greatest day of my coma life.

Sloan sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose as if he had a headache. Not that he had a head. I laughed. I figured it was a habit from when he had a body, but it was just kind of funny. Everything was feeling pretty funny, today, actually. "After this morning's briefing, you will remain in your bed today. You cannot afford to fail another Glasgow test. During that time, you will practice. You will attempt to open your eyes. You will attempt to use your voice. You will attempt to move your body. These are the elements of the Glasgow test and the better you perform, the higher you will score. The higher you score, the less likely they are to allow your body to die a slow death while you watch. Do you understand?" he asked. Sloan still wanted to keep me alive despite it all. You gotta love a guy like that. Not that I'd stop giving him a hard time about his girl liking me, mind you. Fun is fun.

"Uh yeah... I guess? I have no idea how to begin moving this thing, but—"

"I'll help you, Cowboy," a warm voice offered from across the room. She was sitting up in her bed, and hugging her knees with an impish smile on her face, but there was just no sense in calling her Darkness Girl anymore. Her long blonde hair was loose around her shoulders and tousled. She was wearing a long white satin slip that looked like it would slide off her body with only a sideways look. Her skin was pink and dewy, her eyes sleepy, her lips swollen. When the sunlight streaming through the window landed on her hair, it made it glow as if she was lit from within. She looked like a well-fucked angel.

"Hey thanks! I really appreciate it...uh..." I trailed off, distracted by my brain's limited executive controls begging me not to call her "Well Fucked Angel" out loud.

"Lake..." the Well Fucked Angel said, "My name is Lake."

"Well, I gotta say, Lake, I love your makeover. Black was not your color. And the thing with the smiling... wow. I'm glad you took my advice." As she smiled her thanks with a twinkle in her eye, I chanced a look at Sloan to enjoy his cheek-chewing frustration, but what I saw there took all the fun out of torturing him by flirting with the blonde. He didn't just have the hots for her, he was completely gone for her. He wasn't checking out the view of her breast through the side of her slip, or even the fact that she was giving us a peek at her hairless pussy as she hugged her knees. No, Sloan was staring at her face like there was nothing else in the universe and there never would be. You gotta be a special kind of bastard to keep shining on a girl in front of a guy that looks at her like that, and I just wasn't that kind of bastard. I was a different kind of bastard. "Um... so, thanks for helping me out with Rope yesterday, and getting me back to my body. From what Sloan says, I was probably almost dead. He gave me the tour yesterday, but I didn't really pay attention. I'm kind of a jerk like that," I said, ending the no longer fun Sloan-torture game.

"Yeah, well... I'm sorry for throwing you down the stairwell," she said. Lake looked around the room, her dark blue, almost violet colored eyes flitting over everything... everything except Sloan. She just wouldn't look at him at all. It was fascinating how much of her focus was going into ignoring him. Huh. "Just stay away from the little girl. He...she... wouldn't have stopped if I didn't stop her... him. Rope is..." she began, but trailed off shaking her head, frowning.

"Rope is dead," Sloan said grimly, looking down at the suit jacket over his arm. "On my return trip, I saw them removing life support. The body didn't start breathing on its own." Lake's eyes grew large and finally looked at Sloan who didn't look up, and it didn't take much for me to realize that, despite the flirt fest that just went on, I was probably the third wheel in the room. If she was his universe, with that one look, it was just as obvious that she belonged to him... whether she wanted to or not. Sloan cleared his throat, "Thank you for looking out for Cowboy. I apologize for shouting. I should have realized you wouldn't have acted as you did without provocation," he said, still looking at his jacket.

I snorted. "You sure about that?" I asked, "I mean, you heard her say she threw me down the stairwell, right? I didn't even say boo to her and she grabs me by the throat, tells me to fuck off, and then dumb waiters me down to the first floor!" I argued.

Sloan raised his eyebrow and looked down at me, taking stock. Then, he looked over at Lake and nodded sympathetically. When their eyes met, she blushed and almost laughed, then looked down quickly, troubled. Yep. I am definitely the third wheel here, I thought.

Sloan led us out to the common area where the others had gathered for the morning's briefing. I took a seat in the back, watching the room. Sloan stood near the front and several people came up to talk with him briefly. Lake took a seat near the window, where more than half the room either stared at her or pretended not to stare, while sneaking glances at her and talking with those around them. Then, the entrance to the room was filled with the huge guy that I had seen brutalizing the little woman who was now slung casually over his shoulder. There were bluish black bruises on her hips and thighs, as well as some new reddish ones, visible under her short nightie. Not just visible, I realized, they were on display. The guy was showing off what he'd done to her. I watched as he carried her to a seat near the front, took her down from his shoulder and held her curled up in his lap with his massive arms around her, stroking her hair. She looked up at him and smiled with adoring eyes. I looked away from the couple, feeling sick again, when I noticed that Lake was staring at them, too. She didn't feel sick. She was breathing like a woman who needed about three orgasms before she'd be able to think clearly. She closed her eyes and leaned her head back against the window.