It was getting late. Brandy had been
a long time changing. Simon went to the bathroom door and softly knocked.
Still huddled on the floor, Brandy, using
the sink for leverage, managed to hoist herself.
"Just a minute."
She looked into the mirror; the face that
grimaced back looked positively ghoulish.
‘Terrific. What a
finale. I step out like this, he'll run for the hills.’
She splashed some water on her cheeks,
then sponged off most of her makeup. Feeling a bit revived she turned and opened—just
a crack—the bathroom door.
"Simon? Would you bring me my robe?
It should be in that suitcase next to the bed."
Simon found it, then passed it to the
disembodied hand that reached from behind the door jamb.
"Thank you."
Both hand and terrycloth bathrobe
disappeared. Brandy dusted herself with baby powder, donned the robe, then tried to affect
as graceful a reentry as misery would allow.
"Sorry I took so long; I’m
feeling a little queasy. Remember when you were a kid and your parents drummed into you,
‘Never take a swim just after you’ve eaten’? Well, never, ever belly
dance after you’ve dined; I feel horrible. I know better, too; I just wasn’t
thinking."
She sat on the bed.
"Ever seen one of those mixing
machines they have in paint stores? Imagine, just after supper, strapping one on."
She toppled over sideways, almost
comically, and uttered a groan. Simon left then returned with pen and paper.
He wrote:
Describe your
symptoms.
"I feel seasick; that’s the
worst of it. All I want to do is curl up and die. I have these God-awful cramps all
through my midsection."
He touched her forehead.
"No, no headache."
He wrote:
With your
permission, I can help.
"Anything. Shoot me; it might be
more merciful."
He eased her onto her back, then propped
her head on one of a pair of pillows (Brandy grabbed the other and clutched it to her
guts). Cupping her calf in his right hand, Simon pressed with his left, working his thumb
into a shallow depression beside the tibia. With firm deliberate pressure he slowly
massaged… (Brandy felt a tingly sensation like bumping her funny bone; it hurt, but
only a little)… his clockwise motions applied with moderate force… (just enough
to sustain a curious pins-and-needles). At the same time, pulling gently, he managed to
straighten one of her tightly flexed legs, rubbing it all the while (until Brandy felt a
tingle in that limb, too)… then, shifting his attention, he worked on its mate.
Whether the buzz traversing her body
actually helped or merely distracted her, Brandy felt the nausea gradually ease. As long
as it worked, she resolved, he could do what he liked.
Prying one of her hands from the pillow,
Simon applied a similar treatment to Brandy's wrist, pressing between two tendons,
kneading with his thumb (again clockwise). Soon the same sensation encompassed her entire
arm. She offered him the other, her queasiness quite diminished, her cramps still intense.
Despite the slight discomfort he was
causing, Simon’s hands both soothed and wooed simultaneously… as they moved in
sync with her pulse… tan, and strong—yet gentle—prominently veined…
his focus so intent he failed to notice Brandy's avid scrutiny; she watched his steady
breathing (measuredly calm), reflected upon his beard (a darker shade than his
tow-streaked hair—which looked like hay stacked to dry in the noonday sun),
contemplated his nut-brown brows (set at melancholy angles) that cast a subtle shadow over
deep-umber eyes, lustrous eyes like knots of dense-grained wood, sorrowful like his mouth,
its corners parentheses… a poetic face, she concluded, whose Christ-like qualities
made her (inwardly) sigh.
Finished with her wrists, and careful to
expose only the area around her grumbling tummy, Simon parted the flaps of Brandy’s
robe. About four inches above her deep-set navel he pressed, again with his thumb,
resuming circular motions (though using much less pressure). With his other hand he
searched for and found a place behind her ear, massaging with his index finger, spurring a
mild uneasiness that offset the one below… where, lo and behold, the cramps began to
subside.
He switched hands. The relief spread…
infiltrating nerves like steam through tangled curls… Brandy growing evermore
relaxed… eyes closed… indulging, past resistance, the therapeutic press and
probe of his thumb… feeling it replaced by the heel of a (roving) hand… which
gravitated upward… in slow ovals… each one broader… lighter… less
precise than the one before… until she felt a pass—or was she dreaming—that
brushed the naked undersides of her breasts.
To Simon, Brandy’s slumber was
somewhat problematic, leaving him alone with his own rekindled urge, tempting him to stray
from caresses strictly curative to those that weighed the heft and mass of her chest,
traced its plump perimeters, roused their roseate centers into puckers…
I’m a
young girl again, a child. I’m playing with my dolls up in my room. No. Now it’s
the backyard, on a blanket. The grass is full of dandelion ghosts. I must be six years old
because there are six dolls; my father bought me a new one for every birthday. They had
special names. I’m talking to my least favorite, the one with long black hair and a
peasant’s costume. What is she saying? I can’t quite hear her voice but her lips
are definitely moving.
|
… spreading her
robe’s lapels the better to contemplate each ample sphere…
‘You’ll
have to speak up, Adrienne… No, I will not send the others away; they have
just as much right to be here as you.’
She’s envious of her
sisters. I’m a little scared of her. She does nasty things sometimes. She’s
taken one of Rachel’s ribbons and won’t give it back. I’ll have to coax her
into it; if I just reach over and grab it she’s likely to bite me. She has these
sharp little metal teeth nobody knows about besides me and the other dolls—who are
inching back toward the blanket’s outer edge. I wouldn’t have brought Adrienne
along, except, when she’s left alone in my room, she tends to steal things.
|
… watching them
expand… contract…
‘And
while we’re on the subject of theft, young lady, suppose you tell me where you hid my
music box. No sense denying it; you were seen… Uh uh, I refuse to say by whom.’
I’m watching
Adrienne's face very closely now. Her eyes are following mine as if she’s suspicious;
I know she doesn’t trust me. She’s flexing her chubby fist, scrunching up the
ribbon.
|
… recalling how they
had felt the night before when Brandy's muffled heartbeats kept his dreams at bay.
Guilt eclipsing the unclad goose
flesh, Simon drew the curtains on his peep-show impropriety…
… only to catch a glimpse of
nakedness further afield… Brandy's hairless crotch arousing boyhood fantasies (bred
by books on classical art depicting nudes—whose private parts, more often than not,
were bare)…
She’s
glaring at me with that defiant look of hers. I feel like I’m losing my authority.
She seems bigger. She is bigger. Or I’m getting smaller. Maybe both. I’m
starting to feel sort of numb all along my arms and legs. She wants me to help her stand
but I refuse; she's already much too tall.
|
… mannequins,
likewise, shaved between their legs (or such was Simon's notion upon seeing them
dressed—and undressed—in department stores windows, their rigid-limbed passivity
strangely hypnotic)…
And
she’s moving. All by herself. She’s circling me. I’m stiff all over. I
can’t move anything except my eyes. She’s doing something directly behind my
back; I can hear her rummaging through my sewing basket. Oh, oh; mother's shears!
‘Adrienne? Adrienne,
what are you doing?’
My voice feels like its
trapped inside my throat.
|
Another pang of conscience
gave Simon pause; the liberties he was taking were downright criminal… except that
she, his victim, was unaware—which served to make his trespass more contemptible?
She
doesn’t have the scissors; she’s moved back in front of me. Instead she has a
spool of thick black thread—the strong kind that's hard to break even with your
teeth. Except hers are razor-sharp; she’s biting off lengths: one, two, three, four,
five, in all. Now she’s grinning. Whatever it is she’s up to, that grin
isn’t nice.
|
Simon nonetheless lowered
his nose to the unsuspecting pubes… sniffed, breathed scents of lilac soap and
sweat… sultry and fecund as rain-doused earth. Once again, he drew the curtains
closed.
She’s
grabbing at me; she has my arm. I'm staring at my hand as she manipulates it. She’s
knotting a length of thread around my right thumb. Too tightly, I can tell; it's making a
nasty groove below the knuckle—though I can't feel it. Now she’s let it drop to
tie up my left. Ooo, this is frustrating; I can’t even budge! And nobody's trying to
help; all the other dolls just gape, scared stiff. I’m scared, too; Adrienne just
tied both my legs with the threads. And, oh my God, she’s making a noose with the
last!
|
Easing from the bed, Simon
turned off the light, removed his clothing, then slipped back under the covers…
She’s
gone. Where? A breeze has sprung up, setting the dandelions free. They’re floating
over the yard like wisps of see-through cotton. Oh, oh; she’s back… with a
stick… snapping it in two… making it into a cross… now tying it to me
… fastening all four threads and putting the fifth—attached to the
crossbar—around my neck. Jeezus, she’s enormous! My face now only comes as high
as her knees.
|
… molding himself
against her supine body, resting his palm on her belly, his thoughts disassembling…
I’m
being jerked into the air! My feet are dangling just above the picnic blanket. I must be
hanging by those threads; the feeling’s coming back to my neck, knees, and elbows.
Whichever way they’re yanked my body has to turn.
|
… then reconvening,
oddly, overlapped in a dream:
I see an endless plane. Very sparse. The grass is all
discolored. As if a gigantic tarp has blocked it from the sun. Except, along the horizon,
it still looks green. And there are people, I think; I see tiny silhouettes. I'm moving in
their direction. Not walking, exactly. I’m close to the ground but neither foot makes
contact. Sounds, way off in the distance, are carried on a bone-dry breeze.
Music! It’s my music
box. Adrienne has opened the lid and it’s playing my favorite tune. She wants me to
dance to it. She’s making my arms and legs flail about; they feel dislocated.
She’s hurting me.
‘Please, Adrienne,
stop!’
She can’t
hear—or doesn’t want to. She’s laughing. They’re all laughing, all the
dolls. Before, none of them would help; now they think it’s funny. I’m crying. I
feel humiliated. The music keeps on playing. Why won't it stop!
I recognize that melody. It's faint but getting louder—or maybe I'm drawing nearer. I can just make out my shadow
zipping along underneath. Something odd about it. It has features! They’re dim, but
recognizable. Yoiks, they’re mine!
I’m hoping, when the
music stops, she’ll stop. When the music box winds down this nightmare will end.
My double has raced ahead. All that’s left between us is
a slender length of chord. Stretching. Stretching thinner. I feel I’m losing ground.
I can barely hear the music. Those figures that I mentioned are far away again. Why is it
important, I wonder, that I reach them?
She’s dropped me.
I’m lying in a heap all tangled up in threads. Those ‘traitors’ are
applauding my ugly predicament, clapping their amusement. I ache all over.
‘Please, no more!
I’ve had enough.’
Hey, they’re
leaving. Adrienne’s tucked my music box under her giant pudgy arm and is leading the
others off to who knows where.
I’m gaining ground on them again. My shadow's gone,
but somehow that's irrelevant.
‘Wait!’
They’re moving away. All save one.
‘Wait!’
They’re gone. The ground is grassy now. I’m almost
there. The one they left behind is lying on a tiny patch of cloth, about postage-stamp
size, all alone on a vast expanse of green. I can just make out her features… a
woman's… sprawled and all disjointed, her limbs like a doll's.
‘Brandy?’
‘Simon?’
‘Here, I'll help you up. What happened?
‘How should I know? A
nightmare, I think. I remember dancing, is all. I must have fallen. Where are we?’
‘As you see.’
‘What are we doing
here?’
‘We’re… ’
‘Simon, you’re
talking!’
‘So I am.’
‘But I thought…
What’s going on? Where are we?’
‘I’m really not sure myself. But I have an
inkling.’
‘Well… Tell
me!’
‘I think we’re dreaming.’
‘No, I don’t
think so. This doesn't feel at all to me like a dream.’
‘ Just the same, I think that’s what it is.’
‘Whose?’
‘Well, I thought I was alone until I saw you and your
friends.’
‘What friends?
Where?’
‘You don’t remember?’
‘No.’
‘I saw them. I was a long way off at the time, but I saw
them clearly.’
‘How many?’
‘I couldn’t tell. Five or six, maybe. They left before I got here.’
‘This is freaking me
out, Simon. I don’t understand. If I’m really asleep, dreaming, then you, and
everything you’re saying, I’m making up.’
'"I’ll let you be in my dream, if I can be in
yours."'
‘You seem to think
this is pretty funny. How can you take it so lightly?’
‘Listen, I’m a bit jittery too, but, if this is what
I think it is—something I’ve imagined for a long, long time—then going with
it, enjoying it, is better than panicking.’
‘Will you hold my
hand?’
‘Delighted. Shall we float on up and have a look at the
land?’
‘What do you mean,
"float"?’
‘Just what I said. Like this.’
‘Jeezus, Simon! Let
go! You’ll get us killed! No; don't let go! Oh, God, this is absolutely
crazy!’
‘Relax. It’s all right. Really. Calm down. Rules, it
stands to reason, don't apply here. Or they’re very different. Go ahead; let go. Believe
that you're suspended, and you’ll be fine.’
‘I only want to
believe I'm back in bed. This is too bizarre. If we should fall right now, we’d splat
like eggs.’
‘But we’re not falling, are we?’
‘No… Not yet,
anyway. Why, is what I’d very much like to know. And how come everything
around us is absolutely empty?
‘I don’t know.’
‘But there’s
nothing: no houses, people, trees; not even my blanket. I want this to be over!’
‘Brandy, I can’t answer most of your questions; I
can scarcely answer my own, but… ’
‘You seem to know
what’s what.’
‘Not really. I’m simply trying to let this
"phenomenon" be.’
‘Well, I
don’t have to stick around.’
‘I thought this was your dream.’
‘If that were true,
I’d end it; I’d wake myself up.’
‘Go ahead.’
‘I can’t; you
won’t let me.’
‘Why is it up to me?’
‘You’re the one
who yanked me off my blanket. For all I know that may be the only route back.’
‘I hardly think that’s rational.’
‘"Rational!"
Is it rational to hover hundreds of feet in the air having a two-way conversation
with a self-styled mute?’
‘Point well taken.’
‘Not that it makes
any difference. As soon as we wake up things will go back to normal.’
‘But what if this is something other than a
dream?’
‘Then it’s
probably something neither of us should fool with.’
‘Don’t you want to know? To explore?’
‘Explore what?
There’s nothing here.’
‘Maybe not here, exactly, but surely there are other
places, other realms.’
‘Well, you can chase
those wild geese by yourself.’
|
Brandy turned and opened
her eyes. Simon lay beside her under the covers, his hair spread over the pillow like a
tarnished golden fleece, the fingers of his left hand interlaced with hers. Careful not to
disturb him, she disengaged herself, and went to fetch her journal.
Brandy?… BRANDY!’
Yoiks; I hadn’t realized… no reference points.
Nothing but myself—me, mine, and I: my left,
right, up, down, forward, and backward, all meaningless. Am I moving or am I not? I
can’t quite tell.
Okay. Think things through. There's no need for alarm—just because you're TOTALLY DISORIENTED!
Nothing is all that threatening; there’s nothing
whatsoever. Just emptiness. Waiting to be filled. By what? Imagination? Maybe Brandy was
right; it's only a dream.
Though much too lucid. Of course, I won't be sure until I've
awakened. If I awaken. I don’t want to, however; not yet. Brandy wanted
to wake up; ipso facto, Brandy no longer is here.
Maybe I’m dead! I hadn’t thought of that. Except I
don’t much feel like I’ve expired—though
something, in relation to nothing, is not what I'd call vigorous. Odd, when
I was a kid, this is how I envisioned Limbo—just me and maybe a few
un-baptized babies
drifting around, abandoned, forgotten. That’s it! I’m creating this myself. If I
want these things to be different, just picture them otherwise. Okay, change!
Everything’s the same.
All right, if I’m not in control, then who the
hell is? Brandy? Where did she go, anyway? ‘BRANDY!’
Okay, that’s enough. Time to wake up. I want to
wake up. Concentrate!
No luck.
So, if I’m sleeping, I ought to remember what I
was doing just beforehand. Where was I?… In my sleeping bag, no doubt. Alone?…
No; with somebody else. Brandy? Except she was lying on a blanket. In a pasture. By
herself.
Or were there others? Yes, there were. There are;
they're suddenly back! Standing in a circle. Brandy's back, too. We're being ogled, faces
all agog at the fringes of our platform—or
blanket, rather. Strange; their eyes are shut, yet it’s perfectly plain they see.
They look like dwarfs—not fully formed, or something—gesturing to each
other—and to us—with their rubbery little mitts, daring us to take a few steps
and join them. Don't! The ground is false, beyond; they’re making it up to fool us.
Oh, oh, seems they're closing in. We'll have to make a break
for it.
‘Run, Brandy, run!’
They’re after us! I’m holding Brandy’s hand;
she'll have to go faster. They’re all around our legs, tripping us up. Brandy!
She fell!
They’re all over her. I’m straining with all my
might but I can't turn back. She’s fighting them off but there are too many.
They’ve got her pinned. One of the little monsters is prying apart her legs… WHY
CAN’T I HELP!… while another is sticking its hands, now its whole head inside.
Brandy's screaming. Her belly's bloated, like giving birth in reverse, each dwarf, single
file, pushing and shoving till all six cram in.
|
"Simon. Hey, are you
gonna sleep all day?"
The instant he awoke, amnesia drew a
heavy curtain. Oblivious to his nudity, Simon sprang from the bed. A smattering of random
images was all he could retain: blanket, grass, dwarves. He searched for pen and paper.
Brandy watched his antics, admiring the
buff-bare view.
"Very pretty."
Simon about-faced.
"That side, too."
Using his writing pad as a fig leaf, he
backed toward the bathroom.
Brandy, gathering his clothes, carried
them in his wake.
"I expect you’ll be needing
these?"
Simon peeked out, grabbed them, then
ducked out of sight.
Unable to squelch her laughter, Brandy
made the bed while Simon hurriedly dressed. She had been up for over an hour, part of
which was spent on primping and preening. The remainder she had devoted to Simon’s
'autobiography.' His muteness being a choice, not an infirmity, had come as no surprise.
Nor was she too upset about being deceived. If anything she felt sorry for the taciturn
hitchhiker—just as much a victim, she decided, as his dearly departed girl. He blamed
himself; that was obvious. Why else confess to a perfect stranger? Was homelessness, too,
a private act of contrition? Like his silence? Simon's letter cast far more shadows than
light. Why, for instance, had he accepted her invitation to share the motel room? What
(and this one really puzzled her) did he accomplish by watching her sleep? And how (when
she could hardly explain it herself) had he intuited the name
‘Adrienne’—whom Brandy now recalled from a ‘former life.’
Extrasensory forces, she concluded, must be at work—launched by what (or whom) she
was loathe to say (lest the purported Gypsy be tampering— again—with
her subconscious).
Simon reemerged, looking a bit sheepish.
"You okay?"
He nodded.
Brandy found his shy embarrassment
quaint.
"I thought a bee maybe stung you out
from those covers."
He stuffed his hands in his pockets.
"You’re blushing! How
sweet."
He looked away, unused to being teased.
"Sorry. What did you scribble, by
the way, on that silly little pad?"
Removing it from his pocket, Simon showed
her eagerly.
An eerie chill crept up and down Brandy's
spine. She read: blanket (recalling a picnic somewhere);
grass (in a park, or
a backyard); dwarves (dwarves?… dolls… dolls, definitely… six of them).
Then, she recollected, Simon had been there… had actually held her hand during their
daydream's denouement. Hiding her alarm, she merely shrugged, then handed back the pad.
"Hungry?"
He nodded.
"Let’s go get some breakfast,
okay? Bring your notes along; we’ll chit-chat later. I can’t even think
till I’ve had coffee."
*
*
The streets were crowded...
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