by Oscar Redmond
(10/16/02)
The dream, like many dreams, came out of the dark nowhere and unwound itself on the sleeping mind, a quick sharp coil more real than life
and death.
"Yes. Oh yes, so nice. There. Right...there." Her breath caught, eyes closed, riding, riding. Head pulled back in little spasms, gasping, she pulled his right hand from her breast and took three of his fingers into her mouth, tasting her salt and passion on his skin. "Don't. Yes, oh now, yes."
She collapsed on his chest, sobbing. He held her, rolling to the side, still thrusting, gently, letting her recover. As her trembling slowed, he unsheathed himself and she cried out for the loss of him as he flipped her onto her belly. Lifting her hips, his tongue probed her secret openings and she screamed from the liquid heat of it, her smooth round bottom grinding, following his touch, her flesh a sea of sensation, a force of nature beyond her control. His penis traced a warm, wet path down the cleft of her buttocks, lingered, rubbing softly at her puckered anus, then thrust deep into her vagina, her cunt, her cunt, her mouth in a round O, eyes wide from the shock of it, clitoris triggered by the fresh angle of his penetration, hips moving wildly, and he held on for dear life in a struggle to keep up, her skin glowing with sweat and semen, the enveloping musky odor, nerves firing in an agony of want and need. He pinched her engorged nipples and a hot, shocking wire ran from brain, to breasts, to the bursting dark liquid core of her very being, pulsing, panting in the arms of this man-dog, the promised one who fulfilled her in a thousand ways, her most secret imaginings brought to light, driven past all possible limits, bright white orgasm beyond sensation and reason.
Mercer sat up so quickly that gravity drained the blood from his head, leaving him dizzy and shaking. Lost to the memory of the dream, more
vivid than the dream itself, he felt like a ghost in the darkened bedroom.
"Where the hell did that come from?" He said the words aloud, confirming his own existence. Hair stuck to his forehead, sweat burned his
eyes. He tried to touch the bite mark on his breast before he realized there was no breast, no bite mark. The dream sensation of being a
woman, in the throes of sexual frenzy, lingered. He could feel the burn of overused membranes. The idea that he had been penetrated, invaded, left him shaking with shame and anger -- and at the same time seemed like the most natural thing in world, an act to relish, savor, and anticipate.
Only four in the morning. Still, he got up and headed toward the shower, almost fell, until his muscles understood how narrow his hips
were in reality.
Out of habit, as he did everyday, Mercer took the light rail to his office downtown where he worked as a third level designer for the
biggest printing house in the City. They did jobs for book and magazine publishers all over the world, as well as direct mail for eleven large
advertising firms.
He put the CD-ROM in the computer, to check the galley proofs for the fourth edition of You May Live To Be 200. The title alone made him gag. He shut off the display and sat staring at the blank screen. One hundred and sixty seven more years of this? This horrible little book had been copyread, proofread, and grammartized by 14 different computers and seven real, live people before it even reached him. Still, he had to check it for errors. He checked every advertising flyer, every book, every magazine that came across his desk for errors. He never
found any errors.
When he handed these files over to Boggs, the 2nd Assistant Design Manager, Boggs always found errors, and fired off memos to Mercer, and
every manager who owned a piece of Mercer, complaining about sloppy design and editing. Mercer had it documented ten ways from Sunday that Boggs added the errors himself. Now he had Boggs' balls in a sack, and would soon have his job. The idea that he was becoming Boggs, or
someone like him, was more than Mercer could bear. He memoed his Horizontal Grid Manager and took the rest of the day off: personal time, no
explanation. Not one of the 11,973 people working in the building that day noticed his absence.
The sports bar two blocks over already had a sizable crowd. By his second margarita, Mercer understood why he felt so empty and lost. Never in his life would he feel anything as intense and wondrous as what the woman in his dream experienced. This mundane coupling of ghostly
bodies put his entire existence in the crapper, where it belonged.
At shift change, the new waitress touched his shoulder. "Refill here, honey?"
He glanced up, received a shock of recognition. Before he could stop himself, he used the dumbest of all pick-up lines: "Don't I know
you from someplace?" At the same moment he knew it was true. He knew that face, that skin, from the inside out. The honesty of his gaze made
her take a step closer. "I'm sorry," he said. "This sounds stupid, but could you sit down here for a minute? I really need to talk."
She looked around, then took a chair across the table. "I know we've met," she said. "But for the life of me, I can't remember where."
His eyes never left hers. He knew, for a certainty, if he stroked the curve of her jaw, here, and looked at her with a particular, exact level of want and empathy, she would melt, she would go with him anywhere, do anything. He knew her, understood her, better than she knew or
understood herself.
While he hesitated, she reached out and touched his hair, his cheek, looked into his eyes with the most amazing smile. Rockets and thunder blazed through his heart, shot out of his fingertips. Just the sweet, sweet mercy of her touch made life worth living.
With sudden insight, he knew the identity of the faceless man in his dream.
