The Dreamers

In the thirty years he'd been alive, or at least the last twenty-five he had a conscious memory of, he couldn't remember ever having had recurring dreams. Not even in his childhood, when he'd had his share of fear and terrors, not all of them as innocent as one might have expected at such a tender age.

But now he had them.

It, he mentally amended. It was actually a single dream, except his mind kept separating it into two short episodes and playing them on two consecutive nights, followed by a couple more nights when he didn't dream anything �" or couldn't remember having dreamt anything �" followed, yet again, by the same dream playing obsessively for two nights in a row...

One dream, so short, so simple, even an idiot would have understood. And he was no idiot.

"I can't do this. I have grown too attached to you and now I can't do it anymore." his dream-self said.

"Oh, but you must. You're hurting me. Just like you did with Tracy, except that now you know better", she replied, as always.

As always. He was caught in an annoying loop of freaking always. First with Tracy, now with her...

At least the dream was mercifully short. This first episode of it, that was. Because the second wasn't.

In that second dream he was caught not in a loop, but in a conversation. With his mom, of all people. A long, tiresome conversation with his mom, one that, by now, he could have almost recited by heart.

"I am all wrong for her, mom. She's such a complication. I can't love her. I refuse to love her!"

"Now, that, my boy, is where you are mistaken. Because you can and you will love again. Eventually. But don't go wasting all that goodness on her. She is not good for you. She is all wrong. She's stubborn, loud, demanding..."

The dream then went on for some time, with his mom making an exhaustive list of all the reasons why she was wrong for him. Reasons that, even in his dream, he couldn't fully accept. Because they were nothing but twisted interpretations of who she really, really was. Strong-willed. Energetic. Fiercely determined...

And fiercely in love with him. That had been her worst flaw, the one that had pushed him to the edge and made him break up with her.

Break-up with her? You still have the nerve to call it that? You dumped her! Be man enough to admit it! You dumped her for no other fault than her saying I love you.

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I love you.

I love you.

I love you!

Had she only dreamt those words? She was almost sure that she hadn't. A very small, very timid part of her was sure that she hadn't. That they had been uttered in reality.

Except they hadn't. She'd just heard them in her dream so many times, she now had just the tinniest bit of trouble separating dream and reality.

"I love you. Everything will be all right".

They'd been driving somewhere, she had no idea where, because the dream never showed her. It only showed her sitting next to him in the front seat of his car, watching him adoringly �" as always �" and wondering what generous spirits from above had blessed her with this man that was now a part of her life.

In her dream, she never replied. She didn't need to. She just absorbed those words with quiet happiness, knowing in the deepest recesses of her heart that they were true, that his love was as true as any she had ever known. And it was perfect.

But then the perfection of that one dream clashed bitterly with the sorrow that the second one never failed to bring. A nightmare, concentrated in just a few moments of pure hell.

This second dream �" this nightmare �" didn't even have a background. The two of them were simply suspended in a universe of blackness so deep she felt it suffocating her. Killing her with coldness and despair and things she didn't even have words for. But he had words, all right. Words she would never be able to forget. Because these had been uttered in reality too. The dream had only been a prophecy, one that had meanwhile transformed into a recurring nightmare.

Thank God �" if there even was one �" that the nightmare was always preceded, one night before, by the sweet dream of him saying I love you.

That dream hadn't turned out to be a prophecy, though. No, just the one that said...

"I have to do this. I am hurting you. I'm doing this for your own protection, please understand. You're becoming attached and I can't let you do that. I refuse to let you do that. Come get your things as soon as you can. I have guests coming over tonight".

Hot tears stung her eyes as she remembered. The very last words he had heard from him, that dreary afternoon when he had broken up with her. Turned his back on her. When he had plainly dumped her.

Not because he didn't love her, she knew now. But because he did.

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"Mmm, I love the way you hurt me", she purred low in her throat, staring into the dark and half-wild eyes of the one man who'd always understood her. The one man who knew her game. The one man who played it even better than she did, which was no small feat.

Her dream man, James.

Tracy opened her eyes and realized she had, in fact, been dreaming. James was gone from home again. His business trips had become so frequent lately, it was rare for him to spend more than two weeks at home at any given time.

But that was fine with her. More than fine. She genuinely enjoyed him �" violent outburst and yelling matches and rough sex and all �" but she didn't love him. Not to the point where she would actually miss him.

Especially since she always, always had a boy or two hovering around, just begging to be played with. Boys and men �" or boys with an over-inflated sense of ego that made them think they really were men �" who waited for months to receive from her even the smallest of favours: a smile, a kind word, a whispered request for something which, they hoped, would earn them her gratitude and maybe a little more than that...

Because she was their dream woman.

Still, weird as it might have sounded, even to herself, she only belonged to James. And the recurring dreams that she had been having for some time now seemed to prove that.

The one where they had sex �" the one where he would spank her until the red imprints of his big palms on her buttocks branded her as his woman �" his w***e, his toy, his to do with as he pleased �" that was one dream she would have gladly enjoyed night after night after night, if her mind had chosen to play it for her in such obsessive manner.

But it didn't. Apparently, there was no such thing as a free meal and no such thing as a nice dream �" a freaking awesome dream �" that you didn't have to pay for by suffering, the very next night, through something that was so unpleasant she would have gladly erased it from her mind.

If she could have.

"No, please, don't leave me. I'll never do it again, I promise. Never again. Just don't leave me, I'm begging you. Oh, please, please, please don't leave me, James. I'm yours. Hit me. Slap me. Pull my hair. Do something. Anything. Just don't leave me, please!"

That dream offered no context, but Tracy didn't need one. In fact, what she needed was to think about it as little as possible. Or not at all. She hated it. She absolutely hated it. She'd never in her life begged for anything, she'd never even had to ask for anything twice...

But she would have to do it with James if he ever discovered the games she played while he was away from home. She would have to crawl and beg and ask him not leave her, and get down on her knees, or on all fours, or in whatever other position he would ask her to, and cry and beg and endure his blows.

He couldn't let James leave her. Simply couldn't. And not because she loved him. Most of the times when she had the patience to search her own soul, she saw that clearly. Just as she saw she didn't love herself either.

But James did.