Each long song seemed to stretch into the next millennium, and time ran like dripping honey. I wrapped myself tighter around her, and she squeezed my arm, still completely absorbed in the action onscreen. There were flappers and mobsters and colors so bright it was obviously right after the time of black-and-white cinema. The film concluded with a kiss, and when the credits began rolling, Ashlinn unwrapped my legs and arms from where they were around her and spun in my lap so her heady grin was now pointed in my direction.
“That was brilliant,” she told me, and I wondered if she could get any more perfect.
“So are you,” I responded, and she rewarded me with another tiny kiss on the nose.
“Where’d the popcorn go?”
I looked around and saw it spread on the floor like a lumpy constellation.
“It appears we spilled it, must’ve been during the maneuvering. That won’t be fun to clean up later.”
I kicked the toppled bowl farther away—there was only so much more damage to be done at that point—and brushed away the popcorn. The mess could be dealt with later, maybe the next morning. As long as I got it before Mother came home, I’d be good.
I had no idea what the time of day was and couldn’t see out the curtained windows from the fort. Dragging her down with me, I lay back so her head was on my chest. Our feet stuck out of the front.
The credits rolled on in the background, and we both stared at the blanket ceiling above. I loved holding her in my arms, but everything seemed to be working out too well. There had to be a catch-22. Things never just sorted themselves out in my life. She sighed contentedly and drew lazy circles over my hand with her fingers.
“Is this truly enough for you?” I whispered, not wanting to ruin the mood enveloping the moment.
“Of course it is. More than enough.”
“You don’t want sex? You don’t mind not kissing me?”
She turned her head and gave me a kiss on the clavicle. “I just did.”
“You know what I mean.”
Ashlinn was silent, then rolled off me and turned onto her stomach. With arms crossed beneath, her gaze raked over my appearance.
“I’d be happy to just watch movie musicals with you for the rest of eternity. Sex doesn’t faze me. Too much of my time has been spent building obscene situations for it to freak me out at all. Being a voyeur to the minds of unconscious civilians has proven a great many things, and one of them is my sexuality.”
She stopped talking and pondered for a bit. Her words were slow and seemingly hard to come by. “I guess I’m just more interested in other stuff.”
“Other stuff?”
“Well, this is nice, the cuddling. And I like holding your hand and leaning against you. It appears contact is something we both like. I refuse to be pressured into sex, and I don’t want to disappoint you, but it seems like that’s not really something you want either.”
“No, I don’t think it is.”
The idea of sex was vaguely repugnant and not having to squash those thoughts immediately was pleasant and brought a smirk to my face. She liked being in my arms, and I liked wrapping them around her. This would work.
I began to run my fingers through her short, coarse hair. She all but melted into my touch. Bringing her head back down to my chest, I continued the soothing action and was grateful her hair wasn’t long enough to get messed up under my ministrations.
“How do you feel?” I asked.
“Adored. Also a bit like a cat.”
If she were one, she’d be a panther.
“How do you feel?” she asked in return.
“Understood.”
We lay there, just breathing the same air and savoring that we had found each other, even though the universe laid so much in our way. Our shared need for intimacy without sex brought back an idea I had seen in the documentary all those days ago, but I was wary about broaching the subject. Caring for her and having her return the favor sounded like a lovely thing to build a relationship on, but fear did have a habit of getting out of control in my head once it began, so I kept quiet.
My hands had stopped their exploration of her head without my realizing it, and she gave a soft grunt of frustration.
“That was nice. I think I was almost asleep,” she began, but stopped at seeing my face. “Hey, what’s up?”
“I want to make you happy. I have some ideas, but they could all be stupid, and I have no way of figuring that out. There are things I want, even though there’s not much of a reason to, and things I should want that I don’t. I’m just trying to work it all out.”
“I have had the privilege of sorting through an abundance of stupid ideas, some of which have belonged to you. Try me. Nothing could possibly be as idiotic as what got me out here to begin with.” Her face was pressed into my chest, which muffled her already drowsy words.
My answer didn’t seem to want to come out. I turned my head to the side and began examining the foot of the couch we were lying diagonal to.
“I was thinking tomorrow I could…,” I began, but the sentence halted of its own accord.
She urged me on with a muttered “Yes?” and a tap on the stomach.
“I was thinking I could bathe you tomorrow morning. You know, like couples do, but without the sexy bits. Just being close to one another.”
I hardly breathed the end of the sentence, ashamed of the admission for some reason. The self-consciousness vanished when my eyes were met with a pair full of amazement. It was as if I’d offered to fly her to the moon and back in a Ferrari-brand ship.
“That sounds perfect. Do please have ideas more often and share them frequently,” Ashlinn urged.
“I’ll certainly do my best.”
“Great,” she said, smiling sleepily at me. “Now I’m sorry to be such a killjoy, but I think I’m going to fall asleep soon.”
“Already?”
“I’ve never actually had the pleasure of a night’s rest before, so my apologies. Besides, it’ll urge the morning on faster.”
“Don’t you want to go to bed?”
Lying on the floor wasn’t awful, but it was a bit silly.
“I’m perfectly comfortable here. You can go retire to yours, though, if you’re so inclined.”
That was a laughable prospect. I just wrapped my arms around her tighter. She was out in seconds, completely unconscious, and her gentle snores filled the air like bubbles in champagne. I wondered if she was dreaming, experiencing the images she supplied to others. Maybe her mind was visiting with Reeves at that very moment, keeping him company and telling him the stories I used to be in charge of.
The credits had finished rolling a while ago, but I only noticed once Ashlinn was asleep. The screen was still lit and acted like a black night-light. Any other day I would have been terrified of monsters and memories lurking in the dark, but for this one moment everything was okay. Asexuality, auditions, and Ashlinn. The world was giving me reason to worship the A section of my dictionary.
The night swirled around me and every moment continued to drag on as my head began to feel foggier. My girlfriend’s lethargic twitches broke up my thoughts as I willed sleep to take me. Her breath ghosted against my skin like a phantasmal caress until the static in my head lulled me to sleep. She did not meet me in any dreams, though, but instead left me to the will of Semira and her night terrors.
There was a man, a man on a motorcycle speeding down the road when a pack of cigarettes fell out of his pocket and onto the asphalt. I knew what was coming next and couldn’t help but to watch, even though the need to stop everything was pulsating through my brain.
Upon realizing his accidental littering, he swung around dramatically to grab the box. I ran, but my legs didn’t carry me toward the scene, and instead I just stayed in place like an old cartoon character, my limbs struggling frantically beneath me.
That’s when the car came.
My father was driving with Reeves in the back, and I had no means of stopping him from trying to swerve around the biker reaching down in the middle of the road. No way of pushing the drugstore a bit to the right, leaving grass in its wake instead of a wall.
It was done.
Red metal folding up like an accordion against scarlet bricks, and that sound—like bass drums rolling into a gunmetal-gray dawn.
Before learning of Semira, I had always assumed nightmares to be a form of self-punishment, that my brain was attacking itself for one reason or another and the cause of the torment was internal. Knowing there was an actual being causing these destitute delusions did not make the situation any less unpleasant. My brain overflowed with a tailor-made horror, but I was freed from it by a hand on my shoulder and a shout in my ear.
Ashlinn had me held down by one arm and was bellowing.
“Wake up. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.” Her eyelashes stuck out in points making it look like she was wearing mascara.
“You’re crying,” I breathed, stroking her cheek with my thumb.
She wiped at her face and grasped my hand.
“So are you.”
I had failed to notice my own tears and reaching up revealed that my face was soaked as well.
“It was just a nightmare.”
She gave a little choked-off sob at my admission. I figured she already knew, judging by her need to awaken me, but hearing the words out loud must have brought a whole new level of truth to the situation. She couldn’t stop the nightmares anymore. We both knew it was something I would have to deal with now, and Semira seemed desperate to make up for lost time. I just wished she would plague me with a different scenario. Ashlinn started apologizing again, but I shushed the girl and held her close. It was as much my fault as hers. In fact, it was completely my fault.
“Do you wish to talk about the nightmare?” she asked.
She was trying to find the right thing to say. I didn’t want to rehash the screwed-up things that played endlessly behind my eyelids, but isn’t that what couples do? Have pillow talk about their dreams? I gave it a try.
“It was the crash. The one that changed everything.” Now I became conscious of my own tears and began to take heaving gasps between the words. “It’s always the same thing, and it’s ridiculous because I wasn’t even there when it happened. I have no idea what it looked like, so how come I have the entire thing burned into my head like some goddamn catchy pop song?”
“Dreams that happen repeatedly do so for a reason. Maybe Semira is trying to help you figure something out.”
“I’d appreciate it if she’d change her methods.”
“I’m sorry I can’t stop them from happening anymore.” The regret was back in Ashlinn’s voice.
“It’s worth it to wake up next to you. Besides, now I know everything isn’t all that bad with Reeves. That’s comforting.”
She smiled weakly at me, perhaps to show appreciation for my attempts to absolve her of blame. We looked like disasters, and neither of us was going to sleep again. Morning was approaching anyway, so I decided to continue the conversation instead of just lying there, stewing over the past.
“How was your first night sleeping? Any dreams of your own you wanna distract me with?”
“It was a singular experience. It wasn’t really enjoyable, more like time travel to this moment. I had no dreams, which is a good thing because I’m not sure where they would have come from.”
“Can’t you make dreams for yourself?”
“Never tried. There isn’t really the opportunity. I think the point of resting is that I don’t have to engage in my day job.”
I hummed in agreement.
The light coming in through the quilt’s crocheted crevices was turning brighter by the minute, and I nudged her to say it was time to face the day. I did my best to unfold her from me, and we both clambered out of the makeshift tent, knocking over two blankets in the process and mangling the third. The nest beneath us had become a battlefield in the night and my legs were completely twisted in the sheets when I crawled away.
It took several minutes to extract every limb from our little haven. It wasn’t a pretty sight to stand back and look at afterward, with popcorn strewn about like stiff confetti and the remains of what could have been a bedding store explosion. This would be something to deal with later. There were more pressing plans to occupy the morning with.
With a small dose of fear, I began pulling Ashlinn toward the bathroom.
“I have a promise to keep.”
SHE RUBBED
her fingers over my palm as we walked through the dim house. The only lighting available came through slits in the blinds. It looked like the walls were bathed in gold leaf, and I hated to ruin it but was forced to turn on some lights to climb the staircase. Ashlinn thrummed with excitement behind me, and I was surprised I wasn’t too anxious yet.
This is what adulthood must feel like. This is leaving the past behind and accepting the love of another. This is a balance. Or at least that’s what I convinced myself of before it was time to actually do anything. We made it to the bathroom.
The room’s yellow light was harsh, and I blinked against it before quickly turning to lay out the bath mat and turn on the shower, allowing the water to heat. An inkling of fear was creeping back again.
Does she like hot showers? How hot?
The realization that we’d have to be naked in order to take said shower caused the next wave of fear. For some reason I hadn’t fully processed that before. Ashlinn had already been naked in my presence, so she shouldn’t be too modest.
God, was that really just yesterday?
A lifetime had been compressed into the last hours, folded away into the meandering minutes. The last time we were in this bathroom together hadn’t been for the best reasons. A trash can of drugs still sat in the corner. Upon noticing it I felt like I was experiencing hyperventilation of the mind.
Ashlinn pulled me from my anxious reverie by placing both hands on my shoulders.
“I might be wrong, but I doubt you want me to get your nice sundress soaked.”
“Oh yeah, you’re right,” I stuttered. “You can take that off. I’ll take mine off too, of course.”
There was no reason to be so shy about this. People see their girlfriends naked all the time, and it’s not like I had a body to be bashful about, being a dancer and all. The only thing I had any concerns with were my feet, with my inverted toes and odd veins. I didn’t wear flip-flops for a reason.