Chloe Benjamin - The Anatomy of Dreams

One afternoon, we walked to the top of Skinner’s Hill, where the Rock Shelter was. It was a massive stone, hollowed out by erosion and open on the inside like a cave. We lay down on the cool, smooth floor. It began to drizzle, then pour. I climbed on top of him. I could feel his erection through his jeans, his belt buckle digging into my stomach.

“Hi,” I said.

“Hi,” said Gabe.

We peeled off our wet jeans, our sweaters, our socks. My body seemed to vibrate, in hunger and in terror; I had only kissed a boy before. I played with the elastic band of his boxers, then put my hand inside to touch him. His body was tight and dense: muscles cabled through his back, and the tendons in his neck rose like a sculpture in relief. He followed me with his eyes as I stripped off my camisole and pulled down my underwear, then his. We fumbled and grasped at the puzzle of sex, the strange angles, Gabe gasping, open-mouthed, when he came; for me, there was only pulsing discomfort, which faded to a dull throb. The next day, in Gabe’s room, I held his chest as he lurched and rocked above me; and then I was the one who was lurching, rocking, tentatively at first and then with a voraciousness I didn’t know I had. We moved together brutally, our teenager’s need as aggressive as it was ravenous, shoving until we seemed less to be having sex than pushing outside our own skins. It was as though there was something to be found beyond sex and we were running for it, clasped together but somehow in competition. Which is not to say it didn’t feel shared; we were together in those moments, the only ones who knew what it was like.

Around this time, I started to have dreams I could barely remember and that left me physically exhausted, as if I had run great distances. Once, I woke with a bloody scrape on my left knee. I showed it to Gabe: the scrape glittered red under my desk lamp, as if it were not a wound but a jewel I had been given. I attributed the dreams to sex, both their physical manifestations and their psychological features. I was always exploring a space I never had before — walking across an empty room or through an unfamiliar forest. There were never other people, but sometimes, there were animals. In the forest I saw squirrels whose rustles of movement startled me, but I was most afraid of a cat in the unfamiliar room. It was a small creature, silky and mustard colored and not overtly intimidating, but I felt loathing when I saw it. Often, the cat circled me or pushed against me with its head. Now I think my aversion had more to do with my resentment at being left alone in the room than the cat itself — probably it could sense my fear and was trying to comfort me. But I felt strongly that some wrong had been done in putting me there, and I directed this bitterness at the only creature I could.

On the last night of the Thanksgiving break, Gabe and I fell asleep together: our legs braided, our chests stacked spoons. The next morning, though, I woke up alone. I’m not sure how I knew he hadn’t gone back to his own room — call it instinct or intuition, the last cry of the subconscious. Before I could convince myself otherwise, I shoved into my sneakers and yanked on an old sweatshirt, grabbing a flashlight on the way out of the dorm.

It was cold outside, wind sighing in the trees. Fog had turned the sky cottony, so it was difficult to see Keller’s house — only its smudged outline, faint as the sun’s corona, before a scrim of trees. As I came closer to the house, I could hear the stream that ran behind it, making noises like little licks. I intended to go all the way to the garden, though I had no idea what I’d do when I got there. But I didn’t have time to decide, because Gabe walked right out of the front door.

“Sylvie,” he said, stopping in front of me.

I was stunned. Even if I feared I’d find him here, I hadn’t actually expected it. Still woozy in that early-morning hour, I almost felt I was dreaming. I reached for him.

“No, don’t.” He stepped back. “You’re not supposed to be here.”

“Not supposed to be here?” We were both whispering, though my voice was getting louder. “You just walked out of Keller’s house. I saw you — out of Keller’s house . And I’m the one who’s not supposed to be here?”

“It’s part of the—” Gabe turned his head, and his eyes flickered to the left, as though searching for someone. “Remember what I told you, Sylvie. It’s part…”

His mouth hung open for a few seconds, then closed. But before I could tell him that he hadn’t told me anything, another voice came from the doorway.

“Gabriel.”

Mr. Keller stood in the arch that led into the house. Keller didn’t often appear among us students when he wasn’t teaching, but when he did, his presence was electrically charged. If he was ever in line at the dining hall, the entire row of students fell silent in a current. He had a light, charming way of interacting with us, but his power and influence always ran underneath it. Nobody wanted to disappoint him in case his amiability cracked and something else surfaced.

It was more than that, though. He had an attunement to us, an awareness of our inclinations and desires, that was unusual for an older teacher. Once, he came upon a group of us standing in the foyer of the library, with a boy named Will Washburn off to one side. Prone to colds and dramatic, exclamatory falls in gym, Will was particularly on the outs with us that day: another boy had ribbed Will about his lack of athletic skill, and Will had shouted insults until one of the hall monitors gave our entire class early lights-out for the week. Keller could have continued into the library, but instead he paused.

“William Watkins,” he said. “Just the person I was hoping to see.”

Keller’s body was angled toward Will, but not so much that he shut the rest of us out completely. Will looked up nervously.

“Me?”

“Indeed. I meant to ask about those papers I gave you. You’ve not had a chance to go through them, I assume?”

This caught our interest. There was a persistent rumor that Keller was working on a project and that he selected certain students to serve as research assistants. Some people said you got money for doing it, like a sort of work-study. Others said it was more the honor, the prestige — that if he chose you, you were pretty much guaranteed an acceptance to the college of your choice. We all wondered if this was what Keller was referring to now.

“No, not yet,” said Will. His face had a scrunched-up look, as if he was trying to contain something — shock, or maybe pride.

“Well, I’m glad to hear it,” Keller said. “I’ve made adjustments, so we’ll have to scrap them. Bring them to me when you can and I’ll go over what’s changed.”

“Yeah, okay,” Will said.

“Right, then,” said Keller, before turning, for the first time, to the rest of us. “Afternoon.”

We all made our feeble hellos, and he nodded amicably before disappearing into the atrium of the library.

Whether Keller really had given Will something to work on or not, Will’s troubles faded shortly thereafter. So on that day at the end of the Thanksgiving break, when Keller followed Gabe outside, I was almost relieved; I hoped he could diagnose whatever was going on with Gabe and bring it to an end.

He walked to Gabe and put a hand on his shoulder. An expression of nervousness and new clarity came over Gabe, as if he now understood he might really get in trouble.

“Mr. Lennox and I were just having a conversation.” Mr. Keller spoke softly, but his voice was a blade. “A conversation about boundaries.”

“I couldn’t sleep so I went for a walk,” said Gabe flatly. “I went out of the dorm and across the field. I meant to go into the woods but when I came to Mr. Keller’s house I got curious about his garden and stopped. I walked into the garden and looked at all the plants. I was only going to stay for a minute or two but I know it was wrong and I shouldn’t have.”