Хлоя Бенджамин - The Anatomy of Dreams

We were quiet as the music—a rousing hip-hop version of “God Bless Ye Merry Gentlemen”—came to an Auto-Tuned crescendo. When the next song began, Keller shook his head.

“It’s a tragedy,” he said. “She’s exactly the kind of patient we could have helped.”

On Christmas Eve, I dreamed of lying with Thom on the floor of the basement. Our bodies were slick and pressed together, pulsing against the floor’s wooden planks. Thom held my hips, easing me back and forth. Afterward, I climbed off of him, warm and light-headed, and he put his hand between my legs. When I came, sliding down the planks with my face pressed to his neck, the feeling was as strong as it had ever been when I was awake.

A thin woman with a sliced red bob sat on the desk chair, watching us. It was Keller’s wife. She beckoned to me, and I rose. Gently, she tugged on the dangling chain of the bulb, but before the light came on, I woke up.

I blinked in the darkness, my heart thumping, Gabe beside me. Sleeping with Thom—this was what I had been dreading and what a part of me wanted, too. But just as unnerving was the fact that the lightbulb—a dream bulb, and therefore, according to Keller’s rules, impossible to turn on—had almost worked.

It was five in the morning now, Christmas Day. Gabe stirred heavily, sighing, and sat up; then he pushed out of bed and trudged into the hall. I heard the bathroom door close, the light turn on, the rushing noise of Gabe peeing. Full with the memory of Thom’s slack, open face—the way the lines on his forehead erased themselves as we rocked together—I slid my hand beneath my pajamas. Inside, I was slick, the flesh molding snugly around my finger. When Gabe stopped peeing, it was silent again, and I froze. After a pause, the toilet flushed and I pulled my thumb downward, my body beginning to shake.

Christmas Day seemed to yawn on infinitely: the practical gifts, the rigid appreciation, walking around in our sleeping-bag coats because the living room furnace still hadn’t been fixed. Every half hour we refreshed the major news websites, scanning them for news of the March case. So far, there had only been a brief addendum in the San Francisco Chronicle about the press conference, which devoted more space to the speeches of Anne’s relatives than to the insanity defense. Neither of us was very hungry, but the thought of the year-old cans of chicken soup in the pantry made me feel sick, so I left for the market with two layers of sweatpants beneath my coat. I brought home a rotisserie chicken for dinner, and because we’d eaten so little all day, our appetites surged: we picked it clean to the bone.

That night, I felt too guilty to sleep. I lay awake until the clock on my night table read two thirty, then three thirty, then four. At four thirty, as the sky turned from black to charcoal, I pushed out of bed and went downstairs for a glass of water. I turned on the tap and let it run until the water turned from reddish-brown to clear. Outside, our car was a great white beast, magnified with snow. After drinking, I climbed the stairs to the attic.

I opened the door slowly, so that it didn’t creak, and sank to my knees in front of the window. The moon glared outside the window like a policeman on night watch. As the rug printed my legs with the nubbly pattern of its yarn, I sketched my transgressions: Thom’s hips pressed to mine, the red-haired woman watching us. Angel or prison guard, I painted her in angles: the sharp points of her bob, the slice of nose, the eyebrows arced in expectation. She was orange, the floor mahogany, and I was red as pleasure.

When it came time to paint the canvas black again, I paused. This time, I wasn’t ready to return to bed, but I forced myself to open the lid of the black tube. As I did, the phone began to ring.

I froze for only a second before running down both flights of stairs. We had two landlines, one at the first-floor landing and one in the bedroom. Gabe was out cold, but I knew he’d wake up if the phone kept ringing. I picked it up downstairs, the tube of black paint still in my hand.

“Hello, neighbor,” said the voice on the other end.

It was Thom. His characteristic lilt made me grow warm.

“Thom.” I was stunned. It came out as a whisper, almost a question.

“Don’t wear it out.” Thom was whispering, too; we had dropped into a low tone of intimacy that was as confusing as it was electric.

“You shouldn’t call at this time of night,” I said.

“Why not?”

“Because I was sleeping.”

“You were not.”

“How do you know?”

“You answered the phone.” He paused. “Plus, your light is on.”

I turned. Faint light spilled into the stairwell—one of the lamps in the bedroom. My stomach clenched. Had I turned my lamp on before getting out of bed without realizing it, or had Gabe woken up?

“Anyway,” said Thom, “I only called to see if you’d be interested in a nightcap. Fellow owls and all that.”

“I was sleeping,” I said, more sharply than I’d meant to. Suddenly I felt guilty; he couldn’t know why he made me so uncomfortable. “Maybe another time.”

“Strange,” said Thom. “I thought I saw you go downstairs for a glass of water.”

“You were watching me? That’s harassment.”

“I didn’t mean to.” The playful edge of his voice was gone; he sounded affronted. “I was sitting in my living room—couldn’t sleep, like I said—and I saw a shadow at your kitchen sink. Slight, so I figured it was you. Anyway, it was your shades that were up. Don’t leave your shades up if you don’t want to be seen.”

I had stiffened, but not because of what Thom had said. It was because I’d heard the quietest click, the sound of a receiver being picked up.

“Please don’t call again,” I said.

I hung up. The phone rattled in its cradle, a smear of red paint across the back. Upstairs, I heard a louder click—a door being closed. I cursed, licking my finger, wiping at the red paint until it was clear. When I went upstairs, there was a sliver of light beneath the door of the bathroom. I padded to the bedroom and climbed back under the covers, my pulse thumping. The lamp on Gabe’s side of the bed was on. I was terrified he’d be angry with me, but when he came back into the room—adjusting himself through his boxers, his hair sticking up on one side—he looked at me with groggy surprise.

“Hey,” he said. “Had to pee. I turned my light on and you weren’t here.”

“I went for a glass of water.”

“I figured.”

He looked at me for a moment, as if waiting to see if I’d say anything else. Then he climbed in bed, pressing his chest to my back. I could feel him growing hard through the seat of my cotton pants.

“Hey,” he said again, more quietly this time. He burrowed his face in the back of my neck; a train howled its hoarse approach outside our window.

It was the first time in years that we slept together the way we had at Mills. Slept together —a funny phrase for sex, though perhaps it’s not so unlike sleep after all: the mindless force of it, the slick grasp, the wild and glassy-eyed awareness. My shins rubbed to a burn against the sheets. Gabe rose and fell above me with rhythmic, tidal sway. I had forgotten how it felt, this closeness. I floated with relief, the old love bounding back to me like a dog.

When we woke the next day, it was already eleven, winter’s bright cold sun washing the room. Gabe went downstairs to start the coffee, and I began to make the bed, but as I pulled back the down blanket, I saw a streak of red paint in the center of the white sheets. I stared for a moment before stripping them, my heart pattering in its cage.