“Like an upside down turtle?” He couldn’t contain his laughter anymore. It burst out of him like a warm spring. It had been so long since he had laughed out loud that he was unfamiliar with the sound.
He was afraid to offend her with his mirth, but he couldn’t help it. She studied him with narrowed eyes. It only made him laugh more. She looked so damned adorable.
“Oh, stop it. It’s not funny!” But her lips pressed thin as if to contain a smile.
Then she was laughing too. Not a chuckle or a practiced laugh. She laughed with gusto. Her lovely mouth opening wide to reveal two rows of perfectly straight teeth; head thrown back, exposing that lovely neck; her eyes watering with mirth.
Her right hand pressed to her abdomen. “Oh, my... I can’t. This dratted corset won’t even let me laugh. It’s too tight!”
The mention of her corset took him on another turn towards desire. Unbidden, his mind conjured up images of her in nothing but her tightly laced corset. The delicious globes of her derriere spilling out, her breasts pushed up high for his mouth to devour.
She looked at him questioningly, and he realized he had stopped laughing and wore an intent look. Before she could ask questions for which he had no appropriate answer, he sought a diversion.
Looking at the tumbled books, he noticed the titles for the first time. He crouched to pick one up and asked, “Philosophy? A rather heavy subject for such a sunny afternoon, don’t you think? Wouldn't you rather read a novel? I have the full works of Austen, Radcliffe, Dickens...”
“No, thanks. I mean, some other time, yes, I would love to read them. But now I was looking for a philosophy book. More specifically, for the works of one philosopher in particular. Descartes. Are you familiar with him?”
“Cogito, ergo sum?”
“That’s it! ‘I think, therefore I am’. I couldn’t remember how it went in Latin.”
“But why are you so interested in that now? Are you questioning your existence?” he asked jokingly.
“No, I’m questioning the existence of everything else. Do you remember what led up to that conclusion?”
“Cartesian Doubt.” He thought hard, digging up his philosophy studies from the depths of his mind. “He started by doubting everything, and in the end the only thing he could prove was that he existed because he was able to doubt, which requires thinking, which requires someone or something to do the thinking.”
“Exactly. But he hypothesized that everything else could be a lie. That an evil demon or some other entity could be tricking him into believing that all which surrounded him was real when it was not.”
He studied her with narrowed eyes. She wasn’t making much sense. He had studied philosophy. He should be able to have a coherent conversation about this subject, but his mind remained stubbornly blank. Descartes? What on Earth?
She took a deep breath and continued.
“Let me start at the beginning. I was pondering again the issue of how I got here and it occurred to me that so far, we have only considered the possibility that I slipped through time. But then I remembered a couple of movies I have seen in my time in which the people have real-like dreams. In one movie, the dream was self-induced, and you had some control over the perceived reality. The other movie was more like what Descartes had posed. There were evil entities fooling people into believing they were actually living, when they were actually asleep, in some kind of hibernation state, and...”
“Wait. What are these movies you keep mentioning?”
“Oh, sorry. Right. A movie is like a theater play. They tell a story for entertainment. I’ll explain in more detail later, but now that’s not the point. These ‘plays’ gave me the idea that maybe this is just a dream. What if I really crashed, and I am right now in a hospital bed in a coma, and all this”—she gestured around—“is just my mind creating a reality? How would I know the difference? After all, when one dreams, one usually believes the dreams are real until one wakes up and realizes that it was just a dream.”
He lifted a hand, opened his mouth.
“No. Wait. There’s more. What if we are all the slaves of some evil entity that keeps us asleep and dreaming, each in its own reality? But somehow there was a malfunction in the system and our pretend realities merged when they were never supposed to.”
“My goodness gracious. Here I thought you were considering my proposal and instead you have gone down a rabbit hole of abstract considerations and implausible conclusions.” He ran his hand through his hair in frustration. “I don’t even know how to respond to all that. Or if it even matters what I think, since you apparently decided I am a figment of your imagination. Or better yet, I am the creation of an evil entity bent on deceiving you. I confess I have been called many things, but never that.”
“Please don’t be angry. I didn’t mean to offend you. This idea just popped into my head, and I was trying to explore it. I have never given any credibility to these fantastical notions, such as time travel and real-dreams. And yet, here I am. Everything is surreal, strange. Can you blame me for questioning reality?”
He walked over to her and took her hand, then slowly raised it to his chest and trapped it there. “Do I feel real enough to you?”
Her eyes widened slightly, and her lips parted. She shook her head. He yanked her against his body with his other arm around her waist and took her mouth in an all-consuming kiss.
And he was drowning.
Drowning in her flavor, her warmth, her softness. Pleasure coursed through him like a warm tide. He felt her arms reaching around his neck, tangling in his hair, and groaned helplessly. She thought this was not real? This passion, this desperate need, was very real to him. If this was a dream, he never wanted to wake up.
Slowly, he lifted his mouth. She moaned and tried to recapture his lips.
But he held himself away and asked her, “Still think I am a dream?”
