Dear Devil,
Is this how you do it? I don’t know and I don’t care. Desperate times call for desperate measures.
Dear Devil,
How are you? I hope you’re well, and not too booked and busy with requests. I would like to make a deal. I am willing to trade anything to go back in time and ensure Xander does not witness me moaning myself awake from sleep masturbation. And I mean anything. I am willing to trade sleep farting, which I’m sure you’ll find equally soul destroying and an absoluteboner killer, which will kill my confidence to hook up with hot dudes for a very long time, leaving me in sexual purgatory, which is, in essence, hell for me. This is a great deal for you. And I’ll also throw in a set of steak knives.
Yours truly,
Ashleigh
I hold my breath.
Nothing happens.
“Are you okay?” Xander says, his voice a painful reminder that he’s still here, and that he saw and heard everything. I cringe so hard I almost pull a fucking muscle in my face.
“No,” I say, steadying myself for what I’m sure will be a full-blown mockery of my salacious sleeping habits.
But then he surprises me. “Nightmare?” he says without a hint of malice.
Wait. What? Nightmare? Oh, thank God. He thought I was moaning in fear (something I will likely overanalyze later but for now—who cares?). Yes. A nightmare! Exactly. One hundred percent a nightmare.
I remove the pillow from over my face and turn toward Xander. His hair is scruffy and messy and I want to run my hands through it. Do not flashback to the sex dream, Ash. Don’t do it. I’m warning you. I’m counting to three.
One.
Two.
A flash of his hands on me.
I swallow.
“Yes. Really scary stuff,” I say, clutching my heart to corroborate my story. I will take this lie with me to the grave.
There’s a soft knock on the door, and Ben enters.
“Good morning,” he says.
I smile. Sweet Ben. A perfect distraction. There will be no more mentioning of my one-woman show. Or of the cover-up story. Just an appreciation for fancy wires and to marvel at the relatively new science of polysomnography, which is a new word I learned, fancy speak for studying sleep.
“Ashleigh, we saw a hard spike in your vitals right before you woke up. Heart rate, breathing, eye and leg movement. I’ll have to replay the tapes back when we do the analysis later, but how are you feeling?” Ben says.
And no.
No. No. No.
Do not play the tapes back.
Do not study the tapes, Ben.
Ben, please don’t study the tapes.
“Bad dream,” I say, with a dry throat.
Ben’s eyes light up. “It’s rare we get adults who are woken up from a nightmare. I’ll be looking forward to studying the video with my students at my next tutorial,” Ben says, confirming my worst fear that I’ve essentially made a porn, and it’s now going to be circulated among the academic community.
My heart starts racing again.
