The room stills, and I’m aware I’m staring at Pierre as the unlit cigarette hangs from his mouth even though he has no intention of lighting it in the bar.
“The dreams you were talking about the other week,” he mumbles, the cigarette sticking precariously to his dry lips.
I can see the pieces of the puzzle falling into place in his brain, and I’m dreading the last piece going in.
He plucks the cigarette from his mouth and points it accusingly at me. “Have you been dreaming about Valdemar Montresor?”
My cheeks blaze as a thin layer of sweat coats my back.
“Holy fuck,” Pierre says slowly, each syllable emphasising just how messed up this is.
“Why didn’t you tell us?” Una repeats, her face paler than the white powder she’s dusted it with. And her reaction is exactly why I didn’t tell them both. Because, right now, Una is looking at me with such disgust I can feel it on my skin. She’s never been able to hide her emotions, never been able to keep back her opinions no matter who’s involved.
“Because it’s just so fucking weird and odd and wrong and disturbing.” Even as I say it, I feel like I’m betraying Valdemar, as when I’m in the dream, nothing is disturbing about it. Thatfeeling only comes after, when I wake up having been consumed by him.
“Well, I’ll be damned.” Pierre taps the end of the cigarette on the table, a mischievous look clouding his face. “What’s he like?” he asks, waggling his eyebrows and smirking. “Hung like a horse?”
Una whacks him on the side of his arm.
“For God’s sake, Pierre,” she says.
He holds both hands up in defence. “I’m just trying to lighten the mood, and rumour has it he’s supposed to be insanely hot.”
“Would you stop it already?” Una closes her eyes momentarily before returning her gaze to me. “I apologise for the insincerity of our colleague here. He doesn’t know what he’s saying.”
“It’s fine, honestly. I could do with a laugh,” I say, relieved that Pierre is trying to douse the tension around the table.
“I’m sure the dreams are just because he’s on your mind. People dream about sleeping with other people all the time, even when they’re happily married,” Una tells me.
“Do they?” Pierre asks.
“You’re telling me you’ve never had an erotic dream about a co-worker or a friend who, in real life, you wouldn’t touch with a barge pole?” she asks him.
“Now you mention it, I have.” Pierre leans in. “I dream about you, Una, every night, with your skull earrings, black lipstick, and ripped tights.” He gnashes his teeth like a dog tearing at a chew toy.
“Not funny.” Una glares at him, unable to let the importance of this situation be batted away with jokes. She returns her attention to me. “So, what are you going to do?”
“I don’t know. I’m not sure there’s anything Icando. He’s being released, and that’s all there is to it.”
“Do you feel safe, knowing he’ll be walking the streets again?” She places both hands around her glass.
I don’t even need to think before I answer. “Yes.”
What I don’t tell them is that I’ll feel safer than I ever have in my life. How would they even begin to understand that when I don’t understand it myself?
Tipping my almost empty glass to the side, I stand. “Who’s up for a refill?”
Una rises. “I’ll come with you.”
“It’s okay,” I tell her. “I got these.”
She sits back down, and the pair of them eye me like I’m a priceless vase balanced on a precariously high stand that could topple at any moment.
Heading to the bar, I try not to think about what they’ll be saying about me. I wonder what their reaction would have been if I’d told them everything. That Valdemar Montresor can visit me in my dreams, that I’m now addicted to the way he touches me. What would they say if I told them that I sleep with his T-shirt on, that he occupies my thoughts twenty-four hours a day, that I can’t sleep without knowing he’ll be there, how his words and his touch make me come every single night, and the sadness that swamps me because none of it is real?
I’m unsure as to what level of sanity I’ve reached by justifying what’s been going on these past few weeks, but having said it out loud, I realise how it sounds, how it is.
Una is right. This is fucked up. All of it is fucked up.
