Valdemar is sitting up, resting his back against the headboard, the sheet covering his legs, his chest bare and brazen. Suddenly aware of my nakedness, I tug the sheet up to cover my breasts as I sit up, moving slightly away from him.
He puts his phone on the bedside table and regards me with curiosity, like he’s trying to work out whether I’m going to pounce on him or run a mile. I do neither. Instead, I search my brain for how I’ve ended up here, naked and beside him in bed, when the reason I visited him last night was for something entirely different.
“What time is it?” I glance around the room for a clock.
“Do you have somewhere to be?” he asks.
“No. I’ve booked a few days off work, but that doesn’t mean I should be here.”
“I was right, then,” he says, folding his arms.
“About what?”
“The guilt. The shame. You’re already berating yourself for ending up in my bed.”
“You held a knife to my throat,” I remind him.
“So, you’ve no reason to feel bad; I gave you no choice.”
I shake my head. “We both know that’s a lie.”
“We lie to ourselves all the time. Why should this be any different?”
“This is not what I came here for last night.”
“Then why did you come here?” he asks.
“You know why. I’ve still been unable to talk to my brother. The dreams didn’t work.” I feel I’ve lost sight of this these last few weeks.
“No, and I’m sorry about that, but I said I would try, and I did.”
“Then you need to try again,” I insist.
“I’m not sure that’s a good idea.”
“Why not?” I ask.
“After the last dream?”
The cold metal of the gun in my hand, Ed pleading with me to shoot him, Valdemar stepping in to take the gun from me, my eyes closing as the explosion shatters the dream.
“You ended up in my dream again, and although I got to you just in time, I don’t want you to have to go through that again.No oneshould have to go through that,” he says.
“Why does this keep happening? The other dreams weren’t like that. They were memories.”
“I don’t understand it either. No one has ever managed to step over into my dreams,” he tells me.
“Then what do you suggest?” I ask.
His face stills, but I feel that beneath the furious darkness, the cogs are working double time.
“I don’t know,” he says at last.
“Then there’s no reason for me to be here.” Clutching the sheet to my chest, I shimmy my way off the bed, leaving a naked Valdemar in my wake.
He’s hard, and he gives his cock one long stroke. “You can’t expect me not to be turned on by the sight of you.”
Squeezing my eyes shut and gulping hard, I find my voice. “Where’s my dress and underwear?”
