I grasp my new ring with the fingers of my other hand and start spinning it. Instantly, all of my fear and my pounding heart resolve. I feel a different texture against my back than the rough cinderblock wall of the convention center stairwell. Sweet fresh air tickles my noses and fills my lungs, opposite to the stagnant indoor airflow I had just been struggling to pull in.
I blink my eyes open in disbelief at the most intense ‘waking dream’ yet to find myself seated at the base of an enormous tree. I look up to see a sky of midnight black velvet peppered with the brightest stars I’ve ever seen behind the enormous foliage of an ancient and twisted yew.
Leaves crunch under my feet on a carpet of spongy moss as I stand. The majestic tree is the centerpiece of a stone courtyard. I cannot see past the shadows of the arched doorways, but I have no fear. This place is so exquisitely beautiful, so magical, I expect the air itself to shimmer.
A noise to my left spins me around to come face to face with McHottie. I brace myself with my hands against his hard, cold chest, reminiscent of that morning outside his house. The bright moonlight highlights his chiseled face and sets his amber eyes aglow.
He takes my left hand in his and kisses my new ring while staring into my eyes. I am drowning in the twin pools of his endless gaze. He opens his mouth to speak when a loud crash jerks me back to the present, another expo attendee having slammed open the stairwell door.
I stand there with my hand over my thudding heart, wondering how I came to be in a standing position. I’ve never changed positions or acted out in my waking dreams before, only my mindset usually changes.
This is a new and disturbing development alongside the pleasant one of dreaming about anything that isn’t terrifying, horrible, or devastating. What the hell is happening to me?
“Sorry, didn’t mean to startle you,” the newcomer says, gesturing at me with a vape.
“N-no worries,” I stammer out, fleeing the stairwell.
Heading back into the expo feels so mundane after my strange dream, the normalcy a bizarre contrast. I wolf down a bar from my belt bag and head to the vending machines to grab a bottle of water.
I make my purchase and hold the cool bottle against the nape of my neck, gradually starting to feel normal.Whatever the hell that is,I think. I chug the cool water and throw the now empty bottle in the recycle bin, feeling good enough to finish out my shopping. I have no choice but to get through this business trip.
I make my way around the outside, working my way toward the middle, where a lot of my usual vendors are. In the very center is a tattoo parlor with a few bold souls starting their day out with a buzzy wake up call. Probably a better way to start the day than bizarre hallucinations.
I’m not sure how I have reached the age of thirty without a tattoo. I love them on other people and even follow a few fine, tattooed male specimens on social media, but I just haven’t settled on anything I would want on my body forever just yet.
I spend a few quiet minutes looking over the assorted designs people are getting and wonder if I were to get one, what I would get and where. I would love to see McHottie’s ink up close, follow it with eyes and lips and questing fingertips. All kinds of people are getting tattooed, but I don’t see anyone as fine as the infamous McHottie.
While I watch on in fascination, I take my swirling thoughts and organize them into neat little compartments. I stash away my worry over my dreams, my frustrations over the MIA McHottie, and focus my attention on the here and now. Today is for business. I do a few rounds of box breathing and then square my shoulders and decide to keep moving.
Leaving the in-progress ink behind, I check my watch and step up my game. I catch up with a few acquaintances from the trade, all of us happy to report we are doing pretty well with sales lately and look forward to the upcoming Halloween and holiday season.
We talk about some vendors, who is new, and who has the best items this year. We speculate about the show this evening that has some type of French name no one knows how to pronounce. It’s great to see some of the industry folks, but I need to finish out my shopping list, so I excuse myself from the group and walk on.
I take mental notes on displays I see at various booths to try out in my store window. There are some really creepy dolls out this year, almost too much even for me, and I love dark things. I pick up a few of the tamer ones for my Halloween display and one of the steampunk dolls for the upcoming Poe convention.
I find another vendor I had circled on my map, this one carrying the coolest rings made of night soil. They will be a colossal hit for both the steam punk crowd and the holidays.
I’m surprised at how beautiful they are, looking more like carved stone than ancient remnants of, how to phrase this delicately, poo. Yeah, there’s no delicate way to say that. They make the rings out of outhouse excrement and discarded glass bottles, but the poo is so super old it's not germy anymore. Weird.
I’m so gaga over them I don’t actually negotiate that well for a wholesale price, but I know I’ve forged a new relationship, and that is just as important in this industry.Today must be ring day,I think, but push the flash of my waking dream about my new ring down deep to concentrate on the task at hand. Compartmentalization has got me through most of my life.
Further down that same row is a booth full of children’s items. The vendor is an incredible artist and has made the cutest prints of baby monsters. Her products feature infant versions of Dracula, Frankenstein’s monster and bride of Frankenstein, and the sweetest little Creature from the Black Lagoon.
Her entire series is just darling. I pick up several packs of notecards of the lot and order ten sets of all the prints. I know they are going to be such a great hit. And if someday I ever have a nursery, I now know my theme.
She also carries the cutest bat plushies. I remember hauling around a fuzzy gray bear until I was about eight years old, twirling the tags so much I got a callus. These little soft bats will make a brilliant companion to sit next to my old bear, who now lives on my bedroom chair.
I can’t decide between the pink minky plush with contrasting black spider fabric or the gothic skull print one, so I get both for myself and order another dozen for the store. Losing myself in my safe place, falling into the familiar thought patterns of running my business, soothes my frazzled brain.
I pick up one with an Edgar Allan Poe print for my gothic nursery customers back home. It will make a lovely gift for my expecting friends. I also do a custom order for some Baltimore themed ones I know will sell well.
All these thoughts of babies and nurseries make me remember my age. I’m not exactly sure either way whether I want children, but first, I need a partner. I wonder what the offspring of McHottie and I would be like. Would they get his height or my heterochromia? I shake my head, hard to procreate when I haven’t seen him since the mirror incident.
I thought we could figure things out, that we had a deep connection, but as time marches on, I’m second guessing my memories of that night. Maybe things weren’t as intense for him as they were for me. Or maybe I over read the entire situation, and he just wanted a little handsy time.
But that doesn’t quite make sense either. I can’t help but believe, hoping not foolishly, that we indeed had some type of bond and there is something larger that is keeping him from me.
I push on, finding my favorite wet and dry mount booth and order a few things that I’ll bring home with me tomorrow. The expo has a brilliant hold service for wholesale buyers that allows me to shop efficiently without hauling stuff all over the giant center.
