The Stalker of My Dreams

THE STALKER OF MY DREAMS

He is the stalker in my dreams. He's there whether I'm sleeping or awake. I don’t always see him and I'm not even conscious of the fact he's there most of the time. But he is.

He's there when I'm riding the train home from work. My eyes are open; my head gently resting against the window. He sees the half-silhouette reflection of my face in the glass through my eyes, just as I do, and beyond this; the blur of the outside world flashing past.

My head is filled with thoughts, though none of them have any real shape or form. He likes that. The haze allows him the freedom to slip easily in and out of the places and people who occupy my thoughts. Occasionally, I'll catch a fleeting glimpse of him. He knows I do because he lets it happen. He usually wanders around the periphery of my mind; way off in the distance near the horizon of my memories. It’s in those places, where the lingering shimmer of light of past pleasant memories reside, that he sees me. I know he doesn’t belong there, in my past, and so the fleeting image I see of him intrigues me.

If I focus hard enough, his shape might take form. That cloudy, nebulous dust of times past can, if I will it hard enough, be summoned to take shape. But as I focus; as I gather broad beams of diffuse light into one sharp ray, I realize it isn’t my sight that becomes more acutely focused; it's something else. It touches me; intimately. A feathery light touch that grazes so softly it prickles the hair on my arms and makes my face feel warmed; glowing.

I'm now consciously aware of him in the distance. In the semi-darkness of my reverie, there’s no way to determine how far that distance is. The perspective I see from my mind's eye tells me it’s far off; but other senses tingle with closeness. He's so near, he could be a breath away; and yet so far. There’s a void between us that is empty, but it’s filled with thick and heavy ether that’s almost palpable. My breathing is light, as if to draw in only the lightest and most necessary molecules of oxygen from the ethereal cloud that now envelopes me.

But it isn’t oxygen I'm breathing; it’s him; his essence. It flows in lightly through my slightly parted lips and nostrils and is fed directly up into my thoughts. The current of it sweeps me along until I almost feel like I'm drowning. I quickly open my eyes and see the other passengers on the train; their heads lolling listlessly to the rhythm of the gentle rocking of the carriage. They’re oblivious to me and my thoughts; yet he looms so large now in them.

When I close my eyes again, I feel my eye muscles tense slightly with a squint that blocks out all light. I'm alone again, but for the subtle awareness of him lurking in my thoughts. My mind’s eye scans an imagined horizon again, searching for some sign of his presence. I can’t see him, but I can feel him. It’s a sensation that warms my inner ear with a vibration; an urge warning me not to let my thighs come together.

I hadn’t been consciously aware of the fact the soft flesh of my inner thighs was in fact so close. The unseen voice whispers again that I must resist the temptation but he has made me weak. I desperately try to hide behind the voice of my conscience, but it and I am engulfed by his essence as it manifests suddenly, right in the foreground of my thoughts. Still, I can’t discern anything physical about his shape or form, but he's there. I know he's there, no matter which way I look.

A panic rises from deep with me. Every nerve ending in my body begins to fire and zap my senses. I gently nibble my lower lip and draw it into my mouth to touch its inner slippery smoothness with the tip of my tongue. If I let myself go, I know I’ll fall; I’ll collapse right inside myself to that point that now radiates and is controlled his will. My arms feel chilled; the outer shell of my being attempts to regulate the heat inside to prevent it burning my face and ears with a blush that all on the train might see. The more I struggle to contain it, the more defenseless I feel to prevent it bringing my thighs together.

It’s just a touch; the lightest, softest feathery touch of skin against skin on the insides of my thighs. It is that point of no return; that point where modesty abandons me and leaves me to fend for myself against the intimacy of his contact with me. My eyes open for the briefest moments, and there’s light all around; but it isn’t the daylight I expect. It’s just a bright, dazzling light that strikes right into the darkest recesses of my mind where it etches an image of you that will linger and be forever seen, every time I close my eyes from now on.

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