Dreamfever

  “Ah, Mac,” he says, and his laughter is as dark and cold as the place of which I dream, “one day you will wonder if it’s possible to hate me more. ”

  My beast adores music. He has a pink thing he calls an eye-pod, although it does not look to me as if it was ever a pod for eyes, and with it he makes many sounds. He plays songs over and over and watches me carefully, even when I do not dance.

  Some of the songs make me angry and I do not like them. I try to make him stop playing them, but he holds the eye-pod over my head and I cannot reach it. I like hard, sexy songs, like “Pussy Liquor” and “Foxy, Foxy. ” He likes to play peppy, happy songs, and I am beyond sick of “What a Wonderful World” and “Tubthumping. ” He watches me, always watches me, when he plays them. They have stupid names and I hate them.

  Sometimes he shows me pictures. I hate those, too. They are of others, most often a woman he calls Alina. I do not know why he needs pictures of her when he has me! Looking at her makes me feel hot and cold at the same time. Looking at her hurts me.

  Sometimes he tells me stories. His favorite one is about a book that is really a monster that could destroy the world. Boring!

  Once he told me a story about Alina and said she died. I screamed at him and wept, and I do not know why. Today he showed me something new. Photos of a man he calls Jack Lane. I tore them up and threw the pieces at him.

  Now I have forgiven him because I have him inside me, and he’s got his big hands on my petunia—I do not know that word, or where it came from!—rump, and he’s doing that slow, erotic bump and grind so smooth and deep that makes me purr to the bottom of my toes and kissing me so hard I cannot breathe around it and I do not want to. He is in my soul and I am in his, and we are in bed but we are in a desert, and I do not know where he begins and I end, and I suppose if his peculiar madness is music and photos and stories that chafe, it is a small price to pay for such pleasure.

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  He comes hard, shuddering. I match him, bucking with each shudder. When he comes, he makes a noise deep in his throat that is so raw and animal and sexual that I think if he merely looked at me and made that noise, I might explode in an orgasm.

  He holds me. He smells good. I drowse.

  He starts with his stupid stories again.

  “I do not care. ” I raise my head from his chest. “Stop talking at me. ” I cover his mouth with my hand. He pushes it away.

  “You must care, Mac. ”

  “I am so sick of that word! I do not know ‘Mac. ’ I do not like your pictures. I hate your stories!”

  “Mac is your name. You are MacKayla Lane. Mac for short. It is who you are. You are a sidhe-seer. It is what you are. You were raised by Jack and Rainey Lane. They are your parents and love you. They need you very much. Alina was your sister. She was murdered. ”

  “Stop talking! I will not listen. ” I clamp my hands to my ears.

  He pries them away. “You love pink. ”

  “I despise pink! I love red and black. ” The colors of blood and death. The colors of the tattoos on his beautiful body that cover his legs, his abdomen, half his chest, and twine up one side of his neck.

  He rolls me over beneath him and traps my face between his hands. “Look at me. Who am I?”

  There is something I have forgotten. I do not want to remember. “You are my lover. ”

  “I was not always, Mac. There was a time when you didn’t even like me. You have never trusted me. ”

  Why does he tell me lies? Why does he seek to ruin what we have? It is now. It is perfect. There is no cold, no pain, no death, no betrayal, no icy places, no terrifying monsters that can steal your will and turn you into something you cannot even recognize and make you feel ashamed, so ashamed. There is only pleasure here, endless pleasure.

  “I trust you,” I say. “We are the same. ”

  His smile is sharp as knives. “We are not. I’ve told you that before. Never make that mistake. We meet in lust. But we are not the same. Never will be. ”

  “You worry about things of no importance. And you talk too much. ”

  “You got me a birthday cake. It was pink. I smashed it into the ceiling. ”

  I do not know “birthdays” or “cakes,” so I say nothing.

  “You like cars. I let you drive my Viper. ”

  Cars! I remember those. Sleek, sexy, fast, and powerful, all the things I like. Something nags at me. “Why did you smash this ‘birthday cake’ into the ceiling?” I wait for his answer and am struck by a violent sense of déjà vu—that I have waited for many answers from my beast, and have gotten few, if any.

  He stares down at me. He seems startled that I have asked such a question. I have confused myself with it. I do not ask questions. I have little interest in talk. There is only now. I met my lover the day he became my lover. What do I care of things called cakes and birthdays? Yet I seem to want his answer very much and feel oddly deflated when he does not give me one.

  “I am Jericho Barrons. Say my name. ”

  I try to turn my face away, but his hands clamp like a vise on my skull and hold it immobile, preventing me from looking away.

  I close my eyes.

  He shakes me. “Say my name. ”

  “No. ”

  “Damn it, would you just cooperate?”

  “I do not know that word, ‘cooperate. ’ “

  “Obviously,” he growls.

  “I think you make up words. ”

  “I do not make up words. ”

  “Do, too. ”

  “Do not. ”

  “Too. ”

  “Not. ”

  I laugh.

  “Woman, you make me crazed,” he mutters.

  We do this often. Get into childish arguments. He is stubborn, my beast.

  “Open your eyes and say my name. ”

  I squeeze them shut more tightly.

  “It would make my cock hard to hear you say my name. ”

  My eyes pop open. “Jericho Barrons,” I say sweetly.

  He makes a pained sound. “Bloody hell, woman, I think a part of me wants to keep you this way. ”

  I touch his face. “I like how I am. I like how you are, too. When you are … What is that word you used? Cooperating. ”

  “Tell me to fuck you. ”

  I smile and comply. We’re back in territory I understand.

  “You didn’t say my name. Say my name when you tell me to fuck you. ”

  “Fuck me, Jericho Barrons. ”

  “From now on, you will call me Jericho Barrons every time you speak to me. ”

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  He is a strange beast. But he gives me what I want. I suppose it will not kill me to do the same.

  And so we begin a different way of being. I call him Jericho Barrons and he calls me Mac.

  We are no longer animals. We have “names. ”

  I dream of his “Alina” and wake up weeping. But there is something new inside me. Something cold and explosive beneath the tears.

  I do not know what to call it, but it makes me pace. I stalk the room like the animal I am, smashing and breaking things. I scream until my throat is raw.

  Suddenly I have new words.

  Rage.

  Anger. Violence.

  I am all the fury that ever was. I could scourge the earth with my grief and madness.

  I want something. But I do not know what it is.

  He watches me in silence.

  I think it must be sex. I go to him. He sits on the edge of the bed and pulls me to stand between his legs.

  My hands hurt from hitting things. He kisses them.

  “Revenge,” he says softly. “They took too much. You give up and die, or learn how to take back. Revenge, Mac. ”

  I cock my head. I try the word on my tongue. “Revenge. ” Yes. That is what I want.

  He is gone w
hen I wake, and I have a bad moment, but then he is there and has brought many boxes and some of them smell good.

  I no longer resist when he offers me food. I anticipate it. Food is pleasure. Sometimes I put things on his body and lick them off, and he watches me with dark eyes and shudders as he comes.

  He leaves and returns with more boxes.

  I sit on the bed, eat, and watch him.

  He opens boxes and begins to build something. It is strange. He plays music on his eye-pod that makes me feel uncomfortable … young, childish.

  “It’s a tree, Mac. You and Alina put one up every year. I couldn’t get a live one. We’re in a Dark Zone. Do you remember Dark Zones?”

  I shake my head.

  “You named them. ”

  I shake my head.

  “How about December twenty-fifth? Do you know what day that is?”

  I shake my head.

  “It’s today. ” He hands me a book. There are pictures in it of a fat man in red clothing, of stars and cradles, of trees with shiny pretty things on the branches.

  It all seems quite stupid to me.

  He hands me the first of many boxes. In them are shiny, pretty things. I get the point. I roll my eyes. My stomach is full and I would rather have sex.

  He refuses to comply. We have one of our spats. He wins because he has what I want and can withhold it.

  We decorate the tree while happy, idiotic songs play.

  When we are finished, he does something that makes a million tiny bright lights glow red and pink and green and blue, and I lose my breath like someone has kicked me in the stomach.

  I drop to my knees.

  I sit cross-legged on the floor and stare at the tree for a long time.

  I get more new words. They come slowly, but they come.

  Christmas.

  Presents.

  Mom.

  Dad.

  Home. School. Brickyard. Cell phone. Pool. Trinity. Dublin.

  One word disturbs me more than all the rest of them combined.

  Sister.

  He makes me put on “clothes. ” I hate them. They are tight and chafe my skin.

  I take them off, throw them on the floor, and stomp on them. He dresses me again, in rainbow colors that are bright and hurt my eyes.

  I like black. It is the color of secrets and silence.

  I like red. It is the color of lust and power.

  “You wear black and red. ” I am angry. “You even wear it on your skin. ” I do not know why he gets to make up the rules, and I tell him so.

  “I’m different, Mac. And I get to make up the rules because I’m bigger and stronger. ” He laughs. There is power even in such a simple sound. Everything about him is power. It thrills me. It makes me want him all the time. Even when he is dense and troublesome.

  “You are not so different. Do you not wish me to be like you?” I yank the tight pink shirt over my head. My breasts pop out, bouncing. He stares hard, then looks away.

  I wait for him to look back. He always looks back. He doesn’t this time.

  “I have no business looking forward to pink cakes, isn’t that what you said?” I am angry. “You should be happy that I want black!”

  His head whips back around. “What did you just say, Mac? When did I tell you that? Tell me about it!”

  I do not know. I do not understand what I just said. I do not remember such a time. I frown. My head hurts. I hate these clothes. I strip off my skirt but leave on my heels. Nude, I can breathe. I like the heels. They make me feel tall and sexy. I walk toward him, hips swaying. My body knows how to walk in such shoes.

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  He grabs my shoulders, holds me away from him. He does not look at my body, only at my eyes. “Pink cakes, Mac. Tell me about pink cakes. ”

  “I don’t give a rat’s petunia about pink cakes!” I shout. I want him to look at my body. I am confused. I am afraid. “I don’t even know what a rat’s petunia is!”

  “Your mother didn’t like you and your sister to cuss. ‘Petunia’ is the word you say instead of saying ‘ass,’ Mac. ”

  “I do not know that word, ‘sister,’ either!” I lie. I hate the word.

  “Oh, yes, you do. She was your world. She was killed. And she needs you to fight for her. She needs you to come back. Come back and fight, Mac. Bloody hell, fight! If you’d just fight like you fuck, you’d’ve walked out of this room the day I carried you in!”

  “I do not want to walk out of this room! I like this room!” I will show him fight. I launch myself at him, a volley of fists and teeth and nails.

  I am ineffectual. He is as obdurate as a mountain.

  He prevents me from damaging him or myself. We stumble and fall to the floor. Abruptly I am no longer angry.

  I sprawl on top of him. I hurt inside my chest. I kick off my shoes.

  I drop my head in the hollow where his shoulder meets his neck. We are still. His arms are around me, strong, certain, safe. “I miss her,” I say. “I do not know how to live without her. There is a hole inside me that nothing fills. ” There is something else inside me, too, besides that hole. Something so awful that I will not look at it. I am weary. I do not want to feel anymore. No pain, no loss, no failure. Only the colors of black and red. Death, silence, lust, power. Those things give me peace.

  “I understand. ”

  I draw back and look at him. His eyes are deep with shadows. I know those shadows. He does understand. “Then why do you push me?”

  “Because if you don’t find something to fill that hole, Mac, someone else will. And if someone else fills it, they own you. Forever. You’ll never get yourself back. ”

  “You are a confusing man. ”

  “What’s this?” He smiles faintly. “I am a man now? I am no longer a beast?”

  It is all I have called him until now. My lover, my beast.

  But I have found another new word: “man. ” I look at him. His face seems to shimmer and change, and for a moment he is shockingly familiar, as if I have known him somewhere before here and now. I touch him, trace his arrogant, handsome features slowly. He turns his face into my palm, kisses it. I see shapes behind him. Books and shelves and cases of trinkets.

  I gasp.

  His hands close tight on my waist, hurting me. “What? What did you see?”

  “You. Books. Lots of them. You … I … know you. You are …” I trail off. A sign creaking on a pole in the wind. Amber sconces. A fireplace. Rain. Eternal rain. A bell rings. I like the sound. I shake my head. There was no such place or time. I shake my head harder.

  He surprises me. He does not push me with words I do not like to hear. He does not shout at me or call me Mac or insist I talk more.

  In fact, when I open my mouth to speak again, he kisses me, hard.

  He shuts me up with his tongue, deep.

  He kisses me until I cannot speak or even breathe, until I do not even care if I ever breathe again. Until I have forgotten that for a moment he was not a beast but a man. Until the images that so disturbed me are singed to ash by the heat of our lust and gone.

  He carries me to the bed and tosses me on it. I feel anger in his body, although I do not know why.

  I stretch my naked body on the sleek silk, luxuriating in sensation, in the sure knowledge of what is to come. Of what he is about to do. Of what he makes me feel.

  He stares down at me. “See how you look at me. Fuck. I understand why they do it. ”

  “Who does what?”

  “The Fae. Turn women Pri-ya. ”

  I do not like those words. They terrify me. I am lust. He is my world. I tell him so.

  He laughs, and his eyes glitter like night sky pierced by a million stars. “What am I, Mac?” He pours his sleek, powerful body over mine, laces our fingers together, and stretches my hands above my head.

  “You are my world. ”

/>   “And what do you want from me? Say my name. ”

  “I want you inside me, Jericho. Now. ”

  Our sex is savage, as if we are punishing each other. I feel something changing. In me. In him. In this room. I do not like it. I try to stop it with my body, drive it back. I do not look at this room in which we exist. I do not let my mind wander beyond the walls. I am here and he is, too, most of the time, and that is enough.

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  Later, when I am drifting like a balloon, in that happy, free place that is the twilight sky before dreams, I hear him take a deep breath as if he is about to speak.

  He releases it.

  Curses.

  Takes another breath but says nothing again.

  He grunts and punches his pillow. He is divided, this strange man, as if he both wants to speak and wants not to.

  Finally, he says tightly, “What did you wear to your senior prom, Mac?”

  “Pink dress,” I mumble. “Tiffany bought the same one. Totally ruined my prom. But my shoes were Betsey Johnson. Hers were Stuart Weitzman. My shoes were better. ” I laugh. It is the sound of someone I do not recognize, young and without care. It is the laugh of a woman who knows no pain, never did. I wish I knew her.

  He touches my face.

  There is something different in his touch. It feels like he’s saying good-bye, and I know a moment of panic. But my dream sky darkens and sleep’s moon fills the horizon.

  “Don’t leave me. ” I thrash in the sheets.

  “I’m not, Mac. ”

  I know I am dreaming then, because dreams are home to the absurd and what he says next is beyond absurd.

  “You’re leaving me, Rainbow Girl. ”

  We’re “Tubthumping” again. He makes me dance around the room, shouting: I get knocked down but I get up again. You’re never gonna keep me down.

  He dances with me. We shout the lyrics at each other. Something about seeing this man, this big, sexual, powerful—and, some part of me knows, highly dangerous and unpredictable—man, dancing nude, shouting that he’s never going to be kept down, completely undoes me.

  I feel as if I am seeing something forbidden. I know without knowing how I know that the circumstances under which he would behave in such a fashion are incalculably few.

  Suddenly I am laughing and cannot stop. I laugh so hard I cannot breathe. “Oh, God, Barrons,” I finally gasp. “I never knew you could dance. Or have fun, for that matter. ”

  He freezes. “Ms. Lane?” he says slowly.

  “Huh? Who’s she?”