Collide

  “Oh, right, right. I haven’t seen it. So, you dreamed about Doctor Who.”

  “And his long, striped scarf,” I said, remembering. “He wore a long dark coat and a long, striped scarf.”

  “Hey, Johnny wears a long black coat and a striped scarf,” Jen said.

  I looked at her. “Yeah. I know.”

  “You think, what, your kiddie dreams made you fall in love with him because of that?”

  “No.” I shook my head. “It’s just coincidence. That’s what I remember from the time in the hospital. When I got out, I’d go dark pretty often, sometimes a couple times in a day, usually once a week, then once a month, for the first year or so after. I missed a lot of school but got caught up over the summer because my mom was determined I wasn’t going to be held back. And by that time, I’d had a hundred tests that showed nothing, not even brain damage, and they’d started me on meds that kept the fugues from happening. At least, the ones anyone could tell. I got really used to pretending I knew exactly what was going on in a conversation even if I’d missed a couple minutes of it.”

  She made another face. “God, that sucks.”

  “Yeah, well. It could’ve been worse. I could’ve had permanent brain damage that left me disabled. More disabled,” I said, allowing bitterness to edge my words. “Because, yeah, it’s pretty much fucked up my life.”

  She reached for my hand and squeezed it.

  “Thanks. Anyway, I’m getting to my point, and that is that as I got older, the dark times often also led to hallucinations. Not really dreams, because they were almost always cohesive, and I almost always knew I wasn’t really doing whatever it was my brain told me I was doing. It was really helpful in a way, because if suddenly in the middle of class I found myself in a field of flowers, chasing a butterfly, I knew I was dark and I could try to get myself back right away.”

  “Can you do that? Make yourself come out of it?”

  “Sometimes. Sort of. Other times…” I shrugged, thinking of waking up in the hospital with Johnny holding my hand. “Not.”

  “Phew.” Jen sighed and looked sympathetic, but not pitying.

  “Before I moved up here I hadn’t had any fugues in over a year, and not any major ones in a couple years. I hadn’t had any hallucinations in a much longer time. Maybe three or four years.”

  “And now?”

  “I’ve been hallucinating about Johnny.”

  Her brows went up again. “Yeah? Like what?”

  “The first one was really just a mess. I was on that train from Train of the Damned, and I was the countess or whatever she was. And we were…you know.”

  “Ooh, girl, you were banging him on the train? That’s the kind of dream I wouldn’t mind having.”

  “Yeah.” I smiled. “It was good. Except for the part where it meant I was having a fugue, it was really good. But that one was normal. Since then, I’ve had more. They’re not like the others I’ve ever had. But they’re all the same. I’m always at Johnny’s house, back in the seventies. Usually there’s a party going on. I think sometimes it’s the same party, I’m just popping in and out of it at different times. At least, it’s always within a few days or hours of the same timeline. And there are other people there. Paul Smiths, Candy Applegate.”

  “Shit, you mean like from the Enclave? All those people?”

  “Yes. Ed D’Onofrio, too.”

  “The writer? The one who died?”

  “Yes. Him.” I thought of the last time I’d gone dark, of standing in Johnny-then’s kitchen with Ed, watching him self-destruct. “And Sandy.”

  “His first wife?”

  I made a face like I’d tasted something bad. “Yeah. Her.”

  “She was in Night of a Hundred Moons with him, right? Her? Kimmy’s mother.”

  “Yeah. And the thing is, Jen, the really weird thing is, I was having these hallucinations about that movie, people in it and stuff, before I even saw it for myself. I guess I pieced it together from the internet stuff.”

  “You could’ve seen it on TV, late-night. Like Train of the Damned, maybe you’d seen it a long time ago and hadn’t remembered until we watched it.”

  “I guess so,” I said, though that explanation didn’t feel quite right. “It’s more like I’ve put together this world, though. Johnny’s world, back then. The man he was with the movies and the modeling. The super-sexed-up version of him. And in these hallucinations, I go back to that time and just…fuck him silly.”

  She laughed. “And this is bad? I mean, yeah, aside from the fact you’re having the fugues.”

  “In my head, we have this great, sexy thing going on. It’s all really free. Sex, drugs. Rock and roll. It’s this whole other world. But it’s not real,” I told her. “And it was great at first—if I have to be a brain-damaged freak and suffer blackouts, it’s pretty sweet to also get to hang out with Johnny fucking Dellasandro.”

  “I hear that,” she said, again sympathetically and not with pity. “So, what’s the issue with it? I know you’d rather not have them at all.”

  I laughed harshly. “Sort of. It’s easier in those dreams. I don’t have to worry about anything, and I still get Johnny.”

  “You have him in real life, too,” she pointed out.

  “I haven’t told him about the hallucinations. I don’t want him to think that it’s just all about the movies, or the modeling, or about all that stuff he’s kind of put behind him, you know? I love Johnny-now,” I said. “At least, I think I do.”

  “Is it so wrong to be into him because of who he was, too?” Jen asked. “Admiring his accomplishments isn’t a bad thing. Johnny’s not ashamed of what he did, he’s just moved on, right?”

  “I guess so.” I couldn’t describe why all of this felt so tangled up and twisted. “I should just tell him that when I go dark, I end up fucking him with his seventies sideburns and long hair. And that it’s totally hot, by the way. So fucking hot.”

  She giggled. “So long as it’s not hotter than it is in real life, right?”

  “Definitely. And it’s not. It’s just different. Also, not real,” I said drily. “So, you don’t think I should tell him?”

  “I don’t know if you should keep it a secret, but then again, I’m not sure you have to tell him. Would you tell him if the fantasies were about something else?”

  “Maybe. Maybe not, if they were as nasty dirty sexy as the ones I have about him.”

  “You think he might, what, get jealous of…himself?”

  I giggled, too. “Maybe. Or just get a weird feeling. And it’s not always sex. The last time I went dark I had this whole involved thing with Ed D’Onofrio, and let me tell you, that was just fucking creepy, not sexy at all. I know he’s supposed to be a genius of his time and whatever, but his poems freak me out. And get this, I imagined he was writing a poem about me.”

  “Gross!”

  “Yeah. See, I don’t want to tell Johnny stuff like that. It’s embarrassing and just gross, and it’s bad enough he’s putting up with me blanking out on him and having to drive me all over and stuff. I don’t want to tell him that my brain makes up shit about him and his old friends, you know? It feels creepy to me. It is creepy,” I said sort of miserably. “Totally feels like a stalker.”

  “Which you weren’t. At all.” Jen rolled her eyes.

  “That was different,” I told her. “And I blame you.”

  She laughed and tipped the last of her beer down her throat before setting the bottle down. “Yeah, yeah, I infected you with Johnny-itis. You want a cure, bitch? I didn’t think so.”

  We laughed together. Telling her, at least, had lifted some of the weight from my mind. “You don’t think it’s totally sick? What I imagine when I go dark? It doesn’t mean I’m not happy with what I have now, with him. The real him. Because that’s better than anything I even imagined, ever.”

  “If you were trying to make yourself spend so much time in this fantasy world, I’d be worried, but you’re not. You don’t try to
make the fugues happen, they just do, right?”

  “Yeah. I’d stop them if I could, even if it meant losing the hot seventies smut.”

  “Well, you said you could always tell if you were in a fugue and not just asleep, right?”

  I licked sauce from a wing and swallowed. “Yeah.”

  “Well, have you ever tried guiding the hallucinations? Like a dream, you know. Some people can make stuff happen.”

  I thought about it. “No. I usually understand I’ve gone dark, but I don’t try to make anything happen. What good would it do?”

  Jen leaned forward, looking serious. “If you could control what happened, maybe you could control when you wake up. On purpose, I mean. If you could get hold of what’s going on, change it up, maybe you could end it when you wanted to, instead of just waiting for it to stop.”

  “You think so?” I leaned forward, too. “Where’d you come up with that? I’ve been having these things almost my whole life, and never thought about it that way.”

  Jen waggled her fingers and made a woo-woo noise. “I’m just spooooooky like that.”

  I hit her with a pillow. “It might work. Do you think it might work?”

  “There’s only one way to find out,” she said. “Try it.”

  Chapter 24

  “This feels stupid.” I was on my bed, comfortable with pillows and a knitted afghan thrown over me.

  We’d lit candles and had soft music playing. It felt like a seduction, and it was, in a way. Not of my body. Of my brain.

  “Shhh! How will you know if you don’t ever try?”

  “I’ve never tried to bring on a fugue before. I’m always trying to fight them off, not make one happen.”

  Jen, in her chair by my bed, shook her head. “Maybe it’s like hypnosis. Power of suggestion, that sort of thing. You said you’ve used guided imagery and meditation. Just do that now. Only if you slip into a hallucination, try to figure out how to change it, so the next time you do go dark, you can figure out how to wake up. Oh, fuck, what do I know?”

  We laughed. I yawned. “This is crazy.”

  “Well, get your crazy ass moving, then,” Jen said. “I could be doing some really hot sexting with my boyfriend right now, but no. I’m sitting here trying to get you into your masturbatory nirvana.”

  “All right, all right!”

  Minutes passed. I thought I might drift into sleep, but though I yawned a few more times, I didn’t quite doze. My bed was soft and comforting. My pillow cradled me. I walked myself through my meditation patterns in silence.

  And then, I sat up.

  Johnny’s bed. The one back then. Tangled sheets. The smell of sex. The sound of water running from the bathroom.

  I got out of bed and whispered, loudly, “Jen!”

  No answer. I looked around, thinking maybe my brain had placed her in the room with me, but she wasn’t there. I tried again and got only silence in reply.

  Johnny padded out of the bathroom wearing only a towel, his bare skin still glistening and his thick golden hair slicked back from his face and hanging wet down his back. “Emm? You say something?”

  “No. Just…how long was I sleeping?”

  “Couple hours, maybe?” He grinned. “I thought you might miss the party.”

  “How could I miss the party, it’s always going on.”

  Johnny went to the window and tugged aside the sheer curtain to look down into the backyard. “Not one like this. Lots of people here tonight. Big deal. Celebrities, even.”

  “Should I care about that?”

  He gave me a strange look and tugged off the towel to scrub at his hair. As always, I couldn’t look away from his body. He was so beautiful. The only sort of art I could really appreciate.

  “I don’t know.” He shrugged. “I guess not. I don’t, really. They come to drink my booze, eat my food, smoke my dope. Fuck in my pool.”

  “So why do you have these parties, if you don’t really like these people?”

  Johnny dropped the towel and crossed to me, pulling me to my feet. He looked down at my clothes, the Dance with the Devil promo T-shirt, my soft pajama bottoms. He rubbed a thumb over my nipple, caressing his own face. He pulled me a little closer.

  “Who says I don’t like ’em?”

  When he kissed me, I opened for his mouth. Tongue on tongue. But aware that Jen was watching me, I put a finger over his lips and stopped him before we could get any hotter.

  “Johnny.”

  “Yeah, babe?”

  “You know there’s more to you than just those movies and those photo shoots, don’t you?”

  He gave me another strange look. “Are you gonna tell me I should be an artist again?”

  “Not that you should be. That you are.” I looked at the file of his drawings I could see on the dresser. “You’re really, really good.”

  He shrugged. His hands cupped my ass. His cock pressed against me, not quite hard but definitely considering it. “Thanks.”

  “I mean it.”

  He put his forehead on mine, looking into my eyes. “Emm, Emm, Emmaline.”

  I smiled. I was supposed to be guiding this somehow, and not doing a very good job of it. I put my arms around his neck. “Yes, yes, yes.”

  His gaze searched mine seriously. “When you say that, I almost believe you.”

  “It’s true. You’re very talented.”

  His eyes narrowed the tiniest bit. “Art ain’t as easy as acting. Or posing.”

  “Isn’t that what will make it all the more worthwhile?”

  He laughed a little. We were moving, not quite dancing. Swaying to the music that had begun drifting up to us from the yard outside. I could hear laughter and splashing. A party was, indeed, starting up.

  “I don’t know,” Johnny said. “Lots of things I think are worthwhile.”

  “Yeah? Like what?”

  “You,” he said.

  I cupped his face in my hands. “Johnny. You know…this isn’t real. You know that, right? Us, now?”

  He shook his head slightly. “You’re wrong. It’s all real. You and me, Emm. This is real.”

  I sighed. “No, it’s not. It can’t last. I can’t keep doing this.”

  “Why not?”

  It was a simple question, but I couldn’t form my mouth on the answers. I tried, I really did, but Johnny stopped my efforts with a kiss that got deeper, harder, longer. I knew I should end it, that I was supposed to somehow be guiding this and making it my bitch instead of the other way around. I was too distracted.

  And what could it hurt? This kissing? This fondling? It was good. It felt good. It wasn’t hurting us. It wasn’t real. I could wake up anytime I wanted. Right?

  “Come down to the party,” Johnny murmured into my mouth as his hands rubbed my ass. “It’ll be fun. Sandy’s not coming.”

  “You bet she’s not,” I said. If there was one thing I could control about this, it would be that.

  He laughed. “Don’t let her bother you. She don’t mean anything to me. You know that.”

  “Yeah, aside from the fact she’s your ex-wife and mother of your child.” I made a face at him.

  “Everyone makes mistakes.”

  “Yeah, well, you should learn from your mistakes, too.” I poked him in the chest, then pressed my hand flat over his heart.

  I felt it thumping. I felt his warmth, heard his breathing. I could smell him. I let my eyes flutter closed. All of this, so real.

  All of it fake.

  “I have to go,” I told him, because leaving without an explanation, even in a hallucination, felt rude.

  “Don’t go.”

  I laughed, not trying too hard to pull away. “I have to!”

  “You don’t have to. You can stay here with me forever.”

  His grip tightened on my ass, holding me in place. Unease slipped through me. His gaze was hard, his mouth thin. Not smiling or joking.

  “Johnny, don’t. I mean it. I do have to go.”

  He shook hi
s head again. “Why? Why do you always have to go?”

  He kissed me, hard. There wasn’t anything soft or sensual about it. It was angry, and I pulled away.

  “Stop it.” I pushed away from him.

  This time, he let me go. He swiped the back of his hand across his mouth, then crossed to the chair and grabbed up a pair of jeans he pulled on over his bare ass. He tugged a white tank top over his head, too, and ran his fingers through his hair before tying it into a ponytail.

  I watched him with my arms crossed. Angry and feeling stupid, because I’d put myself in this place on purpose, and I couldn’t seem to change anything. Well, if I couldn’t make him do what I wanted, I could at least wake up.

  Except, I couldn’t.

  I closed my eyes. I opened them. He was still there. I tried again. Nothing.

  “Shit,” I said miserably.

  “Yeah, it’s shit,” Johnny said.

  “No. Not… This isn’t…” I shook my head. Even if this wasn’t real, I couldn’t have him thinking I thought anything that had happened was shit.

  Stupid.

  Johnny looked out the window again. “Is it because of all that shit out there?”

  He’d spoken in such a low voice, I almost didn’t hear him at first. I took a few steps closer. I felt the wooden floor beneath my bare toes. I heard more laughter, splashing, music.

  Johnny looked at me. “Is it because I’m nothing special?”

  “No! How could you even think… How could I?” Because if he was saying it, it meant I was the one thinking it. This was all me, everything here. I shook my head.

  “Because I’m afraid, then?”

  “I don’t know what to say.” My mouth moved, words came out, but I wasn’t sure where they came from. I blinked again and again, but nothing changed. My heart sped up. Triple thump. I was sweating.

  “I mean because I’m afraid of trying to be something more than the guy in those movies. The one everyone wants to fuck but nobody loves. The pretty face with nothing going on behind it. Is that why this isn’t real for you?”

  “That’s not what I mean at all. I don’t think that. I know better. I know you, Johnny. I know what you become. Who you are. What you can be. That’s all.” I swallowed, my throat thick with emotions I couldn’t decipher.