The Case of the Flashing Fashion Queen

I gave myself one hell of a sleep disorder. And that’s why Dylan Foreman had landed so unceremoniously in my bed.

It had been at a particularly stressful time in my life with the new business. Of course, in retrospect, comparing the stress I was under back then with what was going on in my life right now was like comparing pilling a house cat to declawing a Bengal tiger.

Still, it’s little wonder I started ‘acting out’ in my sleep. Smacking lampshades across the room, ruining mini blinds with karate kicks. I had woken up on more than one occasion with the sheets completely off the bed and my ass on the floor rolled up in them. The wilder my dreams got, the bigger the mess I’d make of my bedroom at nights.

After weeks of thinking I was going crazy, I finally saw my family doc, who sent me to a sleep specialist who promptly diagnosed me as having REM-Sleep Behavior Disorder, or RBD. He said it was more common in men than women, as if I should be either amazed or proud that I’d managed to develop it. “Yeah well, so are hemorrhoids,” I’d groused. He’d replied that I might prefer hemorrhoids, and went on to explain RBD.

See, normally when you’re in REM sleep — the period when you dream — you lose muscle tone, resulting in a kind of a paralysis. This is a good thing; it stops you from acting out your dreams and hurting yourself or anyone in your proximity. But with RBD, that’s exactly what you do — act out your dreams. Obviously, that can get pretty intense. (Nightmares, anyone?) I’m told that they see RBD sometimes in people suffering from booze or sedative withdrawal, but it can crop up in anyone, particularly after they’ve reached — you guessed it — middle age. In my particular case, as the stress goes up, my dream mind tries to sort out the details of whatever case I’m working on. I dream more; I act out more.

It’s usually not a problem. I mean, I’ve knocked over a lamp or two. I’ve woken up on the floor a few times. I buy the cheapest of alarm clocks because I’ve found the expensive ones break just as easily when they hit the far wall of my bedroom. It’s frustrating, of course. And weird, I know. But though I have to replace the odd appliance and apologize to the odd motel desk clerk for the trouble, I can certainly live with it. Nothing too out of the ordinary has ever happened. Nothing too embarrassing.

That is, until my dream mind caused me to reach out for my blonde nemesis and capture Dylan Foreman instead. Until I’d found myself lying in bed beside him. Lying on red silk sheets, wearing only a housecoat pulled not so tightly around me. Yep, my eyes had been shut tight during all of this. Fast asleep in dreamland.

But when I kissed Dylan, my eyes had been wide open.

But you know what else? So were Dylan’s eyes when he kissed me back.

+++

It was an impulse, really. A simple curiosity to know how his lips would feel under mine, how he would taste. Innocent, almost. But the moment I leaned into the solid heat of his chest, the moment his mouth opened under mine, it was no longer simple, and it sure as hell wasn’t innocent.

He tasted like sin. And, oh Christmas, he kissed just exactly the way I liked. His mouth was mobile, now hard, now soft, as he nipped and licked and swept his way into my mouth and invited me to return the favor. I did, enthusiastically, bearing him down further into the mattress. And once my hands touched his chest, I couldn’t seem to stop touching him. As my hands skimmed under his shirt, I felt his hands fist in my hair. Ahhhhh! If I hadn’t already gone from zero to sixty, that would have done it for me — gentle yet firm, curious and claiming. There’s just something about a man with his hands in my hair like that when we’re making out —

“Holy hell, Dix.” His hands gripped my arms, putting me away slightly. Not a great deal of distance, but enough so that I knew this wouldn’t be going any further. Enough so I knew he’d come to his senses. Enough to start the wave of embarrassment washing over me.

“I can’t do this.” He shook his head. “Sorry, Dix, I can’t. Not like this.”

I moved away and he rolled off the bed. With a quick hand to the nether regions and a bow-legged dip to his walk as he took his first steps, he adjusted himself in his jeans and walked into the bathroom. I closed my eyes. Stupid. Stupid. Stupid! What had I been thinking?

I jumped up, pulling the housecoat around me so tightly it could have acted as a tourniquet. I checked the door leading to the Presley apartment. Unlocked, of course. That’s how Dylan had gotten in. But a quick glance revealed my clothes hadn’t yet been returned as Mrs. Presley promised they would be. I checked the clock. A peek out the window confirmed it was just about dusk. Holy crap! I’d slept more than three hours. And it had been nearly four hours since Mrs. Presley had taken my clothes. More than enough time to wash and dry them, yet Dylan had arrived and my clothes hadn’t.

Coincidence? Not!

Thank you, Mrs. Presley. Not.

I could just picture her now sipping her tea, looking at my clean clothes in her laundry basket and chuckling over it all. But I wasn’t chuckling as I closed the door and pulled the housecoat even tighter. Stupid, stupid, stupid.

“Er, Dix?”

I looked up to see Dylan standing in the bathroom doorway.

“Sorry,” I said, rubbing my forehead.

Dylan shoved his hands in his pockets, then pulled them out again. “Dix, don’t … don’t read anything into this.” With a quick wave of the hand he gestured to the bed. “I mean, don’t think I got up—”

I lifted an eyebrow. I could have sworn that he was ‘up’.

He ran a hand through his hair. “What I mean is, I stopped because—”

“Don’t worry about it, Dylan.”

“But you don’t understand. And I want to make sure you do.”

“Remember that sleep disorder I told you about? Well, you just witnessed it firsthand. I was dreaming of that goddamn Flashing Fashion Queen. When I reached for you, I was sound asleep. I thought I was grabbing her. Nothing more.”

“And is that why you kissed me? Because you were thinking about her?”

Damn.

“Damn.”

He did a poor job of trying to hide a smile.

“Of course not.” I let out an exasperated breath. “Look, let’s not ruin the good thing we have going here. I made a mistake. I was dreaming; I was caught up in the moment. You … you know the stress I’ve been under.”

“Yeah, Dix,” he answered, “I do know. And that’s why I couldn’t take—”

I raised a hand. “It’s okay.” I cut his words short again. I knew I did. Part of me knew I shouldn’t, but a stronger part of me knew I damn well had to.

We stood there awkwardly staring at everything but each other for a few minutes. Then, my stare turned to the coffee he’d brought. Coffee, muffin box and a brown paper bag (which I assumed, correctly at it turned out) held a change of clothing he’d picked up for me. Dylan had a key to my condo of course, for emergencies such as this. He followed my gaze to the motel dresser where he’d set the things down.

“Got your toothbrush and stuff. Grabbed the first things I came to,” he said. “Jeans, shirt and underwear from the bottom dresser drawer.”

After what had just happened, I was surprised to see him blush on saying the word ‘underwear’.

But if he’d gone to my apartment…. “Can you be sure you weren’t followed?” I asked.

He grinned. “The cops they had tailing me are probably still parked in front of Camellia’s.”

“The peeler bar?”

His grin grew wider. “Yeah. I parked out front, then slipped out the back. Camellia said she’d send a couple of the girls out to flirt with the uniforms. Bought me all the time I needed to do some snooping around.”

“You left your bike there?”

“Hell, no. I left your mother’s car there.” He tapped his pocket to jingle the keys. “Then Camellia gave me a drive in her Hummer back to the office to pick up my bike.”

Brilliant of course. Mother had left her tiny Beemer at my place last time she was home — hanging the hot pink DO ME key tag on the cork board in my kitchen and telling me to use it any old time. Then she’s hopped on a