Hotter Blood: More Tales of Erotic Horror

'See? You didn't have to dream on me.'

'I think maybe I did. This time.'

He watched her consider that for a moment. 'Please don't dream on me unless I ask for it. Okay?'

'Okay. I love you.'

'Parrot fashion…'

She watched him fall asleep.

The defenses tumbled, and his youthful, unlined face cried innocence. He lost a good ten years as he slept, and every experience that lined his visage fled. He was newly minted in repose.

But now Martika was wide awake. Wasn't that always the way? He conked, she buzzed. It was hard not to resent it, but, of course, it wasn't his fault. She lay on her side and watched him sleep; his breathing was deep and even, with a light whistle through the hairs in his nostrils. He fell deep and quick. His eyes did a REM dance under their lids. His hand spasmed; he was dreaming.

She could only wonder what he dreamt. He swallowed, his hand clutched, jerked, scratched her, so she pulled away. His breathing came harder, and the breath deepened, soon dropping down into a trancelike hum, just like during the best times they made love… just like only half an hour ago.

She saw another spasm; a wet spot was growing on the sheet.

He was dreaming that they were making love. It made her smile. Maybe things would get back to where they were… where they should be. Maybe they would be okay.

Suddenly his eyes snapped open.

'Linda?'

The fantasy crashed to earth, plummeted to hell.

'No! Not Linda! Martika! Say it! Martika! Remember me?'

Even as she screamed at him she knew she was being irrational, knew that he couldn't control his dreams… only hers.

But she just…

Couldn't.

Take.

Any.

More.

Linda!

He saw her clearly, and his eyes shone with regret. 'I'm sorry. It wasn't —»

'I know it wasn't your fault! It's my fault!'

'It's nobody's fucking fault!'

She knew that. But she wanted him gone. She needed to be alone. She sent him home… to a hollow shoe-box apartment he visited only occasionally to pick up his mail.

He walked through cobalt moonlight. He wasn't sorry he'd run the dream thing. It was the only way to restring the broken web of their faltering relationship. But he didn't dare tell her he'd learned it from Linda. Martika wasn't jealous of Linda, not really, but she'd certainly feel like a third-generation lover knowing he'd used Linda's stuff on her.

He'd tried it professionally for a while, actually made some money manipulating people's dreams. But he could see little future in sitting in the homes of the lonely, the depressed, and the depressing, watching them sleep and giving them their own James Bond and Marilyn Chambers fantasies. He grew to resent them and didn't want to get as close to these strangers as he needed to be to dream on them. And even though it was only fantasy, he didn't want to share in their sex. He'd certainly had his fill of watching soft-bellied mommy's boys sleepwalking as they Errol Flynned around cheap apartments and squirted in their slumber.

He wanted to teach Martika to power dream, but she didn't possess the guile and cynical bitterness it seemed to require to reach the plateau. Not that it was ever a problem for Linda; she specialized in cat-claw resentment. He was glad that was beyond Martika.

Linda's beauty was in her imagination. The dreams they shared traveled the universe, and their waking hours seemed mundane by contrast. They were far happier in the controlled world of sleep than they were when the fantasies ended. How could real life ever compete?

But she sure knew how to dream on him.

Martika felt guilty. She'd turned him away, even after he'd told her he'd loved her, needed her, cared most of all for her. But, goddamn it, if he loved her, why did he dream about her?

She'd never get to sleep that night. Not without help. She gulped down two dry Xanax and turned on the TV. She stared at the screen for several minutes before realizing she was illuminated by ceramic dogs marked down to three payments of $14.65 on the Home Shopping Channel.

An electric current pulled her attention to the curtains; she rose, reeling as she stood, the Xanax marching to her brain, and pulled the gingham open. Andy was on the street below, and their eyes connected for the briefest of moments before he turned away in shame and she let the curtain fall closed.

Her face heated as the sedative stirred her mind of molasses with anger and confusion. She had to sit down… lie down… let him go… just let him walk away… just stop the bed from spinning, stop the laughter from the closets… and just hitchhike to dreamland. Martika wound down like a grandfather clock. Nobody pulled the chain, and she sunk deeply into sleep.

Andy finally stopped walking, surprised to find himself standing — once again — before Linda's grave. Why the surprise? A little metal plaque in the sod with her name on it: That was Linda. The sight of her resting place, her name coldly inscribed, made him shiver. Now, as he stood before Linda his mind — a fickle gray muscle — turned to Martika. Martika loved him as he loved her; Linda only wanted somebody to take responsibility and blame. The dreams were almost worth it; her temper and her death were not.

He suddenly felt depleted, exhausted. He needed to lie down on the grass and let his whirling brain slow down. The earth rocked and reeled under him as he stared up at the sliver of moon peeking through the clouds. The moon was shaped like Martika's face… but it had Linda's expression.

Martika's hands clutched in her sleep, her face darkened, troubled. Her closed eyes danced in drugged REMerobics.

He'd closed his eyes in the cemetery, and he opened them in bed. With Martika. The Woman in the Moon. He saw her clearly, unfiltered, and found her irresistibly beautiful. Her skin was an even bronze, her black hair cut blunt and glossy, her crescent eyes an even and piercing brown as they opened up to him. Her face gave its apology, and he climbed on top of her, needing to press the full length of his body against her skin.

They met with cool fire: night skin burning hot a couple layers lower. He tried to enter her without hands, but was unable. To his surprise, his groin ended in a thatch of soft hair. There was no divining rod to join them.

But another body pressed against him from behind. He didn't need to look over his shoulder: The pressure of the tiny breasts that were all erect nipple gave Linda away at the first zap of their electric contact. He looked over his back anyway, when he felt her enter him with his penis.

He tried to fight her off, but she was intent on impaling him as she'd been impaled, hoping to draw blood as she'd spilled it to the highway pavement. He felt his flesh tear and tried to throw her off. He screamed like a girl until Linda used him up and rolled him off the bed and onto the floor.

Not finished, Linda dropped onto Martika and entered her, too. The dark-haired one gasped as she took the full length of his penis from Linda, bucking it deeper, not wanting to like it as much as she had to. And the room spun into darkness, with laughing voices coming from under the bed fading into her ears.

The alarm made Martika's heart club her awake the next morning. She was hung over from the drug, and her eyes felt swollen and sandy. At first she was surprised to be alone in bed, but it didn't take long to reach a high enough state of consciousness to remember the events of the preceding night.

Another dance with Dr. Guilt. How could she have treated him that way? He'd been through some heavy times; the guy had watched the woman he loved die, hadn't he? Would she deny him his feelings? She felt selfish