came loose. My head is bouncing down the hill. Guy and lady are chasing it. Hee hee hee. OK, that’s really funny in a horrible sort of way. Ah. Good for you, sir. He caught me again, and now he’s taking me back to my body, hauling the ox lady with him. Whoa! Whoa, whoa, whoa!”
“Did he drop your head again?” Terri asked, offering me the bowl of popcorn. I shook my head.
“No, he just . . . holy shit! I want out of here! Take me out of this dream or whatever it is! Wake me up!”
“Remain calm,” Barbara said in a soothing voice. “The images you see are in the past, and cannot harm you now.”
“What’s going on? What did the guy do? ” Terri asked.
“I want to wake up! Right now!” I said, clawing the couch to sit up.
“Very well. I’m going to count backwards to one, and when I reach that number, you will awaken feeling refreshed and quite serene. Five, four, three, two, one. Welcome back, Corazon.”
“You OK? ” Patsy asked as I sat up, gasping, my blood all but curdling at the memory of what I’d witnessed.
“Yeah. I think so.”
“What happened at the end? ” Terri asked. “You looked scared to death.”
“You’d be scared, too, if you saw a vampire kill someone!” I rubbed my arms. Goose bumps ran up and down them.
“A vampire! You’re kidding!” Patsy gasped.
“I wish I was. He just kind of pounced on the woman, fangs flashing, and blood everywhere, and then she collapsed and he had blood all over his mouth. It was horrible. I never, ever want to see anything like that again. Man alive! I need a drink!”
A half hour later, Barbara the hypnotherapist left, but only after giving me her card and telling me she wanted to interview me at length about my regression session.
I said nothing, just nodded, not wanting to remember the horrible scene.
“What really gets me is that the whole bit with me being run down and killed didn’t bother me,” I told my friends as we sat over a couple of bottles of wine. “But that man, that vampire . . . brrr. I’ll never forget the look on his face as long as I live. It was like he was in hell. I’ve never seen such anguish before, and then he was just on her, biting her. Urgh. It was terrible.”
“What did he look like?”
I thought, trying to separate the last images of him from the earlier ones. “Tall. Muscular. Dark hair. Green eyes. Squarish chin. Handsome, really. The kind of guy if you saw him in a mall, you’d do a double take.”
“Sounds like my neighbor,” Patsy said, getting to her feet.
“You have a handsome neighbor you’ve been keeping from us?” I asked her.
“Well, I don’t see him very often. He works at night or something—I never see him during the day. But he’s gorgeous, really gorgeous. He likes to swim in the nude.”
“We’re your oldest friends,” Terri said. “You owe it to us to share gorgeous men who swim naked.”
“How,” I said, my mind slightly muddled because of the wine, “do you know he swims naked?”
Patsy hiccuped. “If you happen to be at the east side of my fence pruning the hedge, there’s a bare spot where you can see into his backyard, and the pool.”
“I wanna see,” Terri said, tipping over.
“You have had way too mush wine, misshy,” I said, pulling her upright. “But I agree. I want to see the naked gorgeous neighbor.”
Patsy glanced at the clock. “Normally I don’t see him until closer to midnight, but a little fresh air will do us good. Tallyho, ladies!”
“We’re off to get a fox,” Terri said, giggling as we clutched each other and staggered after Patsy, who carried a bottle of wine with her, pointing it toward the backyard.
It took a good ten minutes to get to the spot Patsy had mentioned, but only because we all had to troop back into the house, one by one, to use the facilities.
“Sucks having a tiny bladder,” Terri said, wobbling slightly as she returned to where Patsy and I were lying on the grass, sharing the last bottle of wine. “C’mon, let’s go find that neighbor.”
There was no one in the pool.
“Dammit,” I said, clutching a tree that stood next to the neighbor’s house.
“Well, that’s disappointing,” Patsy said. “Maybe he’ll be out later.”
“Antimacassar,” Terri said, taking a swig off the bottle.
“Huh?” I asked.
“I think she means anticlimactical,” Patsy said with great precision.
“Ah. Gotcha. Well, hell. I’m all keyed up to see a gorgeous guy.”
“I know!” Terri said, heading for the house. “Let’sh peek in the windows to see him.”
“Ter!” Patsy said, her voice hushed as she ran after Terri. “That’s illegal.”
“No it isn’t,” she insisted. “He’s your neighbor, right? That’sh not illegal to look in a neighbor’s house. You ever hear of Neighborhood Watch? We do it all the time. It’sh good. C’mon. Let’s peek.”
“Somehow, that makes sense,” I said, following the pair. “I think it’s because I’m drunk.”
By the time we found a window that wasn’t curtained, and which looked in on what appeared to be a living room done in shades of cream and white, Patsy had to pee again, and was urging us to return to her house.
“What’sh the big deal?” Terri asked, having some difficulty navigating the one step that led up to the doors.
“He’s my neighbor! I don’t want him pissed at me.”
“It’s not like he’s going to know we were here,” I pointed out, admiring the intricate tile laid in the entryway.
“He’s going to know I was here if I leave a big puddle of wee,” she said, her legs crossed as she did a little hopping dance. “Let’s go back home. I really have to go!”
“OK. I don’t see him anyw—hoo! I see him!” Terri plastered herself to the glass on either side of the double front doors, loudly jabbing the glass with her finger. “Look! Do you see? Oh, baby, you’re right. He is gorgeous, although he’s not naked. Hey, he’s looking this way. I wonder if he can see us.”
“It’s night outside,” I said, waving my arms around to show her the night. “See? Black. Night. No one can see us. We’re like ninjas. Except for the wee puddles.”
The door opened, light spilling out from inside, the silhouette of a man clearly visible. “Can I help you?” he asked, his voice deep and alluring with a slight German accent.
“I have to wee!” Patsy wailed, clutching at herself. She shoved the bottle at me and pushed past the neighbor into his house.
“Second door on the left,” he directed her. She ran in the direction he was pointing.
He turned back to us, but I couldn’t see him clearly, what with the light behind him. “Is there something I can do for you ladies?”
“Pats said you like to swim in the altogether,” Terri said, looking hopeful.
“Ah. Well, I’ve had my swim for the day. Is there anything else?”
He stepped out of the doorway and onto the entryway, straight into the light cast by a standing yard lamp a few feet away.
I dropped the bottle of wine, pointing at him as my skin tried to crawl away.
“What’s wrong, Cora?” Terri asked, weaving slightly. “You look like you’re going to barf.”
“Vampire,” I said, the word coming out as a croak.
The man, who had been reaching out to steady Terri, suddenly whirled around to look at me.
“What?” Terri asked, wobbling her way down the lone step.
“Vampire,” I repeated.
The man narrowed his green eyes at me. “Who the hell are you?”
“VAMPIRE!” I screamed, and suddenly, the world started to spin, and a great big black hole opened up at my feet, and I fell into it.
The last sound I heard was that of Patsy. “Oh, thank you, Alec. I really didn’t want to wee on your lovely tile work. What’s Cora doing on the ground?”
