Lia had a sense of something happening nearby, something her friends were concerned with, something that probably could’ve used her attention, but the pull of deep sleep was too strong for her to keep an eye on it properly. She drifted off instead, despite her efforts, sinking away from conscious awareness and down into the deep psychic blackness where the eternal currents churn. There could be other things besides herself moving through this sort of darkness. Shapes ancient and vast, leviathans of the imaginal sea that might, for an instant that would seem to contain the entirety of time within it, turn their alien-yet-familiar brand of awareness toward her.
Lia never liked it when that happened. It inspired as much dread as it did awe. At least she knew the things she needed to say to keep herself safe out here. She pitied the poor bastards who found themselves lost in these nether spaces due to madness, coma, or sheer unpreparedness for the experience before they intentionally set out to visit-all conditions that left them with little hope of escape or reprieve. One of those shapes that was too large to really comprehend would gobble up such cases sooner or later, but Lia had no way of knowing whether or not that ended their torment.
Danger, however, was not the only thing to be found down here. This ocean-between-minds was the font of individual consciousness, a primal headwater, older by far than human form itself. The currents here ran pure and strong and could be aligned with in the name of healing and growth, or to aid in the acquisition of knowledge. This was Lia’s own territory, in a way. Black Tom had long ago taught her to use these confusing, often disturbing, yet meaning-saturated dreams as an opportunity to better understand herself, if and when she found herself having them.
They were important. They always meant something.
Lia quit resisting, letting the unconscious show her what it would, and almost that quick the featureless blackness around her transformed into rain-whipped foliage that shivered and danced in a cold, gusting wind.
There was nothing Lia loved better than a rainy night, but the pajamas she found herself wearing-her standard t-shirt and soft, loose pants-were insufficient against the weather, which felt as real as anything. Her bare arms pebbled up with gooseflesh as she hugged herself against the cold and hurried for shelter. She was also wearing a pair of her favorite dainty, soft-soled Chinese slippers, but she ran on the balls of her feet anyway, in a vain attempt to keep her cuffs up out of the mud and damp.
There were prefab gazebos and patio tents on display on the west side of Potter’s Yard, and Lia found herself in the shelter of her favorite example, a large pavilion with mosquito-net sides that could be zipped closed, without really having run the full distance. She was just sort of there, more or less as soon as she decided where she wanted to be.
Her sleeping bag was waiting for her, already unfurled across the old futon she kept for nights like this, when the turbulent weather most made her feel like sleeping outdoors, where she could feel close to its wild energy.
Lia was shivering badly, her shoulders quaking, the point between her shoulderblades that always got sore after too much heavy lifting tightening up into a painful knot. She kicked off her sodden slippers and shimmied out of the pants that had gotten pretty well soaked despite her efforts to keep them dry. Clad in just the t-shirt and her underwear, Lia dove into the sleeping bag and huddled up with her head inside it, waiting until enough warm breath and body heat had accumulated to make her comfortable. Then she poked her head back out, so that she might listen to the rain drumming on the tent’s canvas roof.
It woke something in her, the rain did. It always had. She found it soothing and nourishing and deeply sensual, and she imagined that the plants around her responded to it in just the same way. She could feel their delight and sense of release, and she longed to experience more of the latter for herself.
Lia rolled over, thinking that one of Riley’s backrubs would’ve felt like heaven just then, and even as she recalled it his touch became real, palpable, and deeply appreciated. He knew how to work out that recurring knot in her back in a way that felt so good it made her want to go crosseyed.
She’d spent more time than she liked to admit pining after Riley. Her signature haircut, that sleek little bob, had been his suggestion, and the elegant style continued to make her feel coolly alluring, even to this day.
They’d met at Valley College, where Lia had taken a few random courses in literature, philosophy, history and other things that interested her, at Hannah’s urging. Riley had been a brainy and fun new influence at that time, into things like books and bands and cool movies, always full of ideas for things to do and places to go all around the city. People liked Riley. He could talk to anyone and make them laugh, and Lia admired that. They’d been more or less inseparable, for a time.
He’d always been affectionate with her, Riley had, willing to give massages like this one or simply hold her while they talked, and he’d certainly never made her feel threatened by intrusive or demanding sexuality. Not even a little bit.
Not even when she wouldn’t so much have minded.
It wasn’t because he didn’t care, or didn’t find her pretty. He was gay and that was all. He tried to make it work for a little while only because he did love her, as dearly as she loved him, and knowing that let Lia feel better, a little less rejected… if still unfulfilled.
If Riley had been all air-intellect and humor-then his best friend Esteban was all fire.
He and Lia had sparked off each other from the moment Riley introduced them. As she thought about Steb, her sweet sense-memory simulacrum of Riley changed, and she felt herself rolled over onto her back. She felt Steb’s hard, wiry body on top of her own as he kissed her hungrily, like he meant to consume her.
A lack of passion had never been part of their problem.
No, their problem had been the sheer force of Steb’s personality, and the way it made Lia feel overwhelmed and embattled, like she was in danger of losing herself. Which wouldn’t do, as she liked herself, and enjoyed her quiet little life. She cherished the time she spent learning from the plants and from Tom, as well as the regular al fresco breakfasts she shared with Hannah and the occasional DVD nights spent down at Han’s cozy house in Studio City. Lia imagined her own personality as made up of equal parts earth and water (with a touch of air and just the right amount of fire mixed in), representing inclinations toward patience and understanding, manifestation and gradual growth. She was a meditative, reflective sort, while Esteban could barely sit still.
It wasn’t that he couldn’t be tender. He could be, as well as incredibly observant and thoughtful. He also had money, which she’d judged to be a good thing at the time. He’d kept up a steady stream of gifts and bombarded her constantly with invitations to travel or dine at fancy restaurants. It made her uncomfortable to turn him down, but she liked to stay close to the Yard, and she preferred to eat at familiar, comfortable places, if not cook for herself with the herbs, spices, and vegetables she grew. Besides, accepting those lavish offers always left her feeling awkwardly obligated. The financial disparity between them ultimately proved to be a source of friction, but it was just one amongst many by then. She’d never been able to properly relax in Steb’s company, for any number of reasons.
She pushed him away, and he dissolved back into dreamstuff without a qualm.
She was alone with the rain.
It saddened her to think that she’d never yet gotten a chance to make love under this tent, on a blustering night like this one. The timing had never worked out. She’d never shared her futon-and-sleeping bag arrangement with another, except in her dreams. It would still have to wait, for a different lover and a different night.
She found her mind wandering in the direction of Dexter Graves. Not the talking skeleton she knew, so much, but rather the ghostly image she’d conjured the day before, when she bound him and de-animated his bones.
It had been a brief encounter, but she’d gotten an idea of what his smile had been like in life (mischievous and quick to appear), as well as how good he’d looked in that old-fashioned hat. He had the height and the width at the shoulders to carry off those long coats he liked, too. She’d felt compelled to flirt with that ghost almost as soon as it appeared, she remembered, and her knees had felt a little weak when she climbed back up the tube. Dex had apparently been a sailor in life, before becoming a detective, and those occupations suggested to Lia that he had strong affinities with air and water-qualities that had tempered his fiery and earthy aspects into something like steel.
Lia sat up, asking the rainy night to go away, and it was as compliant with her wishes as Esteban’s image had been a moment before. These dreams weren’t always like that. Sometimes she had very little say in what happened in them, even as regarded her own actions.
But this time the lively, rainy darkness disappeared, and a cool, bright morning dawned in its place.
Lia found herself standing amidst the Yard’s old camellia trees, her favorites amongst all the plants, wearing nothing but a robe delicately stitched together from their fresh, translucent leaves. She looked down at it, marveling at the intricacy of its construction. The leaves were small, paper-thin and plastic-shiny-springtime foliage, vivid green and bursting with new life. When Lia moved she did so carefully, taking pains not to tear the fragile, living garment.
Thock!
Lia turned at the unexpected noise. She knew the sound of wood being chopped, the thud of the axe head when it bit into the grain followed by the quick clatter of two half-logs tumbling to the ground. The familiar sound reached her again:
Thock!
Lia headed toward the woodpile at the back of the Yard. She came out of the trees in time to see Dexter-a living, vital Dexter-bringing down his axe to bifurcate another length of wood.
Thock!
He was shirtless and sweating a bit from exertion. Lia liked watching the way the muscles worked in his back and arms when he swung the axe. He was built like a long, inverted triangle: broad at the shoulders, tapering down to small hips.
Thock! Another log cracked and split. Dexter bent to pick up the halves and set them aside, and that’s when he noticed Lia.
He straightened up, not saying a word, giving her that knowing look and that lopsided grin. He was quite a bit taller than she was, big and solid through the chest, with a flat, firm stomach. Lia didn’t quite realize she was biting her bottom lip while she eyed the point where his flesh disappeared behind the crisp front of his well-fitted work pants, just below his navel. He had an appealing air of genial masculine beastliness about him. A certain quiet confidence and maturity that Lia found lacking in so many of the other men she knew or regularly saw, when she compared them.
Dexter set the axe aside as Lia padded over the soft earth to stand before him, opening her weightless leaf-robe and letting it fall back from her shoulders. Dexter stepped closer, put an arm around her, and drew her to him, chest to chest. She was sure he must’ve felt the thudding rhythm of her heart both under her left breast and right through the planes of her back.
At that moment a jolt of alarm straightened Lia’s spine. Dexter let her go and stumbled back-almost recoiling, you could say.
Lia looked down and was horrified to see her own hands stripped bare of flesh, the bones bleached to a chalky white. The leaves that made up her robe were all brown and dead and curling.
She willed the images and sensations away, but that driving urgency only intensified. There was something happening back in the waking world that needed attending to. She could feel her friends’ distress over it quite keenly now, and she began the long upward struggle back toward them and toward consciousness, leaving her strange, intimate moment with an impression of Dexter Graves unconsidered. She didn’t understand what the vision meant, but didn’t feel like she could spare the time to wonder about it, either.