Like a dream, but not a dream. Some people dream like it’s real. Others know they are in a dream, and a small number even become other people in a dream. They travel, feel they are floating, and appear in the dreams of other people. They speak to them, commune. A very intimate experience.
He’d heard all this, but never experienced it. It was like a dream, but not a dream. She was there, right there with him, in the dark. A soft, sensual touch of her hands on his bare shoulder, her fingers sliding over his neck and throat. Her fingers caressing the neck, by the pulsing veins and arteries. Could she tell that he dreamed about her, just by touching, by feeling his pulsing neck?
It had to be her, didn’t it? The one who came in the night, the one who’d filled his nighttime thoughts since he’d first seen her. The Chinese girl. The wry, cheeky, arrogant bitch who tormented him. She made him angry, frustrated. Tied him in knots. He ignored her, tried to keep it “normal”. But at night, he couldn’t get her out of his head. That was it, she was in his head, the Fox Girl, the supernatural woman, the seductive, animal spirit. You can’t relate to a fox. Its face doesn’t change. Its eyes don’t move. It hasn’t got the facial muscles. It just is. Beautiful, elegant, impenetrable.
He felt Ying Ning’s fingers move across his chest, a light grazing round his neck, his throat. Then her fingers were gone. Nothing. The wraith of the fox had gone.
Then a shock, a sting. All the way around, from his nape and right round across his windpipe. He jerked, bolt-upright. Grabbed at his neck, then relaxed. It was a dream. But there it was again. Splitting, cutting, stinging. Right into his neck. He grabbed, but there was nothing there. It was behind him, whatever it was, was behind him, pulling and tightening. Blood streamed down his chest. All over his hands, he could feel it. His head was going to explode. Tightening — a wire, a ligature, something. Coming from behind him. His eyes were bulging in the blackness. He screamed, but it was silent. Like shouting in a dream, when no one can hear. Like opening your eyes in a dream, but you can’t see a thing. His eyes are wide open, bulging. His tongue is right out of his mouth. Scream. But no one hears. It’s black, completely dark. And it’s getting darker.