Short Story for May 2001

   
Who are You?   

           She woke from a deep sleep as if from general anesthesia. There was the sudden awareness that time had passed and events had occurred and she had not been present, and the additional realisation that things had happened to her. Then there was pain, gradually increasing as she probed downward from her brain to her heart and her gut and her crotch, each of which hurt in its own unique and non-physical way. The wounds were emotional; but they had been inflicted in her sleep while she lay helpless, and no malpractice suit could be filed against her mind.  She wondered what had been removed this time.

          After the dunes had gone, she watched his descent through the still, dark air, and a throb of it around him coalescing into a mist. Under his glittering black eyes, his heart-shaped mouth on her throat was a needle-bright sting of white teeth ringed by a sensuous suction. She felt weak and light-headed, and reached for him, but grasped only mist. The damp squeezed through her as desolate tears, and she surfaced crying into the pillow. The dry, unsatisfying dream tears gave no relief to her body's strained ache, but it could have been worse; it had been a different dream this time, with minimal violence. The room was chilly and she reached for the comforter, more awake now, depressed but alert. She turned over against a warm bulk, and froze.

          Larger than the cat, it breathed and therefore could be neither a tangled blanket nor her giant teddy bear. It felt like none of her old lovers, and there were no current ones.

          And it moved.

          "Who are you and what do you want," she asked in a flat voice.

          "You wouldn't believe me if I told you," came the soft reply from just behind her head. It had an odd hint of amusement in it, and desperation, and a brittle timbre like the echo off a picket fence.

          He did not touch her, or speak further; almost unobtrusive, he left her afloat in a passive paralysis. Would he strike if she moved? Would he constrict her with that giggling male enjoyment of strength, would he--

          "Who the hell are you?" she demanded, the old bitterness welling into rage that thrust her from him into the black air-- toward the door, the light switch, her dressing gown--while the skin of her back convulsed with the expectation of a blow.

          "If you turn on the light, you will recognise me," he offered pleasantly, but the warning in it stopped her hand halfway to the switch. For a moment her fingers poised in the shadows, and then her palm slammed down fiercely on the jutting plastic.

          There was no one in the room.

          And then the phone rang.

          She woke bleary and drained, to dawn and a sour cigarette, coffee and the underground. As the residual fear and disgust stopped bubbling in her stomach, she stopped in a cafe for a takeaway breakfast. She preened herself briefly in front of her compact, mildly irritated at a new crack in the glass that bisected her reflection grotesquely. She ran a hand through her thick, dark hair and added more blue liner to her eyes to offset the webs of red veins. She would be pretty again if she ever got some rest.

          As she entered the cool reception area of her office building, she felt revived by the clear glass and smooth, indifferent marble. A dark, pinstriped executive stepped into the elevator behind her, and pressed the button for the floor above hers as she passed him getting out, he glanced up from his paper, and his eyes seemed to draw all the warmth from her face. Shaken, she headed straight for her office; the phone was ringing, and she fumbled it a little so that a metallic voice was speaking by the time she had it to her ear. "...said, is this the legal-aid people?"

          "Yes," she whispered, her hand tightening on the cold plastic.

          "You want to counsel me, baby?" the voice buzzed, distorted by some electronic device. She slammed the receiver down, but the cold, inhuman tones had a horribly familiar inflection that stayed in her ears, teasing her, for the rest of the day.

          She usually smiled a little, covertly, as eyes followed her entrance to the bar; she still took adolescent pleasure in turning heads. But this was her customary retreat, and any one of the men in the small crowd could be her obscene phone caller. It was a comfort to see Dave the bartender's amiable face; she slid up on her favourite corner barstool and was soon pondering the amber depths of a drink, watching the imminent release of a bubble from a melting ice cube.

          Where the hell did he get my home number? She thought. When this had started six months ago, she'd had it changed to an ex-directory one to thwart him, although that still left her vulnerable at the office. Until the phone company started offering Caller ID in her area--always the last to get any such technology, as it had been the last to get cable--there was no point in contacting the police again, and to report the really disturbing part, about the man in her bed, would be asking for a trip to the shrink; hell, she couldn't even explain it to herself. Had it been one of those double-jeopardy nightmares where you dream you've woken, only to be threatened again in your own distorted room? The memory was already slipping away, defying her attempts to rationalise it. She had resisted buying an answering machine for nearly a decade now, but it was time to give in and screen her calls; perhaps that would make her feel more in control of things again.

          When Dave told her that a gentleman near the door had bought her a drink, she glanced curiously over her shoulder, intending to routinely decline the offer and the hassle. But something about the man he pointed out made her shiver involuntarily, and to cover it she turned back with a shrug of acceptance. Dave, who had been especially protective these last months, set the glass down and hovered unobtrusively as the torn stool cushion beside her whooshed air under a new weight.

          "Thank you for this," she said, looking up at last and raising her glass in the suggestion of a toast. "Maybe I can return the gesture."

          "That won't be necessary." He leaned into the light, his porcelain face sliding into a smile as she met his eyes. They were black, and she thought for a moment that she could see through them to the shadows beyond, so little light did they reflect. She felt suddenly unable to breathe.

          "Are you all right?"

          She murmured an automatic yes-I'm-fine. Then she banged the glass down on the bar. "No, I'm not. I've had a lousy day. Hell, I've had a lousy damn year. Now, you look really familiar to me, so you might as well tell me: Do I know you?"

          "Not particularly well."

          She squinted at him for a moment. "Okay, that was a bizarre answer, but maybe it was the way I asked you." She sipped her vodka. "Have we met before?"

          "That's a difficult question, from someone who doesn't know my name and hasn't volunteered her own."

          "I'm Alex. Why did you buy me this drink?"

          "You're very attractive. I wanted to strike up a conversation."

          "Why?"

          "I just told you."

          Exasperated, she dug a cigarette from her handbag. "Fine. Pardon my paranoia. Do you come here often?"

          "No."

          "Do you work around here?"

          "No."

          "Have you considered going to a dialogue coach?"

          He smiled again, but his eyes did not crinkle, and he seemed to be evaluating her. She took the look for a warning, but as she got up to leave his expression changed entirely and he restrained her with a light, electric touch. "I'm sorry," he said, very quietly. "As I've told you before, you would not believe the truth, and I hesitate to frighten you more than you already have been."

          His suddenly sad, desperate face buffered the statement, so she sat down again and waved Dave away with a reassuring nod. "Go on, then."

          He seemed to collect himself. "It's so easy in daydreams, isn't it? You meet someone, you talk for a while, you go off together; in reality you have to be on guard for perverts and exploiters. I thought I could intrigue you with mystery, but I nearly drove you away."

          His expression had changed almost down to the features themselves, as if the bones in his face were malleable. She was fascinated, trying to distinguish this nose from the last one, to identify the precise change in the mouth, and she lost the next few sentences.

          "...have met before. In the elevator--"

          "And in my flat. So that was you. Is this a big joke, or what? Did Eddie hire you or something?" This guy must be the caller, she thought; what do I do now?

          "No, and no." He smiled again. "To answer your other questions, I have come here several times--when you dreamed that this building had burned down, and when you fantasised that Dave seduced you. And I do work in this area, when you do; I've been at your desk when you half-dozed after a big lunch, and I've accompanied you as you slept on the train home.

          "I come from your dreams, Alexis, and I'm asking you to help me."

          She fumbled for the lights in the flat, afraid of the dark, afraid of her fear. She turned on the radio, closed the blinds, pulled the phone wire out of the jack, and wrapped herself in her dressing gown, cocooned in sound and light. She thought of the "Twilight Zone" episode where a man believes a dream woman stalks him, and of "Mission Impossible," where elaborate set-ups fooled executives and dictators; but she wasn't crazy yet, and she wasn't worth a scam like this. She rummaged for a box of Pro-Plus left over from college, until she remembered that sleep deprivation causes hallucinations. She paced the floor, avoiding the cat, then flopped onto the couch and thought of the hideous, half-familiar buzz on the telephone, tried in vain to match it to the stranger's odd face.

          She expected him to appear, to finish the conversation she had run out on. But he did not, and when the DJ announced 3 A.M. and several attempted diversions had failed, she gave up and went to bed, flinging herself at whatever sleep might bring.

          The beach was familiar, red and warped, the dune she stood on stretching hundreds of yards down to the ocean. Broken things cracked away from the nearby cliff face, splashing into the water, and she was afraid to try the descent lest the same thing happen to her. But she knew the wave was coming, because it always did, and she stood undecided whether to dive through it, to where Eddie was, or to run for higher ground. It was too late; the wall of water towered over her, and she turned and ran up the dune--reached the crest--could just see the small town below when the wave broke silently over her. She waited for the water to rush back and away, for the dream to be over, but Eddie dragged her out of the foam and then pushed her back down under it. "I was safe!" she cried out angrily. "I had made it! I was safe!"

          It became her father's voice, shouting. There were no words, just rage, and her name over and over again, her full name, a girl's name, his name distorted to fit his disappointing firstborn. Her little, bigger brothers were playing army outside. They wanted her to be a nurse, but she demanded to be an officer, and they broke all her toy soldiers and laughed as her father threw away the pieces. Eddie came to take them, but she had hidden the garbage bag in her room, and when he found it his rings flashed in a convex arc toward her face, again and again, until she knew no one would ever recognise the boneless pulp again. SO YOU THINK YOU CAN OUTSMART ME HUH OUTSMART ME HUH

          She woke screaming her frustration, in a cracked squeak, that the dream had ended the same way, swearing to her damned Catholic god anything if only she could break the infinite loop of events, go back to that moment and--

          And what? She thought, awake now. Kill Eddie? Get revenge for bones that had healed, retrieve her drowned pride? Those were the real dreams. I should have gone to the police when I had a chance, she berated herself for the thousandth time; I was an idiot to try to protect him. But blaming herself would do no good; relationships did not come with no- fault insurance, and whatever the complex motives, the fact was that he had beaten her severely a year ago and she had left him and it was over. If it weren't for some weirdo harassing her on the phone, she would be fine by now. He certainly was, from what she had heard; he had hung up on her when she called to get back her keys (costing her new locks), and one of her co-workers had seen him with another woman several times. Perhaps, she thought, he had never loved her at all. So for the thousandth time she put it out of her mind, as she had boxed up all his things and dumped them down the rubbish chute, as she had pawned the ring for a ludicrous price, venting her aggression, she thought, on every physical reminder of him. She had kept only the teddy bear that lay beside her now, and she dug her nails into its arm, about to hurl it at the wall; then she remembered the arcade, Eddie's dancing eyes and tousled curls and stupid grin as he conned the girl into fixing the game so he could win Alex the impossible prize. It was the only good memory she had left, and she hugged the giant silky thing against her and sobbed carefully away from it into the pillow until dawn.

          She left work early the next day, unable to keep her eyes open, resenting her clients' problems, knowing she looked a little drugged or hung over. She wanted to cry out for help, wondered what they would think if she ran shrieking down the hallway, knew there would be no point. She had been down before, and something inside her always pulled her out of it. She decided to have a few drinks while she was waiting.

          At Dave's, the stranger sat in the dark corner by the men's room. She wasn't sure it was him, since he looked shorter, swarthier; but she was too tired to play guessing games and brought her drink right over to his table. This, at least, she could straighten out.

          "Well, I'm back," she said. "Sorry about running out last night. But what you said did sound pretty off-the-wall."

          "It was the truth," he replied calmly, and the dry voice confirmed his identity. "But you had every right to be sceptical. I don't even know quite how I became conscious, only that I did; trapped in a nightmare that turned out to be yours. I had to get out. It's rather unnerving to wake up into the middle of a dream."

          "Sure." She tossed back her glass of vodka, savouring the slow burn in her throat. "But, giving you the benefit of the doubt, I should have seen you in my flat again. Or in my sleep."

          "I have no intention of going back into your head, not in its present state. And after you rejected me here last night, I knew it would do me no good to alienate you further. I respect your privacy."

          "How courteous."

          "Purely self-serving. I told you my life depends on you. And I know you want to help me. In fact, I know parts of you that you can never sanely confront. And I trust you anyway."

          She thought of how she had listened to his story and then walked out, only to wait outside, stalling, smoking three cigarettes, watching for him to come out. He never did, and when she peered back inside he was not there. She looked up now, but it was hard to focus on him. She wanted to cry again.

          "The other night," she began slowly, addressing her drink, "I was dreaming of a vampire, and there you were. You're a parasite, feeding on me, using me to make you real."

          His voice was patient, and deeper than before, although it retained that strange bone-dryness. "But look at what I offer you. I can be any man you desire, for as long as you like--your whole life, if you wish--or a different one every day...."

          His teasing hurt. "You're a prostitute, then."

          "I told you how badly I want to live."

          "So convince me, if you know me so well. Find just the words that will sway me, dig them out of the back of my mind."

          "Arguments are logical." He smiled. "Dreams are not."

          "But they seem to be while they're happening. You're a failure even as a dream." She regretted the words immediately, but it was too late to retrieve them, so she looked up and forced her eyes to stay on his face. She was not as startled this time by the change: The dark stranger had vanished, and his eyes were a slit blue under tawny hair. "Look. Can't you be yourself? Do you have a self to be?"

          "Only yours."

          "Then you're out of luck." She put her head in her hands and squeezed her hair tightly, painfully away from her scalp. The drink and the string of nights seemed collected behind her eyelids in a sticky, heavy scum. Shame on you, Alex. You're trained to know the difference between helping and being used. But her mind had caught on something--a puzzle, a challenge. She stared suddenly up at him. "You look like the film star—Mel Gibson."

          "So I do."

          She shook her head, annoyed. "No. Mel Gibson would never say that. First of all, he has a touch of a Southern accent, and yours is classic mid-Atlantic. I was right about the dialogue coach; you'll need one. People don't talk the same in reality as in dreams. Plus you'll have to stop being all these different characters. Even if I did go for a little wish-fulfillment in my sex life--and I've had it with romance for now, you should know that, Sigmund--in public you'll have to settle for one face if you want to be really real. In fact, there are a lot of practical considerations here. What are you going to do for money, and identification, and clothes, and so on? Can you pull those out of my head?"

          His big hand closed over one of hers and drew it to his face. His cheek was warm with a hint of beard; she could feel the swell of the jawbone, the fleshy pouch of jowl, the muscles contracting as he smiled again. "You're very good at your job," he said softly as her limp hand fell away. She felt dizzy again, unfocused, as if her contact lenses were slipping, but she continued to stare stubbornly at him, determined to see this through. He filled out as if taking a deep breath; his hair curled slightly, reddened along with his pallor, and after what seemed like a long while she blinked hard because she was looking at Eddie.

          "Now, that's not fair, you idiot," she snapped, her heart beating very fast. "You're trying to distract me--"

          "But I didn't initiate the change. You did. And you're certainly addressing me as you would Eddie."

          The waitress appeared and wanted to know what this gentleman was drinking. Alex frowned--the waitress had already served him one drink--then realised that this was the girl who spent her time in the bathroom and her wages paying for unpaid tabs, and of course, this was not the same gentleman. "I wouldn't know," she said, and gave the girl a tenner. "This is for me and my friend who left." She fumbled a little as she snapped her handbag shut hard, waiting for the girl to go. Then she rose to leave. "The last thing I need is old wounds reopened. Christ." She glared into the corner where he had leaned back out of the light, not caring that she couldn't see his face, not caring whose face it was. "I'm going home to get some rest, and you can take the opportunity to vacate my alpha or delta or whatever the hell waves they are. And if I get any more calls or see you again, I'll have you arrested, I swear to God."

          "Alexis?"

          "What?"

          "You might want to sit back down."

          "Now, why in the hell would I want to do that?"

          "Because Eddie just walked in."

          Before she could demand to know what new trick this was or quell the surge of fear, she heard a voice she thought she had forgotten, the one thing the stranger couldn't duplicate.

          "Well, speak of the devil."

          Eddie smiled that lopsided grin full of teeth that seemed to have been sliced off at an angle so he had to cock his jaw to compensate. His merry eyes flicked to the table behind her and registered the two glasses. He loosened his tie, tossed his jacket onto a chair, and turned it around to straddle it, with a scrape of leg on floor.

          "So, Ally, did I tell you that Cable and Wireless made me the most unbeatable offer?" Eddie said, as if continuing a conversation. She almost responded, from habit, before the intervening silent months rushed back; she shoved trembling hands into her pockets and tried not to look at the cordial, crooked smile that blurred into the memory of a mouth twisted with irrational rage. "Took 'em long enough; they finally figured since I'm their biggest threat right now they'd be smart to get me on their team...." He hadn't even looked into the corner or acknowledged another presence. He'd assumed his dominant role like an old coat, and she knew that in her passivity she had all but put it on his shoulders. Her mind began to spin, around and around his babble of ego, as if trying to weave a web so tight it would choke the words off, all the while another part of her shouting Say something, do something, shut him up, make him stop, her bones still aching from the time she'd tried. Around and around...

          "Hello, Ed," the brittle voice broke in, preceding him from the dark corner as he leaned forward into the sphere of light from the fake-antique hanging lamp. He extended a freckled hand. Eddie's hand.

          She heard herself laugh. "Eddie Lester. Meet Eddie Lester."

          Ed looked from the hand to the face. "Is this a joke?"

          "I don't think so. Don't you want to shake hands?"

          "What, are you plastic surgeons now?"

          The loop closed around her again. She managed to move her body around the table on which the proffered hand rested lightly, and tugged on the sleeve. She had to get him out of here before Eddie got out of control. "Come on, let's go. A joke is a joke, right? We'll go somewhere and finish our conversation--"

          "Wait up, Ally. I want to talk to this guy. How the hell did you swing this? Christ, you look just like me."

          She liked the baffled look on Eddie's face; she had tried so often for at least that look in lieu of acceptance, love, anything but smug superiority. But escape was all she wanted now, escape from her own paralysis, and she winced as the stranger began to talk, because Ed's big, bewildered eyes were narrowing, and she had seen them do that one too many times before.

          "...understand your confusion, because I understand you." His arm slid way from the insistent pressure of her fingers. "I know how you fell in love with Alexis over the telephone when she was a receptionist for  BT, where you were a sales rep. She was in college then and you loved to play the big shot. But she graduated and got a prestigious job, and you had to work harder and harder to stay on top, to play on her fear that she wasn't good enough for the big boys' league, to get her to pay attention to you and not the hard cases she worked with."

          Ed's hands were spread, his mouth open in disbelief. "What is this crap? What have you been telling this nut, Ally?"

          "She finally felt smothered by you, unappreciated, put down by your drinking companions. So she began dating men who made her feel loved. That's when you beat her. But when she left you, it was as if she'd had the last word--so you started making phone calls."

          Ed was across the table in one fluid movement, his hands full of lapel and collar. "She screwed everybody in sight. She was a whore; she's lucky I offered to take her back. You want to talk violence here?"

          Alex felt as if she'd remembered something that had been on the tip of her tongue, something obvious that had eluded her. "Eddie--those phone calls--"

          Ed's green eyes turned cunning. He shoved his look-alike against the wall and dropped one hand away. "What phone calls? How does this guy know about phone calls unless he's makin' them, huh?"

          "If you're innocent, why are you about to hit me?" said the stranger's voice.

          Alex looked form one Ed to the other and felt herself constrict--throat and bowels and tear ducts--until the tension seemed to ripple down her arms, scream through her tendons, each neuron locked in the ancient replay of shout and punch and flinch and grunt from which emerged Ed's voice, the voice she hadn't heard in months--except, of course, on the telephone. She saw Ed's arm come back, fist clenched, rings glittering, a year ago and now, but now she had her hand in his mass of curly hair before this punch could connect, yanking him away with all the force of a year of pent memories so the arm swung harmlessly this time through the air; and before she knew she'd struck, he'd hit the floor, nose spurting blood, and her hand fell limp and numb back to her side. She wondered if her college ring would leave a mark, like the Phantom's, in his face.

          Dave was shouting by then, moving in to stop the fight that was already over. The lamp was swinging crazily, its rocking shadow concealing the stranger's fade-out. Alex barely saw him go; she was shouting at Eddie, who was shouting at her, but she was laughing inside, exulting, knowing she would never be trapped again.

          "All right." Dave slammed his fist down on the table, which someone had conveniently righted. "Where's the other guy, the guy who started it?"

          "Ed started it," she said truthfully.

          "Where's the guy who decked be?" Eddie demanded through a bloody handkerchief. "Bleedig coward busta rud off."

          She realised he was embarrassed to admit it had been her, little Ally who never fought back, and since Dave knew how Eddie had treated her and was on her side--was probably angry now because he had failed to protect her this time--she decided to play it out. "What guy?"

          "What do you bead, 'what guy'? Your boyfred, Ally--"

          "Did anyone here see a man run out?" Alex asked the circle of gawking customers. It murmured no and I-don't-know, including the waitress, who had probably been in the bathroom anyway.

          "Well, what did he look like?" Dave asked Eddie.

          Eddie stared at Alex for a long moment, then swore. "You set be up for this, you bitch."

          "Well, someone knocked you over, I saw that much," a man said; Alex knew they'd all been at the front end of the bar watching the football game, but the brittle smack of fist on flesh and the meaty wooden sound of Eddie's fall must have been self- explanatory.

          "I did it, Dave," she said, grinning openly now, raising her red knuckles as proof. "And you know those obscene phone calls I've been getting?"

          Dave nodded.

          "Well, the caller's gonna have to bend the receiver around the bandage on his dose."

          When she got home he was there, petting the cat; he stood up, ever the gentleman, as she entered. He was quite ordinary- looking this time, brown hair and eyes, about her height, dressed casually. He reminded her of someone, but she couldn't place it and didn't try. "Well, that's one hell of a year wrapped up," she said by way of greeting. "Eddie admitted about the phone calls as soon as I accused him of getting my ex-directory number through his new job. It was pretty stupid of him to come looking for me to brag about the job in the first place, since that's how I made the connection, as it were. But he was always that way. I told him I had tapes of all those calls in a safe-deposit box and that I would give them to the police if he bothered me any more, let their electronics people decode his voice. I don't, really--"

          "I know."

          She paused. "Yeah. You know a lot of things. Things I never managed to put into words. I really owe you one." She sat down next to him on the couch. "In fact, you're the first man who ever got close to me without dominating me, too. My mum died when I was five, and my dad--never mind, I can see you know all this already, too. Okay, well, what do you want in return for your help?"

          "I've got what I wanted."

          "No, seriously, can I help you get started, can I put you up while you look for a job? I thought you were the parasite, but now I feel like it's the other way round. Dammit, will you say something please?"

          He raised his eyes, and she found it easy now to meet his calm gaze. He ran a hand through his thick, dark hair, looking tired, and human. She reached out to him and touched his cheek again, and he smiled. "All I can really say is goodbye."

          "What? Where are you going?"

          "Back where I came from."

          "Into my dreams?"

          "More or less."

          She huffed, exasperated. "Then why on earth did you bother coming out?"

          "Because you needed me."

          "But you said you needed--" She stopped and shook her head. "Look, I don't give a damn anymore where you came from, but you can't just leave, not before I even get to really know you....Hell, do you like football, do you like salt and vinegar crisps? What kind of books do you read?"

          "Yes, no, and Science Fiction."

          "Same as me. That's three points in our favour. We could make a very good couple." That sounded superficial to her, so she added, "I love you," but that sounded just as flat and odd, and she collapsed into silence.

          "Of course you love me," he said gently. "You always did, through the fear and awkwardness. I admit I didn't care for you when we first met face-to-face; I enjoyed scaring you, spitefully. But I care now. That's the important thing. That and getting back where I belong."

          She began to see, slowly, why he looked so familiar. "Everything will be all right then, huh? When you go--come-- back?"

          He nodded. "You do understand."

          "I guess. There is one thing, though...."

          "Yes?"

           "You never told me your name. I mean, do you even have one? Or do I have to say goodbye to 'hey, you'?"

          "That won't be necessary," he said, his voice very low, the voice she heard when she read or verbalised thoughts--his distinctive voice, her voice. "'Hey, me' will do."

 

Ken Ayling 10/1998