What Dreams May Come

By LadyArmand

When I woke up, the world seemed to be moving in ultra slow motion. Nothing was defined. Nothing was solid - not even the bed I was in, or the man lying motionless next to me. Almost as if time hadn't caught up with the reality of what had just happened. The only thing is - nothing real had happened. It was only a fucking dream - one of a thousand such dreams - but for a moment there, it seemed so real. As if I could reach, out and touch it, run my fingers along the textures of it, and call it by name. //To be, or no to be: that is the question://

Once my eyes adjusted to the reality of another day, I looked over and saw Ben. Watching him sleep is the best part of the day for me, aside from coming home, knowing he'll be home soon. When he sleeps, he looks like such a little kid, as if nothing can touch him. Like innocence is more then a concept, but a prevailing reality. I sometimes find myself wishing I'd known him when he was a kid. I'd settle for teenager, or even a Ben in his early twenties... you know... before. //Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune.//

I don't think about it much, though. Ben's right. You can't live in the past. Hell, even looking back too often can give you whiplash. (Brian and I should be on permanent disability.) But I'd like to know, even if it's only once, only for a split second, what it would be like to make love to him, and not have that damned sword hanging over our heads. I'd like to see just once, before I die, what he looks like without this invisible thing carved into his expression. I mean it's not there when he's asleep, but I want to see it when he's awake. I want to see an unaffected smile while he's awake, just once. //Or to take arms against a sea of troubles, and by opposing end them.//

As I'm looking at him, drinking in every familiar curve of his face, the dream touches me, trying with all of its considerable might to draw me back in. I mean it's an actual presence in the room with us, breathing heavily on my neck. I can feel the short hairs on the back of my neck rise up in revolt, causing me to look around, only to be reminded that the room is empty save for us. And I'm not afraid although there's something in the back of my head that says I should be; I should be terrified; I should be screaming bloody murder. But I push that aside, I turn back to look at him, and he's staring up at me with those crystal clear, blue-gray eyes of his. He's smiling and it's like the sun just came out. My heart starts beating faster, my palms all of a sudden get sweaty, and it's like I'm a virgin in bed with the first guy I ever fucked. It's like I don't know that to do or say. Like I don't know where to put my hands or how to touch him, and then he touches me, and all of that is just gone. It vanishes, like the world and everything in it aren't real. The only thing that's real are those eyes, that smile, and his hand on my chest as he silently wills my heart to calm down before it bursts through the constraints of my chest plate. //To die: to sleep; no more//

See, cause when he touches me like that, it's like the world gets frosted around the edges. It's in these moments, when words aren't necessary to communicate emotion, that I find I'm the most in love with him. He touches me and I'm adored in a way that defies logic, reason, or any premise in physics. It's this living breathing entity, which engulfs us both, taking us to this other place where nothing is more complicated then deciding what to have for breakfast in the morning. Where the decision to fuck before or after breakfast is the biggest disturbance of the day. //And, by a sleep to say we end the heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks that flesh is heir to.//

I hear him make that familiar noise in the back of his throat, as if he's just tasted the most incredible dessert he's ever eaten - all chocolate, whipped cream, and fruity decadence. He devours my mouth as his hands begin moving along my bare chest, tweaking the nipples every now and again until they're rock hard little pieces of raised flesh, hot and quivering, and begging for more attention. And all of a sudden, I'm utterly breathless, my breath, caught up with his, becomes one rushing sound of lustful desire. //To die, to sleep; To sleep, perchance to dream.//

There's still that thing that's screaming at me, telling me something isn't right about this whole scene. But how can there be anything wrong with it? How can being here naked in Ben's arms be wrong? Fuck. Nothing's wrong - just my mother's blood raising it's ugly head again. Forcing me to worry about things I don't have to worry about. Ben's here with me, and he's holding me. He wants me. He's... he's... he's... .ohmygod... ohmygod... ohmygod... he's inside of me. //Ay, there's the rub.//

The friction is so sweet, and soooooooooo fucking good that nothing else matter. No one else matters. He rains down on me a monsoon of delicate kisses. His chest is heaving, his arms are straining as they hold up his weight, his eyes are half closed in a mixture of desire and escape. He's lost himself in me; I'm lost in him and I don't want to find my way back out. The room has faded away, the bed is gone now, and we're floating. I feel all at once lost and found. Our bodies are now covered in a light sheen of sweat. It makes him look like he's glowing, the way the sun seems to be hitting him. //For in that sleep of death what dreams may come... //

My body aches as the friction builds to the point of release. My back is arched my legs are wrapped tightly around him as if our orgasm will cause us to fly apart if I don't. Ben's eyes are now open and staring at me intently. His breath heavy with pent up desire, his body is trembling almost uncontrollably. I can see him mouthing my name, saying that he loves me. Then I hear him say clearly, as if someone turned the sound back on, how good it feels to be inside me. //When we have shuffled off this mortal coil, must give us pause.//

His voice is rising, his body shudders violently suddenly, then I feel his full weight on me. My arms wrap themselves around him as if they have a will of their own. He clings to me as though I'm the only thing in the world making him real, keeping him here. He kisses me softly on the neck and then he moves on down on to my shoulder. He raises his head, lavishing on my chest sweet, wet, angel soft kisses. He loves me. He needs me. // There's the respect that makes calamity of so long life.//

Then suddenly those feelings are gone, replaced by something else. Replaced by something dark, dangerous and tremendously, all-consumingly sad. So sad and lonely is this feeling, that it feels like it has engulfed the world and blotted out the sun. I can feel myself falling and there's nothing at the bottom to stop it. I'll be falling forever, and something in me knows it. Something in me knows why, and there's something else in me that won't allow my conscious mind to know it just yet. I want to scream but the void has taken my voice. The void is drowning me. The void is slowly, in terrible inches, killing me. //For who would bear the whips and scorns of time.//

I try to reach out for the images passing by me in rapid succession. Flashes of my mother weeping uncontrollably, faded images of my Uncle Vic, reaching out as if to catch me and yet I pass through his fingers like so much sand. Then there are the even more frosted images of Ted and Emmett as they hold one another with teary eyes that speak of a silent resignation. As if my passing by them in this manner was dreaded and now just accepted. The most vivid image is of Brian, stoic, as always and yet there are the occasional glimpses of the true level of his grief. His eyes tell me all I need to know. I'm not dead, but somehow I'm completely lost to him. Lost in a void so wide in its expanse as to not be traversed, so high in altitude as to not be climbed, and so deep in its depth as to have no bottom, and therefore all attempts to save me have failed and no further attempts can be made to save me. //The oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely.//

I find myself clawing at the darkness, trying in vain to grab a hold of something, anything. And yet there is nothing to hold onto. Everything is gone, lost. Lost... Lost... Lost... The sickening feeling of loss invades my brain like cancer. Invades the body with its relentless progression eating away the healthy cells until there is nothing left. And suddenly I know what happened to me. I know why my world has suddenly gone dark and cold. Why it is bleak and lifeless; why faces so familiar to me are becoming faded, as their eyes well with tears. My body revolts at the mere thought of it. I start to fight fiercely, as if, by sheer will, I can make it go away. I can somehow make it not be so utterly true. //The pangs of despised love, the law's delay, the insolence of office.//

As I'm fighting with the darkness, fighting with myself, there are these other images that come at me with such ferocity that it takes my breath way, like being punched hard in the stomach. These images, however, move by more slowly then the others before it. These images are of Ben. Ben in a hospital bed with tubes coming out of what seems like every orifice. Ben looking pale and small, as he smiles at me, calls me cutie, and contemplates his own mortality and what's going to come next. Ben's fear hanging in the air like the scent of rancid meat left out in the sun too long. //And the spurns that patient merit of the unworthy takes, when he himself might his quietus make with a bare bodkin?//

I can feel myself screaming. I can feel that hollow vibration as it passes through my vocal cords and comes out of my open mouth. It's an animalistic scream - one born of loss, because I've been left, horror, because I have to go on year after year alone, desperation because I don't want what I know to be true, and an unexplainable hate. You would thing it would make a horrible sound, that kind of scream, and yet there's nothing but the vile feeling of having screamed. //Who would fardels bear, to grunt and sweat under a weary life.//

The scream, the darkness, the terror of everything, of not knowing exactly what to expect, and yet the anticipation of the familiar has rubbed me completely raw. I'm falling alone in the dark and there's nothing that can save me, nothing that can change the path, which I of my own free will have chosen. //But that dread of something after death, the undiscover'd country from whose bourn no traveler returns.//

Then there's the sudden and devastatingly reassuring realization that I'm sleeping. I can get out of this anytime I want to... I know I can get out of this, that this isn't real; it's just the fear eating away at me while I'm not in control. I know this, and yet I can't wake up. I can't stop the feeling of falling, deeper and deeper in the void. I can't stop the scream echoing in the pit of my stomach. I can't stop myself from fighting with the inky blackness surrounding me. //Puzzles the will, and makes us rather bear those ills we have.//

I feel myself being shaken. I know its coming from outside the dream, and yet the dream holds sway. I can feel myself fighting the thing outside of me. Then I hear my name being called, the voice is hushed, urgent, and familiar. Part of me knows it's Ben, but the dream won't believe it. The darkness is lifting, the void is moving away from me now. Ben's warmth and concern are calling me back to the world. //Than to fly to others we know not of? Thus, conscience does make cowards of us all.//

"Michael. Michael, wake up."

I can feel myself barely scratching the surface of the real world. It feels like a hand breaking the surface of cool water. It feels so cold I can feel myself inhale deeply and exhale slowly as if this were the first time I've breathed fresh air in forever. I'm almost there, but not yet. //And thus the native hue of resolution, is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought.//

"Baby.baby.Come on. You're scaring me."

The concern in his voice is what brings me struggling back to the surface of conscious thought. I can feel my heart calming its outrageous beat. My breath is catching up to my thought process, and I know where I am. I'm home, I'm in bed, and most importantly, I'm with Ben. He's here and it was a dream, and nothing more then a dream - a twisted attempt to play on my fears. //And enterprises of great pitch and moment.//

"What the fuck was that?"

"Nothing."

"It was something, Michael."

"Just a dream."

"More then that."

"Not much more."

"Who were you fighting?"

"Was I fighting?" //With regard their currents turn awry.//

"Michael."

"Myself." //And lose the name of action.//

"Did you win?"

"I'm not sure.."

"Are you okay?"

"Sure..." //Soft you now! The fair Ophelia! Nymph in thy orisons.//

"Michael..."

"Ben, I'm fine. It was just a dream."

"It was more then that, but I'm not going to push you. You'll tell me when you're ready."

"There's really not that much to tell." //Be all my sins remember'd.//

"Then tell me."

"It started out great. You and I were making love. Then you were gone and I was falling. I was fighting the darkness..And then you woke me up."

"Where'd I go Michael?"

"I'm not sure..."

"Yes, you are."

"You were just gone. I couldn't find you."

"Michael."

"I don't want to talk about this. It was just a fucking dream, and it's over now."

"Are you sure you're all right?"

"As long as you're here with me, I'm better then all right."

"I love you."

"I love you too."

~~~~~~~

Give me the cup: let go; by heaven, I'll have't!
O God! Horatio, what a wounded name,
Things standing thus unknown, shall live behind me!
If thou didst ever hold me in thy heart,
Absent thee from felicity awhile,
And in this harsh world draw thy breath in pain,
To tell my story.

Now cracks a noble heart. Good-night, sweet prince
And flights of angels sing thee to thy rest!

End of "What Dreams May Come" by LadyArmand -- email

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