I dreamt, last night. Many strange dreams.

The one, just before I woke up, stayed with me all day.

There's this man. Let's call him Jon.

For years now, he makes puppy dog eyes at me. Occassionally says inappropriate things, but is otherwise a gentleman. Has made his interest very known.

I am not very interested in Jon. Mostly because he makes puppy dog eyes at me, and I can't STAND that.

Just fucking ask me out already. And enough with the weird, lewd suggestions.

Anyway.

I dreamt of him.

We were sitting opposite each other, talking casually. Sitting in sun chairs or deck chairs or camp chairs or something.

All of a sudden, out of nowhere, this bullet whizzes down and hits him. It pierces the fleshy part of his side, through and through.

He stares at me. His skin is going ashen under his curtain of greying brown hair.

"Call an ambulance!" I yell at someone nearby.

Jon tries to get out of his chair, stumbles to his knees.

I grab for him. He's bleeding, badly, from the front and the back.

He's bleeding a lot. The blood looks black against the lurid green grass.

He looks at me, but doesn't see me. His hand is touching the ground. He is on his knees.

"Jon!" I cry, and grab his shoulders. I want to look at the wound, to see if there is anything I can do, but it is bad. It's more bad than I know how to deal with.

Stop the bleeding, I hear a little voice in my head say.

I have never touched Jon before. Not willingly. I am not a touchy person, although I crave the human touch.

How's that for contradiction.

I try to lay him out on the grass and press my hand to the wound on the front.

It's no use. The grass is turning black with the blood leaking out from the back.

I pull him up. He stumbles standing, so so to I.

I grab ahold of him. He's warm and heavy in my arms. I can feel all of him. Muscle, fat, bones, ligaments. I feel it all, heavy, pressing against me, weaving with uncertainty.

I press the wound on his front against my belly, staunching it with my own body.

I wrap my arms around him and press my palms against the wound on his back.

The bleeding slows. His breathing is ragged, but relatively even.

My worry subsides, and is replaced with something else.

"At last," I sigh with thick relief, "at least I have you in my arms."

I'm not sure if he said it, or I said it.

I feel the warmth of his skin. I can taste the salt of his sweat when I breath. His hair, always combed so long and smooth, slides over my neck like the fingers of a lover.

The medics come, pull him from my arms. He looks at me, his eyes bright and alert although he's obviously in a lot of pain.

"What did you say?" Excitement thrills his voice. He has been waiting for me to say this. "You said something. What was it? At last? Your arms?"

I look away, embarassed, and sit down hard on the grass.

"Nothing," I mumble, although I can still feel the words on my tongue, like thick golden syrup. "Nothing. You're delirious."

And then I woke up.

The feel of him in my arms hung with me all day, and my mouth tasted like those words for a long, long time.

So I emailed him, and he responded with a faintly lewd, inappropriate comment.

*sigh*

Ain't that life.

.

Rosie.

Before&After