DAY

For years I've charted my dreams on graph paper, so I could find the major ones easily and see overall patterns. The long axis is time; the height of an arrow is the number of words in a night's dreams. It's an objective way to spot major dreams; when it clashes with my subjective sense, I take note! The sample is from May '83 to January '84. The smallest squares are one hundred words tall; peak dreams frequently top 1000 words and one (Dec '83) tops 2500.

Except one. What do my dreams think of these charts?

DREAM

Near sunset, I meet Jenny, my sister Miriel's boyfriend's mom, strolling down the dirt road. She's pleasant but seems dulled--drugged, lobotomized? Or did I overestimate her?

Jenny introduces me to a girl she thought I'd like. She IS cute: slender, leggy, a pretty face with brown eyes and strong cheeks and profile like a cat, with a prominent nose and mouth. [sketches] She has dark snaky curls that bounce and fly as she stomps around in her cowboy boots and '60s minidress.

But though I'm attracted, I ACT disdainful or disillusioned. It's as if I resent being obliged to date this girl Jenny found for me, as opposed to.. what? Acquiring the confidence to talk to attractive strangers? As if skills matter more than happiness!

I've been taking improv dance classes in San Francisco. Seems easier to flirt there than in suburbia. I confess this.

As we talk of city & suburb & country, two high school girls (cute bodies but eyes a bit vacant) pass us and walk down a steep bank. I glance at them guiltily, feeling I shouldn't even look. They don't feel right for me, but I'm still feeling rebellious about being assigned a date, so I try to convince myself I'm interested...

Jenny's friend doesn't care, or at least doesn't comment. Just says "Come on!" and follows the girls, galumphing down a long dry slope. She leads me up the next little ridge, and a spectacular view opens up...

It's early evening, a light luminous blue and green-white horizon... a vast desert with Rousseau mountains skylining the endless backdrop of light, and dim bronze sand. And silhouetted against the sky are stunning delicate shapes of some strange palms, very tall and thin with almond-shaped tops; they look more like spore-packets rising above a bed of moss.

But I was so focused on the dramatic silhouettes of the trees, I didn't notice the faintly lamplit tents at their feet, dim gold drowned by the sunset show. My worries fade--this is a settled oasis, both cabin and water will be here. With the fear gone, I can fully enjoy the magical Arabian Nights scene.

I hug her, shyly at first, and more warmly when she snuggles in. I start to stroke her, warily, nuzzling that sensual snaky hair, but I'm unsure if she's getting as turned on as I am, and I tickle and tingle her arms and shoulders and neck and stomach, but not her breasts -- and then I decide this is silly, I can feel she likes this. So I massage her nipples... and she sighs and melts into me.

Do I relax? Of course not--I just get nervous on a new level. More than anything, I want to kiss her, but- my lips feel absolutely dry. Rubber lips! She turns her head hopefully, and I nip and lick her ears, cheeks, eyes... but I just can't bring myself to kiss her on the lips, and have her discover my rubbery shame. I'm all dried up.

Yet my cock is swelling, uncomfortably trapped in my jeans; I'm in an undecided agony over what to do, as it squeezes up into the crack of her ass through our clothes. I know she can feel it. I take a deep breath and unzip my pants and my cock bursts out and slides against the soft fabric of her miniskirt. I still expect her to move away--after all, I'm defective--I can't kiss!

I surreptitiously lick my fingers and rub my lips, trying to wet them so I can kiss like a normal person... while my cock is hiking her skirt up, and she reaches back and unzips the back fastener of her skirt and it slides up in back, and parts, and my cock slips between her thighs and I gasp from the heat of her on the sides of my cock. Thrilled, it jerks upward on its own and in a second the top side of the head of my cock is sliding in her hot sticky lips while the underside still feels the cool air of the open desert we're standing, in for all to see: a couple embracing, innocently enjoying a fine sunset... unless you look closely.

She slides her fingers down the front of her skirt as if smoothing it, and through the cloth, teases the tip of my cock into her, and she leans back against me with a sigh, pushing me inside her and squeezing tight. I rock inside her heat.

And yet... I don't feel fully... oh, I'm turned on enough to have an erection and be fucking... and yet... not that glow all through my body, or even just through my cock, of deep excitement. I know I won't come.

And I know why. Mere deniable sex, that people can't see, matters less than the excitement of public kissing. And I'm still too dry for that.

NOTES IN THE MORNING

• The palm trees: huge dreams, spiking above my routine dreamlife! They're worth writing up as stories. I worked hours on several today, but doubted--"are dreams ever really worth telling?" The dream endorses both literary AND scientific dreamwork--both stories AND charts. Go on!
• Hills on the horizon & the tent-roofs: ordinary baseline dreams.
• Sex on the dune-crest: I was taught that women don't want sex with men. Or at least not me; so hide all sexual feelings. (Thanks, Mom!) The dream challenges her brainwashing.
• Kissing: public displays of affection. Hard for me, given how I was forced as a kid to hide all my feelings.
• Covert sex: covert sex! Actually less exciting, because it just evades my repressive upbringing--doesn't challenge it.
• ACTION: Dreamwork is art. Keep writing.
• ACTION: Dreamwork is science. Keep charting!
• ACTION: My assumptions about women are false--just the fruit of abuse. Flirt and come on freely... and see what happens.

At the time, I saw three messages in the dream: "Write dreams, chart them, and show sexual feelings openly." But now I see a fourth: "You're really dehydrated!" And I really was. Tongue like dry leather, yet curiously unwilling to drink water. Eventually, our old house got a water filter--and suddenly, I drank way more water. My instinctive reluctance was likely my body sensing lead in the water, from century-old pipejoints. Better thirsty than poisoned.

Which is true in dating too, I guess. Maybe even in dreamwork.

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