THAT DAY

My housemate Alder hands me "Spellsinger," a fantasy by Alec Dean Foster set in a world where most warmblooded species are intelligent. Their interspecies sexual customs intrigue me as much as they intimidate his hapless hero, a native of our human world. In his first tavern, a striptease show: a female ermine in a tree teases the audience. Jon-Tom is deeply shocked that he's sexually excited by an animal--and that he considers her an animal, when she clearly isn't.

Later, playing dice, a fox wagers his wolf girlfriend for a night! Jon is appalled--slavery, sexism! They're equally shocked at his assumptions. He mistook technological backwardness for barbarity. She loves this fox, but likes variety, and gets off on this sex game where the dice, not her inclinations, decide. Such games are safer in her society, since sexual diseases don't readily jump species.

But Jon just can't sleep with her--she's a wolf! A hurt and insulted wolf... Are you saying I'm ugly? Furless apes have some nerve acting fussy! And so on...

The book soon dwindles into a standard quest tale and never really mines the ore-vein he's found. But it's there. Such lovely potential for misunderstanding, for surprises! A real issue, too. Genetic engineering has advanced faster than space travel: the folks next door fifty years from now are far more likely to be amped-up raccoons or indescribable mixtures of half a dozen species than either aliens from Tau Ceti or just plain 20th Century humans. Why don't more writers follow the implications out? Folk tales of every culture show a deep need to have animal people to talk to, to compare instincts and senses with. Or to borrow from! Infrared sensors, new immune systems, rain-resistant fur, proper night vision, the ability to digest cellulose, a decent sense of smell... After all, the first use of any new biotechnology, (vitamins dyes drugs surgery) is medical, but the second is artistic and cosmetic. Despite government regulation and religious hysteria, that's how it always goes. First you get rubber tomatoes, next you get strange bohemians, then you get a fad, then your sister is doing it and next it's grandma...

THAT NIGHT

My uncles have built an open-air theater in Seattle. I'm one of the first in, for the new show. The stage is an open field: the long back yard of my uncles' house. The audience area has a nylon canopy, though no walls. There are no seats, which puzzles me. The woman leading us in says proudly "Watch!" and hits a button. Chairs rise from the lawn!

Their pattern is peculiar. On the left edge, by the fence, a thin tongue of chairs reaches forward, but there's a bay in the middle and a large dense block on right. Evidently they're set so they won't interfere with the action--different plays can have different-shaped stage and audience areas. Clever.

I go sit at first in the heart of the block on the right, where I'll be inconspicuous. A girl comes in, sits on the grass just in front of the tip of the tongue. The usher doesn't object. If she can do that... I get up, go sit near the front of the tongue where I'll be close to the action. She grins at me.

I performed recently on stage myself. Just a small part. I liked it, though. The director of this play offered me a somewhat larger role, but I declined: I'm not ready yet for that much time and responsibility. But at least I can sit in front and if they draft audience members (as this troupe sometimes does) I'll do that gladly. I love performing, as long as it's improv with no time-commitments.

The open-air play begins. A caravan on the Silk Road, deep in Central Asia. A group of slave girls escape from their mandarin boss as the caravan weaves thru a tall-grass prairie. They flee up the aisles. Gasps from audience--they're bare-breasted! It must be risqué here in Seattle. Slow motion projection, on a gauze screen hanging from the lip of the bandshell we sit in, shows the slaves wriggling through the tall reeds, uncannily flexible, like ferrets or ermines, wide-eyed and wary. It's a beautiful dance--the setting is just an excuse.

A middle-aged man in a fedora hat, circa 1950, elbows me and whispers "What tits, eh?" He's nearly drooling! I know the fifties were a breast-fetish era, but I didn't understand it then and I don't understand it now. The dancers' lithe bodies squirming through the reeds, their wide-eyed fear and courage and determination to be free... those turned me on more than mere bare breasts. But he leers at me, trying to get me to agree. I'm embarrassed, sitting by him. Is he typical? Does the audience appreciate, or even SEE, how beautiful and sexy the dance is, how moving their break for freedom is? Or is this show exploiting the dancers, is it all just an excuse to see some tits? I'm sweating and uncomfortable now, under this man's gaze. A box of disposable tissues or bar napkins appears, so I wipe my face with one. The napkin feels weird. I look closer.

It's a box of disposable breasts! Shaped paper breasts... God, what is it with Seattle?

And the dancers were so good, they put their souls into it! Did these people even notice?

After the play, I get to talking to the girl in the front row. I say "My dad has a prosthetic branch! His hand was crippled in the war--frozen in a claw--but it'll hold what you put in it. So he has this tree branch like a back-scratcher, with a handlike end that can pick up things better than his hand can." I go get it, to demonstrate. Find my dad's arm/branch hanging in back of the theater's little bandshell. Take it down to the left edge of the yard, and wait on the grass. A representative of my father arrives immediately: his current wife. My stepmom. She barks at me.

No, she's not mad or anything. She always barks. She's a small collie called Molly.

Like most Shelties, she's always nervous. Her eyes whiten in fear as I try to lure her close enough to attach the prosthetic. Don't ask me how it fits on, or how she operates it; I can't see any way. A dog just doesn't have enough fine-motor nerves to run a prosthetic hand, let alone a whole arm. And it's big enough to tip her right over, even if I can strap it on!

I think back to those lithe dancers peering through the reeds, and can't help comparing their grace to our nervous, clumsy dance--me, my dad's lost arm, and my barking, jittery stepmom, with no place to attach it.

WHAT'S IT ALL MEEEEEEAN?

• My uncles' house = agoraphobia, passivity, and habit. But here they've taken some initiative! Toward socializing more, probably--symbolized by acting.
• Uneven seating pattern = my own uneven development. Left edge forward = I'll boldly dive into art and performance, but I neglect my center (a career, a mate) and when I get shy, I hide in the mass on the right (conformism).
• lithe, gracefrul dancers = the lithe, graceful ermine stripper in SPELLSINGER.
• The sex slaves shock the Seattlites = 1) how I feel--a slave to the obligation "Always be nice"! 2) in SPELLSINGER, a fox wagered his wolf girlfriend for a night. Jon mistook this for slavery. She just liked variety, and got off on this game. Bohemians, not barbarians!
• Seek freedom under cover of reeds = through reading? Even silly books help if they explore my issues or provoke insights about my prejudices and blind spots.
• Prosthetic arm = Jon was reluctant to carry a weapon. At last he accepted a sword-cane just in case.
• War damage = childhood attacks from classmates who ostracized me.
• Prosthetic = Prozac! A prosthetic so I can function, no matter how awkward and artificial. My therapist and doctor have been recommending I try Prozac since I'm so nervous and shy. I've been waffling.
• My stepmom the bitch = not literal, since I've never had a stepmom. A hint that I inherited my nervousness from my mom? But then why not just make me a Sheltie, or the dog my birth-mother?
• Molly the collie = Once I was house-sitting for friends and woke up one morning to find their collie Molly kissing me--not licking me, but sticking her tongue deep in my mouth. And I was kissing her back, with a throbbing erection! So does Molly mean sex? (with my stepmom, eewww! I can't say "with a dog, ewwww!" because that ermine stripper and bohemian vixen attracted me as much as the slave dancer)
• Skittish dog = me! I like attention and petting and kisses, but am I ready for sex yet? Don't know, but if I start dating, I better look for somebody calm and in her body. Like a dancer.
• Can't put on the prosthetic--no site for it, no stump, no nerves to fasten it to! = WARNING! Serotonin drugs like Prozac are prosthetics that will "find no sites to bind to" on me--a waste of time, energy, stress, and money. Like strapping a prosthetic hand on a dog--and expecting it to work.

On the joint advice of my therapist and a doctor, I did try a serotonin drug for anxiety, despite the dream's warning. It gave me stomach aches and insomnia, but those particular Mollycules didn't affect my moods at all. I stayed as high-strung and nervous as a Sheltie.

I gave up at last. Should have listened to the dream, not those so-called experts.

No site to bind to!

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