infinitesimal gap existed between my arm and hers. Although I couldnât see her arm, I imagined it, brown and smooth and still.
At some point, under the spell of the words that were passing between us, without my actually doing anything, Lauraâs arm transformed itselfâor I transformed itâinto a different arm. I imagined Anneâs arm next to me. And because a personâs arm is connected to the rest of the body, gradually, in my mind, Laura herself was replaced by Anne. Not an image of Anne or a representation of Anne. The person beside me was Anne, and I was lying there, happily absorbing the old familiarity and warmth.
Because my eyes were closed it was easy enough to alter the body beside me, but because the voice wasnât Anneâs voice, and because it wasnât possible to shut my ears, I had a little trouble keeping the audio part of the fantasy intact. But as she spoke about her plans to move to a bigger city, and as the sound of her voice traveled from her mouth through the air to my ears and then into my brain, over time, I was able to transform that voice and mold it into what I wanted. The knowledge that the voice I was hearing was a voice I was making, I let that recede, happy to usher out of consciousness any evidence of my own volition.
I was able to overlook the knowledge that she wasnât Anne, so that to me, she was Anne. In the back of my mind was the fear that she would say something or do something to wake me up, but because this new reality was preferable to the earlier one, I was able to maintain it. I settled into the more comfortable mode of lying with Anne, and the reality of Anne, such as it was, became more solid and stable, and when it got to the point where I was sure of its solidity, thatâs when she decided to go to the bathroom.
When she sat up and crawled over me, wearing her oversized T-shirt, it was Anne in an oversized T-shirt, crawling over me as sheâd crawled over me a million times. Thatâs the thing about a fantasy: once it gets started it takes on a life of its own, and I kept it alive by picturing Anne in the bathroom, sitting on the toilet and washing her hands and then climbing back into bed, which she did.
And when she did I had a million questions to ask her. Mainly I wanted to know if she loved me, and if she did, how could she leave me standing in front of a convenience store.
When she lay down on the partially made bed and resumed her position beside me, I asked her, âWhere did you go?â
âThe bathroom,â she said.
âNo, I know, but before. Where did you go?â
âBefore what?â she said.
I was talking about the gas station in New Jersey, but she didnât seem to remember that, or didnât want to. So I asked her why sheâd left.
âI had to pee.â
âNot that,â I said.
âThen what?â she said.
And we went around like this, in a circuit of mutual misunderstanding. And the words were only a symptom.
I was lying there in the darkness behind my eyelids, imagining Anne, and of course, if I had opened my eyes I would have seen that Anne wasnât there. But I had no desire to see that. I was thinking of Anne, wondering where sheâd gone. I was hurt. I thought she was going to be there. She said she was going to be there, that she was going to wait for me and she didnât wait for me and now I didnât know what she was doing. Or feeling. I thought we had an understanding. I certainly had an understanding, but she obviously had a different understanding because she hadnât even contacted me. What was I supposed to do? Was I even part of it, this thing that happened so suddenly? Or did she plan it all along? Some thing she couldnât tell me. I didnât know. How would I know? What the fuck was she doing to me? Thatâs what I wanted to know. And thereâs no reason to get mad at someone you love, except the way I saw it, she
Dean Wesley Smith, Kristine Kathryn Rusch
Martin A. Lee, Bruce Shlain