Between Dreams

by Cynthia Austin

  He pulled his face away, breaking from our kiss, his eyes burning with the same fire he had always displayed in the past. We stared at each other in the darkness. “Tell me you want me,” he ordered.

  I gripped his neck and attempted to pull his face down to mine but he remained still as a statue awaiting my reply. “Say it.” he insisted.

  “I want you,” I whispered.

  “Only me, say it.”

  Now it was my turn to pull away. I looked at him with more than one question in my heart. I was surprised to see the pleading in his eyes. He was desperate to hear me confirm that he was the only man I desired. I opened my mouth but the words proved harder to say than I thought.

  “Only you,” I lied.

  Fighting off the image of those pendant eyes, I slowly warmed up to him again. He gripped my face in his strong hands and quickly brought his lips to mine, rewarding me for my obedience.

  ***

  Afterward, as we lay together both breathless and exhausted, I rested my head against his chest and wondered if maybe he and I were crazy. After all, the definition for that word was doing the same thing over and over but expecting different results each time. Is that what I was doing with Ray?

  “Whatever happened earlier tonight, I don’t want to know about it,” Ray said as he lay on his back, staring up at the ceiling in the dark.

  I opened my mouth to object but he cut me off. “I know I deserved it. I’ll be a man and step up and take the blame. It’s my fault we got into this rut. But I’ll dig us out. Just promise me one thing.”

  “Anything,” I whispered.

  “Promise me you won’t see him again.”

  I sat up in protest. “Ray. He’s just a friend,” I argued, not wanting to give up my new acquaintance that easily.

  “Just a friend? You spent five minutes with him tonight and you were ready to throw away the last three years with me. Has our relationship really been that bad?”

  I returned to my place in his arms and asked, “Are we evaluating the whole three years or just the last?”

  “I’m serious, Sid. I don’t want you to see him again.”

  I nodded my head in submission as I began to realize I was like a stray dog, beaten and bruised but always returning for more punishment. Once again, I had surrendered to Ray, giving in to his commands. I was his slave, and however desperate I was to escape, we both knew I would never leave. Adrian seemed like he could have been my savior, my prince who could carry me away from this evil tyrant who had caged my heart for the pleasure of making me beg for his touch.

  Suddenly, in that moment, I hated Ray for taking away my fantasy. I rolled over on my side and said goodnight to my boyfriend. I gripped my pendant and closed my eyes. The image of Adrian’s dark hair came into my mind and I smiled as I dreamily drifted off into a deep slumber.

  Chapter Eight

  Heaven Help Us

  It didn’t take long for my exhausted body to give in to the peaceful state of sleep. As soon as I closed my eyes, my lids grew heavy and I could no longer force them open. My drained body, weighted down in the bed, began to feel as if it were falling. Deeper and deeper I fell, as I quickly spiraled into that state of unconsciousness.

  It was the smell of the flowers that brought me back into that familiar territory. I opened my eyes and found I was back in the place I often visited when sleep came and collected me. I was in the Garden, watching the man with the emerald green eyes. He could not see me, this much I knew was true.

  As I admired his beauty, I noticed he was not with the woman I often saw him with. He was alone as he exited through the north end of the forest. As if I had a one way ticket into the mind of this dark-haired man, I somehow knew his thoughts and I could feel his emotions. I was watching him, yet I almost felt as if I were a part of him.

  Eve, his lover, was not far behind as she headed out of the forest on the opposite end. It had been eight months since he had first met her and they had spent every day since then together in secret. He truly did love her but he was smart enough to know his father would never allow their union. He had hoped by sending Eve home through the west end of the forest, no one in the garden would become suspicious of them being together. He was wrong.

  Samael froze with fear as he met his father’s icy glare. He kept his face unreadable; he would not allow his father to know his secret.

  “I saw you in the forest with that girl today,” his father said calmly as he stared deeply into his son’s face.

  Samael held his mask of calmness and revealed nothing in the form of a reaction. Finally, Samael spoke. “Am I not allowed a friend, father?”

  “Is it a friend you are seeking or a lover?”

  His father threw the words back at him like a dagger. It seemed to pierce Samael deep within his heart and take his breath away for a moment.

  Samael thought, How could he know? Has he been watching us?

  Samael’s mask evaporated into nothingness. He quickly composed himself but not before his father witnessed his mistake. A moment was all his father needed to reveal his son’s secrets.

  “Then it is as I have suspected. Walk with me, child,” he instructed.

  Samael held his ground and angrily responded, “I am not a child, Father. I am a man of three and twenty.”

  “No matter your age, Samael, you are still my son. You will always take my order and you will not speak to me as an equal. Our walk was not a request. Come, now.”

  With one final glare, his father turned and began to walk.

  Samael, his fists clenched, was beyond angry. I am a prince, the son of this creator, but he treats me as a mere peasant. He thinks because he is King of this land that he is better than me!

  Samael spit on the ground as if ridding his body of the venom in his mouth. He wiped his lips and quickly began to follow his father as he vowed, You are right, Father, I am not your equal. I am stronger and better than you. My head is filled with knowledge you will never know. One day you will see. I will be ruler of this land and take all that is dear from you.

  They walked in silence together for many miles. They passed through the forest and finally returned to their garden. Filled with the scents of rosemary and basil, Samael began to get hungry as he realized it was well past suppertime. He wondered if his dear sister happened to leave a plate of food for him. After all, he was her favorite out of all her brothers. He was sure she would have fought off all their greedy hands to save him some food. Samael loved his sister very much. Thinking of her brought a smile to his face and for the moment she made him forget the anger he felt towards his father.

  “She is promised to another man, you know,” His father said, breaking the silence and thus interrupting Samael’s pleasant thoughts.

  “How can I forget, Father? After all, it was you who made those arrangements knowing full well how I felt,” he sneered.

  The more he spoke to his parent, the angrier he became. Samael had never felt this way before. The feeling was very foreign to him, but it was not unwelcome. The stronger his feelings became, the more powerful he felt. He embraced the feeling. He wanted more. And with every glance at his father, he was given more. The feeling of hate was driving this force. He knew it was wrong but he could not contain it any longer.

  “You do not put in a good word on my behalf, Father, do you? You know of my lust for her and you chose to ignore it!”

  “Lust!” he shouted. “Do you hear what you are speaking of? You do not say love, you say lust, knowing what a sin it is! Lust is the formation of all that is evil. Is that the path you choose to take my child? Are you so quick to give in to your wicked ways? I am trying to save you from yourself. Do you not see that? I am here to guide you to goodness, not to allow you to give into the temptations of evil and allow your heart to blacken.”

  Samael fought back. “What do you know of a heart, Father? You are ripping mine out of my chest as we speak.” He moaned. “My feelings for Eve cannot be wicked! They are different from the lov
e I feel for my dear sister or brothers. This love engulfs me, it swallows me whole. I breathe her, Father. I cannot live without her nor her without me. We are together in one soul. We become one when we are together.”

  “Together?” his father interrupted. “Together in what way, child?”

  Samael realized at that moment he had said too much. He had promised himself he would not reveal his secrets, but now it appeared he had done just that. It only took one look into Samael’s green eyes to reveal the truth. He and Eve had made love. He had taken Eve’s purity, knowing she was to be wed to another.

  Never in all the twenty-three years of Samael’s life had he witnessed his father so angry. His large round face reddened as deep as the crimson apples that hung from the fruit trees to the north. Never had he seen his father’s body tremble like the great quakes that shook the land. Gripping his son’s face in a steel brace, he brought his own countenance so close to Samael that they were touching noses.

  “You are hurting me, Father,” Samael squealed.

  “Tell me it is not true!” he roared.

  Samael begged for his father to release him.

  “I’ve told you, Samael. She is promised to another! While you are living a life of foolishness lost in those books you hide your face in, her fiancé works hard in the fields so that one day he can be a great provider!”

  “Like the great provider he was supposed to be for my sister?” Samael returned.

  “He is no great man, father. He is a barbarian who mistreats women. You’ve already subjected your own daughter to his evil ways and as if that was not enough, now you must steal my love to give to him? I loathe him, Father! With all of my heart, I loathe him!” Samael shouted, no longer caring about masking his emotions.

  “You still have not learned, Samael. Loathe and lust, you are choosing the path of evil. I cannot help you if you shun me and refuse to see the path to goodness. You are to love thy neighbor. Do you understand what that means?” his father gently said.

  “Help me? You call what you are doing help? You are killing me! You may as well plunge the knife deep in my heart and twist it! I am dying right now. I speak the truth when I tell you I cannot live without her!” he shouted, tears spilling out his eyes, running like avalanches down his flushed cheeks.

  “You speak falsehoods, boy. You will live without her. And as far as your sister is concerned, she is much like you, stubborn and wicked, refusing to learn the good ways. Adam was the perfect mate for her. I created them both out of the same dirt so they would be alike in body and mind. But so much like you, Samael, you both chose to question me. You both chose to fight against me instead of stand with me. I cannot help you and I cannot help her.” He spoke with no emotion as he watched his son unravel emotionally. “You ask why did I not match you with Eve. You cannot be matched with a dog, Samael. Not as long as you continue to waste your days in the lives of fairy tales! Books shall get you nowhere. They taint your mind and keep you away from the fields where you should be working hard, learning the ways of a young man.”

  Pulling away from his father’s agonizing grip, Samael took a step back. With the sun setting behind him, it gave off a great light, illuminating his silhouette, giving the vision of an angel. But he felt like no angel, perhaps a dark one. A fallen angel that had been stripped of everything he loved.

  “I’ve lived a thousand different lives reading the stories that I do. I pity you, Father, for you have nothing that drives your soul,” he spat. “You create people to do your bidding and if they refuse, you destroy them. You know nothing of love and you never shall.”

  “And you, my child, will never see your love again. Adam and Eve will be married within a fortnight. Then they will be turned out of the gates of Eden due to Eve’s transgressions with you. They will live a free life on their own. Adam has been well-trained and will be able to provide her with food, shelter, and one day, many children.”

  “No,” Samael moaned, shaking his head back and forth vigorously covering his ears. “No Father, please.”

  “You will be kept here in the gardens with your books to live your thousand lives.”

  Samael, unable to control his shaky legs, fell to the ground, holding his chest, gasping for air. His tears spilled on the dry earth, creating a puddle of mud.

  “I’ll burn the books,” he whispered. “Every last one of them. I will learn, Father. I will learn to hunt, and work the fields, and build. I will learn it all, ‘tis not too late. I still have my youth. Please, just don’t take her from me.” He knelt in the dirt, looking up at his father’s icy blue eyes with hope, praying for a rebuttal. His father looked down at his eldest child, shaking his head.

  “She was never yours to take, my son.” A cold wind blew from behind Samael and brought with it some splatters of rain. It was as if the feelings of darkness were cast from his body and into the skies. He felt the power within him and knew it was he who was responsible for the shift of weather.

  “As you are well aware of what happens once you cross the gates,” his father continued, ignoring the rain that began to fall. “You must understand that Eve will grow old and she will one day die. Her memories of you will be washed away as this storm is washing away all of the recent evil that has taken place in this land. Her soul will be reborn into another body that will be unfamiliar to you. Eve’s punishment is the banishment from our gardens. Your punishment will be an eternity inside the gates of Eden. You will be allowed to keep your memories of her but you will never be allowed to seek her. I know you well, my boy. You are smart and you are sneaky. If, by some divine intervention, you do make it outside of these gates, just remember, there will always be an Adam whom she will love and she will have no recollection of the time you two spent together.”

  “All is possible, Father. I will find her again one day and we will be together,” Samael said through clenched teeth.

  His father smiled and took a step back, opening his arms. “Then let the challenge begin.”

  Chapter Nine

  New Again

  I woke up and immediately reached for Ray. The spot where he should have been was cold. Panicking, I quickly sat up and scanned the room. I had imbibed quite a bit last night and I prayed our previous engagement wasn’t some kind of drunken hallucination. I let out a sigh of relief upon spotting his wallet and cell phone resting on the nightstand next to his side of the bed. Knowing that Ray was still here, my worries subsided.

  Then in an instant, the memories of my wild dream flashed before my eyes. This dream was different from the last. And, unlike that tantalizing first dream, I remembered almost every detail of this one. Every word that was spoken burned into my memory, but their faces were still just a hazy recollection.

  I flung the covers off and snatched my bathrobe off the closet door. Wrapping it around my naked body, I quickly headed over to the laptop that rested on top of the desk. Sitting down, I began typing like a madwoman.

  I sat back and stared at the screen full of words. That was it. I couldn’t recall any more details other than what I had written.

  Everyone knows the story of Adam and Eve and I was pretty sure that I had just dreamt the most confounding version of the oldest bible story.

  The story I had grown to love narrated how God created Adam from dirt and then decreed that Adam needed a helpmate, and so he created Eve from Adam’s rib cage. They both lived in blissful ignorance together in the garden and could do anything their hearts desired, except of course, to eat from the Tree of Knowledge.

  As biblical history related it, one day Eve met a serpent under the tree who was really Lucifer, a fallen Angel cursed by God for attempting to destroy Him. On this particular day, Lucifer was up to his old tricks and talked Eve into eating the forbidden fruit, lifting the veil of ignorance. She quickly ran to Adam to share with him her discovery. Adam too ate from the Tree of Knowledge and in that moment plunged the entire human race into sin.

  Of course, God found out about their betrayal and cast
them out of Eden into the world condemning all of humanity. Since we are all descendants of Adam and Eve we are all paying for their sin by living in this violent world now filled with death and destruction. The former location of the Garden of Eden is now said to be in southern Iraq in between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, but spiritually, the gates are forever locked.

  When I was a young child, Granny would read stories to me from the bible every night. Of course, my favorite one was ‘The Garden of Eden.’ As an imaginative kid, the Garden sounded so magical and I just knew that if I tried hard enough, maybe I could find that beautiful Paradise and live within the gates as peacefully as Adam and Eve once did.

  It always angered me that Adam and Eve couldn’t obey God’s one and only rule and instead got kicked out of the garden, ruining it for the rest of us. But then Granny would wisely remind me that God had never intended for Adam and Eve to procreate and so there never was a chance of me seeing the Garden of Eden, anyway.

  No longer that gullible child, I began to realize that this God my granny spoke so highly of was pretty relentless. To make all the rest of us suffer damnation for the sin of another didn’t seem like an all loving God to me. Of course, had I been Adam or Eve, I begrudgingly admit I would have done the same thing.

  Upon further scrutiny, I also began to wonder how Samael played into this new version of the tale being woven to life during my subconscious state. From the sounds of the dream, it seemed as if Samael’s father would play the part of God and Adam and Eve would portray themselves. But in my dream, there was no forbidden fruit anywhere.

  Was Samael simply a metaphor for the forbidden fruit? Was it Eve’s infidelity that got her and Adam cast out of the garden? She gave in to the temptation of another man, rather than the temptation to eat something as miniscule as an apple, or whatever it was there. I sat there in awe with my sudden revelation as I entwined my necklace in my fingers.