by Hunter Jones
The Dreams
by
Hunter S. Jones
The Dreams by Hunter S. Jones
Lovers and Sinners, Story 1
Past, Darkly, Story 2
© 2016 Ra Jones Publishing.
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. This is a work of fiction. Names, places, characters, and character incidents are the product of the author’s imagination and are fictitious. Any resemblance to persons living or dead is entirely coincidental. All characters in this book are 18 years of age or older. Warning: the unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal. Criminal copyright infringement, including infringement without monetary gain, is investigated by the FBI and is punishable by up to 5 years in prison and a fine of $250,000.
Lovers and Sinners
(The Dreams, Story 1)
Which Has to Do with a Mirror, Reflections, a Broken Heart, and Its Fragments
For everyone who has been charmed and enchanted.
Table of Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
LOVERS & SINNERS
We will begin the story of a fairy tale that never was
about a dream which never came true.
Chapter 1
James van Lee was a terrible guitar player. Instead, he became a singer. His spirit remained of the lowliest, wickedest sort and, in fact, he was a minion of the Devil himself. Or so he believed. He left his father’s mansion to live in the streets of Amsterdam while still a teenager of eighteen because of this unsettling sense of discontent he had experienced most of his life. James had the blue eyes and long limbs of his Dutch father, but the swarthy skin and coarse hair of his beloved Romani mother. Never fitting in, he dyed his dark ringlets flaxen blond. This combination of dark eyes and wiry blond hair served to draw girls to him, which was when he discovered that he had been given the gift of sexual magnetism. But although he liked the velvety softness that girls offered freely to him, they eventually expected so much in return for their favors – and he had nothing to give but love, which they did not want. At least not at that particular time. They expected gifts. James could not give them gifts.
He began to work nights at a rock club to keep the sun from darkening his skin. There he found that men expected nothing from a relationship. James enjoyed the freedom this brought him and discovered that many of the older men who frequented the club would give him gifts in exchange for certain anonymous experiences. This surprised him and made him feel that he was needed. He loved these men and believed they cared for him in some way, even if it was secretive and mysterious.
Many nights, James would play with a band called TASTE in order to make some extra money. During the daytime, when he didn’t have a date or a current boyfriend, he studied American evangelical preachers on television. He noted their moves, the theatrics, and all the body language used to bring the audiences to tears. He began incorporating these techniques into his act. His body was his instrument. He didn’t drink or smoke, and he worked out to make himself desirable to others, as well as to show off his body as perfectly toned in photographs. At the neighborhood library, he found books of cinema, stage, and lighting, and compared the older classic techniques to the newer blockbusters. He let his hair grow longer like Bowie in his Hunky Dory era, wore his shirts open like Robert Plant, and moved like a combination of Elvis and a spirit-filled Baptist preacher. He found that the name James in Portuguese was Iago, and he changed his name to Jago van Lee to suit his Dutch heritage and to become a different persona on stage. He found he could leave Jago in the public eye and remain James in his private life, and he liked separating the two worlds.
The band’s music developed and deepened to coincide with his personal growth. Jago whipped crowds into a frenzy and kept his secrets while offstage, which led to more mystery for the band. TASTE played throughout the Netherlands and northern Europe. The guitarist, Moz Art, met the man who became their manager in London, and the manager’s wife became the band’s publicist. Within one year, they were the biggest band in Europe and booked for a tour in the United States. James was twenty-one when he met Frank Veltzen backstage the night before the band was to leave for New York. It was love at first sight for them both.
Frank was a Belgian banking heir who was twenty-two years older than James. He was masculine and worldly. The tall, black businessman was everything James wanted; someone to take care of him and protect him. Frank craved excitement and intrigue, not corporate drama. He loved the glam edginess of James’s long blond hair and easy sexuality. The two became inseparable. James’s first tour of America was in Frank’s private plane.
Jago became a true, honest-to-god European rock star in the eyes of the American audiences, thanks to Frank’s guidance and management. With Frank’s money and connections, the band was able to move from small venues to larger bookings, and the manager and publicist gained entry to the mainstream American media. The band was happy. They all had money. James and Frank were in love, yet James continued to have the dream of the Devil and the cursed mirror.
He had a reoccurring series of dreams that the real Lucifer Devil was creating a mirror. These dreams had presented themselves to him since he had been forced to leave his beloved grandmother and their gypsy family. He had to live with his father in Amsterdam. One night, the Devil was in a very good mood because he had just finished the mirror. The secret to the mirror was that it had this divine power: everything good and beautiful that was reflected in it had a hidden meaning. That is, everything of beauty was made more beautiful, and everything that was worthless and ugly became most conspicuous and even uglier than ever. But it was even deeper than that, because the mirror held layers and fragments. What you held in your heart could be revealed in the reflection of the mirror. Your wildest dreams could be revealed with only one glimpse. Even a certain type of lover could be allowed to look into your deepest dreams to connect with you, but this had to be the lover of the highest calibre. This made the Devil laugh with glee. Few men could capture the heart of a lover and have the strength of character to save their own body and soul, much less that of their loved one. In this mirror, the loveliest landscapes looked like hell, and the very best people became hideous. Their faces were contorted beyond recognition, and if a person had a flaw, it would spread until it destroyed them.
“James, wake up, sweetheart. You’re dreaming again.” Frank’s words comforted him in the darkness and he felt his body move closer. “Let me hold you, baby.”
James turned his back to Frank and relaxed into the warmth of Frank’s strong arms as they wrapped around him. He shivered with pleasure as his lips kissed his neck. “Sugar, Sugar, wake up. James is having nightmares again. Can you help him forget, honey?”
James felt the tears stream down his face, and he touched the sapphire ring he wore on his left hand, the only thing he had which had belonged to his mother. It was his only connection to the only woman who had ever really loved him.
With that, James’s skin sensed the tingle of Sugar’s long, raven hair as she roused from her slumber and rolled across the pillow toward him. She had been living with him and Frank for almost two years and he didn’t even know her real name. She was small and dark, the opposite of him. She was the most carnal and sensual of lovers…nothing was too daring for Sugar. Frank said she was Italian and when James grew tired of her, they could find
another girl to pretend to be his girlfriend for the media events. Yet they never grew tired of her.
Frank was publicly known as his personal manager. So many secrets were required to protect James. Sugar was one of them. All they did was ask and she would do anything. She was their lover and allowed them to do as they wished with no questions.
She would take female lovers or have multiple partners and allow him and Frank to watch. Whatever he and Frank requested, Sugar obliged. She kept the groupies away and, when he had nightmares, made him feel better and chased away the demons. Tonight, her soft sweetness met his hard body in the dark, as it had so many times before. Within minutes, Frank and Sugar surrounded him with love and filled him as he filled them. Love.
Love – the only thing he’d ever wanted and craved.
They loved him.
All the world loved Jago.
But he was evil. He had killed his own mother. His father had told him so.
The lovemaking lulled James into another dream.
“That’s very funny!” said the Devil. “You’re not going to get away that easily. I’m not finished with my story, you little minx. Let me tell you about my latest project and my pupils. You know, there are those who wish to learn from me, don’t you? Not everyone runs from me the way you do.”
James saw all those who worked in the Devil’s school, for the Devil had charm beyond measure. He had lured them into working for him due to his great power of manipulation. Not everyone could see the Devil for who he was, the way James could. The Devil told his workers that a miracle had come to pass due to their hard work, commitment to excellence, and diligence to a job well done. Now, he said, for the very first time, the world would see how it really looked. Everyone on Earth would be enabled with this great ability, all because of them and the mirror that they had made by following his direction.
They carried the mirror around the globe until there was not a person alive nor a land on earth that had not been distorted. James saw beautiful thin young girls believing they were fat. He glimpsed not only individuals, but also communities, regions, countries…the world viewed everything strangely, all from the mirror’s perspective.
James felt helpless and touched his mother’s ring. He thought of a girl’s face he had often seen in dreams, the girl from his childhood. She wasn’t beautiful, but there was a sorrow in her piercing blue eyes that matched his own. I have seen her face before. I have loved her in a dream or in a past life. She is my dream within a dream. A love from a life unseen. Another place, another space. She is my key to a puzzle that I do not yet understand. Once I find her again, this will all cease to be.
He fell back into the unwanted dream state.
The gleeful workers wanted to fly up to heaven itself in order to reflect a new spectrum onto the globe. The higher they flew with the mirror, the wider it grinned in reds, golds, and greens. They struggled to hold it together. Higher they flew, and further upward, nearer to the sun like wayward angels. Then, the mirror shook with a mighty force and splintered in their hands. There was nothing to be done. The bits and pieces fell to earth, shattered into thousands of tiny shards, fragments, and pieces.
The workers were devastated. James knew this would cause more trouble than before because now, if anywhere on earth had been safe from the evil of the distortion, now the pieces were scattered into tiny little bits and were at all points throughout the globe. If a speck lodged in someone’s eye, it would stay there. These bits of glass contorted everything people viewed. It made them see only the negativity, for every tiny smidgen of glass held the same power that the entire mirror had possessed.
A few people were lanced with tiny, minute glass splinters in their hearts. That was the most tragic occurrence of them all because it made their hearts cold as ice. There were some fragments large enough to be used as windows. A few pieces were made into glasses and many devious events came to pass when people wore them. The fiend was delighted by all this and gave his workers extra pay for the havoc caused by creating hell on earth. He laughed until his sides were sore at their moronic incompetence.
Motioning to James with one long finger, the Devil said, “Look into what remains of the mirror now. This is magnificent! If any good, decent thought passes through anyone’s mind, it shows in the mirror as an evil thought.” And the Devil laughed aloud at his ingenious device. “Here you are, James. This is how you look after your lovemaking session. What was your thought…Filled with love. Your love is nothing but lust, my beautiful sinner. Have a peek at your reflection and tell me what you see.”
James glanced into the compact mirror and saw himself reflected as a grizzled, aged man. That face stared, blinking back at him. “That’s your soul, James. How does it feel knowing how you truly appear? You are all mine, darling. All mine. The mirror doesn’t lie.” The Devil licked his lips and ran his fingers through his hair, then stared James in the eyes. “I may lie, but the mirror never does.” His laughter filled the halls of Hades and flames rose throughout the room, their sinewy hisses humming a Lorelei song for the damned.
With that, James woke himself, screaming, feeling the heat of the sweat from his own body trickle down his back, his hands reaching for his face as if to insure that he truly was himself and not the ancient, soulless creature that had appeared in the mirror.
Yet James knew tiny bits of the glass were still flying through the air.
Chapter 2
As James looked across the horizon, the vast Indian Ocean stretched before him, unfathomable, much like his future. It was difficult to imagine that less than twenty months ago, he had been an unknown bartender in Amsterdam. Now he was the lead singer in the hottest rock band on earth and living with the love of his life.
The dreams occurred from time to time, but not with the frequency with which they had once crippled him. Salt from the sea assailed his nostrils and a breeze wafted through his long, blond hair. A white egret flew past him, and James sensed that the bird brought him a message that change was on the horizon. He had read of this in stories of folklore from ancient Egyptian texts.
He thought of Frank and how the older man had changed his life for the better once he placed his career in the financier’s capable hands. He had told Frank of the dreams, the nightmares, and they had left Amsterdam the next day. Frank had moved James, their lover Sugar, and himself into a private apartment on the exclusive Rue Georg V. The next few months passed by peacefully. James suffered very few nightmares, as Frank had secured a new physician and hypnotist in order to alleviate much of the stress and anxiety felt by the young star. He spent much of his time working on new songs or in the gym when not in therapy sessions. Now he, Frank, and Sugar were with friends on a month-long vacation to the Maldives so that James could prepare himself for the band’s first worldwide arena tour. They had rented an entire island and left the prying eyes of the world behind them.
Looking around and seeing that he was alone, James removed his shorts and sat at the edge of the incoming tide. Slowly, the water began to lap onto his long legs. He leaned back and shook his hair out, feeling the sun caress his skin with the tenderness of a longed-for lover. He lay on the sand and the water washed over him. He felt a beat rising from the earth, the sky, and the water. He tapped his hands against the beach and hummed the sound that he felt was being given to him. Then, he touched his left hand to ensure that the water hadn’t washed away the ring. His thoughts drifted to his mother. How much pain had she experienced before she died?
Looking over the cerulean waters, memories of his grandmother and the world he had been forced to leave behind so long ago distracted him.
James allowed the sea to swallow him like a baptism. The earliest thoughts of his childhood went through his mind, much like a film. His grandmother dancing in the firelight as she danced and laughed with the other Romani women. Sounds of the wagons as they loaded to move into another town. The smiling faces of his grandparents as they watched him tie his shoe for the first time. He rememb
ered his grandmother’s tear-stained face when his father came to take him away, and the very words she said. “You must go with your father, James. He is your blood.” She had placed a clean white cotton shirt on him and a jacket, secretly pinning the ring inside. Kissing him softly on both cheeks, she whispered, “This was your mother’s. Keep it with you always. She will protect you. Remember that we love you forever.”
With that, his father’s shadow crossed between him and the sun. To five-year-old James, the six-foot-three frame of his father looked like that of a giant. He picked the boy up and carried him away. James remembered the screams and the sobs of his grandparents. He never saw them again.
His father returned with him to Europe, leaving the United States, where his mother and grandparents had moved before James was born. After arriving in Amsterdam, his father said something to the driver, then turned and spoke to him. He smiled at his father and it was the first time another person had ever physically hit him. The shock still resonated through him. Later, as he grew older, his father explained that he looked like his mother, and for that, he couldn’t control his rage and lashed out at the boy.
Maybe the dreams had started then; he really couldn’t remember. He only recalled the isolation of the language barrier until his father found someone to speak Romani and teach him Dutch. Following that, he was forbidden to ever utter another word of the gypsy language. By five years of age, the tutors his father hired had taught him fluent Dutch, English, French, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Mandarin, and Russian. At six, he was sent to boarding school in Switzerland and he recalled seeing the dreams in color for the first time. This was when she began to appear in the dreams. When he was a child, they moved so often. She had been the only person besides his grandparents that he ever made a connection with; they spoke their own language. Why couldn’t he remember her name? She had been so kind and didn’t make fun of him the way other children did. His mind only referred to her as she and they understood each other completely, as if they had known each other long before. Maybe he had loved her in another lifetime.