by Multiple
In dream state, Daniel opened his eyes and beheld Claire sitting on the bed next to him. He immediately reached out to touch her face, but his hands went right through her image. Disappointment spread across his eyes. His brow furrowed.
“We won’t be able to touch each other.” Claire’s voice was soft, watching him explore her. He looked thirsty. “But we can talk,” she added.
“It’s you.” His face showed surprise.
Does he remember me from the farmer’s market? Claire lowered her eyes. Perhaps I am blushing. She did not want to reveal too much of the confusion going on inside her. Her heart pounded in her ears at the sight of him examining her all over.
“I’ve seen you before. Or I’ve seen glimpses of you. You wear white, just like now, don’t you?”
“Yes, Daniel.”
“What do I call you?”
“Claire.”
“Claire,” he murmured.
How wonderful that sounds. She would remember this forever.
Recognition hit his face, “Like on the paper that night. You wrote your name on the paper.”
“Yes.” Claire blushed and looked down.
“You were there in the room. You put up the crystal.” He scrunched up his eyes. The creases at the sides of his mouth formed and disappeared as he spoke.
“Yes. I stay up in the attic sometimes when you’re not home.”
“Why can I feel some things here? The fire. The bed. I feel the air around me, my skin.” He rubbed his own fingertips together. “But I can’t touch you?” He reached forward again to take her hand, but moved right through it like it was a hologram.
“We’re in the dream state. I don’t fully control it. I can help you see things. Some images you direct, some I do. You probably feel like we’re here, but we are not real right now.” She sighed. “I mean I’m never real, but right now neither are you. This is a dream.”
Claire watched him grapple with the idea. She could see he was having difficulty understanding any of it.
His chest was bare, since he had shown up in his dream just as he went to sleep, completely naked, legs covered by his bedcovers. Though she had seen him so many times, she admired anew the smooth tanned skin and muscles underneath, the sinews and smaller muscles at the base of his neck, and the way his full lips had moved when he’d spoken. She gazed at the shallow furrows between his eyes beneath his wide forehead. He seemed to look right into her angel soul, like he knew every part of her.
Was he seeing in her a masterpiece? Was he inspired? Did her face bring to him the joy his brought to her? Was it possible there was a place in Heaven or Earth where this relationship without touch could be allowed to flourish? Maybe that could be enough…
She showed him the image of what his real body was doing, sleeping soundly, stars in the distance shining through the window above the bed. The hologram played a few feet in front of his seated frame. In it, his arms were outstretched just as he had left them when he’d said, “Come to me, Angel.”
But his eyes were closed and he was obviously asleep.
“This is what’s real,” she said as she looked from the image back to his face.
How many times had she traced the line from the top of his forehead along the curly hairs at the sides of his face, down in front of his ears with the twin creases there, down the long neck to the beginning of his substantial chest?
He turned to face her, just a few inches away. She was not afraid to show the devotion she felt inside. For the first time in her angel life, she wanted a human to recognize her feelings. She wanted him to see her for who she was.
“I have questions,” he started, then paused.
How like him, wanting to know how things worked, what the medium was. “Go ahead,” she whispered, feeling timid.
“Why are you here? Who sent you?”
“You know who sent me. I am your Guardian angel, Daniel.” She saw he was still puzzled, so she added, “I was sent to save your life. You remember, the night you…” She cleared her throat, then started again. “I was the one who pushed the fire alarm. That night I intervened on your behalf. But tonight, I am part of your imagination, your dream.”
“No. Impossible. You are real to me.”
“But not real. Not real …” she repeated.
“Am I dead?”
She laughed. “Noooo. What a silly question!”
“Will you be with me forever?”
“No.”
“How long?”
She paused before speaking. Best to tell him the truth. “Until my work is done.”
“When will that be?”
“I don’t know that. It depends on you.”
“What can I do to keep you here?”
“Nothing. I’m not real, remember?” A tightness grew in her chest. She sucked in air.
“Why?”
“Father’s rules. Do you make the sunrise, the wind, the fragrance of roses?”
“You brought those back to me, those colors, those smells.”
“Not really, I helped you find them. They were always there. You had just forgotten. They didn’t change. You did. Your inner vision changed.”
“Why?”
She bit her lip, not wanting to remember that black night. “To save you.”
“Save me from what?”
“Death, by your own hand.”
“But we all die. You can save me from death?”
“No, not entirely.” She shook her head. “You will die too, but not for a long time, I hope.”
“Have you died?”
“Yes.”
“So you lived? You were real at one time?”
She nodded.
“But you are not alive now?”
“No, not in the same physical sense as your body.”
“Why? How did you become an angel?”
“I was chosen by Father for this job of Guardian.”
“But you died.”
“Yes, some ten of your years ago, and then I was chosen to be a Guardian. And don’t ask me how that happens, because I have no idea. I interfered with your temporary decision to end your life, but I cannot save you from death.”
“Who decides this?”
“Father.”
“God.”
“We call him Father.”
“Are there other angels?”
Claire’s smile was wide. “Thousands of them. They are all around you, you just didn’t know it.”
“So you take care of other people too.”
“No. I am your angel. Your Guardian angel.”
“Why can’t I touch you?”
“In your dream state you can see me. Touching only occurs in your human state. I can appear in human form, but that is forbidden.”
“Why?”
“It’s just the rule.” She looked into his eyes, and with a bit of hesitation added, “I’m not supposed to appear to you in any form, even dream state. But I’m breaking the rules a bit for you. I wanted to clear up your confusion. I knew you could sense me.”
Claire saw Daniel deep in thought. She knew, under normal human circumstances, he would hold her hand, would put his arm around her. He’d whisper words in her ear, and she would feel his breath on her face. She knew exactly how she would feel as a result. But this was a dream, and these things were not possible.
I have to keep telling myself this.
“Can I command you to do things?” Daniel asked.
“Like what?” She held her breath, felt a little electric current run down the back of her neck.
“Stay.”
“Not possible,” she said with a slight smile to her lips. She liked where this was going, although it was dangerous ground.
“Make love to me,” he said looking at her again with those brown eyes that reached deep into her soul.
“I already love you.” This was true. She added, “An angel’s love is special, different than an
y other’s. And it never goes away. We live forever. We love forever.”
“Can you love me like a human woman, like the human woman you were?”
Claire had to be careful here. Her feelings for Daniel were already more complicated than she’d ever experienced before.
“I’m not allowed to physically love you. I can only love you like an angel does, in spirit. Is that not enough?” She tilted her head slightly, feeling full of lightness and grace.
“So if you live forever, why can’t you stay as my angel forever?”
“I stay until my work is finished. Father makes that ultimate decision. You are a person of the Real World and I am a person of Heaven. Perhaps someday you will join us there too.”
“Why is it a rule not to touch?”
“So humans will have faith. When you don’t know, it requires more faith. You live here. You can’t live with me. I can’t live with you.” She was surprised by the wave of grief that washed over her when she said this.
“What if I chose to be in dream state twenty-four seven?”
“Then I won’t have saved you, Daniel. That’s escaping reality. You will need to make better choices than that to truly live.”
“So, I can’t touch you. Ever.”
“That’s right.”
“But I can choose to see things in my dreams.”
“Yes, within reason.”
“Show me what we would look like making love.”
This caught her completely off guard. She looked down at her folded hands, embarrassed. She knew in the Real World she would have let him advance on her, kiss her. The constraints she was under made her job very difficult.
“But our relationship isn’t physical. It never will be.” She searched for a reaction from his face and got it. Is there a little pain in his eyes? Just a little?
“But what about the shower? I felt your presence. I felt … something there. We felt each other, I know we did.”
“I didn’t say it was impossible, just against the rules,” Claire admitted. “I was surprised about the shower too. I’ll have to do a little research on this.”
Daniel opened his arms out to his sides, the strong biceps flexing under his smooth skin. “Research all you want.” He made that crooked grin again. She wanted to touch the little laugh lines at the corners of his eyes. She wanted the strong arms to enclose and encapsulate her small body. But this would not be for today. She sighed.
In the Real World, Claire would never have been able to resist him; he would have had his way with her long ago. She knew with certainty there could be no physicality in the dream state. But she loved lingering in the place where they both experienced that desire. I want to feel this a little while longer.
“Can I ask you a question?” she asked.
He nodded.
“What did you think I was when you saw me in your dreams?”
He smiled. Now he looked down at his hands folded in front of him. With boldness she did not expect he replied, “You were and are the girl of my dreams. My muse.”
The excitement that coursed through her body took her by surprise. She had trouble breathing. However, the truth of their situation quickly set in. Once again she became aware of the infinite space between them. They were only inches apart, but in reality, worlds apart. Each longed for something the other could not give.
She wanted him to take her in his arms and crush her mouth with a delicious kiss. It was a pleasant vision, but it also broke her heart. The silent communication of their eyes fed her soul, but gave her pain.
Who will push the fire alarm in my internal living room now? Am I not considering suicide of my immortal soul?
Claire broke it off to ask another question. “When did you first see me?”
“It was at the planetarium. I was looking at the heavens, the twinkling lights, and, well, I just seemed to lift out of my body. Soon I was above my head looking down and I saw you sitting behind me.” At Claire’s nod, he added, “You saw the picture?”
“Of course.”
“Just like that. You didn’t notice me looking. At least, I didn’t think you did.” He hesitated to ask the next question. “Does this mean I have special powers too? Maybe we are a match, then?” He looked up at her as if searching for good news.
“No, you fell asleep and you saw me in your dream. Sorry, Daniel. No special powers.”
Claire made a mental “note to self.” That night she had been distracted thinking about running her fingers through his hair. She must have projected herself there. It was a dangerous accident, due to her lapse in concentration. But she was secretly delighted with the outcome.
“What about the other times?” she asked.
“I saw someone in white in a couple of my dreams. I thought you were perhaps a fairy, a muse. I looked for you. I tried and tried. Couldn’t make it work. So I decided to go for it outside of a dream.”
“The Farmer’s Market?” she said.
“Yes, I recognized it in my dreams. I went to re-create the colors I remembered, and I saw you there. I saw you later, at the wind chimes place, remember? It was you, wasn’t it?”
“Yes. I was trying to avoid looking at you. I’m not supposed to in human form.”
“I touched you that day. I touched your arm,” he said, reaching to touch her there again, but his fingers went into the image of her.
“Yes. I felt it too.” Careful, careful. “But I’m not going to let that happen again. We can’t do that, Daniel. Sorry. It would be the worst kind of transgression for me. Possibly for you as well.”
He frowned and searched her face. Claire found it intoxicating to be studied in such detail by a human male. He continued to study her and said, “I thought that if I was dreaming these places, I should go see them in real life. Then when I kept seeing you, and you didn’t want to talk to me, well, I kept hidden. I watched you. That’s how I got the inspiration for the paintings.”
He leaned back, a puzzled look on his face. “I understood the planetarium, the flower market, the Farmer’s Market, the beach, the bookstores. But why take me to the Laundromat in my dreams?”
“Um, the smell of clean laundry, fabric softener sheets, soaps?” Claire answered and winced. He laughed, and she shrugged.
“The perfume counter at Macy’s? I thought I was having a gay fantasy for a while. I mean, I love perfume, but on a woman’s body.”
She was tantalized by his soft Brazilian accent when he said “woman’s body.” He was smiling at her when she looked up again. Healthy male. Confident. Used to getting what he wants. Ah, and patient too. Oh no, can’t go there.
“So you felt led?” Have to say something. Claire was seeing herself spreading massage oil over his body. She was irritated with herself at the images. This is not helping. Think!
“Oh yes, definitely. I was a willing participant but I didn’t see these things as coming from my memories. That’s why they affected me so. I loved, almost”—he had a twinkle in his dark eyes as he smiled—“almost all those places, or grew to love them.”
Do they make lavender massage oil? Stop it!
“You found them inspiring?” Claire raised her eyebrows and tried to look serious, studious.
Daniel, inspire me. Take me away from this prison I call my angel life.
She sucked in a quick breath. What am I saying?
“Very. Look at how many paintings I’ve done in the last month. I’ve never been so prolific.”
If I was human, we would have sex several times a day … Stop it. Stop it. Stop it.
“That’s the way it’s supposed to be. That’s your gift,” she blurted out.
You bet it is. Why couldn’t I have met him when I was human?
He nodded.
“Daniel, I want to ask you about Audray,” she began, needing to change the subject. He lowered his eyes. “You are still in pain there, I think.”
Think? Claire, are you nuts?
; “That will never go away.” It was almost a whisper coming from him.
“You don’t know everything about never,” Claire corrected him.
“You don’t know everything about pain,” he answered.
True enough.
“So.” He started to smile a bit as he asked this question, “How do you… save… me?” His brown eyes flirted shamelessly.
Those eyes. The crease at the corner of his mouth. Not fair, not fair at all. Claire was blushing, again. The fourth time at least.
“In a way, all I do is stay around until you save yourself.”
Daniel immediately frowned. Not the answer he was looking for, apparently. He sat silent for a moment, then his expression lightened. “And so who saves you?” he asked with an innocent look, pressing with those eyes.
A very good question.
“I have the very best job in the whole world,” she said. What kind of a non-answer was that?
He nodded in quiet agreement, and then furrowed his brow. He raised his eyes up to meet Claire’s face. He whispered, “I wish you were here for me and not because it was your job. I wish it was the very thing you wanted to do most in all the world.”
They looked at each other, neither moving. Daniel’s dark eyes pinned Claire.
“But I’m not really a part of this world. Thank you, though. It was a wonderful thing to say.”
Yes, wonderful. It was also wonderful also how it made Claire’s heart do flip flops, made it sing. So this is joy. So this is …
He came to a kneeling position in front of her. “I still want to see us making love. I want to feel what that feels like.”
It would have sounded good with any accent. So do I. You have no idea how much I do. “You have your fantasy world where all that happens. I only lead you in your dreams. I am not to be part of your real world.”
He closed his eyes, opening them a few seconds later. “Did you see that?”
“No, Daniel. I don’t see your thoughts.” But how I wish I could. In Claire’s fantasy she reached down and kissed his luscious lips and…