What is she?
Lily stirs, as if disturbed by my scrutiny, rolls over and looks up, eyes half-lidded. Her face is more distinctly patterned than the rest. Apparently unconcerned by what I might have seen, Lily appears dreamily distracted, at best half-aware.
I stand, search for my clothes, pull on my pants.
Lily is standing, naked and pale, by the door. Her skin is smooth, white and unblemished, like always before.
"Don't misunderstand." She reaches for my face.
I stop, and let go my clothing. I don't know how I could have been so wrong, seen her so unclearly. "I'm sorry, I don't know why..."
She leads me back to the bed. I lie down, try to clear my mind.
She doesn't move for a long time, then turns, rests on her side, facing me. Her hand touches my chest. "What you want is not possible."
I want to argue that isn't true, but I know it is. "Look around here. It's all smoke." I'm not trying to change the subject. I really can't see.
"There's no smoke," Lily says. "You've been dreaming. Every time you wake up, you think whatever was happening in your dream is still going on, continuing into where you're awake. You're not very good at telling one from the other."
This judgment of hers stings a bit. I can't help being reminded of Michelle, all her criticisms of me, especially the implication that I'm the one always judging others, yet unprepared for judgment myself.
Maybe it's true.
"Tell me what you wish we could do together," Lily suggests.
I pretend to consider, but I just wish my eyes would stop stinging. I don't need to give it any thought. The answer is at the tip of my tongue, I've imagined it so many times.
"I want us to get dressed, go to my car, for a long drive along the Columbia. A sunny day, drive out the Washington side, cross Bridge of the Gods and come back on the Oregon side. Have dinner there in Hood River, if the timing's right, or maybe Salty's, right near where I live. I want people to see us together. I want you to come see where I live, Karl's place. He should see us together, and Sadie too. Maybe even for Michelle to call when we're together, and I'll pick up and tell her I can't talk, I'm with somebody else. We could sleep in my bed. It's uncomfortable, too small, but just one night. To sleep together in that room, I could undo all the nights, sleepless for so long. So much loneliness. Pain."
I stop, breathing hard. Anything else? Of course there is, but that's a start. "That would be perfect. Have you there, just sleep. Better still, I want to fuck you, hear the sounds you make. Drown out the other sounds. All the creaks and moans and sound of the river."
She's lying so still, I'm unsure whether she's considering which things might work for her, and which would not.
Then she speaks. "You want impossible things."
I try to read her voice. It sounds perfectly even, emotionless, but I don't know.
You want impossible things.
I want to say more, try some other angle, but decide to just wait. Rest, dream. Wake to another world.
She's doing something with my hands while I sleep. I remember our hands against each other's mouths, that strange, alien intimacy. But this isn't the same. I feel sharpness, tearing. Lily lets me sleep, strips away skin, steals fingerprints. Pulls out bones, detaches muscle, replaces these with parts she's created. Fragments of leaf, shards of bone from dead animals. Blood and guts of river fish.
I jerk awake. She's holding my hands between hers. Everything's slippery with blood. I jolt upright, scream at the sudden pain. Is this real, or remnant of a dream? Maybe she's right. I can't tell the difference between the two.
"Calm," Lily whispers.
I draw back my hands, rub them together. No blood, nothing slippery. Just skin. No pain.
What was that feeling? I'm only drifting. Sleep fixes—
Then hyperventilating, chest thumping, sweat-drenched skin. "What are you doing to me?" I ask.
"You had another dream. Shouting, tossing."
"You built my hands," I say.
"No."
"You took out my blood," I insist, aware how these words sound. "Where are my bones?"
She only stares at me, indifferent.
Didn't I promise myself I'd watch out for red flags, that if something seemed wrong, if Lily acted in a way that reminded me of what went wrong with Michelle, I'd protect myself? I have to force myself to see the way things really are.
Why won't Lily answer? I want her to say something.
I slow my breathing, try to calm myself. "I never thanked you for the book."
She appears taken by surprise, maybe even confused. At first I think she's going to say it wasn't from her, that she'll pretend not to know what I mean. Then her face relaxes, loosens into an expression of open guilelessness. Even the straight black bangs and angular eyebrows seem less severe, more girlish.
"I'm bound to offer an exchange for what you've given," Lily says.
"It's beautiful," I begin, then realize how much more it would mean if I understood the contents. "Maybe you could explain some things?"
"It's not for explaining," she says cautiously. "You already know everything you need. It will seem clearer, later."
Practical matters intrude into mind, like being nudged by a reminder. My job, my bills. All my possessions, and my room at Karl's. These things have seemed distant for so long, nearly forgotten. Now they seem pressing, urgent once more. It's alarming to consider how things might have changed since I last considered the life I left.
"You could just remain here." Lily seems capable of reading my thoughts, arguing against my unspoken doubts. "Not forever, but..."
"I can't just escape, escape, escape." After so long living a fantasy, believing myself so changed that I can leave everything behind, I realize it's not true. Yes, some things are different, but not everything. Not enough. When I try to carry Lily back to my own life, when I present her with considerations most people would accept easily, she simply can't cross that line. For her, it's impossible. I keep straining to match these two segments of my life, this magical escape and the real, practical considerations, but the gap can't be crossed. The variance refuses to balance. Just because I want it, doesn't mean it can happen. So at some point I have to return.
"I can accept never learning everything about you," I begin. "But you can't completely refuse to reveal anything at all."
"It's the same thing." Her inflection makes this sound like a question.
I want to stand, tell her I'm leaving, that I won't return. I want to say these words. Do I mean them, or am I just trying to win an argument?
"Where I'm from, you were never there," Lily says. "Where I'm going, you'll never be."
"It's so certain for you?" I try not to choke on the words. "Saying there's no future?"
"What's upsetting for you is different for me." She rests her hand on my face. This time I don't fall away into sleep. "I shift and fade like clouds. I flow like water from river to river."
"Lily, you don't have to say—"
"Some of us change, one thing to another. That's me. Others never can change."
This makes some kind of sense, though I hate to accept it. "Others like me." The reason I've fallen in so easily with Lily is the permeability of her boundaries. She's beautifully unreal, too transitory to keep, but that's the only reason we ever came together in the first place. "Like a—" I try to speak of caterpillars and pupae, but feel my face contorting in pain.
"I don't want to hurt." Her face shows no hostility. "I can only say truth."
I'm afraid I'm going to cry in front of her. This reminds me of home, of Michelle. So stupid, to be humiliated like this again. I have to go.
"I've said you can always leave, that I won't stop you." Lily's voice is gentle. "Maybe now is time."
I stand, and this time unhurriedly dress myself, facing away. She makes no effort to stop me. I fumble, putting on these clothes. I can't remember the last time I wore them.
When I turn back to Lily, I'm unsure
what I'll say. "I'm not sure I'll be back." How much of this is frustration? Some of what I'm feeling must be an echo of rejection, a reminder of Michelle commanding me to leave. But this is different.
"Don't swear you'll never return." Her eyes look serious, regretful. "I already know you will."
I don't believe this, not now. All I want is to flee. So many feelings, wavering and uncertain. Whether I should leave at all, and if I do, should I leave the door open for possible return? "Lily," I begin, and say nothing more. I turn, go out the door and leave without closing it behind me.
I walk to the foot path, and only then look back. The door to Lily is shut. Her place looks dark, abandoned. Though I know she remains inside, it looks like she must already be gone, or was never really there.
I run.
When I reach the driveway, my car almost within sight, I stop. The night air chills my lungs. Tears gather in my eyes. I can't imagine why I should cry over someone I barely know. This must be more of the same, ridiculous fallout over Michelle. Even that makes no sense. I should be forgetting my wife, using my experience with Lily to put that pain into perspective.
No, I've repeated the same mistake. The two women are completely different. The problem is me. I'm susceptible. Weak.
Lily's right, I probably won't be able to stay away, but at least for now, I have to go home. I resume walking. Through the trees to my left, toward the river, light hints on the horizon. It's the first time I've seen daylight in quite a while. Seems like forever.
My car is heavy with condensed mist, lightly frosted, as if encased in a thin layer of ice. The door opens, the engine starts.
I drive, thinking not of Lily, but Michelle. Why her? Not because she remains important. I shouldn't allow myself to continue seeing her as she never was. The only reason to remember Michelle is to help myself forget Lily. In contrast to Lily's inscrutability, Michelle offers one thing Lily never could. Revelation of self, a clearly-outlined identity. Not that this ought to make Michelle appealing. She's not someone I should desire.
Where Lily is pure, blank otherness, Michelle is over-embellished, vain and fussy self-regard.
I wish the two could trade aspects, that Michelle could grant Lily that one trait, at least a less narcissistic version. Failing that, what if Michelle gained something of Lily's nature? I wish I could merge the best parts of each, though I realize this is unfair, unrealistic. I have my own failings. It's unreasonable to expect perfection in others.
It's fine to understand this, but where does that leave me? Alone, driving home in the dark, feeling less certain than ever before what I ought to try to be.
Chapter 19
The clarity and confusion of waking dreams
Home doesn't feel like home. I repeat the word to myself, trying to extract from it some semblance of comfort.
Of course Karl's gone. When I want solitude, he's home. When I want company, he's away weeks at a time.
The sound of this river is driving me insane. What am I supposed to do? I'm determined not to backslide, won't allow myself to return to the state I was in before Lily. Rather than be alone, I should go somewhere public. A bar, or a restaurant. Salty's sounds good, just down the river, but I was just mentioning the place to Lily. If I go there, it will be impossible to think of anything but her.
How long since I've eaten? My guts ache.
No, I won't leave, not until I get some sleep. When I was with Lily I thought I was getting sleep, but it was never restful, always interrupted. My brain feels intoxicated, half-poisoned.
I undress, climb into bed, feeling anxious. I try to close my eyes.
Soon I realize this isn't going to happen. I can't stop myself thinking about getting up, looking out windows, down the hall, toward Karl's room. I lie in bed, picturing myself standing in the hall outside Karl's room, staring into the dark, straining to see. What am I looking for? This obsession is getting me nowhere. It makes no sense. If I could only get some rest, I might wake up feeling better, then maybe tomorrow start trying to get over this.
If only. But my broken mind, all my ruinous impulses prevent it. I grind my teeth until my jaw aches. So much anger. Where does it all come from?
First, I need to stop thinking of Lily.
And no more Michelle. She's dead to me.
Also, forget Sadie. I barely even know her. There's no reason a stranger should be echoing around in my mind.
From a perspective outside myself, I see someone who resembles me sitting up, rising from this bed, moving through a dark room in a trance. Called by sirens, seduced by nameless, faceless possibilities.
Who are they? What are their names?
Dream myself backward, spiral through time, drift toward yet another loss. Bodiless mind, looking down from high above, scrutinizing the corpus once occupied. Eyes outside my former blunt corpus motionless in a field of grass. Dream a downward rush, swoop out of the sky, strike the body with such force it jolts as if startled. Occupy it again, neither dead nor sleeping, but restless beneath a clear sky. Other stars watch, wait.
Go to her, you can go back. Give yourself over.
I wake in time to struggle against hands pressing down my face and chest, forcing me deeper into malleable ground. Fight back, struggle to pull apart the fingers. See the face, the woman on top of me. A crescent smile, gleaming bright and madly charming. Grinning Sadie presses down, crushes me into the earth. Half-submerged, I feel her skin slide against mine. Slippery as if oiled, her touch conveying a dream's exaggerated pleasure. Urgent need, convulsive stimulus. Despite all she's doing to remove me from this world, I want to possess her. No thought for Lily or Michelle or Karl. Just my own desire to feel that slick, tingling, nettle-stung flesh.
I recede willingly into the ground. I accept my subsidence. Relax. Give in.
The woman stands back, moves away, her smile knowing. I see her face, a stranger. Not Sadie after all.
The wide earth narrows, closes over me.
I'm buried.
I awaken, eyes sharp, light piercing. I've been dreaming. So often I think I can't sleep, that I'm tortured by insomnia, yet hours pass and somehow I experience new dreams. I lie awake, plan and shift, dreaming with eyes open. My stomach burns. I wake feeling death near, afraid insanity might take me. This is how I shift the world so I might survive.
Sleep in stealth, invent solutions. Wake, find desires met.
If I have to actually close my eyes and let go, I'll just dream myself backward. Out of this, back to where I was before. Count my losses, then what? Identity shifts according to need. Mine, hers.
None of this will change her mind.
I found my antidote, created her. Lily came to fill my need, invented for that purpose. She doesn't say the words I want to hear, but her voice calms, her body soothes in the moment. Lily's contour, her texture, skin buttery slick, always damp. Sweat glistens, a mist of fragrant oil. Her form only a costume, no person inside.
Eyes close. Mouth opens. What's within? Hollowness. A tangle of endless string, a lock never keyed.
I've always thought there was some value in possessing truth. That's wrong. There's no point unless I can control myself. She takes from me while I'm not looking, eyes shut, dreaming of coming days. She pulls me into her while I'm adrift, opens me, removes bones, drains blood, distills from these words a tale yet untold.
Lies motionless beneath, her fingers flicking, prodding, choosing.
My eyes are closed. She steals eyes from beneath twitching lids.
My lips don't speak. She tears loose my lips, stows them away.
My hands have nothing to do. She breaks fingers, splits each into a word.
She breathes into my twitching fingerless palm, imprints her secrets. I know what she does to me, though I always forget.
Ugh, these sheets stick to me. I'm drenched in sweat. Sit up, coughing. This room is smoky, claustrophobic. Stand up, look around confused. Where am I? Is this another deeper level of dream?
No, this is really
happening. My room in Karl's houseboat.
It's not sounds that awaken me, like before, but a smell of burning. I panic out of sleep, bit by smoke. Bolt out of bed, and stand shivering, heart pounding. No fire here, only a smell like smothered campfire.
Smell of smoke is manifestation of the persistent terror that flames may arise from nothing.
Out to the hall, searching. The empty house, bright with morning. Scan the living room, the kitchen. Beyond both windows, flat gray sky gives hard rain. Back to Karl's bedroom, open and vacant. His bed, uncharacteristically made. Here, that smell of burning is strongest.
Go in, look closer.
This is real. I'm actually awake, standing here. Karl's room, just like that other night, but it's daylight.
The bed isn't made. It's stripped, a bare mattress. The headboard shelf, where Karl always stored a half-dozen motivational books with titles containing words like "success," and "winner," and "dreams," no longer contains any books. Nothing on the shelf but a mound of white ash. That must be the source of that smell. There's no sign of heat, no burn marks. I poke a finger into the ash, find it insubstantial, the way cigarette ash appears solid but breaks at the touch.
It's not only the stripped bed that's unusual. Karl's whole room is vacant. Clothes gone, luggage. Though his dresser remains against the wall, all the drawers are open, empty. In the bathroom, Karl's kit is absent, toothpaste and toothbrush, shampoo, razor and towel, all missing. Only the bar of soap in the shower remains.
I return to my room. There the smell persists, like neutral incense. I check under the mattress, where I stashed my book. Nothing remains of it but the same white ash, flattened to nothing. No book, as if it burned away without fire. This leaves me confused, afraid. What can I do against this? I want to understand. Does everyone but me know what's happening? When Karl saw my book, he didn't recognize it, despite possessing one nearly identical. Now I wish I'd asked directly, not only hinted around, hoping for some reaction.
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