by Alyson Belle
When the storm had subsided and the swells receded to the point where thinking and speaking were once again possible, the two of them lay panting in one another’s arms feeling spent and happy. Roland kissed Katherine’s head and began to stroke her soft, blonde hair. She nuzzled up against him, laying her face in the crook of his neck, and held him tight.
“Promise me you’ll return to me,” she whispered. “Forever and always.”
“You know I will,” he replied. “Just as I always have, one way or another.”
The alarm clock blared with its shrill, keening alarm that was both necessary and maddening, startling Jamie awake. He sat bolt upright in bed, his body drenched with sweat, and slammed his hand by reflex down on the button to turn it off. Then he swallowed hard, blinking blearily at the electronic display in the predawn shadows of his bedroom, and trying to make sense of where—and who—he was. The red LED lights read “5:30 AM.” Slowly he re-oriented himself back to the present, where he was Jamie, living by himself in a utilitarian one-bedroom apartment in the town where he’d been all his life.
America. Not Scotland. My apartment. Not a hotel. A dream… it was just a dream. A dream where he’d been someone else, thought her thoughts, said her words, and felt her lust and her fear and her passion for her husband as vividly as any emotion he’d ever felt himself. A dream where his name had been Katherine, and he’d been a woman newly married to a man named Roland. It was the strangest dream he’d ever had, and as he sat there in his bed, sheets twisted around his legs from his thrashing, his hands shook slightly.
It had felt so very real, though he had no idea how that could be so. He’d never been intimate with a man before, just as he’d never traveled abroad—he’d kissed a boy here and there, as drunken experiments. Experiments which he’d found as enjoyable as the times he’d kissed women, but both ultimately unsatisfying for reasons he couldn’t explain. And yet in his dream he’d been overjoyed to be with Roland. He could swear he could still feel the fading sensation of what Roland’s touch had been like on Katherine’s smooth, fair skin, and the warm weight of Roland’s body pressing down on Katherine’s delicate breasts as he’d entered her. As his thoughts wandered back to the moment of ecstatic climax she’d shared with her lover, a climax that was so powerful that he felt himself grow hard at the memory of it, his hand strayed toward his crotch, and Liam’s face suddenly popped into his head.
He snatched his hand back like it had been burned and forced it to be still at his side. What am I doing? Liam isn’t gay. Thinking those thoughts can’t lead to anything good.
It had to be that he was just confused and disoriented after an exhausting evening. To be fair, it had been a confusing dream, following one of the strangest nights of his life. Obviously what had happened was that he’d gotten swept up in Liam’s story, stimulated by both the romance and the excitement of a mystical break from his otherwise-mundane existence, and his weird, dreamy brain had done what it often did and conjured up a cobbled-together scene that would have been perfectly at home in one of the sappy wartime love movies he’d watched with his mother as a child.
Was it even that surprising that he was having bizarre dreams when he was hopped up on caffeine and had only managed to snatch a few, fitful hours of sleep after finishing his proposal at three in the morning?
Shit. The proposal. The meeting. You need to get going, he told himself. Worry about your weird sex dreams later.
That was why he’d set the alarm in the first place. He had to be at work in just over an hour to present his design in an early-morning meeting with the London clients. Jamie groaned and kicked away his sweat-soaked sheets, rolling out of bed with a heavy thump, and scrambled toward the bathroom to get ready for his day, leaving the memories of his night as Katherine to fade as any other dream does in the harsh light of morning.
Chapter 4
Jamie seated himself across from his friend Marisa at their favorite Greek cafe with a peculiar, forlorn expression which immediately alerted her to the fact that something was wrong with him. Marisa could always tell when something was wrong with Jamie, and usually she could even ferret out what, specifically, the problem was before he’d even told her—sometimes before he himself knew.
The troubled look in his eyes right now reminded Marisa of the day the two of them had met, back in middle school, when she’d shamed some bullies who’d been picking on Jamie for his small stature in the hallway by his locker. She’d adopted him as something like a younger brother after that, and she’d stuck by him all through high school and on into adulthood. They’d grown closer with each passing year, supporting each other through all of life’s challenges. The blonde, wavy hair and bright eyes in similar shades of green that they shared had often caused people to mistake them for a biological brother and sister—and on a few embarrassing occasions, when Jamie had been too young to grow a beard and worn his hair free-flowing rather than tightly pulled back as he now did, for two sisters instead—though their mutual coloring was pure coincidence. Even as their adult lives had diverged and their schedules had grown more hectic, they’d kept in close contact via phone and text and also made time to get together in person over lunch at least once each month, as they were doing today.
“The presentation went that poorly, huh?” Marisa asked carefully.
“The presentation went fine,” Jamie mumbled through his hands. “The London clients loved it. They always love what I bring, no matter how lame it is or how late I pull the designs together.”
Marisa struggled not to roll her eyes, knowing that Jamie routinely downplayed his talent, and instead pushed a small paper bag across the table.
“Well, I have something for you that might cheer you up. Here.”
Marisa often brought Jamie little gifts, tokens of her affection that she knew would make him happy, and it made her happy to bring some additional measure of joy to his life in this way. Marisa had been fortunate in love and was now married to a wonderful man, which Jamie attributed to her stunningly beautiful looks and Marisa herself attributed to blind luck, as she’d seen how many of her attractive friends struggled with the men in their lives despite their beauty. But she’d watched Jamie go through the tumultuous ups and downs of his own romantic life and knew how difficult it had been for him. She’d provided him a shoulder to cry on during many of his lowest, saddest nights—nights where he’d stepped back from the edge of the bridge and called her instead, and she cared deeply about his happiness. Though she’d never admit it to him, she worried about him a lot, and her gifts were a way to remind him how important relationships were in life, even if they couldn’t be romantic.
Jamie curiously slid his hand into the bag, and a quickening thrill of joy unfolded in Marisa’s heart as his neutral, cautious expression bloomed into a smile, however slight. He withdrew a painted porcelain bird, blue wings spread as though preparing to launch into flight, which perched on a branch over a wide base. The statue was small enough to fit in his hand. To an onlooker, it might seem a strange gift to give a man, kitschy and more than a little girly, but neither Jamie nor Marisa worried about such things, and she knew it was something he would like.
“It’s beautiful,” he murmured, holding it up to the light to inspect the delicate painted details. “Thanks, Marisa. You always know how to cheer me up, don’t you? Now I wish I’d thought to bring you something.”
“You don’t ever have to worry about that, Jamie. I like giving gifts, and I’m glad you like it. When I saw it at the open-air market I immediately thought of you, though I’m not sure why. The artist hand-makes each one.”
“There’s something about it… it reminds me of freedom, maybe? The little bird looks so happy.”
“Hah!” Marisa smiled. “I thought so too. It reminded me of the Songsparrow. Do you remember those books?”
“Oh man. I see it now. How could I forget? I loved those. I still have my copies of the whole series on my bookshelf at home.”
The Songspa
rrow had been a symbol of the resistance in one of the dystopian young adult book series they’d read together in high school, where a spunky female protagonist fought back against an oppressive regime for the freedom of her people while several dreamy boys competed for her affection. Songsparrows in the books were all-white except for a light dusting of blue at the tips of their wings, just like the porcelain statue Jamie held, and while neither of them had been especially interested in the birds when they could instead be debating the merits of each of the young woman’s suitors, the statue was a lovely reminder of those long summer afternoons where they’d laid about discussing the epic love stories. Whenever the bird’s song could be heard, it was a sign of hope for a brighter future. Marisa had been initially surprised that Jamie would want to read them with her, but had loved having a friend to gush about them with since none of her other friends were big readers.
“I’ll put in on my shelf tonight, right above the books.” Jamie placed the statue carefully back in the bag, amid the crumpled packing paper, and set it aside. Though he was obviously pleased by her gift, even that wasn’t enough to dispel his malaise completely, and once again his face fell and his eyes grew distant. Marisa frowned at him in concern and reached over the table to gently stroke the back of his hand with her thumb, as she often had when they were young and he was distressed.
“Why so sad, friend? Usually you’re as thrilled to see me as I am to see you, but you seem really down today.”
“I… have a lot on my mind. And I didn’t get much sleep last night.”
“Bad dreams?”
“Not bad, exactly. But definitely weird. I’m not sure I can talk about it… I’m too embarrassed. It was so strange.”
Marisa laughed, and then immediately felt bad as Jamie winced and withdrew his hand.
“Oh, Jamie—I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to embarrass you. I laughed because I think it’s crazy that you think you wouldn’t be able to talk to me about something. Come on. What haven’t we shared? I would never judge you.”
The server, a cute girl with dark hair cut into a bob and a maroon dress who looked as Greek as the restaurant they were in, arrived with two glasses of ice water and a pair of menus. Jamie toyed with his glass as he considered Marisa’s words.
“You promise?”
“Promise.”
So he told her, in a low, hushed tone of voice, all about his dream the night before, where he had been Katherine, and slept with Roland. Though his cheeks flushed red with embarrassment as he stumbled over the vivid recollections of being with a man, as a woman, Marisa gently encouraged him to continue until the whole of it came out.
“And then?” she prompted.
“And then I woke up and it was morning, and I felt rushed and confused and anxious about work. I’ve been thinking about it all day. I could barely concentrate on my presentation this morning. It just felt so real, Marisa. How can my brain create such vivid scenes of… of…”
“Sex? With a man?”
“Yes,” Jamie murmured. “That. When I’ve never done that. With a man or with anyone else.”
Marisa was quiet for a long moment as she considered what he’d told her, and she was reminded of the last time they’d had a long conversation about sex. It was right after Jamie’s ex-girlfriend Jeanette had broken up with him, and he’d been devastated about it. Marisa had wondered then the same thing she was wondering now about her dear friend, but she wasn’t sure if he was truly ready to have a conversation about it. Perhaps it was better to approach it in a roundabout way…
“Do you remember what you told me when you and Jeanette split?”
“About why we broke up?” Jamie turned an even deeper shade of red. “Do we have to talk about that here?”
“Oh, stop it. No one is listening to us, and it’s not something to be embarrassed about anyway. But yes, partly. You didn’t feel comfortable having sex with her, right?”
The expression on Jamie’s face was pure mortification, but Marisa wasn’t about to let up on him—not when she only got to talk to him in person once a month. This was important.
“It wasn’t that,” Jamie finally replied. “Not exactly. I did want to, of course I did, but… I don’t know. It always felt wrong to me when we started getting more intimate. Not her. She was beautiful. Everything about her was beautiful. But… I felt wrong somehow. It’s how I always feel when I start getting romantic feelings for someone. It’s impossible to explain.”
The night that Jeanette had left him had been one of the nights that Marisa had received a sobbing phone call from Jamie. He’d been on the bridge, and though he’d never admitted it to her directly, she suspected that he’d been there to do the unthinkable. Jamie had always been a complicated person, full of emotion and inner struggle, and it filled Marisa with a deep, aching sadness to think that he’d felt awful enough to even consider making that leap into the dark waters. She couldn’t imagine going through life without her friend, and it scared her that his mind sometimes strayed to such dark, painful places that he’d even think about doing something like that.
That night, she’d asked him to come over immediately, and the two of them had gotten roaring drunk on several bottles of red wine, cried together, and talked until dawn about Jamie’s fears and hopes and dreams. He was such a romantic at heart, and entirely too sweet to be as conflicted and tortured about love as he was.
“Do you remember what you told me late that night, after we’d opened the second bottle of wine, and you were trying to explain what exactly felt wrong to me?”
“I’m not sure,” Jamie replied, but his eyes darkened in a way that suggested to Marisa that he was lying and remembered their conversation perfectly well despite the fuzzy haze wine draped over the evening for both of them. “I was pretty drunk and upset that night. Who knows what I said? It was probably all emotional nonsense.”
Marisa’s lips tightened into a thin line of disapproval. It hadn’t seemed like nonsense to her at the time, any more than it did now.
“You asked me if I ever felt like I was supposed to have been someone else. Or different from how I was.”
“Oh, yes,” Jamie murmured, refusing to meet her eyes.
“And I said no, but I asked you if you ever felt that way. And you said yes.”
“Did I?”
“You wouldn’t elaborate, and you changed the subject a little too quickly. I let it be, because I didn’t want to upset you or force you to talk about something you weren’t ready to talk about. But now you’re telling me that you’re having dreams where you’re a woman, and more than that, they’re sexual, and you actually like the sex…”
Jamie remained silent and still wouldn’t look her in the eye, though he looked like he wanted to melt into his chair and disappear.
“Jamie, are you sure you aren’t trans—”
“I have to go,” he blurted in an unusually high pitch, rising so quickly that he knocked his glass over. Cold water splashed across the table and spilled onto the floor. He apologized profusely as the waitress rushed over with a hand towel to clean the icy mess, lifting her maroon skirt up and out of the way so as not to get it wet as she mopped the water off the floor.
Jamie tried to help her with his napkin, quickly saw the futility of it, and turned to make his exit. Marisa tried to call after him, but before her words even reached him he’d vanished out the cafe door with a final stammered apology.
It wasn’t clear to Marisa who the apology had actually been meant for: for her, for the waitress, or for Jamie himself. As she stooped to help the waitress clean up the last of the accident, Marisa stared thoughtfully at the seat where her friend had been only a moment before.
There has to be something I can do for him, she thought. It bothered her tremendously to see him this distressed. But what?
And then it came to her. The most perfect idea she’d ever had. All it would take was a little preparation…
Chapter 5
Helena’s fingertips played
lightly across the polished, windworn marble of the railing overlooking the Santorini bay as she wondered how many more weeks, or even worse, months, it would take before Gaius returned to their simple home on the dark beaches of the Greek isle where they’d built their life together. He’d sailed with the fleet months ago over some minor skirmish on one of the other isles concerning a family inheritance dispute. As a warrior and community leader it was his duty to go, but he’d promised her that it was a safe, relatively minor matter and that he’d be home before the weather turned cold again. She prayed that Gaius hadn’t softened the truth to protect her delicate sensibilities, though he was always so protective of his beloved wife, his one true love, that he might well have done so… In the years they’d spent in blissful marriage on the isle, she’d always hated the trips that took him away from her, even for a few days.
The wind tugged at her curling hair and loose, flowing dress of Egyptian cotton, and she leaned forward on the railing and imagined that it was carrying some word from him.
It was at times like this that she always thought of the story of the heroic Odysseus, blown away in his travels and separated by time and distance from his wife for decades while facing all manner of danger and trials. It was maddening not knowing when, or if, Gaius would return to her. Despite the popularity of the story with the townsfolk, she had forbidden the storytellers from sharing it in her presence, as it made her sick with worry to imagine Gaius facing similar trials. What if it were years before he returned? Would he still find her beautiful? Would he still love her?
Helena laughed at her own nervous girlishness. Of course he would. She was simply anxious with him gone, but she knew that there was no barrier that would prevent Gaius from loving her. Not ever.
She fingered the silver necklace nestled between her breasts absentmindedly, a simple gesture that never ceased to reassure Helena. It had been a gift from Gaius, given shortly after they’d met. At the time, she’d thought that their relationship would be a fling. A man as high-born and noble as Gaius, marrying a simple serving girl like her? His family should never have allowed it. But the necklace had been like a magic charm. As soon as it fell over her head, the objections and whispers melted away. It was like the world opened to the possibility of their love and reality yielded for them. It never ceased to amaze her when she looked back, and now the smooth, cool metal between her fingertips always reminded her of Gaius and his promise to her—a promise that even if the unthinkable should happen, it wouldn’t be the end of their love. A promise they’d both seen borne out over a thousand lifetimes, every night in their dreams, for long enough now that it would be foolish to doubt the truth of it. The faces might change. The wait might be long. Her name might not always be Helena, and his name might not always be Gaius, but always they’d find each other… again and again and again.