When Bad Dreams End… (English)
Breathing heavily, Modo was yanked out of a nightmare. He had dreamt about it again, his martyrdom. Leaning on his forearms, he waited until his eye adjusted to the darkness. Then he dropped back on the sheets and turned his head to the left to check on Angie. At the beginning of their relationship he had done that to check if she had woken up but in the meantime this was not necessary any longer. He knew she woke up. She has always woken up. To check on her was some sort of reflex by now. And this night was no exception.
Angie moved closer to him, placed her head on his chest, listened to his heartbeat which was still way too fast. She placed one hand on his stomach, the other one on his shoulder, her steady breath stroked the fur on his chest, and he calmed down a bit.
Angie never asked what he had dreamt. Not, because she was not interested – he was quite sure about that one. On the one hand she knew what had happened to him so he thought that she made up her own theory of which demons of the past came back at night to haunt him, and on the other hand she never pressed him to do anything – to talk about the past, in that case. One of the character traits he loved most about her.
He was breathing steadily again, and his heart was beating at a normal rate, too.
He looked into the darkness, felt Angie's body heat, her gentle breath, and somehow he knew that it was time to talk.
"I dreamt about what had happened back then. You know, when…", he took a deep breath, "when I woke up in Karbunkel's laboratory. Everything looked so different through my new eye, dipped in red, and I couldn't feel my right arm. But still, there was something, something that was not my arm but responded to me like my arm did and I was… afraid."
Angie ran her hand which had rested on his stomach before over his fur – a sign that she was awake and listening.
Modo sighed. "I got used to the eye pretty fast. Plus, it only comes into effect when I'm angry or excited. And it is very useful in these situations because I can see more clearly", he continued, "Don't get me wrong! The arm is very useful, too, and it did help us a lot of times, but I…", he haltered, lifted his right arm and looked at it, "but I cannot forget who made it. And sometimes I wish I could feel something with my right hand again." He sighed again, spun his artificial arm a bit, looked at how the moonlight was reflected by the metal. How could he express best that he missed the sense in his right arm most when he was with her? Until now, he had only touched her with his right hand as little as possible – of course, he had hugged her, held her, but he was also cautious, too afraid of being too rough or hurting her – especially when they were at it. She was a creature of flesh and blood after all. If he was able to twist metal just like that with his right hand bones were no problem at all. What if he forgot for just one second how much power there was in his bionic arm? He'd better not thought of that. And still, the arm was something the Plutarkians had made. And that was why he tried to touch his sweetheart as little as possible with his right hand.
Lost in thoughts he didn't notice that Angie had sat up – not before she grabbed his metal fingers. He turned toward her.
"You mean something like that?" she asked and enclosed his metallic fingers with hers. After that she bent her head and kissed his fingers. "Or that?"
Modo laughed self-consciously. "Yeah, something similar." Then he tried to free his artificial hand, but Angie didn't let go. Instead she grabbed his left hand, too, and kissed the fingers on this hand as well.
"Maybe you just need to imagine it", Angie suggested and kissed his metallic fingers for comparison.
"Angie, quit it", he said and tried again to free his right hand.
"Why?" she asked.
"Because that… that is…" He fumbled for words.
"Your artificial arm", Angie completed his stammering. "So what?"
Modo examined her for a second, and then turned his head to avert her eyes. "Karbunkel made it", he whispered.
Angie looked at him, let go of his hands, only to enclose his face with both her hands instead. "Modo, look at me." The grey mouse did as he was told. "Listen, it doesn't matter to me who made this arm" she said in a calm but confident voice. "I don't care if it was Karbunkel or the trainee of the hardware store round the corner. It is your arm now, a part of you. And I love each and every part of you. I love you! So please stop to be worried about things that…" Modo pulled her closer and silenced her with a kiss. Angie's eyes widened in surprise but then she responded. Modo broke the kiss just seconds later and stroked her cheek with his artificial hand. It was the first time he did that.
"Understood", he said with a smile. Angie returned the smile. After that she leaned over him and kissed him. And this kiss wasn't broken easily; on the contrary it got deeper, more passionate, more demanding every second.
Modo moved his metallic hand from Angie's cheek and let it slide under her top…
When they dropped down on the sheets later that night, breathing heavily, Angie snuggled up to her lover and nestled her head to his chest. And just as if she wanted to make sure that he really allowed her to touch his right hand now her hand grasped his bionic fingers. Modo looked at his right hand, watched how Angie's fingers made of flesh and blood entwined around his fingers made of metal. If he just imagined very hard maybe he could really feel it – the warmth of her fingers, her tender skin. He just needed to imagine, then he could feel it. He could feel…
