They were in the bed. Sleep rendered inconsequential by urges too delicious to ignore, torso rode torso. Light, strobelike in duration and intensity, flooded the room. He found himself alone in the bed, naked and vulnerable.

The strobe light returned, winking a rhythm that fueled his movements, illuminating there-and-gone images with freakish flashbulb clarity. He plucked himself from the mattress, walked into the bathroom, and stood before the medicine cabinet mirror. For an instant – and only that – he thought he saw himself stained a grotesque deep crimson.

He found he was now standing in the bedroom, then beyond it, surveying the darkness of room after room. The diversion seemed blatantly irrational. He thought he liked her. No, he did like her. He liked her. And he was incredibly aroused by her even if he could not recall her name.

He was back in the bedroom. The scent of the woman clung to him as her body moved against his own. He could feel the urge to come strongly despite the fact that he had not penetrated her. He sometimes had trouble letting himself go during the times, regardless of the urge, so great the pressure, the pain, the desire to… He could never fill in the blank. The desire to… seemed destined to forever remain a semantic amputee.

In the living room, Paul stared at the walls. He could hear the sounds coming from the bedroom, echoes of carnal pleasure, desire, satisfaction, hunger. He turned, his perception shifting like he was on a merry-go-round. He saw himself with her on the bed, a writhing mass of quadruple legged flesh, sheets and pillows long ago discarded.

He saw the living room walls.

White walls flecked with red.

Had the flecks been there before?

He hadn't remembered them.

Paul studied the polka dots as the sounds from the bedroom were cranking toward Dolby Digital. He wanted to be there.

So why was he here?

He wanted to be there, in bed, with her.

From the living room, Paul could see that he'd brought her to orgasm. She clung contentedly to him, her arms wrapped about his torso, her legs spaghetti tangled in his.

Paul saw himself in the bed as he stood in the living room where the walls were no longer flecked with red. No, the walls were now splattered with red.

Paint...? was his first thought.

Not paint... was his second.

That's...not...paint...

The blood exploded from the walls.

He bolts upright.

The dream... What was that about?

The images linger, absent meaning, bereft of significance.

Paul lays in the bed, coverings conspicuously absent from his naked body, arms rigidly at his sides. He's grown hot during the early morning hours, and even now, in the cool of the new day, he feels on desire to reclaim the jettisoned linen.

Paul stares at the ceiling, his thoughts jumbling like they seem to do more and more these days. His head has begun to feel like an overstuffed blender, crammed full of ingredients for a proper something, but the impressions seem too peculiar to be memories and too disjointed to represent anything real.

Paul removes himself from the mattress' embrace. He walks into the bathroom where he hesitates, surveying his face in the mirror. What might normally pass for a boyish visage currently has the stubble markings of a beard in form, and this gives him momentary pause. He stares at himself, trapped by the gaze of the doppelganger bounced back by glass and silver, his self at once present and absent. Who is he? Really?

He doesn't realize he's picked up the razor until he feels its weight in his hand.

The stubble remains.