The dream was his; this setting was one of hers. A sumptuous room; some thousand dollar suite, but not in a city, not with the whisper of palms outside, and the woven fans spinning slowly overhead. Wooden teak beams crossed the ceiling, and the floors were polished to mirror sheen.
A bedroom, with a huge bed draped in sheer mosquito netting, exotic and delicate against one wall. The other three-quarters of the room had open picture windows, revealing a breathtaking view of sugar-white sand tropical beach under a dark sky sprinkled with diamond dust of stars.
Arthur sucked in a breath, stunned at the artistry, the utter sumptuousness of the setting. Even Nash, with all his research into Saito's past hadn't been able to come up with anything so fully realized and rich. He gazed out across the beach and then turned when a movement caught the corner of his eye.
He stared.
Ariadne lay on the bed, unfocused under the gauzy filter of the netting. Draped along the pale peach of her naked body, the koi scale scarf glittered in the silvery moonlight that flooded the room.
Arthur forgot to breathe. He stood there, swaying slightly, unable to move lest the erotic vision vanish in the time it took to blink, and he heard himself making some sort of croaking noise.
He knew, without words- in the unrefined world of Dreaming- that this was his image of her in this setting. A place so exotic and sensual could only be inhabited by the most exotic and sensual Ariadne he could think of.
Arthur drew in a shaky breath, content simply to stand and drink in the searing vision of her delicate form, hair loose and spread across the pillows.
Ariadne curled to her side, the pearly curve of her small hip suddenly visible as the scarf slipped from it. "Okay, I'm very flattered. You really do like me," she murmured, discomfited but amused, too. Arthur looked up at the ceiling, trying hard to control the rush of desire surging down the tense muscles of his stomach.
Control. That was the key.
"You need clothes. Unfortunately, having seen you like this, it's . . . an effort not to keep see you like this. Christ! Okay, um, prim business suit in light charcoal, tan stockings, no-nonsense bun for your hair . . ." he recited tonelessly, trying to concentrate. "Uh, what else—heels . . ."
"I hate to interrupt, but it's not working," Ariadne informed him matter-of-factly. "Your lips may be moving, but your mind isn't making this happen. I don't think your mind's in charge right now, actually."
"Yeah, well can you blame me?" he protested, turning away with great difficulty, and rubbing a hand along his brow. "I'm not pointing fingers here, but you . . . made this place, and given the most obvious piece of furniture in the room it's a little hard not to respond with testosterone over intellectual thought, Ariadne!"
It was unfair to blame her solely, Arthur knew, but his defenses were crumbling a bit in the moonlight.
"I'll change it," she murmured from behind him.
00oo00oo00oo00
The bright sunlight made Arthur blink, as did the sudden rush of noise. Clanking of metal trays, babble of conversation, the scrape of chairs.
Around him was a high school cafeteria, students bustling to get into line or to tables. On the walls, banners hung, urging everyone to 'Beat Eastside!' and 'Go Chargers!'
He relaxed, drawing in a breath and feeling the tightness under his belly relax a bit, grateful for the momentary reprieve. The sunshine helped, definitely. Arthur turned, feeling he could face Ariadne now even if he was still feeling the heat across his face.
She was sitting across the long table from him. Still naked. True, her long hair and the gold-green scarf were obscuring better parts of the view, but there was still plenty of Ariadne to see in the sunlight.
Arthur instantly closed his eyes. "Shit."
"Arthur!"
"I'm sorry, I'm sorry! This is a dream; I'm not exactly dealing with logic down here!"
"Put me IN something!"
"Like what?" he demanded in frustration, wanting like HELL to peek.
"I don't know! A, a nun's habit, a burnoose, a muumuu—anything!" Ariadne snapped, her voice strained. "Your subs are looking pissed and heading this way-"
"Okay, okay! You're in—"
He risked opening his eyes, and across the table, Ariadne was now swathed head to toe in grey mink. The glossy fur of the elegant coat made her hair seem redder, and a hint of the scarf peeked out at her throat.
Ariadne looked stunned, then winced. "Um, thanks."
"You're welcome," Arthur muttered, relieved and under it, intrigued by the vision she made. Around them, students, cheerleaders and teachers moved, not noticing them at all. "Okay, things seem to be a bit more . . . stabilized."
"Stabilized," Ariadne echoed. "Sure. I'm sitting here wearing nothing but a scarf and a fur coat-"
"Don't tell me that!" Arthur protested miserably. "It was hard enough getting you in that as it is, okay? Look, one of the other factors about Dreaming, if you haven't figured it out for yourself by now is that emotions run a little higher here. We don't have as many filters when we're opening up our subconscious, and I don't need any more reminders that you're very pretty. So just . . . keep your coat closed and we'll walk around until the Sed wears off, all right?"
"Fine," Ariadne muttered, pushing away from the table and standing up. She looked at her feet. "Three inch heels? You've got some kinks here; you know that."
Arthur turned away, shoving his hands deep in his pockets. "Yeah well. It's been a while since I've . . . never mind. Come on-"
He took off for a few steps, then waited with his back turned, listening to the click of her heels on the linoleum floor of the cafeteria. Ariadne deliberately bumped his shoulder and they began to walk, moving out the double doors and onto a quad. There were tables here and there, and students playing in the sunshine; Frisbees and footballs mostly.
Arthur bit the inside of his cheek, not really feeling it. He was aware that his dreaming self up in the lounge chair of the warehouse had a serious erection, and that any further teasing from Ariadne would bring on an orgasm. That would be not only embarrassing, but also messy and impossible to ignore both here and there. While control was possible—and habitual- when he was awake, in Dreams, matters weren't so predictable, and he wanted to keep from straying.
"Is this your high school?" he asked, to change the subject. Next to him, Ariadne looked as if she was debating not answering him, but finally she shrugged. The gesture was nearly lost in the heavy coat.
"One I went to for a while. I liked it better than the others."
"Did you beat Eastside?"
"Almost never," Ariadne muttered. "We were the artsy school of the town."
"Ah." He replied. They kept walking, and gradually the path they were taking led down a slope towards a lake, glittering in the sunshine. Arthur noted a series of docks, and small rowboats there; he turned, a question in his expression.
"We were known for crew, too. I was a coxswain for a season."
Arthur wished she hadn't said that. The term was too close to smutty for his comfort. He looked out over her shoulder, noting that in the distance, his subs were looking slightly agitated. "Great. Let's go for a boat ride."
The only tricky moment was helping Ariadne in; the mink coat gapped open, and once again, the tantalizing peek of bare thigh made him dizzy. Arthur looked away, across the lake, and dropped himself on the hard bench seat in the middle, shoving the oars into their locks.
He rowed.
They moved across the glittering water smoothly, and although the sunshine was bright, the glare didn't bother him—small favors in a Dream, but Arthur took them gratefully. He rolled up his sleeves and put his muscles to work, pulling the long oars in careful, methodical strokes.
At the stern, Ariadne sat, a small breeze blowing through her hair. She sighed. "So . . . can we talk about this?"
"No," Arthur muttered.
"Why not?" she replied, aggrieved. "It's not like it's going to go away, Arthur. We can't just pretend this isn't happening, you know. And it's not that big a deal. People do have erotic dreams."
"I know that," Arthur huffed, looking over his shoulder to steer for a second, "but generally they aren't the kinds of Dreams that get shared, Ariadne."
She said nothing for a moment, leaning over to trail her fingers in the water. After a while-"What happens if you have sex in a dream?"
Arthur's grip on the oars slipped a bit; he caught a crab and sighed, pulling in the oars and leaning over them as the boat began to slow.
He looked up at Ariadne, who sat there, looking impossibly beautiful in the sunshine. "There's the rub, if you'll pardon a bad pun. If you have sex in a Dream, you may or may not have an orgasm. Chances are pretty good you won't, but you'll wake up horny as hell. If I have sex in a Dream, I'm pretty much guaranteed an orgasm, and I'll wake up a damp, embarrassed mess."
Ariadne thought about that for a moment. "Is it possible to have sex together in a Dream? I mean, won't the subs have a problem with it?"
Arthur laughed, stunned at her sheer persistence of the topic. "Oh man, you've got chutzpah, I'll give you that. In answer to your question, I don't know. I suspect Dom and Mal had a few encounters while they were Dreaming, but it wasn't the sort of thing they shared with me, either awake or asleep."
"But we do other things in a dream without difficulty," Ariadne pointed out. "Walk, talk, fight—"
"Yeah, but those are not . . . emotional," Arthur responded slowly. He gripped the oars again, settling his palms against the rounded ends. "Remember back when Saito got shot? How we all damned near came to blows with Cobb? We were angry—furious in fact-and we didn't have a lot holding us back at that point."
Ariadne nodded. "Yes, I remember. But those were also . . . negative emotions. Cobb pointed out when we first put together the plan for Fischer that positive emotions had a longer-lasting impact, and that makes me believe that he was speaking from experience, Dream-wise."
"Yeah, well sex isn't always a positive experience," Arthur grunted, pulling hard on the oars. He refused to look at her after that, and concentrated on the steady rhythm required to get the boat to the other side of the lake. On the far shore, subs were starting to climb into boats to come after them.
The boat glided towards a dock, and Arthur managed to steer the rowboat until it was in shallow water, then dropped himself over the side, grateful for the cold water in more ways than one. He pulled the boat to the rocky shore, beaching it high. Ariadne scrambled to the prow, then cautiously stepped out, her shoes ridiculous against the gravel beach.
Arthur scooped her up, biting back an oath, and wondering how many more minutes of sedation they had left. She wasn't heavy, but Ariadne protested.
"I can just take the shoes off and walk you know!"
"Fine—" he began, and half-turned. That was a mistake; they both went down against the grassy slope, Ariadne giving a startled yelp when he landed on top of her.
Her face was close; so close he could count her freckles, and Arthur had never realized how thick her lashes were . . .
00oo00oo00
His eyes opened and he found himself looking up at the greenhouse ceiling of the warehouse, tense and turgid.