It's dark. It's dark and my skin tingles but I can't see an inch of anything. It's dark and my wrists and my ankles are freezing and there's an infinite expanse of frost beneath my back. A light flicks on, dirty, yellow, and floods the room with little specks of dust that flutter and float around. It moves, but there's nothing there as it effortlessly glides to where I lay. First a pair of iridescent green eyes flicker out, drifting in mid-air, and next to follow is a smile that bleeds from ear to ear. Trickles of blood run between the yellow teeth, a substance that is candy-apple red. It falls in thick, goopy rivulets as creases form where the corners of the mouth should be, and a long, pink tongue darts out to slurp at it like a cat lapping milk. A hand, next, lashes out in a flash and clutches violently at a patch of skin on my exposed stomach. The fingers are long and the nails are curved, and it twists my flesh so painfully that I feel the pressure threatening to pop my skin off. I scream, and the light, all at once, dies.
(Somewhere, back in reality)
"You make a horrible fuss."
I wake up, panting for breath like an overheated dog and gripping at my stomach in the haze of a fever-dream. Once I assess that I'm all in one piece, I manage to haul my gaze over to Ivy. Her calm expression hardly seems right for this moment.
"To sleep, perchance, to dream, hah?" I keep patting at my tummy relentlessly, like I'm checking myself out. Skin. I have to be sure my skin is still all here. I touch behind my ears, at my still-healing forehead, at my sides and my lips and every inch of me.
Hey, Harvey?
Yeah, self?
You're all there.
Sure, self.
A vine slithers out of nowhere (see: I successfully almost jump out of my skin) and holds out (or so it seems…) a cup of something. I drink it, all shaking and trembling, and find that it's some kind of tea again. This one tastes different, though, this one's sort of minty. The air hangs with the sounds of chamber music. It sounds like a piece from Mozart's Magic Flute opera. It's pretty, kind of uplifting, but not enough to range out of comfortable.
I've got the stuff that you want, I've got the thing that you need. I've got more than enough to make you drop to your knees. 'Cause I'm the queen of the night, queen of the night, oh yeah…
My iPod's alarm goes off like crazy and I almost (again) leap out of my flesh. I forget that I set it for certain times according to when I was used to having to avoid Cleave, I just happen to forget that it's on shuffle.
In a moment of embarrassing clarity, I swear I can mentally fantasize her doing a striptease to Queen of the Night. This awkward, sexually confused moment bought to you by Whitney Houston.
In a fit of absolute sadness and hyperventilating panic, I realize how badly I miss my Bobby Brown.
Only problem is, the moment I go to look at my cell phone she swipes the thing up from the table beside the bed and shoots me a look that could make mountains crumble in on themselves.
"Is it because you're a masochist, and you enjoy it, or is it because you're a fool, and can't escape from it?" I stare into the wall intently as if to avoid the shamed 'What do you mean?' about to escape my oh-so-articulate mouth.
Instead, I do the second worst thing. I just shake my head. Dumb, fucking dumb, Harvey.
"Freud believed dreams were a perfect window into the psyche. Would you mind sharing? Who knows, maybe you can learn—"
"Listen, fuck off."
I regret it the minute it rolls out of my mouth. It's cold as anything, but I'm so sick of being prodded like her prized human experiment. She looks hurt, or I think she does, for a split few seconds, but the expression dies into one that seems to range from numb to bitch.
"Perhaps you are impossible to deal with."
I stare at her back as she retreats out the open door, and the spiteful vine that handed me the tea slams it behind her.
She has a gorgeous back.