Lumen leans over me, her soft hair traces across my chest, leaving sparks across my body. The hot skin of her thighs rest over my lower stomach, I can feel her, wet, against me. My body responds because I have no choice. She draws me, pulls me towards her inexorably like a magnet. I groan her name, I arch up towards her and I wake.
Panting in the pale early morning light, a light sheen of sweat covers me, the sheets thrown back by my twisting, the effects of my dream painfully obvious. I throw myself back on the pillow and stifle a cry of frustration, all the longing, the frustration, the disappointment bubbling in my belly, threatening to overwhelm me. I beat the pillow on her side of the bed with my fist, punching and punching until I have nothing left. Nothing left but a bed which is not wholly mine anymore and an erection that taunts me with its persistence.
I breathe out a long breath and will it away. This constant battle with my body, with my brain and, I realise with horror, with my heart, is making me weak. Stripping me of the will to fight. For once it looks like my adversary will actually overcome me. Ironic that I am defeating myself.
I lie there for a moment, choosing my next attack. Ok, if my body is determined to make me see what I have lost, I glance down and I can't avoid the glaring sign of this emptiness, then I will beat it at its own game. I will make my body surrender.
I run my hands down my torso, skimming over my navel and pushing down. I imagine they are not my wide palmed, blunt fingered hands but Lumen's. Soft, slim fingered, small and strong. A breath shudders out, my body starts to realise that it's not going to win.
Under the tousled sheet I grab myself and then gentle my grasp, deliberately mimicking the soft way she used to touch me. I only have a small handful of remembrances to draw from and I squeeze each one dry.
Slowly I move my fingers, my hips jerk to the movement of the hand which I am divorcing from the rest of me to make this real, to make this work. I force myself to believe my own lies.
I close my eyes to better see her face, the bitten lip of concentration as she watches what she is doing to me, how I am unspooling out before her, for her. Her breathing, intense, focussed only on my tortured flesh as she ekes from me moans, whispers, love, longing. Her tongue brushes her lower lip and then she bends to kiss me. Her taste, her tongue between my lips.
My motion quickens and I am torn. Torn between the desire to get it over with, recover from this bout of civil war I am waging with my own skin. And the urge to keep her here, in my thoughts, on my body even if she is not real, even if she is never coming back. Oh god.
Oh god, oh god. I cry out to a deity who I don't believe in and who never fucking listens anyway. I spill out, over the sheets, my own hot flesh. A long, empty, flat page of nothing covers me. I cry.
I hear my quiet sobs and I feel the tears on my cheek and I observe myself in utter horror and shock, everything I knew about myself disproved and confirmed at once. I am not the monster I thought I was, Harry was wrong. Lumen has made me real. Even her absence makes me real.
I lie very still, not daring to move in case I dislodge the thought, the feeling of strange peace and emptiness which fills me. I hear Harrison laughing, Cody and Astor too. The distance, the awful, vasty chasm of emotion makes them sound miles away, in another world.
I get up and throw on a t-shirt and cotton pants. I go through to the bathroom.
"Morning Dexter!" Cody waves as he tickles his younger brother. Harrison is giggling so hard he can barely breathe. Without meaning to I smile.
"Morning troops!" We all salute each other, Astor joining in despite the fact I know she thinks she's too old for this kind of game.
"Shall I change him?" she asks, pointing to Harrison. I deliberately misunderstand to make her laugh.
"Well, you can try but Cody's a little big for the diaper!" Cody throws a cushion and I catch it laughing. They will save me, I think as I go into the bathroom to cleanse myself of the crushing start to the day. They will save me from this.
By the time Sonja gets her and we've all had breakfast I am going to be late for work. I kiss everyone but the nanny who just laughs as I miss her out from my affection and I run to the SUV.
As I pull out of the parking lot there is someone standing by the low wall. I turn my head, her image dragging my attention away from the road and onto her frame. Lumen. I am sure it is Lumen. A thump from the tyres forces me to tear my gaze back to the road. I am on the kerb, heading for the wall. I swerve the wheel, feeling my shoulder muscles protest as I drag the tonne of metal away from its path of destruction and back onto the asphalt. In the instant I right the car I glance in the rear view mirror but there is no one there. I shake my head. This is going to kill me.
"Dexter," Harry's voice is warning as he leans against the open passenger window. I don't even meet his eyes.
"I know." I say and I sound weary even to myself. "Jessica Daniels should be the only woman I am thinking about, right?" I feel Harry nod.
"She's been missing for too long now Dexter," for a moment I think he means Lumen and I struggle to keep up. "Anything could have happened to her. Could be happening to her." I know what he is doing. He's trying to make me feel protective of her, it worked with Lumen. Even my ghosts are worried about my mental state. Just great.
Masuka has a lead on the girl murderer. He's found a footprint at a crime scene which doesn't match anyone who he knows has been there and now he wants me to help. I fight back the bad mood, started by my bad dream and try to smile.
"Yeah, sure Vince. What's the problem?" He explains how he can't reconstruct the lower portion of the print, the polymer clay he used on the scene hasn't set and the imprint has come out right. It's something I've experienced before, the Miami heat doesn't work with that brand. It's why we have a tonne of it in the office but he wasn't to know that, not being the lead blood guy. I smile, he looks nervous so I adjust my expression.
"We'll have to reprint from this right now." I take the print and turn quickly to the desk, directing him to fetch the necessary equipment and enjoying the scuffle of his feet as he rushes to do my bidding.
Twenty minutes later we have a print he can work with and I realise that I haven't thought about lumen since we started. Of course the thought itself breaks my run but I feel some kind of inner peace. This is how I used to be, before her. Whole, self contained.
Vince offers to get me coffee and I nod. I sit at the desk that faces the office floor and I'm not looking at anything but I am thinking. I'm thinking that even Rita didn't bother me like this and I married her.
"Yes, but she was a foil, a guard." Harry says leaning in to whisper in my ear. I nod, distractedly. "I know you felt something for her Dex but it wasn't this was it? Don't beat yourself up. I'm proud. It proves your human." I look at him.
"What?" I hiss, "This is human?" I poke myself hard in the chest. It hurts but so does every other fucking thing these days. "Then I want to be a monster Harry. I don't want to feel like this!" at her desk Deb looks up, she frowns and comes over.
"hey," she puts her hand on my shoulder and then removes it like she's not sure she should be touching me, "How you doin'? Masuka says you're dog tired." I nod, rub my hand over my brow. Deb perches on the desk next to me.
"Have you thought of taking some time off? Take the kids away? Hey, I'll have the kids, you just take off. Take the boat out." I look at her, the concern on her face. If I wasn't planning on researching and killing a man then the offer would be tempting. But I can't go near the boat, the fibre glass and the wood hold too many memories. She's ruined me, ruined everything. I grab my bag off the back of the chair.
"Think I might just go for a walk." I say and she nods, puts her hand back on my shoulder and smiles at me.
"You know where I am." I nod.
I drive down to the beach. I park the SUV and sit looking out at the sea. The beach is busy even during the working day. Families, couples, surfers. The harsh sun beats down on us all.
I get out of the car and put on my sunglasses. I grab my bag and find some shade by some rocks. I flip the laptop open and am pleased to find that I can still read the screen, the shade is just enough for me to read by. While the machine boots up I lie back against the rock at my back, feeling its heat through the thin cotton of my shirt. My eyes are drawn to a lone figure further down the sand, a woman standing by a beach umbrella where they're selling drinks. I can't see much of her from here, I'm squinting into the sun but there's something in her posture, her stance, strikes a cord in me. I sit up, raising my hand to shield my eyes. She walks forward a few steps; her wide sun hat hides her face. She hesitates, changes her mind. She walks away, her bare feet making imprints in the sand which are clearer than her presence.
My heart is racing. I stand up, ready to call out but she's too far away. I feel hope rising in me, a pain worse than the first cut of her leaving. It isn't her Dexter. It isn't her. I sit down, more angry with myself because it's an easier pain than the needle sharp stab of disappointment.
Still angry I turn back to the laptop. I type Bryan Daniels into the social services database and wait. A few seconds later the whole man is there, laid out for me to dissect almost as though he's on my table already.
Yes, he is a bad man and yes, there were accusations made against him by his daughter. Accusations which were discounted when his wife spoke up against her child. Jessica remained in their custody; I shake my head at the injustice seeing into the situation which happened more than ten years ago. I close the page and move on, silently trawling the hospital records until I find what I want.
Jessica Daniels has repeated admittance to hospitals. At first the same place and then further afield as though her father is scattering the evidence wide, hoping to elude detection. And he's succeeded until now. So, where is he today?
He's in Miami. There was some problem at internal flights because of a suspected weapon in his hand luggage. It doesn't say what it was, it could have been a pair of nail clippers in this day and age but it puts his name on the register and so I find him. Flying into Miami about three weeks ago. Just in time to find and kidnap his daughter.
Four more clicks, a slice of knowledge of how the system works and three phone calls later and I have the temporary address he's staying at in Miami. It's not difficult. There's a limited number of places a man with his income could stay near the area where his daughter lives. I take a stab in the dark and phone the first three in the phonebook, it's probably what he did too. I tell the receptionists I have a rental car for Mr Daniels but I've lost the details of where he's staying. They're not supposed to tell me, they all make sure I know that, but then I plead. New at the job, going to be in so much trouble when the client calls in and they capitulate.
I slap the laptop closed and scan the beach, the woman has gone and I curse myself for even looking. Why can't I just see that she's never coming back? All those ideas I had at Harrison's party. About how I was going to be a new person, move on from Rita's death because of the atonement I had made with Lumen and here I am, stuck in a groove which just plays her name over and over. Maybe I need to watch Bryan Daniels; maybe I need to distract myself some more.
"The code says you don't just kill someone because you're in the mood Dex." Harry chides me as we climb into the SUV. I sigh, sometimes I feel like a teenager when he talks to me like this.
"I'm not just killing him because I'm in the mood!" I snap, then sigh and sag at the shoulders. "Look, if he's clean then I'll leave him alone and it will have been something… something to think about."
"Other than her?" Harry's voice is soft. I nod and start the engine.
The Blue Dolphin Motel is just how it sounds. The sky blue paint is crumbling from the plaster stucco and the sign is non existent, instead the name of the place is painted in blocky white letters on the wall.
I enter reception and the woman I spoke to on the phone; she can't be more than twenty, looks pleased to be distracted. I notice the mop and bucket and guess she was going to clean the rooms until I showed up to delay her. I smile, she smiles back. Already we are friends.
"Hi, I phoned earlier? From the car rental company?" she nods, still smiling. "I have to thank you for your help," I rush the words out with relief and I mean them, but not in the way she thinks. "Got the car here," I wave vaguely outside and she doesn't look. "Can you tell me where to drop the keys?"
"Uh huh." She grins and runs a chipped pink fingernail down a list. I see his name; I could have looked myself and not risked her mentioning the non existent rental to him. Damn. "207", she cocks her head and smiles.
"Phew!" I run a hand across my forehead in mock relief and she giggles. "Listen, thanks, you really saved my bacon."
"Hey, no worries," she leans back in her chair revealing a little bit too much leg, "we're all new once and we all fuck up." I smile and nod.
"Thanks then!" I give her a little wave and she grins.
207 is around the back, well out of sight of the road and the reception desk. I stand around the corner and spend some time making sure no one is about. The place is so deserted that it could be one of those old movie lots you hear about, abandoned out in the desert. I slip on my gloves, don't even think about it Dexter, I tell myself. Don't think about the gloves, about the other pair, their twin, somewhere out in the world. Not here with me, where they should be.
I make for the door quickly and get out my lock pick. I stamp hard on the queasy feeling in my stomach as my brain begins the rerun of Lumen it seems to find such entertainment in tormenting me with these last few weeks. The problem with sharing everything with someone is now apparent. When they leave everything reminds you of them.
"You really have to teach me how to do that one of these days." Her voice is soft, impressed. One of those days that we don't have. We don't have because you left. And you left because I'm a monster and you're not a monster. I say this in leaden tones, muttering under my breath 'til she shuts up.
"Focus Dex." Says Harry, I scowl.
The door opens but not before I see the signs that someone else has gotten in without a key. Not so unusual in a motel room I think, until I see the new scratches on the lock. I wipe my finger over them and see the scrapes of shiny metal. This has been done today.
I close the door gently behind me and listen. There's no one here, my Dark Passenger knows it instantly.
The room is slovenly, untidy and unhygienic. Dirty laundry thrown in a corner and a rank smell which tells of uneaten food, unwashed clothes and beer. I move quickly about the room, eyes searching the semi gloom of the closed curtains. At first I see nothing, then the small things start to fit together.
In a drawer under the bed I find a rope, tell tale brown marks at one end. I take a sample, careful to coil it beck in its original tangle. Then a child's shoe, a seemingly unlikely object to find in the motel room of a middle aged man. By the time I find the pictures I already know the story.
He's killing the girls. He's here to find his daughter, maybe he already has, but in the meantime he's killing the girls. I smile.
"Thank you." I whisper to the darkness.
There's noise in the bathroom, a scuffle which might be a rat but I tense and lean back against the wall. A window bangs and there is a pounding of feet. Sloppy Dexter, very sloppy, I shake my head. How can the Dark Passenger be wrong? There was no one here, I was certain of it. No one I could feel, see or here.
I go into the bathroom, careful even though I know that whoever my fellow trespasser was, they have gone. The window is bumping softly against its frame and I close and lock it. As I pull my hand away from the catch something glints in the muted sunshine. I pull my gloved hand back. A long blonde hair sits curled in my black leather palm like a question mark.
So, chapter two, how do we feel about Dexter's reaction to his dreams? Obviously they'll never do this in the show but it's fanfiction right? Hope you liked this , I did proof read but had to post right now bc won't get chance to do it otherwise. cx