Juls decides the best way to get the information we need from Vincent Spano is for me to pretend I’m a high-priced call girl. In the beginning, I’m all over this plan. It seems like a fool-proof one and I’m eager to get started.
A phone call is made…I don’t know who makes it, but Vincent Spano accepts the invitation to rendezvous with me that night. Time whirls by and I’m standing in my parents’ front room, staring out the window towards the street, watching cars go by. They live in a cul de sac, and while I pace back and forth in anticipation of my client’s arrival, I start to get a little weirded out. I’m not really sure why we’re doing this. Why I’m doing this. What the hell is going on here? This is so not like me. I feel my confidence drain away as a slinky black car pulls up in front of the house, the street light reflecting on the windshield, preventing me from seeing inside.
I race from the front room to the adjoining kitchen-living room, where Juls has been hanging out. My mother and our friend Dar are in the kitchen, just sort of standing around, while Juls lounges in a papasan chair next to a big overstuffed sofa in the corner. Dani is sleeping on the sofa. I don’t know why she’s there. I stand in front of Juls, vaguely aware that I’m wearing some sort of pajama combination…a spaghetti-strap tank top and flannel pants.
“Juls,” I say. “I can’t do this. We have to pretend we’re not here. He’ll go away and I don’t have to do this.”
Juls dismisses me with a wave of her hand and stands up. For some reason when I look at her, I’m reminded of Bridget Jones. “Mandi, it’s fine. This will be over in no time.”
“But he’s expecting a hot chick. Look at me, I’m not hot. I’m fat -” (even though I am apparently slim and sporting a perky rack and nice ass…god bless) “-and he’s expecting someone hot. He’s expecting sex.”
“It’ll be fine! You’re sexy and that’s what we need.”
I turn to instruct everyone to not answer the door, to not let Vincent Spano into the house. To keep him away from me. I can feel the panic rising in my chest. There’s something not right about all this. Something I’m supposed to know but I can’t summon it to the surface of my conscious mind. And before I can even get a word out, Dar rushes to answer the door, and in he walks. His footfalls are almost silent as he strolls into the kitchen. I see dark hair, dark glasses, tight black t-shirt and slim fit black jeans. He moves like he’s stalking. Like a predator.
I look to Juls, but she’s gone now. I glance at Dani, still asleep on the sofa, and I busy myself with straightening her blankets and ensuring she’s warm and covered. In my haste, a box of puzzle pieces is knocked over. I quickly kneel to the floor, and begin to pick up the pieces. At some point I discover that I’ve left the towel from my shower wrapped around my wet hair on my head. I think “I need to take this off and shake out my hair so I at least look okay.” The towel comes off and my hair falls down around my face, forming curtains to hide my eyes from him. Throughout all this, I’m panicking. I’m nervous because I’m fat and ugly and this isn’t going to go well. I know he’s going to realize it’s just a trick.
Still kneeling on the floor, my hands are full of puzzle pieces. I need to clean up the pieces.
And then someone is behind me, and I hear music in my ears. I assume someone has put headphones on me but I don’t feel any weight on my head. The sound is a hypnotic mix of heavy beats and soft guitars. Before I realize what is happening, his arms are around me, cool slim hands pressing against my waist, his body pressed against my back.
And I freeze. It’s a visceral reaction, the kind you would expect from a trapped animal. I drop the puzzle pieces and I just freeze, arms rigid, fingers splayed, like I’m trying to keep from touching anything. He’s breathing softly in my ear, the rhythm quick and feverish. I can hear it over the music. I am terrified.
The hands at my waist start to move, and he’s slipping his fingers under the edge of my tank top, gathering the hem in his hands, the movement suggesting I won’t be wearing the top for much longer –
I wake up.
And I’m still terrified. The last thought I have is “He was going to bite my neck…he was going to seduce me and bite my neck…” before I realize I’m awake and it’s just a dream.
But my body is still reacting. My heart is beating wildly and the visceral tension is still there. My whole body is tense, every muscle and nerve wound tightly around this core of terror I cling to. I’m laying on my right side, my right arm stretched out under the pillow. I am dimly aware that my left had is clutching the pillow, my fingers bent to resemble a cat’s claws. I’m clinging to the pillow as though it is my only hope.
It is a full thirty minutes before the tension eases and I no longer feel the panic and terror all through me. I can release my death-grip on the pillow and roll over onto my back to finally catch my breath.
This was early Sunday morning that this all took place. And every time I remember it, a bit of the panicked feeling comes back. I don’t know why. I know it’s not real. But I can’t help the reaction. It’s fucking weird. I’ve been mentally floating through the last two days, wondering if the feeling will dissipate. Maybe telling you guys about it will make things okay. Or maybe you’re all just sitting there right now going “Who the fuck is Vincent Spano?!”
I can tell you where all the individual elements of the dream came from, because they’re all things that I’ve interacted with or thought about over the last week. Why my brain chose to remind me of all of them at once and in this fashion is beyond me. All I can say is, I haven’t been that terrified of a dream since I was a child. And it’s funny, but at the same time I’m working to understand WHY I had that reaction. Maybe I need to write it into a story…