Last night I dreamed that I was High-School age — about 16 or 17. Mom was still alive, and she decided that we were going to move to a Muslim neighborhood because it was safer. (Hmm.) She said that “people of Religious Faith have better values.” So we moved to a neighborhood much like a slum-like Columbian barrio I saw yesterday on one of those exotic foods shows on the Travel Channel. We lived in an underground apartment there, with cracked brick steps leading to it, and I remember thinking that this place seemed phenomenally unsafe. There were all kinds of shady dudes hanging about, and of course we were white, so we didn’t really fit in.
After awhile I ran into the only other white person I saw my whole time there, an attractive young girl about my age. She immediately started propositioning me, telling me that she was a virgin and she was desperate to get laid. She said that none of the Muslims there would sleep with her, and I got the feeling it was more because she was white than because of any religious conviction. I was hesitant to take her up on this offer. I wasn’t as ugly as I am now, but had the general body and appearance that I had when I was really that age… thin, but somewhat flabby, with glasses, and hair parted to the side. I said surely she could find somebody else to shack up with. She assured me she could not.
The dream seemed to last for a long time, with a lot of different events happening, but every so often I would run into her again and she would announce her presence by saying, “You know, I’m still a virgin” and recline on the nearest surface in an alluring pose. She always seemed to crop up when I was otherwise alone, like she was picking the best moments to have a clandestine affair. Eventually the pressure became too great, and I tried to delay: I said listen, why don’t you give me about a month, I’ll change my diet, work out, and eat lots of garlic to get in great shape.
That was the first dream. When I woke up, as I was smoking a cigarette, I thought about how struck I was by the girl in the dream, yet I still couldn’t pinpoint any significant features. So I went back to sleep, and I dreamt of her again. This time her hair was red, and it remained red in every dream from then on. We were lying in bed together, and she was getting me worked up, and I warned her that if she moved so quickly on it, I wouldn’t be able to do anything for her since I would be useless. It was as though I had to maintain total concentration in order to prevent popping off . . . I don’t even think I wanted to, I was so wound up. I woke up extremely disappointed as the dream had no satisfying conclusion.
In the last dream, I was visiting my Uncle and for some reason he and all his friends were buying turbo charged prototype sports cars. While they were all obsessed with that stuff, I was spending all the alone time I could get with the Red-Headed Girl. We weren’t allowed to be alone together as both our families were extremely religious, so that just made us even more hungry for each other. We were constantly inventing reasons to leave or to go into other parts of the house, and I distinctly remember her lying under the blanket in my bed when my Aunt came in, hoping that she wouldn’t be discovered.
I don’t remember many details of the last two dreams but the overall sense that I got from them was that I was accepted, desired and that I belonged… three feelings I don’t normally get in everyday life. I woke up between each dream to have my usual cigarette, and each time I hoped that when I went back to sleep the dream would continue. Thankfully it did. I guess a repeat tonight is probably too much to ask for, though.