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Incubus, and Your Lips |
Incubus came as usual, during a short nap I took on the sofa, in the morning, since the night before I hadn’t got enough rest. Well, it was a mistake and I should have known better, but I guess tiredness numbed me. Thus, imprudently, I fell asleep on the couch. Then a mess happened with my REM phase that clumsily, disastrously, intruded in the aura of my wake. Therefore, partially conscious and aware of the present situation, I found myself fighting ghosts that, in general, remain sealed in the realm of dreams.
Not for me, sadly. Since I suffer from a mental disorder called hypnagogic state. It has been described for centuries, but its causes are unknown and it is incurable. One just gets used to it, I guess, like I did.
Incubus is the king of that uncomfortable zone, he’s the main protagonist. I say “he” because, after years of gender fluctuations, he picked up a definite male identity and he stuck with it. He’s, by nature, unkind. He is also predictable.
I heard him enter the room by the front door, noisily and with violent intentions, as always. But, this time, I decided to put fear aside. I was semi-blind and paralyzed: it is part of the syndrome’s rules. So I did the only thing I could do: wait for him. As I said, with no fear. I waited as I would have for a lover.
I don’t know what strange switch made me, suddenly, jump over the ditch, reverse roles, attempt something so antithetic to my prime impulse. That happens… we all know. We get saturated, we hit the bottom and we bounce upward, the entire world tilts, we cartwheel, we revolve… Sort of miracles, prodigies that we can’t summon at will. They only occur by themselves.
Thus I welcomed him. He lay right behind me (like it was his habit), I managed to move just enough to niche against his body. I tried, as hard as I could, to sharpen my weakened senses, to grab, at least, flashes of what he looked like. In his presence, alas, all is awfully blurred. Still I caught a few glimpses: he wasn’t ugly nor handsome, not old, neither young. He was average: that’s an accurate way to describe him. I had grasped the concept before, in spite of my unpaired awareness. That has always been my conclusion, the most truthful depiction I could give… of the unnamed, of the impossible.
He is common. He is mediocre and banal. Undefined. Like a criminal whose identikit can’t be drawn… it gets sketched over and over, finally resembling no one or everyone. Yes, exactly. He looks like, feels like, sounds like everyone or no one. Hair: light brown, dark blond? Hazel? Eyes… the same? Face… a kind of round square. Built: robust, but not fat. Tall? A bit more than me, I think… Nothing noticeable…
I know that, from such description, common sense would conclude he doesn’t exist. Such vagueness, certainly, suggests he’s a fruit of my imagination. That he, admittedly, is. I have hypnagogic hallucinations. Incubus is a hallucination of mine. A real one. And that is the point that common sense (which, namely, shares Incubus’ plainness) may not grasp… Real hallucinations exist quite a bit. Just enough to scare the hell out of you. Unless, one day, you decide that you had it.
Like I did, that morning, when I decided to make love to that monster sprung out of my mind, to come anguish my body and give my muscles cramps. I decided he might as well provide something else. Why not? Thus, although I didn’t discern any peculiar charm about him, I decided to bend in his favor, to be as appreciative as I could.
I already knew he was Slavic. Well, this is a singular trait of my Incubus, appeared at an early stage. Do not ask me why, nor what this geographic detail indicates. I don’t know, I know that’s the way it is and it counts. I am reporting it, only, for he verbalized a bit, speaking mostly in his incomprehensible idiom, but exceptionally mixing in a few English words. And to those I paid great attention, stupefied as I was by such conviviality. While he, previously, had muttered things indiscernible, these short phrases were obviously a fresh attempt to be urbane, to communicate. Thus, the situation seemed better than I even hoped, less doomed to catastrophe.
We made love, as I wanted since the instant he stepped in. I knew he would be physical, no escape, he would go for my body as its prey. So, I guessed, orienting the happening, unequivocally, in a sexual way, was the best choice I could make. I wonder why the epiphany took me so long. With the impoverished means at my disposition (my reduced sensomotorial skills), I took the lead. I was strengthened by my despair, I was determined, furious. And we had a well paced, strong, intense intercourse.
I went for his dick with no courtesy, no hesitation. That’s, for sure, what I mostly recall, getting hold of that part of him, the most concrete, the most, literally, tangible. I remember his dick in my hand, in my mouth, my vagina. I believe I could see it… without doubts I could feel it. I’m not saying that it was spectacular or even remarkable. No. If I should define his sexual organ… I could only say “average”. And you’re not surprised.
Did it matter? Of course not. His dick fucked me hard and I got an orgasm. Well, an average one I suppose, but straight forward, easy, easy. Then an orgasm is an orgasm and it, ultimately, woke me up. That means that, although I found myself on the couch where I knew I was, aware of what just occurred, I now could see with clarity. I could move at my wish and Incubus, finally, had dissolved.
But for once I was well, relaxed and happy about my recent orgasm. Maybe I needed it, for sure it was welcomed. It was the first time that a hypnagogic burst had been good for something, that it brought something else than panic and helpless spasms, that I was able to use it at my sheer advantage.
Quite a victory, I thought. So I flashed back to that sex I had. Did I like it, besides the quick dopamine discharge, maybe a few molecules still dripping down my spinal cord, maybe another minute or two of peaceful waves through my limbs?
Truly, I couldn’t answer. I knew why I had wanted sex: it had been my way to divert attack. As an immobilized victim, I had few alternatives. It had been a raw, unreflective, impulsive, defensive move. With successful results. Is it called good sex? I guess it was average. Was I fulfilled, anyway? I couldn’t answer. Something seemed missing, but I couldn’t pinpoint it.
Did you say it is obvious? Did you say the point is that Incubus “was not real”? Well, he was while we fucked. He gave me a real orgasm. That must be worth something. Would I like to do this again? No.
The night after I dreamed of you. Sometimes I do, but it’s rare. I have known you for a longtime. In fact, just about the same time that I’ve known my Incubus.
In fact, Incubus first appeared shortly after I knew you, after I fell in love and we tried, but it didn’t work. I remember that I left town for a while, just to put you off my mind, temporarily. I went to the beach, up North, to a shore with cold wind and strong tides. While I slept in an unfamiliar single bed, the thing stroke for the first time, drenching me with terror and sweat. Then, I called “it” “the hands” since it was deadly fingers, trying to choke me and to kill me, what I perceived. For years I did not talk about it, to anyone. It took me decades to discover what the phenomenon was. It took me longer to adapt, and to make it viable.
As I said, I dream of you sometimes. It’s unusual. It is always a peculiar dream, which leaves me in an equally peculiar state. It is like an omen, a prophecy… only, it says nothing that will happen or should. It’s significant, though, like a marker. Like a plant that blooms very rarely, so we notice it. Like a lunar eclipse or, better, a solar one.
When I dream of you, it always feels true. It’s so colored, vivid, detailed that your presence invades me. But you’re not a hallucination at all, you’re a dream. From which I wake up neatly and suddenly. And reality is sharp, separated, concrete. There are not blurred zones.
They are complex, my dreams with you inside, long scenarios of travels, confused crowds, strange adventures, emergencies, a sense of time passing by, waits and accelerations. An incredible depth of feelings, so intricate that I can’t unscramble them, or maybe I don’t want to. They are too involved in all strata of my body and soul, they comprehend innocence, freshness, hope as well as bitterness, resignation, despair. They are thick, these feelings that come as a cortege to you, in my dreams, they resume not only my life but many lives, maybe. More than I can describe… just what I can handle, indeed. Yes, I handle it, painfully.
Still I don’t say no. I like dreaming of you. There’s a similarity, thus, among all dreams regarding you: the rich texture, the complex landscapes that I mentioned, plus the ending, that is regularly and unmistakably a failed beginning. A beginning of something that the dream’s end interrupts. Then, in a following dream, it will start again. But from zero, to get still no further than that embryonic stage, where the action aborts.
No, the storyline is not always identical; it changes slightly, especially since our acquaintance, now, spans over a lifetime. And we’ve changed. I have. Maybe you did too. But, in summary and truthfully, the script could be simplified, unified as follows: dreams of you always end on your lips. On the very surface of them, meaning with no pressure at all and, certainly, no tongue involved.
On your lips where, I guess, I put mine although it happens quite casually, I’d say, involuntarily, spontaneously, unconsciously. It is often, or always, a goodbye kiss we’re exchanging, or it could be an intention of sex, but I’ll never know.
I will never know. I truly doubt I’ll ever get hold of your dick in dreams, as I grabbed my Incubus’ penis. There’s no substance enough in my dreams of you. No rage and no hunger. There’s no room for strategy or plans, for revenge, reward, satisfaction. There’s no threat, no battle, no victory. There is no reality, not even that of a hallucination.
Dreams of you are the epitome of the impossible, of the longing that can’t be fulfilled, the incurable nostalgia, all things that were not but we, absurdly, pathetically, think they could have been. And we don’t let go. Dreams of you celebrate the intangible... still it is not true.
Since I can exactly describe the feel of your lips, the entire spectrum of that contact, as light as it is remarkable, as subtle as it is unequivocal, as ethereal as it is indelible. Well, I’d give my kingdom for that touch, if I had one. I’ll give it anyway, I’ll give whatever I have for another dream of your lips.
No, don’t ask me if I’d want you to come back. Be my guest.
copyright 2014
Toti
O'Brien |
