Chapter 15

I dreamed you went looking for me at the college, you were leaving and wanted to with me, in the dining room went to the table where you knew I sometimes sat with a group, near its corner, but saw I wasn’t there. You asked someone and she said no she isn’t here. She went home. And you left the college and on the way heard news that there’d been an earthquake in Japan, huge one in Tokyo. And we’d just returned from Japan the day before (it was a dream that mixed things up). If we’d stayed twenty-four hours longer we’d have been there and in trouble and so many other people were.

We found each other and came home, you suggested turning on the TV to watch the news. And then it wasn’t me you were with but your old girlfriend (in the dream things changed, smoothly, unnoticeably, suddenly they were just different and there was no reason to question them) and you put your hand inside her jeans and said, “These aren’t the panties you like” (you remembered her telling you that once) and she said, “No, they’re all right” because of how good your hand felt there. You moved your fingertips to the tight waist band, in the small space left open where it stretched from her hip bone, and the panties felt good to you too, you agreed with her that they were. Your fingers slid down them over her bush you felt softly crush beneath the smooth surface- faint but clear texture like frosted sugar, like snow- and lower to open her gently. You touched her most sensitive place so softly it felt like music set in motion between you, and she began to call out tonefully. And you thought then of how it would be to do that with me, to touch so gently, so lightly almost not at all yet bringing so much good feeling flowing. You thought of the color and wave of my hair different from your girlfriend, my tan face, bone structure that conveyed to you confidence. You usually thought of passionate lovemaking with me, strong, forceful sex, bringing all your heat and power at once, but now wondered how it would be to caress so sensitively, and you realized that I too would like it, I was a woman with feelings like your girlfriend, feelings that ranged from the fragile to the voracious and that together we could enjoy them all beautifully.

And the news showed the destruction in Japan and people’s valiant and ingenious and mostly successful efforts to survive and you thought of when you were there how difficult it was for you as a foreigner (were you my husband in the dream again?), how you’d felt tension when anyone approached, at the thought they’d say something to you and expect an answer and you might not be able to give a good one or even understand what had been said because you didn’t speak the language well- those around you did fluently, of course, because it was theirs. You sat at a table- like the one at the college but more solid, wooden. We weren’t seated together. You had to fend for yourself and wondered if I knew how you felt.