La Dormant: Un Rêve

I wake up with a start in a foreign bed in what is obviously a hotel room. A nondescript, fuzzy peach colored room with twilit shadows creeping on textured wall papers from between the Venetian blinds. Evening. An alarm of some sort has gone off, and I realize I need to leave my room.

With haste, I do so, getting a glimpse of myself in the mirror as I pass towards the door. I am wearing a white tank top and what appears to be a man’s light blue cotton boxer shorts. The sudden change in temperature as I get up from the warmth of the covers makes my breasts very visible under the top, but I feel like I should be moving, and there is nothing I can do about it now anyway.

I go into the hall, also fuzzy peach, and walk, barefoot, on the shaggy carpet. I am by nature a friend of cleanliness, and I feel slightly disgusted by the feel of the fabric against the soles of my feet. There is a corner, and I stay there, leaning on the wall. A door, perhaps the main entrance to the floor, is behind the corner, and I look at the entrance, waiting.

A woman in a slinky nightie appears by my side. She has obviously been to bed as well, and she knows me, because she walks right next to me and touches my hand. I can’t make out her face, but from the corner of my eye I see she has long very dark hair. She, too, is walking barefoot. She eases herself so close to me our bodies are touching, and she puts her hand on my waist. We both keep looking at the door, waiting.

She gently strokes the small of my back, and I am not sure if this is what we are accustomed to doing when we meet, or if her caress is meant as an invite. I still can’t look directly at her but keep my eyes on the door and my hands to myself, afraid I will break the spell, because I am very attracted to her and enjoy the feeling of her caress.

“Oh, see what is happening to you”, she whispers in my ear.

I look down at my light blue cotton boxers, and see an unmistakable shape forming underneath the garment. I realize two things at once. First, that I appear to have a penis, and second, that I am developing a hardon. I am very perplexed by this and cannot stop looking at it. I feel amazed and slightly annoyed to suddenly possess something that so obviously betrays my attraction to this woman.

“Don’t be embarrassed”, she says, “Let’s go to my room.”

The alarm has disappeared and we seem to have lost all interest in waiting in the hall, so we enter her room. There, too, like in my room, is an unmade bed with all white bedding. This is the moment the woman disappears.

I throw myself on the bed and turn on my back. I slide down my boxers, and there it is. I touch it very carefully, unbelieving. I see two small testicles, they are covered in little white hairs much like the ones on my cheeks my barber always wants to shave when I have my hair cut; he cuts the sides very short and complains that if he leaves the hairs alone I will look like I have sideburns, so I always begrudgingly let him shave them. The testicles are covered with similar soft hairs, and they are also tattooed throughout. Letters, very beautifully made, almost like calligraphy, in three different colors: sienna, ochre, burgundy. Like with the woman’s face, I cannot make out what it is that is tattooed on them, but the work is exquisite.

I gently take hold of my new penis. I do this with my right hand, which is strange, but I do not question this, although in real life I am a leftie. It is quite beautiful, pink and veiny, and the hand holding it is definitely my own hand. I think how holding it makes me think of holding a carambola, the texture feels like carambola skin. I am not sure why I should think of the star-shaped fruit just then, but when I wake up I remember the thought clearly.

Not sure whether I should feel miffed by this development or what, I slowly start moving my hand.

The reimagining of the poster art for the movie Le Fabuleux Destin d'Amélie Poulain by the wonderful Jouko Ollikainen, issued here by kind permission.