Sweet Dreams

by Rochelle Alers

  “What’s the difference between writing a script for the screen and one for the stage?” Chandra asked.

  “Stage plays are much more limited when it comes to the size of the cast, number of settings and the introduction of characters. Whereas with films there can be many, many characters and locales. I try and keep the page count on my plays around one hundred.”

  “Have you ever exceeded that number?”

  “Yes,” Preston replied. “But it should never go beyond one hundred twenty pages. The story should concentrate on a few major characters who reveal themselves through dialogue, unlike a film actor who will utilize dialogue and physical action.”

  Shifting slightly, Chandra met Preston’s eyes. “When do you know if your premise is a play or a film?”

  “The key word is physical action. If I imagine a story and I see it as frames of images, then it’s a play. But, if the images are filled with physical action, then it’s a film script.”

  “So, you see Death’s Kiss as a play?”

  “It can go either way. As a film it probably would be darker, more haunting, the characters of Pascual and Josette more complex, and there would be more physical action than on the stage.”

  “What would the rating be if you wrote the screenplay?”

  “Probably a PG-13,” he said.

  His response surprised Chandra. “Why not an R rating?”

  “An R rating would be at the studio’s discretion. I always believe you can sell more tickets with a PG-13 rating than one that’s rated R or NC-17.”

  “Is that why you insist on literary control?” she asked, continuing with her questioning.

  Preston nodded. “That’s part of it. What you and I have to decide on is the backstory for Death’s Kiss.”

  “Would I need a backstory for a mythical character?”

  “Do you want Pascual to feed on blood in order to survive? If not, then what are his family background, education, social and political beliefs? Is he in favor or opposed to slavery?”

  A look of distress came over Chandra’s face. “I don’t want the play to focus on slavery, because it’s a too-painful part of our country’s history.”

  “It will not focus on slavery, but a peculiar practice germane but not limited to New Orleans and the descendants of gens de couleur. I’ve done some research,” Preston continued, “uncovering that it was acceptable behavior for a white man to take a slave as young as twelve as his lover. It would prove beneficial to the woman if she produced children. She would be emancipated along with their offspring. Josette’s mother is a free woman of color, thereby making her free.”

  “Where does Josette’s father live?”

  “Etienne Fouché has a plantation twenty miles outside of New Orleans where he lives with his white family, and he also has an apartment within the city where he entertains his friends. Then, there’s a Creole cottage he’d purchased for his plaçée and Josette only blocks from his apartment. He will spend a few months with his legitimate wife, but most of his time will be spent within the city.

  “France has declared its independence and the Louisiana territory has been ceded to the United States. The first act will open with Josette returning to the States from France and her mother telling her she must prepare for the upcoming ball. However, the Josette who returns at sixteen isn’t the same naive and cosseted girl who’d cried incessantly when she boarded a ship to take her to Paris four years before. She is also educated, while it was illegal to teach blacks to read and write in the States. She doesn’t believe in plaçage, wants to choose her own husband, and her opposition results in conflict because her mother has promised her to the son of one of the largest landowners in the region. Within minutes of the opening act…”

  Preston’s words trailed off when he saw that Chandra had closed her eyes, while her chest rose and fell in an even rhythm. “Chandra,” he said softly, “did you fall asleep on me?”

  “No. I was listening to you. Champagne always makes me drowsy.”

  “We can stop now if you want to.”

  Chandra smiled, but didn’t open her eyes. “Do you mind if we don’t move?”

  Shifting slightly, he settled her into a more comfortable position. “We can stay here all night if you want.”

  She opened her eyes. “No, Preston. I’m not ready to sleep with you.”

  Preston twirled several strands of her hair around his finger. “I wasn’t suggesting we sleep together. The bedrooms on the second floor are for my guests.”

  “Where do you sleep?” Chandra asked quickly, hoping to cover up her faux pas. Preston had kissed her twice and she’d assumed that he wanted to sleep with her. If she could have, at that moment she would’ve willed herself totally invisible.

  “Here on the chaise. The sofa converts into a bed, but half the time I end up sleeping on it instead of in it.”

  “I hope you have a chiropractor.” Preston’s height exceeded the length of the sofa by several inches.

  “I happen to have one on speed dial. Sitting for hours in front of a computer takes a toll on the neck, back and shoulders.”

  “You should practice yoga or tai chi,” Chandra suggested. “I find it works wonders whenever I have trouble sleeping.”

  Preston was hard-pressed not to smile. Chandra had just given him the opening he needed to delve into her dreams without letting her know he’d read and committed to memory what she’d written in the journal he’d found.

  “What would keep you from sleeping?” he asked.

  “It’s usually anxiety or a very overactive imagination.”

  “What do you have to be anxious about, Chandra?”

  She exhaled an audible sigh. “A couple of weeks before I was scheduled to leave for Belize, I discovered I couldn’t sleep. I’d go to bed totally exhausted, but couldn’t sleep more than one or two hours. My dad, who is a doctor, offered to write a scrip for a sedative, but I refused because I didn’t want to rely on a controlled substance that could possibly lead to dependency.

  “I was losing weight and when I ran into a friend from college I told her about my problem. She was on her way to a yoga class so I went along just to observe. I joined the class the following day, and also signed up for tai chi.”

  “How long did it take for you to get rid of your insomnia?”

  Chandra stared at the vivid color on her toes. “It took about two weeks. By the time I’d arrived in Belize I was sleeping soundly, but then something else happened.”

  Lowering his head, Preston pressed his nose to her hair, inhaling the sweet fragrance. “What happened?”

  The seconds ticked, bringing with them a comfortable silence. “I began dreaming.”

  The admission came from a place Chandra hadn’t known existed. Her dreams were a secret—a secret she never planned to divulge to anyone. She’d recorded her dreams in journals, believing she would one day reread them. She’d thought about publishing them under a pseudonym, because some of them were more than sensual. They were downright erotic.

  “Were they dreams or nightmares?”

  “Oh, they were dreams.”

  Preston smiled. Her dreams had become his nightmares because they’d kept him from a restful night’s sleep. “How often did you dream?”

  “I had them on average of two to three a week.”

  “Whenever I dream I usually don’t remember what they were,” Preston admitted.

  “It’s different with me,” Chandra said. “Not only do I remember, but they were so vivid that I was able to write them down.”

  “What do you think triggered your dreams?”

  “I don’t know, Preston.”

  “Are your dreams different, or all along the same train of thought?”

  Chandra didn’t know how much more she could divulge about her dreams before Preston realized that she was sexually frustrated, that it had been years since she’d slept with a man. And she didn’t need a therapist to tell her that she’d used her dreams to act out her sexual
fantasies.

  “They were the same,” she finally admitted.

  “That sounds boring, C.E.”

  She rolled her eyes. “My dreams were hardly boring, P.J.”

  “Do you want to tell me about them?” Preston whispered in her ear.

  “No!”

  Preston fastened his mouth to the side of her neck. “Why not?”

  Chandra shivered slightly when Preston increased the pressure along the column of her neck. A slight gasp escaped her parted lips with the growing hardness pressing against her hips. It took Herculean strength not to move back to experience the full impact of Preston’s erection.

  “What are you doing, Preston?” Chandra questioned, not recognizing the strangled voice as her own.

  Closing his eyes while swallowing a groan, Preston tried to think about any and everything except the soft crush of Chandra’s buttocks pressed intimately to his groin.

  “I’m committing your scent to memory.”

  Chandra closed her eyes. “I’m not talking about you nibbling on my neck.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Pascual would never hump Josette.”

  “I’m not humping you, baby. This is humping.” Preston gyrated back and forth, pushing his erection against her hips.

  Waves of desire swept over Chandra like a desert sirocco, stealing the breath from her lungs and stopping her heart for several seconds. The sensations holding her in an erotic grip were similar to what she’d experienced in her dreams. Her breasts were heavy, the area between her thighs moist and throbbing with a need that screamed silently to be assuaged.

  The man who came to her in her dreams was a fantasy, a nameless, faceless specter she’d conjured up from the recesses of her overactive imagination, but Preston Tucker was real, as real as his heat and arousal.

  “Please don’t move.” Chandra was pleading with him, but she was past caring, because if he didn’t stop then she would beg him to make love to her. It was one thing to fantasize about making love with a faceless specter and another to have an actual live, red-blooded man simulating making love to her.

  Preston went still, but there was little he could do to still the pulsing sensations in his groin. He didn’t know what it was about Chandra Eaton that had him so lacking in self-control. He’d wanted to rationalize and tell himself it was because of her erotic dreams, but he would be lying to himself. He’d told Chandra that he liked her. The truth was he liked her and wanted her in his bed; however the notion of sleeping with Chandra was shocking and totally unexpected.

  “What were we talking about before you decided to hump me, Preston?”

  The soft, dulcet voice broke into his reverie. “We were talking about your dreams.”

  “Even before that,” Chandra said in an attempt to change the topic. Preston had asked what she’d dreamed about, and how could she tell him that her dreams were all about sex, that they were continuous frames of R- and X-rated films with her in the leading role.

  “We were discussing Josette’s father.”

  “Will he have legitimate children?”

  Wrapping an arm around Chandra’s waist, Preston shifted her to a more comfortable position. His erection had gone down and her body was more relaxed, pliant. “No. His wife gave him a daughter, but she died from a fever before she turned two. Since then she has had several miscarriages, thereby leaving him without a legitimate heir.”

  “Is Etienne Fouché wealthy?”

  “Very,” Preston confirmed. “He’d bought out a neighboring planter and is now the owner of the largest sugarcane plantation in St. Bernard parish.”

  “How is Etienne’s relationship with his wife?” Chandra asked.

  “They’re cordial. Theirs is a marriage of convenience. Madame Fouché is what one could call homely, so her father offered Etienne a sizable dowry to marry his daughter. Madame Fouché, who has an aversion to sex, is overjoyed when her doctor tells her that her husband must not share her bed again. She spends most of her free time entertaining the wives of other planters and/ or spending the summers in Europe to escape the heat and fevers that claim thousands of lives each year.”

  Sitting up straighter, Chandra turned to stare up at Preston. “You’ve made Etienne a gentleman farmer who derives his wealth from slaves who grow and process white gold.”

  “The geographic location and family background are key elements of the backstory. I could’ve easily made him a professional gambler, but how would that work for Josette and her mother. A gambler who could win or lose a fortune with the turn of a single card. And if he found himself without funds, then he would use their home as collateral. I know you don’t want to touch on the slavery issue, but remember we’re dealing with free people of color.

  “As the writer I’m totally absorbed in the lives of the characters until the play is completed. Then it becomes the director’s responsibility to get his actors to bring them to life on stage.”

  Chandra swiveled enough so that she was practically facing Preston. “Do you know who you want to direct Death’s Kiss?” A smile softened his mouth, bringing her gaze to linger on the outline of his sensual lower lip. “What are you smiling about?”

  “I’m going write, direct and produce Death’s Kiss.”

  “Total control,” she whispered under her breath.

  Preston’s eyebrows lifted. “Do you have a problem with my decision, C.E.?”

  Silence filled the room as Chandra boldly met his eyes. Missing was the warmth that lurked there only moments before. “It’s your play, Preston, so you can do whatever you want with it.”

  “It’s not only my play, Chandra.”

  “Who else does it belong to, if not you, Preston.”

  “Pascual is your character.”

  “And Death’s Kiss is your play,” she countered. Chandra pushed to her feet. “I’m going to head home now. Based on what you’ve told me about Etienne and Josette, I’m going to have to revise my first impression of Pascual.”

  Preston knew Chandra was smarting about his decision to write, direct and produce the play. What she didn’t understand was that he knew his characters better than anyone, and he hadn’t wanted to explain their motivation to a tyrannical director who insisted on having his way. He’d lost count of the number of times he’d had to bite his tongue so as not to lose his financial backing.

  He moved off the chaise. “Don’t stress yourself too much. It will probably be another month before we flesh out the entire cast of characters.”

  Nodding, Chandra turned and walked out of the office. “I’ll see you tomorrow at two.”

  “I’ll be downstairs.”

  She entered the kitchen, pushing her feet into her shoes before reaching for her suit jacket. “Dress is casual.”

  Resting his hands on her shoulders, Preston turned Chandra around to face him. “Thank you for coming. I really enjoyed your company.”

  Chandra was momentarily shocked into speechlessness. Preston thanking her for her company spoke volumes. Despite his brilliance, fame, awards and financial success, Preston J. Tucker was a private and a lonely man.

  A hint of a smile parted her lips when she stared into his fathomless dark eyes. “Thank you for inviting me.”

  Preston didn’t want Chandra to leave, but he didn’t want to embarrass himself and communicate that to her. “I’ll call the driver and have him bring the car around.”

  Going on tiptoe, Chandra touched her lips to his. “Thank you.”

  They shared a smile as she slipped her hand into his. They were still holding hands during the elevator ride to the building lobby and out onto the sidewalk where the driver stood with the rear door open.

  She slid onto the rear seat and waved to Preston. He returned her wave before the driver closed the door and rounded the Town Car to take his place behind the wheel.

  Chandra turned to stare over her shoulder out the back window to find Preston standing on the sidewalk. His image grew smaller and smaller then
disappeared from view when the driver turned the corner.

  A knowing smile softened her mouth when she shifted again. I like him. “I like him,” she repeated under her breath, as if saying it aloud would make it more real.

  Chapter 7

  Chandra maneuvered her car to the curb of the high-rise, tapping lightly on the horn to garner Preston’s attention. He was dressed in a lightweight, navy blue suit, white shirt and black slip-ons. Her eyebrows lifted slightly when she spied the two small colorful shopping bags he held in his left hand.

  He rounded the car to the driver’s side and dipped his head to peer through the open window. “I’ll drive. I do know how to get to Paoli,” Preston added when Chandra gave him a quizzical look. Reaching in, he unlocked the door, opened it and helped her out. Three inches of heels put the top of her head at eyelevel. His penetrating gaze took in everything about her in a single glance: lightly made-up face, luxurious dark brown hair secured in a ponytail, black stretch tank top, matching stretch cropped pants and high-heeled mules. He brushed a kiss over her cheek. “You look very cute.”

  Heat feathered across her face with his unexpected compliment. She’d changed her outfits twice. When she’d gotten up earlier that morning, the mercury was already sixty-eight, and meteorologists were predicting temperatures to peak in the mid-eighties. Chandra much preferred the Indian summer weather to the near-freezing temperatures because she knew it would take her a while to adjust to the climate change.

  Her eyes met Preston’s as the skin around his penetrating gaze lingered briefly on her face before slipping lower to her breasts. “Thank you.”

  Preston’s lips parted in a smile as he reached over with his free hand and tugged gently on her ponytail. “You’re quite welcome.” He led her around the Volvo, seated her and then retraced his steps once she’d fastened her seat belt.

  He took off his suit jacket, placing it and the shopping bags on the rear seat. Sitting behind the wheel, he adjusted the seat to accommodate his longer legs, noting that Chandra had already programmed her trip into the GPS.