by Gregor Xane
Frank turned away, embarrassed, and was startled to find the party gathered directly behind him now, standing too close, with big smiles, breathing rhythmically through their noses.
Unsure of himself, he jiggled his glass, and pretended to take great interest in watching the ice sloshing around inside. He sidestepped out of the front row and made his way around to a more comfortable position at the rear of the audience.
The floral negligee was gyrating awkwardly above the tabletop. The woman's face was serious. No music played on the stereo. She pouted, in search of a song lost inside her skull. She raised her hands and crossed her forearms behind her head and began to hum tunelessly to herself.
Frank shook his head, sipped his drink, tried to divert his attention. He was beginning to think that this woman's mental deficiencies were being put on display for everyone's amusement. He looked to the brick fireplace, the plaster walls, the frames filled with simple erotic line drawings. He'd never noticed them before.
Creep. Jill's voice echoed in his memory. Frank nodded his head in agreement. His brother was a creep. Always had been. He was a cad with delusions of good taste. In college, he believed his framed collection of 1940s pin-up girls was the pinnacle of class.
Frank looked back at the floral-print underwear hovering over the tabletop. The flesh beneath the cloth had stopped moving. The girl was staring over the heads of the party-goers. Frank expected a string of drool to start stretching from her bottom lip.
Frank thought she might be depressed and a little hurt, because the party-goers were no longer interested in her. They had turned away and were staring at the wall of sketched nudes.
Creeps.
Frank ran his fingers over his scalp. His hair was wet and he didn't know why.
A man wearing a mask covered with a raised brick pattern walked past Frank to the wall of erotic art. Frank noticed a crack in the wall that he hadn't noticed before, between a woman's dimpled posterior and the whimsical rendering of a nude fairy spying on two human lovers engaged in a forest clearing. The crack grew bigger as Brick Face approached, opening up for him like a hungry Venus Flytrap.
Frank, startled, took a step back and surveyed the party-goers. It was difficult to see their reactions beneath their masks, but he saw no indication that these people thought of this bizarre happening as anything more than just a part of the evening's entertainment.
A small arm poked out from the crack and twisted around in search of something to grab on to. It was an infant's arm with silvery skin. Its wrist and finger joints were held together with plastic bolts. It was a doll's arm, Frank decided, poking in from a side-wise universe populated with gray-skinned people.
Brick Face held his fingers out to the tiny hand and the silver arm twitched and swirled, knocking into Brick Face's wrist violently.
This contact brought on an instant transformation in Brick Face. His mask disappeared, and his costume, a construction worker's uniform covered with stencils of famous architectural triumphs, disappeared and was replaced with a black suit and sequined cape. A top hat sprouted from his skull and a white-tipped magician's wand appeared in his hand.
The party-goers gasped and clapped with delight.
Frank dropped his glass. He looked around, expecting to find Jill staring at him with disgust. But she wasn't paying him any attention. She was focused on the magician. Frank quickly crouched and retrieved the glass, which, thankfully, wasn't broken. Steve's house was lined with the most expensive plush carpet money could buy. Frank picked up his scattered ice cubes and returned them to his glass.
Frank stood. The magician raised his hands and walked through the parted crowd to the table. He reached up and took hold of the floral girl's hand and turned to address his audience.
"Ladies and gentleman," he said with a nasally voice, "I will now perform my first feat of the evening." He pulled the girl toward him and their mouths locked together for a long, salacious kiss.
The audience laughed.
The girl pulled away, smiled, and wiped her mouth. Then the magician, with chivalrous flair, helped her lie down on the table.
Frank had a feeling that he knew what was coming. He remembered Jill and Steve's conversation from earlier in the evening. It's not happening with him, if that's what you're after. Frank expected the magician to crawl on top of the table and begin the evening's orgy with a duet performance. A little warm-up to get everyone in the mood.
But the magician circled the table instead, arms raised, colorful ribbons firing out of his sleeves.
This was met with more laughter and applause.
The magician yanked the tablecloth out from underneath the girl with a single smooth movement, demonstrating a great degree of showmanship, and draped it over the supine girl. He raised his arms, clapped three times, and snapped the cloth from the table again with equal flourish.
And the girl was gone, replaced with a cheap plastic skeleton, the kind found bobbing on front doors on Halloween night, with a goofy overbite and bulging eyes.
The audience gasped and clapped and clapped.
The magician bowed, flipping the tablecloth from left to right, displaying both sides, like a matador. He then turned and covered the dime-store skeleton, clapped three times, snatched the cloth from the table, and the skeleton was gone.
More applause, more laughter.
"Now, for my next trick," said the magician, "I will need a volunteer."
Next trick?
Frank thought it strange that the magician had no intention of bringing the girl back from whatever void he'd banished her to.
No volunteers stepped forward.
"Don't be frightened," the magician said.
No one moved.
"You there," the magician called, pointing over the first row of heads with his wand. Its white tip pointed directly at Frank. "Step forward and be amazed."
Frank stepped back, shaking his head. "No thanks," he said. He tipped his glass to his lips to have a drink, and his mouth filled with wet carpet fuzz.
"Come on, Frank," Steve said, emerging from the crowd and slinging an arm over his shoulders. "It'll be fun."
Frank picked carpet fuzz off his tongue as Steve pushed him forward through the crowd. Steve planted Frank by the table, plucked his glass from his hand, and retreated to the first row of spectators.
"We have a volunteer," the magician cheered.
Steve laughed and nudged the masked men standing to his left and right.
"My next trick will astonish you," the magician said. "I will just have you lie down, sir."
Frank threw up his hands in protest. "No, I'm sorry, but I really don't think I'm the right person for this. Could you pick somebody else?"
"Sir, you're the perfect subject, Mister…Mister?" the magician asked.
"Frank."
"You'll do just fine, Mr. Frank." The magician placed a calming hand on Frank's shoulder and nudged him backward toward the table.
Jill called out from near the back of the crowd, "Be a sport."
Her sentiments were matched with a chorus of agreement, nodding heads, and impatient whispers.
Frank didn't feel like he had a choice. He sat down on the table and the magician poked him in the chest with his wand, pushing him back to a reclining position.
"Don't worry, Mr. Frank," he said. "I only kiss my female assistants."
More laughter.
Frank felt blood rush to his face. He didn't like being the center of attention, the source of amusement. He was angry, but he tried to remain calm. It was too late to back out now.
His little part of the show would be over soon enough.
The magician made three passes with his wand over Frank's body, from head to toe, from toe to head. With each pass, Frank felt more relaxed. And with the final pass, he felt his muscles liquefy, a heavy paralysis setting in. He tried to move his limbs, to wriggle his toes, and discovered that he no longer had control over his own body.
Frank was terrified. He
didn't like losing control. He struggled to move, to right himself, to sit up and jump from the table, run out the front door and into the streets. But he was trapped. His flesh felt like three hundred pounds of wet cement poured over helpless bones. He tried to open his mouth to scream, to plead for release, but his tongue was dead. His jaw was limp and useless.
"Ladies and gentlemen," the magician said, "Prepare to be astonished!"
The magician circled the table and Frank heard a distant clanging sound, like a truckload of pipes rolling down a hillside.
The magician raised his right arm straight over his head and a pipe rose out of his sleeve. It performed a sleepy dance, like a hypnotized cobra. The magician took the pipe in hand and twirled it like a baton. The pipe was about three feet in length and hollow. It sang as it was whipped through the air.
"Now this won't hurt a bit," the magician said. He took the pipe in both hands and impaled Frank's lower abdomen.
Frank would have jumped, would have screamed, if he could. But he was helpless. He could feel the pipe pass through him, but it wasn't painful. The magician had been telling the truth. It didn't hurt a bit. He felt instead a tugging sensation, like the terrible discomfort he'd suffered years ago when his doctor had sent a camera up his ass to inspect his small intestines.
Although there was no pain, there was blood. As soon as one end of the pipe was lodged into his gut, a splash of red burst from the opposite end. But instead of dribbling down the length of the pipe and onto the table, the crimson burst stayed fixed in the air, as if time had suddenly stopped. And then Frank realized that what he saw wasn't blood, but a bouquet of red roses pushed up through the end of the pipe.
The crowd went wild.
The magician threw his wand into the air and it spun like a propeller over Frank's face, defying gravity for an incredible length of time, before it dropped again into the magician's hand, transformed into a second length of pipe. The magician raised the pipe and drove it through Frank's solar plexus.
Frank felt the uncomfortable tugging again. And this time he noticed the crunch of the pipe penetrating the wood at his back.
Or was that the snapping of my spine?
Frank stopped breathing.
Lotus blossoms sprung from the top of the pipe.
More applause.
The magician reached up and plucked the roses from the first pipe and presented them to a woman standing in the front row. She blushed, gloated over her prize to her neighbors.
The magician returned to the pipe, waved his hands, and his wand was returned to him. It shot up from inside the pipe as if borne by a tightly coiled spring. The magician caught it and followed up with a grandiloquent bow.
He then plucked the lotus blossoms from the second pipe and tossed them to another woman standing near the back of the gathering. She yelped with surprise and giggled with embarrassment as she fumbled to catch the bouquet.
The magician called for absolute quiet. When all was still, he performed a variety of arcane gesticulations over the second pipe. And a third pipe telescoped from within, jumping into his hands. The magician twirled it overhead, turning in circles like a go-go cowgirl twirling a lasso in just her bra and panties, and then drove the third and final pipe straight through Frank's chest.
Chapter 7
Frank clutched his chest, sweating. Tears ran down his cheeks. His clothes were a mess. He twisted and writhed on Dr. Vo's leather chase lounge.
Dr. Vo reached out a calming hand and gripped Frank's shoulder. "It's over now, Frank? Is that the end of the dream?"
"Yes," Frank said. "It's over. I'm dead."
"You're not dead, Frank. It was just a dream. Let's begin the calming exercises I taught you. Remember?"
"Yes."
Dr. Vo guided Frank through a series of rhythmic breathing techniques, and soon Frank's chest rose and fell with a steady, even cadence. The tears stopped flowing and his arms fell away to his sides.
"Good, Frank. You're doing great. That was a very traumatic dream. I can understand why you suppressed it. Reliving something like that is tough. But you did very well."
"Thank you."
"Now, I want you to relax, and I'll bring you back to the office, OK?"
"OK."
"In just a moment, I will begin counting floors. You understand what I mean by that?"
"Yes. You will count backwards through the levels of consciousness until we reach the top."
"Correct. After which, you will be totally awake and aware."
"Yeah."
"But first I would like to ask you a few questions."
"OK."
"Frank, have you had this dream before?"
"I don't think so."
"Think back."
"No. That was the first time. I'm certain of it."
"Was the magician someone you recognized from real life?"
"No. I've never seen him before."
"Was he a composite?"
"I don't know…"
"Were his features a combination of two or more people you do know? Think, Frank."
Frank concentrated and shook his head. "No."
"OK, Frank. Very good. I'm going to begin counting levels in a second. First, I want to lay down some ground rules. When you wake up, you will remember the entire contents of your dream, but you are forbidden to feel anxious about it. It's just a dream. OK?"
"OK."
"Secondly. Now this part you won't remember when you wake up, me telling you this. Trust me, it's for the better. Secondly, I want you to buy my book, Dealing with Yourself. It just came out in paperback. When you leave my office today, I want you to go directly to the nearest bookstore and pick up a copy. Are you comfortable with that?"
"Yeah, I guess so."
"Great. I think you'll find it illuminating."
Dr. Vo retrieved a metronome from his desk and set it down on the coffee table across from Frank. He twisted a knob on its back and set it into motion. He sat down in the chair opposite Frank and counted backwards, slowly, in time with the beat, from twenty to one.
"Take a deep breath, Frank. We're back."
Frank's chest heaved and his eyes opened. He turned his head, looked at Dr. Vo, and let loose a sigh of relief.
"How do you feel?"
"Awake," Frank said. "More awake than I've felt in days. Well-rested."
"Relieved?"
Frank furrowed his brow. "Yeah, I do feel relieved. Like I just survived a bad car wreck without a scratch."
"You survived the dream, Frank. You do remember?"
Frank sat up and threw his legs over the side of the couch. He looked at the doctor, cocked his head, and began unbuttoning his shirt.
"What's going on, Frank?"
Frank shrugged his shirt off, pulled his undershirt up over his head, and stood with his back to the doctor.
"I can't reach back there. Would you mind?"
"What?"
"I want you to jab me in the back with something. I think we've found my sixth dead spot."
"I'm sure we have, Frank." Dr. Vo stood and poked Frank in the back with his index finger. "You feel that?"
"Yes. Move up and over a bit. It should match up exactly with the spot on my chest."
"There?" Dr. Vo asked.
"What?"
"There. Can you feel that?"
"No."
"That's it then. You sure you don't feel anything?"
"Nothing."
"Just a minute, Frank."
Dr. Vo went to his desk and grabbed a paper-clip. He unwound it and tested its point on the tip of his finger. He returned to Frank and stabbed it into Frank's back.
Frank didn't flinch. "What are you up to back there?"
"You didn't feel that either?"
"No."
"Hmm," Dr. Vo said. "Hold still for a moment. I need to clean up."
"Clean up?"
"Get a bandage and some antiseptic. It won't take a minute."
"What? You just stabbed me? I said 'ja
b.'"
"Just a necessary test. Don't worry."
"What did you stab me with?"
"An instrument I had on hand."
Frank turned around and scanned the room. His eyes settled on the misshapen paper-clip on Vo's desk.
"Paper-clips are considered medical instruments these days?"
Dr. Vo laughed. "They'll do in a pinch. Turn back around."
Frank turned around and waited while Dr. Vo cleaned and bandaged his sixth dead spot.
"What do you think all this means?"
"I'm not exactly sure. But we'll figure it out."
"Have you ever seen anything like this before?"
"Not personally, no. But I do seem to remember reading about a few cases similar to this. I'll have to dig up some journals, do a little homework. They weren't exactly like your case. But they did involve psychosomatic diseases, diseases the subjects believed they had contracted while in dreams."
Frank pulled his undershirt back over his head. "Were they curable?"
"Oh, I'm sure they were." Dr. Vo sat down at his desk and began scribbling on a yellow legal pad. "I have a feeling that your symptoms will disappear in time, now that your conscious mind knows their source."
"I hope so."
"Now, figuring out the 'why' of your traumatic dream may take a little longer. We have some work to do. How do you feel about weekly visits until we get this all straightened out?"
"I don't know. I'm self-employed. The co-pay on top of the premiums would set me back quite a bit."
"We can work with you there, Frank, put you on a payment plan. It is important to you that we get past this?"
"Yeah." Frank looked down at his shirt, watching his hands work the buttons. "You're right."
Dr. Vo stabbed a spot at the bottom of his legal pad and slashed his pen across the bottom of the page, underlining something. He then slid open a drawer and the pad disappeared inside. He pulled out a smaller yellow pad from the drawer and began filling out a prescription. "I'm going to give you something to help you sleep."
"All right," Frank said. Then he thought of his dire financial situation again. "Wait. What are you giving me?"
"Serapuems."
"They're new, aren't they?"
