2. Nocturnal Whispers
Chapter two
Nocturnal Whispers
Lauren
I dreamed of lips. Unknowable, lush, always just beyond my line-of-sight lips pressing feverish half-moons against my skin.
My back arched into hands that never quite solidified, pulsing with an impossible strength, pinning me down and at the same time lifting me up and open.
My voice didn’t belong to me; it trembled, higher and needier, ragged with gasps that echoed back from the dark.
There was no face to the body pressed against me.
Only heat and weight, and the slow, animal roll of hips grinding into mine.
Somewhere outside the fever, a clock shrieked, dragging me out of the undertow.
My legs tangled in the sheets. I thrashed upward, breathing water, sweating through the neck of my pajamas.
The room felt wrong. Suddenly much smaller, ceiling closer, air heavy with the sour chemical bite of a hospital ward.
I lay paralyzed, splayed out on top of the twisted cotton sheet, breasts rising and falling in double-time beneath the damp cling of my button-down sleep shirt.
For a moment, I was sure I had screamed aloud, but no, only the weak whimper of my breath still hovered in the air.
I pressed a hand to my chest to quiet my heart.
The fabric clung to my palm, soaked through.
For a mortifying instant I pictured some invisible observer in the corner, cool and laughing, watching me sweat and twitch in my own bed.
I shut my eyes, slow, deliberate. The dream lingered on my tongue, coppery and sweet as blood.
If I’d had any dignity left, I would’ve rolled over and forced myself back to sleep.
But the sheets were humid and sticky, the mattress divoted where I’d thrashed.
I lay there, stung with the urge to kick myself awake a second time, until it was clear sleep would not return.
My alarm hadn’t gone off yet, but there was no point trying to reset the damage.
I sat up, blinking at the way the streetlamp outside sliced its way through the blinds and streaked my hands with gold.
The clock on my nightstand glared 5:21, which left me time to reset, decompress, act as though I hadn’t just orgasmed.
Yes, that was the only word for it, alone in my sleep.
My pajamas were a mess. I peeled the top off, shivering at the way the cotton stuck to my skin, then tossed it in the laundry hamper with a flicker of disgust. I caught sight of myself in the mirror on the closet door: hair frizzed at odd angles, skin shiny with sweat, breasts flushed scarlet, nipples outlined with shameful precision against my white bralette.
Even my thighs were mottled pink. I looked debauched, ruined like the ghost of some spinster librarian who had been exorcised mid-dream by a poltergeist with a sex addiction.
I averted my eyes and pulled on a clean robe, knotted the sash twice as tight as normal. Kitchen, I thought. Ritual. Coffee.
My hands were still shaking when I measured out the grounds.
The motion was familiar, grounding, but the memory of that phantom touch refused to leave my muscles.
The ceramic mug trembled in my grip, clattering against the Keurig as I snapped it into place.
I watched the dark trickle of the brew, willing my pulse to slow.
It didn't. The clock on the microwave blinked 5:29. I forced myself to count the seconds as I sipped the first mouthful of coffee, tongue smarting at the burn. The heat worked its way down, taking the edge off the chill in my stomach. I moved through the rest of the kitchen routine. Open blinds, water the two succulents by the sink, unload dishwasher, all with the mechanical detachment of someone wearing another woman’s body.
I still felt watched. The sensation tickled the nape of my neck, lingered like perfume in the air above my collarbone.
I glanced over my shoulder twice, then three times, as if some shadow would step out from behind the pantry and wrap its arms around my waist. Ridiculous.
I was alone. I had always been alone. The bathroom mirror caught me again.
I tried not to look, but my gaze found itself anyway, drawn to the red splash of my face, the wild tangle of hair, the alien gleam in my own green eyes.
I turned on the cold tap, braced my wrists beneath it.
The water ran over my veins, numbing, but did nothing to erase the image of that writhing, eager girl I’d seen under the covers.
It wasn’t me, and yet it so obviously was.
Teeth. Brush. I let the bristles scrape against my gums, harder than necessary.
There was a taste I couldn’t rinse out, metallic and unfamiliar.
It only faded when I spit and rinsed a second time, then a third, as if ritual could drown out the memory.
In the closet, I stared at the racks of my own clothing.
It was a museum of self-restraint: high-necked blouses, long skirts, blazers with shouldered padding, trousers in neutral, soul-sucking shades of gray and taupe.
I chose a blouse at random. A prim, bone-white button-down, not unlike the pajamas I’d sweated through an hour ago.
My hands hesitated at the collar. The top button felt like an accusation.
I lingered there, thumb and index finger pinching the buttonhole, debating the line between modesty and suffocation. I did it up anyway.
I shimmied into my navy skirt, the hem brushing the bony rise of my knees.
I’d always hated my knees. They were too sharp, the patellas too prominent, like a bird’s.
The skirt was a concession to the spring weather, but the modesty of the cut made me look like a human pencil.
I stepped into black tights, then a pair of clunky low heels, just enough to keep my calves from looking undefined.
Another glance at the mirror. My hair looked sad in its bun, the kind of updo that belonged on a high school English teacher ten years past her prime.
I took it down, shook it out, tried to arrange the brown curtain over my ears, then surrendered and scraped it back up, tighter than before. Anything to hide my neck.
At the last moment, I slid on my glasses.
The wire frames always felt like a mask, a shield against exposure.
I practiced my customer-service smile in the mirror, showing only teeth, no emotion.
Back in the kitchen, I poured a second cup of coffee and drank it standing up.
The coffee was bitter, the aftertaste like burnt toast and regret.
The sun was barely up when I left, locking the apartment door behind me.
The April air cut through the wool of my coat, nipping at the patch of skin just above the scarf.
I pulled my bag higher on my shoulder, felt the book-weight inside settle against my hip.
The stairs creaked as I descended, echoing the percussion of my footsteps in the cement stairwell.
Only as I reached the parking lot did I realize I had buttoned my blouse wrong.
One side was askew, the pattern of holes misaligned so that the placket gaped over my chest. A sliver of bare skin showed between the buttons, right above my bra.
I wanted to die. But I also wanted, impossibly, for someone to see.
I corrected the buttons, jaw set. By the time I reached the car, the dream had faded to a twinge behind my eyes, but my hands still shook as I turned the ignition. I was late, and I didn’t even care.
The library’s front desk looked different in the bright, predatory morning.
I clocked in with the rickety timecard punch, noting that I was seven minutes late, a micro-rebellion that should’ve left me riddled with guilt but instead felt like an inside joke I’d told myself.
The air smelled of yesterday’s rain and the ghost of floor polish.
My footsteps echoed across the linoleum, too loud, as if the whole place was waiting for me to make a mistake.
It was the slowest hour of the week. Three, maybe four patrons dotted the reading area: a retiree with a stack of crosswords, two undergrads hunched over MacBooks, and a little boy digging into the Lego bin while his mother thumbed through cookbooks.
Normally I would’ve inventoried the new arrivals or refilled the staplers, but I lingered behind the returns desk, zoning out as I watched people move.
I couldn’t stop staring at their bodies.
Not in the “I’m undressing you with my eyes” way, the idea was so foreign it made my teeth ache, but in the sense that I noticed every movement, every line and pulse of muscle, every stray gesture.
The retiree’s hands were liver-spotted and thick-knuckled, but so deft as he peeled open a fresh crossword.
The mom had a scar below her left eyebrow, a crescent that glinted every time she leaned into the light.
Even the boy, feral as he was, had eyelashes so dense and dark they looked like tiny fans on his cheek.
A man in a green windbreaker, mid-forties, leaned over the holds shelf to pick up his wife’s book.
The motion bunched the fabric at his shoulder, stretching it tight over his arm.
My eyes stuck there, tracing the way his tendon stood out beneath the skin, the roundness of his elbow.
My breath caught, embarrassingly. I had never in my life cared about elbows.
He caught me staring. Not in a meaningful way.
He just happened to glance up as I was blinking, and I looked away so fast I could’ve given myself whiplash.
My cheeks stung, but the heat in my face had nothing to do with the overhead lights.