In Dreams, Darkness

Hey all! Haven't been writing much and was hit with inspiration for this story. Reading a lot of Murakami lately and loving the surreal, mind- bending so here we are.

Nothing explicit in this first chapter aside from a brief mentions of prior sexual activity. Lots of dark and sexy places this story is going to go, so I hope you enjoy and bear with me.

Chapter One

"You dumb bitch," growls a voice in the darkness, and I roll my eyes as I'm yanked further into the dream again.

I recognize this place, the scarce to endangered good, and the endless reflecting mirrors of bad, shimmering with their carnivals of horrors and boredoms. Truthfully, "bad" isn't really a word that conveys the scope and depth of the twisted webs my subconscious seems to delight in weaving. I've learned that anything being possible to a mind like mine can get disturbing. Quickly.

It might mean flights through sun- dappled valleys, dancing in an otherworldly club in the clouds or being chained up in someone's cellar awaiting my turn to be dismembered. There's no telling what I'll get when I close my eyes. I drift off into another existence entirely, as vivid as real life. Every night. And I always remember it.

Where I am now is the city, but not like any place I've ever been when I'm awake. The sky is dark and muddy, like looking out of a dirty windshield. There are thin alleyways and faceless people loitering in darkened corners. The air is musty and close.

The man who yanked me into this part of the dream is a stranger, and his grip on my arm is painful. He's dragging me down the street, past empty storefronts. People pass on either side of us, seemingly unaware of our two person storm as I struggle against his hold and he yanks me closer.

"Stop." He says, turning to look at me, eyes flashing. "You're not safe on your own."

The words are disquieting, and not just because of the intensity of his voice or the way his jaw is clenched. Somehow, what he says flips a switch in my brain and I know without a doubt that he's right.

I'm not safe here on my own. It's something I feel like a memory, to the bone. There is filth and depravity and horror in this city. This is the place I come to when I am not okay. My own seedy prison disguised as paradise.

Finally, the man holding onto my arm starts to slow down. We've reached a diner that's open all night with a roller rink attached. The diner looks a lot like the Dennys I used to frequent in high school, until you get to the side that opens up to the rink. People are skating in the dark, lights on their rollerskates flashing. A shriek of laughter rises on the humid air as the man pushes the door open.

The hostess at the dingy front desk looks at us, expressionless. I guess one of us asks for a table, because when I'm aware of looking away from the darkness of the rink back to the man, I realize we're sitting across from each other. He holds a steaming mug of coffee in one large hand. His eyes meet mine.

"I know you." I mean it as a question, but it comes out like a statement.

The man shakes his head and looks away. "Not always," he says. He laughs, a harsh barking sound. "Not this time."

Fuck. I know vaguely where I am, but nothing about him. His eyes meet mine again and I feel a jolt of heat. They're big, forest green. His hair is dark and curly, touched by silver. His lips are full, sensual and mocking. How I've possibly forgotten this man who seems to know me, I have no idea.

"I'm sorry," I say after a moment, unsure. "You seem familiar, but..." I trail off.

He smirks a little, sips his coffee. "You have no idea who I am, Jules. It's fine."

Being thrown into this chaos has me a little defensive. I tear my eyes away from his and touch my mug of coffee, feel the heat to try to ground myself. But there's something magnetic about him, and I find myself looking back into his eyes.

"I mean, give me a moment. You yanked me in here, after all."

His face clouds for a moment, and then he shakes his head.

"Jeff," he says quietly.

The name pings something inside my mind, but it's like digging in the ocean floor trying to place it.

Suddenly I'm lost in a kaleidoscope of memories with the man across from me. His forehead pressed to mine, eyes vivid. Us in a dark room in bed, wrapped around each other. His lips all over me. The feel of his hands around my throat while he fucks me. Intimate moments that rise to the surface of my thoughts like oil on water.

Visceral, heavy.

True.

"I do know you," I whisper, my heart pounding.

He nods. "You do."

"How -" I lose track of the thought, a thread that slips through my fingers and vanishes into the silence around us. The low electric hum in the diner, the quiet murmuring of the other people in the shadowy booths. Memories and feelings I can't quite grasp, but they're real.

I slump against the seat in the booth, close my eyes a moment. "Fuck."

"Hey," his voice is more gentle now. I meet his gaze and he smiles a little. "It's okay, Jules. It doesn't matter. We're here now. Together."

Together, as if that were exactly how it should be. I hear it in his voice and I feel it in my blood.

We're here now. Together.

But where was here?

"Jeff..." I trail off, unsure of what to say, what to ask.

I feel close physical intimacy with this man, but those flashes of memories are the only scraps I have to explain why. He yanked me into the dream, but it wasn't his voice that called me a dumb bitch. That voice had been in the danger, and he'd pulled me from it somehow, into a different level of the dream.

I can't remember what it was, now. Just the feel of it. Dark and fuzzy and unsafe.

It still feels vaguely that way, but less so next to him, this Babylon we find ourselves in together.

"Why are we here?" I whisper, my hand over my eyes, even though my eyes are closed.

I'm overwhelmed by my senses in the dream. The closeness of the air, the sounds of night birds and rodents. The smells that drift through the soupy breeze.

"This is the only place we can be right now," he says.

There's some strange gravity in the way he says it, like some part of me knows the reason for that as well as he does. That same part wants to keep it muddy in my awareness, and I don't question it. There's just too much else on my mind right now.

"What do we do here?" I ask finally, lowering my hand and meeting his eyes again.

When I do, I feel his presence as a jolt of searing electricity. His eyes are captivating, beautiful and intense to a degree that has me questioning how he can possibly be a figment of my fucked up mind.

His lips lift a little, but his eyes are too dark to call it a smile. "That tends to depend on a few things," he says.

The laughter from a booth somewhere behind us turns into something strange. A hissing sound, deep and animalistic. I feel myself shift as if by instinct to look and Jeff reaches out and grabs my shoulder, hard.

"Don't." He says in a voice that's so commanding, I jump a little bit. "You don't hear anything."

His words wrap an icy fist around my throat, and my breath catches. But the feel of him touching me seems to counteract the chill, and I can see in his eyes that we both feel it. A shuddering breath escapes me, and Jeff's eyes soften a little as he lets his hand slide down my shoulder, slowly.

"Hey, it's okay," he says softly.

It doesn't feel okay. In fact, nothing aside from the man across from me feels remotely okay. I swallow hard, my throat suddenly very dry.

"I don't think I want to be here," I whisper. "Can we- are we - able to go somewhere else?"

I can still hear the hissing behind me. It starts and stops, over and over. A weird jumble of sounds with it. Laughter and music, but faded. All of it feels surreal and scary. Looking into his eyes gives me at least a semblance of safety, although I'm not sure why. Still, I don't want to question it at the moment. I just want to get out of here.

Jeff stands up, gesturing to me, and I do the same. "We can go somewhere else," he says, stepping close to me and putting his arm around my shoulders.

"We'll be alone together there, though. Is that... do you feel okay with that?"

I stiffen momentarily at his touch and I feel him notice it, begin to draw away.

"No- fuck. Wait. " I stammer, not wanting him to let go. The way I feel safe when he touches me, whether I understand it or not, is the only thing I can hold on to right now.

"Don't... I'm sorry. Don't pull away. I don't want you to. I'm just trying to adjust to all of this, it's freaking me the fuck out."

He smiles a little, puts his arm fully back around my shoulders. "I get it," he says. "It's okay, I just don't want to add any stress. There's a place we can go. I guess you'd call it mine. As much as anything here can be."

There's been this fist clenched in my gut since I first opened my eyes and realized where I was, but I feel it less and less the more time I'm with him. The closer we get. The more he touches me. Somehow I know this isn't going to be one of those situations where I end up in a basement in chains.

"I'm okay with it," I tell him. "I just want to get out of here."

He nods as I say it, tightening his arm around me. Suddenly it's as if the diner melts into darkness around us. All the sounds of the night seem to be sucked into a giant drain in the darkness, echoing as they fade away. And we're back on the street, walking together, the night pressing in on all sides.

It seems so quick that we find our way to where we want to go. Where he wants us to go. A tall, glass building. Austere and quiet. He swipes a code into a screen on the side when we approach, and the glass slides open from an invisible seam.

Inside, the lobby is all high ceilings and marble and dim lights. The glass is smoky and obscures the street outside. I pause, just for a moment, and he smiles at me reassuringly, his hand drifting down my arm to take my hand. When I let my hand settle in his, he squeezes gently and starts walking again, leading the way.

We take the elevator up what feels like at least a hundred floors. Instead of a hallway when the door opens, we enter a foyer with only one tall black door.

His.

"Every place has its own floor," he tells me. "You've been here before, even if you don't remember."

I smile shakily, willing myself to believe that's true. That I know this place, that no danger lies behind that door for me.

"I believe you," I say.

And then he opens the door, and I take a deep breath and follow him inside.

---------------------------

The door closes behind us and I hear the whirring and clicking of several locks. When I look back at him, he smiles at me again, gentle and reassuring.

His smile is so warm and charming it completely catches me off guard and seems to disarm my nervous system. I feel myself relax a little, subconsciously drawn toward him almost. Like I want him to put his arms around me and just hold me.

"Nobody else can get in now," he tells me. "It's just us."

Just us.

The words send heat up my spine and flush my face.

I step away, flustered, and look around. It's a gorgeous, modern place with floor to ceiling windows and sparse furnishing. Everything seems to meld into shadow around us, especially in the presence of this man I who is both a stranger and something more. But there's also somehow a warmth here, a feeling of belonging.

"You don't remember much, do you?" He asks. "But you remember things with me. At least a little. I can see it in your eyes."

"What can you see?" I ask, almost taking a step back but finding myself rooted to the spot. He's so close to me. His dark hair, the ends tinged with silver, that I somehow know I've run my fingers through so many times. His green, endless eyes. His lips have branded my skin over and over again.

"The way you look at me," he says. "Like I'm the only thing here that's real. When I touch you..." he reaches out and his fingers brush my face lightly when he says it. "Your eyes get soft. You recognize me. You recognize my touch."

"Everything here scares me but you," I whisper. "None of it feels sure, or real. Except for you. But I don't know why, and I just- I don't-"

His eyes devour me. They envelop me. I can't look away. And when he steps closer and takes me in his arms, I melt into him like I've done it a thousand times before.

"Jules... baby..." he whispers in my ear, his arms tight around me, one hand running through my hair in a soothing, almost hypnotic way. "God, I've missed you."

"Has it been that long?" I ask, feeling my body tremble from his touch.

Fuck. Whatever this is... it's powerful between us. I answer to him without knowing why. My eyes close as he nuzzles into my neck and lightly kisses under my ear. Goosebumps spring up under his lips and I shudder.

"Jeff..." I whisper, trying to hold onto myself. It feels like the whole world of the dream is tilting on its axis, like I might fall away and into some endless emptiness if I let go. "I'm honestly so lost, I'm sorry. I don't know you... I don't know how... but it feels like I do. It feels..." I trail off.

Right is the word I'm looking for, but I'm scared to use it. It feels good, but beyond that, it feels so right that it scares me. I've felt so many emotions in my dreams, as strong as when I'm awake. But this is a different level. It's electric in that rare way that you only encounter maybe once in a lifetime.

"You do know me," he says, pulling back and leveling his gaze with mine. "Look at me and tell me you don't."

His eyes are unwavering and so dark, only the lamp in the corner illuminates the green in their depths. I'm captured by them, unable to look away.

The memories come hard and fast again. Us tangled together, forehead to forehead. His gaze locked on mine while he kisses down my stomach to my pussy. The way he groans and grips my hair when I've taken his cock in my mouth. I feel it all and I know him.

I know him.

The smallest whimper escapes me when he sees that realization in my eyes and brings me back against him, kissing me for the first time since the dream began. His lips are full and soft, coaxing my mouth open. He tilts his head closer to mine to deepen the kiss, and my knees buckle a little.

Electric doesn't begin to describe the feeling. I don't want to worry, to be scared, to fight it anymore. The urge to be close to him is too strong, and his touch feels too fucking good.

I moan as his tongue finds mine, and I let myself be captured.