Chapter 3

“Micah, “ I whispered to his sleepy head in a sultry voice as sweat poured from his skin. “Micah!” My voice grew closer. It was almost as if he could feel my breath on his face. I was a feminine figure appearing from a mist unfolding in his mind. Dreams are always imprecise and out of focus. “It’s okay.” I said. “I’m here for you. For both of us.” He could feel my fingers grazing his skin. “You’re my other half.” I visited him in his dream with a plea, as if we were devout confidants and he was my celebrant.

I could sense Micah was at a loss. His lips parted. Yet, no sound emerged. Nothing, save his breath escaped his mouth. He gazed my figure and caught sight of what looked like a tattoo above my ankle. What was it? As he lowered his eyes came the realization he was naked, lying on a blanket atop some straw in a horse stall. I birthed my dream in his mind and prayed it would find its way into his heart. Don’t ask me how I learned such a mystical skill.

Vulnerable and naked are siblings. It was amusing to learn Micah had participated in the World Naked Bike Ride in Montpelier, Vermont. A couple dozen riders showed up. Micah was one of them. He wasn’t entirely naked. He wore his expensive watch, aviator sunglasses, brown synthetic leather ankle boots and wool socks. Nakedness doesn’t require too much courage. There were several naked women and men wearing bright colored cycling shoes, sunglasses and hats. It felt au natural. The day of the bike ride was a bit chilly at first. Ironically, the coolness caused nipples to harden and cocks to shrink. The people on the side of the biker’s route cheered the naked riders on. “Keep it up!” Several women shouted. Laughter followed. Micah was a quirky sort of intellectual and preferred being on stage rather than a spectator in the audience. This I already knew about him.

Now it was a matter of inserting myself in his mind and fantasies. As my fingers pressed the keys on my cellular phone I whispered Micah’s name. I repeated a vision of a horse stall, a scarf, a chastity device clasping his cock and a leather harness along with the whiff of wild flowers mixed with the straw after a fresh rain drifting in waves. Would he inhale the fragrance of my voice?

***

Micah broke out in a sweat. “What happened? How did I?” His brain spun in a circle. His eyes darted back and forth to catch a peek. He only saw a sliver of light. Bewildered. He felt stranded and adrift. He couldn’t move his arms. What was happening?

“Micah?”.

“What?”

“Open your mouth. Let me see your tongue.”

“My tongue?”

“Yes, please!”

He stuck out his tongue.

“Very good!”

“Oh my God, this is…” A ping sound intruded Micah’s vision. His body trembled. Increasing beads of sweat bled from his skin. His eyelids opened. He glanced around. He looked at his alarm clock, 6:00 a.m. “What was this dream about?” He asked, as he grasped himself. He wasn’t bound. His breathing was heavy.

The propeller blades of a ceiling fan turned counter clockwise sputtered and droned. The blades were real. Monotonous. The apartment’s central air wasn’t working. “Conditioned air is unnatural,” he gasped succumbing to the arousal and uncommon rhythm of the vision. His cock was hard. He grasped it and moved his hand up and down.

“Ping!” Was it coming the from outside or in his room? His apartment was on a side street with lots of trees. He wanted to think the leaves soaked up the stale breath of pollution from the traffic. The sound was followed by a floating sensation. He thought of his wall-to-wall book filled office at the university with its worn, nostalgic ceiling fan and dangling beaded string. His tired eyelids twitched as sweat dripped down from his forehead and onto his eyelashes.

“Ping!” Micah’s attention was averted to the shadows of lights flashing against the walls. He turned and looked over at the flashing light from his cell phone on a nightstand. “Jesus,” He said, “At least the sound is real.” He reached over to the cell phone. The screen read, “private call.”

“Who’s calling?” He asked himself. He loathed private calls. They were generally from someone wanting money. “Hi? Sorry, my brain is still asleep.” Micah said, answering anyways.

“There’s no need to apologize,” I whispered. “You have a nice morning voice, Micah. Forgive me.”

“What? Who is this? “ He sat up in bed and moved his pillow behind his back as he leaned against the headboard. “Wait. Your voice…it a…”

“Micah, I’m so sorry to wake you. Another time, I’m very certain. Okay?”

Silence. Micah was momentarily stunned.

Click.

“How do you know my name?” Micah’s voice asked. The dream

flashed across his mind.

Silence.

“Did I make a mistake in calling him?” No. “I adore his voice. I

don’t really know him yet. I know myself.”

Sweat dripped from Micah’s neck in rivulets descending down his chest and entering the

soft patch of grass surrounding his distinct mushroom. His inner eye was still caught up in the vision. He blinked, and his head fell on the hard pillow, cushioned by his thick head of hair. He looked up. The ceiling fan continued to drone, “Fuck.”

An indecipherable noise came from outside, in the street. Micah looked at his cell phone again, 6:00 a.m. had pivoted into 7:00 a.m. His head throbbed. “Too much wine last night,” He said to the walls and stumbled into the shower and pressed his head against the cool tile. The hot water created a steam and an immediate cooling embraced his skin stepping out of the shower. Drying with an oversized bath towel he looked at his reflection in the mirror and stuck his thick tongue out that stretched below his chin. He glanced at his stout Lilliputian, snuggled between his legs like a turtle’s head peeking out from under its shell. He was healthy, vital and confident.

He shaved and retrieved his Baume & Mercier watch from an end table. He then hurried to the kitchen, poured himself a glass of organic, pulped, orange juice. After a few gulps he went back to the bedroom and got dressed. Micah was odd. He looked at his watch. It was a singular gift from his parents upon graduation. He always put his watch on after showering and shaving. Even when naked while cleaning his place or cooking, he wore his watch. It was a peculiar ritual. He knew it, he couldn’t avoid it. He felt compelled to wear it. His cellular phone kept the time, so did his computer and the clock on the wall. He was surrounded by time. Time could swallow and suffocate him making it difficult to breathe. He understood his obsessive nature about the watch and time. On the other hand, there was only so much of it. “This moment is short,” He said to no one. Yet, the watch was an example of few material luxuries in life with personal meaning. No, it wasn’t about time. Rather, the watch was symbolic of a deeper connection. He wore it whether clothed or naked and having sex. It was nostalgic and an emotional connection with his identity. The watch was an art piece.

There was another material item of tangible emotional value for Micah. His aging sports car. It was his getaway vehicle. He kept his car parked in a rented garage and only drove it for an escape to the countryside. He had a second-hand bicycle, preferred to ride it to his campus office a few blocks from his apartment in Morningside Heights.

Leaving the apartment astride the bicycle he began pedaling as the dream and the phone call continued to echo in his head. The woman’s voice haunted him.

Micah taught a course on the Medieval Ages. He planned to discuss witches and conjuring spells during the final weeks of the course. Being a romantic and slightly superstitious from his research, he surmised the enchantress of his dream cast a spell. Nonsense.

The human mind has the capacity to dance in circles. “Perhaps the casting of a spell is merely the human heart’s appeal to be seduced by someone or something beyond our common experiences. And such a seduction may be the heart’s wish to lead us on a path toward an unanticipated reality.”

“Academia is burdensome at times,” A colleague told Micah over a glass of wine in recent conversation at a local wine bar.

“When I started teaching it was a calling. After being moved around and told what to do and when to do it, the calling became a job. Income.” Micah reflected aloud to himself. A gust of wind blew hair in his face. He squinted as if to see the dream with greater clarity. Existence.

“Hey, watch where you’re going, professor.” A taxi driver with a thick, Eastern European accent, yelled at him.

“Thanks!” Micah waved. He countered angst with politeness. The voice and a smile are a safety valve.

“Hey professor,” A student caught his attention. Micah noticed the student’s bulging crotch displaying the outline of his cock visible through his pants. Micah waved to him. “Last year, I took your class,” the student yelled. “Good to see you,” and then hurried to catch up with another student.

Both male and female students flirted with him on occasion. Micah considered himself evolved though was a virgin when it came to men. He pondered his sexuality. As he neared campus he looked around at other cyclists, “everyone on a bicycle appears to be a professor, student, messenger or a cop.”

Fragmentation. He uttered, “What do I want? What do I expect?” As he reflected on existence, bird shit struck the shoulder of his corduroy sport coat. “Crap. I’ll wash it off when I get to my office. Reality bites?”

He glanced to his side as another cyclist passed him and a young woman talking on her cell phone. She wore toeless sandals with holes in her blue jeans and was braless under her tank top. Her nipples were hard. He noticed she wore an ankle bracelet. Jewelry can make a sensuous statement. He noticed such things as how an individual female covered their feet and the resulting effect on the symmetry of the human figure. He drifted. He needed some form of love. Love has many shapes. He understood.

Another taxi driver honked his horn and a police siren blared on the next street while he talked to himself. At last, on campus he wheeled his bike into his office on the first floor. His first class was at one o’clock. His contract with the university was on a term-to-term basis. Tenure in the twenty-first century is a meaningless concept. The administration used words like, “the situation is fluid” and “soon we’ll know better” or there was a purposeful quiet. It was psychological. To say they were cocksuckers would be to honor them. The term is one of endearment.