In my dreams we are moving through corridors and taking each other by the hand and there is music playing in other rooms, but we barely hear it for the pulse of blood that leads us to leave our lives behind. All the children and the mothers and disappointed lovers who are waiting for us in other rooms with all their obligations and timetables and needs and certainties and clockwork lives.

In my dreams there are no clocks, only shadows and cries of love, and arguments which end in lovemaking. In my dreams there are no mornings, only nights and late afternoons, and cats climbing in and out of windows like acrobats, arching their backs and purring and asking to be petted. There are flowers on windowsills which sometimes break and shatter but never make a sharp noise which could cut our ears. And anyway in my dreams we don’t hear the voices of others, only raindrops and footsteps and children playing outside our window.

I close the blinds and watch the sunlight filter through making strange shapes upon the ceiling and walls and the sheets of our bed. A car passes and I am removing my dress with its pattern of flowers and snowflakes. I feel your fingers slipping between the zip and feel myself being slowly unwrapped like a present on Christmas Eve. First the bow and then the wrapper and then the lid is cracked and I am there inside, naked and waiting.

In my dreams we do not speak or I do all the talking. You are quiet, or more quiet than you are with others, with whom you joke or feel a need to please. To be smart and earn their praise. You know you need to do nothing to please me. I am already yours.

Are you dreaming the same dream as me? Or is your dream just a cheap fantasy and my part could be played by any bit player, any woman at all would do. As long as she has a nice face and a good figure and is willing.

I want to clarify your intensions because if it is one of those dreams, I don’t want to be a part of it. It would be so easy to stay here under the covers with my eyes closed. Is that your dream–it will be hard and it will hurt–but if that’s your dream I will force my eyes open

And I will rise

and wake to a world

without you.

Short film shown as part of Andromeda’s Sisters Gala in East Hampton, NY in August 2020. www.npcowgirls.com