dream
1:25 a.m.<>2001-04-07

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i had a dream about lauren last night.

it's been months, perhaps years, since she's appeared in my dreams. i still think about her from time to time, as we are all wont to do with our former lovers. but it's always been sort of in the abstract, if that makes sense. i'll meet someone or see something that triggers a memory. i think of her for a moment - 'hey, her hair is same color as lauren's; i wonder what she's up to now?' - and then she's gone, lost to whatever's captured my attention in the next moment. i met her, we dated, she moved away, we lost touch and there you go. nothing in that brief history to inspire prolonged reverie or longing.

which is why last night's dream was so unusual for me. all of the sights, the smells, the sounds that played across the screen of my subconscious were so vivid to me, so immediate, that the distinction between dream and reality became blurred for me, even after i had woken up. it was like a window into a parallel universe, one in which lauren and i had never broken up and drifted apart. one in which she had never moved to california. one in which the person in bed next to me was her, rather than jodie.

not that i would want anyone other than jodie to be lying in bed next to me. but that was how real the dream seemed to me in the pre-dawn hours, when i awoke with a start and spent a long time listening to the hum of the streetlamp outside our window.

the events of the dream were nothing special. lauren and i were at a party in some fancy restaurant with a big, noisy group of our friends. we were both dressed to the nines, i in a suit and she in a black tube dress. while there was very little physical contact between us, the overall feeling of the dream was one of ripe, swollen sexuality. her hand was high on my thigh as she laughed and talked with our friends. when i leaned in to say something to her, i could clearly catch the floral scent of the expensive shampoo she used to favor. her dress was cut low to reveal the tops of her full breasts, and she wore silk stockings, just like the ones she wore the first time we made love. we nuzzled and grinned the way that jodie and i do in real life, like two people deeply in love.

i've decided not to make too much of this dream. the subconscious mind is deep, dark and mysterious, and it frequently disgorges images and memories that have no apparent bearing on the waking world. while i pined for lauren when she left, i woke up with no real urge to throw on my jeans and shoes and catch the first flight to the west coast in search of her. i was glad to feel jodie's warm body next to me in bed, rather than anyone else's.

but that didn't stop me from lying awake for a while, wandering through memories so vivid that they were like total recall. lauren was the first woman i had ever been with who had worn black silk stockings with garters when we made love. before her, i had never considered that very sexy. but as i lay awake this morning, i remembered how exciting it was, the feel of her stocking-clad foot in my hand as i lifted her leg up and sank wetly inside her.

dreaming about that herbal shampoo of hers made me remember one of my favorite things about being in bed with lauren: after we had exhausted ourselves against each other, i used to love to curl up to her naked body in spoon position and bury my face in her long, warm, fragrant hair. my nose would always be filled with the herbs and flowers from the shampoo, mixed with the smell of sex-sweat and the natural scent of her own delicious skin.

i wonder what lauren's up to now?

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