DREAMBOAT

Do you ever wonder where the dream people come from? Those people who appear in our dreams yet we’ve never seen elsewhere?  They’re fully fleshed-out with their own voices, actions, and physical characteristics. But we’ve never seen them during our waking hours.

Where do they come from? Are they, as some might say, people we’ve seen and registered in our subconscious? Or are they real people, appearing in the dream realm to us?

Since I’m more of a romantic soul, I like to think they’re real and that they somehow made their way into our dreams. Maybe they have something they need to tell us….

* * * *

I AWOKE THAT unbearably hot August morning twisted in damp sheets. I struggled to grasp for those dream images that had a way of always scattering the moment I opened my eyes. The bedroom was sun-dappled, dust motes floating in shafts of light. My dream had been erotic and, as I sat up in bed, throwing off the sheet, I exposed the physical evidence of the sexual nature of the dream. There had been a time in my youth when awakening with ‘morning wood’ was an everyday occurrence. Now, at 42, it was less frequent, making me yearn to discover the cause. I wiped sweat from my forehead and stared down at my withering erection, almost as if an answer awaited me there.

Think. I closed my eyes, listening to the sounds of traffic outside my bedroom window, the sirens, the whine of the garbage truck as it made its rounds, and an image came.

I was in a room I had never seen before and I was alone with a man. As I jogged my dream memory to provide details, certain things emerged. The room, for one, was a place I knew I had never seen before. I forced myself to psychically survey my surroundings and figured I was in the bedroom of a run-down apartment building. The walls were old; the paint was peeling; the curtains at the window looked like they were once white, but were yellowed now with smoke. I moved to the lone window and looked out: directly below me were elevated train tracks. I couldn’t see a stop, so I wasn’t able to pinpoint my location exactly. But as a train came rumbling down the track, I knew I was in the city I called home: Chicago.

I turned and looked toward the mattress on the hardwood floor. A man lay amid the cream-colored sheets, his dark skin a contrast to the color and texture of the linens. His eyelids were at half-mast, looking both sleepy and lustful at the same time. The lids shadowed the palest green eyes I had ever seen, all the more brilliant in contrast to his dark (Latin?) skin. He smiled and his perfect white teeth and full lips lit up his stubbled face. He patted the bed, inviting me to join him. I hesitated, the window at my back, feeling a strange sense of foreboding. He certainly looked inviting: his hard, muscular body sculpted from tawny granite and dusted with coarse, curly black hair. He cocked his head.

“Come on, sweetheart.” His voice was deep as he sang a lyric from an old reggae song, “The bed’s too big without you.”

He reached beneath the sheets and that’s when I froze.

* * * *

That’s when I awoke.

The confounding thing about the dream was not so much its obvious eroticism and the man lying there. He was the embodiment of my filthiest fantasies. Perfect in every detail, he was a vision of masculine glory. I looked down at myself (not nearly the perfect specimen of my dream man: a body gone a bit thick around the waist, freckled and too pale) and realized that as the thoughts of my dream man unspooled, my dick had engorged itself again.

I got busy with my hand and a dollop of the Wet lube I always kept on the nightstand and forgot all about the confounding aspect of the dream: that I was not only aroused by this man and this early-morning setting, but that I was afraid.

* * * *

IT WAS TWO weeks before it happened again. Or at least that’s what I thought: how many dreams are squandered with the morning light, vanishing from our brains before we even have the chance to consciously remember them? This time, though, I awoke in the middle of the night with a start, heart pounding, and my chest slick with sweat. I knew the perspiration wasn’t from the heat. September had arrived and with it, cooler temperatures. Lake Michigan-borne breezes verged on chilly.

Again, I grasped for scattering dream imagery. Once more, it came back in bits and pieces. First, there was the setting. We were in no run-down apartment, with a view of the L tracks. This time we were in a back alley. As I forced myself to recall details, they came rushing in. The back alley was one I was familiar with: this brick-paved route ran parallel to the L tracks and was in the near north suburb of Evanston, just south of the Davis Street stop. On one side were the high back walls of business buildings, on the other, a tall smooth wall supported the weight of the rumbling trains as they made their runs. The illumination was sickly yellow, cast from the sodium vapor of a street light at the alley’s entrance on Davis.

He was there again—my fantasy Latino man. This time he wasn’t naked, but he was no less alluring. He leaned against a brick wall, form partially obscured by shadow but clear enough for me to have a vision of something that could leave me breathless. His face was almost hidden by shadow, but his dark, well-cut features superseded the darkness: again, the stubble and the pale green eyes, the perfect smile. He wore one of those shirts politically incorrectly referred to as a wife beater. He had pulled the ribbed cotton up to reveal a perfectly flat and defined brown stomach, glistening with sweat. A treasure trail of black hair snaked downward and my eyes followed. He had pushed his frayed jeans down—almost to his knees. With his other hand, he stroked himself. He paused to let a gob of spit slide slowly from mouth onto the purple head of his cock and then began pumping it up and down. It was long and thick, with a loose, dark foreskin that alternately revealed and hid the shiny plum of his cock head.

My mouth watered.

A cigarette dangled from between his lips; the cherry alternately glowed and darkened as he jerked his head, beckoning me closer. I cast a look behind me; people hurried past the alleyway entrance and I guessed we were too far back in shadow for them to see us. None appeared to take notice of the two men by the dumpster.

My heart pounded as I moved closer. Blood roared in my ears. He thrust his hips upward as I neared. The want in his face drew me like a beacon. He threw the cigarette on the ground and whispered, “Please.”

I moved quickly and positioned myself on my knees. I pushed his hand away from the cock before me and replaced it with my own, guiding it toward my mouth. I was already starting to savor it, knowing it would be salty and fragrant with the smell of perspiration and something darker and more organic.

Then day arrived, a traitor. The sky going from darkest blue to bright, cloudless sun. It was the kind of time passage that could only occur in a dream. I didn’t take his cock out of my mouth as I turned my head slightly to see a crowd had formed around us. There was my mother, a disappointed frown on her face. My two sisters leaned close together, clutching one another for support, their mouths open in horror. There was even one of my teachers from high school, a man who had taught me world history and who had encouraged me to study history myself at university. His dark eyes sparkled in the sun as he slowly shook his head back and forth. A group of teenage boys, wearing punk skater uniforms, pointed and laughed.

And making his way through the crowd was a police officer, his clean-shaven face red with fury.

* * * *

THAT’S WHEN I woke, the darkness of my room doubly strange in contrast to the bright sunlight of the final scene from my dream.

A pool of come slicked my stomach and groin.

* * * *

WE WERE AT the tail end of fall when my dream man came back. This time, I had just dozed off on my living room sofa. The TV was still blaring out a late night rerun of The Golden Girls. I had fallen asleep with my feet up on the coffee table, the remote control still clutched in my hand.

When I awakened, the apartment was still and the lack of sound outside my living room window made me think it must be very late.  Or at least thought I had woken. My first clue that this was not reality was the fact that the TV was making a low humming noise and all it displayed was a black and white test pattern. I had only witnessed such patterns in the movies—they were before my time. I wiped a line of drool off my chin and sat up straighter, stretching. My back complained and shot tight pains all the way up through my neck. I rubbed my neck and vowed to myself I would get myself into bed before allowing myself to fall asleep in such an uncomfortable position again.

I stood and pointed the remote at the TV and hit off. The test pattern went dark, dwindling down to a tiny circle of gray light that finally winked out.

And then I heard the sound….a soft scratching, coming from my kitchen. I headed that way, wondering if a mouse or two, drawn inside by the chill of late autumn, was visiting me. It had happened before.

If it was a person out there, why would they be scratching? Why not simply knock? I felt the hair on the back of my neck rise as I moved closer to the door and cautiously lifted one of the mini blind slats to peer out into the gloom.

I saw nothing. No surprises there; the sound was emanating from low down on the door, beneath the window. Should I open the door? Maybe a stray dog or cat had wandered up my back stairs and had mistaken my home for its own? What would be the harm?

I opened the door and there he was: my dream man. He knelt at my back door, one hand still raised to scratch at the wood. He looked up and me and grinned, revealing that smile that made me ache with longing, and then he barked at me. Yes, barked.

I would have laughed had the situation not been so odd. For several minutes I simply stared and watched as he looked up at me with imploring eyes. The puppy routine was in contrast to the obvious signs of sexual arousal. His dark cock rose up, ramrod straight, from between his dark and muscular thighs. A drop of precum glistened at the tip of the head.

I didn’t know what to do. I reached down to pat his head: the black hair shaved to short stubble. As I stroked his hair, he pawed at me, finally wrapping his arms around my legs (I was wearing boxers) and beginning to slowly lap at my thighs.

I think it was Errol Flynn (or at least that’s who the quote is most commonly attributed to) who said something along the lines of God only giving men enough blood to use for their brain or their penis, but not both at the same time. My penis took over for my brain and even though there were vague recriminations in the back of my mind, I did what I really wanted to do, which was to step back into my kitchen, so he could come inside with me.

I closed the door behind us, slid out of my boxers and lowered myself to the tile floor to be with him. Gently, he pushed me back against the cold tile and covered my body with his own. The heat emanating from him was like a furnace. He pinned me down on the floor and began licking me all over. I arched my back when he got to my crotch, wanting him to linger there, but that was not to be: he grasped my calves in his hands and pushed my legs back against my chest, lowering himself to my ass.

And that’s when the licking began in earnest. Everything was blotted out: the hum of the refrigerator, the steady drip from the kitchen sink faucet, and most of all, common sense, as I surrendered to the pleasure his tongue in my hole was bringing me. I squirmed, certain I would come from the delightfully invasive ministrations of his probing tongue.

But again, my desires were not necessarily what this bizarre scene was all about. All at once, he stopped and rose up to look down at me. His face was slick with his saliva and he smiled…and not kindly. There was something predatory in his pale green eyes and I knew that whatever happened next, he was in control. I let my gaze roam lower and saw his erection sticking up between my legs; it was eclipsed by my own tumescence, which he wouldn’t allow me to touch.

I felt him press the head of his cock against my opening. I strained against him, never wanting anything inside me more, but he held back, teasing, that same mystery grin playing about his lips.

“Please,” I whispered.

And then, slowly, he began to enter me. I forced myself to breathe as the thick length of him pushed deeper. It wasn’t painful; his tongue had warmed me up too much for pain. All I wanted was him buried inside me.

But that was not to be.

Suddenly, bright lights came on outside and the air was alive with the shrieking of sirens.

I awoke on my couch just in time to see an infomercial for a truly spiffy rotisserie oven.

* * * *

IT WAS THE following summer and, for good or bad, I had had no recurrences of visits from my dream lover. I had not quite forgotten him, conjuring him up in my most lonely moments and his attentiveness—and savageness—had provided many happy releases. But the man of my conscious fantasies never had the erotic pull of the truly rapid-eye-movement literal dreamboat. That man was as real as anyone I worked with at my job as a loan officer at First Chicago or the guys I ran across at the bars on Halsted Street. He had his own mind and his own being…he may have been in my dreams but I swear to you he was not of me. You know what I mean?

I live not far from Lake Michigan and on warm summer nights like this I like nothing better than to wander down Lawrence Avenue to the lakefront. I stroll through the park that borders the lake, checking out the rollerbladers, bicyclists, and runners.

If you go to the lakefront at dusk, it begins to get a little quieter. As I made my way east, the sky ahead was already almost full dark. Behind me, to the west, that same sky was a riot of pink, lilac, and grey as the sun set.

I was hoping things would be especially quiet tonight in the lakefront park. I wanted to walk a while, maybe even as far south as Fullerton, where an incredible view of the Chicago skyline rose up. But I also wanted time to sit and think…to ponder once more why I was still alone at age 42.

Such ponderings had become common for me lately. I was rapidly coming to the conclusion that I would always be alone. Oh sure, there were outlets for sex, some even superior to my own imagination and expert hand, but there had never been any true connection with another man, not for a long time, anyway.

I sat down on a bench facing the lake and looked out at the churning waters, which broke and reassembled a full moon that had just risen. My dream man came back to me and I thought how wonderful it would be if he were real. All my dreams—literally—fulfilled. And then I snorted out a bitter laugh: wasn’t it just so typical for a gay man to wish for a hot companion over one that might offer more intellectual and emotional support?

What was the difference? This man was no more real than the porno hunks on my laptop I jerked off to late at night when I felt restless and horny. Hot Latino or not, I was as likely to meet him as I was one of the men from one of the sex sites I frequented.

Weariness saved me from depression and I stood up to begin the mile-or-so walk back home. Sleep would provide blessed deliverance from worrying about the pitiful state of my love life.

I turned and exited the lakefront park and found myself on the thoroughfare bordering the park, Marine Drive. The quiet and peace I had found by the lakefront was shattered immediately by the traffic rushing by: cars with loud exhausts, groups of chattering teenagers…the city teeming with life. It only served to make me feel more alone.

Up ahead was a bus stop and as I neared it, a charge passed through me, like an electric current. At first, I couldn’t pinpoint what caused the abrupt racing of my heart and the tingling in my toes and fingers. It was almost as though I had perceived him subconsciously first (like in a dream?)

There was a little group gathered at the bus stop, waiting. They appeared to be a family: two small children, a six-year-old absorbed with some kind of tablet device and a little girl, even younger, maybe three, tugging at her mother’s hand. The mother looked tired, pretty features pulled down with exhaustion, black hair yanked back from her face and secured with a rubber band.

And then I saw their father, who was looking right at me.

When our gazes met, it was electric. It was a reckoning, an epiphany, one of those magic moments one thinks only occur in the movies.

We knew each other. He was the man from my dreams. I stood, staring, the background noises of traffic and conversation suddenly muted, almost falling into those green eyes I thought existed only in the realm of dreams. He stared back. The connection was so pure and real, I had to restrain myself from running up to him, from collapsing into the arms I had dreamed of being enfolded by countless times.

It seemed like hours passed, but I’m sure it was only seconds. My dream man started toward me, as if he was about to speak. The little boy closed his tablet and slapped at his father’s hand, annoyed with him for not paying attention. “Papi, what are you staring at?”

And the words were like a magic charm, breaking the spell and causing the moment to scurry back where it had come from...a dream. My dream man looked at me for only a moment longer, then turned back toward his family.

The bus pulled up, brakes squealing and sending foul-smelling exhaust into the air. There was a pneumatic hiss as the doors opened and I watched the family board. I stood waiting as the bus pulled away. My dream man moved to the back and sat in the very last seat. Just before he was out of view, he turned and our eyes locked.

He pressed his hand against the glass.

I started walking toward home, snorting out a bitter laugh. I felt myself aroused as I thought of his hungry gaze, black hair, and lean build. And then something else: dampness on my cheeks. What now? Tears? Was I crying because of something as stupid and sentimental as the knowledge that, for some, dreams never come true? I brushed angrily at my tears and began striding quickly toward home.

* * * *

I still don’t know where the dream people come from. Had the two of us, both starved for something we had never found, met on some fantastic dream plane that stood in place of the denial the real world condemned us to? Worst of all, I worried that now that our paths had crossed in real life that some spell had been broken and those paths would never cross again. Not in real life. Not in dreams.

Maybe dreams stand in for a reality we can’t have. But I like to think the dream people come to us with a promise. If I didn’t believe that, I wonder if I could ever sleep—or hope—again.