After the incident at work with the flowers I returned to the doctor. He asked me to stay overnight at a special facility. At this point I was no longer sure of my own sanity, I would have agreed to electro-shock therapy if it would help.
At the facility, I was shown to an austere room containing only a bed. Everyone at the facility tried to put me at ease but I kept feeling like I’d met all of the before, their voices and faces were so familiar. Finally after my millionth have I met you before to a nurse, she asked me to lay down in the bed as another nurse appeared through a door I had not noticed on the right wall of the room. Together they me strapped to the bed and started attaching electrodes to my temples. Once I was completely immobilized, the nurse asked me to open my eyes and look at the cards she was going to show me and state the first thing that came to mind.
Something was wrong. All the cards were blank until there were only two left and then there was a bouquet of flowers.
My usual workday monotony got broken up with a delivery of flowers. Someone’s partner screwed something up so they sent an ugly, giant, please forgive me, bouquet. I felt somewhat relieved that I didn’t slip into a fugue state at work.
The problem with flowers is they usually trigger the dreams. Dreaming has become a bit of a problem for me. I began having a series of successively weirder dreams, that prompted me to visit a doctor. Somehow that seemed to make things worse. I started experiencing displacements of time and locations. So I stopped seeing the doctor and it felt like the dreams stopped except when I saw flowers.
With the flowers the displacements were of greater durations and occasionally I would find myself in strange locations, half or sometimes completely naked, bruised and bloody. Disoriented I would start looking around for some clue as to my whereabouts and invariably there would usually be a floral arrangement, and suddenly I would then be back at work or in my apartment watching a screen. Clearly I had to be dreaming.
The last time I saw flowers I happened to be at work. Someone’s partner screwed something up so they sent an ugly, giant, please forgive me, bouquet. I felt somewhat relieved that I didn’t slip into a fugue state at work. My relief lasted as long as it took me to realized that walls in the office were a different color and I had no idea who any of the people gathered around the water cooler were.
it was supposed to be a holiday fling. nothing complicated, drinks, dancing, sex, temporary companionship. something to scratch an itch while she was on vacation. this woman fit the bill – she was smart, she was funny, she was hot, the sex was mind-blowing and best of all they were being adults about it. no strings attached, they would say to each other as they lay naked and sweaty in bed. repeating it like mantra trying to convince themselves that wasn’t something about this that made more than their loins sing. there was the unbridled joy in every moment that neither of them had really experienced before. deep down they knew. they had become inseparable and although they were loathe to admit it, they were in love. the signs had been there from the beginning and all their protestations had the ring of trying too hard. in the end we found it easier to enjoy the strings, and rope, and the occasional handcuffs because scratching this particular itch is always so satisfying.
If nobody ever understands, you give up trying to explain…
I had that dream again. That dream where my words kept getting jumbled. That dream where I’m awake but I think I’m dreaming. Am I dreaming now? I think I’m always dreaming. I have to be dreaming.
My doctor is no help. He mumbles some platitudes about my subconscious, fugue states and gives me more drugs to sleep. I go through the day in a fog. I feel like I’m constantly asleep and I am dreaming. Even my waking moments seem to be vivid dreams.
I talk to my co-workers. I ask them if they dream. They talk about their aspirations. They talk about the things they plan to do. They talk about vacations. They ask me about my dreams. Do I have co-workers? Are they part of my dream?
I should talk to my friends. Do I have friends? Why do I dream alone?
I talk to my doctor again. The drugs are not working. Are the drugs working too well? Am I awake? Am I always dreaming?
I have to be dreaming. I have no recollection of getting from one place to another. I see my doctor. I am in my apartment. I go to work. I am in my apartment. I see my doctor. I am writing this down. Where did I get this book? How are the words appearing on the paper. Am I dreaming? I see my doctor. I got to work. I am in my apartment. I must be dreaming.
[inclusion] trigger: miss, bliss, kiss, hiss
Miss Treatment was her professional name. She was a sex worker. She came to that particular career arc after a number of soul sucking adventures in a variety of corporate structures. She had always been amazing at what she did but until she became a sex worker she had been following someone else’s dream. Now, as a professional dominatrix, she had found her bliss.
Her male co-workers always accused her of being bossy and demanding, something they had no problem accepting from each other. One day as she muttered, “kiss my ass, you mysognist asshole” to the back of a director who couldn’t pour piss out of a boot with the instructions written on the bottom, she thought, he would probably pay for that and set about researching how to become a professional dominatrix. Three months later, she quit her last corporate gig, rented a space and never looked back. That was two years ago.
“Lick my boots” she hissed to the original inspiration for her career change. In the two years he’d made COO and become one of her most regular clients. She’d been right, he would pay for the privilege of kissing her ass.
