May 2018

Fantasies // Memories

Mel Rey is a novelist.

About the Author

Fantasies // Memories by Mel Rey My fantasies are like wet glue when I pull them apart from reality. But when I’m alone in the dark, that’s what I have. It’s different from dreaming. I can choose and navigate in the luxurious comfort of darkness, of “no one has to know.” He’s sitting in his room, still bathed in his shy/aloofness, while I goof around pretending to be fine with just being friends of the opposite gender as if there is no other point to hanging out other than spending time with another heartbeat. I ask him if he’s ever had sex before, which is a stupid question because it doesn’t matter, virginity is in large part a myth because whether or not you’ve poked your piece into someone or someone’s poked into you, we’re really intangible creatures that just walk around in these bodies, and many physical and mental experiences happen every day. And who cares if he’s had sex or not, the moment brings him as a virgin to it, non-expectant and clumsy with his limbs and boyishness, difficult to contain within his 34-year old exoskeleton. He doesn’t really answer because I’ve caught him off-guard with the next question, or rather he answers but his answer is fumbling around, still innocent, the innocence must be plucked and pulled for all its worth for this fantasy to last. “Uh what? Sex?” Or instead, he answers, “Of course I’ve had sex,” and he takes charge. But we’re sticking to the first option, for now, so he’s fumbling still, and I surprised him with my next question, “Do you know what this retro-looking chair with no arms is perfect for?” He’s sitting in it, and he says, “What?” And I sit on top of him, with my legs straddled, facing him, and I say, “This... So if we’re watching TV together but want to watch different channels, I can look over your shoulder and watch one screen with one channel, and you can look over my shoulder and watch another screen with another channel.” “Ohhh,” he says, going along, but as he’s going along with that absurd vision, I take his hands and make his fingers interwoven at the small of my back, and I say, “Hold me tighter I’m slipping,” as if it’s all a matter of nuts and bolts. He obliges, and I drive my hips forward and tighten down on him and his body reacts, hardens, but he’s relaxed and not going to mention it. We still haven’t touched skin to skin, it’s all still about furniture and sitting and the friction of fabric between us, and being lighthearted friends as life should have it. And when we do do it, perhaps sailing over the weird moments of getting the plastic wrap while I loudly chuckle to cover the silence and pretend I’m not cold, or smiling broad and not flinching while noticing the goosebumps on his white thighs, or thinking about yelling something risqué like, “Crack me open!” Or “I got you, squeezing,” but not saying it because it’s silly. He lifts me from just above my waist as if I’m his oversized chalice, the golden wine ready for the sip, swishing in the belly of the glass with full aroma before we let the glass down, and the liquid inside of me, rising in my chest, finds another channel to funnel down, bearing down into a punctured lower center. And I try to ignore the expressions on his face, try not to react to them as if they’re cute or amusing, and then I close my eyes and squeeze them shut, and I might as well be alone, really. I’m getting off on the choice of him; there are many floors and apartments, hotel rooms, boxes like ours, where people are doing the same activity. We’re getting off on being particularly chosen for each other at this moment; this activity is ours for the moment and no one else’s. Our screams can fill the universe; there is no such thing as overhearing the neighbors’ banging or the bed creaking. Details can derail, but if I’m sticking to the fantasy then some details add; any detail adds to the compounding momentum of excitement; my toes scrunch, his eyes narrow, a bird clucks in the distance, someone’s muffled steps on the rooftop deck. Oddly these details add, whereas just a moment ago those other details threatened to detract. And in a moment I’m climbing, and it’s me over him, he barely has to do anything in my fantasy to make me relax, and I’m back in the dark alone. So glad that I am, because I don’t want anybody under me, I want to roll around, slide in the sheets, and suddenly revert to not even having a gender, being warm and sleepy and amorphous. My dog breathes in my ear, her neck over my neck. She doesn’t know what I’m thinking; it’s weird to think like this with her here, except actually, she does know what I’m thinking, on some level, whatever level her knowing is on, but it’s all the same to her. Like the seamlessness of time in darkness, like the silent transfiguration of fantasizing to remembering to sleeping, with hopefully a hint of tingle and release from my pelvis through my branches and a rustling, a reshuffling, of the leaves up top in my head. But this isn’t really my fantasy, 100% genuine made up, no not made up, not solely existing in froth, not at all. This is what’s happened, in the past. I’ve punctured someone’s apparent innocence, snaked around them, gotten under their skin and become dynamite in front of them, but that’s where it starts to crumble into actual memory. Ugh. Over it. Boring. Cut. Why’s he waiting for me? Why’s he so stupid? Innocence my ass! What has he to offer? Ugh and I’m so glad the real person is so lame, not making any moves because this would quickly drag. I’ll claim you, leave my toothbrush here, call you when you get off work... Jitters and butterflies and twinkles over each little piece we start to cover. Your mom’s name, your favorite words, your posture that I’m starting to emulate. No! For what? Cut cut cut! Let’s get someone in here who knows what the hell they’re doing. A real driver of the scene. What do we do with the old actor? Discard him? We’ve already got him on the payroll, yes he’s here, and we could work with what we’ve got if we were really into sustainability and recycling of men, but in this case, wastefulness is also our only way to break out of this category. Why would I even be excited by aloofness and innocence and a guy who doesn’t even know if I’m a friend or a lover? Gross! This is a legal kind of perversion, yes, but perverse. In this mental room, we call it out and shun it to shame. Get my fantasies straight! If memories inform fantasies, then fantasies can inform projections. I have met no one to base my projections off. Maybe I need to start imagining getting aroused about sex with fire, sex with water, sex with a god. Not in a Christian Mary Virgin way. In a non-conforming projection way. Except for lack of creativity maybe we milk all we can out of this current tingling, fuck it he’s quiet and I’m turned on, and my thoughts are a circus that no one needs to hear. My private spa operates on all kinds of inoperable principles so, for now, we hunt orgasms in the dark with whatever crude, primitive tools we find along the way to bludgeon them out, and when we wake up and get dressed we’ll get ourselves out of the house to the places we don’t frequent, and when we start only seeking new places then we find places we otherwise would have frequented, to meet the people who are outside our patterns.