The second, he and Na came to visit. For some reason Na and I were to lie in the sun, as on a beach, but there was no beach, only hardwood floor and bright sunlight. We rubbed tanning oil into each others’ bodies, backs and arms, and although it was unspokenly verboten to remove any clothing from the waist down, she did take off her bikini top so I could massage oil into her breasts.
Predictably enough, next thing I knew we were grappling on the floor. Lan watched all this from across the room, and came closer at this point but didn’t say anything.
Next scene: cut to an unrelated dream about unloading a dishwasher, some of the dishes still dirty.
Then back to Lan. I was in another apartment, bright and sixties. He’d given me a doll, much like a Barbie but slightly different. She was a reproduction 60s starlet. The main thing I liked about her was her hand, the way her arm was bent so that her hand could cuddle her cheek petulantly, push her hair back seductively, or pose in other ways. I told him this, later, in a child’s vernacular, but first I drew a picture of her while he was gone. It was a drawing about negative space and not drawing, it seemed there was little to draw directly on the page so it was fuzzy, vague, incomplete yet exactly right in capturing her essence. When Lan returned I was lying on the floor, still working on shading, and he lay down near me to look at it. I chattered to him in a breathy girl voice about the doll and the drawing, but though it was an immature voice I was speaking in normal terms. Then he kissed me, and I kissed him back, and we were escalating when I woke up.
