Chapter 5

ATLANTA, Zoe Jenson was kissed.

Not on her lips.

She was kissed on the forehead like a child.

A few strands of her frizzy red hair fell down out of place and brushed against Mickey Levinson's mouth. He coughed and gagged. 

"Are you okay?" she asked.

 "Sure," he said.

They said good-bye to each other.

She watched him walk to his car; then Zoe closed the door.

She felt rejected but also relieved. She wouldn't like being actually kissed by him. He was a nice guy, but she wasn’t attracted to him. She was pretty certain the feeling was mutual.

Despite the lack of attraction, they had been on four dates. Mickey worked for her father's condiment company.  They made ketchup, mustard, salad dressings, hot sauce and steak sauce.

In the upcoming months Joker Jensons was opening up a line of sweet products. Ice-cream toppings for the most part. Mickey had recently been promoted to the head of that department.

Zoe's father was quite fond of Mickey. He wanted him as a son-in-law.  He even talked to Zoe about the wedding he desired. Zoe did want a wedding. Her brother had two of them, and both had been fantastic.

Their father was very generous and had the money to make dreams come true. 

Well, some dreams…at least.

***

Zoe had a bit of a problem. 

Well, she had a couple of problems. Related to her love life.

First there was the fact that her father was so keen on conjuring love in a place it didn’t exist. The second was that Zoe was still in love with her first and only boyfriend.

Former boyfriend.

Although they had never broken up. He had just vanished.

Their relationship had started when Zoe was sixteen, and it ended when she was twenty-four—five years ago.

 She still missed him terribly, and no guy could measure up to what she had lost. The thing was.....

The boyfriend had lived in her dreams. Literally. She had a whole separate romantic life when she had been sleeping.

They didn't see each other every night. There were lapses. Sometimes days, sometimes weeks, and sometimes months.

Then, one night, they had been on a motor boat in the middle of an ocean. He had been really quiet. She had known something was wrong. 

Looking like he was about to cry, he said he had to go away for a while.

In the dream, Zoe hadn't been too bothered. She figured he meant he'd be gone a little longer than usual. The longest hiatus they had, before that, was two months and three days. She figured this one might be longer. Maybe four months?

Then when she woke up from the dream….

Well, she had been fine fine at first.

But, while brushing her teeth, she had this horrible feeling of darkness. She felt all the happiness had been sucked out of her. She tried to ignore that feeling. She told herself it was a chemical imbalance, and she'd feel better later.

And she did.

She didn't become clinically depressed. She cheered up and went on with life.  But she kept waiting for her boyfriend to return. She clung to hope.

That hope probably prevented her from sinking into a dark depression. 

She lived her life.

But she still hoped.

She still waited.

For a while, she had given up a bit. 

At that point, all she had left was a microscopic sliver of the hope.

***

Now things were different. When the contacts with the OS folks began, she had started to wonder if her boyfriend had been one of them. 

In the past, she had tried hard not to ask questions and just enjoy it. When she did ask the question, the obvious answer would come to her. The boyfriend was a figment of her overactive imagination. She was dating her own damn imagination

Sometimes, she would indulge in fantasy and suggest fun things to herself.

Maybe he was a guardian angel. A ghost.

Maybe he was her lover from a past life or some guy on the other side of the world having the same dreams.

Maybe he was from an alternate universe.

Perhaps an alien?

Once she read a horror novel about demonic possession and came down with the idea that her boyfriend was Satan in disguise. Fortunately, this idea faded fast.

Her fantastic ideas didn't last long either, though. They made her feel silly and stupid. Pathetic. But the realistic, logical option was depressing. So that's why she didn't question it much. She just loved him. 

With all her heart.

In the dreams.

In her daily waking life, she lived as normally as possible.

 If people knew what happened to her at night, they might lock her up in an asylum. That's why she didn't tell anyone.

Well, she had told her sister when it first began. Taylor had been only seven then. She seemed to like hearing the stories. At first.

But then, one day, she said, "It's all pretend. You know that Zoe, right?"

It was embarrassing to hear that from her younger sister, so Zoe stopped talking about it.

Since then, she hadn't mentioned any of it to anyone.

Once she almost told her mother. They had been shopping together and saw a woman with her iPhone chatting to an OS or EB (or so they assumed) in what seemed to be a romantic way.

They started talking about what it would be like to be in such a relationship. Her mom joked that maybe Zoe would end up marrying a ghost. That's when Zoe almost brought it up.

But then she didn't. She was afraid her mom would laugh at her. Although her mother really wasn't the type to do that.

Could he be a ghost?

The thing is, if he was a ghost, why wasn't he contacting her? Why wasn't she talking to him on FaceTime? Why wasn't he sending her messages on Twitter? Why wasn't he commenting on her Flickr photos?

Where was he?

 *** 

Did this dream boy have a name?

Maybe.

Zoe didn’t know. 

She might have known the name in the dream but then forgotten it upon waking.

If he was simply a figment of her imagination, it was possible she had never named him. In her waking life, she thought of him as "the boyfriend". At one time, she abbreviated it in her head to "TB". But that sounded a bit too medical, and she pictured coughing and a Kleenex covered in blood.

Their relationship had no beginning. Not really.

Well, Zoe didn’t remember a first meeting. She did remember the first time she took real notice of the dreams. They had been standing in line at a water park.

He had said, "I love you so much."

Then, later, they had been joking about something and laughing. They ate gum drops. It was a fun dream. It hadn’t felt like they were meeting for the first time then, though. It felt like they were old friends…very old friends.

Zoe was pretty certain she dreamed about him before that night. She just hadn't noticed. It felt like their love had no beginning. But sometimes—unfortunately—it felt like it did have an end.

 *** 

 On Zoe's fifth date with Mickey Levinson, they had sex.

 It was quite a surprise to her; though if she thought about it, not a complete surprise.

She had shaved her legs and her pubic area. She had worn matching underpants and bra; clean underpants with no holes.

Maybe, despite the lack of passion, she figured by the fifth date something had to happen. Or maybe she had some type of premonition. Maybe a little voice had whispered to her in her sleep. Mickey's going to do more than kiss you on the forehead tonight.

The sex was fine for the most part, at least in terms of technicalities. Body parts worked as they should. She didn’t have to say the TV show line, "Honey, it happens to everyone." He didn’t have to reply. "But it's never happened to me.

Their bodies connected like they were supposed to. They made the correct movements.

Psychologically, it was a bit off. Maybe a lot off.

Zoe kept thinking about her dad. She kept imagining him watching; making comments. Yes. He brought a condom. See how he's careful. He's very trustworthy. Very prepared. Just like he is at the company. One day, I bet you won't want to use a condom.

 Her imaginary dad  even started critiquing her technique. He doesn't like that. Try something else. Be a little louder. You sound bored. Maybe he'd like to try a different position. He needs variety. If you don't give it to him, he might seek it elsewhere.

Zoe had no idea why she was having these father issues. It kept her from having an orgasm, which was fine with her. She didn’t like having them. It made her feel guilty. She felt like she was cheating. 

Mickey had his orgasm. It didn’t seem earth-shattering, but it couldn’t always be. He gave Zoe a dutiful squeeze. Maybe that counted as a cuddle?

He hopped out of bed and went into the bathroom.

 Zoe thought about her daddy issues; then changed the channel in her brain.

She thought about her sex life. There wasn’t much there. There was a lot more to be said about her sex dreams. She had had a lot of them. Almost always with the same man.

There was that one dream with Damon Wayans, Jr.

Did that count, though? Because, in the dream, Zoe was a man, and the two of them had gay sex.

For the most part, though, Zoe was monogamous in her dreams. In real life, Mickey was her third partner.

She had had sex with her prom date. She had given in to his pressure. As Mr. Prom Date had reminded her, he paid for the tickets. He paid for the limo. He had bought an expensive bouquet of flowers AND a big box of Belgian chocolates.

Zoe's father had been very impressed with Mr. Prom Date too. He liked big spenders…probably because he was one himself.

If she was honest with herself, Zoe would have to admit it wasn't just the pressure from Mr. Prom Date that had made her decide her private bits were open for business. She had been confused about her dreams. She didn't want to cheat on her boyfriend. The thing was….that sounded crazy. How could you cheat on a man from your dreams? How could you cheat on a figment of your imagination?

So, for the most part, Zoe had sex to prove she wasn't crazy.

It didn't quite work because she ended up feeling guilty and worried that her dream man would be hurt. She worried he'd dump her.

He didn't. He had been fine with it. Well, not exactly fine. All she remembered him saying was. "I don't like it happening, but I've always understood it might."

In the morning, when she had remembered the dream, she couldn't remember if she had confessed or if he had just known.

The second partner came about six months after her dream boyfriend's disappearance. It was a rebound thing. Maybe she did it as an act of defiance. It was with her pediatrician. Well, her former pediatrician. The one she had since infancy up to the age of 18.

She had run into him at the bookstore. It was quite weird seeing him outside his office doing something besides doctor stuff. It felt fantastic having him see her as an adult rather than a child…a patient. 

They talked and things clicked. He laughed at her jokes, and she found his funny as well. She had actually been the one to invite him for coffee. They didn't have to go far. There was coffee at the bookstore.

They talked. Then they took a walk together.

The weather had been nice. They got into a conversation about strange artwork. Mr. Pediatrician redirected their walk route to his apartment, so he could show her a bizarre statue he owned. She was already very turned on by him, and it turned out the feelings were mutual.

They had sex. She had felt a little guilty. She felt a little bit like she had been cheating. But for the most part, she felt like an abandoned woman getting on with her life. She had believed maybe there was something here. Maybe she'd have a relationship in her real life.

But then he never called.

She had been a bit heartbroken. Or more heart-bruised. A bruise on top of the broken, because she was still struggling to get over her dream boyfriend.

She wanted a phone call from Mr. Pediatrician. But, even more so, she wanted her dream boyfriend to return.

***

A few years later—two years ago—she had run into Mr. Pediatrician again. At the same damn bookstore. She tried to hide from him. She rushed to a section away from him. But then he found her and apologized profusely. It turned out the last time he had just recently filed for divorce from his wife. 

That made Zoe feel quite stupid and guilty, because she had never even considered that he might be married. What the hell was wrong with her?

He had then told her, yes, he had been divorced. It was all kosher. Yes, he had been attracted to Zoe. But he had realized he wasn't ready to jump into a relationship. He needed recovery time. Yes, that was rude of him. Yes, he should have called and explained. Yes, he was sorry.  Incredibly sorry. He felt like an ass. He apologized a million times.

Zoe needed only the first sorry.  She wanted to get on with things. The thing was, she was quite eager to get into bed with him. Eventually they ended up back at his apartment. Sex happened. She slept over. They cuddled in the morning. He made her breakfast. All he had was Lucky Charms. She thought that was a bit ironic for a doctor. But oh well.

She left.

He called.

They had more sex.

They had dates.

She went through that stage of not knowing the status of their relationship. Were they dating? Was he her boyfriend? When do you use the "love" word?

Before any of those questions could be answered, Mr Pediatrician said he felt things were going too fast.

Should we take them slower?

No, I think we should stop all together."

Zoe was dumped. She wasn't too bothered by it. She missed Mr. Pediatrician, but she missed her dream boyfriend more.

Mr. Pediatrician had sort of filled the hole. She could forget she was missing someone terribly. Now that he was gone, she was back to missing what she really missed.

After that, there had been no sex until what had just happened with Mickey. 

***

Mickey got out of the bathroom.

"Thanks for that," he said, as if she had provided him a service.

She wasn’t sure how to respond but then decided on: “Thank you.”

 That exchange was followed by an awkward silence. 

She wondered if she'd see him again. Probably. Her father would make it happen. He was quite good at making things happen.

Continue to Chapter Six 

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