Several hours later, Malcolm awoke with a mass of red curls covering his chest and a warm body curled up beside him. “So it wasn't a dream this time?” he mused aloud, not realizing she was awake.
“Aww! You’ve had dreams about me?” he heard Audrey’s playful voice say.
He hoped the room was too dark for her to see his blush. “Uh, yeah, I guess I have,” he confessed, a little nervously.
“Were they good ones?” she pressed.
He took a deep breath before answering. “Remember back in our Junior year when I seemed to be avoiding you for about two days?”
She was surprised that she actually did remember that and said so.
“Well, the night before that I had a dream where we were out riding our bikes, and you hit something and fell off. I stopped and helped you up and you kissed me. I don't think there was more to it than that, but I woke up and, uh, well, the bed was sticky…”
There was a short moment of silence and then: “Oh! You had a wet dream about me!” she said; she tried not to laugh but couldn't help it…
“Yeah, but you were my friend - heck, until I was assigned David as a partner for a computer lab project, you were my best friend, ever. And having a dream like that about a friend seemed, somehow, wrong. I was afraid you would somehow sense it and not want to be my friend any more.”
“To be honest, at that point I was kind of hoping we could somehow be more than friends. But I was happy to just hang out, regardless,” she replied. “Oh, you know, I had a dream kind of like that, at about that time, too, and even one which you were in, but, uh, well, you weren't the guy who, ah, triggered me.”
“Oh?”
“Well it was the night after we spent most of a day watching all those Errol Flynn movies…” she began, but hesitated to continue…
Curious to see where this was going, Malcolm prodded: “Captain Blood? Robin Hood?”
She laughed: “No, strangely it was, ah, General Custer. There was just something about that uniform…”
“Really?” It was Malcolm’s turn to try not to laugh and fail.
“Yeah, in the dream, we were watching They Died With Their Boots On and he just stepped out of the screen. You said ‘Hi sir. I am Malcolm and this is Amazing Audrey, and we both love your work’”
“That does not sound like me…” Malcolm said.
She laughed again, and continued: “He said ‘could you leave us for a moment?’ and you said ‘If I can get your autograph first, sure.’”
“Now that DOES sound like me,” he admitted.
She swatted at him playfully and continued: “He signed a huge book you happened to have with you for some reason, and you left, oddly whistling a song that I knew back then but do not remember now. And he said he came out of the screen because he loved my eyes and wanted to make love to me…”
“Can't blame a guy for that. Even back when they were that beautiful blue but especially not now,” Malcolm said.
She rolled over, and rose up on her elbows, one to each side of his chest and positioned her face inches above his, her hair cascading down and forming a kind of waterfall around their heads. “You really love my green eyes?”
“Audrey, I like everything about you. I think I always have, but it scared me back then. Scared me so much that I let our friendship lapse when I thought you wanted to be with someone else - based on a lie, I now know but I didn't then. I was afraid I might ruin things for you, or that it might hurt me too much to see you with someone else and just lost contact.”
She ran her eyes over his face while considering this, and then asked: “But it doesn't scare you now?”
“Oh, no it terrifies me - but in a way that I now find more empowering than petrifying, if that makes any sense.”
She met his gaze, her eyes catching the light that filtered through her auburn curls, and smiled. “That makes more sense than anything else since I was called in to that bizarre murder scene,” she said, and lowered herself to kiss him.
The kiss was deep, passionate, and she felt him stirring when she broke it off. He reached up then and wrapped his arms around her, pulling her down to his side. With a light laugh, he said: “I know it kind of feels like I am ready to go again but, well, I’m not sure if this will make sense, especially coming from me, but, unless you really want it, I think I have had enough sex for a while. I just want to cuddle.”
“That is more than okay with me,” she said, moving over and snuggling against him. “You can hold me as long as you want.”
