fast. I feel warm but I want to shiver at the same time.
I don't understand. What was I...?
No. Just stop it. Just stop it.
I am
not
going to think about this. It was just a dream. It doesn't mean anything.
I crawl out of bed. I can't shake it, no matter how much I want to. I keep thinking about ... I keep thinking about the way he looked at me there in his bedroom. When I was open to him.
At first—when I was just unbuttoning my shirt—it was just this shock. He just couldn't believe it was happening. And then, when I opened my bra...
God.
He just...
Ten million things all warring on his face, in his eyes: Surprise. Disbelief. Want. Need. Concern. Fear. Joy. Lust.
And I made it all happen. I
created
that moment for him, created those thoughts and feelings. Me.
And now...
And now, what the hell is he doing to me in return? Why am I dreaming...?
In the Sandman series, there's this bit ... It's early on. I think it's in
The Doll's House.
Where Morpheus goes into this woman's dream and he's flying with her and she says something about how when you dream about flying, you're really dreaming about sex.
And Morpheus says, "Well, then what are you dreaming about when you're dreaming
about
sex?"
God.
Shit.
There's a full-length mirror on the back of my door and I stand before it, staring at myself in my T-shirt and my sleep-messed hair and my puffy eyes.
And you know what? I'm sort of OK with what I see, minus the brown hair. I don't get these girls who go all schizo over their bodies. I mean, sure, my boobs are just out of control. I get that. But that's why God invented the minimizer bra.
It pisses me off when these bulimic and anorexic chicks go all spastic. Or the girls who, like, cut themselves and shit. I mean, give me an effin'break, OK? If you don't like your body, just fix it. Deal with it.
When you feel like things are out of control, you
take
control.
So, yeah.
I go into the bathroom and look at myself in the
that
mirror. Nothing has changed; no magic in this mirror. My pits are stubbly. My legs are rough. I wield the Lady Remington and glare at myself in the mirror from beneath my Bangs of Doom.
When you feel like things are out of control, you
take
control.
Yeah, that's what you do. Take control.
I thumb on the Lady Remington. She whispers to me in a buzz.
Oh, yeah.
Twenty-three
I T TAKES LONGER THAN I thought it would take. I thought it would be like in the movies—zip, zip, zip and you're done.
But no. My hair's thick and when I try just plowing through it with the razor, the whole thing jams up and stops. So I take, like, five minutes cleaning the thing and getting it to work again.
I stand in the shower with a makeup mirror in one hand and a pair of cuticle scissors in the other. I found the cuticle scissors in the back of the medicine cabinet—it's the one sharp thing Roger forgot to hide. It takes a long time to cut my hair down enough that I can get the Lady Remington to go through it. At one point, Roger gets agitated and knocks on the door. "Kyra? Everything all right in there?"
"I have cramps!" I tell him, which usually shuts him up.
Back to my hair. Between the scissors and the razor, I manage to get most of it off my head. My body isn't so lucky—I'm covered in hair clippings. I look like the floor of a barbershop. This is a little more complicated than just dyeing it, it turns out.
I run the shower to wash it all off of me and the drain starts to clog up. Shit! This is supposed to be
easy.
I scoop up as much wet hair as I can. The drain starts, y know, draining again, like it's supposed to. The water feels strange on my semibald head. It's too cold, then too warm, while my skull skin gets used to it. My head's, like, supersensitive. I run the tips of my fingers over it, skipping the patchy, stubbly parts. Maybe this is what babies feel like? All new and just born?
Wow.
New.
Just born.
I wash off all the hair clippings on me, then scrape clear the drain and dump
I don't understand. What was I...?
No. Just stop it. Just stop it.
I am
not
going to think about this. It was just a dream. It doesn't mean anything.
I crawl out of bed. I can't shake it, no matter how much I want to. I keep thinking about ... I keep thinking about the way he looked at me there in his bedroom. When I was open to him.
At first—when I was just unbuttoning my shirt—it was just this shock. He just couldn't believe it was happening. And then, when I opened my bra...
God.
He just...
Ten million things all warring on his face, in his eyes: Surprise. Disbelief. Want. Need. Concern. Fear. Joy. Lust.
And I made it all happen. I
created
that moment for him, created those thoughts and feelings. Me.
And now...
And now, what the hell is he doing to me in return? Why am I dreaming...?
In the Sandman series, there's this bit ... It's early on. I think it's in
The Doll's House.
Where Morpheus goes into this woman's dream and he's flying with her and she says something about how when you dream about flying, you're really dreaming about sex.
And Morpheus says, "Well, then what are you dreaming about when you're dreaming
about
sex?"
God.
Shit.
There's a full-length mirror on the back of my door and I stand before it, staring at myself in my T-shirt and my sleep-messed hair and my puffy eyes.
And you know what? I'm sort of OK with what I see, minus the brown hair. I don't get these girls who go all schizo over their bodies. I mean, sure, my boobs are just out of control. I get that. But that's why God invented the minimizer bra.
It pisses me off when these bulimic and anorexic chicks go all spastic. Or the girls who, like, cut themselves and shit. I mean, give me an effin'break, OK? If you don't like your body, just fix it. Deal with it.
When you feel like things are out of control, you
take
control.
So, yeah.
I go into the bathroom and look at myself in the
that
mirror. Nothing has changed; no magic in this mirror. My pits are stubbly. My legs are rough. I wield the Lady Remington and glare at myself in the mirror from beneath my Bangs of Doom.
When you feel like things are out of control, you
take
control.
Yeah, that's what you do. Take control.
I thumb on the Lady Remington. She whispers to me in a buzz.
Oh, yeah.
Twenty-three
I T TAKES LONGER THAN I thought it would take. I thought it would be like in the movies—zip, zip, zip and you're done.
But no. My hair's thick and when I try just plowing through it with the razor, the whole thing jams up and stops. So I take, like, five minutes cleaning the thing and getting it to work again.
I stand in the shower with a makeup mirror in one hand and a pair of cuticle scissors in the other. I found the cuticle scissors in the back of the medicine cabinet—it's the one sharp thing Roger forgot to hide. It takes a long time to cut my hair down enough that I can get the Lady Remington to go through it. At one point, Roger gets agitated and knocks on the door. "Kyra? Everything all right in there?"
"I have cramps!" I tell him, which usually shuts him up.
Back to my hair. Between the scissors and the razor, I manage to get most of it off my head. My body isn't so lucky—I'm covered in hair clippings. I look like the floor of a barbershop. This is a little more complicated than just dyeing it, it turns out.
I run the shower to wash it all off of me and the drain starts to clog up. Shit! This is supposed to be
easy.
I scoop up as much wet hair as I can. The drain starts, y know, draining again, like it's supposed to. The water feels strange on my semibald head. It's too cold, then too warm, while my skull skin gets used to it. My head's, like, supersensitive. I run the tips of my fingers over it, skipping the patchy, stubbly parts. Maybe this is what babies feel like? All new and just born?
Wow.
New.
Just born.
I wash off all the hair clippings on me, then scrape clear the drain and dump
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