Hotter Than Hell by Anthology Page A

between my toes, and the air in my lungs is heavy and hot.
    I feel very much awake, very much alive.
    And suddenly I can see again. Not much, just that same sliver of gray; a shoulder, attached to a long muscular arm; higher still, the faint outline of a broad chest, a strong throat. All at a height much grander than my own. I am looking at a giant. A giant made of stone.
    I stand very still, staring; then slowly, carefully, reach out. I cannot explain my action. I must touch and be touched, though it is only rock beneath my hands. But I hesitate, at the last moment. I fear, irrationally, that I might be burned—and indeed I flinch as though harmed, because what my fingers find is not cold or stone, but flesh and warm.
    I stagger, falling. A hand catches my waist, then my arm; in that grip, profound strength. Terror flutters my heart, freezing my voice. I think, dream , but I cannot wake no matter how loud I scream inside my mind.
    A rumble fills the darkness. I reach out. My palms press against yet more skin, a body trembling with sound. Like a thundercloud, sighing in the night. I try to see, but cannot. Try to free myself, and am held closer.
    “Let go,” I breathe, struggling.
    “No time,” whispers a low voice, rough and masculine. “Listen to me. Listen.”

    But he says nothing else and I gaze up and up, staring at shadows gathered around a curving line, hard and tipped and ridged. A horn. I can see nothing else. In the oubliette, where I should find only darkness, gasps of light are playing tricks.
    Something grazes my cheek; fingers, perhaps.
    “Tell me,” says the voice, quiet. “Tell me what you hear.”
    “You,” I whisper, my voice shaking on the word. “Only you.”
    I hear a sigh, another rumble that pushes through my body, settling around my heart. A sad sound, old and tired. Again, my cheek is touched. Fingers slide into my hair, warm and gentle. For a moment my breathing steadies and I can think again.
    A dream, I tell myself. Then, softly, “You are a dream.”
    “A dream,” murmurs the creature. “A dream, if I could so be. Your dream, better.”
    “My dream,” I say. “But you are.”
    “No,” breathes that low voice. “I am the Minotaur. And this is no dream.”
    The hand holding my arm slips away; the body beneath my palms follows. I am left standing alone in the darkness. I feel bereft, lost without that touch which so frightened me. I cannot explain it. I do not want to.
    “Soon,” rumbles the voice. “Soon, again.”
    “Wait,” I say, but the world falls away, the oubliette spinning fast into a jolt, a gasp—
    I wake up.

    A week passes before the Minotaur returns to me. I think of him often. Dream or not, I cannot help myself. I feel his fingers on my cheek as I pour coffee. I feel his body beneath my hands as I wrap scones in wax paper. I hear his voice inside my body as I count change for an old man in a suit.
    Everywhere, the Minotaur.
    And when I close my eyes for just one moment, I return to the oubliette, to the darkness filled with thunder, and feel him with me like a shadow pressed against my back, watching and waiting. The longer I wait, the more I want to be with him again. The more I want to understand.
    Some dream. I wonder if that is all it is. If there is more, and whether, like Ariadne with her ball of golden thread, I will be able to find my way home again the next time the Minotaur comes for me. And I know he will. I feel it, fear it—am even eager for it—though it sows discontent, unease. For the first time in a long while, I think about my life. Not about the things I do not have, but the people who are gone. Parents. Friends. I had them once, I think, but at some distant time so far past, such people seem more dream than the Minotaur.
    All I have is myself. All I need is myself.
    Until now.

    I follow my routine before bed. I must. Routine keeps me alive. But after stretching out inside my sleeping bag, I hesitate before closing my eyes. I can feel