You Don’t See Me - 7. Chapter 7

“When you’re dreaming about cats, you know it’s time to pick up the phone and dial the therapist’s number.”

Patrick

Patrick awoke from a strange dream to find himself in bed, alone. The room—no, the entire house felt like a living entity, and Patrick felt tiny cradled in its midst. Ford’s side of the bed was empty, which was strange because he had returned home that day. Was he so bold as to leave in the middle of the night now for one of his flings? Patrick wouldn’t put it past him. After all, an adrenaline junkie would need to keep upping the danger levels. Maybe cheating in Miami was no longer satisfactory. Maybe soon he would be cheating right in Patrick’s bed.

He released the breath of air he realized he was holding in, then tried to shake the negative thoughts away. He had dreamt that Silk had caught a dream. But Silk wasn’t her name, and this wasn’t reality. It was some alternate universe, but she had caught onto to it—to its tail end, just as it was slipping by. And now she was holding it, touching it—a real life dream. Then, when she awoke from her cat nap, she could still taste the dream in her mouth. It tasted sweet, like strawberries mashed with sugar and whipped cream. She carnivorously devoured the dream. And then—poof—it was gone. And with it, Patrick awoke. The surreal nature of the dream disoriented him. He blinked a few times, then wondered what type of loser actually dreams about his cat. What was the meaning of it all?

After the incident happened, it was all Patrick dreamt about for months. Like a recurring nightmare. A video in his head, stuck on loop. “Loop”, the word reminded him of the screenplay sitting in the trash downstairs. The screenplay, his marriage, his mother, and now the dream. Life felt like it was closing in on him with a bizarre sequence of events that he couldn’t fully understand. It seemed that maybe he was looking too close, unable to see the entire picture. But for some reason, the dream with Silk was very troubling to him.

He grabbed the laptop laying by the side of the bed, and opened up a Google search. How could he phrase this without sounding insane. He typed in, “Dream Interpretation” then “cat”. Of course there were multiple meanings, but one of them was “searching for independence” while another one suggested the cat could represent a female in his life, while yet another one said the dream was related to the idea of “survival”. Patrick crawled out of bed and tip toed downstairs for a glass of water to clear his head. Shockingly, he noticed that his husband wasn’t out sleeping with some secret lover. No, Ford was on his laptop at the grand living room table.

“What are you doing sweetheart?” he asked upon seeing Patrick.

“Getting some water, I had a strange dream.” Ford quickly closed the laptop, got up and walked over to him.

“I’m sorry I wasn’t there. I couldn’t sleep so I figured I’d do some work,” he said and grabbed the glass before Patrick could get it, then poured water into it. “My poor love, what did you dream about?” he asked.

“Silk,” Patrick replied, taking an embarrassed sip. Both men glanced over to the window perch, where Silk was sprawled out without any notion that someone had been dreaming about her. Meanwhile Satin woke up from her spot on the couch and pattered over to her food bowl for a late night snack.

“You think it’s an omen, like maybe she’s getting sick?” Ford asked, still looking at Silk.

“Don’t say that!” Patrick replied in a loud whisper. The last thing he could handle was one of the cats getting sick.

“Well, it’s strange that you’d be dreaming about her. That’s all,” Ford replied, apologetically.

“I looked it up, it says something about needing independence,” Patrick replied absentmindedly, before he could catch himself. But he realized his mistake almost immediately, as Ford’s body became rigid.

“Independence?” he asked, his voice suddenly icy.

“It was just a stupid dream,” Patrick muttered, but it was too late. The damage was done.

“Something you want to tell me?” Ford asked.

“What do you mean?”

“Search for independence? Did you…meet someone else?” The question was so hypocritical Patrick almost laughed out loud. He stood there in stunned silence for a second.

“Did I…meet someone else? Are you serious?”

“Very serious. Since when are you dreaming about being independent? Aren’t we happy?”

“I don’t know. Are we, are you happy? Did YOU meet someone else?” Patrick asked with more anger than he intended. Ford narrowed his eyes and studied Patrick’s face with the intensity of a paleontologist. Slowly, he relaxed.

“This is silly, let’s not do this,” he said, then rubbed Patrick’s naked shoulder, evading the question altogether.

“Do you still love me?” Patrick managed to ask.

“Of course I do. I’ll always love you,” Ford replied, then kissed him on the lips. Patrick had missed those lips, he had missed them so much. He was weak. All he wanted was to make this man happy.

“Good, because I love you so much,” he replied and kissed him more deeply.

“You do?” Ford asked, gently biting into his neck.

“Yes, so much,” he replied, and the two of them clumsily made love on the staircase. After Ford went back to sleep, Patrick noted the encounter in his notebook. They were still having regular sex. That was strange to Patrick. He couldn’t understand how Ford could keep up with it all. And most of all, he couldn’t understand why he would allow Ford to treat him this way.

He snuck back downstairs and sat on the couch, conflicted. He didn’t want to go to sleep, the dream had left him feeling strange. He decided to dial Eloise. If anyone would know something about dream interpretation, it would be his mother.

“Patrick,” she answered the phone, sounding half asleep, “Patrick, is everything alright?”

“Hey mom,” he replied. “Sorry to wake you. Listen, what do you know about dreams?”

“Patrick, it’s 3am,” she replied.

“Sorry, I didn’t realize it was so late,” he lied. “This is important. Dreams, do you know anything about dreams?”

“Have you lost your mind?” she asked, and he heard his father’s grumble in the background. “Are you having some sort of manic episode? Do I need to take you to the hospital?”

“What? No, no. Dream meaning, dream interpretation, that stuff,” he replied, wondering if he really sounded as crazy as she made him out to be.

“Jesus,” she replied, sounding more awake now. He could hear her feet pattering down the hallway, probably heading into the kitchen. “Well, what did you dream about?”

“Silk, I dreamt that she caught a dream. It’s hard to explain really. Like catching a rat, but it was a dream instead. Like a dream within a dream. But, it was so vivid.” There was a long silence on the other end. He heard the sound of ice cubes hitting glass.

“Patrick, when you’re dreaming about cats, you know it’s time to pick up the phone and dial the therapist’s number,” Eloise replied without an ounce of compassion. It was a mistake calling her and asking about this.

“So you haven’t got a clue what it could mean?”

“It was a dream, does it matter? More importantly, how’s your diet going?” she asked.

“I’m not on a diet, mother,” he replied, growing frustrated with her tone.

“Well, you should be. For your health, of course.”

“Of course. Not because you don’t want to have an unsightly son,” he replied sarcastically.

“Don’t be absurd,” she replied. “When did you become so difficult. You used to be the easy child,” she mused, more to herself than to him.

“I’m sorry I woke you up. Go back to sleep. I’ll call you tomorrow,” he said, then hung up. He grabbed a chocolate candy from the bowl on the kitchen island, and as he raised the lid of the trashcan to throw away the wrapper, he noticed the screenplay staring back at him. He pulled it out. “The Loop.” What did it mean? The title didn’t make sense with the content of the screenplay. A loop typically meant a curve that crossed itself. Or an end that was connected to a beginning.

Suddenly his phone lit up. He almost ignored it, thinking it was Eloise calling him back. But it was a message from his PI asking Patrick to call him when possible. He dialed the number right away.

“I’ve got some news. I think I finally figured out who our dark-haired suspect is,” the voice on the other end said, and Patrick’s heart skipped a beat. He knew this was an important moment for some reason, but he had yet to figure out why.