I am in a red desert during sunset, hemmed in at the edges, as if the sand sat inside a bottle or a fish bowl. A swath of maroon shadow tells me there is a canyon, or a crater, somewhere off in the distance. The tips of buildings jut up from within. But I am not there. I stand in another shadow, this one of a massive saguaro cactus, tall enough to serve as the trademark skyscraper of a capitol city in a flyover state.
I am standing next to a woman, and we do not know each other very well, and there is someone who would be disappointed to find me becoming familiar with her. But I am there anyway.
We stand close, and our only point of contact is our noses on one another’s cheekbones, tracing lines in the downy hair of our faces. Her skin, milk pale, sops up the red of the desert and is cold on the surface layer. I notice her clef chin, because our words for each other are directed not at eyes, but at chins and necks. But, as for her eyes, I do know that they have subtle and permanent dark spots under them. Her hair is jet black, all the more so in the shadow of the cactus, and very, very curly.
At this point, right on the cusp of release, as she inevitably leans in for a kiss, my dream logic dictates that I turn away and confess that I am seeing someone, even if they only exist when I am awake. But tonight she is earnest in her need, and so am I. With none of the usual apprehension, we embrace, and when our lips touch her body warmth wells up to the surface of her face. We go at it for a good while.
When the need crescendos, she takes me by the hand and leads me towards the canyon. I notice she is wearing a canadian tuxedo with kitsch turquoise accents.
We are suddenly together in this canyon, which turns out to have a town nestled inside, very much a John Ford setpiece. Behind a saloon or a general store or something, she leans against a corrugated iron wall and draws me close again. Her face has the desperate, anxious look of need, well past the threshold of erotic and into the domain of anticipation. I must feel the same way, because I place my hands on the wall, either side of her shoulders, and lean in. The cold of the iron is like sex on each palm, and we begin the tracing with our noses once more, then…
A phone call wakes me up. I do my best to fall asleep fast after the call, in order to pick up where we had left off, to no avail.
I think she must have been Julianna Margulies.