Oneiric

The next day after university, Lavinia and I said goodbye to our colleagues and went the opposite way, from them. We both decided to go and discuss my dream situation, in a quiet place and Ramayana came to both our minds.

When we arrived, it was still daylight. I was right about the building looking more joyful during the day than at night time. The vivid colors of grass green, lemon yellow, and watermelon red harmoniously combined to create a rainbow of warmth and hospitality, on the outdoor walls of the tall house.

As it was during the start of the week, it was less crowded than last time. Of course, the time of day was different. But there were still a few people scattered here and there; as far as I could see. This time Lavinia asked for a room upstairs, since she knew those were smaller, fitting fewer people in and more secluded in that manner. 

As we walked up to the second floor, led by one of the same girls as our previous visit, the wooden stairs squeaked under the pressure of our footsteps. It was rather quiet today; no music was playing in the speakers hung on the walls and light shone much more, than it would have, in the underground level. It was pretty obvious it would be more lit, as the windows were taller and painted in tones of faded pinks and lavenders, with white transparent curtains on each side.

The second floor was decorated in an Asian, more Japanese style. The room we were given was smaller than the other we had been in and it had a door with an opaque baby blue painted on its windows. The walls were painted white and above a paper chandelier with floral motifs hung low, but was not lit. The floor was a wooden parquet as well, and a small dark green rug with light green leaves decorating its length lay in the middle of the room. The table was taller, and it had upholstered chairs.

There was a wooden bookcase with books and other decorative objects, specific to the theme of the room. There was only one window on the wall opposite to the door, with white curtains and dark-blue hangings with white cherry flowers sewn into it.

As the woman left the room, we were finally alone and could talk freely. After we had chosen our teas, I went for a Jasmine green tea, whilst Lavinia chose a Turkish Chai, I pressed the button to summon the waitress. Lavinia looked at me, not quite knowing how to engage in the delicate conversation. I noticed and spoke before she could open her mouth.

“I know I should have told you, but I didn’t think the situation would worsen”, I said while looking aimlessly into the menu. They served bakes as well.

“When you enumerated the dreams you had, you mentioned one about a beach. Tell me more about that one”, she said while looking at me with kindness.

“Liviu and I were on a beach, bathing in the sun; it was an unknown location because it didn’t resemble anywhere, I had been or seen. I went to test the water, maybe bathe but Liviu stopped me and kept asking me not to enter the water. When I went to pack up, he was gone; he was in the water. I jumped after him then all hell went loose”, I had paused since our order had to be taken.

After the woman noted what teas we wanted, she; left the room. 

“What do you mean by that?”, Lavinia asked.

“I dove in the water as I could not see him anymore and all of a sudden it felt like I was way under the sea, twenty, maybe forty meters underwater. After a period of turmoil, the waters calmed down and I could see silhouettes not far. When I reached the first one, I noticed it was the corpse of a woman, the others followed, slowly sinking into the darkness below”, when I told her that she let out a quick sigh. “What does it mean?”.

“You were nearing the realm of the dead. Those were the bodies of the departed. You didn’t touch them, did you?”

“No, but something grabbed my right leg and pulled me into the abyss.”

When I told her that she almost forgot to breathe and her face changed from curiosity to concernment, as fast as one could snap their fingers. I did not like this change on her; it meant trouble. Big trouble. For me, of course.

“What’s wrong?”, I asked, a bit panicked.

“Sorry, it caught me by surprise.”

“No worries”, I said.

“How did you escape the grasp?”, she asked.

“I almost fainted due to the lack of oxygen and nearly drowned, but a memory of Flavius emerged in the corner of my mind, and a whirlpool formed above me. I got caught in it and woke up on my bedroom floor, soaking wet, coughing out seawater.”

The door of our room opened, as the waitress was carrying a metal tray, holding out teapots, teacups, and spoons, along with honey and brown sugar. She placed Lavinia's tea in front of her, which was held by a glass teapot, revealing the dark-golden color of her Turkish Chai. My tea was in a beautiful porcelain teapot with floral prints of green and blue. We both thanked the woman, as she left us to our conversation.

“Did it leave any marks on your body? The thing that tried to pull you down?”, when she asked about the mark, I stopped breathing for a fraction of a second. She noticed and the color in her face faded to almost white.

“How did you know about the mark? I never mentioned it”, I asked her.

“Claudius… you have been marked by death for trespassing into its realm. Liviu tried to warn you…”, she spoke forebodingly.

“That’s why he didn’t want me to get into the water. He was trying to depart.”

“But you won’t let him do it. You still cling to him and he is bound to wander between realms”, she said.

“That’s what the dream with the throne and chains means! I am his prison!”, when I said that, a tear escaped my eye.

“We have to find a way to remove that mark. Death considers you are a soul who escaped. It won’t stop until you are returned to the underworld.”

“But before that, why did I have the other dreams?”, I asked her.

“Maybe because of your magic, your love, and your sorrow for losing Liviu, all connected to help you cope with the loss.”

“But what has Flavius got to do with all of this? Why did thinking of him saved me from death?”, I tried to pour some tea into my cup, but my hand was shaking a little.

“I don’t know for sure. Magic takes many forms, and the fact that you may feel something for him, acted as an anchor, on this realm of the living”, she said while placing her palms on my shaking hand, to calm me.

“I’m not sure what I feel for him. It’s all too confusing to me…”

“How do you feel when you’re with him?”, she asked, my shaking had stopped.

“I’m not my usual self around him; like I don’t recognize myself. I feel light as a feather, I could almost float in the air, but there’s a lump, a non-physical lump in my chest, heavy, warm, and pleasant that brings me back to the ground. I feel happiness and joy and his smile could melt me. I forget about any troubles I might have and think of nothing but him. When he touches me, electric jolts travel through my body, making me feel alive. When he kisses me, the world around me spins and my head feels light and dizzy”, she looked at me and smiled.

“Claudius, you’re in love!”, was her verdict.

“How could I be in love when, almost one month ago I vomited after having sex with a cultist?”, Lavinia gave me a funny look.

“Say what? You slept with a cultist?”, she smirked.

“It was a guy I met outside a shopping center. He was handing out flyers, about their church. He wanted to save my soul, but I kind of saved his. Yes, it sounds funny, but I sometimes compel people to tell me what they desire. I can feel they have some sort of pain inside them.”

“You’re an empath and a healer!?”, she said it almost too loud.

“What’s the first one?”, I asked.

“An empath is a person who feels other’s pain and helps them overcome it. But you go further than that and also heal them.”

“But they don't have visible injuries for me to heal”, I said, naively.

“Claudius, sweetheart, healing doesn’t revolve only around physical pain. You can heal emotional and psychological pain. Spot on with choosing Psychology as a major.”

“So, you think I am in love with Flavius?”, as I asked her, the reality hit me.

“I am sure you are; after how you described your feeling when you're around him. The question is: Is he in love with you?”, she said.

“I’m not sure, but I would say he’s the type of person who wants love, not just a fuck or two.”

“That’s why you escaped from the abyss. But I’m not sure why it was so easy. There must be something about him. Something more than being a strigoi”, she said, wondering in her mind.

“What do you know about strigoi?”

“Not much. I didn’t even know they really exist. I know that moroi are more common. The ancient tomes have almost no information about Flavius’ kind. The only thing we know is what folklore says, and even to me that’s mumbo jumbo.”

“Wait, moroi exist too? What are those?”, I asked, grinning.

“A moroi is like a strigoi, but they die eventually, after a few hundred years. They don’t feed on the life force of others, and they don’t have powers other than intelligence, compelling and great confidence. They become moroi like we become magic wielders – they are born that way. How did Flavius become strigoi?”

“I don’t know yet. We didn’t have the chance to talk about it”, I said, taking a sip from my tea. It had cooled off by now.

“I will try to find out how to break that seal. Until then, if you have eerie dreams, try to not get killed”, she said smiling. That made me laugh; I had the power to be amused, after all this bad news. It was a nice start, though.

“Yes, when I see the Kraken pulling me back to the underworld, I will tell it to stop, because Lavinia had said so”, I replied, laughing.

“It’d better listen or it’s curtains for him. But all fun aside, how do you feel about all of this?”, she asked.

“Well, I’m not happy about it, but I can’t allow myself to grieve about it; we will find a solution.”

“We will, I am certain of it!”, she made it clear.

“There’s a quote I read somewhere, that matches the situation I’m in:

‘Do not fear death, but rather the inadequate life. For death is no more than a turning of us over from time to eternity.’”

“It also matches your situation with Flavius. Do not fear him, for his undeath, but rather the perilous life that flows through yourself, for you are time, while he is eternity”, she said as my mouthed dropped when I realized it. “It is almost as if you two were destined to meet and fall for each other.”

The rest of our stay at Ramayana consisted of us changing the dire subject to ones more joyful, as the holiday season was approaching – Saint Andrew on November 30th and The National Day on December 1st being the inaugurators of the month of presents. We ordered hot teas again, and this time I treated Lavinia to one of the cakes they served.

The week went by, and during the weekend I would meet with Lavinia and Flavius to attend the military parade. I had never been to one and, since my parents died, I went to live with my father’s parents. They resided in another city before I moved on my own, back in the capital. And having been miserable, I never thought of participating as a live audience. I haven’t even decorated a Christmas tree, and I loved doing that with mum and dad.

Don’t get me wrong, I had renounced the religion of any kind when I was in my first year of university. And not that something bad happened and convinced me God doesn’t exist, no. I had just had enough of lying to myself, when out in society, that I was a believer, but after arriving at home, I would start to doubt. I stopped praying, stopped believing in higher forces, smiting people to hell for being gay, and embraced science. That was my religion, and it still is.

Even though I have discovered magic, I still think it is a form of science, somehow. Matter can be manipulated into fireballs or ice shards, or temperature can be influenced to create winds, even rain or snow. There must be a connection between magic wielders and the universe, enabling them to tap into these powers.

Even my empath powers could have a scientific explanation. It must be the brain; an organ as complex as the brain surely has the possibility to manifest a power outside of the confines of bone and flesh. There must be more to it, than just gray matter and neurons. It must be a mix of magic, science, and biology.

As time passed, me relinquishing religion was the best thing to happen after Liviu’s departure from this world. I, however, continued to respect the belief of others. I would get annoyed if they imposed it upon me or other people. But Matt was different, he wasn’t intrusive and I could feel a hidden pain inside him. He was inoffensive; not much I can say about others, but an amusing comparison perfectly sums up my view on fanatics: religion is like a dick, everyone knows you have it, but they won’t like it if you flaunt it in their faces. I liked dick and it being flaunted in my face, but not when dick equaled religion. That last thought made me giggle.

Halfway through the week, cold had permeated into my body. The weather had gotten really cold, really sudden, so it caught me by surprise. Sometimes I can be oblivious to the signs of chilling weather and not dress properly. Which happened this entire week when I chose sneakers and a light jacket with skinny jeans. When I got home one evening, I filled the bathtub with hot water, undressed all of my clothes, and went in the water.

The warmth seeped into my body and felt so soothing as if a liquid fire were scalding my every pore. My balls were floating under the water while my dick got harder. I closed my eyes as I touched myself, imagining it was Flavius’ hands caressing my skin, and my cock. I had started stroking the hard rod, slowly with my left hand, the right one playing with the nuts, each stroke causing my body to clench in pleasure, and the water around me to creates small waves.

As my palm and fingers played with my dick head, the foreskin had fully retracted, exposing the sensible glans to the watery heat. That made me groan. The rhythm of my hand accelerated just a bit, which put things into motion. As I was jerking off, on the fleshy blackness of my closed eyelids 

I imagined intimate activities with Flavius. Such as our naked bodies touching, while we were kissing fervently, and our cocks intertwining. I have never seen him naked, nor have I touched him down there, but that didn’t stop me from imagining how he was. I could almost feel his touch on my abdomen, and chest. It was as if he were there in the tub with me, helping me climax.

 I could feel the pleasure forming in the head of my dick, like a pleasant pressure, and with a final stroke, jets of cum shot out of me, into the water, slowly sinking to the bottom. As I opened my eyes, hand still on my pulsating rod, a steamy silhouette resembling Flavius was fading away. 

I should have kept them open the whole time.

After that jacking-off episode, I had expected to begin feeling like shit again, but it never happened. Maybe Lavinia was right after all and I was truly in love with Flavius. As I dried up and slipped into my pajamas and laid in bed, I covered myself with the soft duvet, I secretly hoped that he was developing the same feelings for me. I closed my eyes, smiling because of that thought, and sleep had stolen me away pretty fast.

It was a chilly summer evening; Flavius and I were serving some delicious coffee at some locale I didn’t recognize. The potions in our cups were like ebony, and steam slowly rose from them, delighting the olfactive apparatus. I like mine with a little milk or cream and just one teaspoon of sugar, while Flavius takes his black, and unsweetened. What travesty, I thought to myself, but then again, he might have thought the same about me. I quickly dismissed that childish remark of my mind.

The sweet aromas in the little coffee shop combined harmoniously with the accordion music playing in the background, all of these together conferring the locale’s cozy environment. Flavius looked at me, smiled, then took a sip from his cup. His look was mild and lovely; it made me blush. 

After finishing our coffees, we went outside, for a stroll in the city. He put his arm around my shoulders and pulled me closer to him. As we walked like that, the people passing by didn’t seem to notice, nor care, or be affected by our sight. They were minding their businesses, heading toward their destinations, going about a normal working day’s end. 

As we walked on the boulevard, I still didn’t recognize where we were. It was surely not Romania, due to the nice architecture of the surrounding buildings. There was a wide river, where boats and small ferries sailed, with people dining or just relaxing. Only when we passed some tall buildings, I could see the Eiffel Tower rising in the distance. I have never been to Paris, but it seemed we were now there. 

We reached Champ de Mars, the park at the base of the tower, and it was filled with people, sitting on the grass and talking, having a picnic, drinking wine, kids playing ball, and even dogs chasing frisbees. Others were taking photographs of themselves with the monument and strolling musicians played on the accordion. There was even a girl painting the sight on a easel.

We walked through the park and headed toward a small street with closed shops, as a means of shortcutting to some other destination Flavius wanted to show me. In the shops’ windows, we could see various mannequins dressed in fastidious clothes; others had jewelry on display, or costumes, or souvenirs, and other wonders. 

Reaching the end of the narrow street we saw a mime standing still. He was dressed as we all know it, dark shoes followed by dark pants held by suspenders on the shoulders and a white blouse with black and white horizontal lines. His face was painted white and he wore a beret, dark as well, on his head. It was odd for him to stand in a deserted area.

We approached him to see what he was doing. He looked at Flavius first and pretended he was throwing a rope and tying it around his body. Then, he leaned to the pavement and mimed that he was grounding the rope. He got up and when he looked at me his eyes darkened until they disappeared.

The mime maliciously smiled at me, revealing sharp yellow teeth; this along with his eerie eyes made me panic. As I looked toward Flavius, I could see he was struggling to move; as if he were tightly tied. When I tried to go and help him, I couldn’t move my legs. I looked back at the mime, who was mimicking a muted laugh while pretending to hold some kind of leash. He pulled both his hands and I felt a strong force dragging me to him.

I tried to resist, but it was in vain. He pulled again, harder this time, and I was forcefully thrown to the mirrored window of the shop behind him. The mime pretended to take out a blade and came forth. I was still pushed against the glass and couldn’t move. My heartbeat went crazy and I could see Flavius’ reflection, helplessly trying to free himself, but in vain. 

The mime neared me and lunged his invisible blade into the mirror window, which cracked. Then, my reflection just walked as if it was free, came forth from the cracks, and pulled me to the other side, then disappeared. 

I was blocked in the reflected world of the mirrors, not being able to hear anything, not even my breathing. The mime had vanished and the magic holding Flavius captured was dispelled. He ran to the windows, moving his mouth, but I couldn’t understand. His fists were pounding on the glass but to no avail. His eyes grew bright red and his skin darkened, as he continued to bash the border between our worlds.

After a few more hits he fell to his knees, dark tears staining his cheeks. He had a look on his face that said despair and uselessness. He placed his palm over the window, I placed mine over his; it looked bigger than mine, bigger than before, and darker. I looked into his eyes and could feel his pain. I felt pain as well, but physical. Flavius suddenly got up on his feet, looking beyond me. When I looked behind me, I saw that the reflected environment was being sucked into a dark vortex. 

The force of the dark whirl was dragging me to it. I couldn’t escape, I didn’t have anything to hold onto. The window cracked and pieces of glass, still showing into the other world, were sucked into the vortex. Then it was all black.

I woke up from my dream, gasping for air as if I were suffocated. It was morning, and the light shone through the blinds, into my room, but the reflection was imperfect. When I looked at the mirrors on my wardrobe, they were all cracked. I didn’t know what else to do, so I covered them with some fabrics. My phone rang, it was Flavius.

“Are you alright?”, he asked. By the sound of his voice, he seemed worried.

“Yes. Why do you ask?”, I replied. I heard the sounds of car horns in the background. “Are you in traffic?”

“I was going to drive to the office, but I felt you. It felt like you were in some kind of danger”, he answered.

“I had a nightmare, that’s all”, I tried to calm him down.

“Claudius, you don’t understand. It felt like you were leaving this world”, he was indeed worried.

“Maybe it felt like that because my magic augments my dreams”, I still tried to calm him down.

“I’m ten minutes from you.”

“No, it’s fine. Don’t change plans because of a nightmare I had.”

“We’ll talk when I arrive at your place”, he said, then closed the call.

Well, no point in arguing with him. I did want to see him but in more pleasant circumstances.

He arrived even faster than he had said on the phone. When the doorbell rang, my heart started beating a little faster. I went to the door and opened it. Gosh, he looks hot in formalwear. He was wearing a shirt that seemed to barely cover his muscles, but it also looked neat and well ironed. Over the shirt a thin jacket covered his torso, augmenting his hourglass physique. Elegant pants hugged his perfectly long legs, which ended in a pair of leather shoes. His entire attire was navy blue, and he wore it very well.

“Please, come in”, I said.

I closed the door behind him and turned on the lights in the hallway. Not as if he needed light to see me, but more out of habit, I guess. He came close, put his hands on my waist, and gave me a passionate kiss. It was so intense that the LED bulb above us flickered.

“Your eyes are beautiful this morning”, he said.

I saw myself in the mirror, behind him, my irises were glowing. When I looked back at him, his were glowing too. We were both aroused, I could feel it through his pants. He surely felt me, as I only wore a T-shirt and a pair of shorts, no underwear.

I invited him into the living room, while I went to my room to change out of my pajamas. When I returned, I asked him if he’d like something to drink. I don’t know why I did that, as he didn’t need to eat or drink anything. Habit again, I guess. He did not refuse me and asked for a coffee.

“How did you know I like mine dark?”, he asked, with a surprised smile on his face, when I had placed the tray with the drink on the small table near the couch.

“In my dream, we drank coffee. That’s how I knew.”

“What about this dream of yours? Will you tell me what happened?”, he asked, giving me a worried look.

I told him the entire dream and why I covered the mirrors in my room, trying not to miss any detail. He put his mug on the table next to the sofa, where he was seated. I sat on an armchair, next to him. He looked at me, thinking about something and how to say it.

“Claudius, I don’t want to scare you or insinuate anything so, first, please hear me out before giving me an answer”, he said, very seriously, then paused.

“Please, go on.”

“From the first time I saw you at Ramayana, I couldn’t get you out of my mind. More so, after I saw you again at Iulian’s fashion presentation. After we had made contact by shaking hands that night, I couldn’t stop thinking about you.

As hard as I tried, it was impossible. It was rather baffling for me, as nothing in this world is unattainable for the likes of me. However, I tried to convince myself that there was only an urge to have you. I thought that if I let my carnal lust consume this primordial desire, I would forget about you. But as we spent more time together, I liked you more and more. Sadly, I realized that I will never get over my thirst for you. And I’m not talking about bloodlust.

Please don’t get me wrong. I am not into mindless fornication, for that, I had plenty of millennia. Slowly I recognized my true intentions. I want to spend the entire length of your lifetime, with you. Whenever I am around you, I feel more human than I have ever felt before. You make me feel something I thought I had forgotten about, eons ago.

It is as if fate had brought you into my undead existence and reminded me how it is to feel for another. That would be an improper explanation of what I will say next. But it is my sincere, unequivocal, and irrevocable feeling.

Claudius, I love you!”

I had the feeling the discussion was heading toward something close to this, but never have I ever thought it would be exactly what I wanted to hear him say. I was quite shocked; I couldn’t even change my position in the armchair. I tried to open my mouth but nothing came out of it.  Not wanting to make him feel awkward for expressing his feelings for me, by prolonging this silence, I got up and went to him.

I approached him on the couch, not ever losing the grasp of our stare. I sat on the sofa on my knees, his waist situated between my legs, my butt resting on his lap. My hands were wrapping themselves around his neck as my body got closer to his. I closed my eyes and touched his lips, sealing them with a kiss. Our tongues met inside my mouth and played a dance, twirling and twisting in the intense moment.

As we fervently kissed, my body was undulating, my butt pushing against his lap, feeling the hard bump of his erect cock, while my hard tent touched his sternum. The kiss went on, as if for ages, until I needed a gasp of air. When our touching lips departed, I opened my glowing eyes, to meet his ember irises sending chills upon my face. I gave him another tender kiss, both of us staring into each other’s eyes.

“I love you, too!”, I said. Acknowledging, in the end, that what I felt inside, when thinking of him, when being near him, when touching him, was true love.

Flavius took me in his arms, rising from the couch as if I was weightless. He kissed me while we moved, changing rooms, entering the bedroom. He slowly leaned to the bed, with perfect balance, until we were both comfortably embracing ourselves on the soft mattress. I didn’t even notice when our clothes flew off when our boxer-covered bodies touched.

It was rather dark in my room, as the sun hid under dark clouds outside. His red eyes shone a cindery light on my body, caressing my skin, making it all goosed bumped. As we tumbled in bed, my body warmed his, while his body cooled mine, until thermal equilibrium was reached. My hard cock ached with pleasant pressure, pushing against his rock-hard dick. As we rolled, I ended up on top of him, our bodies still intertwining. As I kissed his neck, I could see streams of light underneath his skin. Every area of his neck that my lips touched, was sending a fading fascicule, lighting his veins.

As my mouth moved from his neck to his chest, each kiss was sending impulses through him. When I reached his left pectoral, I rested my head with my ear, over his heart. It was silent, no beat, no pulse, nothing. I raised my head, turned it, and licked my way to his nipple. When my mouth touched the skin and started to suck on it, a great impulse illuminated his heart, which sent light fascicules through his entire body. Then I felt it, only once, after the glow had faded into the darkness of the room. His heart let out one beat, which made him moan while catching me under his strong arms, rolling me under his sculpted body.

“You are incredible! How did you make my heart, beat?”, Flavius asked with astonishment on his face. Or so I could tell in the gloom. I was still not in full control of seeing in the dark all the time.

“I… I just desired to hear one beat from your heart…”, I answered, pretty amazed as well.

We didn’t go further with our lust. As Flavius explained it to me, he didn’t feel ready yet. He augmented the fact that he could crush me to death if he ceded to his desires. That this foreplay of ours was the needed action for him to exercise his control when aroused. Also, he said he wasn’t prepared for a release. As he doesn’t pleasure himself very often, his ejaculating could give me some serious injuries. Hearing that from him made me feel, oddly, even more, turned on. He felt my intentions through my blood and gave me a soft kiss on the lips and a light squeeze to my balls until I let out a moan into his mouth. God, he knows how to tease.

The rest of the day we spent at my place, ordering some pizza for me, as he didn’t want to eat, laying on the sofa in the living room and talking. I told him about my parents’ accident, about my grandparents who raised me, the other grandparents from the countryside, about Liviu and my irksome dreams. I told him about the dark sign on my ankle and about what Lavinia has said about its meaning.

He didn’t like the mark, at all, but he said he will do anything to help me remove it. Even if that meant for him to move heaven and earth to do it.