Elise looked at Olivia. “Not me. You?”
“None. I’ve had a recurring dream.” She looked at Ray. “I’m back to the sex fantasy idea. That is, if you can imagine an old woman like me involved in sex.”
“Olivia,” Ray said slowly, “I can imagine you doing acrobatics naked.”
She gave a little smile. “I am a bit limber.”
“Should I leave the room for you two?” Elise asked, half-serious.
“Naw,” Ray said. “Jeanne told me Livie’s husband had single-handedly brought down governments. I don’t think I’ll risk it.”
“I can tell you that I like flirting better than young men asking me if I need help carrying a bag of groceries.” Olivia took a breath. “Okay, back to fantasies. It’s a very simple dream, but since it’s appeared off and on for about four years now, I sometimes think it’s a premonition. I’m in bed—”
“Great start,” Ray said.
“Be quiet, Mr. Scorpion.” Elise leaned back on a pillow and looked at Olivia. “What did you do in bed?”
“I woke up to several men kissing me.”
“That’s all?” Ray asked.
“They have different colors of skin. Black, brown, red... I’m not sure. Maybe blue. I had some very pleasant thoughts about those blue men from that movie. Anyway, the actual color isn’t important, but there is a contrast.” Leaning back, she said nothing else.
Ray spoke first. “What happens after the kissing?”
“I don’t know. There was never a dream sequel, but I would expect that there is a lot more kissing.” She looked at Elise. “What about you?”
“I hope it’s better than the first one,” Ray muttered.
Elise took so much time in replying that Ray went to the kitchen to get rum, Cokes, and ice, and refilled glasses. Within seconds, the women were again smiling.
“After I was married,” Elise said, “I spent a lot of time thinking about my wedding day. I had so many thoughts about it, that I even, uh... I...”
“Come on,” Ray said, “out with it.”
“I rehearsed my fantasy.”
“So now you must tell us,” Olivia said.
“My wedding dress cost $48,781.82.” She waited until they’d lowered their eyebro
ws. “It was a ghastly thing. My mother seemed to think I was so bland that if I didn’t have a dress big enough to use for a tent, no one would actually see me. It was heavy and awkward. I could barely walk in the thing. But what I could do was spread my legs under it and no one could see me.”
Olivia and Ray had equally wide eyes.
“No, no, not like that,” Elise said. “My mother never knew it but I wore a pair of white yoga pants underneath that hideous dress. It was just defiance on my part and nothing came of it, but as I stood at the altar, those pants made me feel that a little of myself was there. But anyway, after I was married, I was so...disappointed, I guess, that I became obsessed with the idea of ‘What if it hadn’t happened?’ I thought of awful things, like car wrecks, and tornadoes that took Kent away, and even once I thought ‘What if I had said no?’ That was the scariest idea I could imagine.”
She took a swallow of her drink. “Somewhere in there I began to fantasize about what could have happened. I imagined that just before I was to say ‘I do’ to Kent, a man would ride a black horse down the aisle of the church. Of course, everyone would be stunned into silence—me included. When he got to the altar, he’d put his hand down to me. He wouldn’t say anything, but I’d know what he meant. I’d grab his arm and vault onto the horse behind him and we’d gallop out of the church.”
“Then what?” Ray asked.
“I’d like to think that we’d go somewhere and have sex like I see in the movies. Not what Kent and I did for eleven minutes every other week, but real sex, the kind that raises a sweat.”
“Hear! Hear!” Olivia said.
Ray smiled. “How did you rehearse that part?”
“I didn’t dare practice the sex, if that’s what you mean, but I did say that I wanted to take riding lessons. Kent’s mother had ridden as a girl so that meant it was okay for me to do it. Whatever Mummy did was the height of perfection and therefore allowable for me to do.”