Made of Matter

Chapter Twelve

The world around us transformed into a bloom of bright and sharp colours. My entire being felt pulled in multiple directions but I could not pinpoint the nerves of my body, or even having one. There was no pain or pleasure or scent or taste. I was a collection of thoughts and feelings and memories.

As quickly as the world transformed, it returned to itself. The light muted, my body felt heavy and rooted to the ground, my breath came in heavy pants and my hands shook. I had to lift them before my face to test that I was real and here and not on some fucking acid trip.

Something shifted near me and I was startled to see that Stephen stood beside me silently, watching the room before us like a spectator. The golden Dream Sphere tucked under one arm and casting a golden light upon his face that remained emotionless, his eyes blinking slowly - the only indication that he was here. He did not bother speaking to me, of course, he wouldn't offer an apology or explanation.

Maybe I didn't want him to, maybe I wanted to watch my fantasy unfold before him and see his reaction. It would humiliate him more than me.

Whose punishment was this really, his or mine? My fantasies of Stephen were sprinkled with a little violence, but mostly they were reflections of my sexual desire for him. Brief little daydreams about what it would be like to have him hate-fuck me or me hate-fuck him. The more I got to know him - or the very least peel back one of the many layers of him - I realised that my fantasies of him changed, how he would react to me, what he would say, how his body would move to mirror my own. I was learning about Stephen, what made up his person and who he was beyond Doctor Strange.

As Stephen was insistent on ignoring me, I turned from him with a deep sigh to face the scene before us. The room was near dark but I could make out the space, we still stood in the same bedroom that the two of us shared in Kamar-Taj but the angle was different, almost as if the Dream Sphere had shifted our perspective to better watch the dream unfold.

'Is this some type of -' I began but my question dropped away as something on the floor shifted.

Me. On my cot. In the dark. I shifted forward to capture the movement. It was strange watching myself, to see myself from afar as anyone else might. My skin prickled knowing how wrong it was. I felt I was imposing on something. 

What type of fucking dream was this? 

I cast a glance at Stephen whose gaze finally caught mine before moving behind me, his brow quirking in what looked to be confusion. Was this not what was supposed to be happening? 

On the bed, there was movement as Stephen sat up, or rather the dream version of him. Shirtless, what light there was highlighted the curves and grooves of his flat-muscled chest, his hair a little mussed in a way that made my fingers itch to push his stray locks back. There were muttered words from him I couldn't catch but as I watched myself jerk up from the cot to face Stephen on the bed I felt the bile rise in my throat.

Finally, beside me the real Stephen shifted forward, his heavy footsteps echoed on the floorboards. He remembered this as well as I did, it had only happened last night.

A piece of the past, reimagined as I would have liked it to have happened. It was only last night, but how was it that this interaction between us felt so long ago, almost as if this kindness between us had slipped away as easily as it had appeared?

I turned my head to look at Stephen beside me, a jaw in his muscle ticked. I kept my gaze away from the scene before us, refusing to watch how it unfolded. I had the fantasy locked inside of my own head, I didn't need a fucking play-by-play. At least not in front of Stephen.

I refused to be humiliated like this.

'That's enough.' my voice was quiet as if I spoke too loud the dream versions of ourselves might notice we were observing them. It already felt unnerving to be there, to be a part of something imagined, something that had no part in our reality. Is that what this was? Another reality stored inside the sphere Stephen held onto?