the seventeenth night:

i am having a dream.

in the dream, i am laying on a bed. the blankets on the bed are dirty with cum and blood and spit. they are dark, soft, thin, flimsy. the pillows have been thrown to the floor and the shades are drawn.

the walls are very high and they too are dark, a dark brown-red, like dried menstrual blood. all over the walls are torn photographs. there are pictures of me tied to chairs, of me blindfolded and head bowed, of me on my knees, mouth pressed to a wall by a bodiless hand. there are pictures of me in my dressed normal life, getting into my car, dark sunglasses and dark coat, talking with friends at the coffee shop, leaving a bookstore.

there are pictures of other people too, close-ups of arms and legs, scars that i don't recognize, feet with perfectly manicured toes, lips that are bowed in a way that my mouth didn't remember. men's backs, women's hips, twistings of the two.

all the photos are torn in pieces, some pinned to the wall in disjointed but complete puzzles, some with pieces missing from the whole: a part of my thigh missing, part of a woman's mouth torn from her face, a man's legs missing entirely, the brown-red wall in their place.

each piece of photo is held to the wall with a fine steel pin, as if some sort of insane acupuncture is being done. but instead of setting a patient's body right the end of this work was to somehow settle and smooth the photographer's mind. it's a backwards cartography, a kinetic collage of the photographer's eyes.

i see this all upside down.

i am laying on the bed on my back, my head hanging over the side of the bed. a young girl, 19 or 20, is sitting next to my body, she is sitting on her knees on the bed, her hands pulling my legs apart. i am wearing a periwinkle blue bra with delicate flowers embroidered on it, my favorite bra, but i am wearing nothing else.

her hands are quick, running themselves up and down the length of my legs. her nails feel like broken glass, but her skin is like inside of the wrist, soft and delicate. i can feel her nails cutting the insides of my thighs with little nics, but it doesn't hurt. the only reason why i know is because i can feel small rivulets of blood slipping down like sweat.

and then she has a hand on my chest, across my breastplate. the glass is gone, her hands are like mine, with short boyish nails and firm palms. the other hand is between my legs, teasing me, slipping a small finger inside before quickly pulling it out and using the wetness to draw a line across my stomach. the one hand holds me still by pinning my chest while she grows more confident, exploring me more. she dips her head down to my ear and she speaks quickly, so fast i can barely understand her. she is talking non-sequitors, each sentence is related to nothing, like listening to a person who knows only cliches or empty platitudes.

the nonsense comes faster as she fingers me deeper, rubbing my clit, and then inside again. i am writhing, staring at the wall, her fingers driving me crazy, the torn pictures seeming to move with my moaning and panting.

she climbs on top of me, her fingers still inside me, and she begins to bite me--she has metal teeth. the feeling of the metal marking me, my throat, my face, my breasts, and her soft childlike fingers inside me pushes me over the edge.

i cum as i feel her teeth pushing, cutting into my shoulder, i feel the blood come as i shiver through the end of my orgasm.

this all happens in strobe-light nightmare hyper-speed timing, and when i wake up i find that i am covered in sweat, my blankets soaked through.

i find, too, that i have cum in my sleep.