The Beautiful Ones

When Cassandra left the Luxor, the sun had come out, and the puddles were beginning to dry. She smiled as she walked, pulling the sleeves of her shirt down over her hands.

She’d feel so much better once she could take off these stockings and slip into her jeans or something. The tension and stress were finally taking a toll on Cassandra, and she yawned as she made her way back to her car.

She knew that she should go hit up the dollar menu somewhere, knew she should eat something. Besides, the taste of stamp glue was clinging to the back of her teeth, but she was just too tired, and muscles in the back of her neck ached. Cassandra crawled into her back seat and pulled a blanket over her body. All she wanted to do was sleep.

The stuffed bunny Stanley was settled in the crook of her arm, and his sympathetic plastic eyes seemed to invite her to tell him all about her day.

“He was pretty hot, I will say that.” She stroked the soft fur on the old toy. “I know that I shouldn’t think that way about my employer. I mean, it’s really a bad idea. And he seemed like he was trying really hard to be nice after he told me I’m too weak and chubby.” She snorted at the memory, then yawned and stretched out her toes.
“I guess tomorrow will show me what he’s really like.”

**

She was in the desert, like the deserts she’d driven through to get here. But there was no car this time, and the sand felt hot and gritty beneath her bare feet. She was wearing nothing but a loose white dress.

Cassandra kept walking, confused. The air around her seemed to quiver with heat. Her lips felt like they were cracking and splitting. Even licking them gave her no relief, only the taste of dust in her mouth.

But suddenly, there he was. His hair was falling into his face, and his eyes seemed liquid. He held out both hands to her, and Cassandra reached for him as well.

“You’re thirsty,” and like magic, he was holding a glass of water. Cassandra tilted her head back, and he poured the water into her mouth. It seemed to sparkle in the sunlight.

The water tasted sweet and silky as it slipped down her throat. No longer did she feel so desperately dehydrated. Cassandra smiled at him, and he cupped her face with his palm.

“Do you like to float?” he asked.

“Float?” she repeated, puzzled. He just smiled and shook his head.

“Let me show you.”

“Criss, I don’t think--.” She began. He hushed her with a finger against her lips. Wordlessly, he lifts his hands, and she begins to rise above the ground.

Cassandra snapped awake, sitting upright. The streets were just beginning to fill with people on their way to work. She rubbed her and looked down at Stanley.

“Well, that was four different kinds of weird.”

***

Criss sat at his desk, rubbing his temple with one hand as he sipped some coffee. He was exhausted to say the least. That dream had been simply too much.

He had been walking in the desert, barefoot. And there she had been, wearing a white dress and looking distressed. So of course he gave her a drink of water. This was more or less logical, if the small way that dreams are.

But then he had made her levitate, for reasons even he couldn’t understand. She seemed to enjoy it, though, and maybe that was a good thing. It was all Criss could do not to Google dream dictionaries and see what this all meant.

The door opened, and he sat up straight, ready to start the day.