Waltz of Her Life

A noise suddenly startled Seth as he lifted up his head and glanced around at the banks and the forest. It was a loud, rhythmic sound that repeated over and over, sounding mysteriously to Linda like the words "In, out, in out." As the sound's volume increased, visual details of the water, of Seth's muscled arms holding her, diminished, fading from view.

"In, out, in out", continued, until the sound quality changed, becoming more clear.

Eventually they became the words "Linda, Linda."

She woke up, finding herself lying in the bed at the Dream Lab, with Geraldine calling out her name and gently nudging her on the shoulder. As the grogginess seeped away from her, she lifted up the sleep mask and saw Geraldine poised, with her clipboard and pen ready. "Oh my god," she said. "You won't believe what I just dreamt."

As Linda began to tell her about the dream, Geraldine perked up and said "Ooh! Sounds enticing." She scribbled crisply and efficiently on her clipboard paper.

Linda took extra care in describing the lagoon, since she'd never seen water like that.

Geraldine paused for a moment, tapping the top pencil edge against her lips.

She gazed upward, in a contemplative pose. "You know, there is actually water like that. It's in Florida. They have these round pools in the ground with crystal, still water. A spring feeds them. Except the water is cold, not bathtub warm like in your dream."

"And the craziest thing about this is," Linda went on, "this guy is coming to visit me this weekend."

Geraldine's eyes widened as she continued to write on the clipboard paper. "Well then, that's probably why you had a dream about him."

The dream made her even more anxious than she had been before. She and Seth were definitely headed in a certain direction and she was not ashamed to admit, she deeply wanted to go there. But it was wrong! She hardly knew him, had only seen him twice in her life. Just giving in to him that way would change her forever. And Seth was not the type of guy who would stay around. He would hop on his motorcycle to claim the next desperate, passion-ignited virgin. No, she had to be strong.

Arriving at that conviction had helped ease some of her fear. Possibly part of the dream had to do with how she wanted to try out the Glienke's pool but had felt shy about it. They'd never explicitly said she was welcome to take a dip whenever she wanted, but would probably allow her. After class the next morning, she shyly asked Jean "Am I allowed to use the pool?"