Falling Awake

He was already on the roller coaster and it was too late to get off. He could feel the anticipation and the promise of the rush.
    She was all Tango Dancer tonight, he thought. Her dark hair gleamed in the low, intimate lights. The sexy curves of her shoulders, outlined by the snug-fitting material of her black dress, were even more seductive in person than they had been in the photo on his refrigerator. He had to work hard not to just sit there and stare at her. He wanted to absorb every detail, from her fascinating eyes to the warmth of her voice and the subtle scent of her body.
    The rain had struck just as he pulled into the restaurant parking lot. He barely got the top up on the Maserati in time to protect the leather upholstery. Then he and Isabel made a mad dash for the shelter of the entrance.

    For some reason they both found the situation hilarious. They were still laughing, as if they shared some secret, cosmic joke, when they reached the hostess’s podium.
    The sense of intimacy was spellbinding. He wished he could take Isabel down onto the beach and make love to her in the sand with the wind and the waves crashing around them. Something in her eyes told him that she would have gone with him.
    It was as if one of his own extreme dreams had become real. Except that in his Level Five dreams he never had to make dinner-table conversation.
    “Did anyone at the Belvedere Center for Sleep Research ever figure out just what you and the old man were doing?” he asked after the waiter had delivered an appetizer of chilled shellfish.
    “No.” Isabel’s copper nails sparkled as she squeezed a wedge of lemon over the cold mussels, clams and oysters. “The rest of the staff just wrote off the Department of Dream Analysis as another example of Dr. Belvedere’s eccentric nature. Everyone knew he had some really strange theories, of course, but they pretended not to notice because he brought in the funding that paid their salaries.”
    He helped himself to one of the mussels. “Did they consider you eccentric, too?”
    She wrinkled her nose. “I think they viewed me more as the office mascot. No one took me seriously. As far as the staff was concerned, I was only there because Dr. Belvedere wanted a personal assistant to help him organize his private research. He owned the place so he got to do what he wanted.”

    “That attitude must have been hard to take at times.”
    “It could be annoying occasionally.” She picked up a tiny fork and pried one of the clams out of the shell. “But for the most part my position at the center was what you might call a dream job for me.”
    “How so?”
    “Thanks to Dr. Belvedere, I learned I wasn’t the only person in the world who experienced what he called Level Five dreams. It was—” she hesitated—“reassuring to know that there were others like me out there, somewhere.”
    “I know what you mean.”
    “In addition, I got to actually use my abilities. It was frustrating at times because, as I told you, I never got context or feedback, but it was also the most satisfying work I’ve ever done.”
    “Like I said, Lawson has found some other Level Five dreamers, but he still hasn’t turned up anyone else who can do what you do,” he said.
    Her eyes widened a little behind the lenses of her glasses. “How does he find extreme dreamers?”
    “He funds sleep research projects at various places around the country. The researchers and the subjects all think he’s doing neuroimaging studies. And he is, in his own devious fashion. But what he’s really looking for in the data are the brain wave patterns that indicate an ability to go into a Level Five dream.”
    “Has he discovered a lot of Fives?”
    “No, only a handful.”
    “What does he do when he finds one?”

    “Most of the people he has located have wound up working for him at Frey-Salter.”
    She gave him a strange, wistful smile. “I don’t want to go to work in Lawson’s agency, but I must admit, there is one aspect of the job he’s offering that does tempt me.”
    “What’s that?”
    “Being able to meet and talk to other people who are Level Fives.”
    It took him a beat to get the message. When he did, he was floored. “You’ve never even talked to another Level Five?”
    She popped another mussel out of its shell and put it between her lips. “You’re my first.”
    He stared at her, so suddenly and so violently aroused he was profoundly grateful for the low-hanging tablecloth. His