Soft come the dragons

out over the Atlantic. The moon was high. She was quite beautiful, flushed with its light.
    I walked over, forcing myself to be calm, and stood beside her . . .
    "I keep thinking of Dragonfly," she said, her eyes on the stars.
    I looked up into the black velvet and watched one lonely cloud drift toward the horizon, gray against the purity of the Stygian sky.
    "Why do people like the ugly?" she asked suddenly. "There is all that beauty, and they try to make it ugly. They like ugly movies and ugly books."
    "Perhaps, in reading about the worst parts of life, the darknesses, the grays, the dirt, the terrible things in reality seem more tame, more easily lived with,"
    Her lips were like cherries . . .
    "What do you think of my books—truthfully?" she asked, turning to face me.
    I was thrown off balance. "I—"
    "Truthfully."
    "You mean . . . the ugliness in them?"
    "Yes. Exactly." She turned back to the ocean. "I tried writing beautiful books about sex. I gave that up. It's the ugliness that sells." She shrugged those heavenly shoulders. "One must eat."
    I was overly aware of the tightness of her bodice.
    With the soft glow light melting over her face, I felt the urge to clutch at her, to hold on, to kiss. But I had to fight that! Kiss. No! And I began pacing the room, looking for some solid object to grasp.
    She turned and looked at me curiously for a moment. Then she crossed the room, placed a soft, dove hand upon my lips. "It's getting late," she said, suddenly withdrawing the slim hand with the red nails. "Starting tomorrow we tape all interviews." And she was gone in a whirlwind of efficiency that left me standing with my drink in my hand and my "goodbye" in my mouth like a lump of used lard. I went to bed to dream.
     
    I woke up needing comfort, a strange comfort I could find but one place.
    IT IS FOUR O'CLOCK IN THE MORNING, the metal headshrinker said.
    I know.
    RELAX AND TALK.
    What should I say? Tell me what it is that I should say to you.
    START WITH A DREAM IF YOU'VE HAD ONE.
    I always have one.
    THEN START.
    There are storm clouds in the sky, dark, thick, mysterious. There is no place where the sun shows. Below all this gray-ness, there is a hill, a large, rounded hill formed by nature into a grotesque, gnarled lump, a blemish upon the face of the earth. There are people . . .
    GO ON.
    There are people . . .
    . . . and there is a cross . . .
    FOCUS ON THE CROSS. WHAT DO YOU SEE?
    Me.
    YES?
    Nailed. Blood. White, festered wounds dribbling rusty blood around the edges of little holes, neat little holes like the cavities left when you rip the buttons from the faces of rag dolls. Rusty blood.
    WHO IS IN THE CROWD?
    Harry is weeping.
    WHO ELSE?
    I'm thirsty.
    THEY WILL GIVE YOU WATER SOON. NOW WHO ELSE IS IN THE CROWD?
    Morsfagen is casting dice for my cloak. And over there is a pregnant woman who . . .
    GO ON, PLEASE.
    I look at her belly . . . and . . . there ... is Child. He's weeping too. And I'm weeping. Child wants up where I am. He wants out of her womb and up there before it is too late . . .
    DO YOU SEE ANYONE ELSE?
    Oh, not Oh, my God, my Cod.
    WHAT IS IT?
    No! You'll spoil it/me! I cannot! Don't you see my station, my purpose? It must be my purpose! I have no other! Get away! No!
    WHAT IS IT!
    Melinda. Floating, naked. Floating toward the cross. Not Stay away! Stay away! My purpose!
    STOP IT.
    Help! Help me! Don't you touch me, not you. You're naked, naked, naked! Stop her!
    SNAP OUT OF IT! STOP DREAMING!
    I —
    QUIET. COMPOSE YOURSELF. I WILL INTERPRET YOUR DREAM. THOUGH I MUST SAY THAT THIS THROWS A NEW LIGHT ON YOUR PSYCHE.
    DO YOU SEE WHY YOU ARE THE ONE ON THE CROSS? NO NEED TO ANSWER. YOU SEE YOURSELF AS CHRIST—WHAT A NEW ANGLE!—MORE PRECISELY, AS THE SECOND COMING. THERE ARE PARALLELS, OF COURSE. YOUR VIRGIN BIRTH, FOR EXAMPLE. AND YOUR SUPERHUMAN POWERS. YOU WERE NOT ABLE TO SEE A PURPOSE TO YOUR LIFE, SO YOU CHOSE TO CAST YOURSELF IN THE ROLE OF A SAVIOR. IT SERVES A DOUBLE PURPOSE: FIRST, IT REINFORCES ALL YOUR CHRISTIAN MORES AND VALUES THAT YOU WERE TAUGHT AT AC FROM BIRTH; SECONDLY, IT GIVES PURPOSE AND MEANING NOT ONLY TO YOUR LIFE BUT TO THE WHOLE UNIVERSE WHICH SOMETIMES SEEMS CHAOTIC TO YOU-THE WARS AND ALL.
    I am thirsty.
    IN A MOMENT. YOU SEE MORSFAGEN CASTING DICE, FOR HE DESPISES AND ONLY USES YOU FOR HIS OWN BENEFIT. THE CLOAK SYMBOLIZES YOUR LIFE. THERE SEEMS TO BE A HINT OF THE FUTURE IN YOUR DREAM HERE, AND YOU SHOULD BEWARE THE MAN.
    Go on.
    YOU SEE CHILD AS A THREAT TO