A half hour later, Barbara the hypnotherapist left, but only after giving me her card and telling me she wanted to interview me at length about my regression session.
I said nothing, just nodded, not wanting to remember the horrible scene.
"What really gets me is that the whole bit with me being run down and killed didn't bother me," I told my friends as we sat over a couple of bottles of wine. "But that man, that vampire . . . brrr. I'll never forget the look on his face as long as I live. It was like he was in hell. I've never seen such anguish before, and then he was just on her, biting her. Urgh. It was terrible."
"What did he look like?"
I thought, trying to separate the last images of him from the earlier ones. "Tall. Muscular. Dark hair. Green eyes. Squarish chin. Handsome, really. The kind of guy if you saw him in a mall, you'd do a double take."
"Sounds like my neighbor," Patsy said, getting to her feet.
"You have a handsome neighbor you've been keeping from us?" I asked her.
"Well, I don't see him very often. He works at night or something - I never see him during the day. But he's gorgeous, really gorgeous. He likes to swim in the nude."
"We're your oldest friends," Terri said. "You owe it to us to share gorgeous men who swim naked."
"How," I said, my mind slightly muddled because of the wine, "do you know he swims naked?"
Patsy hiccuped. "If you happen to be at the east side of my fence pruning the hedge, there's a bare spot where you can see into his backyard, and the pool."
"I wanna see," Terri said, tipping over.
"You have had way too mush wine, misshy," I said, pulling her upright. "But I agree. I want to see the naked gorgeous neighbor."
Patsy glanced at the clock. "Normally I don't see him until closer to midnight, but a little fresh air will do us good. Tallyho, ladies!"
"We're off to get a fox," Terri said, giggling as we clutched each other and staggered after Patsy, who carried a bottle of wine with her, pointing it toward the backyard.
It took a good ten minutes to get to the spot Patsy had mentioned, but only because we all had to troop back into the house, one by one, to use the facilities.
"Sucks having a tiny bladder," Terri said, wobbling slightly as she returned to where Patsy and I were lying on the grass, sharing the last bottle of wine. "C'mon, let's go find that neighbor."
There was no one in the pool.
"Dammit," I said, clutching a tree that stood next to the neighbor's house.
"Well, that's disappointing," Patsy said. "Maybe he'll be out later."
"Antimacassar," Terri said, taking a swig off the bottle.
"Huh?" I asked.
"I think she means anticlimactical," Patsy said with great precision.
"Ah. Gotcha. Well, hell. I'm all keyed up to see a gorgeous guy."
"I know!" Terri said, heading for the house. "Let'sh peek in the windows to see him."
"Ter!" Patsy said, her voice hushed as she ran after Terri. "That's illegal."
"No it isn't," she insisted. "He's your neighbor, right? That'sh not illegal to look in a neighbor's house. You ever hear of Neighborhood Watch? We do it all the time. It'sh good. C'mon. Let's peek."
"Somehow, that makes sense," I said, following the pair. "I think it's because I'm drunk."
By the time we found a window that wasn't curtained, and which looked in on what appeared to be a living room done in shades of cream and white, Patsy had to pee again, and was urging us to return to her house.
"What'sh the big deal?" Terri asked, having some difficulty navigating the one step that led up to the doors.