everything’s all right, everything is wonderful. Why do you say those mean things to me? Sending me away, getting me a cab. They’re just dreams, they’re nothing, they’re not real. The nipples, now those are real. She tapped them up and down into his sullen, half-open mouth. Come on, suck them. They’re like a balm for your lips.
He kissed her nipples and turned his head away.
Don’t turn away from me. But she didn’t get off him.
Are you Mystique? he asked. Can you be Mystique? So you could vanish.
Why do you want me to be her? So I can vanish? Dream on, she said. I’m not going anywhere. But that’s an excellent question. One not easily answered. Can I be Mystique? I guess first I’d want to know if there was any chance for a normal life if you stayed with me.
What if the answer is no? he said. And is that what you want, a normal life? What even was a normal life.
Isn’t that what everybody wants?
I don’t know, he said. The dreams were black sand in his eyes. Sometimes there was a glimpse of an ordinary life, a pink house, and inside the house there was a ship, and on the ship she lay dying.
I must admit, when I’m here with you, I don’t think a normal life is possible, Mia said. Because you make me feel extraordinary. But you have to talk to me and tell me what you’re afraid of. I can’t answer you until you do. What are you afraid of, Doctor Doom? That I’ll betray you? That we’re just a passing thing?
She could not even fathom the terror. All the stars fell from the sky into her heart. He couldn’t tell her. Sometimes there was a serene white house, and the house was on fire, and inside she lay under a burning beam and no matter how hard he tried, he could not pull her out.
I’m not naïve, she said. You think I don’t know your other nickname for yourself, Doctor Doom? It’s Death, isn’t it?
Yes, Mystique. It is.
Is that what you’re afraid of—that I’m doomed to die?
He didn’t answer her, as if he could.
Why? she said. Because you touched me? How can that be? You, with your softest mouth and your strongest hands. You who brings me nothing but ecstasy. It doesn’t make sense.
He wouldn’t tell her, no matter how much she kept soothing him with her nipples.
Do you want me to be Rogue instead? she said. So I can absorb your dreams and memories and know what you know without any additional words from you?
No, never, he said. I don’t want you to absorb them. I don’t want you to suffer. Haven’t you suffered enough? Resist me. I beg you. Be Mystique. Julian stared at her with profound sadness. Vanish from me. Like you vanish in my dreams. Go light up somebody else’s life, Mirabelle. Go break someone else’s heart.
I will never resist you, she said. I adore you. I’ve never felt happier in my whole stupid life than I feel with you. I’ve never felt closer to anyone than I do to you. I don’t know how you did that. Who are you?
Maybe I’m a phantom traveler, said Julian. Maybe we both are. Mystique and Doctor Doom together again, reunited for one last perilous escapade. He tried to joke, to smile, like she taught him.
Oh, Doctor Doom! Now I know how you did it. In one of our past adventures, in another life, you left a trace of yourself in me, so by this trace I could find you.
Maybe you left a trace of yourself in me. He swept up her body, twisting them both into a Mobius fever braid, his limbs around her. You’re ageless, he said. You’ve slowed time inside yourself. In the dreams I see you take many forms, just like Mystique. That’s how you defend your soul against marauders.
Marauders like you?
Julian admitted she didn’t defend herself entirely successfully against him.
Didn’t and don’t want to, she said. Tell me one thing from your visions. Come on, just one benign thing. There has to be something.
He thought about it. Sometimes I see us riding white horses through green fields, he said. The horses gallop. We’re both dressed the same, in top hats and velvet.
That’s weird, she said. I’ve never been on a horse in my life.
Me neither, said Julian. They scare the shit out of me.
What a pair you and I make. She exclaimed it like it was all fun