I Dreamed of a Stranger Who Took Me to the Sea

Last night I had a dream so vivid that when I woke up, it took me quite a while to convince myself it had never really happened. I can still feel the warmth of that skin on my fingertips, and that’s why I need to tell it before it slips away from me, the way almost all dreams do.

I dreamed I went down to a coastal city, one of those that smell of salt and summer flowers at the same time. I had traveled alone to see a singer I’d liked for years, a woman with a deep voice named Marina Vela. I don’t remember how I got there or with whom, only that I was inside the venue and the air felt heavy with so many people.

The standing area was packed. You could hardly take a step without brushing against someone, and the murmur of thousands of voices mingled with the screech of the sound checks. It smelled of sweat, warm beer, and cheap perfume, that strange mix that only exists at summer concerts.

When Marina came out onstage, the whole place seemed to light up. People shouted her name, sang every verse before she did, raised their arms as if they wanted to touch something too far away. And I, right in the middle of all that, suddenly felt like I didn’t know what I was doing there.

It wasn’t the music. It wasn’t the heat. It was something else, a kind of tug in my chest, as if someone had put an invisible leash on me and was starting to pull. Without thinking, I began scanning faces. One by one. I was looking for someone, even though I didn’t know who.

One song went by, then another. I kept searching the crowd with my eyes, and I was starting to feel ridiculous, when all of a sudden I saw her.

It was like a flash. She was a few meters away from me, turned slightly toward the stage, with the light from the spotlights falling across her from the side. Her hair was tied up in a loose bun, with dark strands escaping, and she wore a thin T-shirt clinging to her body from the heat. She wasn’t a perfect magazine woman. She was something better: she was real, and at the same time she seemed to have come out of a place that doesn’t exist.

Our eyes met, and I swear the noise of the concert dropped all at once, as if someone had turned a dial. She held my gaze a second longer than a stranger should, and then she smiled. A slow smile, the kind that begins in the eyes and only then reaches the mouth.

I started making my way through the crowd. I said sorry at every step, dodged elbows and plastic cups, and she never looked away. The closer I got, the wider her smile became, as if she had spent the whole night waiting for exactly that.

When I reached her, I didn’t say anything. I didn’t know what to say. She didn’t speak either. She simply reached out and took my hand, and the feel of her hot palm against mine shot all the way up my arm like an electric current.

—Shall we go? —she said, leaning toward my ear so I could hear her over the music.

Her breath against my neck was answer enough. I nodded.

The concert stopped making sense. Hand in hand, we left the venue for the cool night air. Behind us, Marina’s voice kept carrying, farther and farther away, until it became a dull echo behind the walls.

We walked aimlessly through streets that smelled of the sea. The night air was a caress after the furnace we had left behind. We passed planters full of white flowers, the kind that only open at night and perfume whole streets, and she took a deep breath every time we passed one.

—I don’t know your name —I said at last.

—Tonight that’s not necessary —she replied, squeezing my hand a little tighter.

I didn’t insist. She was right. There was something in that shared silence that made every word feel unnecessary. We walked pressed close together, her shoulder brushing mine, her hip bumping softly against mine with each step, and every touch was a promise.

We reached a small park near the harbor, where the lights of the boats could be seen reflected in the black water. There was a bench under a half-broken streetlamp that kept flickering. We sat down, and she curled up against me without asking, as if we’d been doing it for years.

The sea breeze cooled the heavy summer air. I felt her breathing near me, the rise and fall of her chest against my side. I turned my head, and she was already looking at me with that half-smile that never left her face.

Then I kissed her.

It was a kiss that began gently, almost shyly, just a light brushing of lips. But it lasted only a moment that way. Her lips parted, her tongue sought mine, and suddenly we were kissing as if we wanted to make up for all the time we had never known each other. She grabbed the back of my neck to pull me closer. I held her face with both hands, and I felt her tremble slightly.

Our hands left each other’s faces and began to explore. I caressed her arms, her shoulders, her neck. She slid her palms over my chest, down to my waist, and back up again, unhurried, as if she were memorizing every part of me. The park was empty, the lights far away, and there was no one else in the world but the two of us.

—No one can see us here —she murmured against my mouth.

And she was right. There was only the sea, the half-broken streetlamp, and the hum of insects in the bushes.

My arousal was already impossible to hide. I slid my hand down to her thigh, up beneath the hem of the thin skirt she was wearing, and felt the heat of her skin growing stronger the closer I got. When I touched her through her underwear, she parted her legs a little and let out a broken sigh against my neck. She was wet, and feeling that wetness beneath my fingers took away the last shred of my reason.

—Don’t stop —she whispered.

I didn’t stop. I moved the fabric aside and stroked her slowly, listening to her breathing break into shorter and shorter gasps. She tipped her head back, eyes closed, biting her lip so she wouldn’t make too much noise. Every time my fingers brushed her in just the right place, her hips moved on their own, seeking me out.

There was no more preamble. The urgency was too much for both of us. I unfastened myself and pulled my clothes down just enough, and she lifted her skirt and straddled my legs, looking me in the eyes the whole time. I felt her weight, her heat, and then I felt her lowering herself slowly, enveloping me, and we both held our breath at the exact same second.

She began to move slowly, setting a gentle rhythm that drove me crazy. She grabbed me by the head and pulled me toward her chest, and I kissed the skin the T-shirt left exposed, feeling her heart hammer wildly beneath my lips. She smelled of salt, night flowers, and something only hers that I wouldn’t know how to describe.

The streetlamp kept flickering over us, turning us on and off as if the whole world were deciding whether to let us be seen or keep us hidden. Her thighs tightened around my hips, her nails dug into my shoulders, and the bench creaked with every movement without either of us caring.

The complicity of that moment was unlike anything I had ever felt before. It wasn’t just desire, though desire filled everything. It was a strange feeling of recognition, as if I had known her all my life and only then, in a dream, had finally found her.

The rhythm began to speed up on its own. Her sighs turned into moans she tried to stifle against my neck, and I could no longer hold back. I held her tight, pressing her against me, and felt her whole body tense and start to tremble.

—Look at me —I told her.

And she looked at me, just as the two of us came at the same time, holding each other, not letting go, swallowing the cry into each other’s mouths. It was the most intense orgasm I remember ever feeling, inside a dream or out of one.

We stayed still, still joined, catching our breath. She rested her forehead against mine and smiled, that same slow smile from the beginning. There were no words. None were needed. Everything had been said.

***

And then, as always happens in the best moments, I felt the image beginning to come apart at the edges. The sea grew darker, the streetlamp stopped flickering, the heat of her body suddenly went cold.

I reached out to hold on to her, but there was nothing left to hold.

I opened my eyes in my bed, my heart still racing and the sheets in disarray, searching the dimness for a face that had never existed. I lay there for a long time staring at the ceiling, trying to memorize every detail before it vanished: the smile, the smell of night flowers, the weight of her body on mine.

I don’t know who she was. I don’t know whether she ever existed in some corner of my mind or whether I invented her whole that night. I only know that I keep looking for her among people’s faces, just in case, just in case dreams sometimes get tired of being only dreams and decide to come down and walk among us.