Sleepwalker (3 page)

She nodded. “One of the girls dated a friend of mine.”

“Lucky guy,” Richard commented.

“Girl, actually.”

He buried his face in his hands, smiling. There’d be no hiding the red rush in his cheeks when he pulled them away. “Oops,” he said. When he faced her again, he added an ironic grin to compliment his embarrassment. She returned the flirtatious gesture with two rows of fine pearly whites, the positive response catching him with pleasant surprise. Not only was this woman beautiful, but in these few minutes he could tell that she knew all the angles and attitudes of perfect gracefulness.

Richard hadn’t had much cause to smile in quite some time. Now he couldn’t wipe the moronic beam off his face. Failing to hide his enthusiasm, he said, “I didn’t even know they had bands here.”

Head bobbing gently to the music, she said, “Well…it’s more of a duet, I’d say. No bass, no drums, doesn’t make much of a band.”

Richard looked down at his hands, at once uncomfortable and tongue-tied. For him, it was very easy to dissect every word coming from a person’s mouth, and then create either a negative or positive interpretation. It all depended on how you looked at it, how much light you shed upon their words. Here, her statement could have been brusque; it might have been an attempt at humor. He couldn’t tell.

Only one way to find out.

He held out his right hand. “I’m Richard
Sparke
.”

She smiled, warmly accepting his handshake. “Pamela Bergin.”

“Are you here by yourself?”

Her brow arched, and she pinned him with a semi-serious look. She latched on to her near-empty coffee cup with both hands, a gesture of security. Richard noticed her defensive reflex, realizing that his question could have been interpreted as a possible invasion of privacy.

“I came to see my friends play,” she said.

That answered his question in a roundabout sort of way, satisfying him enough to move forward with the conversation. “I just wanted to make sure I didn’t get in any kind of trouble if I offered to buy you another coffee.”

Her smile returned, albeit thinner and slightly less welcoming than before. She loosened the bond with her coffee cup, perhaps a bit more comfortable. “Thanks. But I’ll be up all night.”

“Decaf then?”

She hesitated as if analyzing the solicitation. If she agreed, then it would be a commitment towards conversation for as long as it took her to finish the coffee. She nodded. “Sure. Thanks, Richard.” The sound of her voice saying his name sent shivers down his spine. He scooted up to the counter. Minutes later, he returned with two cups of decaf and placed them on the table.

“Thanks.” She gently blew upon the steamy surface. “Are you a student?”

“Do I look that young?”

“You don’t have to be young to take college courses.” She ran her hand palm-down across the table, tapped the open textbook in front of him. “While you were getting the coffees I noticed you were reading a chapter on ‘The Psychology of Sleep Disorders’.”

While at the counter Richard had promised himself not let any gush of enthusiasm creep into his voice, difficult as that might be given the level of attractiveness Pam possessed. It would more than likely ruin the air of confidence he’d hoped to manifest for a first-impression. Now that she directed the conversation toward the one thing he knew so much about, sleep disorders, it would be difficult not to appear overly impassioned.

Take a deep breath, Richard. Just like Dr Delaney instructed you to do during those moments of distress. A long slow deep breath...

“I’m not the best sleeper in the world,” he confessed, leaning back. His right elbow accidentally nudged the woman seated behind him. He received a slight twist of the head in retort, and returned a half-hearted apology in response.

Pam cocked her head to one side and offered an apologetic grin. “I can relate, Richard. I haven’t had a good night’s sleep in over a year.”

“Insomnia?”

She nodded. “Been to a few doctors for it . They can’t seem to help me.”

“Really? That bad, huh?”

“Unfortunately.”

“Did they prescribe any sleep aids? What about
Ambien
? I heard it works wonders.”

She grinned, nodded. “Oh, I’m all too familiar with
Ambien
. But my problem isn’t falling asleep. It’s
staying
asleep. I wake up after an hour or so, and on bad nights I’ll be up until the morning.”

“Takes a real toll on you, huh?”

“Especially after taking a pill,” she said, sipping her coffee. Richard found something comforting in the way she performed the mundane action. The sound of her lips, gently sucking in, was like the gentle swish of ocean waves on a sandy beach. His conscience reminded him of something Dr Delaney had said once, the psychiatrist sitting back in his leather
highback
, double chin pressed against his collar, voice deep and resonating:
inclinations like these are driven by deep-down sexual desires, Richard
. Jesus. Did it really matter what Delaney thought anyway? As long as Pam was willing to talk, then he would go ahead and accept any positive intuitions with open arms. Sexual or simply ebullient. Didn’t matter, as long as it felt good.

She sighed breathily, and he smelled the coffee on her breath. Warm and tasteful, no doubt. “I’m sure you understand all too well.”

“Actually, insomnia’s not my problem. I’m a pretty heavy sleeper.”

She gazed oddly at him, eyes wide and brows raised with speculation, as if she had a bit of trouble understanding his insinuation. Apparently Pam hadn’t realized that insomnia wasn’t the only sleep-related affliction people suffered from. “I thought you said you weren’t the greatest sleeper.”

“Well, I said that I’m not a very
good
sleeper.”

“So what’s the difference?”

He blew out a deep nervous breath. Discussing the problem had always made him feel a bit uncomfortable, whether it was here and now with Pam, or with Doctor Delaney where moments of discomfort and duress were commonplace. Where snippets of an unpleasant dream would come back to haunt him and make him realize that some things were better off left in the
locked
rooms of his mind where they couldn’t hurt him or anyone else. Where--following the sessions and the tests and the treatments that never seemed to work very well--he’d begun to believe that no one out there would ever understand or make sense of what he was going through, even Dr. Delaney himself. Yes, perhaps some things
were
better off left unsaid.

Group therapy had been a suggested alternative on the part of the psychiatrist, but Richard couldn’t accept placing himself amongst those others whom he generally classified as
mentally delicate
, regardless if they suffered from comparably disabling symptoms. Richard
Sparke
, only thirty-four years of age, felt strong, confident, smart. Not like those meek-minded individuals seeking counseling in group therapy. His problem,
 
he was convinced, had been prompted by
outside forces
. Not from a frenzied subconscious, as the doctor had led him to believe.

His words came out slowly and stiffly, a safeguard against divulging any more details of his ‘illness’ than he really wanted to. “My problem isn’t sleeping...I can’t believe I’m telling you this. I don’t even know you...”

Pamela placed a gentle hand on his, a gesture both friendly and sincere. Ripples of pleasure lanced down his back. “No, please. Go ahead. I’m very interested. Besides, if you’re willing to lend me an ear after you’re through, I’d be more than happy to get into how
raggy
I am on bad-sleep nights.”

They both laughed. The mood between them lightened some, and he felt the sudden urge to tell Pamela everything about his nocturnal distress.

Almost everything.

The folk duet started strumming a gentle version of Pink Floyd’s
Wish You Were
Here.
“To make a long story short...I suffer from somnambulism." Richard, trying to sound smart.

"Somnambulism?"

“Sleepwalking.”

“Wow. That’s interesting.”

“Yeah, well it might be interesting to someone on the outside, but it’s not much fun for the person who actually experiences it. It’s really scary. You’ll never really know what you’ve gotten yourself into until you wake up the next morning.”

Pamela fingered her cup handle. “Can I ask a question?”

“Sure.”

“Have you ever woken up during a sleepwalk episode?”

He smiled, nodded. The ardent look in her eyes and the intense tone of voice, not to mention her use of the word ‘episode’, fostered Richard’s trust for her and made him realize that she might even be sensibly fit to evaluate his problem on a more relative level, as opposed to Dr Delaney’s highly singular professional perspective. This was something he’d always craved, but never encountered. “I can’t honestly answer that. I always wake up in bed. Sometimes utterly exhausted because I might have been up and about for most of the night doing things.”

She pinned him with serious, unflinching eyes. Delicious blue eyes. She looked genuinely interested. And beautiful. “Interesting. What kind of things do you do?”

This was an area Richard decided not to explore. Not yet, anyway. “Menial things,” he lied. “Housecleaning...not very efficiently, I might add. Some other activities, ones that wouldn’t make much sense to the casual, awake observer. This morning, for instance, I found all the pillows from the house outside, piled up on the front lawn.”

“Nothing personal,” she joked, adding some light laughter, “but that’s kind of strange.”

If you were her boyfriend or husband, she’d probably have you committed. Isn’t that right, blue eyes?
“It’s getting better though,” he lied again. “I used to sleepwalk every night. Now it’s only an occasional event.”

“Do you know anything about insomnia?”

Richard felt his heart pounding with excitement. This woman named Pamela Bergin really seemed interested in what he, Richard
Sparke
, had to say. And now she was seeking his advice. He could take this conversation anywhere. All he had to do was lie. Again. “Sure. You want some of my expertise?”

She nodded. “Yes, I would like that very much.”

Here goes nothing...
“Over dinner?”

She smiled. Damn well too. “Sure.”

“Pam?”

“What, Richard?” She turned away, facing the wall. The sharp glow in her eyes that had insinuated fear now departed. He felt a twinge of relief at the reversion, but it had been short lived. When he rose from bed to approach her and she looked at him again, the panic shot back into her dilated pupils much like the shifting skin of an angry octopus--even brighter than before. Damn, something was definitely wrong with Pam.

“Is everything all right, Pam?” On the mornings following those nights when the blue light materialized in Richard’s dreams, an intuitive awareness flourished in him, one that lingered for an hour or sometimes longer until it eventually tapered off into the familiar lethargy that dulled his senses and mired his speech for the remainder of the day. Here in this immediate waking hour, he could see—perceive--the fear she felt. Could virtually
smell
it. And he could tell that the anxiety she suffered hadn’t been triggered by a night of lost sleep--which she might have endured regardless of their rift--or the discomfort of having to keep her promise and officially end their relationship, once and for all. No, her anxiety was caused by something altogether different. Something induced through circumstances he had no awareness of. Yet.

“Pamela,” he said, standing on weak, shaky legs. His heart pumped with nervous energy, more forcefully than it had last night when the two of them traded boisterous shouts and hot-tempered gestures.

“Tell me, is something wrong?” Probably the correct thing would have been to ask if she were
all right
, as opposed to
what’s wrong
? Inadvertently he’d gone ahead and done exactly what Dr Delaney told him time and time again not to do when trying to bring some cheer into his life, his relationship. He dwelled on the negative--asked her if her glass were half empty as opposed to half full. So as expected, her response was indifferent, and she went into a silently defensive posture, cowering away from him with her pretty face pressed against the doorjamb.

“Pam?” He took a step closer, then another, his bare feet creaking against the hardwood floors. “What’s the matter?” He placed a gentle hand on her shoulder.

And that’s when she hit him. With all her strength and some additional combative expertise that Richard had never known about in their four-month relationship, Pamela Bergin spun her body away from the wall, exposed a demoniac face, and swung a swift right hand around, clocking him squarely in the jaw.

Crunch
was the sound inside his skull. White hot pain. He staggered back, groaning from the sting inside his mouth, tasting blood. A piercing flash of light blinded him for a few alarming seconds, just long enough for Pam to capitalize and take a second jab at him. Her fist made contact on his forehead just above the right eyebrow. Speechless, he put his arms up over his face, just in time to deflect another full blow, taking a glancing strike on the wrists instead. He shook his arms, fought with her, trying to get his hands on her without actually fighting back--he didn’t want to hurt her, as crazy as that fleeting thought seemed at the moment, given her clear desire to injure him. His instincts told him that something unexplainable had taken hold of her. He’d seen it in her eyes. It was controlling her, creating a vehemence within her and forcing her to act it out on the man she presumably loved.