Succubus Interruptus

(A dream)

I'm in a strange part of town, unsure of how I got there, but I more or less know know the way home. I set out, with a vague inkling that getting there isn't going to be easy. I'm walking beside a busy highway - if I turn right at the next street, I can walk to a tram terminus and catch the tram home. It's still going to be a long trip.

For some reason, I walk past the turn but this isn't a problem; I can take the next right, walk one block then right again will bring me to the tram terminus. Or so I think. When I take the next right I find my way blocked by a kerbside pool-room. The pool tables don't just block the pavement, they're all the way across the street. There's far too little room to walk between them. All the pool players are big burly guys with tattoos and sleeveless denim or leather jackets.

Soon I find myself hemmed in between two of the pool tables one to my left the other to my right and two players - before me and behind me - both intent on taking their shots. Both of them want to shoot from right where I'm standing so we end up in a little jostling match. Neither seems willing to yield; not to let me pass nor to allow the other player to take his shot first. Finally I discover that what I thought was a pool cue pressing against my back is in fact, the back of a bar chair and the player blocking my way forward finishes his shot. I move on.

The street is no longer a street, the pavement no longer a pavement; instead I'm walking along a winding pathway through a covered arcade or conservatory. The path wanders through beds of reeds or something similar. Someone has left a lot of plastic grocery bags along the path. Each bag has a tuft of celery sticking out of the top. They cover the full width of the path for several yards, so it is impossible to get past them without trampling them. Everyone in front of me is trampling the bags so I see no reason not to do likewise.

Music is playing; the tempo di marcia from the last movement of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony. As I walk, I tap the point of my unbrella on the floor in time with the music. The effect would be much more pleasing if the heels of my carpet slippers didn't flap every time I take a step. The floor has several levels, connected by stairs and ramps.

I walk down a short flight of stairs onto a section of the floor with highly polished, elaborate parquetry. In front of me there's a woman dancing to the music; it's no longer Beethoven, the music has been changing continually as I walk. She's dancing along a line at right angles to my path; I have to get past her to get home. By the time I reach her she's singing a Noel Coward song I don't recognise, with words I can't make out, but nonetheless it must be Noel Coward because she's singing it with a prissy Noel Coward English accent. We collide.

I tell her I'm sorry and move on; ahead of me I can see a high glass window at the end of the arcade and through it, the front of a church. it's a tall building, with ornate multi-coloured brickwork. I think about taking a look inside the church when I get out of the arcade. The architecture looks interesting. I feel a touch on my left arm; the dancing woman is beside me. We leave the arcade together.

We talk; she wants to come back to my place but she wouldn't be able to stay much after midnight. For some reason she's acquired an American accent. I suggest we could go to her place instead. "You are a fast worker," she remarks.

For some reason, she wants to see my driver's licence before she'll take me back to her place. I tell her I don't have a driver's licence; will a passport do? It will. I take my passport out of my shoulder bag - it must have replaced the umbrella - and show it to her. Once she's satisfied that she knows my identity, we move on.

Before we can go to her place, she has to drop into work for a little while. She works in a hospital ward which we get to, in efficient dream fashion, by walking straight in off the street. My penis is uncomfortably engorged. I look down to check that it isn't poking out of the top of my trousers - it's reached a size well beyond its waking life dimensions, which are by no means inadequate but, instead, comfortably above average without being too freakish.

She has a few things to finish up before we move on to her place. She peaks to a colleague while I sit on an empty bed and try to think erection damping thoughts. I'm glad I'm not naked.

I wake up to discover that I'm lying on the couch, in a slightly overheated lounge-room. I'm glad that Zeppo Bakunin is over at his parents' place so that I'm alone in the house. I'm also a little relieved that the dream stopped where it did because I'm wearing my last clean pair of pants and there won't be time to get to the laundromat before that appointment I have tomorrow morning.