[ March 20, 2004 ]

ANN

If I hadn't lived this, I would not believe it. I do not know that I expect you to believe it, Diary. But it is true. No matter how little sense it makes, no matter that I am no longer living inside a body that is my own.

That's what it is, Diary. Truly.

There seems no logical explanation.

I have tried to reconstruct what has happened. It's been a challenge and part of the reason is that in the beginning, I was hiding.

Typical of me, eh, Diary? Hiding, I mean. It's like it's some instinct or defense mechanism.

There were times that I honestly thought I was crazy. Still have those looking glass moments in which I just have to wonder if I'm not hallucinating.

The worst part is that I'm not the woman in whose body I am existing. I've tried to look at this as if I'm just through a portal but as I am now worried that this is not true, I find myself more and more feeling odd resentments toward this woman who used to own this body.

Soon, I will have to begin making decisions about what I do if this is permanent and I am stuck here in this other incarnation's body with no way back to mine. I don't know if I'll ever give up and admit I must stay here.

Here? Where's here?

Fuck if I know.

But it's not there. It's not Perve World.

And I swear to God, that's where I was heading. Not that I'd found the definitive answers yet, but I had come up with a reason I needed to go back ... shit. I swear, one day, I might even make sense to myself.

When Dino told me about this bitch goddess Dea banishing Uma ... how the Game had all been about Dea manipulating us for her amusement ... you just have no idea how I felt, Diary, because I had been calling him to tell him I was leaving. The Game had long since ceased to be fun for me; the heart of it had been ripped out months before when a secret I wasn't meant to know was given to me in a moment of anger and when another secret dropped plump into my lap courtesy of Dino and Stephen. But even though this horrible tragedy had befallen our world with Uma and her baby being taken away from Terry and the rest of us ... it just seemed I was still up to my old tricks of being selfish. I still left as planned, the day after Dino called me.

Damn, I know that's confusing. But do you know what's ironic? Things happened to me in that world ... my world, the one I came from originally ... a lot of my emotional reaction to things in PW were tempered by time. No, I didn't find all the answers I hoped to, but I found out that I might not have needed every answer.

In the midst of skepticism, I found faith.

Actually, I didn't remember that much about PW until very recently. When I left PW that last time, I slipped right into the 'me' of my world ... that changed person who was a stranger to me. Like Stephen thought, I had the ability to just sublimate the old me and let the new me take over. It wasn't long before I was choosing to live her life.

At first, it was like the other time -- I heard both voices. I remembered who I was but I also knew I was this other person as well. I had gone back planning to test this hypothesis of Stephen that I was like him and Jack ... a character within a novel who'd come to life when transported through a portal from the novel into PW.

So my plan was basically this: if what had happened to my character when Dino and I had made changes in my past meant the character's back story had been re-written or edited, then she should be a different person in essential ways, right? So what if I found that I could exert influence on the author and force her to write my character in a certain way? You know? Just fuck with the creator of my character a bit ... give her fits when she thought I wasn't cooperating. I read about that all the time, about authors saying the character took over and wouldn't cooperate. I've experienced that myself as someone who writes fiction from time to time.

What if I suddenly really found myself in charge? Not just of me, but of the person creating me? What a thought! And then I had had another one: what then?

What would it prove?

On the other hand, what if what I found instead was that I went back into a character so changed that I couldn't exert influence or ... or ... or found that life went on in that jumbly, hurly-burly way it has and there was no plot, no plan, no crisis, no conflict ... just life? Would that prove I was real?

What I found surprised me. This other woman ... this other version of myself ... she had a mind of her own. I began to believe that whatever my questions had been, they were simply irrelevant. And then I just let her take me over ... it was remarkably easy and very seductive.

Things were so different. Some were good.

Genny was alive.

Alive!

Is that not amazing?

Wait. Let me start slower. I spent a lot of the first couple of weeks I was there just going through all this stuff that could clue me in to all that was different in this new Ann. New old job ... still with the newspaper but her career choice had been to move into the editing ranks, something I would have gagged at. Living in Mid City in this bungalow that reminded me of California. Single and not desperate ... some nice times in between Cal and that day. Just had never really found the right man but she'd not shut herself away either. Reggie ... dammit. My cousin Reggie had been killed in a car crash that in my first run through this life had resulted in injuries he'd healed from. Those were the major things ... I spent a lot of time reading over stories she'd written for the paper so I'd not be a total dweeb. Work was really odd to me; I have never wanted to be an editor so I let the other Ann take over there. Whew.

It was in doing that that I saw the real attraction. When she was in charge and I wasn't fighting it, she just seemed to fit in. And I was absorbed by her thought processes. She began to seduce me. Eventually, I succumbed.

One of the last things I did before I slipped away completely into the new Ann was to call Genny. I wanted her back in my life because I felt like she was the key to whatever it was I was there to find out. I'd begun to forget, see, that I had a reason for being back there.

We had drifted apart ... like old college friends tend to do when they don't live near each other and they're both living busy lives. I caught up with her news; I caught her up with mine. Just hearing her voice ... oh, man. I'd missed her so badly. We both cried when I told her that she'd been the best friend I ever had.

Genny said she'd become this soccer mom, which cracked me up and frustrated her when I giggled at how she wanted to know why she never could figure out what to talk to the other moms about during play dates for the kids. Dino was doing pretty good; business was brisk; he was digging the management role as long as he got to go out and play every so often. Where has my life gone, she asked me; I don't recognize the woman I am anymore. I know what you mean, I had thought.

So why don't I come up and we can let him baby-sit while I take you out for some mayhem to remind you of the woman you used to be, I asked her.

I was looking in a mirror when she whined about her lot in life and the woman she was now. These fraternal twin emotions ... one from each woman I was: one crying because Genny was alive and her life had gone on in some normal fashion; the other wondering why we never recognize it when we've got it good.

And then this thought came to me and it was crystal-edged sharp: in my first past, Genny had saved me after she'd died. Somehow, something I'd done in changing my past had saved her life. That meant something. I just knew it did. Things like that ... no one could have foreseen it, right? Maybe she had been behind this all from the beginning ... or maybe this was a reward for her and Dino for their joint roles in having given me a different future.

Made the decision even before I made the reservations to fly up there. I was letting go of the old me. I had to make a choice to find out what was meant to be. I either did it all the way, jumped in with both feet and went straight at it, or I continued to live half a life. It was the only thing I could think to try to prove my existence.

By the time I got to Genny's a month later, I had ceased to exist. I was living.

But I had no memory of making that choice by then. I didn't remember PW anymore. All I knew was the new life I'd been leading. It was far from perfect; but I never questioned it as I had no other point of reference.

Oddest thing. It concerned Dino. They'd gotten married while I'd been with Cal, who'd not been interested in meeting up with Genny again as they'd never really liked each other. Well, but of course, that meant I never met face to face with Dino after he and Genny hooked up ... well, I mean I had met Dino ... hadn't I? Except ... was it the PW Dino or the real Dino here in my world? Besides I never knew his real name. I'd known him as Dino; Genny told me his name was Dean. By the time I met him again this time, he didn't remember me; I didn't remember I'd known another him so I figured it was a memory he blocked out. It had happened before he and Genny were involved, so it didn't really matter in the grand scheme of things. But I kept my mouth shut when we shook hands. It would have been so gauche to say, "hey, remember that incredible weekend with me in Houston?"

But a neatly ironic thing in this, eh? My Dino had been such a good friend that only because I'd asked him to, he'd taken a risk to go into my past and make a change in my old self's life. Seemed somehow incredibly fitting that as a result of what he'd made possible, he'd helped change things enough that in my real world, his alter ego was able to live a life with his Gen. My Dino would really like that, I know he would.

She called him Dean. He called her Gen. They were living in New York in this townhouse on Long Island. I stayed with them a week. My God, what a week. They made me feel like family. They made me remember what it felt like to belong. I was supposed to go home on Friday but then Gen said, stick around for the weekend, there's a friend of Dean's we want you to meet. He's flying in from their office in London to conference with Dean and you may never get another chance to meet him. He's a great guy and even if nothing happens, he knows how to treat a lady right.

They got me to stay over two extra days; they got him to come in early by two extra days. He came over for a cookout at their place on Saturday afternoon. It was as brutal a set up as that. Dean and Gen simply wanted us to meet; it was embarrassing.

Until I met him.

Something happened. I had no idea why it affected me like it did. Not then anyway. All I knew then was that ... who was this man who came walking in their house and took my breath away and made me know way down deep inside that I'd just met someone important to me and I'd better pay attention?

It was Terry.

A version of Terry, really. Like Dean was a version of Dino. Like I was a version of me. Only, of course, I didn't realize in that first moment that we were all versions of ourselves.

Neither of us felt anything but awkward at first ... we were neither of us the kind of people who dealt with blind dates set up by friends because it felt so pathetic. On the other hand, who but your friends know the kind of person who might be good for you to be with?

So at first we were polite. And then he started talking and I started talking ... and I was laughing with him about this and that ... and before I knew it, we just kinda forgot there were other people around. And then he said to me, do you really want to stay here all evening and listen to Dino rag on me about whether or not you're going to give me your phone number? And I said, no way you'd be getting my phone number but I might give you my email addy if you ask real nice.

We were standing out on the back deck while Dean and Gen were getting Andrea ready for bed. "So, love, what ... exactly ... would I have to do to get your phone number from you?" Terry said from around a cigarette he was puffing on. His mouth ... his fingers ... I lost my train of thought until he crooked an eyebrow at me.

Slow sip of wine as I looked away and then a smile up at the stars. "You'd have to convince me that you have a good reason to call me."

He gave me this chuckle and when I glanced over at him, he gave me the sexiest grin I'd ever seen on a man. "Why don't you let me take you out for a drink and we can negotiate the terms of the release of your number."

Gen had tossed me her house keys when I asked if she'd mind terribly if I skipped out on them for the evening.

"Guess you think I'm an easy mark," I said as he opened the door to his car for me.

"Never crossed my mind. Something tells me, pursuing you will be a challenge I'll enjoy the hell out of," he said.

That night, I had this dream. I fell asleep still feeling his lips kissing me after he'd walked me to the door and I still heard him telling me he had the strangest feeling we had been meant to meet ... and in the dream, the first thing I really remembered was saying that I'd been born wanting him. And all night long, I dreamt of disjointed memories of PW and of myself and of those people I'd left behind. When I woke in the morning, I remembered it all.

And I knew that I had to go back.

I've always been a selfish bitch. I've hidden that as well as I can, Diary, because it shames me most of all for people to know this blunt truth about me. I've probably fooled you into thinking that I'm someone you should care about in spite of my selfish ways. I'm not. I never have been. This is just further proof of that. Think about what I'd done ... left without any real thought that people who for some strange reason loved me just might need me in this horrible time for them all.

And think about my final message that Jack would find soon after I'd left. This dismissal of so much of what we were to each other by terming our pairing as being nothing so much as convenient. Convenient? For whom? What had happened between us had been real and vital and important. Sure, we were struggling hard against different expectations ... and, yes, we were a convenient pairing ... but that didn't invalidate that I loved him. I'd written that because I wanted him to not feel obligated to wait for me if I never came back. But somehow ... I just knew ... he loved me enough that the words would wound him even if he didn't believe them possible. How could I have taken the chance that I'd break the spirit of the one person in that world who loved me in a way that I always trusted in? I had always believed in Jack's love. It had never been convenient for either of us.

Besides, how dare that bitch Dea think she could get away with this? Take Uma from Terry? They might not have wanted me within a million miles of their perfect love and their miracle secret baby, but I still cared about their happiness and they were still my friends. I still had to live with myself.

Damn but guilt is a tough ass mistress, isn't she, Diary? I'd deserted them. All of them.

The second night I was home in New Orleans, I sat there in my house and got sloppy drunk. Cried a lot. Realized that if I was to ever live with myself again, then I had to go back and try to help my little family back there in whatever way I could. And once we could find Uma, then maybe we'd all split up and scurry down our portals like rats leaving a sinking ship. Maybe it was the way we'd end up. I can't imagine any of us wanted to be chess pieces for some goddess. I needed to make sure Jack knew that if he wanted to go to someplace safe, then he could come with me. I felt like I owed him that because he would have done the same for me in a heartbeat.

So the next day, I fired up my computer, logged on and opted to return to Perve World on the same day I'd left. Yeah. I'm such a coward. I couldn't stand the idea of anyone figuring out I'd left as I had.  I got to thinking about the Diary entries I'd left for Jack to find. Oh man. Just ... shit. I'm such a bitch.

But irony of ironies ... I've begun to wonder just who is manipulating us in our travels through the portals. Was it this Dea who has played a final trick on me? Was it her who stepped in and decided to send me to this other place?

Nothing ever happens in this crazy place without a hidden reason. I was meant to be in that portal ... at this vulnerable spot where I could have gone back or forth in time ... or back and forth between realities. What quirk of fate or bitch of fate sent me here to Terra Nova instead of to Perve World? I may never know for sure, but I have my suspicions.

I figure that, in light of what I still suspected about Perve World, someone somewhere decided to foil my plans. But if so, then that really is petty. But it also strikes some kind of rough balance. Instant karma, maybe?

What will I do if I'm stuck here in this place this other Terry says they call Terra Nova? It could be worse. I suppose I'll have to live this other woman's life. She has a good one, all things considered: a man who loves her, plenty of money, a good job, a nice home ... so what's the problem? None of that is mine. Not the man. Not the money. Not the job. Not the home.

This is her life.

The 'other Ann,' as I've come to think of her. Terry's Ann.

She must be living my life at this very moment. Bet she's sure the fuck disappointed in it. Wonder what she thinks of me, Diary?

But you know what? This time, I haven't had to fight to not sublimate myself to her. I don't actually hear her inside me. It's not like the other me ... I don't seem to have those residual memories competing with mine. I wonder about this ... maybe that only happens with the original me?

[ March 13, 2004 ]

So ... how did this begin ... this trip through the looking glass?

Diary, the best I can make sense is this ... I was in the portal, going from my world to Perve World. That I remember clearly. I also remember clearly the weeks and months leading to that moment.

Next thing I knew, I was flat on my back and blinking to awareness.

Instead of the blond hair and sweet expression I instantly expected to be seeing, I saw short, dark hair and worried eyes and no smile. Actually? There was this little grimace on his handsome if slightly scruffy face.

I was dreaming.

Obviously.

Because how else could I be finding myself laying on a couch with Terry kneeling by the edge ... his fingers sweeping stray hairs from my face?

Dreaming.

It made sense that I'd dream of him in this time -- I was worried for him. And if I was dreaming, Diary, what would I have felt free to say to this man?

"I'm so sorry for what's happened. And you may think this is so inappropriate for me to say in light of everything, but I've missed you. Missed touching you. Missed making love with you. Missed feeling special to you. Let me comfort you, Terry."

God. The look on his face. Like I'd just inflicted a mortal wound to his soul. Like he was going to cry. I wondered why in my dream he would feel that way. Why in my dream could he not cooperate and at least here be happy to see me? Would I never know peace with him? Even in a dream?

I tugged on his hand. "Let's start this dream over, okay? I want to forget reality and just dream freely. I should have said ... kiss me, Terry. Make love to me. This is the only place left for us ... inside my dreams."

He ran his fingers down my cheek and I couldn't get over how nice this dream felt. Just to dream of him again ... it had been so very long since I'd given myself permission to let him enter my dreams with me. I reached to touch him ... jaw line shadowed, prickly stubble, delicious look ... sensations flooded me. Good dream. My mind flickered with awareness. I noted the light. Laying on smooth fabric covered in cream and mauve and peach scallops. I recognized the fabric but didn't place it. I wondered why my dream was set in someplace that seemed familiar but off.

My fingers touched his lips; my mouth opened in hunger to taste his kiss, feel his tongue. I tried to rise from where I was but he murmured something to me and then next thing I knew, he buried his face in my neck. I smelled him ... these odd nuances that seemed both familiar and not ... wrong aftershave but a basic Terry smell that seemed close enough to my memory. Just ... off. Not quite right, I suppose.

Odd dream, that. Giving me details but then robbing them of familiarity when they are different than they should be. I began to catalogue the differences so I could remember them when I woke. I had this instant feeling that this dream would mean many things to me once I analyzed its details.

"I'm so sorry for what I've done, Annie. So sorry. I hurt you and ..." He muttered these words into my hair. It was like his soul was leaking out in his voice. Deep voice. Choked with something I'd never heard from him before. Regret that hurt him so badly.

"Shh. No. Oh, amant, none of that. None of it was ever really your fault. You're not responsible if I'm not worthy of you."

His lips touched my neck. I asked him to kiss me. Tears traced down his face. I wondered why I dreamed that. He'd never cried before in any dream I ever had. His hands tried to dry them. I helped him. When I went to sit up, to pull him into me so I could comfort him, I felt the room shift and sway.

I kind of fell into his arms. I mumbled an apology for my clumsiness. He gripped me to him as he knelt there on the floor by the couch. I worried that I'd wake up too soon. "Amant? Make love to me now. I just don't know how much time we have together ..."

He shook his head against me. "Let me explain ..."

This was when I took control of the dream. No ... I take that back ... this was when I moved the dream along. Later, try as I might, the dream took over and led me places I didn't expect.

I was trapped there ... between his body and the couch's front edge. A good, snug place to be. I sat up, straddled his thighs as he sat back on his haunches ... undid the buttons to his shirt as my mouth captured his ... obscene kisses to cover the way he kept trying to say something. Willed him to give me this fantasy of us together in a way we hadn't been in far too long.

Do you remember what it's like to dream, Diary?

Really dream?

When you can simply release all inhibitions and expectations ... let go completely and let your mind wander around some internal landscape that is at once foreign and familiar?

He touched me and a memory's fuse was lit. Like I could feel his fingerprints in another life. Like we were together in the same dream and for a moment, I wished wherever he was just then, that he was also dreaming because maybe he might have felt some nuance of comfort.

His shirt was gone ... skin before me as a blank canvas to write this dream upon. Lips as brushes. Fingers as paint.

Unfamiliar scent; a warmth I'd know anywhere.

Eyes that knew me. A light shining that glinted from out of the past.

He revealed my body to us both.

I will never in my life forget that moment, Diary. 

His hands held my face and I unbuttoned my own shirt. He looked down at me as his fingers spread my shirt open.

It all stopped making sense. Maybe it never had.

"Jesus." His eyes clouded over and his hands dropped from my face. He let out this long, primal moan and his fingers touched lightly on my skin, drawing my eyes down to see what he was seeing. "Oh, Annie. What did you ... I'll fucking kill him for this."

Bruises. Mottled on my skin. I bruise so easily but this seemed pretty excessive. Bite marks still red and purplish-yellow margins on one breast. Scratches healing in pinkened hues.

"Why would I dream this?" I asked him. Our eyes met for a fraction of a second and then he was closing his eyes, his jaw working. Tight anger and sharp pain ... I'd read them both in his eyes in that instant. "Why do I have bruises like this?"

His forehead dropped against mine. Whispering to me, shushing me ... "Sweet baby ..." His hands smoothing over my face and hair.

"Stop it," I whispered back, shaken hard at these images within this dream. "Do not call me that. That's what you call Uma."

Sitting up from me and holding my face firmly in his palms. "No. Annie, I would never ..."

"You call her sweet baby girl. That's not what you call me. I wouldn't ever dream that. So stop it."

We looked at each other. Neither wanting so much as to understand where this was heading. But then I felt his hands move up then down my spine. Hoarse whisper from him that drew me in for more as he murmured words that held meanings within meanings for me.

"Let me love you ... you know I love you ... Annie, I swear I will never let anything ... I love you, Annie. Let me show you how much ... Please, love."

And as he muttered to me, his body was suddenly involved. As if some panic inside this dream was giving me bruises on my skin and bruising his soul. His intensity matched my confusion ... I let him overwhelm me. I gave in to my own desires and locked out this disturbing sequence of visual and aural images.

"Call me amante," I suddenly whispered against his ear as he gripped into my hips and ground against me so I could feel him hard and wanting me. "Say it for me. My name."

"Amante ... baby ..." he whispered all husky-voiced and rough-edged need.

He was lifting me up on the couch ... his fingers resolutely pushing down the loose sweatpants over my hips as he muttered the name he'd always had for me ... over and over ... like this chant that would keep us safe. I struggled out of the legs of the floppy sweats and then dove in over him even as he was kneeling up to move his jeans down his hips. Our bodies just knew the way with each other. We kissed, we sucked, we panted ... His fingers rudely parted me as the kiss between us leapt between the edge of passion and the rim of lust. I gasped to feel him slip inside me. The words he whispered to me as if in a spell because they confused me so.

Wet dream. So wet. So real. So intense. So Terry.

Somehow we ended up rolling on the ground. I whimpered at the soreness of the bruises and wondered in this flickering half-awareness at the sensation of pain. But the feeling of fullness ... the way it felt to have him inside me ... moving hard ... slowing the rhythm when I cried out ... pulling my knees up ... going too deep ... I felt him so huge inside me ... his mouth sucking on my breast ... his tongue gliding up my neck ... his hands never knowing anyplace they didn't want to roam ... until fingers came soft over my clit and his eyes were watching me come ... his fevered, incoherent words encouraging me to abandon myself into the dream of pleasure.

I do have strong memories of this coming. I swear I do. But after ... I know we held each other after he came into me. I know I have this stop-start time thing that happened and the next flickering moment was feeling him lift me and carry me into a bedroom.

The dream left me ... my sleep stage left the dream cycle and went into the dark portion of no memory until another dream began.

In this dream, I thought I woke to feel surrounded by a man. My face was in his chest. I could feel his heart beating strong but it seemed an unfamiliar cadence. His breath ruffled my hair. His hand held mine; fingers entwined. I looked at his hand. It swallowed mine. I pulled my hand free and wrestled with what it meant that there was a gold band on the ring finger of my left hand. Why would I, of all women, dream such a thing? Me, the one woman who was such a dismal failure at the concept of marriage and who most hated the idea for myself?

It was like the bruises I'd dreamed. It seemed to me that the bruises and the ring were linked inexorably to a past I kept hoping would loose me from its grip. Why would such disturbing images sneak into dreams that seemed so nice otherwise?

Closing my eyes, I felt myself drift in that hazy place between wakefulness and dream. Then I realized what had been trying to pull me out of the dream and I shifted mentally until I cleared the fog that seemed to envelop my mind ... and when my bladder buzzed an urgent plea to me, I knew I was now fully awake.

But a real man was holding me in the same way a man in my just-ended dream had been. I tried to slip out of his hold. But as I shifted, his arm around my waist gripped me in place and refused to release me.

"Jack, I have to pee," I whined as I pushed on his chest. "Let me go for a sec. C'mon, Jack."

"What? What'd you call me?"

My head shot up at the voice. "Jack?"

Our eyes met and I think I jumped about a mile out of the bed.

"What the fuck are you doing here?" I growled out to him. Suddenly I was hit with this blinding headache and wave of nausea. I shoved my hands over my head to hold my brains in ... it felt like my skull was about to split in two and spill them out at my feet. I could barely concentrate. "Where's Jack?"

His mouth opened ... then shut ... his jaw worked ... his eyes narrowed.

I sunk back next to him on the mattress. "Am I still dreaming? This has been a long one. I think I'm ready to wake up now. This headache really sucks."

His hand wrapped around my wrist. "Annie? Focus on me, love. Let me see your eyes."

I don't know when it really dawned on me.

That this wasn't a dream.

That I was awake.

That rather than being in my home, safe with Jack ... where I should have been ... that I was in an unfamiliar familiar place with a man I didn't know but knew.

"There's no way you're here with me. Something is so wrong ... Where am I?" I whispered to him and felt myself tremble.

He rose up to gather me to him. "You're safe, Annie. You're with me. Everything will be okay now."

But it wasn't. Not at all. Nothing was okay.

Diary, I was through the looking glass. And it hadn't even begun to dawn on me that I was in a lot of trouble.