When Juliet imagined Seth’s room, she pictured an overhead light to turn on. Instead, a disco ball, hanging from the center of the high ceiling, began to spin and fragments of light began dancing across the walls.

What was this place?

Juliet could not believe what she saw. There were no windows and there were no other electric lights to turn on, only the disco ball offering its meager light. Yet, it didn’t seem meager to her eyes. It seemed magical. There were tiny mirrors in the shape of stars secured to the ceiling, and when the tiny streams of light reflected on them, Juliet suddenly felt like she had entered an artificial heaven. This was where Seth lived.

It was strange. Stranger than any place she had ever been before, and yet so like a dream she wished she’d had the imagination to bring to life.

There was a circular tub in one corner of the room. It was full of water. Against one wall, there was a small gilded table with a bowl of pomegranates on it and a myriad of candles. Some of them were burnt very low.  

There was a wardrobe and Juliet reluctantly opened it, expecting to find only clothes, but it wasn’t full of Seth’s jeans. Instead, there was nothing in it but towels.  

Juliet smiled. She should have guessed, but then again, she’d never had a hot tub in her room, and apparently, Seth used his all the time.

There was no coffin. Instead, there was a big bed in a beautiful metal frame. She liked the bedposts and the intricate ironwork. The mattress was covered in black covers and pillows. Juliet realized that that was what allowed the ornate bed frame to be in a man’s room, it was completely under-dressed.

The other corner of the room was occupied by a small desk. There was a laptop and when Juliet jiggled the mouse the monitor flickered on. No password was needed and so she had immediate access to his files. There was an open window on the desktop. It didn’t look like much until she expanded the view. It was a poem.

Juliet sat down on his swiveling office stool and began to read. There was no title. Without preface, Seth plunged her into a world she didn’t know existed.

Midnight waves wake my senses - Confused

The water burns me to my eyes - Suffused

The dreams haunt my mind - Disintegration

I can’t battle my dreams - Formulation

The First Dream

I’m young while she’s beautiful - Bemused

Untouchable and irrevocably touched - Defused

The pool of blood I laid in at road’s end - Surprised

Death’s white fingers like love - Realized

The Second Dream

I’m angry while she’s patient - Placate

Provoked by her lover to knife’s point - Aggravate

Brown eyes triggered bloody red - Amused

Lose my body in the violent fray - Refused

The Third Dream

Like an injured monster lost in water - Rescue

Like a broken man waiting by the window - Withdrew

Still feigning while dreaming - Conventionalize

The morn will be bright after the hardest night - Cruel Lies

Juliet felt bewildered as she read the words. They triggered a storm of conflicting thoughts that came down on her so suddenly she couldn’t organize them.  

Seth dreamed.  

She would have passed his dreams off as therapeutic poetry to ease his heavy burdens, except the third line in the second verse struck an unusual chord with her. It read, ‘The pool of blood I laid in at road’s end.’ Juliet had had that dream, too. The first time he kissed her, she remembered having a vision of his body on the cusp of death. She drank his blood, like saltwater in a storm, but hot like his skin had been, and immeasurably precious like the silver lining of dark clouds. It had been her first dream, also. Did they dream of the same things at the same time? He never mentioned anything before.

Her mind swam. What had her second dream been about? She had been waiting in a room with a goblet of her own blood on a table beside her. Rereading Seth’s second dream, she tried to decipher whether they lined up.  

She couldn’t tell. He described the woman as patient. Maybe it coincided.

Her third dream had been the night before. She remembered being chased through the hallway full of shadows, but for her, there had been light at the end and Seth waiting for her. There had been a happy ending. Why was there a happy ending for her and not for Seth?

She frowned.  

How much longer was Chas going to keep her locked up? When would Seth come home?

For the first time, Juliet wondered what he would say when he found her in his room. There was no question about it. She was going to be in very deep trouble. Well, she would only make it worse if she meddled around with his computer needlessly, so she returned the window to its original size and slid away from his desk.

She got up and at first, she didn’t know what to do with herself. She stretched and threw herself across his bed. She opened her eyes when her head hit the pillow and she saw what Seth saw on his ceiling before he slept. No wonder there was no canopy on his bed. Why would you want to block the twinkling stars?

So, she thought as she turned on her side and pulled the pillow close, this is where Seth does his dreaming.

Juliet didn’t dream when she slept. It was one of those things that nagged at her conscience. Shouldn’t she? Everyone she knew dreamed, but she merely blacked out and woke up several hours later. Her experiences with Seth had been her first chances to dream. Now that she thought about her visions, she felt like, somehow, they made her more like other people. Maybe, just maybe, she wasn’t a broken person. She closed her eyes and pretended she was whole. Too soon, she found herself scratching her knee and then her ear in irritation. Her mind never accepted these attitude adjustments no matter how many times she tried them. Her parents never encouraged her to look back. They wanted to keep her in the present. They wanted to keep her safe. Yet, she was always left to question what happened to make her this way.

Just then, there was a rattling at the door and the whole room brightened at Seth’s entrance. At first, the sunlight from the living room was so bright that she couldn’t see what he was doing, but when she squinted, she caught the end of it. He had pulled a key from the lock and threw it into the living room.  

Then Juliet heard a sort of muffled scream outside the room. It was a woman’s voice.

Seth closed the door and then Juliet realized what he had done. He had locked the two of them inside without giving them a way to get out.

“What’s going on out there?” Juliet choked, suddenly gripped in terror. There had been no noise before, so she hadn’t worried about what Chas was doing out there. She was so stupid. She didn’t even worry about why it was soundproof.  

Seth didn’t answer and it was so dark she couldn’t see the expression on his face. Instead, he dropped his backpack on the floor and began taking off his shirt.  

“What are you doing?” she asked. Her voice had been half strangled before, so perhaps he hadn’t heard her.

He didn’t acknowledge her as he whipped his shirt over his head and threw it on top of his computer stool. Then he began undoing his belt and pants.

“Seth, wait! Can’t you see I’m in here?” she cried as she averted her eyes.

“Quiet down,” he mumbled. “You’re going to give me a headache. Besides, I’m not getting naked. Good grief.” Then she heard the slight tremor of water. 

She turned and saw Seth had gotten in the tub and completely submerged himself in the water. Juliet stared. He was under for an awfully long time. Eventually, he came out of the water and shook his hair like he didn’t care what got wet.