“May I have the next dream with you, dear?
Just a dream between us two
Who’d think that someday, somewhere, in some way
I’d meet a dream like you”
– Malcolm Roberts
The main door to the building clanged shut behind Emma like a trap. She started up the stairs, her feet growing more reluctant with every step. As she reached her floor and passed the receptionist, her heart began to beat faster and her palms became sweaty. She had to brace herself to walk through the open plan section that belonged to the developers. They were grouped around the whiteboard for their morning stand-up, their backs to her. But just as she started to hope that she would make it through unnoticed, all but one of them turned around. The wolf-whistles were a thing of the past since her complaint to HR, but of course no one could complain if they looked at her. Which they did, running their gazes up and down her body just casually enough for it to fall short of obviously objectionable behaviour. She felt their eyes on her like hot coals, yet kept her head up bravely. It wasn’t until the final developer, Arnold, turned around that she ducked her head in confusion, her deliberately professional, confident stride disintegrating into a mortifying mouse-like scurry for the last few metres into her office. There, she could close the door and sink down into her chair, breathing a deep sigh of relief.
Emma didn’t understand how things had got so weird with Arnold. In the beginning, he had been a virtually anonymous member of the team. He sniggered sycophantically when the others made rude jokes about her appearance or barbed comments about the uselessness of women who couldn’t write a line of code and wasted their time ‘networking’. But he wasn’t one of her main tormentors. If required to talk to her for work, he was usually polite in a clumsy, gauche way. The rest of the time, she barely noticed him. Until the dreams started.
In the first one, she was a classic hapless heroine, clad in an impractical silk gown that clung tightly to her top half and swathed her bottom half in metres of fabric that hampered her every movement. Certainly rendering impossible any escape from the rowdy band of pirates chasing her. In conventional style, she was rescued by a rope-swinging buccaneer, who swept her off her feet to safety, bestowing a chaste kiss on her hand as she stammeringly thanked him for saving her life and virtue. It was then that she saw that her rescuer was Arnold. Waking up, she had been embarrassed at her unconscious producing such a chauvinist fantasy, and amused at the ludicrous twist that had thrown up such an unlikely hero. Logic clearly played no part in dreams. She would’ve quickly forgotten it – if the dreams hadn’t continued.
Scenarios and settings varied, but always she was submissive and helpless, while Arnold was overpoweringly masterful. The courtly handkissing made way for passionate kisses and embraces. Unpleasant as it was to wake from such intimacies with a person she wasn’t remotely attracted to, it was the other parts of the dreams that disturbed her more. Featuring only a few words at first, they grew to include whole conversations. In these, Arnold boasted of his prowess with women. His talents in programming. His high standing among his friends, who all looked up to him with a respect Emma knew that no one gave him in real life. But in the dreams, she simpered and agreed. Worse, she denigrated herself. “She could never understand such complex matters as algorithms and scripts. She was just a pretty face to keep the developers happy. She only had a job because she was a brownnose who toadied up to the managers by beavering away on the pointless, timewasting distractions they thought up, like user workshops and conference presentations. She was nothing. She couldn’t understand how Arnold had ever even noticed her, and she was so grateful to him for paying attention to her. She admired him deeply and would do anything for him, anything.”.
Sitting in the departmental morning meeting, ‘her’ words from the latest dream kept running through Emma’s mind. That wasn’t how she thought of herself! She played a key role in the organisation – or at least, she would if her ‘colleagues’ would cooperate – and she was bloody good at what she did. But underneath her vigorous assertions doubt crept in, like an icy draught whistling under the door.
She’d never had trouble with low esteem. She’d achieved top scores during her university degree. Moving into the tech world after graduation, she’d discovered an unexpected talent. The tech world was split into separate silos – users, researchers, designers, developers, legal experts, managers etc. – all of whom were often unwilling and frequently unable to communicate effectively with each other. Emma, on the other hand, had the gift of being able to talk to anyone, discover the essentials of what they did and what they needed, then translate this into terms that others understood. With her help, the penny finally dropped. Developers grasped what users really needed. Project managers comprehended why the work couldn’t be done in half the time. Users got enthusiastic about the potential of the technology while respecting its limitations. Acrimonious discussions, with each person convinced that the others were being deliberately obtuse, made way for respect for each other’s skills and harmonious problem-solving. In her first job, she gradually built a reputation for being the glue that held innovative projects together, the invisible force that made the difference between success and failure. She was soon eagerly sought after, getting subsequent positions via personal recommendations, and was proud of her achievements in each job she’d held.
Her current job had seemed equally promising at first. During her job interview, the director had emphasised that he saw her as a very valuable addition to the team. He was proud of his company, but felt that they were too much of an island. They needed closer connections with their users, to improve their products, and with the research community, to pick up on new trends earlier. ‘You’re a bridge’, he said. ‘You’ll link us up with the other islands to form a chain – and that’s when the magic will happen!’.
When she started, however, she quickly discovered that no one else shared the director’s philosophy. Least of all the developers. They had no desire whatsoever to demean themselves with contact with ‘moronic’ users or ‘ivory tower, head up their own arses’ academics. They had no need of a bridge, because they already had all the knowledge, talent and skills they required, and a supreme understanding of what needed to be done. Their island was all that mattered. She was just a management whim, a waste of time, space and money.
Emma had done her best to meet them halfway, respectfully consulting their expertise while patiently explaining the value of what she was doing. To no avail. They continued to denigrate, ignore or patronise her. Changes she had promised to the users were left undone, essential material for presentations wasn’t delivered, brainstorms with researchers were cancelled at the last minute. Leaving Emma having to apologise for what was not her fault and take another dent to her reputation. The director continued to promote his ‘island chain’ vision in meetings, but left the responsibility for its implementation entirely up to her, clearly reluctant to go head-to-head with his arrogant cash cows.
And now, clearly, their attitudes were seeping into her dreams. It hurt her to think that her subconscious capitulated to their opinions. It was humiliating, even more so than the notion that something deep down in her psyche seemed to be attracted to Arnold. Involuntarily, her eyes sought him out on the other side of the conference table. He wasn’t physically attractive to her, nor repulsive. In the dreams he appeared differently, beefed up in a male model way that was completely unlike her ideal of a handsome man. But looks had never been a big thing for her. What put her off Arnold most was his personality. His shy awkwardness could have been appealing if it had been a shell protecting a sweet, caring nature. But the way he fawned on the boss only to roll his eyes behind his back, the way he always agreed with Emma’s requests but never did what he promised, and the way he sucked up to the arrogant peacocks of the programming team made her suspect that a very disagreeable personality lurked behind that reticent façade.
As she scrutinised him, trying to work out what possible freak of her imagination could have selected him as her Romeo, he turned and caught her eye. She expected him to instantly look back down at the table, as he usually did when anyone made eye contact. Instead, he smiled at her knowingly, and kept staring until she was the one who dropped her gaze in embarrassed confusion. Now what had she done?! The last thing she needed was for the dreams to become some sort of self-fulfilling prophecy, making her so self-conscious around him that he got the idea that she fancied him! Ridiculously abashed, and thoroughly furious with herself, she sat silently until the end of the meeting, pretending to look at her laptop, then beat a quick retreat to her office even though there were important points she would have liked to have discussed further.
Remembering the age-old advice about dreams, Emma resolutely set herself the task of taking control. She tried all sorts of alterations to her bedtime routine, soothing music, no devices, relaxation exercises. When those didn’t help, she tried visualising different endings to the dreams. She would tell Arnold what she thought of him. She would slap him when he touched her. She even tried the recommended trick of making him laughable, transforming him into a bawling baby or a waddling giant duck.
Nothing helped. The dreams became more intense. The kisses and caresses made way for explicit sex scenes. From pretty straightforward intercourse, they rapidly became degrading, featuring acts that she found demeaning and disgusting. From these dreams she woke in tears, one morning even rushing to the bathroom to vomit into the toilet. During the dream she submitted to every defilement gladly; upon waking she felt violated, deeply ashamed and utterly horrified. Invaded and betrayed – by nothing less than her own mind.
In the past, an evening spent with her friends had always been a guarantee of fun and relaxation. Since starting this job, however, a constraint had crept in. While the others freely talked about their work – what was going well, what wasn’t – Emma glossed things over in a few short sentences and quickly changed the subject. She didn’t feel able to talk about the constant bullying, the way she was thwarted at every turn. Compared to the competent way her friends dealt with their problems, she seemed such a failure. Perhaps, her mind began to whisper, perhaps she had never actually been good at her job. Perhaps she had been propped up by the excellent people around her, and now without that support her own incompetence was exposed.
This evening, with the sickening images of last night’s dream replaying in a constant loop in her mind, she barely spoke at all. The food was nauseating to her, so she took refuge in her wine glass, topping it up whenever no one was looking. Numb, she sat at the table and let her friends’ words wash over her, without really taking anything in. Until an unfamiliar term caught her attention. “Dream penetration?”, asked Liv, popping a stuffed olive into her mouth. ‘What the hell is ‘dream penetration’ supposed to be?’, she mumbled between chews. ‘The latest and best in technology’, replied Inayah in an ironic tone, ‘Brought to you by the great minds of the manosphere’. ‘ ‘Penetration’’, said Liv, ‘yup, sounds like something they’d like’. ‘I heard something about that’, said Hannah, pouring them all another glass. ‘Doesn’t it let them see your dreams?’. ‘If only that was all!’, said Inayah in outrage. ‘They can actually put themselves into some woman’s dream’. ‘They wish’, said Liv. ‘No, really’, said Inayah. ‘Supposedly they can even control it. Make her do things she doesn’t want to do. And the police can’t do anything about it because it’s too new. It’s some legal grey area because they can’t decide if assault in dreams is a crime. Plus some people claim that because it’s the woman’s dream she must be implicitly consenting to it’. ‘Hmm’, said Hannah sceptically. ‘How exactly is this dream stuff supposed to work? Sounds like some made-up scare to me. Has anyone actually reported this happening to them? Anyone reliable, that is’.
Emma didn’t listen any further as her friends argued, in an abstract, amused way, about the likelihood of it being fake news or a genuine problem. Her ears were ringing and waves of hot and cold were surging through her body. Somehow, without her conscious direction, she knew she was standing up, making excuses, waving off concerned questions, getting her coat, walking out of the door. The shock combined with the wine she’d drunk made the world sway around her in dizzying heaves. She stopped on the bridge over the canal, leaning against a lamppost for support, pressing her sweaty forehead hard against the cold, damp metal in the hope of clearing her mind. Could this be true? It made hideous sense. If there really were such a thing, then she had no doubt that the team at her work would be perfectly capable of getting access to it. They were always bragging about their contacts on the dark web. She had to leave. She had to get out of that place. But what would she tell her boss? He’d be furious at even the suggestion of her breaking her contract. Who would hire her without his recommendation? What if the programmers got wind of her looking for work and spread lies about her?
Then an even more terrible realisation gripped her. If they were doing this in her dreams, then leaving her job wouldn’t stop them. They’d be able to get at her anywhere. Desperate panic took hold, followed by a paralysing despair. There was no hope, there was no way out. As the developers always mockingly told her, she wasn’t a technical expert. She didn’t even know how to get onto the dark web, let alone find the right person to help her amongst all the predators out there. The only people she knew were ‘dumb’ users and ‘wimpy’ researchers. She really was nothing. The impotent hopelessness felt like a dark wave drowning her. She considered the oily, swirling waters below and wondered if she would die if she threw herself in, or just be hoisted back out to more humiliation. There must at least be a surer means of escape from this torment. Then she paused as a recent thought echoed again in her mind, but this time with a new light.
The dream restaurant would have been expensively elegant, if it hadn’t been for the excessive gilding and the pornographic statues. Emma picked up another oyster shell and slid the contents seductively into her mouth, gazing deeply into Arnold’s eyes as she sucked each finger deliberately, before wiping them on her tight white bodice. He licked his lips, his breathing faster, one hand straying unconsciously down to his crotch. But he had a boast to finish first. ‘So no one could get it fixed. They were all freaking out. Then I said, stand back, leave it to me. No one’s better than me with servers. I got it up and running in time for the big presentation and the boss was over the moon. He’s going to give me a promotion. The others were totally gutted but still so impressed. They put me on their shoulders and took me out to celebrate’. His eyes glistened with pleasure at the false memory. Then he looked expectantly at Emma.
‘That’s amazing!’, she gushed. ‘You are so incredible. They couldn’t manage without you at work. They could manage without me easily, of course. I’m nothing’. Arnold’s smile widened into a smug, satisfied grin. Then Emma continued. ‘That is, I will be nothing now. Vanished. Gone. No more”. Arnold’s smile slipped a fraction, and he looked confused. Emma took a deep breath, then pushed her plate aside. ‘Do you know what I did before I went to bed?’. Arnold looked decidedly awkward now, glancing around as if he wanted to call someone over to complain about the bad service. This clearly wasn’t part of his script. Emma reached over and took a large gulp of his wine.
‘I resigned. Don’t know what I’m doing next but then, I’m sure I’ll find something good. Can’t be any worse than that shithole’. Arnold seemed to be trying to say something, his throat working, the Adam’s apple bobbing, but no sound came out. Emma went on. ‘You see, I got in touch with a few people from my network. Told them I was looking for a new opportunity, and they were so enthusiastic about me being available again! I’d quite forgotten that there are so many people who do think I’m worthwhile. A few hours later I already had quite a list of companies to apply to.’
Emma put down her glass and reached out to take a crisp, green apple from the plate of luscious fruit that had just appeared in front of her. ‘Funnily enough, though, that wasn’t actually why I got in touch with them.’ She took a big bite, her teeth sharp and glistening. ‘I asked if anyone knew anything about this ‘dream penetration’ stuff’. Arnold’s eyes widened, but he didn’t move. He didn’t seem to be able to move.
‘Turns out it’s a hot research topic. You know, researchers, those ‘useless, pie-in-the-sky, head-in-the-clouds’ people? They were really keen to test out their prototype defence mechanism.’. The restaurant was fading away from around them. The table vanished. They were surrounded by a vast, echoing space, filled with shadows, in which, just out of sight, strange things seemed to be moving. Odd, unsettling noises shrilled through the air. Arnold remained seated on his chair, eyes rolling with fear. Emma stood up and walked slowly towards him, dressed now in her favourite jacket and jeans. ‘But, you know. Ethics, ethics, it’s always such a hassle getting trials approved by ethics committees’. She crouched down in front of him, bringing her face up close to his. Sweat poured down his face. She whispered, ‘The thing is…this technology is too new. It’s a legal grey area. Ethical too. It’ll take them a while to hammer out all the details, and in the meantime it’s a Wild West. You can imagine I jumped at the chance to be a test subject.’
The noises were building to a crescendo, shrieking and groaning. Small scaly, clawed arms crept over Arnold from behind, caressing his skin in a gruesome parody of affection, the claws delicately digging into his flesh as he trembled in terror.
Emma put her mouth next to his ear. She lowered her voice until it was barely audible.
‘After all, this is my dream’