A Dream That Should Never Be
The word dream has the power to romanticize anything. A dreamlike story. Dreamlike happiness. A dreamlike life. But for me, dreams are… nothing but sticky and agonizing. They are painful habits that force me to gasp for breath in my sleep. I chase after my older sister as she leaves me. I cry out desperately to her as she follows a man whose face I cannot even see. I make a catastrophic mistake at the company. I suffer Mina’s bullying. I am strangled. I wait for every action I have ever taken to fail and for a miserable verdict to be handed down. Everyone raises their voices in disappointment at me… Then I wake up in bed, relieved that it was all a dream. Just a nightmare, nothing more. I scrub my face with cold water, frantic to forget the dreams that tormented me.
It is the same now. This is unmistakably a dream. If it were not a dream, there would be no way to explain it—the absurd, forbidden mischief unfolding between me and my niece. In the dream, my niece and I are tangled together, mouths locked. Even though I know every part of this is wrong, I do not bother with the usual excuses. That I must not do this to my niece. That I must not remove her top. That I must not slip my hand inside her underwear. I know all of it perfectly, more completely than anyone else, yet my hands refuse to stop.
“Uncle… hurry…”
My niece calls to me with desperate longing. White teeth flash between her red lips. Her pink tongue flickers, coiling like a snake preparing to strike. In the past I would not have reacted to her seduction with such violent passion. I might have swallowed my saliva, but I would have known better. I am supposed to protect her. I would have clenched my teeth and buried the filthy thoughts deep.
But now… now I know how sweet my niece’s lips taste. I know how intoxicating the wet sounds of our tongues sliding together can be. I know the shiver that races through me when our saliva passes back and forth between our mouths. I know exactly how lovely she looks when she trembles during a kiss. All of it is burned into my memory. Even when I die, even at the moment my eyes close for the last time, I will be able to recall every second as clearly as a photograph.
“Uncle… you know? I… only have you, Uncle… so please… okay?”
She should not look at me with that expression. She should not call my name so sweetly and urgently. She should not bare her pale skin. She should not blush when my hand touches her. None of it is allowed.
I slowly peel her clothes open. One by one I undo the buttons of the pajamas she always wears beside me. Pure white skin appears, and in the center, the soft hollow of her navel.
“Haah… haah…”
I press my lips to her ribs. My tongue draws slow circles around her belly button. How can my niece be so sweet? I do not know how my sister raised her, but she is impossibly lovable.
“Mmh… there. Haah. Uncle… it tickles… I feel… strange. It’s strange, Uncle. It’s getting so hot… I can’t breathe.”
I do not know what she saw while growing up with her mother, but my niece keeps pushing me further. She makes it impossible for me to do anything except drown in her. She makes me lose my mind over her.
“Because Uncle keeps touching me there… I feel strange too… so… take it off… and check for me. Make sure I’m not broken. Okay? I don’t want to be a bad girl who… wets herself in front of Uncle. Please.”
So that I can no longer hold back. So that I can no longer keep my sanity. Therefore… this is not wrong. Even if I cannot suppress my desire for my niece in the end. Even if I cannot stop the hand dragging her panties down. It is all my niece’s fault. She is the one urging me on. She is the one driving me insane…
“Gasp… gasp…”
I woke up. The moment my eyes opened I frantically scanned my surroundings, desperate to know whether what had just happened was dream or reality. My heart raced with the fear that my niece might still be pinned beneath me, moaning.
Haah. Haah. No way. No way.
My spinning vision slowly sharpened. It was the same familiar sight that always greeted me. The gaudy bed that clashed with the rest of my room, saturated with Mina’s taste. Stacks of work files. An old laptop. And the soft sound of breathing…
“Mmm…”
My niece was curled tightly against me, fast asleep in my arms. I had offered her my arm as a pillow, but she had burrowed all the way into my armpit and was clinging to me. Just to be sure, I checked my underwear.
At my age, lying next to my own niece…
My shorts were still in place, but instead of relief, only self-loathing surged up. What the hell is wrong with me? Why am I having dreams like this? Because I kissed my niece? Because she is pressed so close against my side?
No matter what excuse I reach for, no matter what justification I try to attach, the answer is always the same. I am simply a deranged bastard who wants to do unspeakable things to my niece.
Maybe I should wash my face.
Cold water to jolt me awake. If I do not make a serious effort to forget this dream, I might actually lose my mind. I have to thrash and flail until I can at least tell myself it is fortunate that it was only a dream. At the very least, I must not let myself feel any regret. I must do whatever it takes. I must grit my teeth so hard I never lay a hand on her.
When I tried to get up, my niece’s tight grip on my body made it impossible. Worried I might disturb her sleep, I shifted carefully, trying to create some space, but she refused to let go.
“Uncle… Uncle…”
She only hugged me tighter, murmuring in her sleep. Niece and uncle. The two of us, paired together. It seems we appear in each other’s dreams. The old farewell “Dream of me” suddenly feels like a curse.
We really are a hopeless pair.
We are together every single day, yet we still end up like this. Meanwhile Mina, the woman who is supposed to become my wife… she rarely appears in my dreams. And even when she does, those dreams always turn into nightmares anyway. In truth they are not so different from reality. We are always fighting. Always clashing. In a dream I should at least be able to shout. I should be able to scream at her to just leave me alone. But I cannot. The shackles Mina fastened around me, the yoke she placed on my neck—no matter how hard I struggle, they still refuse to let go.
With a bitter taste in my mouth, I sigh and wonder if I should just change the bed.
I should at least pull the blanket over my niece again… Huh?
Her clothes look strange. The girl who usually sleeps so neatly has her navel completely exposed today.
“How exactly do you sleep?”
She might catch a cold. She might get a stomachache. The right thing to do is reach out and pull the fabric down right now…
……
Instead I sit motionless, staring at her. In time with her soft breathing, her pale belly rises and falls. Her delicate navel moves up and down. It looks far softer than it did in the dream. If I touched it with the tip of my tongue, I imagine it would taste like cotton candy.
I should… pull the clothes down…
Yes. I cannot simply sit here staring. The room is cold. Even with the boiler running and thick blankets piled high, these days the only way to endure the chill is to stay pressed together. If I leave her like this she might really get sick. That is the only reason… just a little.
I catch the hem of her shirt. My fingertips brush her belly. Soft. Warm. Yielding but not unpleasantly so. A perfectly pleasant sensation. A sudden wave of desire crashes over me—the urge to stroke this belly, to slide lower, or higher, anywhere at all. I want to tear away every layer covering her body, yank it down, and satisfy my greed.
No.
What am I about to do to my sleeping niece? She trusts me enough to lie beside me. She clings to me like this, and yet here I am…
Just pull the clothes down and get up. Pull them down and go wash until every filthy thought is scrubbed away. Until my mind turns completely white. Please. Please.
My hand trembles. Whether I am afraid of waking her, or trying to look at her skin a little longer, or simply savoring the sensation against my fingertips as much as possible, I do not know. I lower the hem of her shirt with infinite slowness. My hand touches more. More. More.
When I regain my senses, I realize I am already stroking her over the fabric. It is fine over the clothes, I tell myself. It is no different from stroking her hair. I repeat these pathetic excuses to myself again and again, trying to push down the churning in my chest. I wring out my conscience, twist it, and hurl it into some distant corner of my mind.
With my thumb, little by little, I trace slow circles over skin far softer than it had been in the dream. Literally dreamlike. My niece is still asleep. Reassured by her quiet breathing, I let my hand move further. The fingers on her belly become a full palm. Closer. Greedier.
Before I realize what I am doing, I have pulled her completely into my arms. I can claim I was half-asleep too. That I simply happened to hold her. That I accidentally wrapped my arms around her belly, around her waist, around her body.
I stroke her stomach slowly, then let my hand drift to her back. I caress her back, then slide down to her narrow waist, following that tempting curve. A little lower, to the swell of her hips. That round, alluring place I want to grasp with one hand—just a little. If I stroke it just a little… As her uncle, to her body… I should not do this but… I should not but… Anywhere my desire can reach is fine. Any place at all. As I wish. Then… then…
“Mmm…”
Startled by the sound she makes, I snatch my hand away. I feel sick with myself for getting carried away. I am pathetic. I want to die from the shame of what I have been doing.