Page 5 of RAKEish

“Absolutely not.”

He resisted an urge to push and instead took a different approach. “As you wish, but…I’d be lying if I didn’t tell you that this rakish male brain of mine has jumped to the conclusion that if you’re dreaming about me, it means—no matter how hard you bash what I do for a living— you secretly like me.” It was a delightful deduction. Implying her public hate was a cover for her true feelings was sure to put her on edge. “From this moment forward, Doc, I will believe you have a massive crush on a rake.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” she snapped.

“I don’t believe that’s what I’m being,” he said, biting back a chuckle. “And I bet your listeners don’t either. In fact, I bet they’d love to hear your response. Do you, or do you not have a crush on me?”

“Trust me when I tell you this is a subject best dropped, for your sake,” she replied.

His curiosity skyrocketed. “I give you permission to destroy my sake and tell your potential 133,333 plus dozens of listeners what it is you think I’m better off not knowing.”

“Did you call for a reason,” she inquired, smoothly changing the subject, “or may I hang up now?”

He laughed, amused she thought he could be easily moved to a new topic. “A change of focus can only mean one thing. Your dream was sexual in nature.”

“Or it means, despite what I do for a living, I believe in the old tale, if a person retells a nightmare before breakfast, it will come true,” she countered.

He’d never heard of that superstition. “It’s quite convenient, this excuse not to spill the details.”

“You should not push me. Once I accidentally tested the superstition, and it came true.” Something in her voice had shifted. Like he’d forced her to recall a memory that pained her to do so, or she’d realized she’d allowed him to get under her skin and was pissed. His money was on pissed.

“Once, you say?” She was a doctor of psychology. Surely, she did not believe she caused something bad to happen to a person.

“Not that it’s any of your business, but I repeated another before breakfast to test the results, and it also came true.”

“That was quite brave of you.” The doc had a fanciful side. He would have bet his bejeweled crown she did not. What other surprises did she hold?

“Not really. I was just curious.”

“I see. Well, I’ll tell you what, Doc. If your dream was what I think it was, I can guarantee you it will not come true.”

“Nightmare,” she said firmly. “And it would serve you right if I did tell you so you could discover for yourself that all superstitions, crazy as they might sound, originated in someone’s truth.”

His curiosity grew. “Please, by all means, punish me with the truth.”

“I’m not joking,” she snapped. “Like I said, twice in my life, my nightmares have materialized after I relayed them before having ate breakfast.”

“So, the scary quantity of two has turned an otherwise intelligent woman into one plagued with superstition?” he pushed.

“This coming from a man who believes he’s the victim of a wicked witch’s curse.”

Touché. “Our family has five generations’ worth of proof for our belief in the mystical. You have only two experiments for yours.”

“While two is not much, it would have been criminal of me to continue the experiment all in the name of gathering further empirical evidence to back my hypothesis.”

The woman was a glitchy scientific nerd. “I rather love being used by women in the name of a naughty experiment, so go ahead, lay this dream on me.”

“Nightmare,” she insisted.

How bad could it be? “Doc, I have a fabulous idea. I once dated a therapist who specialized in dreams. Why don’t you reveal the content of the sex dream you had about me, and I will ask her to interpret it? In fact, I will write about it in next month’s RAKEish.” It would make for a great column.

“I’m more than capable of interpreting my nightmare that your penis fell off and you showed up at my door asking if I knew how to repair it.” Her words were immediately followed by a loud gasp on her part. As if she’d shocked herself by speaking aloud the revelation.

He echoed the gasp. “Good God, woman.” He reached for a bottle of water. This whole conversation had just taken a turn toward disaster.

“Pardon my vocabulary,” Doc said, her voice full of dismay.

“It’s not your vocabulary I’m worried about. It’s your prediction. Take it back,” he demanded, anticipating the endless ribbing from his colleagues if she refused. “Or better yet, admit you’re messing with me because you don’t like me.”

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