Work Text:
The first time Belly dreams about Conrad, it’s the night after he sent his first letter.
She reads it so many times that she has it memorized: she takes it to her room, shuts the door behind her, tears it open, and pores over his words, his handwriting, drinking it in like a glass of cold water after a long, hot day.
After she finishes getting ready for bed, she reads it again. They’re his words on the page, and that’s surreal. So surreal, too, that it’s his voice in her head, echoing through her mind as she reads the letters, his voice soft and gentle. She closes her eyes, wrapped in the steady cadence of his voice, the weight of his arms around her as familiar as if he’d just been holding her and left the room to go to the bathroom but will be back any minute.
He hasn’t held her in years.
Her eyes open, her cheeks burn, and she folds the letter neatly, tucks it into the top drawer of her nightstand. Once she’s clicked off her bedside lamp, her head hits the pillow, and she’s asleep.
And there he is, appearing in her dream so clearly he may as well be standing in front of her: on her doorstep, walking through the front door of her apartment, wearing a soft blue sweater and jeans, his hair tousled like he’s been running his fingers through it. He’s never been here but he fits so seamlessly into the space, it’s almost as if he lives here.
“What are you doing here?” she asks, breathless even in her dream. They’re standing in her kitchen and he’s taking everything in, digesting the art on the walls, the appliances on the counters, the moonlight streaming in through the sheer white curtains.
Her fingers twitch at her side, eager to reach for him. How soft is his sweater?
But that’s not really what you want to know, her brain muses, a twinge of laughter in her mind’s tone. You want your hands on him, to feel him solidly beneath your fingertips, your palms. How warm is his skin? Are his shoulders still dotted with beauty marks for you to connect with your fingers, your tongue?
“I missed you,” he says, matter-of-factly, sure and soft, as if missing her was enough of a reason to book a plane ticket to Paris. He turns to her, and his watch catches in the moonlight, his lip caught between his teeth. His eyes are wide yet unsure, and he crosses his arms, then uncrosses them, his fingers fiddling with the edge of his sleeve. “Should I—I should’ve called first.”
“No,” she says, shaking her head. It surprises her, the force with which the word escapes from her lips, how she’s already moving towards him like a magnet, how swiftly her hands land on his upper arms (how soft his sweater is). He’s so solid and warm beneath her, and she can’t look away, stares into his dizzying green eyes that steal the breath from her lungs. Her thumbs stroke the soft fabric of his sweater, absentminded. “No. This was the best surprise.”
A heartbeat passes. He’s looking down at her like he can’t believe she’s in front of him, his lips parting, and she’s looking up at him with so much certainty that she hopes he gets it. He’s always been able to read her like a book. Or maybe she’s always been an open book just for him.
“I missed you too,” she whispers, her fingers tightening around his arms. “I want you here. Right here.”
His hand rests against her cheek, his fingers setting her skin aflame. “Right here?”
The words are a murmur that goes straight to her pussy. She’s overcome with want, is struck with an image of him with his head between her thighs, his eyes sparkling as he murmurs right here? into her pussy, then again against her clit.
Her hands leave his arms and she mourns the loss of touching him, having forgotten how good it feels, how it sets all of her nerve endings on fire in the best way possible. How she’s never been more alive than she’s with him, never been more focused on one person than when he’s in front of her.
Her arms slide around his neck and she rises onto her tiptoes, her shirt riding up right as his hand curves around her hip, so he makes contact with her bare skin. He blinks rapidly once, twice, thrice, his sigh coasting over her skin like a sun-drenched ocean breeze.
She leans in, presses their foreheads together, slots her nose against his. Neither of them have closed their eyes, and the heat in his gaze pulls a low moan from the back of her throat.
“Here,” she says, her hand sliding up to his hair. His hair is just as soft as she remembered, maybe even a little softer. It’s thrilling, all the ways she knows him, and there are still things to learn. There will always be things to learn about Conrad Fisher. “I want you, Conrad.”
“I want you, too.”
She kisses him, at first soft and sweet, but it turns fast, hard, almost immediately, her tongue slipping into his mouth, his hand falling from her cheek to hook in the belt loops of her jeans and pull her closer. He’s hard against her stomach.
His eyes darken and anticipation coils tight in her stomach. “How do you want me?”
“Inside me.” The words are barely out of her mouth before he’s lifting her off the ground, supporting her with his arms under her ass, knowing the route to her bedroom.
It happens quickly after that: they’re out of their clothes, and he’s rolling on a condom, crawling up the bed to her. She arches her back and grips his shoulders as he slides inside her, so—
Belly wakes with a start, her bedsheets tangled around her legs, heat blooming in her stomach. She’s so full of yearning that she could cry, and she’s so wet that she could come right now.
He isn’t next to her, not really, but that dream plays in her mind over and over like a never ending record. Until the morning, that is.
By the time the sun rises, she’s chalked it up to a coincidence, a byproduct of having spent time indulging in his handwriting, hearing his voice in her ear as she reads.
*
When Belly dreams about Conrad again, it’s two days after she finally decided to write him back.
A postcard with her new address, a few sentences scribbled alongside it. There was so much she wanted to say, so much she didn’t want to say until he was in front of her again. She could’ve picked up the phone, could’ve called him, but she wanted to write him back. Wanted to meet him where he was, to show him that he’s not the only one still thinking about them.
She hasn’t heard back, and while she’s a little nervous about it, she’s not worried. It was a big deal, to reach back out to him, and he’s likely processing. Deciding what to write next.
She broke things off with Benito when he’d wanted more than a fling and she couldn’t give him that. Not when she saw the Love, Conrad and knew, deep in her bones, that she would never want to be with anyone other than Conrad Fisher, would never love anyone the way she loves him.
Conrad’s lying on her bed, shirtless, sheets covering his hips. His fingers are laced behind his head, his elbows bent. The window’s open and a gentle breeze ruffles his hair, the Sacré-Cœur behind him, hazy in the morning sunlight as if photographed on grainy film.
He’s so at home here that her heart squeezes. He smirks, just a little. It would be imperceptible if Belly wasn’t looking, but she is. She always is.
“Nice view,” he comments, soft and serious, like he’s actually seen her apartment over a FaceTime call with spotty coverage, like he’s imagined her standing in the middle of this room, wondering how this place is all hers.
He isn’t talking about the Sacré-Cœur. He’s looking at her.
She blushes as she walks over, then sits next to him. But sitting next to him is too far, so she straddles him, and they’re kissing wildly, madly, like they’re so desperate for each other that they don’t give a shit about oxygen.
The kiss is all teeth and tongue, and he’s tugging her bottom lip between his teeth, one of his hands flirting with the hem of her t-shirt.
“Conrad,” she gasps into his mouth, his fingers tangled in her hair, want coursing through her, her pussy pulsing against him. “Conrad, please.”
He flips them easily, not breaking the kiss as he does. “Fuck, I love it when you say my name, especially like this. Say it again.”
She does, but it’s more breath than sound, her mouth shaping his name against his mouth.
“Touch me,” she murmurs, “I need your hands on me, your fingers inside me.”
“Yeah? You want me to stretch out your pussy with my fingers, get you ready for my cock?” He’s a little bit of a know-it-all about it, and, fuck, that’s so hot. That he still remembers how she likes to be touched, to be fucked.
She whines, breathes out a yes, and he grins. His hand slips beneath the waistband of her pajama pants and underwear, and her mouth drifts open in anticipation.
Two of his fingers sink inside of her as his mouth travels down her neck, and Belly moans, clutches at his back, likely leaving crescent-shaped marks on his skin.
“You’re so fucking wet, Belly,” he marvels, sliding his fingers out agonizingly slowly before pushing them back in just as slow, his thumb brushing against her clit. “How long has your pussy been dripping for me?”
She moans, tightens her grip on him, her legs falling open more for him. “Since I replied to your letter. I haven’t—I can’t stop thinking about you.”
“Good girl,” he whispers warmly, delighted. Her pussy clenches around his fingers, and her back arches, her eyebrows furrow. “Yeah, that’s it. What do you think about me?”
“How much I want to be near you, all the time. Not even just for sex, but also in everyday life. I want to hear your thoughts on the movies they’re showing at the cinema I work at, I want to see what you think of the Louvre and how tiny the Mona Lisa actually is. I want to walk around Montmartre with you, peruse boulangeries and cafés, show you that you were right about my coffee order. Every time I’ve had a café au lait with spoonfuls of sugar since receiving your first letter, I’ve thought about you. It was fleeting at first, but now it’s more concrete, more real. I want to see Paris through your eyes, with you next to me, and—”
Her breath hitches as she comes, her orgasm sweeping through her like a wave. He continues to fuck her through it slowly.
“Conrad, fuck me,” she begs, but then she’s waking up to a breeze filtering in through her window and an empty bed, and disappointment fills her as she realizes it was once again a dream.
It'd felt so real.
This time, she doesn’t write it off as a one-time thing.
The dreams persist after that. When she falls asleep, she knows she’ll see him there. Not every night, but often enough that she knows they’re dreams now, no matter how real they feel. They don’t always have sex, either, but they’re always in her apartment: cooking dinner, slow dancing to a Spotify playlist, watching a movie, doing a crossword puzzle. The dreams shift through all the seasons; sometimes snow is falling outside her window, or leaves, or rain is blowing in and they’re hurrying to shut the windows, giggling as they do.
She just misses him. It’s so obvious now.
She used to dread going to sleep because she’d have such vivid nightmares, but now that she dreams of Conrad, she looks forward to it.
On a shopping trip with Gemma and Max about a month before her birthday, she buys a journal. It’s spiral-bound, with thick pages and a cover filled with blue watercolored hydrangeas.
“I’m going to use it as a dream journal,” Belly proclaims, feeling the Earth shift just a smidge under her feet.
“That’s so cool,” Gemma says, “You’ll have to tell us if you notice any patterns.”
I already do, Belly thinks, but doesn’t say that.
That night, after waking from another dream involving Conrad and baked goods and domestic bliss, she reaches for the journal on her nightstand, and begins to write.
Dear Conrad,
I can’t stop dreaming about you. It started when I got your first letter. I’m sorry it took me so long to write back. I just couldn’t think of what to say, how to express how much you mean to me.
And now that I’ve opened that door, it was the green light my mind needed to flood my nights with dreams of you.
I can’t stop thinking about you. Not that I want to.
It started with a sex dream, which you’d probably find amusing, or hot, or both. Or neither. Maybe you’d think it’s weird, that the first time I received a letter from you, I had a sex dream about you.
I don’t think you’d find it weird, though. I don’t really know why I’m writing this, why I’m cataloging these dreams. I like feeling close to you. Your letters helped with that, and my dreams do, too.
So, these are my letters. My way of writing to you, even though you may never read any of this.
That first dream was intense. It felt so real, like you were really here with me, inside me . . .
She writes until she falls into a dreamless sleep.
*
This time, when Belly dreams about Conrad, it isn’t a dream at all.
Because he’s here.
In Paris.
He goes to her pre-birthday dinner and meets her friends and holds eye contact with her like it was his full time job. He even turns down a joint, breaks eye contact briefly to pass it off, and when she asks if he memorizes everything she’s ever said, he immediately answers with a breathless yes just for her.
It’s the best birthday she’s ever had (pre-birthday, her brain corrects), and not only because now they’re kissing next to the Seine, and it’s like coming home. It’s as natural as breathing, because she’s dreamed of this for so long.
“Come home with me,” she says, pulling away to look at him.
He grins at her, squeezes her hands, and leans back in, touches his forehead to hers like he can’t get enough. Like he’ll never get enough of her.
She knows the feeling.
“I’d love to,” he breathes out, his eyes glittering like the Eiffel Tower at midnight.
I love you, she thinks, but doesn’t say. He’s been here for not even an entire day, it’d be absurd to confess her love now.
She kisses him instead, all the way back to her apartment:
In the taxi, with her hands in the soft hair around his ears, his hand curved around her head to protect it from the window. Their kisses are hungrier now, more urgent, like his train is leaving in a few seconds and not a few hours.
“I missed you,” he says into her mouth, and this is more dreamlike than the actual dreams she’s had about this. It’s surreal, how he’s kissing her, how he’s here, warm and solid and very, very real. “Fuck, Belly, you have no idea.”
“I do,” she says immediately, sincerely, and if she weren’t so turned on, she’d cry at the enormity of it, at him missing her as much as she missed him, at his feelings still present across oceans and continents and a year of her finding herself. “I know. I missed you, too.”
He kisses her harder in response.
In the stairwell, the kisses are desperate now, the way they’d been in that second dream. They’re panting into each other’s mouths as she covers his watch with her hand and guides his hand between her legs. Belly’s head falls back as he pushes aside her underwear, as two of his fingers slide between the lips of her pussy. His gaze is burning but soft, like the embers of a stoked flame.
“Belly,” he murmurs, his breath coasting over her neck, light from an overhead lamp swathing him in golden, soft shadows. His fingers move slowly, tantalizingly.
Once they’re inside, he shuts the door and presses her against the nearest wall, keeps kissing her like he never wants to do anything else. He readjusts his grip on her and she tightens her legs around him, aching for him all the way from her fingertips to her toes.
There’s a moment, when they’ve both pulled away and are looking at each other, that it hits her: how real all of this is. How her dreams really are coming true.
And then Conrad’s carrying her to her room effortlessly, as if he’s been here a thousand times before, as if he’s memorized and mapped the journey from the door to her bed. Knowing him, he probably has memorized that journey in the short time he’s been here.
He deposits her onto the bed and makes quick work of his button-down at the same time she’s undoing his belt, eager for him, not breaking eye contact as she does. He angles his head, leans down, and kisses her, shrugs out of his shirt as he does.
“I want to do it,” he says when she reaches behind her to take off her dress, like something out of a dream.
Except this isn’t a dream. She won’t need to recount it in her dream journal later because it’s happening to her, to them. He’s here, and he’s in her bed, and he’s looking at her like she’s the most beautiful person he’s ever seen and also like he wants to devour her, ravish her, undo her.
He’s already undoing her, and he’s well on his way to devouring her, to ravishing her, to leaving her so fucked out and thoroughly ruining her for anyone else.
Belly doesn’t want anyone else. She only wants him. Only Conrad Fisher, who writes her letters and appears in her dreams and is currently taking off his pants and crawling up her bed and towards her with a smirk she’s dreamed about.
Notably absent from her dreams? His mouth, smeared with her lipstick. It’s an important addition, one she’s surprised hasn’t been featured prominently in her dreams before but certainly will be going forward.
They’re kissing again, can’t seem to stop, don’t want to stop, and his hand lands on her thigh.
He flips them over so she’s on top, and when they pull apart, he looks at her like he’s dreamed about this, too. Like his nights are also filled with her, even though she isn’t physically there.
And then he confirms it.
Well, first he reaches for her bra clasp as he kisses her, pauses without undoing the clasp, and then he confirms it.
“I dream about this,” he says, unclasping her bra with one hand (which: hot) and looking at her with so much affection that she might cry happily. “You.”
You, he clarifies, in case she isn’t sure. Like he wants her to know how desperately he wants her.
Belly thinks about the dream journal, the knowledge of it practically burning a hole through the top of her nightstand, but it’s not time yet. During sex is probably not the time to admit to having a dream journal where she details every dream she’s had about him since she received his first letter. She’d gone back to the beginning, had extracted each memory from her mind as if it was imperative that she wrote about it. For some reason, it was. It is.
I love you. The words are right there, on the tip of her tongue, but during sex doesn’t feel like the time to admit the depth of her feelings for the first time. She’s scared, still, even though a year ago he confessed that he still loves her, even though he’s held onto that for all this time like something sacred, something precious.
She grins at him instead, sinks her teeth into her lower lip the way she knows he likes.
“I dream about you, too,” she whispers moments later, breathless, once she’s worked herself onto his cock and is fully seated on him. It’s a substitute for what she wants to say, which is, I love you. I’ve never not loved you. I had just been denying it because I was scared. I still am scared, but I’m less scared with you.
He brushes her hair out of her face, a stubborn strand that had been clinging to her eyelashes. His eyes darken as his pace quickens, their hips meeting in a quick, smooth rhythm. His hand falls to the small of her back, right above the curve of her ass, as he presses her even closer, pushes even deeper inside her. “Yeah?”
“Yeah,” she echoes, smiling as she pants from the exertion, as her pleasure builds. His hand rubs quick, firm circles on her clit in time with their thrusts, which is even better than she’d dreamt. “It’s part of why I wrote you back.”
He laughs, the sound bright and bold and Technicolor, a little jagged as it’s interrupted by him swallowing hard and catching his breath. “Part of? What were the other parts?”
Her grin widens. I love you, that grin says, but she says, “I felt like I’d grown as much as I wanted to, that I was finally becoming the person I was meant to be all along, the one who—”
Never stopped loving you.
The words get stuck in the back of her throat as she comes, and then he’s following behind her, moaning her name into her neck as he spills into the condom. They’d had to stop at the corner store to get some.
And then she fucks it all up.
Now you’re stuck with me forever, he says, later that morning, and that scares her.
She panics.
Belly knows, as surely as she knows the sky is blue, as surely as she knows she was shaped by summers and also her time in Paris, that she loves Conrad Fisher.
And yet. She questions why he loves her, if it has everything to do with his mom and nothing to do with him.
That’s how it was with Jeremiah, her brain whispers, once Conrad’s left and she’s all alone, staring at a photo of her three-year-old self, sent by her mom. He may have loved you, but he wasn’t in love with you.
The words aren’t cruel; in fact, they’re a reminder, a reinforcement of what Conrad said mere moments ago, that he loved her before Susannah got sick. She holds Junior Mint in her hands, her thumb sliding under the polar bear’s scarf to reveal the infinity necklace Conrad had given her for her sixteenth birthday, which may as well have been a thousand years ago now.
Because I’ve changed everything about myself and the one thing that never changes is that I love you.
He said that, just moments ago.
It hits her, the truth of it. She’s changed so much in this last year that she doesn’t recognize the girl who was going to marry Conrad’s brother because she was drowning in her grief and didn’t want to be alone.
But one thing’s never changed: how much she loves Conrad.
She’s always, always going to love Conrad.
She sprints onto the balcony, clutching Junior Mint like her life depends on it. The morning air is cool on her skin, but she hardly notices. “Conrad!”
No answer. In one of the surrounding buildings, a light clicks on, but no one says anything.
“Fuck,” she murmurs, then takes a deep breath and screams his name into the darkness again.
Still nothing.
She gets dressed, puts the necklace on, somehow remembers to grab her passport but forgets absolutely everything else.
But then she’s in front of him again, on a train going to Brussels, breathlessly asking, “Is this seat taken?” and all that matters is him.
“Conrad, I choose you of my own free will,” she says, standing in front of him, out of breath and so in love. “If there are infinite worlds, every version of me chooses you in every one of them.”
She’s crying in the middle of this train car, but she doesn’t care, because no one has been more important to her, no moment has mattered as much as this one. With shaking hands and hope in her heart, Belly turns the necklace around so it’s no longer showing the clasp but the infinity pendant.
There’s a split second where she doesn’t know what he’ll do, if he’ll say it’s too late or—
He’s standing, delicately touching the necklace as if this is a dream (it isn’t), and then they’re kissing, and her heart is steadying at last.
“I love you, Belly,” he says, voice thick with tears.
“I love you, too,” she replies, kissing him.
*
Conrad laughs when she reveals she only brought her passport with her, and pays for her train ticket to the next stop, and then back to Paris.
“I want you there with me, Belly,” he says, kissing her softly, “trust me, there’s nothing I want more than to spend time in Brussels with you.”
“But?” she questions, dragging out the word teasingly, still in disbelief that this has happened. That her dreams have come true. She hadn’t planned on what would happen after she found him, but then reality set in: she still has to work, and she didn’t want to pull the focus away from his conference.
“But I’ll just want to spend time with you, and not go to the conference.”
“We can’t have that,” she says, tone still teasing, but then she pulls away, turns thoughtful. “Why don’t you come back to me once your conference is over? If you can, just for a few days.”
“Yes,” he says immediately, leaning in to kiss her again, before pulling back, his eyebrows furrowed slightly. “I just—I need you to know that this isn’t casual for me. I can’t do that, not with you—”
“Conrad,” she interrupts quietly, waits for him to swallow hard and nod before she continues. “I want to be with you for the rest of our lives. There’s no one else for me but you. In infinite worlds, it’s always you. I don’t know how we’ll make this work between distance and med school and work and time zones, but we will.”
His hand drifts to where her infinity necklace rests at the base of her throat, though his eyes stay on hers. Tears are shining in them, but they don’t fall, and he’s so incandescently happy that she wishes she could bottle up this moment and keep it forever. “We will. The FaceTime app will hate to see us coming.”
She laughs, the sound thick with unshed tears, because she’s about to cry, too. Belly is so, so happy that she could stay here forever, on this train car headed to Brussels, Conrad’s arms around her, her arms looped around his neck like she never wants to let go.
“We’ll FaceTime, and text all the time, and visit whenever we can,” she promises, softly and solemnly. “I’ll come to California, and you can come to Paris. Maybe we could even meet in the middle, somewhere.”
“I’d love that. And you’ll get to meet Agnes.”
Belly snorts. “She probably hates me for how I pushed you away, how it took me so long to admit my feelings and come to my senses.”
“She doesn’t hate you.” Conrad tucks her hair behind her ear, his fingers gentle. “No one could ever hate you, Belly.”
“I can’t wait to meet her. I can’t wait to see your life in California.”
“You’re going to love it,” he says, grinning, likely already imagining it just as clearly as she is. “Especially the ocean.”
She buries her face in his neck, breathes him in. “I love you so much. I still can’t believe you’re here, that this isn’t a dream.”
His fingers slowly trace up and down the ridges of her spine. “I love you, too.” A beat passes thoughtfully, like he’s weighing what to say next. “I meant it when I said I dream about you. Not all the time, and they only started recently.”
She pulls back to study him, fiddles with the collar of his button-up to give her hands something to do, then slides her hands to tangle in his hair, because she doesn’t want to let him go. “What do you dream about? Is it always . . . ?”
He smirks, the right corner of his mouth tilting upwards, like he already knows what she’s going to ask but wants confirmation anyway. She’s already anticipating him leaning in, yet her breath hitches anyway when it happens. His voice is low, lips brushing against the shell of her ear, a shiver running down her spine as he murmurs, “Always what?”
“About sex.” The word is breathless between them, and her eyes flutter shut. Having him this close in real life, not in a dream, is unbelievable.
“No,” he whispers, his lips ghosting over her jaw as he faces her again, looks at her through half-lidded eyes, his gaze molten. His hand cradles her cheek, then slides into her hair. If only they weren’t on a train right now. If they were in her apartment, she’d be sinking to her knees, eager to take him, hard and heavy, into her mouth. “I dream about you everywhere. In my living room, in my kitchen. In Paris, riding the train, going to the market. Just . . . being with you. Having you next to me throughout even the most boring tasks.”
“That’s—Conrad.” Her mind buffers for a second. Goes offline. Packs up, goes on vacation. And then her thoughts return to her. “My dreams started as sex dreams, every once in a while, after you sent your first letter. But now they’re more frequent and not as steamy. Usually.”
His fingers play with the ends of her hair, already used to its length. “I like that dreams have been tying us together.”
“Me too. I’m sorry that it took me so long to write you back,” she admits, “I just knew that if I opened up communication with you again, I’d never want it to stop. I’m always thinking about you, dreaming about you, wanting you, and what we did this morning was literally something out of my dreams. Except it was even better, because you’re here, and you’re real, and this is my life. This is our life.”
“After we had sex this morning, it hurt, hearing you question why I still love you. But I—”
She shakes her head, tears pooling at the corners of her eyes. “No, I was just scared. This means too much to me. I couldn’t have it end up like—like how things did with Jeremiah. Because that was the crux of it, I think. Our relationship was built on grief. I don’t know that he and I were ever in love, at least not the way that you and I are.”
His eyes dance as his smirk fades into a smile, even at the mention of his brother. It doesn’t seem to pain him, not anymore, not now that they’ve straightened things out as much as they can. “And what way is that?”
Belly’s cheeks burn, and his smile only deepens. “You know, like, in whatever world we’re in, we’re together. It’s deep and emotional and all-consuming, but in the best way possible. There’s nothing else like it.”
His eyes soften, so full of love and affection. “I know the feeling.” A beat passes, and he takes her hand and squeezes it. “It’s okay. I get why you didn’t answer, that you needed time. I just wanted you to know that I was thinking about you, that I love you, even if I couldn’t tell you in those exact words.”
“You can now.” She beams at him. “I’m never going to tire of saying it or hearing it. I love you, Conrad.”
He tips his head forward so that his lips brush hers when he says, “I love you, too. And I’ll never get tired of it, either. Hearing you say it or saying it to you.”
“Good,” she mumbles, leaning in to kiss him.
Later that night, her phone buzzes where it’s charging on her nightstand. It’s late, after one in the morning, and she’s trying to fall asleep, but all she thinks about is Conrad. How relieved she is that she caught him on the train to confess her feelings, how the dreams tether them together, how deeply and fiercely they love each other.
Her phone screen is bright in the otherwise dark room, and she blinks blearily at it.
There’s a text from Conrad.
Their last texts had been earlier this afternoon, once he’d finished his first day at the conference and had gone to get dinner.
Conrad (1:04 a.m.): The jet lag is getting to me, I can’t sleep. I can’t stop thinking about you. It feels good to tell you that. I’m glad I got to spend your birthday with you. I love you, Belly.
He hadn’t seemed jet lagged at all during his visit, but that was probably because he was running on pure adrenaline, now that she thinks about it.
Belly (1:05 a.m.): fucking jet lag. I’m always thinking about you. I wouldn’t have wanted to spend my birthday with anyone else. you’re all I’ve ever wished for on every birthday candle, and I can’t believe that’s come true. I love you!
During the week Conrad’s at his conference, they text all the time, and the dreams persist.
On the first night he’s in Brussels, she dreams so vividly about sucking him off (the way she’d envisioned on the train hours ago), wakes up right as the Conrad in her dream comes down her throat. She wakes to find she’s dripping onto her sheets, and slips a hand into her pajama pants. When she comes, it’s with his name on her lips.
This time, she reaches for her phone instead of her dream journal. Even though he’s likely asleep, she texts him anyway.
Belly (2:47 a.m.): just dreamed about you. realized I could tell you that now and needed you to know
His reply comes through the next morning, as she’s brushing her teeth and getting ready for a shift at the cinema.
Conrad (7:34 a.m.): What kind of dream?
Belly (7:35 a.m.): a sex dream
Conrad (7:35 a.m.): Fuck, I wish I was there. I wish I could call you. I’m on my way to breakfast.
Belly (7:36 a.m.): I wish you were here too. I’ll tell you all about it later if you want to hear. call me when you’re with your lectures?
Conrad (7:37 a.m.): Of course.
That night, he calls her just after she’s gotten home from a shopping trip with Gemma. She describes her dream in vivid detail, and comes twice: once around her fingers (after Conrad says, pretend they’re mine, and she replies, I already am), and once around a rabbit vibrator, which Conrad loves how loud it is, how he can hear the sex toy through the phone.
It’s his fourth day in Brussels, the second to last day of his conference, and Belly’s just gotten home from a double shift: she worked at the cinema this morning and then at the bar, with a psychology exam in the middle. He’s been in lectures all day, but has given sporadic updates throughout his day.
Belly (11:35 p.m.): sorry I just got home! long day. I’m exhausted. how was the conference?
Conrad (11:35 p.m.): Conference was long. So many lectures, but at least the contents are interesting. I overheard someone talking about how they had a chocolate croissant for breakfast and it made me think of you.
Belly (11:37 p.m.): :’) I love you!
Conrad (11:39 p.m.): Love you so much. Sleep well, okay?
Belly (11:39 p.m.): sweet dreams, Conrad
He comes back two days later, as promised. She meets him at the train station and they stop at a café near her apartment for coffee and pain au chocolats, unable to stop holding hands and laughing and stealing chaste kisses where they can.
“Come here,” he says, once they’re alone in her apartment, and he’s dropped his bag on the floor of her room. He wraps her in a tight hug, as if it’s been weeks instead of days since he’s held her in his arms. She hugs him back immediately and he sighs deeply into her hair, his breath ruffling the strands at her temple. “I missed you so much.”
“I missed you, too,” she says on an exhale, finally relaxing now that she’s back with him, that he’s here. She loves Paris and the life she’s built for herself here, but she already can’t wait for the time when they’re living together, when they get to come home to each other every night and wake up next to each other, instead of FaceTime calls and longing to be near each other.
“I dreamed about you.” His voice is low, meant only for her ears even though they’re the only two people here, in this apartment, possibly in Paris. maybe even in the world. Not really, obviously, but that’s what it feels like.
She looks up at him with her chin pressed to his chest, her head tilted all the way back. There’s a mischievous glint in her eye, and she can’t help but grin. “What were we doing in your dreams?”
“I could tell you,” he says, tucking her hair behind her ear and letting his hand rest against her cheek. “Or I could show you. If you want.”
“Show me,” she whispers, already tugging him towards the bed, which they tumble onto, her underneath him. “Please.”
“It started slow.” He captures her lips with his, one hand pressing into the pillow next to her head.
The kiss is sweet, and she sighs into it, loving how slow and sweet they’re kissing.
Until, of course, it turns faster, filthier. He’s panting into her mouth, rock hard against her, rolling his hips against hers.
“That feels incredible,” she says, as his mouth moves down to her neck, his tongue sweeps over her infinity necklace.
She whimpers and Conrad takes the infinity pendant between his teeth, smoothes his tongue over it.
“Love that you still wear this,” he says, “when I saw you wearing it on the train, I couldn’t believe it.”
“I haven’t taken it off. I’m never going to take it off.”
He pulls back, his mouth smeared with her red lipstick, and delight sizzles down her spine. His hand drifts to her thigh, which he pulls over his shoulder, and then the other. He shifts her so she’s lying against the bed, her legs over his shoulders.
“Was I wearing the necklace in your dream?”
He just stares at her, his lips parted. "Yes."
“Was I wearing only the necklace in your dream?”
Conrad swallows hard, a dazed look in his eyes. “Yes. You were naked, but you had the necklace on.”
She shivers under his gaze and from his words, how scorching they are. How his want radiates from him, just as it does from her.
“Conrad,” she says, her fingers tangling in the sheets. Her dress has ridden up to her waist, and she’s probably going to soak through her underwear if he keeps looking at her like that.
“You look stunning like this. You always look stunning,” he’s quick to add, “but like this, with your dress at your waist and heat radiating from your pussy . . . Can I eat you out, Isabel?”
The use of her full name combined with the way he’s looking at her (not to mention, the blunt way he asked, fuck, that’s hot) is enough for her to groan, for her stomach to tighten with want.
“Yes,” she gasps, her mouth drifting open with pleasure. “Fuck, yes, please, I need your tongue inside me.”
“Good.” His hands skim her sides and she raises her arms so he can take off her dress, which he does in one swift movement. I want to do it, he’d said the other night, when they fucked for the first time in five and a half years, and that echoes in her mind now. He peels off her underwear, parts her folds with his index finger, then rubs her clit slowly, and it’s so good that her hips jerk off the bed.
He licks up her folds, one hand splayed over her stomach, and when his tongue pushes inside her and he moans, she reaches for his hand, grasping his fingers on her stomach. He’s set a quick, steady pace, maintaining eye contact as he eats her out.
“Fuck,” she moans, arching her back, her orgasm quickly approaching. Her legs slip off his shoulders and onto the bed, but she hardly notices, because his hand on her clit and his tongue are moving in time and it’s—fuck, she’s coming, hard and fast, with a groan.
“That’s it,” he encourages softly, slowing the movements of his tongue and fucking her through it. “So good. Just like I imagined.”
“I need you.” Belly reaches for him, her hands sliding over his shoulders as he crawls up her body, meets her lips in a messy, fiery kiss.
“How do you want me?”
Her breath hitches. “You asked me that in my dream, too. After you sent that first letter, and I had that sex dream about you.”
He tugs her bottom lip between his teeth, smiling into the kiss. “Yeah? How did you answer?”
“Inside me.”
He groans again, pulls away to look at her. “Do you want me inside you now?”
“I do,” she says, clutches at his shirt. “Also, you’re wearing too many clothes.”
He laughs and pulls away, gets undressed while she pulls a condom from the box on her dresser, the one they’d stopped and bought that night he was here. She rolls it on him once he’s reached her and he groans, his head dropping to her shoulder.
Conrad picks up his head, studies her. “Ready for me to fuck you?”
Her cunt clenches around nothing, and she nods. “Yes.”
“Me too,” he says, and then he’s lining himself up with a hand wrapped around his cock and they’re both groaning as he fills her, her cunt adjusting to his size. “Love being inside you.”
“I love it, too,” Belly says, her lips parting as he starts to move, slowly. She groans when he pulls out and pushes slowly back in, savoring it. “I still can’t believe we dreamt about each other, even though you were writing me letters. I thought the letters would be our tether, not the dreams.”
“I’m glad we have both,” he says, leaning down to kiss her again. His mouth’s still covered in her lipstick, but she doesn’t care. In fact, she loves it.
“I love you,” she tells him, her hips meeting his as he continues at that slow pace, her arms wrapped around his back. “I love you so much, Conrad.”
“I love you, too.”
She grins at him.
“What?”
“Would you say we’re making love right now?” she asks, amused, a callback to their slow dance by the Seine.
He hums, faux-thoughtful. “I’d say we’re having sex, actually. What do you think?”
She laughs, delighted. It’s funny how perspective changes in a matter of days. This is the very definition of making love: a gentle breeze, warm afternoon light gilding the room golden. “I think we’re making love.”
He laughs too. “I love you. I can’t stop saying it.”
“I can’t stop, either. I love you, too.”
His mouth travels to her jaw, and he says I love you, and then her necklace, which he whispers I love you against. His lips sweep over her collarbone and he’s confessing his love again and again, each time his lips cover a new expanse of her skin.
When she’s nearing her climax, she’s the one to say I love you. Chants it, like a litany, a song, until she comes and it fades into a moan.
“I love you,” she says again, coming down from her orgasm, running her hand through his hair.
He comes with a groan, then collapses onto her, his thumb drawing lazy circles on her hip. Conrad’s so fucked out, eyes half closed, mouthing at her collarbone. If she had to guess, she’d bet he’s saying I love you against her skin.
Later, after they’ve fucked/made love a few more times, they go out to dinner, to a restaurant Celine recommended that Belly’s been wanting to try.
They’re walking along the Seine back to her apartment, the moon high in the sky, both of them full of pasta and wine, when Conrad stops suddenly.
“You were right,” he says, taking both of her hands in his.
“About what?”
“Earlier, when I said we were having sex.” He stops, leans in close. “We were making love.”
She laughs and he grins.
“I know,” she says, holding his hand as they resume walking, “and it wasn’t a dream.”
When they get back to her apartment, she shows him the dream journal. He loves it, just as she thought he would. When he packs to go home, she tucks it into his suitcase between the button down he wore that very first night and a Stanford sweatshirt Belly slept in on his final night, so it smells a bit like her.
“I want you to have it,” she says, after he marvels at her. “The pages are nearly full anyway. I should probably get a new one.”
“I could send you one, if you want.”
She grins at him, eyes sparkling. “Really?”
“Yeah.” His lip quirks up in a smirk, which she presses her lips to. “In fact, I’d love to pick out a journal for you, imagine you writing all of your dreams about me in it.”
“I’d love that, too.”
Two weeks later, a journal arrives in the mail. It has lined paper (the best kind) and an illustrated drawing of clear blue waves cresting over one another.
Belly flips through it, her eyes catching on ink on the first page.
Conrad’s slanted, messy handwriting stares back at her, in black ink, just as all his letters had been. Her heart squeezes. They already have plans for him to come visit for Christmas, but she misses him.
Dear Belly, it says, I spent weeks agonizing over the perfect journal for you. This one felt perfect. I can’t wait to see the Pacific ocean with you. I can’t wait to see the world with you, and hear all about your dreams.
Love,
Conrad
She texts him a photo of it with the caption, Got your journal. I love it! I love you! Thank you. I can’t wait to fill it with dreams about you, and I can’t wait to see the world with you.
He replies instantly. I already can’t wait to see what you write. I love you so much.
Belly thinks about mailing it to him once she’s filled it out, but as it turns out, she doesn’t have to.
She finishes it a year later, during her first California summer, two weeks after they’ve moved in together. It took a year to finish this journal because now she mostly tells him whenever she’s dreamed about him, since they wake up next to each other. Instead of putting the sex dream journal in a bubble-wrap mailer and sending it across an ocean, she leaves it on Conrad’s nightstand with a Post-It Note stuck to the front that says, time for a new journal. Love you! Can’t wait to watch you read this later.
And then she heads to work, happy and in love with life they’ve built together.