I can never be sure if it was real or just another illusion. The way that she looked at me, with longing in her eyes, as if I were a god among men, it was maddening. This is precisely why I sometimes think I must be insane. It wasn't her body so much as it was her psycho mind powers. For Christ's sake, the woman could get away with dividing by zero and the universe would just look the other way. It was as if I was in one of those dreams where your teeth fall out, except I didn't know if what I was experiencing was real or not. You know what I'm talking about: Those lucid dreams where you travel through time and fall in love. I was convinced for far too long. For days I asked myself, "Was that real, or did I dream it?"
But of course it was real. You know that. I know that.
It was her voice that I clearly remember. She opened her eyes and spoke in a very normal voice, just as if she were sane. She said, "That's me inside your head."
This didn't sound odd to me when she said it. You have to understand, there are some things man was not meant to know, and she knew all of those things. The air in the room became heavier with every breath. Her intellect pervaded the room like the morning fog. With eyes that had a way of making time stop, she was in control, and she knew it.
She knew other things too. She knew that I don't know how to fall in love with a woman. I can't even recall the words she used. Something like:
"The concept of intelligence in Protagoras is far from my own conceptualization."
She knew Plato, oh yes she knew Plato. God damn it if she didn't have lunch with him every afternoon, waxing philosophical. Her arguments and philosophical perspective were revolutionary. She knew why Socrates was really executed. God damn it, she knew everything. Her mind spanned the dimensions of the universe, folding in upon itself in a perpetual struggle to reason with such a limited being as myself. She was too intelligent to possibly exist in my world. She was the woman on the edge of time.
"Did you think of me before you knew me?"
When she asked this question, I finally understood what terror truly was. She had asked me this before.
"I never knew you."
It was a lie. I did think about her, and I knew her better than I knew myself. I knew her from a long time ago, long before I was born.
"I do not think it means what you think it means."
Then she rolled over and fell back asleep. Or maybe she was never awake in the first place. I can never remember, because it was precisely at that moment when my teeth fell out.
It was my first recursive dream.