01.18.05 Fitzgerald is a good-looking man with the name of a Victorian teddy bear. He rolls over in his bed and wakes up alone and naked under these plush down comforters. They’re white and his room is yellow and the sun is in his eyes because it is Saturday and it’s nine o’clock. The time is not as important as it may seem, but to Fitzgerald these things are different. He lies in his bed and opens his eyes, lifts one young, chiseled hand far in front of him. His fingers grip a block of air just so and he examines his blunt fingernails, turning his wrist like his hand is on a glass jewelry stand, rotating so that he may view it from all angles. He loves to trace the deep blue veins that traverse over his knuckles and down his arm, for underneath his skin they are like rivers, small rivers that coarse through his body and keep him alive. To him, these veins are everything. The hairs on his smooth pectorals begin to rise as he lies there, the blankets low on his waist, and he pulls them up to cover his body once again. It is almost impossible to awaken, for the dreams that wrapped themselves around his brain are still too real. It is as though it is the room in which he lies that is the true illusion. He still feels the impression on his lips when the woman in his dream kissed him so lightly, but with every minute that he gazes at his hands, another sensation slowly melts beneath his eyes, sinks deep within his down pillow. It hurts to feel her leave him, for her touch was so intimate, so comfortable. He rolls over and buries his eyes in the heels of his hands, begging to trap any last images so he may refer to them later. Or perhaps he would fall asleep so he may continue in this beautiful fantasy. If he could only touch her waist again, for while he was asleep he felt so pure, so undisturbed, and now that he’s awake he can remember his faults and blemishes. But she was perfect, and he lays there for twelve minutes as he reaches so desperately for one more bat of her long brown eyelashes.