1990

“Open for business?”

Hob glanced up into the mirror behind the shelves he was stocking and saw a youngish, fair-haired man standing at the bar.  “First of the month,” he said, turning to face the man.

“Damn.  I saw the open door and the alluring display,” He waved his hand toward the shelves. “of drink, and thought I’d gotten lucky.”

“Well perhaps you have,” Hob told him as he found two glasses and took down a bottle of the MacAllan.  “The name’s Rob and I’m the owner.” He poured two fingers for each of them and pushed a glass toward his guest. “On the house.  For luck.”

“Stephen.  And thank you.”  They clinked glasses and sipped their whiskey in companionable silence.  “I’ve been sad about the White Horse,” Stephen admitted.  “Then I saw the signs.”

“A can of spray paint is cheap advertising, but effective,” Hob admitted.  He liked Stephen, possibly too much, but his life wasn’t currently about partnership, or even scratching an itch.  He was focusing on business, and the hope that this new venture of his would pay off.

“So… first of the month, you say?  Grand opening?”

“Oh yes, with a brass band, and clowns, and games for the kiddies.”  The look on Stephen’s face made him laugh.

“You’re pulling my leg.”

“Absolutely.  On the first I’m going to open the door, and go sit over there,” he pointed to a table by the fireplace, “and wait for business to come to me.  With luck I’ll be able to pay my bartender and cook.”

“Oh so you’re a hands-off sort of innkeeper?”

He wasn’t, not really.  Every inch of the place he’d planned out from the simple but welcoming décor to the wine cellar that, along with a nice selection at different price points, held a few bottles of exquisite vintage that he hoped one day to share with a friend.  His best friend.  “I’d be hopeless behind the bar,” Hob told him as he put the bottle back on the shelf.  “People tell me their life stories and I like listening to them.”

“Remind me not to bend your ear with the story of my life.”  Stephen threw back the last swallow of his whiskey and set the empty glass on the bar.  “So you’ll have a lot of free time.”

Oh here it comes, Hob thought.

“Perhaps I could convince you to spend some of that time with me?”

And in spite of himself, Hob replied, “Perhaps.”

1997

The New Inn (Everyone kept asking him why that name, and Hob would just shrug and say “I have no imagination.”  It wasn’t their business.) was doing well.  He and Stephen were doing well.

He and Deborah were doing well.  She’d stumbled in one day with a broken heel on her shoe, and Hob had fixed it for her.  “Did a bit of cobbling in my youth,” he told her.  And when she put her foot on his knee, and he grasped her ankle as he slipped her shoe back on, their eyes met, and he realized that he would be spending even more time away from home.

That hadn’t been his plan at all.  He’d been fairly uninterested in sex since burning out on every possible (consensual) vice during his years in Paris and Berlin between the wars.  He’d finally come home late in 1938, absolutely finished with fucking of any sort.  It had been more than twenty years that he’d lived like a monk until he met a very nice young lady on Carnaby Street, and they’d explored the idea of “free love” together with some vigor. Since then there’d been the occasional dalliance, but nothing more than one-nighters, or very short affairs that almost always ended with him shrugging and saying he was sorry. 

Nothing at all touched his heart.  That had ended even before the Berlin years, and the strange thing was that now Hob barely remembered the woman who broke his heart back in 1919 when everyone was giddy with victory. Edith?  Ethel?  He laughed when he thought about how furious she’d be to be forgotten.  Ermintrude?  Perhaps his heart hadn’t been so much shattered as badly bruised after all.  But he had proposed, after a fashion anyway, and she’d flat out told him that she had bigger plans, bigger fish to fry, as she put it.  And she told him he wouldn’t understand.

He’d heard that she’d done well for herself, and then she’d disappeared entirely around the time he was pursuing a pair of twins, boy and girl, in Paris.  Dear lord, they’d been fun, for a while anyway.

But now, with Stephen and Deborah, it was about not feeling so wholly alone. He was careful to be an attentive and courteous lover, except that Deborah saw through him eventually.

“Who is it, Rob?  Is it that man you introduced me to at the inn?”  An awkward moment that had been, but he wasn’t about to lie to either of them.

“What? No.  Wait, what are you talking about?”

“There’s someone or something that’s always between us.  I always feel like I can touch you but never really hold you.”

God help him, he understood immediately.  She was right.  Someone or something.  Dead right.  His body was only marginally engaged, his heart not at all.  So he did the right thing and said, “I understand what you mean.  I’m sorry.”

“Is it that man?” she asked again. “Stephen?”

“No.  Not remotely.”

She sat back against the pillows and looked at him. “Who is it then?”

“A memory,” he told her.  No point in lying.  “Someone I don’t believe I’ll ever see again.”

And at that, her gaze softened.  “Oh.  I’m sorry.  But I’m not going to be a consolation prize.”

“I never thought of you like that,” he told her. 

Her expression suggested that she didn’t believe him, but she was kind enough not to say as much.  “It’s time,” she told him, and he understood.  He got up, dressed, and bent to kiss her good-bye but she turned her face so that his lips brushed her cheek.  And that was for the best.

So then it was over, and Hob decided that it was time to make a clean sweep of it, and cut himself loose from Stephen as well.

“Oh,” Stephen said when Hob told him they were finished.  “Oh well, nice of you to let me know.  I suppose I should tell you that I’ve been seeing someone else too.”

“There’s no one else I’m seeing.”

“That woman, what’s her name?”

“Deborah?  No, that’s over.”

“You’re just dumping us all?” Stephen laughed.  “Don’t you want to know who I’ve been seeing?”

“No.  Look, I never meant to hurt you, but I can’t love you.  I can’t love anyone.” Which was a lie, but the truth wasn’t something Stephen needed to hear.

“I was fine with the arrangement.”

“I’m sorry.”

“No you’re not.”

Hob sighed. “Could we not do this? If you’re with someone else, and you care about that person, you should be with him.  Just him.”

“I really liked you,” Stephen said, his voice rough.

“And I really liked you.  But it’s not enough.”

“Will you be okay?” Stephen asked, surprising Hob with the sudden change in attitude.

“I hope so.  You?”

“Oh yes.  I’ll be fine.  Look, sorry about the drama.  Ego.  You know.”

Their good-bye kiss lingered a bit, and made Stephen sigh.  “I will miss you, you rotten, sexy bastard.”

“Stop by for a drink or a meal occasionally.”

Stephen shook his head. “There is not a chance in Hell I’ll ever step foot in that place again, no matter how good the pasties are.”

2022

A quarter of a century later not much had changed for Hob, but the world had changed around him.  He had new people working at the inn every four or five years, new customers came and went, and he’d disappeared for a while and come back as his own son, a game he was good at, though tired of.  Fortunately people seemed less interested in who and what he was than they had been even a hundred years earlier.  They weren’t curious about the people they barely knew. And that was fine by Hob.

He planned small events like wine, beer, and even whiskey tastings.  Occasionally he’d tell the barman and servers that he was picking up every check on a given day, and he’d make himself scarce so no one could thank him, or even notice him.  It was fun.  It was something to do that didn’t involve financials. 

He had so much money now that the making of more bored him, and he began to investigate charities he could donate to. Always anonymously, of course.  He was the least-known mega rich man on the planet.  A wealthy ghost who was not about to allow fame to ruin his appreciation of the everyday workings of the world.  He did his own grocery shopping.  He lived in three rooms above the inn where he had a bed, a radio, a computer, and stacks of books. And a coffee maker.  Top of the line.  An indulgence but one he got a lot of use out of. The older he got, the less he needed.

He had begun to think that maybe the inn had been a mistake, maybe his friend wasn’t coming back at all.  Maybe they really weren’t friends. The thought hurt more than it should have done. Maybe he needed to move on.  He began to think about traveling again. There was so much in the world he wanted to see and learn. Still, after all these centuries..

And then…

“You’re late.”

“I’ve always heard it impolite to keep one’s friends waiting.”

The world tipped on its axis.

He sat down and there was small talk.  Careful small talk. Hob didn’t push, he just listened.  He let his friend talk for hours about where he’d been, what he’d done.  About his regrets.  How had they been apart for over a century and yet still reached the point of sharing so much so easily?

He learned that his friend was called Morpheus.  Or Dream.  Something seemed to be growing inside Hob, warm and bright.

“What have you been doing?  Making more money?”

“I have more than enough.  I like being an innkeeper.”

“It’s a nice place,” Dream told him as he looked around.  “No smoke.”

Hob snorted with laughter.  “No fleas either.”

“Small mercies,” Morpheus observed and they both laughed.

“I even live upstairs.  No more fancy digs for me.  A couple of rooms and my books is all I need now.”

“I live in a palace,” Morpheus told him.

“Why does that not surprise me?”

“Show me.”

“What?”

“Show me your place. I want to see your books.”

So they went upstairs and Dream walked into Hob’s apartment as if it was a palace too.  He walked with respect.

Hob felt tears prickle his eyes.  It had never been like this before.  He had never felt this kind of warmth and acceptance from his friend before.

“I like it,” Morpheus told him.  He squatted beside a pile of books and read the spines. “The Saga of Burnt Njal? That’s older than you are.”

“I’m trying to catch up.”

“I know the feeling.”  He stood and held out his hand to Hob, who didn’t hesitate.  He grasped his friend’s hand and a shock of pleasure ran through him.  Not sexual, or perhaps sex was a small part of it, but it was so far beyond sex that he didn’t even know what to call it.

They moved together and embraced. There were soft kisses, and a sigh of what seemed like happiness escaped Dream’s lips to be echoed by Hob.  They lay down on the bed and held each other.  Nothing more.  They just held one another so close, with so much gentle affection that Hob suddenly realized that he was feeling love like he’d never felt before.

He pressed his head against Dream’s chest.

He slept.

He dreamed the day over again, this time feeling what it was Morpheus had felt.  He dreamed this strange, all-encompassing love, this immortal love.

He woke to find Morpheus wiping tears from his cheeks.  “You were crying in your sleep. I never intended—“

“Happiness,” Hob said. And Morpheus nodded.

He didn’t come every day.  Once he was gone for over a month.  And when he returned they mostly just sat and talked about the things that were important to them.  And sometimes about silly things because Hob loved making Morpheus laugh, seeing the weight of his existence lift a little.  It was everything. And then they would curl up together and sleep, and the dreams Hob had were like water in the desert, like the taste of honey, like light in the darkness.

One cold night at the end of December, Hob was sitting in front of the fireplace toasting his bare feet.  The inn was nearly empty, the Christmas decorations shimmered in the darkness. He’d told Frank, the barman, that if he wanted to go, they’d close up early, but Frank had said no, he was just as happy to sit behind the bar and read until there were people to serve.

So Hob sprawled in a chair, put his feet up, and drifted on the warmth.  It was amazing how content he felt.  He wanted for nothing.  Not a damn thing.

And then a cool hand was laid on his forehead and it tipped his head back far enough that Hob could see his friend hovering over him, an enigmatic smile on his pale face.

“Come upstairs with me,” Dream said. “There’s something we need to do.”

On the way out, Frank shot Hob a wink and a smile.

They’d barely entered the little apartment when Morpheus pushed Hob against the door, pinning him with his long body, and captured Hob’s mouth in a long, intense kiss.

“Uh…”  This wasn’t what he was expecting.  He’d gotten used to their love for each other being comforting and sexless.  He didn’t need more.  And yet, the fire that ignited inside him as Dream’s mouth bruised his with kisses put the lie to all that.

He was panting when they broke apart. He reached out and tugged at Dream’s coat, yanking it off, giddy with the hunger he was feeling.  Morpheus shucked him out of his sweater and shirt, and when the two of them went for the other’s zippers at the same moment, they both laughed so hard they could hardly manage.

“I didn’t think—“

“Neither did I.” Morpheus reached out and pushed Hob’s hair out of his face.  His expression nearly broke Hob’s heart with joy.

“But you came here wanting this?”

“In the worst way, Hob. I’m twisted into a knot over you.” He dragged Hob to the bed, shoved him down and climbed on top of him.

Much was done that night, and much was said that had never been spoken between them, and dear god the sex was idiotically good.  Transcendent.  Died and gone to heaven good, except Hob didn’t die, he couldn’t, and that was a good thing because he wanted to do this again, and again until his brain and body just shut down out of exhaustion.

They were loud. They were comically loud.

At one point Hob began to laugh because he wondered what Frank and the customers would think.  “So much for my reputation as a prudish loner,” he whispered, and moved against Morpheus’ slim body with slow, deliberate intent.  Damn the man, he was hard again, and Hob, immortal or not, needed time to recover.

But then he rolled over onto his belly and said, “Do it then. We both want it.” No lie.  He ached for it and somehow he knew Morpheus did too.

He would hold that night in his memory for centuries.  Hold those feelings in his heart and soul.  Almost, almost he could happily have died in Dream’s arms, but even then he could see more time together ahead of them.  This love had been growing for centuries, and he wanted to see it bloom.  It was his garden, dammit.  He’d waited long enough.

He slept that night with Dream draped across his back, with the fingers of their right hands entwined. With the scent of dreams – a scent that was everything in the world and nothing at all – wrapping him in his slumber, and the palace of the Lord of Dreams welcoming him as the beloved friend.

It was done and could not be undone.

#Sandman #HobMorpheus