Sweet Dreams Read online

  CONTENTS

  Cover

  Praise for Tricia Sullivan

  Also by Tricia Sullivan and available from Titan Books

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Body confidence

  The first cut

  Cardboard box in Wandsworth Town

  How not to be a doormat

  ASMR

  The pigeon sisters

  Flowers for Algernon: the club remix

  Copernican Principle

  The Dark Side

  Why

  Creeper

  Sleepwalkers Anonymous

  Oneric Crime

  Our friend can go again

  Unique and impactful

  Doctor Lady Reverend

  Stack

  Cone of Silence

  Two takeaways plus tea

  Sleep paralysis personified

  Knitters, cat-lovers, tea-drinkers

  Big sky

  Little bird

  Mrs H-W strikes back

  Unfair to snakes

  For real

  Moose reserve

  Delivered by ghost pigeon

  Awake

  Acknowledgements

  About The Author

  Praise for Tricia Sullivan:

  ‘Sweet Dreams is a gripping and frequently scary mystery with great characters that manages to stay one step ahead of the reader, and it’s both grounded and bursting with ideas. You’ll race through it and be sorry when it’s over’

  SciFi Now

  ‘Fast and fun, thrilling and chilling by turns’

  Interzone

  ‘A fast-paced SF thriller that delivers the author’s usual blend of convincing characterisation and well researched science’

  Guardian

  ‘Occupy Me keeps the pages turning and the wheels of thought whirring. It’s a psychedelic experience, a wacky tapestry of an idea’

  SFX

  ‘This is science fiction at its most surreal . . . the premise is brilliant’

  Daily Mail

  Also by Tricia Sullivan and available from Titan Books

  Occupy Me

  TRICIA SULLIVAN

  SWEET

  DREAMS

  TITAN BOOKS

  Sweet Dreams

  Print edition ISBN: 9781785658006

  E-book edition ISBN: 9781785658013

  Published by Titan Books

  A division of Titan Publishing Group Ltd

  144 Southwark Street, London SE1 0UP

  www.titanbooks.com

  First Titan edition: July 2019

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  Names, places and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead (except for satirical purposes), is entirely coincidental.

  © 2017, 2019 Tricia Sullivan. All Rights Reserved.

  Visit our website:

  www.titanbooks.com

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.

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  For Marion J. Sullivan

  world’s greatest mom

  Secret Diary of a Prawn Star

  Entry #46

  Codename: Chaplin

  Date: 12 September 2027

  Client: Bettina Haugh-Wombaur

  Payment in advance: Yes

  Session Goal: Resolve recurring anxiety dream

  Location: Collingborne Road, Shepherd’s Bush

  Narcolepsy status: Nice nap at O’s place beforehand

  Nutrition/stimulants: None

  Start time: 11:32 p.m.

  End time: 12:27 a.m.

  Mrs Haugh-Wombaur blows off a lot in her sleep. It sounds like she keeps a foghorn under the duvet. Of course, to look at her daylight life you’d never guess. She has ruffles on her bedding, and her pillowcases always match. She keeps her socks and knickers in separate drawers. None of her bras are tangled up. Even her Rabbit lives in a special velvet case with lube in a zippy bag alongside. Everything in Mrs Haugh-Wombaur’s life is under control – except her colon in the middle of the night.

  Oh, and of course: her dreams.

  That’s what she hired me for. Normally I wouldn’t snoop around people’s rooms to see what kind of vibrator they have in their drawer, but one time I had to make a lightning search for throat sweets when I had a coughing fit in the middle of the night. That’s when I noticed that Mrs H-W’s tidiness extends right down to alphabetising her make-up: blusher, concealer, eyeliner, foundation, lipstick, mascara. (I snipe because I’m jealous. I’ve had most of my make-up since I was seventeen and it’s spread over the bottom of my saggy H&M carryall so that all the containers are covered with a greasy light brown dust like fallout from an explosion.)

  At the moment, I’m in the middle of Mrs H-W’s recurring nightmare. I know it inside-out; it’s become something of a thorn in my side. Every session I do my best to get in there and change the trajectory, but no matter what I do, it always seems to end the same way. Mrs Haugh-Wombaur is invigilating a History A-Level exam in the nude while jeering students launch plastic Angry Birds piggies at her using catapults made from protractors and rubber bands.

  For some people, this would be just the beginning of a hot sex dream. Or a funny sex dream, at least. Not Mrs H-W. She’s genuinely humiliated by her body, and the Angry Birds thing apparently goes back to her student-teaching days when an eleven-year-old secretly recorded his friend shooting Green Pig into her bum crack during a lesson on the Roman Empire. The video went viral.

  I know I can help her get over it. On this particular occasion, I have a dressing gown all ready. I’m lurking in the dream at the back of the exam room, where she can see me smiling and being encouraging. I’m like a dream coach. In Mrs. H-W’s dreams I always present like my real self, because she’s insecure and I’m unthreatening. But technically I can change myself into anything I want when I’m in someone’s dream. Once I changed myself into a horse so that my client could gallop off into the sunset alone, leaving his mouthy ex-boyfriend behind.

  Mrs. H-W doesn’t need a horse. I really don’t think there’s much wrong with her; she just needs a bit more confidence and less body shame. When all her clothes vanish, I’m going to rush forward and cover her up, then inform the offending History students that they’ve failed their tests. I am going to use my mean voice.

  But before I can act, the dream is filled with the sudden gong of church bells. I startle awake.

  She’s farting again.

  Body confidence

  Mrs H-W is thrashing around in the big bed she used to share with Mr H-W before he ran off with an estate agent he met at the gym. This evening she’s been out with friends and got to bed late and a bit drunk. The drinking and/or the late-night pancakes at My Old Dutch have disagreed with her, and now the room is stifling and foetid thanks to Mrs H-W’s overactive gut flora.

  I shift in the armchair beside Mr Haugh-Wombaur’s now-empty wardrobe. This is where I work. My debilitating narcolepsy has certain advantages, and one of them is that I can fall asleep anywhere. I have to get b
ack in the dream because I promised Mrs H-W we’d find a way to beat this thing, and I sense she’s growing impatient with our lack of success. But holy guacamole, Batman, the room smells revolting. Gagging, I stand and creep out into the hallway, listening carefully for any sign she might be waking. The hall air isn’t much better, so I pad down to the lounge and crack a window. A cool shaft of night air falls into the room and I suck it in greedily. Ah. It’s the little things.

  My earring’s internal display is discreetly informing me I have new messages. I’m kind of hoping that my next client will cancel. It’s a new client who booked me for 3 a.m. on the other side of town, for a sex dream. I hate doing these – scraping together an induced orgasm out of someone’s personal kinks isn’t therapy and it’s rarely even fun – but I’ve taken it out of financial desperation. I don’t think I’m going to be so good at this after Mrs H-W. But the first message is just a check-in from O, making sure I’m OK. I start to compose a reply to the effect that we need to charge danger money for olfactory hazards, and then a little flag in my visual field informs me that the second message is from Antonio Silva. O has forwarded it from the business line. My pulse starts flying north.

  I go to the foot of the stairs and listen. Mrs H-W’s breathing suggests she has fallen into a deeper sleep and is probably dreaming again. I need to get in there and do what she’s paying me for. Damn. What does Antonio want? Why do I care? Well, we know why I care, that’s obvious, but I don’t want to care. I start up the stairs and open the message on a small internal screen in the corner of my vision. I decide I’ll read one line. Just one line.

  Hi Charlie

  That doesn’t count as one line, OK?

  How are you? I am fine. I need a favour and I hope you will forgive

  That’s it? He’s so formal. Where’s the TLDR? He hasn’t told me anything. Forgive what? Forgive him for being such a jerk? I mean, seriously, I’m not interested in Antonio’s alleged condom phobia.

  I climb a few more steps. Mrs H-W unleashes another whopper and I stop. OK, just one more line.

  me if this request is inappropriate, but I don’t know where else to turn. Would you

  Would I? Would I? Would I what, Antonio? Quit beating around the proverbial.

  consider taking on my girlfriend as a client? She is seeing a psychiatrist but

  Grrrrrrr. I decide that, just for now, I’m going to pretend I didn’t read that. Deep breaths of the cool air, Charlie, and let it go. Really, I don’t know what possessed me to open a message from Antonio Silva of the too-giant-for-condoms dick. I do not ever learn.

  Snarling a little, I close the app and tiptoe back into Mrs H-W’s bedroom. I flop down in the chair, ready to take on her hostile A-level students. I can do this. I can help her. Body confidence. Body confidence. Body confidence.

  Mrs. H-W blows off once more with feeling.

  TRANSCRIPT

  DC: This is Donato Cruz interviewing Charlotte Aaron with Doctor Roman Pelka also present. We recommence at 1.53 p.m. on 17th September 2027 in Location B, Leytonstone Road, Stratford after Ms Aaron requested a toilet break. She has been advised of her right to legal representation during this interview and she has declined.

  CA: Legal what? Er, thought I was just here to help.

  DC: What exactly is your job? Your business card says Dreamhacker. Do you mind explaining?

  CA: Oh, you must want my elevator pitch. OK, just a second, let me remember what I’m supposed to say . . . OK, ready?

  DC: As ready as I’ll ever be.

  CA: I’m so glad you asked, Donato! I guess you could think of me like Billie Piper in that old TV show – damn, what was it called again? You know, where she goes to people’s hotels and does dirty stuff to them. But without the sex in my case.

  DC: I don’t watch TV.

  CA: Oh, never mind. Seriously, there’s nothing sexy about dreamhacking. I sleep in armchairs and on settees and sometimes on the floor while people snore and grind their teeth and . . . stuff . . .

  DC: How many floors does this lift stop at?

  CA: What they do in their dreams is their business. And it’s my job to help them do it in a more healthy and proactive manner.

  DC: Your formal qualifications are . . . ?

  CA: I just remembered the elevator pitch! Secret Diary of a Call Girl meets Inception! That’s it.

  DC: OK, got it. And your formal qualifications?

  CA: Um . . . well, it’s a new field. There are no actual, like, governing bodies.

  DC: But you went to – let’s see – Excelsior-Barking University. You have a lower-second-class degree in Psychology. Online.

  CA: Yeah, and look where that went! I couldn’t find any proper work after I graduated, so I had to temp for an agency. Office work.

  DC: You temped for a marketing company, apparently. Arguably some psychology there.

  CA: Not really. What I do now is psychology. Sort of. In an unlicensed, rogue sort of way . . . That came out sounding bad, didn’t it?

  DC: And the money for . . . er . . . dreamhacking?

  CA: It’s not what you’d think given the size of the alternative-health community. The trouble is, dreamwork is time-intensive and it has to be done in person. The only way to make money is to charge people a lot. O has been trying to get me clients. She’s posh and has loads of contacts. But it’s not easy money. People want fast results or they’re off to NLP and quantum healing instead.

  DC: So you’re trying to tell me there’s no money in what you do. Why don’t I believe you?

  CA: Maybe you’re a naturally suspicious person.

  RP: [unintelligible]

  DC: Is there something you want to say, Roman?

  RP: Sorry. That wasn’t a laugh, honestly. Frog in my throat.

  CA: At least I’m employed. And I’m registered with the Council of Alternative Therapies. I pay National Insurance. You can check.

  DC: We did. So you invented this profession for yourself.

  CA: I didn’t have a choice. I got sacked from my temp job.

  DC: And why were you made redundant?

  CA: Sleeping on the job. But I couldn’t help it. I was ill.

  DC: Your medical records show that you applied for sickness benefit and were denied. You claimed narcolepsy.

  CA: It was because of the medical trial. My mate Shandy contracted typhoid so she could pay back her decorating-addiction debt. She said it was easy money.

  DC: You contracted typhoid for money?

  RP: What’s a decorating addiction?

  CA: I didn’t contract typhoid, Shandy did. Mine was this other experimental infection, I’ll just look up the name in my files while we’re talking. Bear with me. So, Shandy’s decorating addiction. She gets paid now to decorate, but before she was hired at BigSky she racked up a lot of debt buying virtual furniture. She’s really hooked. She has a full-time unicorn to stop her being run over by cyclists.

  RP: So she’s a virtual-space designer.

  CA: Trainee, but she gets a wage. It was through Excelsior-Barking’s nanotech department. They were compensating trial participants. The medical study, I mean, not the unicorn. I’m still looking for the name of the infection, sorry if my eyes are rolling back. I know it’s not my best look.

  RP: It’s OK, it suits you.

  CA: Shandy says I look like a dead body.

  DC: We can get the files later. We will need specifics about this work you did. Not Shandy or Shandy’s unicorn. You.

  CA: Sorry, I’m a little disorganised. But hey, I’m just wondering what this has to do with . . . with what happened to Melodie Tan. I mean, why are you so interested in me?

  RP: You’d be surprised how important these little details can be. The more you tell us, the better we can do our job.

  CA: OK, but can’t we take a break? I’m knackered.

  DC: [laughs] We just had a break.

  CA: [yawning] I’m not faking the narcolepsy, you know.

  DC: You use headware. Did you check
to see if it was related to your illness?

  CA: Oh, my earring? The doctor said not to worry. It couldn’t do anything like that. Anyway, I only use it for social media. And movies. And a bit of shopping, not that I can afford to buy fresh food, even, let alone shoes or hair products. I mean, you haven’t seen my hair but since the infection it’s pretty much beyond repair.

  DC: Yet the piece you use is late-model. Well beyond most people’s budget.

  CA: My grandad handed it down when he bought himself the latest upgrade. He’s . . . you know, he’s from that generation. With the money.

  DC: So you’re not into tech?

  CA: Me? No. I’m more of a people person. If I were into tech I could get a job with BigSky and then I wouldn’t have to sign up for medical trials just to raise the cash to get out of the cupboard under the stairs, do you see what I’m saying?

  DC: About your friend O – her real name would be . . . ?

  CA: Sorry, but I’m getting a bit hungry. How long will you need me for?

  DC: We can take a short break. But we’d prefer no calls, no outside contact. Roman, sort some food.

  CA: Uh . . . can you just tell me how long you’re likely to need me for?

  DC: I would clear your calendar, Ms Aaron. The police are treating the death as suspicious and you’re a witness.

  RP: Ms Aaron, are you all right?

  CA: [unintelligible]

  DC: We can’t understand what you’re saying. Could you speak up for the recording, please.

  CA: Am I a suspect? Because the constable at the scene told me I could talk to you if I wanted but I didn’t have to. No outside calls doesn’t sound right to me. I mean . . . in films they get to make one call, or is that just America?

  DC: This isn’t a film. You have the right to leave. You have the right to contact anyone you wish. I merely stated what my colleague and I would prefer.

  CA: I think I should go.

  RP: Excuse me, Donato. Er, Ms Aaron, my colleague can be a little . . . intense. Let me get you a kebab and a drink. You go ahead and call anyone you like. We’re not the police police. We only ask that you be . . . discreet. This is a sensitive matter.