I HAD TO GO to the airport to pick up a daughter flying in from Brussels (and there was panic about whether or not she was even on the plane). While at the gate, I was pacing in worry when she called out to me, “Dad. Dad! I’m right over here. God, what an idiot.” Then we had to go back home. All of Europe was arrayed in Scandinavian-style apartment blocks. You know those big yellow brick buildings you see in Stockholm, or Copenhagen especially. “Estonia” was merely at the end of one particularly long boulevard. It was dark and it was raining. When I got home, my woman friend was gone. She had come to see me but I had to leave her alone to attend to my family needs. Apparently, she didn’t have the patience to spend all day, leafing through old magazines. She had worn a special dress for me, but where was I? At the airport? She didn’t even bother to say goodbye. Not even a message. When I inquired after my female guest my other daughter said, “You mean the one with the breast implants?” “Breast implants? I thought they were real. When did she get breast implants?” I was not convinced about the fake breasts. But I also didn’t want to ask. They were fine, firm, very believable breasts anyway. Organic. I understood then that my other daughter was just trying to downgrade her in my mind. It was all about attention, you see. These daughters of mine, they wanted my attention. Another female interloper was just a drag on the attention stock. She needed to be pushed out of the picture. They sure were crafty. The next morning I had to go out with Morris for a meeting at a startup company on the other side of town. It was somehow impossible to get to this place on foot. I looked at the map. It said it was located in “Tüütumaa Park.” The river flowed straight toward the park, and we decided to commandeer a small vessel. It was this ramshackle wooden thing, leaking, but still seaworthy. The waterways were full of great sea lions, walruses, elephant seals. They floated by, big furry masses of dopey fish-feeding mammals. “There must be sharks in these waters,” I told Morris. “Where there are seals, there are sharks. I don’t like it one bit.” The water was incredibly clear, but I saw no great whites or hammerheads. They had to be down there somewhere. It was just so troublesome to get all the way down to Tüütumaa. Why were we even going? To visit another software company? Excuse me, ICT. Who cared anymore anyways? I really hoped that they had a food court down there. Maybe a coffee house that roasted its own beans. Something to make the trip worthwhile.

STANDING IN LINE in Telliskivi, waiting to enter a French-themed can-can bar behind an older lady with short gray hair parted on the side, and spectacles, like an aged Frau Farbissina from the Austin Powers franchise. At the desk they requested her recovery, vaccination, and booster codes, and she was lacking one, fumbling through her purse, speaking in broken English, so they sent her away. When it was my turn, I spoke to them in Estonian, but the security guard, a husky type with a handlebar mustache, informed me that he had no knowledge of that language. Then an older man came out of the establishment and addressed him in German so perfect, I later marveled that my mind could reproduce the German language in such a believable way. He was trailed by a French-speaking couple. Same story. There were some Estonians working the front desk, but they gave me that dreadful Soviet legacy service, just shrugged their shoulders and blinked and did nothing. “Not my problem.” I left the can-can bar and went somewhere else. I didn’t have three passes anyway. Persona non grata, that’s what I was. No can-can for me. Not this time.

ONE NIGHT I dreamt of Kärt and Anselmo, her Latin husband. We were at their penthouse in the city. It was late morning and Kärt was sprawled out nude in her bed, engulfed in crisp, white sheets. The sun was through the window on the sheets and illuminating her tufts of wild golden hair. I was kneeling beside the bed suckling on one of Kärt’s breasts while she took part in a Teams meeting via her phone. Kärt is not one to let bedside reveries get in the way of work.

Sometimes though, Kärt did get thirsty and dispatched me to fetch her some water or coffee, which I was only too glad to do. Then Anselmo, that brooding Spaniard, would enter, tying his tie for work. He would take his turn kneeling on the opposite side of the bed, and being attentive to Kärt’s other breast. My breast was her right breast. Never did I venture to the left. That was Anselmo’s territory. Likewise, he never took her right nipple in his mouth. It was my job to be attentive to Kärt’s right breast.

This went on like this for some time in the dream, the jug worshipping, until it was time for us to both leave. Kärt needed to prepare for a working lunch. Anselmo meanwhile had ignored me for the entirety of this exercise (other than to lecture aloud, as if to a spellbound audience, that visitors had to keep their hands above the sheets, that is, only breast licking was permitted in the penthouse and nothing more). At the door though, Anselmo for the first time turned to me and asked, “What do you think, Justin, is it really possible for a man not to have faith in himself?” 

It was a very serious question and Anselmo looked me in the eyes as he asked it to me. To which I replied, “Well, if he has done all that he can and it still doesn’t work out, I suppose a man has reasons to doubt himself.” Anselmo nodded repetitively as if making a series of calculations. Then he called me a defeatist and marched out the door to work.

I am relating this tale to you now because one of my friends told me that I should try to write more about sex. She is a long-time confidant, a middle-aged woman and a mother of three. But she wants to read about sex. Sex involving me? Like what? Positions? Experiences? Advice? 

When I told her that it would be difficult for me, ethically at least, she suggested that I write about dreams instead. “Use your imagination. You can get away with anything in your dreams.” This she said with a wink and was out the café door holding several bags of fresh coffee. 

That dream about Kärt and Anselmo is a recent one and I really enjoyed it because it was so different. Breast worshipping? A Teams meeting? I could never make these things up while I was awake. These kinds of dreams are interesting because they always find ways to surprise you. It’s always a treat just who you wind up with in your dreams, and often you wind up dreaming about people who maybe aren’t so attractive to you in your waking life but are quite thrilling to be with in bed when you are asleep. Then you awake in delirium, feeling as if a great truth has been revealed.

One night, I dreamt again that I was back in Tallinn. I was down by the Linnahall, which had now become a tropical location, with a bright sandy beach lined by palm trees just like in Belize. The Linnahall was overgrown with vegetation and vines, like some kind of ruined Mayan temple, and the waters of the harbor were crystal clear and warm, and you could see your feet below. That was not all you could see, because it was then that I realized that I was completely naked. So there I was, naked in the capital. I managed to steal a towel from someone on the beach, and soon was sauntering through the Rotermanni kvartal wearing my makeshift diaper. 

Of course, when I reached the publishing houses on Maakri Street, I happened to see Linnea, the beloved author of many prominent and revered books, who was exiting some swanky party. When I looked over and saw her shapely form attired in one of her flowing elegant dresses my heart sank. To make matters even worse, Linnea was walking right my way. Soon after, we were making love on a bench on Maakri Street, she in her elegant dress and me in my stolen towel. Then I noticed the photographer from Kroonika had arrived to take a few photos of our scene. Rather than flee, Linnea only pulled me closer into a sumptuous kiss. “Don’t worry,” Linnea said. “You and I are going to sell lots and lots of books.” Her words soothed any remaining concerns. And soon after, the city was full of the sensual sounds of sighing, suckling, satisfied dreamers. 

Who would ever want to wake up from a dream like that?

THIS IS THE SEASON, the season of heavy boots and crackling fires, of warm blankets and dark nights. It’s a relief at times to feel winter’s cold hands on your face. As hard as it is on the body, as hard as it is on the mind, and hard on the soul, there is a stunning beauty in the diamond elegant hardness of winter, in those frosted-out branches reaching to the moon in full, mirroring back light like phantom fingers.

Outside, the local men march and return, ascending crooked staircases, great armfuls of birch and alder to burn, held tight in their muscles. That hard-headed determination, that clenched desire to survive and keep warm. Inside their wives and girlfriends are making them soup or tea. Sometimes their girlfriends are other men’s wives.

On some cold nights, it’s all too much. On some nights, it feels good to shiver, to let the cold have its way with you. Let it all in. Let it in through the doors, and windows, through the floor. Then it’s morning and I wake up thinking about Brynhild, which is some Old Norse goddess name I have given to one woman who appears from time to time. I think of the comfort of her breast, and how weak I am for it, and how she is unrepentant for betraying her husband. “It’s complicated,” she says.

I don’t like being weak, or vulnerable, or in need of comfort, but when the opportunity arises, that’s when I understand how famished I am. My life is full of hard things. Heaviness, wintryness, ice floe hardness. There is no natural softness in me, so I seek out the soft. I dream of the warmth and of the soft as I head out to the wood barn and the flakes are fluttering down in the moonlight at midnight. I crawl up and sleep in the room beside the hot flames in the furnace and awake beneath the blanket at the very first signs of light.

Outside, there are already people on their way somewhere, stepping over mounds of snow to head to the cafe or to the apothecary, bundled in hats, gloves, shawls, boots, and just a little room for their wild eyes. Sometimes I ask myself, do I love Brynhild? The answer I think is no. I don’t love anymore. Sometimes I try, but it never goes anywhere. You get that big feeling and all you are left with is some words, or an idea, or the memory of being content for a while. Sometimes the women I think I love have partners, which means they are locked up tight like princesses in some castle, and there’s no getting at them anyhow, even as they blow kisses at you from the tower. Sometimes they don’t, but they are always looking for something better. Sometimes they pass you on the street with another man. Most times they don’t look back. They might wave to you. That’s when I think that love is just some word someone made up once upon a time. Like a fever dream, I wake up restless again and aching for comfort. I think again of Brynhild.

Sometimes you don’t fully understand how hungry you can be for a woman until she’s lying there nude beside you. Sometimes the experience is so confusing, so euphoric, and so grotesque, that I don’t know what to think. I keep coming back for more. I have to go back because I want more. Anything to keep warm on cold nights. This is it for me then, the restlessness, the shuffling, the drifter’s life. Like some bluesman hobo of the American South, moving from town to town. You listen to the blues and fall asleep to them at night. You get up, put on your snow boots and head out. Maybe some princess in a tower might blow you a kiss. Or maybe Brynhild will at last take pity on your soul. Maybe today will be different.