I'm in San Francisco, at one of the first Renaissance Faires, held on a sand-dune lot in the heart of the city. Dusty. I know it's a golden opportunity to get in on the ground floor. But my time-traveler's foresight also tells me that the Faire will remain a labor of love--and while I enjoy it, I don't love the era enough to work here for free... or a pittance.

Outside the gate, people dress weirdly, hoping it'll pass as 16th century costumes so they'll be admitted free. A spontaneous parade grows, and takes over Market St, as big as on May Day or Halloween. Gays and lesbians take the lead. They and the prostitutes' union whip up a float where two hookers are borne by a squadron of burly gay men, wrapped like two giant tacos--creating an outrageous pun I forget now, but was aimed at straights' roles. I laugh uncontrollably, leap onto the float and hug and kiss the two whores. Feel turned on and no need to hide it--full of affection and support for their joke. They're surprised and delighted. Expected, from straights, either that sneery drooling American sex thing, or political hostility. Or both!

After marching a bit in the parade, I go indoors and up to a friend's 2nd-floor office with a balcony, where I can see the parade as a whole. Here comes the Mud Cult contingent: the mud gurus and their child-disciples sliding on mud like otters. I was still laughing and commenting, but I clam up and feel shy as I notice my friend's invited several Indian fakirs up here in the office. Will they be offended?

Look closer at the mud people and find a couple aren't human at all, just human-size: small dinosaurs basking! Then the next float comes round the corner: live brontosaurs! The human tourists back away, uneasy. My friend photographs the dinos, but the camera shutter jams. Shit, I wanted that shot!

My friend hits a button lowering the balcony to ground level. I wish he'd asked me! The dinos loom over us, terrifying. Then the brontos lean into each other and FUSE, into one monstrous carnivore! It stalks on out of sight. But I'm not relieved. I know it'll return at some unexpected moment. When, how? Dunno. Just know it will.

I spot a friend in the crowd. She leads me across Market Street to a white, toothy open-air temple on a terrace in the United Nations plaza. It's a maze of white stone walls. I walk in, and in its quiet, a suspicion arises. I think my office-friend is no friend--I think he set up that dino business to scare us all, dominate the city.

Out of a maze-corridor, a tall, upright, white giant emerges. An albino T. Rex! Not the one formed by the fusion of the brontos--this one's female. She seems tense and troubled, and when we get to talking, I ask what's eating her (not the smartest choice of words, but for a tyrannosaurus her aura is sweet and I'm not worried). She's eager for a sympathetic ear, even if it's small and mammalian, and soon blurts out that the other T. Rex, the one my office-friend amalgamated... he RAPED her!

I didn't even know dinosaurs could rape. I feel sorry for her. No, more than sympathy. Attraction. What? I'm hot for a tyrannosaur? Blink as I realize it; turn and look at the human girl by me--half expect my attraction for the dinosaur to evaporate. Nope. I do feel attracted toward my human friend...but I want Tyranna more.

So I set out to woo a tyrannosaurus. She's shy and hurt. I must win her trust. I enlist my human girl friend's help in counseling her.

At last, my friend and I and Tyranna screw up our courage and climb the Tower to the Door. Behind it lurks the rapist tyrannosaur and his creator, my false friend. Or have they fused too, has he BECOME his monster? "I'm scared" says my love the dinosaur. I say "If I hold your hand will you come with me?" I reach up to her foreclaw... and open the door.

We discover my false friend is Palmer Eldritch, the mad illusionist. He's been drugging us all with psychedelics so we'll doubt what's real. He tries to get us to fear each other, and to doubt the reality of each other... but now that we see him together, fight him together, we know our love is real.

We defeat him with love and force, together. The drug-haze slowly fades, like San Francisco fog in the noon sun. The albino tyrannosaur girl becomes an equally huge albino mammalian girl. At the end I'm happily in bed with her, petting her, my whole arm up her generous cunt...

NOTES IN THE MORNING

• I love a T. Rex: at our vocal group's last rehearsal, Shar walked in, saw me, and blurted "Where's your fire-lizard?" She's been reading Ann McCaffrey's Pern books, but why in that moment she saw me as a Pernian with a symbiotic fire-lizard, I don't know. But I stopped short, feeling an overwhelming sense of loss--as if I really am missing my symbiotic dragonet! Well, here she is, my lizard love...
• Palmer Eldritch, the illusionist: from Philip K. Dick's The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch. Aliens try to contact us, but their method shakes human certainty about reality. They weren't hostile aliens, just... incompatible. Like mismatched blood types. Contact's so toxic it has to be stopped.
• Renaissance Faire: our vocal group hopes to sing there. But the romantic tensions and jealousy in the band are getting out of hand--the dream warns I'd better keep a bit more distance. Don't ask Michelle out; you'll only spur more jealous fights and probably get rejected.

At least that's how I interpreted the dream 20 years ago. Now, rereading it in a different millennium, it seems to say the opposite. Go to the Ren Faire, you'll find love! Yes, there'll be problems, but love will win out. The fact I could get the reverse message out of such an encouraging dream shows how sick and exhausted I was then. I just couldn't afford to take risks; I never asked Michelle out.

Chronic illness taught me one thing, though. I'm slow to scorn others who seem cowardly, passive or unloving. Love and courage are sometimes beyond your energy budget--and not by choice.

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