"Dreamwalking" by Adhara Law (c) 1998 Adhara Law. All rights reserved. May not be reproduced without express written permission by the author. ***Author's Note: This story recently won the "Wild, Wicked and Wet" Contest for the Erratic, Neurotic, Erotic website and received a rating of 10,10,10 from Celeste's Reviews. The simple act of pouring coffee became a delicate ritual under her careful ministrations. He smiled as she handed the cup over to him and counted his change into his outstretched palm. He chose a table by the window, the same table he sat in every afternoon. His routine began -- sip the coffee, turn the page of the day's newspaper, gaze out the window at the activity on the street. "Looks like a nice day." He was interrupted by the tinkling melody of her voice. He turned to see her cleaning the table next to his, her narrow hips swaying as she pushed the damp towel across the table. She was a new sight in this place that he'd been coming to for the past eight months. "Yeah, I guess it does." He winced inwardly at his lack of creativity. He tried not to let her see his eyes linger a little too long on her pleasant form, but she noticed him staring anyway. She smiled back. Her long, dark brown hair flipped over her shoulder as she started back into the kitchen. Weather makes not for good conversation, he thought. *** She was there again the next day, this time with a smile that held the glint of familiarity in it. As she handed over his coffee, he stumbled over thoughts of what to say to her, desperately thinking but coming up with nothing. The English language suddenly seemed like a foreign tongue to him. He settled into his routine, but not without minor disorder. The paper wasn't all that interesting, and the street looked the same as it always did. The sights inside the coffee shop were much more interesting. Again, she began cleaning the table next to his, the towel in her hand swishing silently back and forth. "So," he began quietly. "You're new here?" He hid his reddening face behind his coffee mug. "Yeah, just started yesterday." Swish. Swish. Hips swayed. "That's great." He fumbled. She flashed a smile as she turned back toward the counter. That night, he lay in the warm darkness of his bedroom, drifting off to sleep, trying to recreate the image of her swaying hips in his dimming consciousness. As they moved, delicately and enticingly, back and forth, almost in a dance, he saw that she wore jeans just tight enough, and a red shirt that seemed sewn just for her body. She smiled at him as he sipped his coffee, her lips just barely stained with dark pink lipstick. But then his boss came into the coffee shop and asked him what he was doing there when he should have been working. He tried to explain that he had just finished work for the day and that this was his off time. But the coffee shop morphed into the office and the girl faded slowly out of existence as he reached across the dream toward her. The next day, she was wearing tight jeans and a form fitting red shirt. He chalked it up to coincidence as he took the coffee from her, her eyes latching onto his while she smiled with the same pink lips from the dream. The coffee mug shook on the way to the table. That night, sleep came later than usual. The image of her hair falling across her face as she leaned across the tables wouldn't make room for anything else, but he didn't really mind. It did make sleeping difficult, however. But it came, eventually. And she came with it. This time, she wore a dark sundress that fell in forest green folds to her calves and left bare her pale shoulders and smooth back. She sat next to him on the ground, which felt soft and moveable beneath his hands. He looked around to notice that they were on a long stretch of beach, alone for miles. The burnished sun hung low in the sky, as if its own heavy weight were dragging it down. Her face was inches from his, and she leaned in, putting her hand on his cheek as she kissed him. It seemed natural, kissing this woman whose name he didn't even know. He immersed himself in her presence completely, letting the feel of her wash over him like the waves on the beach on which they sat. But she pulled away from him, and no matter how hard he tried to see her, she faded out of his vision. Her voice wrapped delicate tendrils around him. "Tomorrow night." He nearly tripped headfirst over the counter when he saw the dress she wore the next day. He swore to himself that he wasn't going crazy as he carefully and deliberately carried his shaking coffee to his usual table. This is not happening, he told himself. But it was happening, because she was wearing that green dress. "You look like you've got a little sunburn there." Drops of coffee splattered to the table as he jumped, startled by her voice. "Looks like you were at the beach." She smiled coyly as she cleared dirty plates and mugs off the table in front of him. "B-beach?" He stammered. "No, I...uh, I didn't go to the beach yesterday. No." Her smile stretched across her pretty lips even further as she turned away, leaving him shaking and sweating and staring after her. That night, he feared his bed. He found every excuse not to get into it, though he knew that he could only fight off sleep for so long. His plan was to let himself get so tired that he had no energy for dreams. But at one o'clock in the morning, he finally succumbed to slumber. Waves. He could hear them crashing close by, but he couldn't see them. Then he realized it was because it was dark; pinpoints of sparkling light dotted the night sky, and behind him rose the full moon. And she stood under it, not a shred of clothing on her beautiful body. Breath caught in his throat. Somewhere in the back of his mind he knew he was dreaming, but the texture of her skin, the way the moonlight glinted off the beads of sea spray that dripped like melting wax down the hills and valleys of her body...it was all too real. Too breathtakingly, wonderfully real. She stepped closer to him and put her hands gently to his face. "Are you scared?" She asked, her words so quiet that the sounds of the crashing sea almost took them before he heard them. He could only nod, his eyes closed. He felt himself being gently pulled to the ground, his knees sinking slightly in the soft grains of sand. She guided him onto his back and straddled him, placing her palms on his stomach and moving them slowly, deliberately, over his skin and up to his chest, where she gently caught his nipples with her thumbs. He'd never felt a more real, concrete sensation, dream or otherwise. He laced his fingers behind the small of her back and she leaned down, her long dark hair tickling his stomach enough to make him gasp for a breath. Her lips placed a row of minute kisses from his navel to the hollow of his neck as she worked her way up his body, and all the while her hands were massaging him to life, although by now it wasn't a difficult job. "I like water, don't you?" She asked, her lips grazing his ear. Before he could answer, he felt water flowing over his legs and stomach. He looked down and noticed that they were now in some sort of pool created by the tide. He leaned back against smooth rock, holding her against him as she took the soft folds of his earlobe into her mouth, sucking gently. The incoming tide created a slow rhythm in the shallow pool that became their metronome. His pulse raced from nervousness and fear. She sensed it, reaching behind her to take his hands from her waist. Grasping them lightly in hers, she placed his palms on the softness of her breasts and pressed. The tiny beads of her nipples as they bit into his palms called his adrenaline out of its hiding place. She pulled his hands slowly down her body as her eyes stayed locked on his. When they reached the soft down between her legs, her head rolled back and a moan wafted out over the beach. He gingerly pushed a finger into uncharted territory, the water eddying around it as he moved gently with the tide's rhythm. As she moved her hips against his hand, he leaned forward, the sensations overriding any hesitation he'd felt before, and slowly licked the beads of seawater that dripped from her nipples. If moonlight has a taste, he thought, surely this is it. She reached down to remove his hand and replace it with a different part of him. Water coursed in and around them as she slid him into her, her hips meshing with his as they fell into the natural rhythm that the crashing waves beat out. Dream time took over; seconds stretched into minutes, minutes into hours. The tide rose with them. The crashing waves, the rising tide, her snaking hips. He rose to a crescendo, afraid that it was too soon, but she dug fingernails deep into his shoulders moments before his own release, and cried out as she threw her head back. Her lips locked with his for interminable minutes, and then she shifted to stand in the small tidepool. His breathing attempted to level itself as she leaned down to his ear. Her hair tickled his shoulders as she spoke. "Tallia," she whispered. She turned away and stepped out of the pool, moonlight flowing down her legs in tiny streams of seawater. She turned and walked away from him down the beach, fading out of his vision with every step. *** The door to the coffee shop seemed made of iron as he pulled it open the next day. He'd considered not coming back. Ever. Something changed his mind. She was there, but in the back, partially hidden by the corner of the kitchen. He took his coffee and politely thanked the woman behind the counter, the woman who had always been there in the last eight months. He tucked the folded newspaper under his arm and headed for his table. He scanned the headlines. Might as well read sports before the depressing stuff, he thought. "Hello." She was sitting across from him. A beautiful purple sundress draped on her, curving where she curved. She was smiling at him, and it wasn't the normal coffee shop employee smile. It was now or never, he thought. "Tallia..." he ventured. Her smile rose higher in the corners of her lips. "Would you like to have a cup of coffee with me?" He swallowed hard. "I would like nothing more," she replied. Coffee never tasted so good. ---------------------------------------------- I strongly encourage both positive and negative feedback on my stories. Please write to me, Adhara Law, at adhara_law@hotmail.com and let me know what you thought of this story.