Stronger Than Fantasy

Michael

Night fell, and little by little, Diana's sleep became deep. The light streaming through the open, clear windows allowed me to see the reflections of her chocolate and mahogany hair, spilling over the velvet-dark fabric.

Her breathing became rhythmic, and she slowly began to fall into the arms of a dream. Apparently, she found a certain calmness next to me, and at this point it was impossible, not to say absurd, to deny to myself that I felt the same way when she was here.

The nights when they left were usually lookout nights for me. I wandered through the woods, unable to reconcile anything close to exhaustion, and let the moon bid farewell to the sky as I returned home without having gotten what I was looking for inside the woods, but when she stayed there, with me, I could imagine what this was like, what it was like to sleep peacefully.

Only then do I crave these sheets, because the thought of her body against mine, as her breathing became heavier, deeper, and more rhythmic, filled me with certain drowsiness that even told me, I could find the peace of sleep at her side.

Is it so hard to think? I reproached myself, at the same time that one of my hands escaped untimely, and carefully caressed her cheek. But she only let out a sigh.

Her lips were half open, and her soft breath warmed my skin as I ran my fingers over her face. Is it so hard to imagine that she could actually be a part of my world without danger?

Francis had been married, after all, for several years now. His wife was human, but she accepted Francis's reality easily enough. It took her little more than a breath to accept that her husband was something else, and she soon became part of our world. Would it be so hard to do that with Diana, to simply let her belong to the world I inhabited, to give her the answers she wanted while letting her know the truth, that there was a world apart from the one she knew, a world she was now hopelessly part of, waiting for her to eventually become part of this reality?

Her body was closer to mine now, as our relationship took hold in a way I had never allowed myself to even fantasize about--to be able to have a future together, after all.

Whether it was difficult or not, the thought haunted me, while a part of me thought that she was calling me in her sleep, as if she longed for my touch in a way that perhaps she felt unable to express, but which floated between us like electricity, calling us to meet amidst the resistance that our characters, our way of thinking and even, at times, our way of acting may present.

Carefully, I settled down on the bed next to her, trying not to wake her up. I did not lie down but remained seated while leaning over her face. I let my fingers wander over her hair, brushed aside the unruly locks that spilled over her skin, and leaned in, gently kissing her cheek.

She smelled deliciously good, and between dreams, she seemed to stir in mid-sigh. Her body turned, her face searching for mine, even though her breathing had not changed rhythms, and while unable to help it, I moved closer to her again, this time, kissing the corners of her lips while feeling how her heart slowly began to mark a different rhythm inside her chest.

Without meaning to, I pulled away just a few centimeters while noticing how she opened her eyes. She looked at me for a second, halfway between sleep and lucidity, and one of her hands reached out, touching my face, following the line of my chin with her fingers and causing a tingling sensation with her touch.

"Are you real or is it just a dream?" she asked me, her voice slightly hoarse from sleep, and I smiled.

"I didn't know how to answer. It's hard to say," I affirmed.

She looked at me, her gaze wandering from my eyes to my lips. Her fingers wandered, caressing my lower lip as she half-opened my mouth with her thumb.

"If you're a dream, then you're a good one, a sweet one... I don't usually have nightmares when I'm with you," she affirmed.

Slowly, I allowed my face to come closer to hers again, prolonging for a second the moment before our lips met, and feeling how her mouth opened for me, at a slow, rhythmic pace, and while the warmth of her skin invaded me.

She sighed, apparently seized by a deep pleasure, and began to move her lips against mine slowly. I couldn't help but respond, and little by little I ran my lips over her, her lips smooth, sweet, and perfumed, warm to the touch of my skin, always warmer than they should be.

She ran her fingers through my hair, and I rested the weight of my body on my elbows so as not to crush her, but Diana didn't seem uncomfortable at my touch. Instead, she tilted her face slightly, as if looking for the perfect way to match her mouth against mine, and her tongue made its way, almost shyly, to my mouth.

She sighed as I bit her lower lip, and that small gesture, charged with the breath of her mouth against mine, filled me with a strange sense of vertigo. I wanted more of her, and at the same time, I wished this moment could go on forever, unchanging and immovable for both of us.

Finally, our lips parted as she sighed and looked at me, her springtime eyes awoke and fixed on me. One of her hands rested on my cheek, and the other on the back of my neck, as my hands cradled her delicate face, with its fine, perfect features.

"Only you could give me a dream that surpasses reality," she whispered, and I laughed softly as my nose brushed hers. She closed her eyes and smiled, close, so close to my mouth that kissing her again was almost too good a temptation to let go. "Will you stay?" she asked me then. "When you're near, nightmares don't come close to my dreams."

"Of course, I'll stay," I whispered in response, tenderly stroking her hair and feeling her gradually yield to the advance of my fingers. Her face curved, seeking the contact of my hands, and I felt how she rested her cheek on my palm, finding perhaps, at that point, her perfect resting place.

"You are so... exasperating," she said, a moment before falling asleep.

"Exasperating? Why exasperating?" I asked her curiously, amused by the tone of her recrimination.

"Because only you could do this to me: To wake me up... Just to feel that next to you, the reality is better than fantasy."

Without being able to help it, I smiled. With a tender gesture, I let my thumb caress one of her eyebrows as she fell, little by little, back asleep.

"Rest," I asked her in a soft, slow voice. "I will see you in your dreams,"

"I hope you're there," she told me, as a threat, or perhaps as a request, shortly before her breathing resumed the beats of sleep, and as, without being able to help it, I lost myself in her, in her figure, in her form, in the memory of her voice and in the promise of her lips, which got me with as much desire as mine got hers; as if, in effect, she were trying to reiterate the thought that, by her side, life could be better than fantasies.

As if she were trying to show me, even without intending it, that life by her side was as simple as letting me fall and just finding her mouth against mine, in the midst of the sweetest reveries.