Prologue.
Gabriel had been alive forever.
So long that time had ceased to be a line from point of entry to exit. His existence was simply an endless loop, without beginning or end. He just was. He was Dreamwalker.
One who could slide into the dreams of men and women and stir their passions. Inspire and deliberately fan flames to frenetic bliss and if he chose to, leave behind a memory of his passing.
Yet he saw man as fickle, capricious by nature. Often jealous, cruel, contemptuous and barbaric. Culpable of such acts of sanguinary violence, so adept and ruthlessly able to snuff out life without conscience. So even he, who witnessed so much, could be moved.
Could be appalled.
Yet man was magnificent too. Infinitely capable of so much. Extraordinary, generous, passionate, compassionate and given to supreme acts of self-sacrifice, kindness and benevolence. With the capacity for such love and loyalty that even he, who had witnessed so much could be moved.
Could be humbled by grace, stirred by the hope and the beauty of it.
Yet for all he saw and shared, for all the emotions and passions he inspired, he himself was not part of the human race. Wasn’t sure if he ever had been. He simply was.
Some would see him as vampire, or incubus. Though he took no blood nor drained away life force from his chosen. Powerful emotions and especially carnal dreams, which he aroused to fever pitch until the eventual climax so potent it would often awaken the dreamer. This gave him sustenance.
Some would think him a God. Though he had no powers to change anything outside the Dreamworld but in it, Dreamscape was his. A personal playground where anything imaginable was possible.
He could heal or harm, stimulate, invigorate. Provoke a shy man to greatness or plant a seed of desire and yearning in a new woman. Watch it quicken and blossom into the fat ripe fruit of sexual longing. Suck and feast upon the nectar of rapture.
He gave the broken, the whole, the aged, the young, the hopeless, fallen, fated and the hopeful, something visceral. Something truly primal that once tasted was never forgotten. He gave them a gift beyond words.
Still others would think him demon. Diablo. A rapist.
A mind fuck of the most twisted and extreme.
And they’d be right. He smirked a little at that.
For every now and then, he liked to step up and readjust the wheels of fate. Reset the balance as it were... Never in a big way, that wasn’t his purpose.
Twas merely that once in a blue moon, a memory he intentionally left behind did more than leave a mark.
Present Day.
Chapter One.
Mina came into the kitchen struggling with her grocery bags. She clutched them in fingers that felt hot, swollen and filled with shards of broken glass. Her back ached too, the chronic pain a vicious high-pitched note that sliced relentlessly through her composure, until she wanted to drop, writhe and scream. But the constant pain left her too weak, and too damn tired to make the effort screaming required.
It had been hot outside. The heat rising up from the pavement had been brutal, enveloping and exhausting. Placing one of the bags on the floor, she gingerly lifted the other with both hands and put it on to the kitchen bench, then bent for the other and did the same. She needed a painkiller, a drink to ease her parched throat, the bathroom…and she needed to sit down. The last decided her. Just for a minute or two she thought. She’d sit and rest and then deal with the groceries. Making her way slowly over to the old armchair, she sank gratefully into it.
The air conditioner clicked on and the soft metronome of the clock on the mantle drew her eyes to Thomas staring back at her from his frame. Her beautiful man. Long time gone now.
One memorable summers day, Thomas had stepped into her life and changed her world. Became her world. They’d met at a beach party and were soon drifting away from the revelers to sit and talk quietly together. Other partygoers had come and gone as the day wore on, but they’d barely noticed. Time had slowed just for them. Each moment, each movement was magnified. Amplified. Each heartbeat recorded in her minds eye as something momentous blossomed between them. They’d sat and walked, swam and later as the evening cooled away the day, they’d found a spot to sit together by the fire. She’d leaned into him as he confidently slid an arm around her and pulled her closer, tipped her chin upward and stared into her eyes. Seeing all the way in.
She sighed remembering, right from the very first as he’d taken her mouth with his own and she’d been lost. Picked up and tossed into a sea tumultuous and threatening, thrilling and exciting beyond her experience to comprehend. She’d wanted him and the thought had terrified her. She gave a soft laugh. Not that it had stopped them…much.
She closed her eyes and felt again the press of his mouth on hers, the excitement, and the heat that flooded her body, as her mind seemed to melt into a puddle. Then his tongue had slid wickedly across the seam of her closed mouth and she’d gasped in surprise. Only to moan as it slipped inside hot and thick, sending her thoughts into a tailspin as she imagined the feel of his thick, hot hard cock driving into her body with the same insistence. He’d driven her mad with sensations she never even knew she could feel, let alone enjoy. Not until that moment when he’d given them to her. And how she had wanted him…right from the very start.
From that night forward they were inseparable and she smiled for the memory. Thomas had had a way of making the shy awkward girl she’d once been, feel like a graceful beauty. He’d listened to her, encouraged her, smiled at her and wanted to be with her. She listened to him talk of the places he wanted to see and his excitement about showing them to her. His dream of completing his thesis and finally completing his Doctorate. Teaching at the University and encouraging other bright minds to seek and follow their hearts. They were so different, from different worlds and still they fit. Together they found in the other something that completed them both, and the night they got engaged he’d taken her to his bed and loved her with his body.
She remembered every whisper, every silken drag of skin against skin, the moans and blushes she’d been horrified at first to discover came from her. She’d closed her eyes, her mouth and tried to be…good. To be what he wanted her to be…
“Mina….look at me love, don’t hide from me. You are so beautiful. I want to please you too, let me hear you. Show me you need me as much as I do you. Ohhh God Mina…I want you so much!”
Shocked, she’d opened her eyes and herself once more to him. Watched in wonder as he gently yet thoroughly took her past girlhood and into womanhood.
Later as she’d lain in his arms, awed by the pleasure he’d skillfully drawn forth from her and empowered by the ecstasy she’d seen him feel because of her, she’d smiled in triumph. And felt whole for the first time in her life.
Time.
Time had seemed such an endless ocean she couldn’t see beyond when she was young and full of joie de vivre! Until she was skimming across said ocean, in it and racing forward through her life at a breakneck speed, until it seemed to blur with the splendor, the heartaches and incredible joys that came with the living of it.
Such foolishness she thought. Unaware of the tears that slid wetly down the old and weathered cheeks. It was all so very long ago now. She was ready. Missing him was a pain more acute than the arthritis, the backache and all the other maladies that old age generously forced upon her. Her beautiful Thomas. They’d been married for forty two years, had made a son, Liam and a daughter, Maeve. And nearly died with grief when their beautiful boy was killed in a pointless car accident at eighteen.
Such a waste. The promise of eternal life gone in an instant.
Even after all these years the pain was still there. Scabbed over with time, but still raw beneath. That was when Thomas had had a brief affair, her fault. She understood it, could forgive it, but it too lingered. Not forgotten.
She’d been so wrapped up in her own grief, a sorrow so debilitating, for so long, that there hadn’t been room for even him or Maeve. So he’d sought comfort elsewhere. Both her loved ones had. Thomas had needed a woman. Lovers arms to comfort him. To give respite from the horror and crushing pain of loss. The endless gnawing ache of guilt and grief.
Maeve had needed a mother. Sweet sixteen and her life crashing to a shuddering halt, as her beloved brother is suddenly no more. Gone as though he never was. She’d needed comfort, understanding, help with what she was going through…yet it had been her best friends mother who had given her that. Not her. She couldn’t then and the shame of it haunted her still.
By the time Mina woke up and saw her life crumbling around her, got him and her and Maeve back on track, a year and a half of her life was gone for good. Time had marched on as life had resumed. College for Maeve, the inevitable pain of parting as the last had left the nest and gone away to school. Eventually she’d met and married well and moved even farther away, had children of her own. Lived a life of her own and didn’t have the time or inclination to return for visits except once or twice over the years.
She and Thomas had had each other. It was enough.
When he finally retired at sixty-seven, they’d gone ahead and bought the airstream they’d wanted for so many years and planned their trip around the States. They’d made lists. Organizing everything; the where, the when, the how, all the way down making sure they had every contingency covered. It had been…fun. They had worked out every detail with meticulous care. But some things couldn’t be planned for. Thomas had an appointment for a checkup the week before they left, the Doctor’s nurse had rung and asked them to come in…
They managed to squeeze it in the day before.
Thomas had bowel cancer. The trip postponed, they sank their energy into doing whatever was necessary to get him, to get them both through it. But time cheated them once again. They were too late. It had spread. Dark, dirty and insidious it had wormed it’s way in until barely a month from that first call, her Thomas was gone.
Just like that…
Her beloved, beautiful man was ash and dust in the wind and life…fucking life as she knew it was over. Her heart broken and shattered into pieces, lay scattered like the dreams, crushed beyond repair.
She’d never used the airstream. Tried to sell it back, still unused to the company they’d purchased it from. She had reeled with shock when the salesman who’d sold it to them, and whom she’d thought of as ‘such a nice young chap’ at the time, had calmly offered her half what they’d paid for it.
She’d wanted to smack him dead center in the middle of all those perfect, shiny, white teeth…little prick.
She’d kept it for a time, eventually giving it to Maeve and her family.
Years, time passed. And like a clock running down, Mina’s time had begun to ever so slowly run out. She was so weary of the endless days and nights that ran together and blended into one and the same. She forgot what day it was, became easily confused and distracted while trying to do something, anything, to fill the monotonous hours between hauling herself out of bed and climbing back into it.
She wiped distractedly at the wet on her cheeks, leaned her head back and began to drift off.
Unaware it would be for the last time.
Unaware of Gabriel and that he watched her.
Unaware, uncaring of all the things she should be doing instead of taking a nap. And as her face and body relaxed into slumber, she dreamed…
The shower is hot and steamy and the soap leaves an intriguing scent of vanilla across my skin. My skin! Sweet Jesus! My hands! They are young and firm, lovely once more… Staring in wonder, I ponder what magic this must be, then run my hands upward to cup the soft swell of my breasts. My breasts are small and high once more and my belly flat. No stretch marks, no softness marking the passage of years…and no pain. Bending forward to touch my toes, stretching and twisting, I laugh! There’s no pain. I feel…alive!
The girlish, musical sound of my laughter startles me.
I must be dreaming!
Stepping out of the shower and drying off before going to the mirror, wiping away at the condensation and staring at the beauty revealed. Wide eyed with astonishment! It’s me. I wonder why didn’t I see her like this when I was this young woman? I like this dream… But I don’t know this room and wonder fleetingly where I am and why.
I feel him then. My heart skips a beat and suddenly dropping the towel, I turn for the door, and am through it and passing through a bedroom out of some romance novel, all reds and gold’s, so fancy and inviting. French doors open outward onto a patio with a pool beyond and I have to stop. My breath catching in my throat as my heart is squeezed tight…
So painfully. So tight. For it’s Thomas you see… My Thomas, oh God, dear God… My beautiful beloved Thomas is swimming lazily towards me as I stand there open-mouthed in wonder unable to move a muscle. And then he stops and stands…and I laugh through my tears as he flings the water from his long dark hair with an impatient shake.
He sees me then and that light,- Oh God that light in his eyes that heated my blood and my body then, is doing it now. Just the thought of it has me melting where I stand! Captured like a fly in a web and held by the vision before me, until his mouth splits wide in a smile and he beckons me to him.
Somehow I am in the water and reaching for him, sobbing in terror and joy, convinced that the illusion will fall away before I can touch him. Yet everything from the chill of the water and the goose bumps spreading across my skin, convince me it’s real, it’s now.
He doesn’t disappear before my eyes…
Then every night that passed without him, every tear ever shed, every heartbreakingly lonely cry that spilled out and into the darkness without him in it, tears free in a keening agonized wail of love and love lost and found again…
As he draws me into his embrace and smiles for me once more.
~To be continued...
