“And leave you?” He lowered his head toward hers again. “Never, Margaret. I’m never leaving you.”
She clung to him, waiting for him to kiss her again. Daphne knew for certain now that she was dreaming.She was in the typical world of dreams, where everything was bizarre and totally unreal, where she wassomeone she did not know, where she knew thingsshe did not know, where no one recognized her asDaphne. In this strange world she was Margaret andabout to be kissed by a man Margaret knew butDaphne did not.
She hoped she would not wake up just yet. This was just the type of moment when one usually awoke.
Just before his lips touched hers he parted them so that he kissed her with his mouth rather than with hislips. There was the shock of warmth and softness andmoistness. Daphne would have broken free in somealarm. But there was the dream. Margaret tightenedher arms about his neck and opened her own mouthso that the kiss became a deeply physical and intimateembrace. His tongue slid deep into her mouth, andshe stroked it with her own and sucked gently on it.
How could it be a dream? How could one do in dreams what one’s waking self knew nothing about?Was this a type of kiss that existed only in dreams?Would such a thing be merely disgusting in reality?
“I’ll blow out the candle,” he said against her mouth. “It is not wise to risk even that much lightbeing seen through the window or beneath the door.And then we’ll lie down for a while.”
Lie down?
“I should go, Justin,” she said. “What if it is discovered that I am missing from my bed?”
“In the middle of the night?” he said. “Who would be prowling?”
“Anyone,” she said. “No one, I suppose.”
“Stay for an hour,” he said. “I must have you for an hour, Margaret. We have been married for a weekand not once have we been able to lie together allnight.”
Married? They weremarried?
“Justin.” She took a death grip about his neck and hid her face against his shoulder. “I want to be withyou all night and all day. I want us to be free. I wantto be able to tell everyone. Will the day ever come?Or are we doomed?”
“The day will come, love,” he said, loosening her grip and leading her to the bench, where he stoopedto blow out the candle. In the total darkness that followed he led her to the mattress and lowered her ontoit. “No more talk of doom. One day we will be together and free and will live happily ever after.”
“Oh,” she said with a sigh. “In this century or the next, Justin?”
He chuckled. “One day,” he said. “I promise.”
They were lying together on the mattress, their arms about each other. Somehow, Daphne realized, herdressing gown had been shed. Her warm flannel nightgown felt suddenly very thin, though she was not byany means cold. Dream or no dream, she thought, thishad gone far enough. In the candlelight she obviouslyresembled Margaret, his wife. But she was Daphne.She had no business sharing a mattress with him undersuch false pretenses. She was going to have to tell himwho she was and make a hasty retreat.
He kissed her again. And she understood suddenly what all the vague dissatisfactions and longings of thepast two or three years had been all about. It was notjust, as she had told herself, that she needed an amiable gentleman to marry and a home of her own to setup and some children to fuss over. It was not justthat. It was this. Her woman’s body had been cravinga man’s body to love it.
It was a shockingly improper idea. But then in dreams one could not control one’s ideas.
His mouth kissed hers as before. And his hands explored, touching her in places she was almost tooembarrassed to touch herself. They lingered at herbreasts, stroking them, kneading them gently. Herown hands, she realized suddenly, were roaming overhis back and shoulders—beneath his shirt. He must,of course, be a dream man. No real man could be soperfectly formed. The excuse for her wanton behaviorand her silence was her conviction that he was a dreamman.
“Love,” he murmured, first against her mouth and then against her ear, causing her toes to curl involuntarily—toes that were no longer inside slippers. “Let’sget rid of the encumbrances, shall we?”
She was not sure of his meaning until he sat up and she could hear him pulling his shirt off over his headand then proceeding to dispense with his pantaloonsjust as fast. And then his hands were at the hem ofher nightgown and stripping it up over her body andover her head so that she lay naked on the bed besidehim. She had never lain naked on a bed, even on thehottest of summer nights and even when very firmlyalone behind locked doors.
“Justin,” she whispered, lifting her arms to pull him back down beside her, “make love to me. Make loveto me as you did last night.”
Somehow, Daphne thought, she had got trapped inside the body of Margaret and could not make herpresence known. But then she was not sure she wishedto. His hand on her naked breast had her gasping forair. Besides, it was a dream. A shockingly eroticdream for a maiden to be having, but only a dreamnonetheless. His thumb was rubbing over her nippleand she could feel it harden almost painfully. And yetit was not exactly pain she felt. A sharp spiral of sensation whirled up into her throat and downward, toset up a throbbing between her legs. When he did thesame thing to the other breast, she found the feelingalmost too sweet and too painful to bear.
“Ahh,” she heard herself say before his mouth cut off the sound.
What followed took her completely beyond the realm of thought into that of pure sensation. Hishands and his mouth touched every part of her body,even the most intimate place of all, intensifying thatsweet stabbing pain until, at the point when it becamefinally unbearable, she shuddered into unexpectedsweetness. And then building it all over again untilonce more she went shuddering over the edge intoglory. She was only half aware of the fact that herown hands and legs and mouth were not idle, but weredrawing gasps and moans from him as he worked onher.
It was only when finally, after what must have been fully half an hour of fondling and kissing and exploring, the full weight of his body came down on her andbetween her spread legs that thought returned. Andawareness. And the realization that her body wasabout to be penetrated. Daphne’s? Or Margaret’s?Was she really sleeping? Could this possibly be adream? But could it possibly be reality? There was nodoor into the tower. No man, even in candlelight,could really mistake her for his own wife. Even indarkness he could not mistake her unawakened virginbody for the more experienced one of his wife. Inreality she could not have called a stranger by nameor told him all the things she had told him before theystarted to make love.
No, it could not be reality. Yet it did not feel like any other dream she had ever had.
“Together,” he said, finding her mouth with his again. “Now and always, Margaret. To the end oftime.”
She was sore and aching. The hard length of him coming into her was painful. But painful only in theway that all his touches had been that night. Painfulwith a sweet ache that begged to be taken to the brinkof madness and over into beauty and peace. Therewas not the sharp pain of a sealed passage beingopened. She was not a virgin. She must be Margaret.
