“Fuck,” I hiss, struggling against the inevitable. I try to hold back, force myself to remember that this is wrong, but the pleasure is too intense. With one final stroke, I bury myself deep and come with a strangled cry. My orgasm crashes through me, my body jerking with the force of it. Pulsing into her, as her satiated, green eyes gaze up at me. The pleasure is overwhelming, but beneath it, a cold knot of dread forms in my stomach.
I wake with a gasp, my chest heaving and skin sweat-dampened. The sheets are tangled around my legs, and my boxers are wet and sticky. I lie still for a moment, staring at the ceiling, trying to catch my breath as the dream fades like morning mist.
But the images linger, the way my wife morphed seamlessly into someone else, and how my body had responded without hesitation.
“Fuck,” I grumble into the darkness, the word falling flat in the quiet room.
The guilt hits me like a physical blow, settling like an elephant on my chest. Rosie’s face haunts me—her brown eyes filled with loving trust and all the things I promised to honor in life and in death?—
And I’ve just betrayed her memory in the most visceral way possible.
I sit up slowly, running trembling hands over my face. My skin feels too tight, my body still humming from theaftershocks of pleasure even as my mind recoils in horror. Teagan is twenty-two years old. She’s my boss’s daughter. She is not my dreamer, and I’ve just had the most intense orgasms of my life fantasizing about her.
The ache in my soul sharpens, and I press my palm flat against my sternum, as if I can physically push the pain away. Rosie has been gone for a little over a year, and I thought I was finally starting to heal. I foolishly thought I was learning to live with the hole she left behind. But this fantasy feels like betrayal. Like I’ve crossed some invisible line I can never uncross.
I get out of bed on unsteady legs and make my way to the bathroom. The cold water I splash on my face does nothing to wash away the images burned into my mind. I can still feel Teagan’s body against mine, smell Rosie’s floral scent, and hear their voices mingling in the quiet of the dream.
“What the hell is wrong with me?” I mutter to my reflection. The man who looks back at me appears haggard, his eyes shadowed and jaw dark with stubble. He is a stranger.
I pace the small room, my feet wearing a path between the bed and the window. Outside, the first hints of dawn are creeping over the horizon, painting the sky in shades of gray and pink. A new day is starting, but I’m still trapped in the darkness of my nightmare.
I’ve done my best to keep my distance from Teagan, reminding myself of all the reasons why getting involved with her would be wrong. But distance doesn’t matter in dreams. Apparently, my subconscious has been paying far more attention to her than I realized.
And Rosie...God, Rosie.The illusion had started so perfectly. So beautifully. I’d been given a few precious moments with the woman I loved more than life itself, and I’d squandered them by letting her morph into someone else.And then enjoying it.
I sink onto the edge of the bed, my head in my hands as the dawn continues its slow advance, light creeping across the floorboards. In a few hours, I’ll have to get dressed and face Teagan. I’ll have to look into those green eyes and pretend I didn’t just dream about fucking her, coming merely from the idea of being inside her.
I don’t know how I’m going to do it. Don’t know how I’m going to face the day with the phantom taste of betrayal on my tongue. But I know one thing for certain: I’m lost between the woman I loved and the woman I dreamed of… And I don’t know if I’ll ever find my way back to solid ground.
Dear Rosie,
I don’t know how to write this without hating myself. I woke up this morning choking on your name. That’s the first truth.
The second is worse.Farworse.
I need you to understand something before I say it, even if you’re not here to answer me. I need you to know that I didn’t ask for this. I didn’t go looking for it. I didn’t sit down and decide I was ready to feel anything for anyone else.
It just… happened.
And I don’t know what that says about me.
It started the way they always do—soft, familiar, almost cruel in how real it feels. You were in my arms. I could smell your shampoo. Feel your breath against my neck. The softness of your skin beneath my palms. I kissed you the way I used to. It was like I was coming home.
It felt real. God, Rosie, it feltreal.
And then it wasn’t you anymore. Somewhere in the middle of it, the woman beneath my hands changed.
You were Teagan… And I didn’t stop. That’s the part gnawing at me. I know it was a dream, but I didn’t pull away. I didn’t shove off her like I should have. I kissed her. I touched her. Iwantedher. It feels like I cheated on you in the one place that was still sacred.
Even writing this makes my chest feel like it’s being crushed. I feel so ashamed, dreamer, because I would have never done that to you. The man I was when youwere alive would have never allowed another woman into his head like that. Not in dreams. Not in fantasies. Notanywhere.
You were it for me. You were my beginning and my end. And now I don’t even know who I am.
I keep telling myself it was just a dream. I’m weak and lonely. Some part of me is starving for connection, and my mind decided to feed it the only way it knows how. Dreams don’t mean anything. This isn’t meaningless.
But I know it’s a lie. This goes deeper than that.
When Teagan laughs, I smile. When she looks at me across the pasture, I feel seen in a way I haven’t since you.
