Paula's secretary buzzed letting her know her three o'clock was waiting.  She glanced at her watch; she had ten more minutes to herself.  She made some quick notes on the file of her last patient and set it on top of a huge stack precariously leaning close to tumbling over.  There was a tap at her door a few moments later and Paula frowned, knowing Jean wouldn't let the client come unescorted. 

Shawn opened the door smiling when she saw the black woman leaning back in her chair, feet up on the desk looking quite comfortable.  "It's five minutes to."  She indicated her watch. 

Paula beckoned her in.  "Why didn't you use your real name? And furthermore, how did you get past Jean?" 

Shawn grinned beautifully down at Paula, eyes smug.  "Why, by my charm of course."  She entered the room, closing the door with a sound click behind her.  "I wanted this to be professional, but now that I'm here, I think I may be having reserves." 

"You want your head shrunk?"  Paula didn't understand.  "But your head looks perfectly fine the size it is." 

Shawn's smile turned dazzling.  She sat in the large chair before Paula's desk, a tad bit nervous.  "Okay, now I'm sure of it, I don't want this to be professional." 

"How about some coffee, that's the strongest I have to offer."

"Why don't I just get your opinion, then I'll be on my way."

Paula tapped her thigh with a pen, brain working.  "As your friend, you know I'd hate counseling you about your personal life, Shawn.  Hell I can't even get my own together.  I just may make things worse." 

Irony twisted Shawn’s lips. "Things couldn't get any worse." 

Paula shook her head.  "No-No. That was an invitation for a complement.  You tell me how wonderful I am and that I would only make matters better, improving your life greatly." 

Shawn's expression was one of appreciation for Paula's humor, and effort to make her more comfortable.  "I think coming here was a complement in itself." 

Paula grumbled to herself, linking her fingers and putting her hands behind her head.  She leaned back.  "Fine, keep your stinky complements.  Proceed." 

Uneasy still, Shawn suggested, "We could go for a walk?  Maybe then I won't feel like I'm your patient." 

Paula drew her hands from behind her head and sighed deeply.  "You know…." She began talking to herself, "She lies about who she is, totally un-preparing me, then she doesn't give me any complements--" she tossed her raincoat around her shoulders.  "And now she wants to drag me from my cozy office and out in that miserable drizzle…"  Shawn was holding the door open for her with a great big smile.  Paula stepped up to her, bent close and said, "I better get dinner outta this." 

Shawn closed the door behind them.  "Sure, and I'll even cook it." 

Paula looked over her shoulder at Shawn.  "And she's going to poison me too." 

"I can cook just fine now, ask Haley."  She fell into step beside Paula and they exited the building side by side into the light rain. 

Paula sidestepped a puddle, hopped over another and joined Shawn's side a moment later.  "Okay, out with it." 

The only way Shawn knew how, she blurted bluntly, "I can't draw anymore." 

"You need therapy for that?" 

"Uh, well, yeah.  You see…"  Okay, here comes the part where she leads me back to the office and calls the men in white coats to come retrieve me.  "I haven't actually met this woman I'm drawing yet.  I dream about her every night…."  They walked around the building and down to the small park behind. 

"But you believe she's real." 

"I don't know that I like you knowing things before I tell you." 

"Okay, you tell me, I'll be quiet." 

Shawn sighed.  "No, if that's how it works, that's how it works.  You see what you see; I guess it helps if you understand my problem." 

"This is your dime, go on." 

"I've been trying to draw her for the past six months.  There was a time I thought I was on to something, but that proved fruitless."  Shawn stopped walking and looked at their feet.  "I can't go on like this.  Am I insane, Paula?"  She looked up at her. 

Paula shrugged.  "I've known you for the better part of your adult life, and I haven't noticed anything out of the ordinary.  You're an artist; eccentricity comes with the territory." 

"No wonder you get the big bucks for your service."  She led Paula up the steps of a large gazebo out of the rain.  She told Paula what happened when she worked on Stevie's room.  "I thought for sure it would lead to something.  But she was nothing like my dream lady.  And she was straight."  She paused for breath.  "It gets worse; I've fallen in love with this woman…" She tapped her chest.  "I can feel her so closely; it's too strange, like she's a living and breathing spirit in my heart, not just a fantasy my libido conjured up." 

Paula tried to digest it all.  "Wow." 

"Yeah."  Shawn took in a deep breath and let it out slowly.  "Damn it, I'm screwed aren't I, Paula?" 

"Not in the least." 

"How can I want a dream? I mean, not just for sex, hell I could get that anywhere, and have."  She winced at the memories.  "I want a life with this woman-- and jeez, I don't know how I'll get it yet.  First I need to prove she is real, and go on from there, I guess."  She finally heard herself.  "Oh my god, I am crazy!" 

"Your problems won't be solved in an hour Shawn, no matter how talented I am." She smirked at the taller woman. 

"We'll find some trauma in my past that's probably not even linked with what's happening to me now and all my problems will be solved?" 

"Not exactly.  You have me in a bind; there are two personalities here, Shawn, the doctor and the friend.  Today I'm your friend, and I don't want to cross the line between the two.  I'll be your friend, give you opinions if you wish, and I'll give you the opportunity to show me your soul, but out of the office."  She indicated to Shawn with an open palm, "You may speak now." 

"But you're still going to help me?" 

"If you want to look at it that way, sure, I'll do what I can in the way of advice." 

"But not answers?" 

"You of all people should know sometimes advice is the answer." 

 

*

 

Kalian Parker struggled to stay with the fading images of her dream, but the alarm clock's wail bore its insistence into her until she opened her green eyes to the kiss of morning. 

She took her time in her daily shower, going over the dream as precisely as possible lest she should lose any of it to her conscious mind. The bizarre story of her nights had been her only passion for as long as she could remember. 

At half past seven, she pulled her old Datsun into the lot of Wormer's Books, heaving a sigh of resignation for the long, boring day ahead of her.

Books were her only other pleasure, and Kalian had taken the job—the fifth that year—hoping to hold her interest and finally hold a position. But she found herself becoming just as impatient lately, the same question seeming to come from every customer that wandered around aimless through the aisles.  For the minimum wage she received from the crotchety owner who insisted on paying her under the table, she was expected to know every title and author and subject and theme that filled the bi-level shop's racks of endless knowledge. Left at Travel, check the end of Row three… Einstein has a best seller in Fantasy… Reference is in the back for any dictionary… For her, there had never been any time to browse through anything but the book of listed books. 

Later, when the lunch crowd rushed in and crammed the shop, an elderly woman in a hobbling, pitching rush pulled Kalian by the elbow to the Self-Help/Psychology section.  Kalian was curious if the lavender-haired lady knew that the end was upon her and wanted to cure herself of one last neurosis before her moment of death. 

"These are the only titles we have on A.D.D just now, ma'am.  If you'd like, I can…" 

"No—no, dear, that's fine… Can you tell me which one is best?" Lavender Lady's eyes were filled with bewildered helplessness. 

Kalian smiled comfortingly, figuring it was a last minute gift for some scatter-brained nephew, and she turned the books over to consider prices and the most recent publication.  A couple of young women passed behind her, their soft voices drifting into earshot, "A break, at least a weekend." 

"I'll check out motels in Freeport. I need to walk and be able to touch you without wondering who's bothered by it." 

Kalian's mind clicked and snapped her to attention.  She spun around to their retreating backs.  "Excuse me… Excuse me!" 

The women turned, their faces matched Kalian's urgent voice.  "I'm sorry, but did you say Freeport?" 

The brunette responded with a hint of annoyance.  "Yes, I said Freeport."

Kalian's blood roared through her ears.  She flushed hard in her excitement, trying to gain her composure. "I know some… someone there.  I haven't been able to find—to reach them.  Can you tell me where it is?" 

"It's about a thousand miles north of the state border."  The brunette lost patience and turned away from Kalian's rapt, green-eyed attention. 

"Please, I'll be late, dear.  Which one is best?" 

Kalian turned back to Lavender Woman in a distorted fog.  Her mind reacted with her heart, pounding her into almost deafness.  She handed the woman the thickest soft cover, expecting the most information would provide whatever information she needed. 

Lavender Lady took the book with obvious relief.  "Thank you, dear, you're so sweet to help me like this.  I hope you find your friend. Buh-bye."  Her pink powdered face crinkled into a smile, and she hobbled away, leaving Kalian staring blankly after her. 

Find her friend? A mind was a terrible thing to waste, a terrible thing. Finding a friend who didn't exist would be a very long trip.  Kalian turned herself back and moved toward her section, forcing herself to release the dreams back into fantasy and resume reasonability in reality.  She ran her hand across the rows of bindings as she walked; needing solid forms to ground herself in the third dimension.  As she stood staring into an open carton of books she'd been shelving, she began to laugh.  "The Secret World Of Dreams" was ready for sale, and Kalian couldn't stop the hysteria from rising into tears.  She grabbed the books by twos and shelved them all, bursts of giggles sputtering from her each time she lifted more onto the shelf. 

 

*

 

Shawn pushed the shopping cart back into the crooked line of carriages.  She didn't need a cart for one item, nor did she want to chance a repeat scene of her daydream. 

A journal Paula had said.  "Get yourself a journal and write in it every night before bed and every morning after you wake." 

Easier said than done.  She was an artist, not a writer.  What did she have to say anyway?  She was nuts.  She could admit that to herself but did not know if she wanted it etched on paper. 

The aisles echoed customers gone by.  Despite the growing storm outside, there seemed to be no evidence of it within the department store.  It wasn't dank, the floors were shined impeccably: no tracks of rain or dirt.  She passed books unread, bed linins not slept in, music CD's not played, finally coming to the stationary section to gaze upon notebooks not yet written in.  She bypassed bright covers and didn't even bother glancing at anything that may have had some sort of cartoon depiction on the front.  A simple brown or gray cover would do.  She didn't need any other distractions. 

Deciding on a royal blue hardbound, she snatched up a package of felt tips for the hell of it.  Not wanting to put it off until she was in the privacy of her own home, she sat in her car, opened the package of pens and then the book. 

She wrote: Parker. 

There had to be something noteworthy about that name.  Stevie's real last name had been Delaware, like her mother's.  Brandy hadn't remarried; it had all been a figment of Shawn's overactive imagination.  Or had it?  That's what you're trying to figure out.  Keep going, what else struck you as odd? 

The song.  Her choice of music for Stevie's dance.  Did it hold any significance?  She'd have to look it up later online.  Perhaps the publishing date would garner more options to consider.  She scribbled a note about that. 

Transmigration of the soul—

What a strange thing to write.  She thought about it a moment.  Haley had just written a paper on it.  Didn't the Egyptians believe in reincarnation?  They thought the soul transmigrated from body to body.  Why, in fact, they embalmed the bodies in order to preserve them.  Hmm, maybe that's why Haley was part of her Stevie daydream?  Or maybe it wasn't that deep. 

She wrote Longing recognition next.  Deracinated from her body, did the woman's soul leave during sleep seeking solace in Shawn’s mind and heart?  And was the woman now engraved in her head gasping for release from her? If even just to get out on paper, proving to Shawn her existence?  Fighting for independence? 

Hey!  I could be on to something here… 

The wind whistled over her car.  Shawn glanced up and watched the trees shifting and sighing in a gust so strong it could eliminate them in the next moment.  Her car rocked with the force.  What an awesome display, but perhaps sitting there wasn't one of her greatest ideas. 

 

*

"Birth is not a beginning; death is not an end. There is existence without limitation; there is continuity without a starting point.

Existence without limitation is space. Continuity without a starting point is time. There is birth, there is death, there is issuing forth, there is entering in. That through which one passes in and out without seeing its form, that is the Portal of God." Chuang Tzu 

 

 

 

"Do you have anything on Taoism?"  Shawn stood at the counter and waited, watching the young woman's fingers tapping on the keyboard.  LOVE and HATE were tattooed on her fingers, one letter per digit: one word per hand.  She wore three rings on both thumbs.  Shawn glanced up when those fingers stilled. 

"We only have one title, Daoism: A short introduction by James Miller, but it's at our sister store, Wormer's Books.  It'll take about a week to get it here if you'd like to fill in this request form." 

"Sure." 

"In the mean time, you can find tons of information on the net about the religion," The girl offered, taking the card from Shawn after she quickly scrawled her name and home number. 

 

*

 

 

Half past seven; Shawn had overslept, her thoughts were a jam session in her mind, hanging on the edge of eternity, still clinging to dreams.  The storm was in full swing, the sky nearly black outside her window.  She leaned back against the headboard, staring into the dark, looking for meaningful signs, with a touch of anguish. 

Donna Fargo sang, "Do I Love You" and Shawn glanced at the radio, nodding slowly.  The seemingly impenetrable organ, cupid's bull's-eye, her heart, had been struck good. 

"Maybe I need a brain decoder to decipher this disorder."  As she rose to start her day, she wondered if eBay offered such a device. 

 

*

 

Half past seven, cradled in the orbit of dreams, Kalian could not have purged herself from the gray-eyed woman's mind if she wanted to.  Her brain finally succumbed to the shrilling telephone and the words "Do I Love You" bouncing around in her head.  Rising from her drowsy inertia, she reached to the receiver to still the noise. 

She held the phone away from her ear as the overtly loud voice pierced her tender eardrums.  "It's under religion."  Where the reply came from, she did not know.  She rubbed her sleepy eyes, half listening to her employer.  It was Saturday, he owned her time during the week, the weekends were hers. 

"I've looked there already.  I need you to come in, find that book."  Her boss didn't even wait for a reply, simply hung up. 

 

*

 

What was the morning sun, tried to glimpse through the trees that lined the highway and Kalian had an indefinable feeling of home.  Home? When had she last considered anywhere home?  Fragments of longing came knocking regardless.  She was heading home soon, of that she was certain. 

 

*

 

"She cooks great now," Haley said the moment she opened the front door to Paula.

"How much did that little lie cost her?"  Paula gave the girl a hug and moved into the house.  There was a scrumptious aroma of baked ham filtering down the hall towards her. 

Haley was all a grin, jet eyes gleaming wickedly.  "Celine Dion live in Las Vegas."

 

*

 

"Did you know you're not the only lesbian in the family, mom?" 

Shawn snorted softly and her eyes flicked from her daughter to Paula seated across the dinner table and back again.  "How do you know that?" 

"I got to wondering about our family tree after that paper I did on ancient Egyptians.  So I started digging."  Upon reflection, she ceased to see her mother seated there but an image of the woman she'd come across in her investigation. "Your great, great, great, great Aunt Alexandria Maloney has quite a history." 

"I'm sure Paula isn't interested in our sordid past—" 

"On the contrary, now I have to know."  Paula set her napkin beside her plate and leaned back. 

"In those days, people weren't as opened-minded as you know.  So when Aunt Alexandria and her lover were caught kissing in the barn, your great—times four—Uncle Samuel ran the poor girl off, forbidding her to ever step on their property again.  After many exhausting months trying to deal with her tormented confusion and the separation, Aunt Alexandria committed suicide.  Decades passed, but she was never far from the girls mind.  She began practicing Taoism, learning how to return to her source, the Wu Chi—God—, the Tao, and thereby attaining spiritual independence as she learned to live harmoniously with nature and the universe.  She believed if she could cultivate her body, mind and spirit, she would reach an enlightening state and be able to untie again with her beloved.  She took to writing, but by the end, nothing was intelligible anymore.  I loved one particular passage she'd written."  She closed her eyes, remembering, reciting,

"You're gone,
Yet the heavens are dry,
So I'll do my best
To reinvent the rain. 

Sound pulses,
And I'm traveling through
Water and blood,
Over land and sea. 
I'll find my sacred heart,
If only in our dreams." 

 

Shawn sat in total befuddlement, out of sorts with any other sense but thought.  She forced her vocal cords into motion.  "What was her name?" 

"Louise Kalian Parker." 

 

*

 

Gray eyes floated in the dream.  Kalian could feel the woman so close, but so far.  She turned in the darkness of her mind, the question echoing, What's your name? 

Silence. 

Deafening silence. 

Please, your name…before you go, don't leave me again without a name. 

Kalian sat up abruptly in bed, coming from sleep immediately.  The name 'Shawn' reverberated in her thoughts.  She stared at the television a few minutes, orienting herself.  She had fallen asleep with the TV on.  The morning anchorman: Shawn Nickels turning to the weatherman, joking about the current weather conditions. 

"No, it couldn't have only been the TV?  Could it?"  Kalian's eyes widened at a sudden thought and she scrambled from the bed, stubbing a toe, calling out in pain, and grabbing her foot.  Jaw tight, she hopped to the living room, and then she remembered she had already sent the package yesterday to the store up north.  She sat down heavily in an overstuffed easy chair and reached for the phone. 

"Too early.  Arg!"  The store up north wouldn't open until nine.  Her mind and heart split asunder.  She dialed her work, quickly informing her boss she wouldn't be in for a few days.  She had no desire to be forced into an explanation and hung up quickly and went in to pack. 

 

*

 

Rain fell in sheets; thunder popped her ears, and the lightning made her wince, but she loaded up her car and turned back to the battered house that had provided a roof over her head for such a short time. 

She had taken a Greyhound bus down the coast and found herself in the clean little town, population eight thousand and rented a room from a kindly old lady on Barns Street, and that is where she'd lived for the past six months.  She'd purchased the old Datsun from the same woman a month before she passed on.  Leaving the safe sanctuary pulled at her heart, and she was filled with a tinge of misgivings, but she gathered her raincoat around her tightly and dropped in behind the wheel. 

 

*

 

Kalian slipped into the booth of the diner ready to satisfy the hunger that had been gnawing at her stomach for hours, and to contemplate where to begin the search for whomever it was she was seeking.  That, she decided, was her number one priority.  But how does one begin a search for someone who didn’t even have a last name? 

Taking a menu from its slot under a vintage tabletop jukebox, Kalian pushed it to the side when she became distracted by the song selections and began thumbing through them.  There were numerous oldie songs befitting the atmosphere in the retro diner, in combination with a large selection of current popular tunes.  She stopped thumbing when she came to Donna Fargo's "Do I Love You," took two quarters from her pocket, dropped them in the slot, and punched the buttons to play the selection.  She felt her throat constrict when the music flowing from the juke flooded her mind with words that seemed to suggest a promise made only in dreams. 

The lyrics put her in a pensive mood until her reverie was broken by a horse, smokers voice, "What’ll ya have, Honey?" 

Kalian looked quickly to the woman and choked back her surprise and a giggle, hardly able to get past the waitress’s outrageous bright-orange bouffant hairdo.  She quickly buried her nose in the menu.  "Uh…"  She studied the items, unaware of the impatient look that crossed the face of the waitress.  "Oh, just give me a burger, fries, and a Coke," she sighed, replacing the menu into its slot. 

"Yeah, sure. Comin’ right up."  The waitress turned from the table. 

"Wait a minute.  Can I change that Coke to milk?"

Not breaking her stride from her hasty retreat from Kalian’s booth, the waitress said, "Yeah. No problem." 

Hmmm. As brash as her hair-color. Then the question, Milk?  She never drank milk with meals.  Why would she order milk? 

Kalian’s eyes roamed the diner, smiling at how authentic it had been decorated to represent an earlier era when times were a whole lot less stressful and confusing than they were today.  There was Coca-Cola memorabilia everywhere, and a bona fide soda fountain that, according to the menu, even served up old-fashioned ice cream sodas—in glass containers, not Styrofoam—and flavored Cokes, cherry, chocolate, vanilla. 

 She had chosen a booth, but many patrons sat on round, backless stools at the familiar diner-style counter that ran the length of the establishment.  She smiled broadly when she saw the little girl at the far end of the counter spinning madly around on one of the stools.  And then her mind took her to another time.  An elegantly dressed woman danced across her mind in shimmering burgundy.  "Just milk darling, anything else and I'll be awake for hours…" 

"Milk." 

The spoken word invaded her mind, and the images were lost.  "Huh?"

"I said, here’s your milk," the waitress repeated.  "The rest of your order will be up in a jiff." 

"Yeah, thanks."  Her words followed a retreating back.  Kalian ate her meal without another incident.  Nor did she play any other songs. 

She drove the highway alone, void of cars except an occasional semi roaring by and pulled in at a shoddy roadside motel. 

She threw herself on top of the frayed bedspread in the shabbily furnished room.  Though exhausted, she was unable to sleep, so until the sun came up, she watched the neon sign blinking outside her window acancy…acancy… acancy… and listened to the silence broken only by the inconsistent pattern of the sign's buzzing and snapping and an occasional whining of semi truck tires on the highway. 

 

*

 

All that remained, passed down from one generation to the next, was the name Parker.  Kalian was last in the line.  Her father and mother had perished during a Caribbean cruise and their only child had moved around from foster home to foster home until at the age of sixteen, the history of her whereabouts ended. 

Paula related the information to a silent Shawn who stood near her drawing table, teetering on the edge of tears, eyes gently gazing down on the haunting face.  Lying next to the drawing was a photocopy of an old newspaper photo Haley had brought over earlier that morning.  Shawn's eyes moved back and forth.  With the exception of age, there wasn't much difference in the two women.  Even though her genes had watered down over the generations, Kalian's features still resembled those of her long dead relative. 

 

*

 

After Paula's departure, Shawn sat on her porch, breathing in the damp air, expelling it slowly.  Fire fanned in her eyes, staring at nothing in particular.  All of her writing, thinking, searching, and reading had amounted to nothing, a dead end.  But she would not give up; the notion wasn't inherent to her nature.  She had a name and she had an image, and most importantly, she still retained hope. 

The phone rang and she pushed herself up and went inside.  Her book had arrived, would she wish to come pick it up today? 

 

*

 

Kalian loitered about the store, pretending interest in the games section, waiting till the young goth girl moved from her station behind the counter and when she finally did, Kalian quickly slipped unnoticed up to the computer.  She immediately noticed the book she had sent herself sitting on the counter, a note card was placed on top.  Her eyes swept over the sparse information, but what she saw was enough.  Shawn Maloney.  Kalian felt a momentary imbalance in her system, sure she'd faint.  Lips forming into the semblance of a smile, she snatched up the card and hurried from the store. 

 

 

Shawn nearly toppled over when a smaller woman came flying through the double doors and banged into her, mumbling her apologies and quickly moving into the parking lot.  The brief exchange caused an overpowering opus of emotion playing in Shawn's heart and mind.  She spun around, eyes narrowing, aimed directly at the back of the woman. 

"Kalian?" 

Kalian turned, gasping when she met that curious gray gaze.  Shawn sprinted to her when she saw Kalian's knees buckle and she began falling.  Catching her before she hit the concrete, Shawn carried her to her car.  Happy tears slipped down her cheeks, plopping on Kalian's chin, laying there like sparkling clusters of diamonds in the sun rays as it set for the day.  She gently placed Kalian in the passenger seat and crouched down in the doorway, worried and feeling helpless but oh so elated; hand on Kalian's knee, other offering a tenderly soothing caress along her cheek, thumb running slowly down her nose.  Her heart was exploding with emotion, gaze bouncing around Kalian's face, taking each beautiful feature in. 

"Is she okay?" 

Shawn twisted her torso toward the voice behind her at the question.  There was an elderly man standing there, concern in his kind blue eyes and face. 

"Yes, thanks.  Just a bit of exhaustion I think." 

"Well, you take good care of her now, ya hear?"  He wandered off with a smile and wink. 

"Oh, I will…"  Shawn turned back to the fainted woman.  Kalian's eyes were open, staring down at her in disoriented wonder. 

Shawn smiled and went to stand, but Kalian put a quick hand over her own resting on her knee.  Feeling shy and hesitant circling urgency, she whispered, "Don't leave me." 

"I'm not, just going to get in the car." 

Kalian sighed softly and released Shawn's hand, watching her rise.  Her gaze stayed fixated on Shawn as she moved around the front of the car, quickly plopping into the driver's seat. 

The last rays of daylight and shadows danced on the hood of the car as they drove down tree-lined streets.  Kalian watched the display, feeling a calm settling inside by the presence beside her, offering warm hope.  Her voice was low and slightly shaky when she spoke finally.  "This may sound crazy, but I've been dreaming about you for what seems like forever." 

Shawn glanced at her, smiling and reached for her hand.  "Not any crazier than my dreaming of you for what seems like forever." 

 

*

 

"I'm going to make some tea now; I'll just be down the hall."  Shawn laid a hand of assurance on Kalian's shoulder, squeezing before disappearing. 

The minutes stretched too long without Shawn there.  Kalian rose from the chair and followed the noises Shawn was making to the kitchen.  On the way, she came upon Shawn's studio and halted in her tracks.  The drawing she saw on the table drew her like a magnet.  Eyes wide, she reached out to touch the sketch of herself, sure it was part of this weird dream she'd wake from any moment.  The paper was smooth to the touch and didn't disappear in a puff of reality. 

She moved from the room, had to be close to Shawn again.  She crossed her arms and leaned against the door, watching her. 

Feeling the presence, Shawn looked back at her and dropped a teabag into the steaming water.  "Milk and sugar?" 

Milk…

Kalian shook herself internally and smiled nervously.  "For some odd reason, I feel as if I know you from another time." 

Shawn went to her, standing close.  "You do." 

The breath of calm brushed Kalian's hair; fingers of peace caressed Kalian skin. 

"I love you, Kalian." 

 

*

 

The long night was only beginning; Shawn worked her heart pliant and soft, a body unknown to her trembling hands—the tracing stroke of her tongue, removing any of Kalian's doubts.  She caressed her every need, thighs trembling, drinking the woman as morning dawned till she'd had her fill, cradling a love still and deep, allowing Kalian's heart to breathe again. 

There was more than scent, touch, and taste.  She was Kalian's warm embrace, her sacred place, the keeper of their secrets, where brightness came crawling, over bed and disheveled sheets, exposing the tears Kalian could no longer contain.  Her eyes held the light in beautiful hues, colors anew, reflective of a passion that would never dull. 

She lay open, left broken and unbound, clinging and releasing, wanting nothing more than this love: completeness she had only dreamed.  Kalian rest herself inside Shawn, within the circle of her arms; her home, and they slept, cradled in each other's heart. 

At half past seven, two old souls rejoined and continued the love in dreams.    

 

  

 

Next Story: What Fate May Come

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