Art by Norman E. Masters

The ghost in her bed had been making love to her for delirious hours and she had mistaken it for a dream....

Such a delicious dream it had seemed, so wonderfully sensuous, so very real in each nuance of delicate featherlike touch in all the right places. He seemed to know her body so well -- yes! there! yes! yes! there, too!

I don't *ever* want to waken out of this, this dream come real, feeling it so fully, she thought.

If I open my eyes, will he disappear? He has not yet entered me -- so endlessly teasing, so sensitively pleasing me... It's like he can read my mind -- doing everything I want done to me. Charlie never does, *that's* for sure!

I don't dare open my eyes. If I open my eyes I will surely awaken. I don't *want* to awaken... I want it to just keep going on & on and just *never* waken... This is *soooo* nice... like paradise... This is the way paradise is *supposed* to be...

How long ago before the beginning of this timelessness of ongoing bliss had she been dream-bathing? An hour ago? Two?

Oo -- yes! There too! Your touch like milkweed fluff, such soft, slow hands, dancing their slow rhythms all over me, setting my sensuous essence free, deep-breathing into the slowly mounting ecstasy... Dancing my quivering skin; I'm tingling to your touch; it's penetrating thru my skin; my breasts seem warmer... penetrating deeper... It feels like my heart is opening! This is *very* strange! I have to close it to Charlie just to protect myself... to keep being *me*... but I can *feel* it! -- heart-petals parting like a blossoming rose... Pink and white petals... Do you want *all* my pinkness, my Lover? I will give it all to you -- most willingly!

She had been dream-bathing... or was it a dream? The water as hot as she could stand it, initially, just blitzed into the vaporous mist, eyes closed, reveling in the deep-soaking warmth, melting into the scented waters, swirling them around her with lazy hands...

But then they were swirling up *inside* me, arousing me, she remembered.

How could the water be swirling inside me?

I don't want to look; I don't want to know. If I look I might wake up, and then it's all over, never to be regained again...

Then those swirls of colors behind her eyelids, rainbows tee-heesing her...

And floating dream bubbles, a panoramic scene inside each one, your hand reaching out from one of them, my dream into flesh, swirling the water between my thighs...

So *that's* how it's happening! Oh yes, i *love* your fingers, there! Such a *light* touch! Your finger feels more like a tongue!

O God! You're getting me *so* aroused!

I *have* to keep my eyes closed! If I open them I *know* I'll wake up. Usually I *do* when I'm this aware I'm dreaming... Don't wake up, Renee! Just sink back into the languor of it & o please! just let it keep going... Yes!

The bubble, fading, not popping... and the others, shrinking, floating to enter his eyes... Why is his face so indistinct? But you're stepping *out* of the bubble, my Dream Lover! O God, yes! Make *all* my dreams come true! I just wish I could enter *your* dream with you & leave Charlie, forever, to *this* world. He's so damned jealous I would *have* to disappear. He would kill me before he lets another have me...

Forget Charlie. To hell with Charlie. I don't want any thought of him to ruin this dream for me...

But how am I *seeing* you with my eyes closed?! Who are you? Who could you possibly be? You're still so hazy in the misty vapors surrounding you from inside the bubble... The mists smell a bit like cinnamon... Cinnamon incense? My cinnamon lover...

Oh, it *has* to be a dream! He's so strong! It's almost like I'm levitating! -- he's lifting me so lightly, so effortlessly out of the water.

You really *want* me, don't you!

I have to be dripping everywhere! Silly, it's just a dream! Nothing will *really* get wet!

Oh, keep making love to me! Don't stop! O my Dream Lover -- the only kind I ever dare take -- because then Charlie will *never* know!

Yes! I so love it in the moonglow... Full moon, tonight! You won't turn into a werewolf, will you, my Dream Lover?! But you're so mysterious... I *love* the mystery of you... O this is just the *nicest* dream! I feel so fresh, so relaxed, so free, so tingly warm all over! Actually, I think I'm over-heating a bit -- feeling kinda *hot* from your touches! They're really stirring me!

Ooooo! how did your dreamfingers turn so cool! But niiiice... They make me feel so quiver-shivery... Puckering, too! I can sure feel *that*!

I don't normally dream such vibrant colors! Or see everything thru *closed* eyelids... I want to run my hands all over you. I want to feel *you* too... But I can hardly move them... So limp, so utterly relaxed I just want to soak into the sheets... I feel like jello, quivering to your every touch, but I can't touch you back... Just the bath, or did that hint of cinnamon mist leave me like this?

No! No! Don't go!

"I'm just going to open the window... A little nighttime breeze... I'll be back..."

I *like* his voice... Husky, & mysterious... But I can't identify the accent. A very definite one. But different. Why am I seeing *nothing* now that his touch is gone! I want to *see* again! No -- I don't *dare* open my eyes -- I'll wake up *then,* I *know*... But he's gone, now. I've probably already wakened... Shit! -- why couldn't it have lasted longer?

But I'm feeling the breeze... & the window *wasn't* open... Maybe it's *not* done. O God, I hope it's not done. Charlie has *never* made love to me like that. Wham! Bam! not even a Thank You, ma'am! And he thinks he's such a stud...

O come back, my Dream Lover -- come back to me -- take me all the way -- but slowly, slowly... Make me soar like I've never soared before -- like they write about in the romance novels but like I've only been able to dream about, wondering if it ever *really* happens... I want it to happen. I want so much for it to happen... and keep happening...

Music! Yes, return to me with music... A melody as soft as the whisper of wind thru flower petals lulling me deeper into the languor, just sinking into a semi-conscious state of delirious bliss...

I can see you again! As soon as you touched me I could see you again! How can such things *be*?

Lover, you're almost transparent in the moonglow. Like a ghost! But with a silvery sheen... like water in human form in the moonlight... Moon-glimmerings shimmering all over your naked body... It doesn't look like you have any hair -- but, o yes! -- you're definitely a *man*... I can see you want me -- but don't enter me yet. Please. Make it last...

And I can even see the candles through you! I'm glad you thought to light them. Their flames are dancing on the tips of their wicks, like the breeze is dancing with them... My heart is the flame on those candles, dancing to your lovetouches... Dancing... dancing... Like I will be dancing on the tip of *your* wick?!

Oh how you light my fire! But how can I dance with you when I can't even *move*? I'm just a puddle of ooze... like jello, melting when you touch me... Did you slip something into the wine? And how can I be seeing the candles *thru* you? So very strange... Now the candle flames *are* your eyes... your mouth... your heart as you shift your position... Well, I guess in a dream *anything* can happen! But nothing like *this* has ever happened in any of *my* dreams before!

Yes! Caress every part of me. Get to know all of me -- outside -- before you come *in*side me... Mmmmmmm... that feels so good... Massage me, yes! Deeply!

How is this happening? My dreams have never gone the direction I've wanted them to go -- ever! It's like he can read my mind -- & it's like he's really *real* -- even tho I can see thru him, though none of this can *possibly* be real!

Something about his form... Kinda strange... Is he even *human*? Are you an alien, my Dream Lover? Do you come to me from the stars? O, there are strange stars in your eyes... Your whole face, it's like a part of the midnight sky, with just a silvery sheen outlining it. How did you DO that?! You are smiling so enigmatically...

I think he's a ghost... He has to be a ghost... An *alien* ghost? Can ghosts really *do* it? It has to be impossible, making love with a ghost... But o! I just love this! I feel shimmery, myself, wherever he caresses me... like tingley stardust twinkling all over me, sinking into me, all through me!

Oh, lover, you're finding muscles I never knew *existed* before! Is this how breaddough feels when it's being kneaded? Am I your bread and you my wine... & this is the way it feels to be divinely loved? They never gave any eucharist like *this* at St. John's! You're transsubstantiating me! Are you the Holy Ghost? Then let me toast the Holy Ghost! You've got strong ectoplasm, that's for sure!

You are hearing my every thought, aren't you? You speak not a word -- & yet you are so responsive to my every wish...

Oh, i *am* the wine! It is like you are sipping me, savoringly, from the cup of my flesh... Your lips sucking at me, gently now, gently! Don't want to leave my whole body one big hickey! Charlie would *never* understand *that*! And how could I possibly explain it?! Such strange feelings swirl-whirl reeling thru me like you're sucking me into you yet leaving me all-me, transfusing me, transforming me, metamorphosing me... psychedelically *coloring* my feelings... so warm/cool minty/mentholly; now i feel like cotton candy melting in your mouth...

I wonder if the Virgin Mary felt like this when the Holy Ghost came to *her*? Is this what being raptured means? Well, I'm no virgin, but you sure make me *feel* like one! Like you're taking me into virgin territory -- because I've never *felt* this way before!

O God yes! rapture me, my Holy Ghost! Can you really *come* -- like a man comes? Can you make *me* come -- more than once? Would you be up to a Second Coming, my Holy Ghost Lover?

How you hover over me, now, your eyes beckoning me to come! come! sink into utter oneness with you! Your face, so close, there *is* something familiar about it... I *have* seen it before... But you had long hair, then... and a beard... That picture of Jesus I grew up with in my bedroom as a child. But you're so bald, now, no facial hair at all... And shimmery shiny, my quicksilver Lover!

Is *this* the way You *really* return? O, the Christians would never *believe* it! You're supposed to be celibate, aren't you?!

O! You're turning *all* of me into just one lonnnnng moooooaaan! I feel so reely all feelie squeal!ly -- what you *do* to me! -- I'm just oozing juice from my lovecove, wide for you as you slip into me --- oooooooo! how do you *do!* that! You're so much bigger than Charlie -- yet it doesn't hurt & I can *feel* you all-around inside me! And how do you keep stroking my clitoris, with both hands on my breasts? Such utter ectoplasmic control you have -- my super elastic super fantastic ectoplasmic Holy Ghost Lover, your lips sucking mine in but filling me at the same time... I feel like all of me is just going to *explode*! If I go supernova will it blow you away?

My heaving flesh is the billows of the sea... O Lover, come drown in me! Surge into me! Fill my cup of ecstasy! You make my cup runneth over!

Such a warm afterflow, shimmering all through me... Like seeds of light, racing thru my arteries, into my womb...

Thank God the coil is there! I wouldn't *really* want to be getting pregnant -- no offense, my Dream Lover, but Charlie would *never* understand!

I know it's all been a dream; the light so bright thru my eyelids... So warm... Must be sunrise... Where did the time all go? The moon is gone so soon?

Your touch, receding; I feel it melting away -- but i still *feel* you so throbbingly inside me! How are you keeping it so hard?!

I know if I open my eyes you'll disappear; but I've wakened already, haven't I? Yet you still feel so real inside me...

I can barely lift my arms now -- reaching for your face... I want to touch you so, feel you really real... Will your face feel like water, or like quicksilver, my Holy Ghost Lover? Or like the mists of a dream dispelling, my o so compelling apparition! Gone with the dawn?

She opened dreamy eyes, glazed over in the wonderment, to behold his essence in shimmering starglow, the moon ascended out of view, the contours of his body a golden liquidity, now, instead of watery silver by moonlight...

She reached to touch his face, her eyes wondering, like a child's -- outstretched fingers reaching to touch the magic... And he melted, like quicksilver-molten-gold running away from her touch, flowing into her vaginal depths, throbbing one final burst of nova-like ejaculation, tingling all thru her lovecove, radiating all thru her, starseeding her like the stars in his eyes dancing thru her flesh in ecstatic whirltwirl swirling...

Whew! Doesn't look like I'm awake *yet*! I think you're gone; but you'll *never* be gone... you're all thru me, a part of me... I feel you in my very blood, still tingling! And so *intensely* in my womb...

I just want to drift in a golden cloud, now, with the memory... But if I do, will I remember, when I wake up? I *want* to remember this one! I want to treasure this dream forever! If I wake up and write it down I'll be sure to remember...

I'll remember. I won't forget... And you come *back* to me, my Ghostly Lover -- any night, any dream!

Then she felt herself drifting into the most delicious sleep she'd ever experienced.

But when Renee awoke the sheets were still damp, her coil was poking into her thigh where she'd rolled over on it, and there were lingering traces of a thick fluid dripping from her vagina, semen-like, but with a radiating silvery sheen & golden flecks like tiny stars still dancing in it, sparkling through it -- like they were living lights!

Thinking maybe she'd better douche herself *immediately!* she stumbled, dazedly, into the bathroom... The bathwater had not been drained... A floating sheen upon the water, rainbow-like in its swirl-curlings, with tiny sparklies dancing *their* radiance...

"Oh my God! It really happened!"

She wondered, then, what strange Life was surely growing inside her? And how was she *ever* going to explain this to Charlie?!