What dreams may come....

My head sinks into her pillow as the rest of my body relaxes with it. Eyes closed, every muscle limp, the pounding of my heartbeats coming back under control. Propped up on one elbow, she looks down at me, smiling, clearly pleased with herself. "Can I do anything else for you?" she asks coyly. I chuckle and sigh, keeping my eyes closed, gathering back my energy after the fourth time she had made me orgasm that night. "No, I think I'm good, thanks. You've seen well to that." She giggles and replies with a confident, "Good."

I held her in my arms as she slept. The movie she so emphatically wanted me to see with her couldn't hold her sway against the exhaustion of the day. I stroked her hair, straightening it's brunette lengths across my arm. As Robin Williams desperately searched the depths of hell for his wife, I had eyes for nothing but her. She looked so pensive as she slept... I wondered what it was that pervaded her dreams onto her face.

She takes her left hand and starts to run it over me, first across my shoulders and chest, until she works her way up to my face. My eyes opened now, I stare across the room as silence continues to blanket us. Her fingers trace from one jaw line to the other, work their way up around my brow, and down my nose, over my eyes, across my lips.

Half trying to soothe her worries away, half knowing I'd never want to forget this moment, I took my fingertips and began to lightly trace, lightly caress her face. Coming down from her brow, turning my hand to run the softer backs of my fingers down her cheek and jaw, turning back to my fingertips to trace her lips.

She continued this for minutes. Starting over again or circling back once she had completed mapping my face with her fingers. I spoke no words; she probably felt my jaw tense up. "What's wrong?" she with a look of confused concern. "It's nothing" I said, lying.

I went more slowly over her lips each time I passed over them. On some level, I knew I'd never be this close to her again. I traced every part of her face, consciously trying to not miss a single detail. I wanted to remember every line, every curve, the smooth warmth of every facet of her face. Like a topographer copying the world he knows onto paper, I copied every inch of her into my memory, my eyes never leaving her countenance. She woke with the credits scrolling up the television screen. As she sat up, my hand caressed her face one last time, brushing back a lock of hair that had fallen across her face.

"I know you better than that." she said, seeing past my lie and trying to get me to open up. To lost to bring myself out of the 8 year old memory that held onto me. A quiet voice in the back of my head whispered, that I was once her. Young, innocent, lost in absolutely everything about my first love. That I too traced the face of the one I love and how much you, now, bears a striking resemblance to me, then. But that whisper never left my thoughts as I looked up at her. "I'm fine, it's nothing" I lied again. "Ok, fine. Don't tell me" she conceded, "You just look so pensive all of a sudden, that's all."

I replied to her with silence.