by Megan Hart
“Hello yourself, dollface.” The gangster voice slipped out of him and should’ve sounded stupid, but didn’t.
The woman laughed. “Vo-do-dee-oh-doe, lover. You look real handsome in that getup. How’s about we go find a speakeasy, get ourselves some bathtub gin and maybe do a little canoodling?”
It sounded good to him. But first, a kiss. Nice and sweet. Her lips, warm and soft beneath his. When she opened for him, Butler took her tongue. His hands found her hips. She looked up at him with bright and shining eyes.
“You’re a really great kisser, Butler.”
“You remember me.”
“Of course I do.” She pushed onto her tiptoes to kiss him again. “You think I do this with a whole bunch of fellas every night, or what?”
He hadn’t really thought much about it. Dreams being dreams and all, they were as likely to be chased by a raging dinosaur as they were to find a speakeasy. He pulled her a little closer against him, aware that the streetscape was changing, slipping and sliding into something else, but too focused on her to care. “What did you say your name was, again?”
“I didn’t. What do you want to call me?”
“I want to call you by your name,” Butler said.
“Try to guess it. I bet you can.”
He did, thinking hard. He almost had it, but it slipped away from him in a flutter of gossamer moth wings. Literally. Sparks of light and dancing moths swirled from his mouth when he opened it, releasing a soft hiss but not her name.
“Not as nice as showers of gold, but better than toads and snakes, I guess.” The woman turned to watch the moths flying away before looking back at him. “You know that fairy tale?”
He did. There were a few of them, as a matter of fact, where a witch cursed someone to drop amphibians from their lips with every word. “Malificent. No. That can’t be your name. But is it close? M...M...Millie.”
“Millie will do,” she said, and did the Charleston for a second or so before giving him a smile that shot heat all through him. “Tell me, Butler. What’s going on in dreamland for you tonight?”
“You are, I hope.” He couldn’t get enough of her. Couldn’t pull her close enough. Couldn’t get his mouth on hers fast enough.
And the beauty of it was, she let him. Not only let him, but seemed as enthusiastic about it as he was. They kissed, hard and long, barely breaking to breathe. Did they even need air in a dream?
“No, we don’t need air, we can breathe just fine,” Millie said into his mouth as they floated, water closing over their heads and stripping away their clothes as though the lake had hands.
Water everywhere, caressing. Stroking. Warm and sleek, it lifted them both, making them weightless. They rolled, over and over, limbs entwined and mouths fused.
When she slid down his body to take him in her mouth, Butler cried out, expecting bubbles to cascade out of him and burst on the water’s surface. But there seemed to be no surface. Nothing to mark their depth. Only water all around them, and he gave himself up to that wonder as easily as he did to the pleasure of Millie’s lips and teeth and tongue caressing his cock. She cupped his balls, stroking backward with her thumb along the seam and finding the sensitive flesh between testicles and anus. He jerked, but the water held him up, allowing him to arch and curve with her every stroking suck.
He came, but didn’t ejaculate. He came again when she moved up his body to seat him inside her. And once more when her body tightened around his and she shuddered, moaning his name into his mouth.
Together they spun slowly, suspended no longer in warm water, but what looked liked the black expanse of space, sprinkled with stars. She fit so right against him, he never wanted to let her go. Her hair had grown while they fucked. Over her shoulders, halfway down her back in long auburn waves.
“I like this,” he said.
“You did it,” she murmured against him. “You made that happen.”
Butler held her a little closer. “I did?”
“Yes.”
“Why?” He asked, and she laughed.
“I don’t know, sweetheart. Maybe you like redheads.” She pushed up on an elbow to run a fingertip over his eyebrows, then down his nose to tap against his lips. “Tell me something, Butler Meadows.”
“Anything,” he offered. It felt like the right thing to say.
Millie laughed lightly. “What kind of woman do you like? What’s your ideal?”
It seemed an odd question to be asked in a dream, but he went with it. Because, dream. “Honesty. Intelligence. A good sense of humor. She has to get me. You know? Really get me.”
“Those are the things everyone says they want,” she pointed out, nuzzling against him again.
“Red hair,” he said. “I guess I like red hair. And she has to look good wearing my shirt. And if she likes to cook meatballs, man, that would be excellent, too.”
“Meatballs,” Millie said. “Gotcha.”
There was a pause in which the world around them swirled and shifted. Rainbow colors. In the distance, the sound of a carnival. For a second, he yearned for that, the smell of popcorn and petting zoo. He tasted cotton candy melting on his tongue.
“You feel right. In my arms like this. You feel really right,” Butler said.
“You feel right, too,” Millie said.
More silence. Things were fading, and he wanted to cling to them.
“It’s time to wake up.”
“Wait, no—”
But it was too late. His alarm had begun its steady beeping, and he was awake. Butler rolled over, sweeping the empty expanse of his bed for her, but of course she wasn’t there.
* * *
“Would you...um...Mariella. Would you like to...um...”
Butler was so endearing, it made her want to scream. Could he be any cuter? Mariella pressed her phone to her ear as she folded towels, her usual Sunday morning chore. After the dream Friday night, she’d waited to see if Butler called her on Saturday. He hadn’t, but had sent a few texts to tell her that he was busy doing some errands for his parents, and that he was thinking of her.
Thinking of you.
Three words that could mean as much as those other three little words everyone was always going on about. Mariella’s last lover had never been the sort to woo her with pretty words. He’d never said he missed her, or thought of her. Of course, she hadn’t loved him, so in the end it hadn’t mattered, but still. This was nice.
“What, Butler?” she said finally when he stayed silent.
“Would you like to meet me this afternoon for coffee?”
Mariella didn’t pause, not for a second. “Yes. Absolutely. Where?”
“Oh. I didn’t think...” Butler coughed. “I mean, yeah! Great. Wow. That was easy.”
“Are you calling me easy?” she teased, just to listen to him sputter for a few seconds. “Shh. Relax. Of course I want to meet you. Coffee sounds great.”
“Morningstar Mocha? They have great food, too. We could get a sandwich.”
“I don’t know, Butler. A sandwich?” Mariella made herself sound doubtful. “First it was coffee, now you want to eat a sandwich? Slow down, Speed Racer.”
Then they both laughed.
“I like you,” Butler said.
Her heart thumped. “You sound surprised.”
“Not that I like you,” he said. “Just that I said it.”
“I’m glad you did. I don’t think there should ever be a reason not to tell someone you like them, if you do.”
“Agreed. So, four at the Mocha?”
“Yes,” she told him. “And, Butler...I like you, too.”
* * *
What to wear? Mariella sent up a prayer to the gods of fashion emergencies. The last date she’d been on had been with a guy she’d known
for a few years as a casual friend. She hadn’t been on a first date with a stranger in years. Butler didn’t feel anything like a stranger, she thought.
Jeans and a long-sleeved T-shirt, her Converse sneakers. Too casual? A flirty dress with a pair of cute stockings and her favorite boots...but no, damn, they had three-inch heels and she wasn’t sure how tall he really was. She settled for a pair of tight-fitting jeans and a pretty peasant blouse with her leather jacket and some sparkly ballet flats. A scarf looped around her throat, so she didn’t seem like she was trying to go all Captain Cleavage on him.
She’d never been more nervous in her life.
Yet the moment she saw him waiting for her outside the coffee shop, Mariella again had that rush of warmth, of familiarity. Of homecoming.
It seemed natural as anything for her to hug him. “Butler. Hi. Wow.”
He hugged her back, though a little stiffly, and looked her over when the embrace broke. His eyes went a little wide. “You look...”
She waited, but he seemed at a loss for words. “Amazing?”
“Yes. That.” He laughed and pulled her close for another hug, this one lingering. Not at all inappropriate, but a definite heat gathered and rose between them. “I was going to say familiar.”
“You’ve seen my pictures. And we video chatted,” she said into his ear, not wanting to let him go even though the hug was totally going on too long. “It’s weird when you meet someone for the first time, but feel like you already have because you know what they look like.”
“Yeah,” he said, squeezing her hips before at last stepping back. He cleared his throat. “Should we go inside?”
What she really wanted was to drag him into a dark corner somewhere and find out if they were as compatible in the waking world as they’d been in dreams, but of course she couldn’t do that. She nodded instead. “Sure. Yes. I’m starving.”
They ordered coffee and sandwiches, which turned out to be as delicious as Butler had promised, and Mariella dug into hers without hesitation. She hadn’t eaten breakfast and lunch had been a cup of yogurt while she cleaned out her closet. She paused at his look.
“Oh, God,” she said. “You’re not one of those guys who only dates women who survive on air and a breath mint, are you?”
He laughed. “No way.”
“Good. Because if you’re going to be my main squeeze,” Mariella said casually, though she felt anything but, “you’re going to have to make sure to feed me. Often and well.”
“Main squeeze, huh?” Butler folded his paper napkin in half. Then again. And again, his strong fingers making hard creases in the soft paper. He wasn’t looking at her.
Shit. Had she overshot? Mariella sipped her latte to keep herself from saying anything else, even that she’d been teasing. Because she hadn’t been.
“I am a pretty good cook,” he said just before the silence could be too awkward. He looked at her without smiling, face serious, though there was the faintest hint of humor in his eyes.
“Learned it from your mama?”
“From my dad, actually. He’s the cook in the family. My mom would make dinner most nights, sure. The standard stuff. But my dad’s the one who took care of all the holiday meals. Stuff like that.” Butler paused, smiling slightly. “He makes killer mashed potatoes.”
“The only thing I can really do well is homemade meatballs,” Mariella said, breathlessly casual. “My grandma’s recipe.”
Butler let out a small noise, half under his breath. He shook his head a little, then smiled at her. “I love meatballs. And it’s the one thing my dad never mastered.”
“I’ll have to make you some,” she told him.
And then they said nothing, just stared the way they had on video chat, only this time there was no distance between them. No glass and metal box to contain them. This time, they were together.
“Mariella,” Butler whispered.
“Butler,” she replied, and couldn’t stop herself from grinning like an idiot.
“I’d really like to kiss you.”
“I want you to kiss me,” she told him. “Please.”
He looked around the coffee shop, then back at her with a rueful smile. “Not here.”
Mariella wouldn’t have cared if he’d swept the table free of plates and cups and laid her out on it to kiss her the way James Spader did to Susan Sarandon at the end of the movie White Palace, but she nodded. “Later?”
“It’s a promise.”
They stared at each other again across the table. When he reached for her hand, she let him take it. Their fingers twined.
“I don’t know what it is about you,” Butler said, “but I feel like I’ve known you for a lot longer than a few days.”
Mariella thought of the Ephemeros. Dreams had a way of feeling as though they’d lasted forever. Entire relationships could take seed, bloom and die all within the span of what in reality was a few minutes.
“Sometimes you just meet someone and you click,” she said.
Butler’s brow furrowed. “Yeah. You know, I’ve been on FindADate for a long time, but I have to say, Mariella. I never met anyone like you before. I really haven’t. I know that’s going to sound cheesy—”
“It doesn’t sound cheesy. It sounds very nice.”
They were staring again. Both of them smiling. His fingers tightened on hers.
“Hey,” Butler said. “Do you want to get out of here?”
* * *
“Are you cold?” Butler made to shrug out of his leather jacket, but Mariella shook her head.
“I’m okay. It’s beautiful out today, isn’t it? I love fall. It’s my favorite season.” She tipped her face to the sun, closing her eyes, which gave him the perfect chance to look at her without her noticing him staring.
Her hair, cascading over her shoulders and down her back, caught the late afternoon sunlight and turned to fire. He’d always had a weakness for redheads. And Mariella’s hair made him want to sink his fingers deep into it and pull her head back so he could get at the smooth skin of her throat. Heat pooled in his lower belly, and Butler quickly tried to get himself under control.
This was only their first date.
Still, it felt natural to let her hand slip into his while they walked along the river, swollen with a few fall storms. It lapped at the concrete steps along the lower path. Sometimes Butler liked to run along the Susquehanna River, all the way up and down Front Street, and on a Sunday afternoon usually lots of other Harrisburg residents were doing the same. Today, though, he and Mariella had the path to themselves.
She was telling him a story about her childhood, something to do with a playground accident, but he’d been so consumed with the feeling of her skin against his that he’d missed the last few words. “Sorry? I missed that last part.”
Mariella stopped walking. Their hands swung between them. “I was ten years old, acting like a moron. Hanging upside down on the monkey bars. Jenny Franklin was on top of them, and she accidentally hit my knees as she was trying to get down. I hit the pavement headfirst. Got knocked out. Blood everywhere.”
She took his hand and oh, shit, oh, wow, slid it up the back of her neck and along her head, fingers deep inside that glorious hair where he’d been dreaming they’d go. She moved his fingertips over the small bumps of her skull until he felt a slight indent. She moved a step closer, and the breeze springing off the river brought him her scent. Lavender.
“Feel that?” she asked.
This close, he could see the flecks of gold and green in her blue eyes. She had the faintest sprinkling of freckles on her nose. He wanted to kiss each one of them.
“Yes.”
“I had to get stitches.” Mariella moved his fingers again, down the dent. She shivered, lips parting. “It changed everything. That accident.”
He wanted to ask her what she meant by that, but impulse overcame rationale, and Butler did what he’d been longing to do since the moment she’d walked through the door of the Morningstar Mocha. He pulled her close and kissed her. Softly at first, just a brush of his lips on hers. But when Mariella sighed against him, her mouth opening, Butler couldn’t stop himself from holding her closer. Kissing her harder. Deeper. Her tongue stroked his, and he thought he might lose his mind.
He broke the kiss, breathing heavily. “Sorry, I—”
“Don’t be sorry. Oh, please, don’t be sorry!” She laughed. This time, she kissed him. Not soft or hesitant, but full-on, her arms around him, her body pressed so close to his there could be no way for her not to feel his arousal. If it bothered her, she didn’t show it. If anything, she pressed herself closer to him.
Butler gave in to the desire, letting his hands go where they wanted—cupping her luscious ass. I’m not doing this, he thought, even as he did. I am absolutely not grabbing her ass while we make out right here in the middle of the public path. But he was, he absolutely was, and Mariella didn’t seem to mind.
They eased apart, though not so far apart that he had to let her go. He did let his hands move from her butt back to her hips, but there was nothing he could do about the bulge in his pants. She didn’t seem to mind that, either.
“I really like you,” he said.
Mariella smiled. “I’m glad. I like you, too, Butler.”
He wanted to kiss her again, but held back, too aware of their surroundings. “Can I see you again?”
“Absolutely,” Mariella said. “When?”
“Tomorrow?” It was a gamble, maybe too eager, too forward. He’d been in and out of the dating scene enough to know when he’d overplayed his hand.
But Mariella only grinned and grabbed the front of his jacket to pull him close to her mouth for another lingering kiss. “Tomorrow it is.”
* * *
There was never a guarantee of finding any person in the Ephemeros who existed in the real world. Mariella had once read somewhere, in her desperate days of researching dreams when she’d thought she was losing her mind, that every person who appears in your dreams wore the face of someone you’d actually met in real life. Even if you didn’t remember meeting them. She’d never been able to determine if that were true or not, but she knew for a fact that there could be “empties” — people created by visitors to the Ephemeros to play parts in dramas too big for just one or two. But almost every person you met in your dreams was in fact a real person somewhere out in the world who was asleep at the same time as you—no matter how they represented themselves in the dream or allowed themselves to be changed by the will of another who could control what they could not. However, meeting someone on purpose, unless they also were a shaper like her, was a crapshoot. Never guaranteed. The fact she’d met Butler as many times as she had had been sort of miraculous.