A Short Essay on a Dream
Andrew Cutter

	The curves of her body were silhouetted by the twinkling lights behind.  The gentle wisps of hair, the slender arms, the slim waist.  Stepping forward she was a shadow no more, but flesh.  With an elegant move of her arm her thin, silk robe fell along her side and to the floor.  Beauty unadorned, untouched stood before me.  It was marvellous.
	She advanced on the bed slowly.  Her footsteps fell noiselessly and she moved with such grace that it seemed she floated rather than walked, a spirit.
	Palm lowered and knee raised, she climbed gracefully onto the sheets.  She slipped her leg over mine and brought her other leg onto the bed.  I lay there perfectly still, hardly daring to believe my eyes.  And yet, my chest ached with such longing, such passion that to attempt to move would have been futile.  I was incapacitated by her beauty.
	Straddling me, she brought her hands down onto my bare chest.  Resting them there for only a second she brought them slowly down my abdomen and then to the waistband of my pants.  She pulled on the elastic, dragging the soft cotton down around my thighs.  With an agonisingly slow bend of her waist, she brought her lips to my chest, then my abdomen, my waist, and a little lower, finally closing them around me.
	My muscles tensed with the moist embrace of her lips.  Her soft, brown hair flowed with inexplicable splendour.  Captivated by her hair, by her embrace, my hand broke the spell.
	It reached out slowly, nervously, to touch her hair.  Inch by inch it grew closer and then as I thought I felt the gentle strands at the tip of my fingers, she was gone, and I awoke.
	It was dark and cold; there were no twinkling lights and no warm embrace.  I was alone.
	The clock read 2:33.