“Unless you keep taking chances,” she stated matter-of-factly.
“I’m working on that.”
Her hair was pulled back into a ponytail that fell neatly down the center of her back. A few fugitive strands of her spiraling tresses were brushed behind her ear; a dangling gold earring intertwined with them and lay softly against the pale skin of her neck. She was absently chewing at her lower lip as she concentrated on her task. The soft, indirect sunlight coming from the atrium at the back of the kitchen cast her in a beautiful glow. I caught myself staring as an entirely new set of thoughts overtook my brain.
“So what are you planning to wear tonight?” I asked, not really knowing where the question had come from. Even so, I felt oddly intent on getting an answer.
“What?” she echoed in a puzzled tone.
“Just wondering what you were going to wear.” I shrugged, still following what seemed an unfamiliar path.
“What I’ve got on, I guess,” she answered as she took a step back and gave herself a once over. “I’ll probably change shirts. Why?”
“I don’t know.” I shook my head.
“Do you think I should wear something else?”
“I just…I don’t know…” I was starting to feel a bit lost on this trail, but it appeared that a landmark might be directly ahead, so I gave in and continued deeper.
“What?” she pressed.
The landmark was there as promised, and it was even familiar. I should have been frightened by it, but since I was standing in my own kitchen with my wife and not an elevator with a stranger, I embraced it. Without a second thought I ventured, “What about your black dress?”
Felicity stopped what she was doing and shook her head slowly as she looked at me with an incredulous stare. “You think I should wear a dress?”
“Sure. Why not?”
“Well, we’re going to be outside in the cold during a good part of the evening for one thing.”
“There’s going to be a fire,” I offered, a seductive vision continuing to coalesce.
“Okay, let’s say I wear a dress.” She canted her head to the side and shot me a look that said she was just humoring me in order to see where this was headed. “Which black dress are you talking about? I have several.”
“You know, that black dress,” I rambled, simply following a curvaceous image in my head that seemed to be beckoning me further into a dangerous state of being. “Long…slit up the side…”
“…satin, backless, lace sleeves, lace panel in the bodice?” she offered a more detailed description. “You mean that one?”
The image was coming completely into focus. Her description blended itself with the ethereal and brought a rush of excitement coursing through my body. “Yeah, sure, that sounds like the one.”
“Well,” she raised an eyebrow, “are you going to be wearing a tux?”
“I hadn’t planned on it.” I shook my head, answering her absently and directing my attention to the imagery dancing behind my eyes. “Why?”
“Rowan, that dress is a formal evening gown. Are you really serious?”
“Sure.”
The fantasy was rapidly heating up, speeding headlong toward becoming just as lurid as the episode I’d had in the elevator the day before. I didn’t fight it, even though it was accompanied by a bit of an itch at the back of my brain. I can only assume that itch was the reason the vision was able to take over so smoothly. No whirlpooling colors, no frantic heartbeats, and no fear; simply pure lust for a private showing of a wakeful dream that was about to become hardcore fantasy.
I must have been standing there with a ridiculous grin on my face because the next thing I heard was my name spoken in a piercing tone of disbelief.
“Rowan!”
The insistence behind her tone told me that this wasn’t the first time she’d called out. What followed immediately was an instant feeling of claustrophobia and isolation as ethereal shields formed a thick barrier around the both of us. My wife’s response to her protective instinct, coupled with the sharpness of her voice, shattered my pornographic illusion and I stammered, “Umm…I don’t know…I guess…I mean… Well, you really look good in it.”
“Thank you, but I’m thinking maybe I’d be a bit overdressed for this particular gathering.” Her voice was stern and she stared at me with a puzzled expression. “Not to mention that I’d freeze my tail off. Since when did you become so interested in my choice of clothing anyway?”
“Umm, I really don’t know,” I shrugged, all remnants of the image fading and leaving me to defend myself without its reward. “Uhh… Umm…”
“Row, are you okay? There was some pretty bizarre energy bouncing around in here.”
“Ummm, yeah. I think so.”
“Are you sure? I’ve never felt anything like that coming off you before… Except maybe during sex, but then it’s not creepy. This was creepy.”
I really didn’t think it would be a good idea to tell her the story about the young woman in the elevator at this moment in time. I’d managed to keep that one to myself, and I figured it should stay that way for a while longer. Still, the fact that the sleepless dream had recurred made me think that there was even more to it than I’d suspected the day before. I still had no idea quite what that significance was, but it definitely begged deeper investigation. And in a way it provided a thin reassurance that I wasn’t completely nuts, even if it did incite a pang of fear in the pit of my stomach.
“Rowan?” she spoke my name again. “Are you listening to me?”
I shook my head quickly and answered her as best I could. “Yeah. I’m listening… I’m fine.”
“You could’ve fooled me.” She furrowed her brow as she looked at me.
“Sorry.”
“That’s okay, I guess. As long as you aren’t actually expecting me to wear a dress tonight.”
“No. Not really,” I told her and then offered a weak explanation. “It just must have been that whole massage conversation. You got me all worked up and so my mind started to wander.”
“Uh-huh. More like went on an extended vacation. So it’s all my fault, then.” She wasn’t angry, but she wasn’t convinced either. She shrugged and cocked her head to the side. “Okay, since we’re on the subject, what are you going to wear tonight?”
“The usual, I guess,” I answered.
“The usual?”
“Yeah. Whatever you tell me to.”
CHAPTER 16
“Be it known to all that no one is here but of their own free will,” Felicity spoke aloud, raising her voice slightly in competition with a cold wind that was sighing through the leafless trees which surrounded our large back yard. “Those wishing to be in circle please join hands, left palm up, right palm down, and take a moment to ground and center.”
We hadn’t yet had any snow to speak of. A flurry or two here and there, but nothing that stuck around for any length of time. Now with the temperature still above freezing, it was looking very much like we were in for an “earth tone” Christmas a few days hence. Even so, the night was chilly enough that my shoulder was already starting to ache, and we’d only been outside for fifteen minutes. I suppose there had been only just so much that could be done to repair the joint after my encounter with Eldon Porter, so I figured I’d better get used to it. Still, I was starting to regret not donning a heavier coat.
We were all standing in a loose circle on our deck-Me, Felicity, Ben and his wife Allison, and a small group of Pagan friends. We surrounded a portable, outdoor fireplace that had been positioned on a wide bed of fireproof bricks and then stacked with carefully arranged kindling that consisted not only of dried sticks but of pinecones and a remnant of the previous year’s Yule log as well.
Felicity and I were actually solitary practitioners of The Craft and didn’t belong to a particular coven. Truth was we rarely held ritual with anyone other than ourselves, and maybe a cat or two present; however, this was a special occasion. Of the eight generally accepted Pagan holidays scattered about the wheel of the year, this was the final one before beginning the cycle anew. Though labeled as a minor Sabbat, Yule was without a doubt a holiday of immense importance and a celebration that literally demanded the camaraderie of close friends. Ben and Allison were the closest friends we had, and those in attendance besides them fit the description perfectly as well for they had become an integral part of our lives over the past year or so.