Perfect

She stepped forward, out of the spring light, and as the shadow veil slid off of her face, Eric saw the eyes, sparkling green like candlelit emeralds, saw the smile on the full red lips before they parted and murmured,

"Eric, I think you love that bed more than me, sometimes."

She was smiling teasingly at him while she said it. Eric stared blankly at her, his tongue unable to shape a response while his thoughts raced to accept that he was resting in the cradle of the best dream he had ever had, or was ever going to have. Finally, a few choice words fell from his slack jaw.

"You know me?"

She smirked at him, brushed night coloured tresses behind her right ear with a graceful hand.

"I hope so. I slept beside you last night," she answered casually, as if she’d grown used to him asking such things, "God, it was hot, wasn’t it? I think some rain will come today. Hopefully that will cool things down…"

"Whoa," Eric said, sitting up. What a dream this was turning out to be! He couldn’t take his eyes off her, as she drifted to her side of the bed, bent at her night table where her jewels were waiting. "How long have you known me?"

She looked up at him, blinked.

"About as long as you’ve known me, I would suppose," she said.

"Um…I’ve only known you for a few days."

"Really? Being with me doesn’t feel long to you? You’re so sweet. It’s the same for me. I look at you sometimes, and it feels new, like I only met you yesterday."

Oddly, Eric was not surprised she’d said that. It was exactly the thing she would say, assuming…

"Um…just how long have we been together?"

"All our lives," the woman, this familiar stranger, replied, always with the restful air of a long and cherished friend and lover.

"And how long is that?" Eric questioned, knowing he would probably get nowhere and wondering if it mattered.

"You tell me," she said. Eric shook his head, abandoned that front, his mind trying to function as her scent wafted into his awareness. She smelled like rosewater, sweet and fragrant.

"Who are you?" he willed himself to ask, eliciting a playful giggle and a bat on the head with a pillow. She flopped down next to him on the bed.

"If you don’t know that by now…" she said, staring at him.

"I don’t…"

"Sure you do. Say my name."

"I can’t…I don’t…"

"Eric," she whispered, before leaning in and brushing his lips with her own, "Say my name."

Eric’s heart was pounding as panic overtook him. He could feel the nightmare seeping into his bliss as he looked straight at her and said the very first name that came to his mind.

"Um…er…Eve?"

The woman jolted as if struck. She retreated to her side of the bed, widened eyes never leaving him.

But the nightmare didn’t come. Not quite. Not yet.

"That’s right," she said, sounding surprised, though whether it was at Eric’s guessing correctly or his not knowing in the first place, he could not tell.

If Eric was worried that the naming of his dream would end it abruptly, he needn’t have. At her cajoling, he rose from bed and showered soon after, in a marble-tiled stall with gold faucets. Eve joined him, pressing her body close to his until his hunger and curiosity could no longer be contained. He held his desire at bay just enough to take his time, both there in the wash and the steam, and afterwards, when he carried her, still pearled with shower dew, back to bed.