"I want a girl to call my own,
I want a dream lover, so I don't have to dream alone."
BOBBY DARIN - Dream Lover

There had been a time when it had all mattered. His job. His self-respect. His future.

There had been a time when he had lived for that future rather than the past.

That time had been yesterday.

But now, the love of his life was gone. And there could be no future.

He sat in his armchair, gazing out at the incessant London rain. It was early afternoon. But time didn't matter. Not any more.

Perhaps he would sit here for the rest of the day. Perhaps for the whole of his life.

Occasionally friends would call, but he would usher them away. It was imperative that he grieve in private. His friends had not been part of the relationship between he and Joy. Indeed, he and Joy had studiously avoided company, because time together was the most important thing.

The dim afternoon darkened as dusk approached. Still he sat. He had opened a bottle of whisky, but had poured only one glass and had merely sipped at it.

Perhaps he would never drink again. Perhaps he would never consume food again. Perhaps he would deny himself these things so that his remaining existence would be rather short.

If he had been a religious man, then he would definitely have determined upon that course, confident that she would be waiting for him. But he was a doubter, and could not be as certain as he needed to be that death would bring Joy back to him. The risk, therefore, was too big to take.

He had known her for only three months. It seemed so short a time, but it was also all the time that had been important in his life. True, he had known other women in the time before Joy, and there had been moments of laughter and ease. But he had never known love. Joy had brought him love, and had made him wonder how he had ever survived without it.

He had met her at a rave, one of those seemingly random but clearly organised events where lights pounded rhythmically into the brain and where drugs were taken as easily as alcohol. There had been a period when he had found pleasure in certain pharmaceuticals, but that was long gone. That night he had been relatively sober, although the hour was late. This was unusual for him. He often wondered whether fate had played a hand in it.

She had been dancing alone, a gorgeous creature whose connection to the music had seemed surgical. Her long straw blonde hair had whipped to the beat, slicing rhythmically across her soft, sensuous mouth. Her taut, masculine body had whirled, the motion pinning her flimsy white dress to her flared hips and particularly to her small breasts, moulding to nipples which were clearly erect. Her eyes had been glazed as the rhythm transported her. He had watched, mesmerised. No girl had ever caught his attention so completely, so utterly, without his having exchanged so much as a single word with her.

He had determined there and then that he must have her. And in pursuit of that determination, he had joined her wild dance, matching her commitment, matching her craziness. He had spun and twisted until the perspiration poured from him in a seemingly endless stream. Never once did she acknowledge him, so much as glance at him. But he had no doubt that she knew he was there, because there were occasions when her body tuned to his, when the dance, however briefly, was a shared experience. And when this happened, there seemed to be a current passing from her, to him, a raw and unpredictable surge. He would be certain then that something very important would happen between them. Something very important indeed. But then she would swing back into her own world, and the certainty would go with her.

It was almost two hours before he tired. The energy which she surrendered made him capable of feats of endurance the like of which he would never previously have dreamed. But in the end exhaustion overtook him and he was forced to retreat, slumping into a stool adjacent to the bar. He thought then that he had lost his opportunity, that she would continue to dance into the dawn, attracting men like fireflies, burning them out. And then, he supposed, she would go home alone.

When she came to sit beside him, therefore, he couldn't believe his good fortune. She accepted his offer of a drink, deciding on a Bloody Mary, and then immediately took control of him, leading him to a booth at the side of the dance floor. He sat close to her, intending to ask her name over the roar of the music, but as he leaned in towards her, her lips parted slightly, inviting him blatantly to kiss her. It was not, of course, an opportunity that he could even dream of resisting.

The kiss was gentle, yet it was the most erotic contact he had ever experienced. Her tongue traced like a feather across his. Her mouth opened, so that her lips moulded like a layer beneath his own. Her breath hissed into him, a life enhancing potion. Within seconds, his cock was rigid enough that constriction caused him pain. Her fingers massaged his neck and hair, and her body shifted, so that her breasts were pressed provocatively against his ribs.

He moved his own hands just above her waist, feeling the delicate bone structure. She was quite small, elfin in many respects, and seemed fragile.

He vowed that he would never try to break her.

The kiss continued. There was no duration to it, because it was everything, and it was forever. And being everything, it seemed to be enough.

But for her, it was not. He felt one of her hands at the zip of his pants, softly exploring, a spider. He was startled. How could she reckon him worthy of this? She didn't even know his name.

He registered the fact of exposure, but not the moment of it. There was a moment when his clothing imprisoned him, when his erection throbbed uselessly against the cotton of his briefs. And then there was elation, arising from the cool of the air against his swollen glans and from the luxurious pressure of the girl's hand, equally cool, as she squeezed him rhythmically, fingers twisting to press him against the heel. The caress was so gentle. A mental picture came to him, one that horror made him quickly suppress, of tiny spiders crawling the length of his member, spinning their velvety webs around it. Later, as he came to know her, he found that she often provoked such inappropriate images, and later, as he came to love her, he often welcomed them, because they felt like gifts.

In complement and counterpoint to the caress, her mouth remained softly fixed to his. All the while, her tongue explored with the eagerness of the fingers down below. He felt like a beloved toy, well regarded but entirely in its owner's mastery. He knew already that he could not hope to try to wrest her hegemony from her. She had decided the course that events would take, and his only option was to submit. He had never seen himself as a submissive, but this benevolent dominatrix had, he was certain, the capacity to change that.

Her skill was incredible. Her intention, clearly, was to make him come. Perhaps to show him just how easy it was. How little effort was needed. Look, my fingers will do. I don't need to suck you. I don't need to fuck you. Just my fingers. How about that, baby? How about that... ?

And she was right. It was easy. Already, he was on the edge.

It was only later that he realised how easy it would have been for someone to work out what she was doing to him. His body would have been shaking. His back was arched. Even though the table would have obscured the movement of Joy's hand, the dipping of her shoulder would have given the game away. Did he in fact remember that at one point, a girl had walked past their table carrying a drink from the bar, had stopped to observe until Joy glared at her, forcing her to shrink away, head down with embarrassment?

Soon, too soon, humiliatingly soon, it was over. To claim him heart and soul, it took her a minute, perhaps two, maybe, just maybe, three. But no longer. Definitely no longer. Because her nonchalant hand had worked its mystical circles unforgivingly, inexorably, and suddenly his head had been in another world, a world of pleasure and sensation, of massive building orgasm. The rigid pole that was now his cock had shuddered and jerked and pulsed as her tongue stroked beneath his, urging, encouraging. I'm in charge here, it had instructed him. I'm in charge.

He'd dug his fingers into her hips, had felt his own hips rise against the wonderful pressure, which she then increased by using the heel of her hand a little more, starting to work it up and down.

And he had come.

The release had been huge and draining, comprising near unconsciousness and an ejaculation which squirted out of him with such energy that he had cried out with the delight of it, had cried out so loud that heads turned momentarily despite the volume of the music. A gout of thick white semen had curved high over the lip of the table, splattering a trail across the glass surface and up the side of his owner's drink. A second had followed the same path, pulling up a little shorter. His hips and spine were, he was aware, turning to liquid, His brain, obviously, would burst.

The aftershocks had continued, his groin twitching as his cock emptied the little that was left of his juice. He had looked down, to see that juice dribbling over her knuckles, trailing down her wrist. But she hadn't reacted to that, continuing the luscious kiss until the very last of the liquid which she had encouraged from him was free.

Over. Humiliatingly over.

And then she did the most amazing thing. She broke gently away, sat back, and looking him straight in the eyes, raised her hand to her mouth and slowly, sensuously, licked the come from that hand with the tip of her tongue. Then, still not replete, she rescued the stuff which he had fountained over the table, tracing her forefinger through it until it was gone, each time licking the finger clean.