Clothed in only the moonlight streaming through her window, Shelli drowsily
rolls over onto her belly, nestling pillows beneath her. The breeze that
caresses her flutters through the curtains above the bed like a lover's whisper
and carries faintly a hint of the fragrances from the flowers in full bloom, the
rose garden that is her pride and joy, even a monument to a joy once shared.
There is a pleasant ache that suffuses her body. She had begun at dawn and
worked until evening glimmered along the horizon in her rose garden. It is in
many ways a delicious sensation of muscles stretched and used after too long a
time of indifference. Indeed, if but for a moment, this pleasing pain distracts
her from the deeper ache in her heart, the echo of emptiness left by the recent
death of her husband.
In the hinterland of consciousness, gliding between reality and dreams, Shelli
wonders why the fragrance of the roses is suddenly stronger. A faint,
preternatural stirring of the baby fine hairs at the back of her neck causes
Shelli to stretch, though languidly, the muscles of her back and legs a slow
ripple.
She senses...what? It is as if someone is in the room with her, and yet, there
is no fear, even at the soft stirring of her hair being brushed aside.
~I'm~ dreaming, she tells herself as the scent of rose grows stronger, and a
gentle touch too smooth for human finger, softly grazes the back of her neck. It
is cool, silken moving unhurriedly along her shoulders.
'...dreaming...,' she sighs, as a long, slow glide along her spine strokes,
seems to stoke embers within her.
Dreaming or not, Shelli finds herself reluctant to move, to disturb this flowing
caress that touches her without ceasing. So light it is, she wonders why it does
not tickle, rather it leaves faint trails along her body as if of meteors,
bright and warm, as it journeys along her sides and over her buttocks, down her
legs and back again, faintly brushing between her thighs.
Shelli sighs, and rolls over. Suddenly, the sense of another presence in the
room is far more palpable. Yet, her eyelids are so heavy, it is all she can do
to barely open them...watch a shadow within shadows hovering above her.
Alarms go off in her head, yet they are distant and fade quickly. It is far
easier to believe she is dreaming, and perhaps she is, though the dream has a
sweet voice that whispers to her as she feels that maybe a butterfly has landed
upon her cheek. It is a voice at once familiar and strange, one she tries to
hear by straining to move deeper into sleep.
"As I upon my travels here passed this proud rose, it called to me," she hears.
"Look, it said, look at me...nature's penultimate beauty. How can you resist my
siren call? I but shook my head and smiled. Rose, I said to it, while you are
quite lovely, there is one lovelier still who awaits me...and though in your
company would I gladly spend time, yet must I be about my way to where she
lays."
Shelli feels the rose, for now she knows what it is, kiss her throat and move
slowly between her breasts, tenderly circling each one in a slow figure eight
back and forth. Tension is now flowing into her, but such a sweet tightness she
casts away thought for sensation and the words that whisper in the dark to her
and her alone.
"Ha, the rose did say in scorn, how could anything of earth compare to ME? I
smiled again and told the rose, perhaps it is an angel that I seek, or seeks me,
for truly she is of such beauty as to seem ethereal.
"Show me this beauty, demanded the rose, for until I have met such, I shall not
believe any may surpass my splendor."
The rose full kisses Shelli's nipples, and as eager buds they harden. The sweep
of the velvety bloom along her body seems to draw the breath from her, and she
finds herself breathing harder, faster, her heart beginning to pound as the
flower, which has found itself down to worship her feet now ascends with
agonizing slowness her slowly parting thighs.
She gasps, at the first touch of the rose upon her own passion's flower, already
dewy with desire. The tender touch is almost too much to bear as her own petals
swell, blossom...and the bud within eagerly rises up for the caress.
The rose then is gone...and Shelli sighs in frustration, wanting once again to
feel, if even for a moment...she whispers, "...please..."
There is silence, a suspension of time that seems to draw on into eternity. Then
comes the voice of shadow again, comforting in its familiarity, exciting in its
strangeness.
"I fear this poor rose has now wilted in despair, having not only seen but
tasted your sweetness. Thus, I offer in its place, my own kiss...knowing despair
will wilt me not, rather will desire grow a stronger vine..."
Nearly as tender as the touch of the rose are the lips that first lightly
brushes along Shelli's outer lips, yet far warmer than the now discarded flower.
