The stream of trick-or-treaters finally slacked off to nothing. Janet tiredly set the candy bowl aside, turned off the porch light and locked the front door. Still a bit stiff and sore from the auto accident months before, she limped to her bedroom. She quickly changed into her plain cotton nightie and slipped between the sheets.
This was her first Halloween in twelve years without Richard and she seemed to miss him more today. Halloween was his favorite time of year. He always loved to dress up in a scary costume and startle the children that appeared at their door, begging for candy. He would sometimes jump out from behind the bushes, or suspend toy spiders on fishing line and pulleys to drop onto unsuspecting children causing them to squeal in both fright and delight. She didn't have the enthusiasm to hang up the plastic skeletons and cardboard Frankenstein cutouts that he usually used for decorations. Her feelings of melancholy grew and she closed her eyes in the dark, murmuring a wish that she could hold her husband just one more time, if even for just a moment. It was the closest thing that her rational, agnostic mind could ever get to a prayer.
Suddenly the mattress shifted as if a weight had been set next to her. She felt a familiar touch on her leg, starting at her knee, moving up her thigh and under the hem of her knee-length nightie. Startled, her eyes flew open and she sat up. There was nothing there. She felt around on the bed but everything seemed normal, there was no indication that anyone had been there. She calmed herself, murmuring that it was just a dream, lay back once more and closed her eyes.
There it was again, the same shift of the mattress, the same familiar touch of a warm hand on her leg, starting at her knee and moving up. She kept her eyes closed this time, certain that it was just a dream. She hardly dared to breathe, hoping this pleasant dream would go on. The hand paused at the halfway point and traced little circles on her inner thigh just as her husband used to do. It felt too real to be a dream. The touch left off the circles and moved up further, tracing the outline of her lips through her cotton panties. She took a deep breath and let it out slowly, her body becoming aroused despite the insistence of her intellect that it was just a dream.
She opened her eyes slightly and slowly turned her head. Her breath caught in her throat. There he was lying sideways as he used to do, one arm curled up under his pillow, the other hand between her legs. Even in the dark she could tell that his craggy face looked normal, without the deep wounds from the crash that had left him dead on arrival at the hospital. She felt lightheaded and started to ask how he survived.
