Emma and Bobbie, who I met in the Gum Tree Cafe, have become a pair of muses. This started out as a short contemplative piece, but turned into something unexpected.
* * * *
"Emma," said Bobbie, coming to sit by her on the bed, "when you're watching David sleep, what goes on in your head?"
Emma looked across at Bobbie, knowing she was about to get serious. And when Bobbie got serious, Emma knew she'd better listen, because her friend was so often right.
She pondered Bobbie's question, studying the younger woman's clear blue eyes as she did so. She couldn't escape the steady gaze.
"I... I wonder what he dreams," she replied. "Does he dream about us, or is he seeing our dreams? Your dreams. The ones you're so honest about, seeing me and him together?"
Bobbie nodded. "I wonder that, too. I don't know." She pondered a moment. "Have you picked up his idea, that when a woman touches his shoulder, he remembers?"
"Yes, he's said that. It is kind of literary, isn't it? Makes sense, given that he's a writer."
"Ya, sort of. But it's more than that. It's when he becomes really aware of a woman's presence, because she can't help herself, she wants to connect with him. That's why she touches his shoulder."
"Bobbie, why are you telling me this?" Emma thought she probably knew why, but she didn't have an elegant proof. She was still scribbling in circles on this one.
Bobbie gently pulled the cover of the bed down, revealing David's naked shoulder. "Honey, for a bright woman, you can be very dumb. The best touch you can have, being a woman, is to lay your head on his shoulder, so when he wakes up..."
"He knows he's not dreaming?"
"Ya, right. But you'll be in one of his stories."
"But what will you be doing?" Emma was concerned about that.
"Watching. But if you don't want me to, it's okay. I can wait. David's teaching me his patience.
"And Emma..." Bobbie blushed. "Get naked, when you lie on his shoulder. So when he, um, wakes up..."
"If you're not watching, it's your dream anyway?"
Bobbie blushed again. "Ya..."
Emma thought Bobbie was probably right. The little blonde sweetheart was more right than wrong these days, and their threesome had a lot to do with that.
She gazed at the man lying peacefully in their bed. Her heart fluttered. The deep feeling in her belly and the lightness in her head had something to do with it, although she still had some of that when he wasn't there, like the perfume of sex in the morning.
She looked back at Bobbie, who smiled and said, "I gotta do stuff. Don't do anything I wouldn't do!" She winked, grinned, flipped her hair from one side of her head to the other, and was gone.
Emma looked down at David, and gently stroked the hair from his temple. Her fingers brushed his cheek, then touched her lips with a blessing, and touched his lips with a kiss.
It was cold, and she could feel the heat radiate from the bed, from his body. "Just to be warm and cosy, then," she promised herself, "nothing more."
She quietly slipped out of her clothes, tossing them over to the washing hamper, ready for Sunday morning. Her bra caught on the lip of the basket, and the skimpy garment hung there. Emma thought of blue, and pondered buying new lingerie. She smiled. Maybe she and Bobbie could go shopping, make it her turn, after Bobbie's bright red lipstick the other day.