Enchanted Dreams: Erotic Tales Of The Supernatural

“Okay, now you definitely have my attention.”

“A woman’s most fundamental need, at her core—and I’m not talking about human survival here but female survival, something she needs to keep her femaleness alive—is to be desirable.” She paused for effect, noticing that he was hanging on her every word. She let this first idea sink in before completing her thought. “Almost every single natural behavior of a man—after he’s had sex with a woman—is designed to diminish her belief that she is desirable. I think it is an unconscious effort to ultimately destroy her desirability to other men.”

Dan sucked in his breath. “Wow!” He turned discreetly to look at the woman she had singled out before, this time observing her more carefully. Maryanne casually observed the woman as well. The couple had clearly been together a long time; the wife was even beginning to resemble the husband. She had little, if any, visible signs of femininity or sexuality left. There was a sadness behind her eyes that somehow softened the bitter twist of her lips. She was staring past her husband indifferently. Dan had caught the husband ogling Maryanne when he suddenly turned, and the man looked guiltily away. Dan turned back to Maryanne, his expression tragic. She smiled.

“You see?” she asked, knowing that he did.

“You make an interesting point,” he conceded. “But I’m not ready to accept defeat just yet. Let me think about it a minute.” He picked up his fork and knife and cut off a bit of steak. Maryanne watched him as he chewed on it thoughtfully. She couldn’t help chuckling as she watched him, a bit too gleefully for the occasion perhaps, but she was so delighted to be able to have this kind of open discussion with a man. She had always known that her observations were different from those of other people, men and women alike; hers were much more cynical and pessimistic. She couldn’t help seeing things for what they were, but she had learned to keep most of these observations to herself. She tried her best to acquiesce to the accepted viewpoint, seemingly agreeing with all that was politically correct in an effort to fit in with those around her. At times she felt like a chameleon, always changing her own brilliant colors to mimic the much less appealing ones of those around her. There were times when she even doubted herself, wondering if she really was viewing things correctly after all, but her efforts to change only gave more credence to her original viewpoint and she was obliged, however reluctantly, to keep it. So now, to actually share that viewpoint with another person—a man, no less—and actually have it cause him to stop and think was terribly exciting for her. Dan, for all of his optimistic thinking—she had spotted that in him immedi-ately—was not one to ignore a strong argument that had merit. She waited eagerly to see what he would do with the ideas she had shared with him, sipping on her drink in the interim.

Dan swallowed his steak and looked at her. Just as Maryanne expected, he was cleverly going to place the ball back in her court by pointing out some similar inconsistencies in women. “You know,” he began tentatively and thoughtfully, clearly enjoying the conversation as well, “there are plenty of women out there who lose interest in men, too, after they’ve had their way with them…playing all kinds of cruel games and generally screwing with their heads.”

But Maryanne had already thought of this. “If you think about it for a minute,” she countered, “you will realize that that actually proves my original point. A woman who plays head games with a guy usually isn’t all that interested in him to begin with. She either wants something from him or she’s giving in to his persistent advances for some other reason. She doesn’t have any genuine feelings for him. And this is the point—a woman’s disinterest is the only thing that can hold a man’s interest. He’s still interested in her because he really hasn’t had her yet. She allows him to hang on because it satisfies her need to feel desirable, but since she doesn’t really love him, she’ll just keep using and abusing him. And for as long as she doesn’t care about him, she will keep his full attention. But if she falls in love with him, what happened to that woman over there will eventually happen to her. Even if a man tries to fight this instinct, his soul will be crying out for someone new. He might not have the guts to act on it, like you said—but instinctually he will become more aware and interested in almost every other woman, and she will know.”

Dan was shaking his head, but his mouth was full of food so she continued. “Just think about it. It’s true.”

He forced his food down with a gulp. “So if you really believe this, you go out with a guy, what? Once? Twice? How long before it starts to go to shit?”

“I don’t know,” she replied thoughtfully. “I haven’t figured that out yet.” She dipped her head, suddenly shy, and tapped her long, glossy fingernails together in front of her nervously.

Dan gave her a funny look, but he was smiling. “Come on,” he teased. “You must have an idea. How many dates does it take to get to the jerk inside the man?” he asked with the same rhythm and inflection as the cartoon owl who asked, “How many licks does it take to get to the center of a Tootsie Roll lollipop?”

Maryanne laughed. “Remarkably few, if I were to guess.”

“So how am I doing?” he asked. “Will I even make it through the night?” Maryanne looked at him in surprise, and he cleared his throat. “I’m sorry…I didn’t mean that like it sounded. Jeez!” He shook his head. “We are jerks!” But his eyes still sparkled with humor.

“I don’t think of men as jerks,” Maryanne told him. “I just think that relationships between men and women have a short life. Does it have to be somebody’s fault? Women are just as responsible.”

She once again had his full attention. “Go on,” he said, narrowing his eyes dubiously.

“I’m a realist.” She shrugged. “But most women aren’t. They stubbornly deny what is happening and ignore their inner voice that is crying out for attention—attention that can only be found in a new relationship. Now both of them are ignoring her and she really starts to deteriorate. Perhaps women are too sensitive. Perhaps our feminine egos are too fragile. But there it is. Many women just go with it, like that woman over there seems to have done. But you can see by looking at her that something is missing, right? You can see that the life has gone out of her? Probably she’s moderately healthy otherwise, and lives a fairly normal life. But her femininity and passion are utterly gone.”

Dan snuck another glance at the woman and seemed dismayed to find her husband eyeing Maryanne yet again. “Why doesn’t she leave that bastard?” he asked, perturbed.

Maryanne laughed. “When she married him, it had probably already started. That’s why women are so hot on marriage. They think it will bring his interest back. When it doesn’t, I’m sure these women are devastated at first. That’s why Cosmo sells so many magazines with nine hundred different ways to get his attention. But, by then, who knows? Maybe there were kids on the way, or perhaps she depended on him financially. And if you push a part of yourself aside for long enough, it will eventually die.” She looked at him. “You see, he couldn’t help that her loving him took all the intrigue away, and she couldn’t help that having no power to intrigue made her unappealing. Both were simply responding to what was.”

“And you still date, believing this?”

She laughed. “Like most women, I am a hopeless romantic.”

“Do you believe in love?”

“I do! That’s just it. But I think that sometimes love means letting go.”

Dan sat there for moment, thinking. “You know,” he said, “what I’d like to do is prove you wrong. I really would. But in order to do that, I’m assuming I’d have to come up with some evidence. Maybe find some shmuck out there who’s actually still enamored by the woman in his life. That’s really what we’re talking about here, right? She wants to feel special. She wants him to treat her like she’s special, even though the instinct inside him is saying, ’Been there, done that, losing interest,’ right?” He waited for her to nod her head. “I think there are men out there like that. Men who are more interested in the woman they’re with than any other women.”

“Well!” said Maryanne, impressed. She couldn’t help finding his optimistic, I-would-like-to-fix-this attitude extremely attractive. “You thinking it and it being true are different things,” she reminded him.

“Okay, but, come on now,” he said in an extremely reasonable, almost reproving tone of voice. “Your thinking that you’re right doesn’t necessarily make it true, either.”

And in that moment Maryanne knew that she was hooked. What she was going to do about it, she hadn’t yet decided. But what she had discovered in him so far—his intelligence, his open-mindedness and now, his strength of character—made him suddenly seem irresistible. She knew that her instincts had already singled him out. And in that instant, in that sudden moment of realization, she felt joy—but only for that single instant. For in the next, she had already begun to mourn the inevitable loss.

“Touché,” was all she said.

As if he already sensed his victory, Dan settled back in his chair and relaxed. Was it just her imagination, wondered Maryanne, or was he, too, already aware of it?

“Mmm,” Dan murmured thoughtfully. “So now all I have to do is find a man who is smart enough to override this…instinct, as you call it, and continue to show an interest in the woman he’s with. Is that it?”

“Well, that would definitely be a good start.”

“Mmm,” he said again. His lips twitched to hold back a slight smirk that was struggling to be set free on his features. “Where could I find such a man?” Encouraged by her growing smile, he continued on this theme, making a pretense of looking around the room curiously. “I wonder where,” he murmured.

Maryanne decided to play along. She, too, began to look around the room, but more skeptically than he was doing. “I don’t know,” she said doubtfully. “It doesn’t look promising.”

“Well, then,” he suddenly announced with conviction. “I guess I’ll just have to prove it to you myself !”

Maryanne threw her head back and laughed. Game, set and match! she thought, admiring how he’d handled it. But when she recovered, she looked him over doubtfully, one eyebrow raised high. “You?” she asked. But she was only teasing him, and they both knew it.

“Sure, why not?” he replied with a casual air. “I always say, if you want something done right you have to do it yourself.”

“So who’s the lucky girl?” she now wanted to know.

“Ooh.” He tried to look a little put out. But he recovered quickly. “You realize the only way you’re ever going to know for sure whether or not I’m proving you wrong is if you’re right there, seeing it for yourself.”

“Mmm.” Now it was Maryanne’s turn to consider. “I guess that seems fair.” But truthfully, aside from this bantering, which was engaging and fun in and of itself, she really had no idea if he was serious about it. Was this just a line to get her home for the night? Probably. But what did it matter? If it was just a line, it was certainly one of the more original ones she’d encountered.

Just then, the waiter came to offer them dessert.

“You’ve barely touched your food,” Dan observed. “Was everything all right?”

“It was fine,” Maryanne told him. “I just wasn’t very hungry.”

He looked at her suspiciously for a moment, but didn’t say anything more. But she knew what he was thinking. People accused her all the time of being anorexic. But she loved her body the way it was.

As they left the restaurant together, she was suddenly filled with that jittery excitement that comes with a new romance.

“How about a little dancing?” Dan suggested. “Would you be into that?”

Maryanne smiled. “I would.”

She was not, however, a confident dancer, and she was pleased when Dan seemed content to slow-dance. Being close to him and having all of his warm, undivided attention directed at her as he led her across the floor acted like a cathartic for her libido. She felt ready and even eager for a more intimate embrace. But he appeared to be in no hurry and she, too, felt remarkably at ease and relaxed. Before she even realized it, they had danced and talked and laughed the night away.

She was surprised when he drove her back to the restaurant.

“Where did you say you were parked?” he asked.

“Oh! Uh, let me see.” She had fully expected him to want to take her home, or at least somewhere private. She was so taken aback by his casual manner that she momentarily forgot where her car was. She glanced at him, confused. She knew she had given him all the right signals. She was certain he was attracted to her. What on earth was going on? “It’s that street over there. Yeah, that one. And it’s the black car, a few blocks down.” She was completely flummoxed, and not a little disappointed.

“I had a wonderful time,” Dan told her, and she noticed that there was surprise in his voice. She wondered if he had felt some of the same misgivings about their date that she had.

“Me, too,” she said, blushing when it came out sounding like an accusation.

Dan chuckled knowingly. “Believe me,” he said with emphasis, “I would love nothing more…”

Maryanne stared at him, surprised that he had read her mind.

“Oh!” she said again. It was disconcerting—albeit refreshing—to be confronted with such honesty.

He parked behind her car and shut off his engine. “If I’m gonna get around this whole male instinct thing and prove you wrong, I’m going to need a strategy,” he told her. “My plan is to let the anticipation build for a while, you know, kind of work my way up to sex. I actually believe in the old adage that the harder you work for something the more you appreciate it.”

She stared at him, stunned. “Are you serious?” It was hard to tell because he was grinning at her.

“Sure. Kind of. Yes!” He opened his car door and got out. She didn’t even reach for her handle, knowing him well enough already to realize he was coming around to open her door for her. He even took her hand and helped her out of his car. But once she was outside, he blocked her from going anywhere. “Of course there’s another part to my strategy, too,” he admitted.

“Oh? And what might that be?” she asked, a little breathless.

“Well, I figure if I kiss you—and I’m not talking about a tight-lipped little prim-and-proper good-night kiss here, but a full-fledged, no-holds-barred, French, Italian and Portuguese all in one, make-out kiss—it’ll help build my anticipation and keep me on pins and needles until the next time I see you.”

“Portuguese?”

“Don’t question me,” he said, gently cupping her face in his hands.

She was still laughing when his lips touched hers, brushing them ever so lightly at first, but the laughter suddenly died in her throat, because he really did kiss her then, just like he said, with a full-fledged, no-holds-barred, French, Italian and Portuguese all in one, granddaddy of a kiss. She clung to his shoulders for support. His strong arms held her up as his hands moved possessively over her back and hips. His lips and tongue seemed to be consuming her. When he finally pulled away, she stared up at him in surprise.

And later, as Maryanne tossed and turned in her bed into the next morning, she wondered if it was for himself or her that he was building anticipation.

Whatever Dan’s intention, they were both eager to see each other again after that, and they made plans for the following night and then the night after that. It went on like this for several weeks. They spent more time together than Maryanne had ever spent with a man, and yet they had still not become intimate—at least not in the truest sense. Dan always refused to take her home. Sometimes he would even go so far as to please her right there in his car, when what started out as one of his good-night kisses ended with her trembling in absolute pleasure after he somehow managed to get beneath her clothing and find just the right places to touch her.

“But I want to please you, too,” she’d say, really meaning it, and not just offering herself because she felt that she ought to because he’d pleased her.

“Not yet,” he’d tell her. “I want you know how much I appreciate you. I want you to believe it.”

And she did. By the time he finally took her home for their first real night together, she was utterly convinced that she had somehow breached the ordinary parameters of relationships as she had come to know them and discovered something truly different and exceptional.

Dan had shown the ultimate self-control up to this point, but when at last she presented herself to him in a little silk negligee she picked out especially for the occasion, he finally lost control. With a strangled groan of anguish he embraced her, moving his hands all over her, trying to touch her everywhere at once and, in his enthusiasm, tearing the delicate fabric.

Maryanne laughed delightedly. She was filled with feminine arousal. She had never in her life felt more desirable, and she knew that because she felt so lusty and desirable, she was.

“God, how I’ve wanted you,” he moaned. He suddenly picked her up, holding her close in his warmth as he carried her to the bed. She could not wait to feel him inside her.

They made love their first time in a kind of frenzy, with Dan holding back for as long as he was able, trembling violently with his effort. He came to her in the ordinary missionary position, but there was nothing ordinary in the way he held her, cradling her shoulders and head in his strong arms, and gazing down into her eyes in between bouts of passionate kisses. He had that wonderful feel and smell of a clean-shaven man, and Maryanne wrapped her limbs around him in eager delight. A kind of aggressive passion welled up in her, and she dug her fingernails into his back. This seemed to push Dan over the edge, and his thrusts began to quicken with his impending release. But suddenly he stopped short, holding himself very still to recover his control, and shaking violently with the effort. Maryanne looked up at him in wonder and he smiled into her eyes.

“Almost lost it there,” he groaned. “You’ve got me in knots.”

“Go ahead if you want!” she encouraged.

“No. You first.”

And once again she was reminded of how much she meant to him, and her own arousal soared to be so valued and so desired. She kissed him with all the passion she felt. He moved with her, assisting her, maintaining control and using his hands and lips and everything else he could think of to please her. When she finally cried out with her release, he lost the last bit of his control, crying out with her.

Afterward he was not quick to release her, but held her quite close, remaining firmly embedded in her as he spoke in a low, intimate voice. “You’re an amazing woman,” he told her, and his eyes seemed to be trying to communicate something more to her as his gaze burned into her.

It was not long before they were both aroused all over again, and this time he had no difficulty prolonging their lovemaking, switching positions numerous times before Maryanne found herself being taken the way she liked best, on her hands and knees. With this she went wild, flinging her hips outward toward Dan in a most enticing erotic dance. Her sudden abandon roused him beyond what she had seen thus far, and she was once again struck with her own femininity and allure. She felt exceedingly sensual. All her inhibitions melted away, and she audaciously continued her dance until the pleasure finally became too much for her and a thousand little sensations exploded within her. Meanwhile, Dan paused to allow her to achieve the full spectrum of her release.

Maryanne smoldered in the aftermath for a few moments. But then, craving a more intimate embrace, she lifted her body up against him, so that she was on her knees and leaning back on Dan’s chest. He immediately acclimated to this new position, wrapping his arms around her body to offer support while lunging upward into her body. He moved his hands over her, squeezing her nipples with one while gently stimulating her clitoris with the other. Filled to overflowing with tender affection, Maryanne reached her lithe arms behind her to reciprocate the embrace, gliding her long, manicured nails up and down along his firm backside. Every now and then she would dig her nails into his flesh—just hard enough to stimulate but not to hurt—egging him on as he tirelessly thrust up into her. The lust was consuming her yet again, and she nimbly turned her upper body toward him suddenly, clutching his face in her hands almost violently so that she could kiss him. A kind of euphoric aggression reared up in her with her sudden awareness of her feminine power, but the soft, warm contentment that she was blanketed in overruled all.

“Why do you never eat?” Dan asked her later.

“I eat!” she replied.

“I haven’t ever seen you eat,” he countered. “And you’re so thin.” She was quiet, so he carefully maneuvered himself to look at her face without disturbing her much. “I’m not trying to stick my nose where it doesn’t belong, or fix you or anything like that,” he said. “I just want to make sure you’re okay. And to let you know that I understand if you ever need a friend.”

“You understand?” she asked curiously. There were myriad things she normally said when someone brought the subject up, but at the moment she was too weakened by the intense lovemaking to get sufficiently worked up to a defensive status.

“My sister is anorexic,” he told her. “She’s a beautiful woman and I can’t stand that she suffers so much simply because she doesn’t know it.”

Maryanne stared at him, speechless.

Dan kissed her lips tenderly, holding her face in his hands. “I would hate it just as much if you didn’t know how beautiful you are.”

She smiled. “You certainly know how to make a girl feel beautiful,” she admitted. And it was true. Maryanne suddenly felt like a goddess with a body as supple and sensual as a cat’s. In the days that followed, she basked in the glow of being one with another and having it mean everything to him. She raced to see Dan at the end of each day, longing once again for that intense pleasure of being accepted and adored and desired. Within a week, she was struck with the astounding realization that she was in love.

When it first occurred to her, Maryanne was alarmed. What about all her philosophies about love? What about the conclusions she had reached about relationships over her lifetime?

But she told herself that this time was different. She could clearly see, even in this incredibly short period of time in which she had known him, that Dan was different than any other man she had known before. He had already exceeded everyone else in her heart.

She had no choice but to try, she told herself. She must find the courage to see it through.

And already, she harbored secret little fantasies and dreams of their life together. They kept growing and building deep within her mind and heart. Her long, lonely past was behind her. A life with Dan was in front of her.

A month had passed since the night she first met Dan, discouraged and stressed and apathetic. She had hardly put her best foot forward that night, but he had looked past everything else and discovered something special in her. And unlike any other man she had ever known, he had proven himself to her. Tonight she would show him how much she appreciated him. Tonight she would prove herself to him.

Maryanne trembled with anticipation as she went about her day. She took the day off work so that she could accomplish all that she planned. She began with an arduous trip to the salon and, by the time she left, there was not so much as an inch of her body that had not been buffed, waxed, filed, exfoliated, styled or in some other way enhanced. She could hardly afford it, but all that she had to do was picture Dan’s face and suddenly she knew that it was money well spent. Besides, she could tell by the way she was tingling inwardly that she had to be positively glowing outwardly. She couldn’t wait to see Dan’s expression when he saw her.