She tried to drive the image from her mind of the last time she had made love with Eddie, but she could not, and the vision terrified her, smothered her desire to finally consummate the love that she had felt for Dennis for decades. 'I'm sorry,' she stammered, tears coming to her eyes. 'Wait. Please wait.'
She felt him grow flaccid against her, and loved him all the more for his involuntary concern. 'What is it, Ann,' he said again, the breathless need gone from his tone. 'Please tell me. If you can't make love to me, if you won't, it doesn't matter.' She felt his hand touch her cheek. 'It hasn't mattered all these years. I've loved you just the same.'
She told him then. She told him about Eddie, about their making love, about Eddie's death. She even told him what she had never told anyone else. 'When he died… when he collapsed on me… he, he came. He came inside of me.'
'Oh God, Ann…'
'I knew he was dead, and still…' She was shaking uncontrollably now. 'It seemed to go on forever, and it felt as though it was burning me, and I started to scream and scream and scream until
… until Terri came in.'
'God… she saw it then.'
'Yes. She saw everything. But she helped me. I think I might still be there if she hadn't helped me. She took over when I lost control, and ever since then she's been, I don't know, less of a daughter and more like a person I just live with.”
“It must have been hard on her too.'
'Oh, it was. She went around in a daze for weeks afterward. Then her skin toughened up and never got soft again.'
They lay there naked, their arms around each other, for a long time, until tenderness, warmth, and security took the place of apprehension and bitter memory. Finally Ann turned to Dennis, kissed his cheek, and began to make love to him again. No more words were spoken. This time when he touched her, she did not object, and finally the love story that had begun a quarter of a century before was told, the song sung.
From the corner of the room, in the dark, the Emperor watched, and listened, and smiled, waiting his turn.
Dennis dreamed of him again, of the Emperor and of Ann. The Emperor had her by the throat as before, but in his other hand was something long and thick and wet, and as Dennis watched in horror, unable to move, the thing became thinner, harder, and the Emperor's hand seemed to become a shell. But then Dennis saw that it was not a shell, but a guard from which extended a gleaming saber.
With one hand the Emperor held Ann higher in the air, her face white from lack of blood, and with the other he plunged the sharp blade into her, just below the heart.
Dennis screamed in silence as blood pumped out of her, as though she had been a balloon filled with it, and he, the Emperor, dying Ann, his dream were all awash in blood, and the whole world was wet and red, and the only sound was the Emperor laughing, laughing.
He did not wake from the dream, only entered a deeper darkness of sleep until the morning came, and he found her beside him, well and alive and asleep. He had little memory of the dream. Now it was just a blurred jumble of terrifying images. He lay there, wondering about the thing, the person, the doppelganger he had seen. Was it evil? If not, why then the visions, the dreams of violence and terror? Perhaps, he thought, the dreams merely mirrored his fear, his lack of understanding of what it was he had created. Perhaps they were not premonitory, but simply indicative of his mental state. He was a pragmatist concerning such things, which was, contradictorily enough, precisely why he believed in the reality of the Emperor. Dreams were one thing, his waking senses another.
His metaphysical musings were delightfully interrupted by Ann stirring next to him. Her eyes opened, and he saw for a moment that she did not know where she was. In a second, clarity came, and she sighed and smiled, then leaned over and kissed him.
'Good morning,' she said.
'It is indeed,' he agreed. 'The best morning I've had in a long time.'
'It was wonderful,' she said, 'to fall asleep in your arms. I didn't think it would ever happen, and in a way I always knew it would.'
'I knew too. I love you, Ann.'
'I love you.'
She hugged him, and in another moment they were together, their bodies molded as one, and they made love again. This time there was less of the feeling of discovery that had added such a sweet sense of tension to their joining of the night before, but that was more than made up for by the sheer joy that now possessed them both. To wait so long and then find that their sexual coupling was so perfect, only a physical extension of the love that had remained all those years, was more than either could have asked. But it had been true, and it had been wonderful. In Dennis's arms, Ann was able to forget the terrors of her husband's death, and in Ann's arms, Dennis found the peace he needed as well.
Finally they lay, sweating and happy, the covers thrown back from the bed, looking at each other's bodies. 'You look wonderful,' Dennis said. 'You look like a girl.'
'You're an actor, but it's all right. And you look damned good yourself. How do you keep your stomach so flat?'
'A carefully designed program of exercise, diet, mental tension, pressure, and guilt. It works wonders. Now, how about some breakfast to fatten us both up?' He picked up the phone and pushed two numbers, then waited.
'Who are you calling?'
'Sid.' Ann gasped, and pulled the sheet over her body. 'Don't worry,' Dennis laughed. 'It's not a picture phone.'
'But I don't want him to know that I'm -'
'That you're here?' He broke off and turned his attention to the phone. 'Sid. Could we have two breakfasts please? Big ones… Yes, that's right. Two.' Then to Ann, 'How do you like your eggs?'
'Poached,' she said, with a sigh of acceptance.
'Poached… sure, orange juice is fine. Thanks, Sid.' He hung up the phone and smiled at her. 'Sid is my right hand. He knows more about me than anyone else, maybe even me. He is also as circumspect as a clam.'
'But, Dennis, I work with him. How will he act when he knows about us?'
'He already does. Now don't look so surprised. Over the years I talked about you a lot to Sid. There are a lot of lonely nights on the road when all you want to do is talk. And remember. He knows how I feel about you. He has for a long time.'
'It's just that it's been such a short time since…'
'Since Robin's death. I know. But I can't tell my feelings to wait another two months. This is the 1990's, Ann. No one is going to criticize us for being in love.'
She nodded, though her discomfort with the situation was evident. With all his heart he wanted to make her more comfortable, wanted to remove that look of doubt that wrinkled her lovely features. 'And no one,' he said, 'is going to criticize us when we get married.'
He didn't know what to make of her reaction, which began with wide-eyed surprise just short of shock. Then she laughed as if she had not believed what he had just said. 'Married?'
'It's what we should have done twenty-five years ago. Things would have been very different for both of us. Better.'
'Dennis, I -'
'Don't say no, Ann. You do love me.'
'Yes, of course I love you…”
She paused, and in the silence he thought he could hear his heart pounding with dread. 'I hear a 'but' coming.'
'It's too soon,' she said, and he thought he saw tears forming in her eyes. 'It's just too soon. Oh, Dennis, I love you, how much I love you, but we can't get married now, not now.'
'When?'
