Laughter, short and wistful, greeted his words. “Still doubting yourself, I see,” the man’s voice reproached him.

The shadow rose and stepped forward, into the light. Hudson looked up into the handsome face of a man perhaps fifteen years his senior. His hair, short and neatly trimmed, reflected the silver of the moon. His eyes were dark, and his mouth curled in a smile both sweet and sad.

“Paul.” Hudson repeated the name. “Why?”

Paul reached out and touched Hudson’s face. His fingers moved gently down the younger man’s neck, tracing the gentle curve of his collarbone and coming to rest on his chest. Hudson felt his blood beat harder. He reached up with his own hand to touch Paul’s where it covered his heart.

He awoke with a start. Panicked, he sat up and looked around the room. It was empty. No one stood at the window. No figure watched him from the chair. The air smelled only of the sea and the lemon trees. There was no odor of tobacco, no gentle scratching of fingers, no voice from the dark. He was alone.

The sheet covering his body was damp with sweat. It clung to him in places with clammy fingers. Hudson pulled it down, letting the warm summer night stroke him with calming fingers. His heart, he realized, was indeed beating too quickly. That part had been no dream.

He reached for the glass of water he’d placed on his nightstand. Warm now, it nonetheless slaked his thirst. The simple process of holding the glass, feeling the water go down his throat, proved to him that he was awake. The dream was gone.

He drained the glass and sat it down again. Without it, he felt suddenly vulnerable, as if without it to anchor him to the real world he might slip back into the darkness. Quickly he reached over and turned on the light. A soft yellow circle surrounded him as the shadows retreated.

Paul. He could say the name now without fear. No, he thought, it wasn’t fear he’d felt at Paul’s touch. It was longing. Still, longing was its own kind of haunting, worse perhaps because it went on forever unfulfilled. And no matter how much he might want it, Paul’s touch was gone from him forever.

Don’t, he told himself. Don’t let yourself go there. He’s gone.

He needed a distraction. Instinctively, he reached for a book, then remembered that he’d left it downstairs. Disinclined to leave the island of his bed to descend into the shadow world of the house, he looked again and saw the stack of papers. He took them up with relief, noticing as he did that the clock said half past three.