In a few minutes she had awakened feelings in him he had known nothing of. Waves of exultant happiness swept over him. He could feel her excitement rise to match his own. Never had a woman made him feel so wonderfully competent, so good. Then her mood changed. Gently, insistently she moved beneath him until they were face to face. Her legs spread, her eyes invited. A little sound, half joy, half fear, escaped her lips when he slipped into her. Then her hands came up and grasped his buttocks and they began.

John fought manfully, but his excitement was so intense that it was only moments before he was pounding into her, pounding and shouting her beautiful name, shouting without a care for the ears of servants, shouting in great and glorious love.

He sank down on her. “Marry me, whore,” he breathed. Her fingers scraped slowly along his back, the nails digging into his skin. Her face remained impassive. Her nails hurt but he would not cry out. He was too happy, too far transported. “Lady Miriam, you must be my wife.”

“I am not a real lady.”

He laughed. “You must be!”

In that moment he had married her. Their spirits would not again be parted.

He remembered those first wild years of love, the wonder and the horror of it, the sheer blaze of lust. So much had been gained and so much lost.

They raped the estate. The peasants ran away. The gypsy fires died. The old lord withered and also died. John was lost in her, lost and not yet found. Lost in love with her.

***

Miriam was worried. John’s head lolled, his mouth hung open. He was obviously dozing. For them such a thing was abnormal. Either they were awake or they Slept, the deep revitalizing trance peculiar to their kind.

He shifted restlessly. There was only one thing that could be wrong. She shook her head, refused to accept it. Not so soon, surely not!

She slammed the car into fourth. Lights flashed by as they hurtled toward New York.

“You’re going too fast,” he said over the roar of the wind.

“We’re the only car on the road.” The speedometer hovered near eighty. Miriam threw back her head and laughed, bitter and angry. He could not fail so soon. She loved him so—his youth, his freshness. She slipped her hand into his, felt him return the pressure.

“You were dozing, weren’t you?”

She felt his eyes on her. “I had a dream.”

“Like Sleep?”

“A sort of daydream. I was only half asleep. I was dreaming of when we met.”

She could have shouted with relief. A daydream! Now the glorious feelings that followed feeding reasserted themselves in her. The bumpy old highway, the crumbling city, all revealed secret beauty. In her heart the sense of relief was followed by the familiar love, a sort of gratitude for the existence of humankind.