Her eyes closed as I read. I found myself missing their gaze.

"Are you really hiding from your desire, Andrew?"

"What do you mean?"

"Do you really resist temptation that strongly?" She looked at me in a way that I cannot describe. She stood from the bed and walked slowly over to where I was sitting. She reached down and, taking the sheets of paper from my hand, pulled me up to her. Her hands were cool, like soft glass. Being that close to those eyes was intoxicating. I felt myself swaying. I could barely stand when she placed her arm around the small of my back and leaned slightly upwards to kiss me.

To attempt to describe the remainder of that night is impossible. Let me just say this; I did not resist my temptation that night. I think, now, that I knew from the moment she came to me that it would end badly. I knew from the moment she touched me that I could not stop it from beginning.

When I awoke the next morning, she was gone. There was no note, no goodbye, no trace that she had ever actually been there except the feeling that I had of floating through life for the next few days. When a week had gone by without seeing or hearing from her, I again began to think that it was all a dream. If it was, I thought, I longed to dream again, to sleep forever in a glorious dream world, locked in her embrace.

Even if it had been a dream, I thought, it still had an amazing impact on me. I did not look at another woman, I barley spoke to my acquaintances; I wrote voraciously, mostly the dribble one writes when faced with a new overpowering relationship, or at least the hope of one. Each night, I thought of her as I went to sleep, each night I dreamed of her, the cool softness of her skin, the warmth and depth of her gaze.

I told only one acquaintance of her, a young scholar from London with whom I often had drinks at the bar. He confessed that he had not seen her that evening when we first met, and that they had wondered about my hasty departure. I told him everything, how she had come to me and asked me to read to her my poetry, at which point he had the audacity to laugh! He doubted very seriously, he said, that she was anything more than a vivid dream. When I suggested that, if that were true, I should dream forever; he suggested that I speak with a school psychiatrist. I told no one else.

It was a month before she came to me again. I had given up all hope of seeing her. I had, in fact, returned to my old ways and had lured an attractive young freshman to my apartment with a few poetic lines. I was asleep, and her cool touch on my face woke me smiling.

"What are you doing here?"

"I had to come," she smiled, "I missed you."

"Where is. . ." I stopped, unable to recall the name momentarily of the young lady who, as far as I knew, should have been sleeping next to me.

"She's gone."

She sat next to me on my bed and ran her fingers through my hair. Her touch was exhilarating.

"Read to me."

"What could I read that would not pale in its very speaking next to you?"

"You don't have to woo me, Andrew! I'm here already" she smiled, but it faded quickly, "I tried to stay away, but I can't."

"Why, do you want to?"

"No."

"Then, why try to stay away? I have thought of nothing else for weeks."

"You obviously thought of something else." She nodded to the rumpled pillows next to me and smiled.

"I thought I had dreamed you." I sat up next to her. She was captivating. I found that I could not look away from her. "I may be dreaming even now."

"I can show you a world of dreams beyond anything you can imagine." She kissed me gently on the cheek, her lips a feather on my skin. I lay back against the headboard.

"I could not stop thinking of you, of our Desire. Have you dreamed of me?" She asked.

"Yes."

She kissed my lips. "I wanted to be with you."

"You can."

"It's impossible." She spoke in whispers, I felt possessed.

I reached up to her and pulled gently on the ties of her dress. It slipped and revealed first her neck, and then her shoulders. I kissed the exposed soft skin as it slipped away. I felt my lips tingle with anticipation.

"Stay with me." I whispered as my lips found her breast.

"I will." She brought me to her lips and we made love until, exhausted, I fell asleep with my head near her breasts. I was falling in love with her, or had already, though she would not let me say it when I tried. And I know that she loved me, though this, too, was to remain unspoken through all of our time together. As much as I wish at times that I had never laid eyes on her, that she had never come to me, I know that the love was real. Is real. When I awoke the next morning, she was gone.

There was a note this time. I found it on the pillow next to me, in the indentation where she had laid her head. The note smelled of her soft perfume. It simply said, "Wednesday." Wednesday was still two days off and I could not imagine what I would do to survive forty-eight hours without her. A few hours later, I found out.

There was a knock on my door at about two o'clock in the afternoon. I had not attended class that day. I had, in fact spent most of the morning lying in bed, trying to dream of the night before. I felt weak, listless, spent. I answered the door still in my robe.

"Mr. Christwyne?" He was an older man in his late fifties. There were two uniformed policemen behind him in the hallway.

"Yes?"

"May we come in?"

"Yes, of course." I backed into the room and motioned for them to enter. They came in, closing the door. The uniformed officers stood looking at me in the most degrading way. I was quite offended. The older man was looking around my apartment like he was looking for something.

"What is this about?"

"Do you know a Miss Deborah Calloway?"

It was the co-ed from the night before.

"Yes."

"When was the last time you spoke to her?"

"She was here last night, what's wrong?"

"What time did she leave?"

"Before I awoke, this morning, I presume. She was gone when I got up." It occurred to me at that moment that I did not even know the name of the woman I had grown so obsessed with, and with whom I had begun, or had, fallen in love! I was so shocked, or embarrassed, by this fact that I could not say anything about her coming.

"You haven't seen her this morning?"

"No, I told you she was gone. What's going on?"

"Miss Calloway was found murdered this morning in an alley about three blocks from here. What can you tell me about that?"

I was shocked. "Nothing. How should I know anything about that? She was here last night, that's all. I fell asleep, she was gone."

"We'd like it if you'd come with us down to the station. We need to get a statement."

"Surely."

"You should get dressed."

I turned my back to the officers and pulled on a pair of trousers under my robe. I could not believe what he was saying. I had only just met her, and quite honestly, had no real feelings for her, but it was a shock, nonetheless. I couldn't believe that she had been killed. I was sure that there had been some mistake. I selected a shirt from my closet and removed my robe.

"What's that?" the older man said.

"What?"

"Did you hurt yourself?"

"What? Where?"

"There, on your shoulder."

I went to the mirror and, turning my shoulder down, could just make out a mark, or scratch just below my neck.

"I have no idea. I don't know where that came from."

"Looks like it may be a puncture."

"It's just a scratch." I pulled on my shirt.

The next six hours were, perhaps, the most humiliating of my life. I sat in a small room at the police station and was interrogated by a constant string of officers. From what I could gather, a cleaning crew had found Miss Calloway that morning. She was dead at the scene. I couldn't get much more information out of them, and certainly could not tell them anything new. As much as they seemed to not want to believe it, I knew nothing about her murder. I was shocked. It was all very upsetting. I told them what I knew; she had come up to my apartment from the bar where we had met. We had opened a bottle of wine and had a glass. One thing led to another, as they say, and we had made love. I was sure that it was then, I told them, that I had scratched my shoulder.

I cannot tell you why it was that I decided to not tell the police about my later visitor then. I don't know if it was out of some sense of loyalty, some desire to protect her. I never even considered that I should mention it. There was no reason to involve her. She had nothing to do with it at all.

They reluctantly released me. They had no evidence to hold me on, they said, though, they assured me that they would find the murderer. I was instructed not to leave town under any circumstances.

I found out from the evening papers that Miss Calloway had been brutalized. The report stated that she had severe lacerations, but that there had been hardly any blood and no signs of a struggle at the scene, which had led them to speculate that she had died elsewhere and had been placed in the alley. To my horror, the papers had somehow heard of my being questioned by the police as the last person known to have seen her, and named me as a possible suspect.

When I arrived at my apartment, it was apparent that the police had been searching it in my absence. My things were strewn around; my sheets were missing. If I had not been so relieved to be home, and in a general state of shock, I would have been much more upset. I realized, as I began to change in an attempt to get some sleep, that I had not worn socks when I had hurriedly dressed that afternoon.

When I awoke the next morning, I got dressed and went out to get the morning paper. I felt different. The people I passed on the street seemed different. The lady at the corner newsstand, where I get my papers every day, acted as though she had no idea who I was. I felt cold, shunned. I went to my room and sat to read the paper.

The morning story was that I was still the primary suspect but had been released due to lack of evidence. Of course, there was lack of evidence; I hadn't committed the murder! It revealed very little new about the murder and I could think of nothing Miss Calloway had said or done in my presence to give me any clues as to why it had happened. I was not at all that surprised that she had left; she had been quite drunk the previous evening, and I guessed that she had decided to leave and had wandered into some sort of random trouble on her way home. She had said that she lived about five blocks away and the alley where she had been found was on the path she would have walked.

I spent the rest of the afternoon trying to forget. I cleaned my apartment and read a book for a while. I tried to write, though nothing would come. Mostly I sat, trying to figure out how my life had turned both for the better and worse all at the same time. It was Wednesday, and I, at least, had the vague promise of another visit from the note. I sat around all evening, pathetically waiting for her to appear at my doorway. At long last, I went to bed lonely. It was late. Apparently she was not coming after all. Maybe the papers had frightened her away. Maybe she, too, thought I was a hideous murderer.

She arrived just after midnight. Once again, she appeared by my bedside. I was about to ask her how she had gotten in, when she interrupted.

"I'm sorry," she said.

"For what?"

"For the mess about the girl."

"It's not your fault."

"What will happen now?"

"I don't know. All I know is that I didn't do it."

"Of course, you didn't."

"But, everyone thinks that I did. My life is ruined. I'll probably get kicked out of school, I'm sure that I have no hope of ever teaching now, no one wants their child taught by a suspected murderer! Unless they catch someone, I'm ruined! I'm probably ruined anyway."

"It will be fine."

"Why did you leave the other night?"

"I had to."

She looked at me in a way that made me forget all of my problems, and the hour. I thought about the fact that I didn't even know her name. I don't know if it was because I was used to not caring what the women who shared my bed were called, or because, in the intensity of it, names had seemed unnecessary. I prefer to think the latter. At any rate, I asked.

"I am Judith." She glanced at her feet as she revealed this to me, as if it was something to be ashamed of.

"Judith. That's a beautiful name, very lovely."

"Thank you."

She asked me to read again as she crawled into bed next to me. The longing in her voice was impossible to resist. As I read, she seemed to soften and yet gain strength, as if she was feeding off the sound of my voice. I began to think that I could read anything and she would be happy.

Later, we lay in silence for a long time before she leaned over and kissed me. I held her to me. She felt so small and fragile in that moment, so unlike what I would come to know.

When I awoke, once again, she was gone.