She stands near the window, watching the snowstorm come in.   Clouds darken the sky, and snow lightning, a rare phenomenon, splinters the inky blackness.   Sleep has eluded her once again, and she is restless.   Snow covers the ground and frost creeps into the corners of the window pane.   She stirs the embers in the fireplace and lays an armful of logs on the grate.   In her sheer, white nightdress she looks like a ghost in the light of the flames, but in reality, she is no ghost. She still has a body, soft and supple, with beautiful curves, full breasts and long shapely legs.   Carrying a solitary candle to the desk, she settles into the chair with a sigh.   From the delicate red ribbon around her neck, dangles a heart shaped skeleton key.   She pulls it off over her head and it slides through her silver hair, leaving wisps to flutter against her pale cheeks.

 

She inserts the key into the keyhole on the desk drawer.   It protests loudly, but slides open.   Reaching inside, she pulls out a packet of letters, tied in the same red ribbon that is threaded through the key.   A faint smile flickers through her green eyes and twitches at the corner of her mouth as she fans the envelopes out across the desk before her.   Her fingers caress the faded ink where he’d long ago, scribbled her name.   She slips a finger beneath the flap and pulls out a yellowed page.   Her eyes swim with the carefully inked words of love, as she reads each letter, into the darkest hours.   The candle grows short, and the shadows lengthen.   She nods, and drifts into that place between asleep and awake, where he comes to meet her on the nights when she cannot forget his touch, his voice, his love.

 

In a single moment the candle goes out, smoke rising from the wick in a curled puff, and suddenly, she feels his touch, his breath at the back of her neck, just as she felt so many years ago.   His gravelly voice whispers words of love, words of seduction. His warm hands smooth her wrinkled skin as the nightdress slips from her shoulders.   She moans softly as his lips trace their way from her neck to the roundness of her breasts.   She can feel his tongue probing, searching, and finding first one hard nipple, then the other.   He suckles, not quite like a child, and soon she is lost in the lust and need she feels coursing through her veins.  

 

He lifts her naked body and carries her to the rug before the fireplace.   Lowering her gently to the floor, he stretches out beside her.   His hands continue to roam over her flesh, and she moans softly as a tear escapes from the corner of her eye.   He quickly kisses it away, whispering soothing words against her skin.   He kisses his way down her stomach, to the thatch of hair between her thighs.

  She can feel the heat already rising from her core.   She spreads her legs to meet the invasion she longs for and knows will come, but he hesitates for one full moment before tasting her.   The ache is both delicious and acute.

 

He lowers his head and takes her into his mouth---lips, dripping entry, and tingling clit all at once.   She thrusts her hips toward his face and moans loudly, the coil of pleasure tightening in her belly.   He continues to lick and suck, alternating between gentle flicks and hard thrusts of his tongue until she feels the release she needs teetering on the edge of her consciousness.   She floats half on the feeling of his body against hers, half on the memory of the life they shared.   Images dance through her mind of their first kiss, their first time, and their first child.   She had known he would leave her soon to cross the ocean and fight for his country.   It was a tearful goodbye.   She felt it again, lying here in his arms tonight.   And after so many letters just stopped coming, it was a forever goodbye, a life of longing for his voice, his face, and his arms around her.  

 

She relives the cold winter day when they placed his body in the ground.   The icy dirt sifting through her fingertips—a sharp contrast to the heat from the fire and the warmth of his touch here and now.   Tonight she feels him, everywhere, caressing her, kissing her, moving over her.   She opens herself to him, and surrenders.   Passion burns through her like a raging fire, carries her on waves of pleasure—a feeling she thought she’d grown too old to feel.  

 

Like a warm blanket against the cold, he wraps his arms and legs around her.   He is gentle and reverent in his caresses, as always, treating her like a lady.   But she knows the need he’s restraining in his loins.   So, she reaches to the source of the heat he brings her and pulls gently on his hard shaft, squeezing and stroking as she leads him to enter her and fulfill the hunger that demands satisfaction.   He moves slowly, filling her inch by inch, until he is consumed by her.   She can feel the urgency building as she pulls his body closer and begins to move her hips with his.   His rhythm builds steadily as he thickens inside of her.   In a few moments, she feels him tense and spill himself into her core, his moans sliding off of the walls and pooling on the floor of the room.   He rolls silently to her side, and pulls her body close.   She longs to draw out these hours with him, feeling his skin next to hers, his breath, his heartbeat.   But tonight, as always, she drifts to sleep wrapped in the thick rug, and her phantom slips away with the sunrise, while she dreams of him once again.