First Date
“Ican’t believe we’re on a date.” Esther plunked down onto the cloud, practically wiggling with excitement in her three-piece suit.
The dusky pink tweed made her round cheeks impossibly rosy.
It was unfair, really, how adorable Lucy’s new coworker was.
Her brown hair spilled down in loose curls over her shoulder, as she fiddled with the ends.
Across from Esther, Lucy tucked her long legs under her, settling into the fluffy cloud-turned-picnic blanket.
Wearing the dress she wore on the first day of her new job, she smoothed the black sleeveless number across her lap, the silk just grazing her knees.
Even the kitten heels she wore that day were on her feet, more comfortable than usual.
Then again, clouds were supposed to be mist-cold and damp.
This cloud was as soft and dry as spun sugar and cotton.
The wisps tickled as they curled across the brown skin of her bare calves.
Specks of starlight floated around them like fireflies, flickering tapers in the rosy dusk.
The starlight candles that reflected in Lucy’s deep brown eyes were galaxies.
Strange that she could see her own eyes; this was a dream, then.
As if the cloud blanket, or her coworker excited to be on a date with her, weren’t big enough clues that Lucy was dreaming.
No, it was seeing her own eyes that gave it away.
Her glasses were missing, but Lucy didn’t need them.
Like all of her semi-lucid dreams, she could see everything here.
It should be unsettling, but Lucy felt only serenity, and a glow of warmth from how eager Dream Esther seemed to be.
Besides, Lucy had had weirder dreams than out-of-body experiences.
When she was a little kid, she would go for car rides in her dreams, in a teal Cadillac, her dad in the backseat next to her, and no one in the front.
With the top down, they just drove and drove and drove all night, and their only destination was the horizon that never got any closer.
But those dreams had stopped when her father stopped coming around, when she had finally believed her mother that he had passed. Once she’d started school, her dreams became utterly forgettable and uninteresting.
This dreamworld was much more whimsical than a road trip to nowhere.
The strangest part was that the cemetery gate from the church she went to as a child was here, looking out of place in the endless field of purple glitter.
There was no fence around it. Through the wrought iron, Lucy could only see endless sparkling violet grass.
Even more out of place was a bifold closet door, covered in unicorn and fairy stickers, that sat next to it.
There were no walls—just the doorframe in the middle of the shimmering prairie.
Why would Lucy dream up a closet in a field?
Hell, why would she dream up any of this?
There were more efficient ways to fantasize about her new coworker—a bubbly masc woman with pink pouty lips and ample curves.
Lucy would worship that mouth, that body, for hours if they didn’t belong to the colleague she’d been introduced to last month.
That had been one of the most mortifying experiences of her professional career thus far.
The extra scenery for what would inevitably become a wet dream was wholly unnecessary, but it was pretty enough.
Shuffling as she sat cross-legged, Esther rubbed her thighs, as if stopping them from jiggling as her foot tapped against the cloud.
The fidgety tempo made Lucy anxious just watching her.
“I mean, I guess this isn’t a real date.
This is obviously a dream. Why would you date me?
” Esther laughed; a tinge of pink deepened her already-rosy cheeks.
She glanced away. “You’re way out of my league. ”
Silently, Lucy tilted her head as she frowned at Esther, tempted to correct her; if anything, Esther was actually out of her league. Anyone with eyes and a beating heart would want to date her. And wasn’t this her dream, not Esther’s?
But what would be the point of that conversation? What was the point of any conversation in a dream? Or any conversation ever? So, Lucy stayed quiet, with only a soft frown of disagreement.
“Here. I made dinner!” Esther jumped up to spread a tablecloth across the cloud; it rose up in the middle to form a table between them. “Well, I didn’t make it. But I dreamt that I made it, and that’s basically the same thing, right?”
Plates and glasses popped into existence around the dreamland, setting themselves upon the cloud table.
Aromas of garlic and basil wafted across the cloud as decadent eggplant parmesan, served over delicate angel-hair pasta, appeared on the plate.
A basket of warm buttered bread settled in the middle.
A bottle of cabernet uncorked itself with a pop and poured two generous splashes of wine.
Confusing that a dream would be this elaborate, but Lucy did love pasta, bread, and wine.
Her psyche was getting zero complaints from her.
“Cheers.” Esther extended her glass across the table.
Lucy picked up her wineglass and clinked it against Esther’s.
A shy smile graced her lips as they exchanged a look over the rim.
The wine was strangely sweet for Lucy’s taste, but it was already quite impressive that she could smell and taste in this dream as it was.
Judging the wine for being too sweet would be a step too far.
“Damn, I can cook! In my dreams, anyway!” Esther’s laugh rang like a church bell, loud and joyous.
“I could never actually do this in real life. My favorite recipe is takeout. Maybe I could practice, though. You know, if we ever have a real date instead of a dream date, I would want to impress the real you.” Esther’s cheeks blushed as rosy as the sky.
“I should probably start with something easier than all of this though. Maybe I’ll start with cookies or something. ”
Wondering if the real Esther would blush just as prettily as the woman in her dream, Lucy’s smile grew wider as she took a sip of the wine.
“So, tell me all about yourself. What do you do for fun? What’s your sign? Do you think Gilda and Allan ever…you know?” Esther winked with a suggestive click of her tongue. “I bet they had a torrid affair back when they were younger, and that’s why they argue so much now.”
Lucy laughed but didn’t answer. Even in her dreams, she was reluctant to open up with her overly eager coworker, not even about office gossip. It’d be dangerous to let her tongue loose; she might not be able to hold her thoughts back in real life.
Unphased, Esther took a bite of her eggplant and let out a loud moan. “Oh, my god, Lucy, try this! I have to figure out how to make this once I’m awake. I hope it’s not too hard. Honestly, I suck at cooking. Even cookies are gonna be above my skill level. Don’t tell anyone though!”
Taking a tentative bite of her own, Lucy closed her eyes with a contented sigh. The texture of the pasta was the perfect al dente, the sauce lovely and bright.
“See? Isn’t it great?” Esther grinned at her, eyes darting to Lucy’s mouth as she brushed a crumb from her lips.
“I don’t really know what I do for fun anymore.
I used to read a lot, and I took up knitting early on in the plague.
I tried to write a memoir but didn’t get very far.
” Esther’s smile dimmed. “I’ve just been so busy since I started working here.
I used to be an adjunct at a bigger university, and they had grad students do a lot of the admin work.
Here, it’s like I’m responsible for everything.
I don’t know how the other profs do it.”
Lucy raised a skeptical eyebrow.
“You’re right.” Esther snorted. “They don’t.
Probably why I’m so busy—I actually do what Gilda tells us we have to do.
” She laughed. “So, I’m a Taurus sun, Libra moon, Pisces rising.
How about you? What are your big three? Little three?
Is it too personal to ask for your whole chart?
” She laughs. “Not to be forward, but what time were you born?”
Surprised at how much she wanted to answer, Lucy turned instead to her pasta, twirling the angel hair around a fork.
A bubble floated past, bursting with a quiet pop on one of the starlight candles.
A waterfall in the distance rose up from the purple glitter grass meadow around them.
Instead of water, bubbles floated up to the rose-petal sky.
“It’s pretty, isn’t it?” Esther asked softly, her sky blue eyes trained on Lucy. “I don’t know what part of my subconscious came up with this, but it’s so dreamy.” She snorted. “Get it? Dreamy? Because this is a dream.”
Lucy groaned out a laugh at her terrible attempt at a pun.
Instead of bothering to correct Dream Esther that it wasn’t her subconscious that came up with this—she was a mere figment of Lucy’s imagination, and therefore Lucy’s subconscious was to blame for the whimsical dreamscape they found themselves in—Lucy crawled over the cloud blanket to kneel next to her.
Normally her fantasies never cooked her dinner first, but somehow this dream date fit the sweetheart Dr. Esther Voigt perfectly.
This was a dream. Lucy knew this. And yet as Esther looked up at her with a sharp inhale, a quiet gasp of her name that made Lucy’s thighs clench together in anticipation, the moment felt more real than any dream she’d ever had.
But unlike reality, Lucy could do what she wanted here.
While she’d have loved to eat dinner and listen to Esther chat endlessly in real life, polite small talk had never been Lucy’s strong suit.
Even now, the words she was tempted to say got stuck in her throat.
That was the beauty of a dream; there was no need to make the dreaded awkward first date conversation that left Lucy choking on words that never came, no small talk that left her stammering out the simplest responses.
Here amongst the whimsy, Lucy could do what she wanted.
Heart pounding, she bent down and brushed her lips gently, briefly, against Esther’s vanilla-soft ones. She waited, their breath mingling, while Dream Esther processed with blue eyes wide. Even if this was a dream, Lucy needed Esther to want her, just as much as she did Esther.
After a long moment, Esther’s hand wrapped around Lucy’s neck, pulling her close in a soul-wrenching kiss, devouring her lips with a trembling whine as she hauled Lucy into her lap.
The food, the wine, even their clothes disappeared with a quiet blink.
Lucy laughed in delight at Esther’s eagerness, until Esther put her mouth to better use with another desperate kiss.
The cloud surrounded them like a hammock.
Lucy smiled, lips curving along the pulse fluttering under Esther’s skin, as the sweet woman whimpered beneath her. This was the best dream she’d ever had.
Maybe she could dream about this every night.