This story is dedicated to Jeffrey Paul Hosmer, who guessed.

    [MPAA Rating:  NC-17]

         Exquisitely enthroned, immortal Aphrodite, weaver of charms, 
    child of Zeus, I beg you, reverend Lady, do not crush my heart
    with sickness and distress.  But come to me here, if ever once
    before you heard my cry from afar and listened and, leaving
    your father's house, yoked your chariot of gold.

    ...

         Come to me now too and free me from my harsh anxieties; all
    that my heart longs for, accomplish.  You, your very self, stand
    with me in my conflict.

                             Sappho of Lesbos, c. 600 BCE


    I wake up, hearing the gentle tapping of rain against the window pane. 
The full moon shines through the rain, filling my dark bed room with a 
cold light.

    I hear a tapping against the window, and focus my sleepy eyes at it. 
I can see a shadowy figure there, with a hand pressed to the glass.  I 
slowly rise up out of my bed, walk to the window, and open it.

    It's her.

    Why has she come to my window?

    Wordlessly, I open it, and help her step in.  She is drenched by the 
rain, not wearing her rain coat ... she is shivering.

    I open my mouth to ask what's going on, and she cuts me off.  "I don't 
love him," she whispers.

    I blink.  She ... but that's insane, she's loved him ...

    "I don't love *him*.  I ... part of me, the oldest part, loves part of 
him, the oldest part.  But ... it's not enough.  I have to love all of 
him, even the parts that ... hurt.  And I can't.  I *can't*."

    She is silent, and I can see tears in her eyes.  Not her tears of 
petty sorrow or hurt, but tears that she's been trying to keep hidden for
years.

    Before I know what I'm doing, I'm holding her in my arms, rocking her
as the spasms of her weeping shake her.  Worse, much worse than any time 
they've ever been separated.

    "and i don't think he loves me either"

    "No," I say.

    "how could he love someone like me"

    "No," I say, and I raise her chin to make her eyes meet mine.  "How 
could he not?  How could anyone not?"

    And we hold the gaze.

    And she knows.

    "Love me," she says.  "You ... you love me."

    I want to run.  I want to hide, to scream, to ...

    Her lips on my lips are cold.  But her tongue, pressing through, is so 
warm ...

    She is pushing me back, as we kiss, and I feel my knees press against
the bed.  And then I am lying on the bed, feeling her moving, pulling my 
nightclothes away ...

    "We shouldn't," I say, as my lips are freed.

    "We should," she says, before pressing her lips against mine again.

    And she is unclothed now, and moving her body against mine.  She 
begins to kiss downwards, my neck, my nipples, my stomach ...

    ... oh gods ...

    she kisses me THERE

    the touches

    the gentle pressure

    I come to orgasm violently, and she pulls herself up to kiss my lips 
once more as I spasm.  I taste myself on her lips.  And then, driven by
forces too primal to fight against, I do as she has done to me ...

    Long afterwards, as I begin to fall asleep, curled in her arms, I hear 
her whisper, "I love you too, Raye."

    "I love you, Serena."

    And then I wake up, gasping.

    I hear the gentle tapping of rain against the window pane. The full 
moon shines through the rain, filling my dark bedroom with a cold light.

    I am undressed.

    And there is a warm body beside me in my bed.

    Slowly, I turn to look, dreading what I'll find ... then sigh in 
relief.

    It's only Chad.

    And then the horror returns.

    I love Serena.  My dream was not some symbolic monstrosity.  I love 
her, not only as a sister, not only as a friend, but as ... a lover.

    And in a month, she will marry the man she loves.

    Whom I also love.

    And under the pale full moon, the moon that will shine on their 
wedding night ... I weep.

                                 The End.

Authors Notes

    I am twenty-one years old on September 15, 1996.

    And that's about everything I have to say.