Dreamless

Lucas.
    “You’re exhausted! No more arguing,” he admonished sternly, although his playful look robbed the words of their sting. “Ask Morpheus to give you dreams again. He was very kind to me. I have no doubt he’ll help you if he can.”
    “Will you stay?” Helen asked. She stared at him, adoring him. “Please, stay with me?”
    “As long as I can stand it,” he promised, shivering. “I never get cold, but damn! It’s freezing in here.”
    “Tell me about it,” Helen said, rolling her eyes. “Come and keep me warm.” Lucas gave a small laugh and shook his head, like he didn’t know what to do with her.
    Staying on top of the covers, he settled in, allowing Helen to scoot down into a comfortable position. He folded her arms into an X across her chest and smoothed her hair back like he was laying her in her grave. He looked down on her intensely.
    “Open your mouth,” Lucas whispered.
    Helen could feel him shaking and watched a myriad emotions play across his face as he tucked the heavy gold wafer under her tongue. It was still warm with his body heat, slightly salty, and the weight of it in her mouth was remarkably comforting. Lucas reached out and gently closed her eyelids. Keeping his hand cupped over her eyes, Helen felt him brush his lips across her cheek as he leaned close to her ear.
    “Don’t let Morpheus seduce you. . . .”
    Starry skies and inky strips of silk surrounded Helen. She was inside a tent that had no top, just undulating walls of dark, slippery sheets that seemed to breathe slowly as they caught and released a gentle and ever-changing breeze. Here and there between the swaths of material were austere Doric columns carved out of black pearl marble. Dim follow-me lights danced down the passageways, hovering in the night air. As one neared Helen, she saw that up close they looked like tiny candle flames glowing inside iridescent bubbles.
    The grass beneath her feet was covered by a field of poppies, their heads nodding drunkenly with the passing winds. Despite the darkness, Helen could feel the cool dewiness of the flowers and see the golden pollen that sparkled inside the bloodred blooms.
    About a dozen steps away from where she had emerged into this night-world, silk sheets and voluminous pillows of midnight blue, charcoal gray, and deepest purple spilled over the edges of the largest and most luxurious bed Helen had ever seen. The stars twinkled overhead and the piles of silk seemed to wink back at them like glittering oil slicks in the ghostly blue-moon light. A pair of ivory white arms, followed by a man’s naked chest, rose up from the dark mass of cradling material as he took a nice, long stretch.
    “I’ve been calling out to you, Beauty. I’m so glad you’re finally here.” His voice was familiar. “Beauty and Sleep. Sleeping Beauty. We were made for each other, you know. All the sayings say it. Now come and lie down with me.”
    His infectiously playful tone drew Helen to the edge of the bed. There was something about that voice that was so reassuring and sweet that Helen knew he had to be the gentlest soul in this or any other universe.
    She looked down into the gigantic bed, and saw Morpheus, the god of dreams. He had the whitest skin Helen had ever seen, shiny masses of wavy, black hair, and long slender limbs of delicately carved muscle. Stripped to the waist, he wore silk pajama pants of such a deep wine red that, like all the other colors of his sleeping palace, bordered on black, but never quite reached it.
    Morpheus looked up at Helen with startling white-blue eyes that looked almost like liquid mercury. He snuggled into the not-quite black of the silk sheets. For thou wilt lie upon the wings of night, Whiter than new snow upon a raven’s back , Helen thought as she took in the contrast of his skin on the sheets, wondering where she had heard those lines of poetry. Whoever wrote them, she thought, must have spent many nights with Morpheus.
    “It’s your voice I’ve been hearing in my head. Little sneak,” Helen said, smiling down at the exquisite, half-naked man. “I thought I was going crazy.”
    “You were, Beauty. That’s why you could hear me so clearly. I called and called to you, but you ignored me so I finally went away. Now come and lie down,” he complained prettily, holding out one of his milk-white hands. “It’s been far too long since I’ve held you.”
    Helen didn’t even have to think about it. She had never laid eyes on