On Saturday morning Alan Carston awoke from a vivid and erotic dream. It had occurred in the early hours while he slept soundly, and unknowingly, through a total lunar eclipse. In the forty-two minutes that the full moon was hidden in the earth's shadow, he was visited, touched, aroused, and put helplessly under the spell of a women; a goddess, who had whispered her name on a kiss in his ear... Odessa.
Damp with sweat, Alan turned to his wife, saw that she was still asleep, and closed his eyes once more, hoping his dream women would reappear; that she would take him in rapture and keep him forever in her secret world where he could remain nuzzled in her bosom, bewitched by her sensual whispers, and delighted in her magical scents, just as had happened moments before. But this did not happen, and as daybreak neared, the veracity of his dream began to wane, and was utterly and brutishly splintered when Ellen woke up and asked him how he would like to have his eggs.
"Poached," he said. "I think I'd like them poached."
"Really?" she said, astounded. He had never requested poached eggs in all their years of marriage nor had she ever prepared them that way. "Why poached?"
Alan had no answer. Indeed, he wondered why he had suggested it, and now a justification was required. "I've always wanted to try poached eggs," he said weakly.
"I'll see what I can do," Ellen conceded.
She took her fuzzy, pink robe and matching slippers from the closet and commenced the morning routine. As usual, Alan remained in bed until he heard the bathroom door open and the leather bottoms of her slippers brush the oak stair treads. He waited longer this morning, trying to dispel the mounting uneasiness of his romantic encounter, which he felt he'd somehow betrayed with his peculiar breakfast preference. But as the shower hissed and splashed from his chest, the fuzzy remembrance of his dream returned; the whispers of the mysterious and seductive Odessa and the euphoria he'd enjoyed amidst her aura. Who was she? Angst filled him as he toweled off. He smelled the charring of toast and heard the shrill whistle of the kettle and the dissonant crooning of his inattentive wife. What was distracting her? His heart pounded. Should he tell her? Tell her what? About a fantasy women in a dream? About the bliss she had bestowed upon him? The erotic nuance? Ellen would be distrustful. Her interpretation would be sinister. She would question his fidelity; would blame a secret crush; would try to pin it on someone he knew, maybe someone he worked with.
This was a rabbit hole he dared not go down. Nothing he could come up with would explain the erotic visitation. She was, he hypothesized, someone with whom he had shared a past life, or a long-forgotten childhood infatuation now fully ripened in women-hood, maybe even his mother. It didn't really matter. He would keep it to himself. What was important was that he hold fast to the vision; that for whatever reason, a goddess had chosen him and he would protect the sanctity of their bond; that his dream women was no threat to their thirty-year marriage, but could actually enhance it. Indeed, he plotted, if he could impart a subtle transference of this supernatural anima to Ellen, she would then possess the sensual allure of his fantasy-women; morphing, as it were, in a sort of metaphysical switcheroo.
Ellen stirred a pan on the kitchen stove. "We're out of eggs," she said, "I made oatmeal instead."
"I hate oatmeal," he whined - a half-truth. He hated her oatmeal. It was pasty and dry. She placed the bowl before him and he nudged the contents with a spoon. The skim milk in his coffee made it look like it something from the workbench.
He pushed the mug aside. "Dammit Ellen."
"What?" she pleaded, "I didn't make up the rules."
"What's the plan today?" He nibbled on dry toast and watched the starlings spewing seeds from the feeder. "I could really use some shoes. Let's take a drive out to the mall. We can get lunch and you can look at those graphite clubs you've been talking about. What do you think?"
The mall seemed like a good idea, although golf was suddenly less of a concern. "I was thinking I'd lay off golf for a while. Give it a little rest. We should really work on putting some excitement back in our lives, don't you agree?"
"What's got into you? You want to quit golf? What do you have in mind?"
Alan's imagination ran wild. Here was his chance. "Let's just get you those shoes," he said.
An awkward edginess pervaded the tedium of the drive. Ellen troubled over her husband's sullen mood. The sudden disinterest in golf was unsettling as was the insinuation that their relationship had gone stale. He behaved like a stranger. Alan's concentration was impaired; preoccupied with the likelihood that Ellen would resist the tactics of his covert plan.
"Let's get you a sexy nightie," he blurted wildly.
"Alan, I just need to get some shoes," she said. He looked away disappointedly; fiddling with the radio. "I'll tell you what. You go and get me something nice and we'll meet at Charlie's."
Alan nervously skirted the perimeter of women's sleepwear and lingerie. His eyes were drawn to a headless mannequin in a Calvin Klein display fitted in a black thong panty, her nippled breasts jutting upward. Then another in a red lace boy-short, her breasts scooped in a transparent demi bra. He closed in, sheepishly entering the tantalizing exhibition of women's underthings. Polished marble tables displayed panties and G-strings, thongs and bikinis, teddies and tangas, bustiers and babydolls, chemises and corselets, negligees, bralettes, and bodysuits. A leggy mannequin gestured a sultry pose. Her hair was done in a pink pixie cut and her eyes, heavily shadowed in black, returned Alan's gaze with shameless it's me you want innuendos. She modeled a transparent brassiere in tangerine and a matching lace panty which was visible through a long, chiffon skirt with a lace waistband and a teasing front slit.
A heavy-set women in her sixties offered assistance. "This set,'' Alan said, circling the mock diva.
"Yes, it's a lovely combination, isn't it? For your wife?"
"No, well, yes, it is."
"Lovely," she purred, repeating again at the checkout counter, "just lovely." She folded each of the separates and placed them in lavender tissue. "Comes to two-hundred and twenty dollars."
Never had Alan derived this much satisfaction from such a frivolous expenditure. He made his way out of the department store and broke into an ecstatic trot as he passed the food court and the kiosks and the other stores, swinging the glossy gift bag by its fine rope handles.
"For you," he said that evening, advancing the glamorous ruse. "I'll pour champagne while you try it on." He surveyed the bedroom; adjusted the dimmer; closed the drapes; pulled back the covers.
She emerged in her seductive ensemble, enchanting in the dimmed light, and after they clinked champagne flutes and sipped the sublime nectar, Alan, heart palpitating and drunk on his vision now manifested in his unsuspecting wife, bedded her. And as the moon rose once more in the east, he ran his hands down the small of her back; touched the lace waistband of her panty.