The elf met him there. Demonstrating no further stress now that she only had to maintain her human shape for a fraction of the day, she continued to be the wife he had known and loved, save that she was more cooperative, as an employee would be.
It was everything he had contracted for, and everything he had thought was necessary.
On Friday, at the close of the business day, a couple of his VPs suggested drinks at the North Star Pub. He declined, letting them go on without him. A drink sounded great, but not with the old gang. Not yet. Instead, he went alone to the bar at the Hilton.
He hadn’t gone out solo in years. He wasn’t quite sure what to do with himself, so he stared at the nearest television set.
His eyes glazed over while the news broadcast dragged on. He emerged from his reverie during a segment on the problems rising from an attempt to settle a clan of Outsiders in the Imperial Valley of California. Project supporters had argued that the agricultural setting would allow the elves to thrive, as well as provide them with a means of economic self-sufficiency, but the plan had failed to take into account the need of the refugees for sylvan venues. The only deep shade in the region came from buildings.
“Damn spooks. Can’t handle working an honest job,” muttered the man at the table nearest to Jordan.
“No one here asked for your opinion,” Jordan said.
The man bristled, but fell short of a confrontation, perhaps because the segment concluded with an image of an Outsider collapsed in a field, suffering convulsions for reasons no human physician could fathom. After a few tense moments, the fellow polished off his drink and left.
Jordan considered leaving as well, but he’d barely touched his Glenlivet. Though he could always find more in his liquor cabinet at home, he made it a practice never to rush a single malt Scotch.
The amber liquid was half gone when a tall, well-dressed young woman ambled by. She stopped.
“That seat free?” she asked.
Jordan shrugged. “Sure.”
She joined him. “My name’s Angie. You?”
He was going to beg off conversation, but she was straightforward, appealing in manner as well as in body. He gave her his first name.
“What do you do?” she asked.
“A little of everything,” he said guardedly. “I work for Welles and Haggard across the street.”
“You’re kidding,” she said brightly. “I’m an attorney. I’ve done some research on tariff regulations for your firm.”
She was not the hustler he had worried she might be. In fact, within a few minutes it was clear that she was the sort of fascinating woman he’d never expect to meet in so serendipitous a fashion. She had come in to rendezvous with a client, but had arrived to find a message canceling the meeting.
She also managed, by the time his glass was empty, to casually refer to a break-up with her most recent boyfriend, and the lack of anyone new in her life.
At that point, Jordan knew he had to say something.
“Angie, I’m a married man.”
She glanced at his left hand, biting her lip. He probably should have left the wedding band on, but he hadn’t been able to do so since the accident. “I’m sorry,” he added, sympathy fueling the sincerity of the comment.
The woman shrugged, giving a wan smile that said his honesty had made her wish even more that he had wanted her companionship. She gracefully withdrew. As her fine, long legs found rest upon a distant stool, Jordan’s face clouded.
That night, Jordan relished the sensory details of making love to Véronique to a greater degree than he could ever remember doing, as if recording them for all time. The light caught her curves, shadows deepening her feminine outlines. Her mouth was open and hungry. Her nipples quickened as air struck them, then softened until his tongue restored them to hardness. Her hair traced a feathery path along his skin, a faint touch more subtle than her hands or breasts or pelvis, more subtle even than her mouth. Had he ever noticed that before, amid all the pleasures they had shared?
Lying beside him, she draped a leg over him and ground her crotch against his outer leg, her knee gliding on a layer of perspiration. Her eyes blazed with lust. She squeezed his cock urgently, as if anticipating it inside her. He pressed her back and let his own hand rove, bringing it ultimately down to manipulate her labia. She moaned. His finger slid inside and her pelvis drew up, seizing hold. The moan became a gasp.
She pulled him on top of her, wrapped her legs around his pelvis and, by dint of wriggling, placed him at the brink of penetration. He toyed with her, rubbing the head of his erection against her clitoris.
“Put it in.” Her words came out in a hiss.
He entered her and pumped furiously. She rocked with him, challenging him to maintain the rhythm, thrashing. Her tension garnered and he knew that when the peak arrived, it would be a massive, lung-heaving release. As would his.
It was stupendous in the way that farewell passion should be, the way it should have been with the real Véronique, if only they had known the last time was at hand.
In the delirium of the aftermath, they lay intertwined. The sweat cooled. Their heartbeats fell to inaudibility. Their breathing returned to an even cadence. Without a word, the woman slipped from the bed and set off toward the door to the stairs.
“You’re leaving?” he asked.
“Until the morning.” The voice no longer sounded entirely like that of Véronique.
“But …”
“I must. It was what you dreamed, my lord.”
“When?”
“Last night, and the night before, and the night before. I am compelled.” Chin down, reticent, she closed the door behind her.
He rolled to the edge of the bed, intending to rise and follow her, but he never made it past a sitting position. Wisps of memory floated up. Yes, he had produced such dreams, hadn’t he? As often happened, they hadn’t lingered in his daylight thoughts, but in hindsight, he could see the message his subconscious had been whispering.
He lay back, closed his eyes, and waited to see what dreams might arrive this time, with no one but him to see them.
In the morning he excused the household staff, asking them not to return until noon. He found the shapeshifter in Véronique’s dayroom. Jordan and his wife always slept together, but she enjoyed having a bedroom of her own in which to house the spillover from her wardrobe and give her a place to retreat to when she needed privacy.
The elf, looking perhaps as much like Véronique as she had ever managed, was carefully packing away Véronique’s clothes in their designated drawers and hanging them on their proper hooks, many wrapped in plastic as if they were not to be touched again for a long time, if ever. When that was done, he helped her make the bed — apparently she had slept in it for a portion of the night, though her hair was fragrant with pine. Finally, she removed her nightgown, and put that away as well.
They went outside to the lawn, halfway between the house and the woods. She kissed him. Lightly, reverently, the way Véronique always did upon leave-taking. The way she had kissed him the morning of the accident.
The next step was not easy, but there was an element that made it possible: Unlike the loss of his wife, stolen by a whim of fate, he had a choice now in how he acted. Even that small measure of control made such a difference.
He probed for the ethereal bracelet around his wrist. The more he sought it out, the more tangible it became. The hemp hardened beneath his fingertips, allowing him to work the knot free. Finally it slid loose. The cord hung at her side, visible once more.
“You are free.”
She regarded him intently, as if to be sure he would not snatch the noose back up and reattach it once he had had a moment to realize what he had done. Slowly, she pushed the loop off her own wrist, and let the cord drop to the grass. The object seemed so mundane, lying there, surely no part of sorcery or oaths.