Sylvia lay in bed, clinging to the frayed edges of her dream, while the coffee maker rumbled in the background like a sick rhinoceros.

A ringing noise forced itself into the mix, but when it disappeared again, she turned around and sank back into her fluffy pillows. She could feel the cottony white clouds of her dream still tickling at her fingertips. They had looked so real, she might have just reached out to touch them.

Among this surreal landscape which could have sprung from a Magritte painting, she had come across a man, who had — with his back to her — walked right into those giant fluffy towers. She hadn't been able to get a glimpse of his face, but he had golden brown hair, was tall and lean. It definitely couldn't have been Edgar, not with his buff build and his raven black hair.

Maybe she should feel ashamed she was relieved her boyfriend hadn't followed her into her dream, that she dreamt of another, completely mysterious, man. She resolutely pushed aside those silly thoughts. After all, she hadn't asked for such a dream. It had been her brain who had conjured up this intriguing specimen of a man.

Exactly

This stranger had fascinated her more than the extraordinary cloudscape that had stretched around her like an endless sea of white. Even though she had only been able to see his back, she'd had the strange feeling of knowing him, even felt that there had been some sort of connection between them. Like a soul bond. A wordless understanding.

When the man walked deeper into the mountains made of clouds, panic had surged inside her, and she had tried to run after him. Her legs had turned to lead and had refused to carry her any further, so she'd had to watch how his outline became fuzzier until he had completely disappeared, as if the clouds had eaten him alive. To top it all off, the blasted coffee maker had bulldozed over the fluffy clouds like it had no shame.

Sylvia forced her eyes closed and tried to ignore the obvious sounds of a new morning, but the clatter emanating from the kitchen sabotaged her efforts.

The coffee machine's incessant creaking broke off piece after piece of her dream, and then ground the remaining shards until they were nothing more than powdery dust.

Something tickled her ear and a voice said, "Rise and shine, princess, or you're going to miss your own lecture."

She tried to pull the blanket over her head, but suddenly her protective shell was gone and there was a warm body leaning over her. Edgar, and not the man of her dream.

"I wouldn't mind some banging before breakfast," he whispered, while his hands roamed over her back down to her ass. "But it's already seven o'clock and we both have to be at the university at eight, so you better get up, especially if you want to shower and grab something to eat." He spanked her buttock.

What the? Oh, no, dammit! The lecture!

Sylvia was wide awake now. "Why didn't you call me earlier? The rector is going to kill me if I'm late today!" Without waiting for his answer, she jumped out of bed and sprinted through the room like a mad wind-up toy. Grabbing all her clothes, she stormed into the bathroom and showered in no more than four minutes and thirty seconds, an absolute record. There was no time to wash her hair, and that meant two things: dry shampoo and a high ponytail. After making sure her heels were properly bandaged, she slipped on her lacy underthings, shimmied into her jeans, and stalked into the kitchen while still fumbling with the buttons of her white blouse.

"You look like you could use some coffee." Edgar held out a cup of steaming coffee to her. As soon as the aromatic scent hit her nose, the tension began to melt away from her shoulders. She balanced the mug in one hand while she tried to button up her blouse with the other, a dangerous mission, if she didn't want to risk a dark stain on her favourite blouse.

"Let me do that for you." Edgar gave her an amused smile, and she smiled back.

Sometimes he could be a real darling, at least as long as he wasn't chasing behind every skirt in town. Unfortunately, those moments didn't last long, and she would do good to remember that.

In less than sixty seconds, he had closed all the buttons and nodded with satisfaction. "Now, my little assistant looks presentable again."

"Thanks." She smiled, a little less enthusiastic than before. Glancing at the croissants on the table, she decided against it. Her stomach clearly wasn't ready for anything solid, not until after the lecture. Then she'd splurge and invite herself to one of the cinnamon rolls with chocolate frosting they sold at the bakery across the university.

"You got all your papers?" he asked, snapping his briefcase shut.

Sylvia nodded wordlessly, downing the rest of the coffee.

"We should get going." He glanced at the expensive smartwatch on his wrist. "I don't want to get stuck in the morning traffic."

Then, suddenly, she remembered. "By the way, I'm going out with Caro tonight. We haven't seen each other in ages, and we want to grab some pizza and then watch a movie. You didn't have any plans for tonight, right?"

Please say no, please say no.

Edgar shrugged on his jacket a little bit too nonchalant for it to be convincing, and that brief feathering of his jaw told her, she had read him right. "No, not really. I need to grade some seminar papers, but I can do that in my office tonight. I've been putting that off for far too long." One of the corners of his mouth twisted into a smile, and then he grabbed the car keys and dropped them in the pockets of his pants.

"Okay, great." She passed her hand over her ponytail to make sure it was tight enough.

Phew, that went better than expected.

"You don't need to worry about me getting home. Caro can pick me up at the uni and give me a ride back home."

"Good, but make sure it doesn't get too late and don't let any guy hit on you." He raised one of his dark eyebrows.

Oh, come on, you possessive egocentric!

"Do I look like I'm actually interested in some random guys hitting on me? I just want to go out with my friend, have some fun, eat, chat, and watch a movie together. That doesn't include guys."

"You know what I mean. We're a couple after all, I just want that to be clear." He reached for her chin, but she turned her head away.  

"Crystal clear." She slid into her jacket and walked towards the door, where she picked up her sneakers, then turned around, facing him. "Not everyone is constantly hunting for adventures, Edgar."

"Morning, honey," a seductive voice purred into his ear.

Somewhere in the back of his head, Armand was sure he should know the person belonging to this voice, but in his state between sleeping and waking it just floated around like a disembodied entity. He had tried to cling to the shards of his dream when the voice threatened to crack the delicate bubble around him.

He rarely ever dreamed and when he did, he paid little attention to those illusions his head conjured up at night. This one had been different, even though he couldn't tell exactly why, only that it had felt almost palpable, as if he could have stepped through the dream into a different reality.

Of course, that was complete and utter nonsense. There was no other reality outside his own. Apart from earth, but that didn't count. Down there was where the humans lived, and they better stayed away from his dreams. It was already bad enough that they haunted his every waking hour.

"Are you finally awake?" The voice pushed itself with more determination between him and the remnants of his dream.

He muttered an indistinguishable answer into his pillow while he tried to dive back and break through the veil of oblivion that thickened with alarming speed, keeping him from saving whatever fragments he could. There had been a bridge, a starry night, and a woman, but he couldn't piece the three things together. A feeling of unease had settled inside him, an inexplicable restlessness, as if he were waiting for something without knowing what that was. The harder he tried to remember, the faster everything disintegrated, the scene sliding from his mind like sand between his fingers.

"And what exactly are you trying to say with all that muttering?" the voice chirped close to his ear and suddenly there was a pair of soft lips kissing his neck and nimble fingers making their way down his abdomen, aiming directly for the one body part of his that felt like it had been unusually active last night. He put a halt to the determined approach of those curious fingers just right before they crossed over the finish line.

His memories of last night were mostly sketchy, in truth not much better than the dream that had now finally eluded him. None of it was a good sign. His head felt like he'd had a collision with a large rock, his muscles being unusually sore. He felt altogether ungodly. For a brief moment, he even thought he might have been released from his services and given his freedom.

He turned his head sideways and knew in that instant that this had only been an illusion. He knew the delicate features of the woman's face who stared reproachfully at him only too well.

"Oh, come on, Armand, don't make such a face as if Mr. Z had just sentenced you to work overtime. You had a long night with hot and steamy sex." Her sinfully red lips widened into a lascivious grin. "You really had quite the stamina. I haven't had as many multiple orgasms in a long time."

"Are you serious?" Armand sighed and rubbed a hand over his face. Dammit, he had to get his brain into gear. "You were here all night? In my bed?"

"I was with you all night, but not just in bed, but also on the table, the floor and —" She pointed with one of her perfectly lacquered and manicured fingernails towards the wall across his opulent four-poster bed.

"Okay, okay, you can spare me the details. I can imagine the rest." He didn't want to imagine what exactly he might have been doing in the different corners of his house with Natalia.

The only thing he could vaguely remember was that Natalia had shown up last night, dressed in nothing but a red négligé and matching red lacy underwear beneath. Somewhere in the back of his head, he had the notion that there had been a considerable amount of ambrosia involved. His gaze was drawn to the low table of ebony wood right under one of his large window panels, through which the sun rays spilled like liquid gold. An empty bottle and two equally empty glasses were proof enough that his theory was solid.

Great. Absolutely awesome. What a wonderful way to start my day.

"How many times have we been through with this?" He pressed his fingers against his temples, hoping to calm the roaring in his head. "You show up in a sexy outfit and with booze, and the next morning I wake up with a hangover in my head and my —" He pointed at his groin. "Not sure what you think you're getting out of this, but whatever it is, I guarantee you, you're definitely way off." He threw her an annoyed glance.

"You know exactly what I want, a little bit of distraction, and that's precisely what you need too. And don't try to deny it. I know, you desperately need some distraction from your daily duties." A thin layer of ice coated her voice.

He opened his mouth, but she cut him off before he could say a word. "After more than five thousand years, you should know me better, Armand. You're bored out of your wits with your job, but my job as goddess of revenge isn't much better. Every single day, I've got to deal with people's petty cravings for revenge. You won't believe how wacky some people get, when they're about to score off their in-laws or neighbours." She sighed dramatically. "You can't blame me for wanting to get my mind off revenge at least once a century. I'm not asking for love. All I want is to have some fun." She wound a strand of her lush black hair around her finger, and her saccharine smile was back. "You had lots of fun too, even if you can't remember most of it." With the tip of her tongue, she slowly licked over her upper lip.

"You done?" He stared at a point behind her shoulder.

Natalia pulled the silken sheets down, exposing her perfectly shaped breasts. The sight of her rosy nipples normally would have reawakened his desire, but today he just felt spent and irritable.

Her blatantly hungry gaze roamed over his barely concealed body until it encountered his obvious disinterest. She raised one elegantly curved eyebrow and shrugged her shoulder.

"Seems like the morning round has flatlined." She shook her lush black mane and rose from bed. "I hope you at least got something to eat in your kitchen." Completely naked and absolutely stunning, Natalia swayed through his bedroom, her graceful movements a siren's song that fell on deaf ears.

"If you want to eat, you've got to sleep at Maurizio's place. This isn't some sort of self-service restaurant," he called after her, while picking up his scattered clothes from the floor.

Where the hell did my boxers go? And why is there only one sock?

The god of culinary delights lived in a villa just next door. He was an excellent cook, but it was an open secret that no type of bodily activity would draw him from behind his giant stone stove.

Whatever

He wasn't in the mood of searching every possible and impossible corner of his house for his missing underwear, so he pulled out a fresh one from the top drawer of his dresser and a fresh pair of socks to go with it.

"That's what I'll be doing next time," he heard Natalia mutter from the kitchen, while she banged the cupboards closed louder than necessary. "I bet he has better manners than you."

He quickly got dressed, deciding to ignore her complaints. She was right about him not being very gentlemanly today, but — as always — in one hundred years, or less, she would have forgiven him his behaviour, and the game would begin anew.

This was the reality he was trapped in forever. If humans envied the gods, thinking they had some sort of glamorous life, it just proved one thing. They had no idea, those stupid mortals.