3.

'You did what?' I asked.

She didn't just tell me what I thought she told me, had she? We have talked about this thing of hers before but I, in no way expect her, to transfer it onto someone she had only just met. To abandon all common sense like that. To spend a night with someone who basically is a stranger. It's just not her, or so I would have thought.

Whether it be a dream or some kind of an extra sensory perception or what, she is sure she is connected with someone or something. The universe is trying to guide her, this is what she believes or believed, and she believed it wanted her to be with this fellow she has only just met. And now that it is done, she is not so sure.

'I believed it was him', she tells me. '... the one I am meant to be with. And it was great. It really was but it wasn't ...'

'Right, right? ... it wasn't right? You don't know this ... dude.'

'No, I know but I thought, I was sure. It wasn't the connection meant for me ...'

'But you did it anyway. Rei, your nineteen, he is what? ... ten years older? ...you need to think about consequences.'

'If we all did that, we'd get nowhere. I must follow this and see it through. I am meant for something and I'm gonna find out what that is.'

'Then how do you know it is not this guy right here?' I ask of her in regard to he who will shortly serve us our coffee, in the hope she'll come around a little and stop being so wild ...

'Situation was right. He just didn't match ...' not that she can be sure of what a match may be, if such a thing could be true. She can never remember the man in her dreams, once she wakes.

We are, within the moment we have come into, next in the queue at the local coffee shop and that guy about to serve us looks like he'd turn pink with what he no doubt has already heard if it weren't already for is dark complexion. He has served us coffee before and he most always lights up when he sees Rei. He likes her, purely on what he sees. I have seen this; it is clear and obvious though she has never stopped to notice. And my next point proves this.

'If you really are meant to be with someone, then how do you know it is not this guy, right here?'

''Cos I've never seen this guy before' she says, thus proving my point.

'But you come in here at least three times a week ...' he says and that has caught Rei completely off guard.

What he said caught me off guard too. It wasn't something I expected to hear. This is the first thing he has ever said to us that is not coffee related.

'Large latte, right? ... in a large take away cup no matter if you are sitting in or actually taking out. And what's your snack choice of the week this week? Plain chocolate bar or fruit scone? It's Wednesday, you always choose one or the other on a Wednesday?'

Wow, he really has caught me off guard.

'I do?' she responds looking quite lost and as to if she is only just realising this fact right now.

He looks downwards, anywhere other than at Rei. Yeah, he clearly likes her and speaking out of turn like this he has even surprised him, so it would seem. His reaction is as if he has embarrassed himself.

'Does the fellow from the yacht know you like these things?' I ask her.

'Oh, a yacht? Don't think I could compete with that ...' Barista boy had heard my question and I guess his response was appropriate.

Rei looks him in the face and smiles. 'You may not have to.'

She's not actually coming on to this barista dude, is she? In my company too, after what she has already told me all of which has indeed told me.

'Chill out Karen, and relax a little ...' she tells me, as if she just read my mind, '... me and B here are just having a little moment, isn't that right?', that last part she directs at him.

Her comment, that has done it. Barista boy is without a doubt embarrassed now. Rei, she must be having some sort of crisis. She is far too young for it to be a mid-life thing. It is almost as if she is out of control. We sit with our coffees. She tells me she had seen that yacht before, and she was so sure of it that she found a mark she had made while she had been there making love to her mystery man.

Her exploits with her mystery man are nothing more than a dream of sorts. She is not really experiencing those events and looking to recreate them in her waking world, right? Assumption is one heck of a thing.

She had made love with her soul mate, yet she has no idea of what he looks like, because it is nothing more than a dream. She knows not of his name and despite knowing every millimetre of his face, she cannot describe any of it, for it is no longer there when she wakes. So, when greeted by the owner of said yacht, it must have appeared to have been him. Only it wasn't, it lacked the connection. He seemed more in it for himself and not for any kind of cosmic connection. Well, what a mess this so happens to be.

It's all well and good confiding in me after the fact. It is disconcerting what she may do before we meet again. If she were ever to go missing, or get hurt, physically more so than mentally, and what if something more serious were to happen? What could I tell police in such a situation.

***

Is it all merging now? A reality, a fantasy, what is and could be. Having drifted into memory mixes it all up. Laying on deck of that yacht, the morning after the night before. Sandwiched between satin and silk sheets, tinted glasses upon her nose, given to her both to ease the glare of the sun on a clear morning and to ease the effects on the brain of the long since consumed wine. A bottle of white on ice close by, unopened and at the ready, also ready to add as a possible cure.

He stands and stretches. She studies his torso, each chiselled muscle gleaming in the morning light. He is slimmer than what had previously invaded her mind though tantalizing all the same. Knowing that is not what it should be, she is still willing to explore more. He turns a little and the contents of his briefs show he is willing and able for more too.

His movement up and out of their make-shift bed has exposed her breasts and she has made no effort with covering them back up. He had hardened instantly. No matter this moment, and what may or may not be felt, the night before did happen, no point in being modest now.

'Good morning' he says, placing his hands on his hips, proudly displaying his girth and playfully acting as if the display is unintentional.

'So, it would seem' she says, wondering if he sees himself some sort of super-hero or if he is trying to enhance his attributes, something he does not have to put any effort into.

This is exactly it. The problem which lets her know she has made a mistake. Her moments of reverie, when the come, feel as real as anything she has ever felt in her life. More than that, it is as if it is meant to be, something that belongs to her and one other. This one other is real, his existence is in no way imagined.

When they are in the throes of passion, she more than feels his touch, she feels his love. If she has never met him in the real; world, then how can she trust her own feelings? She loves him as he surely loves her to the degree that it can only be explained as if they were, they are soul mates, two halves of the same unit. They belong together.

In the moment of reverie, or of being somewhere else, or whatever it is which is happening, she knows him, she feels his essence and there is nothing she wouldn't do for him. In the return to herself there is fog, fog in regard to who he is. Why this is so, she does not know. Maybe it is the way of the universe, a way to bring two sides of the same coin together when their natural paths will keep them apart.

Whatever it is, it has set her down a path where she will offer it all to find him. This fellow on the yacht, as handsome as he is, as well endowed as he is, he is not who she is searching for. The love just isn't there, sure how could it be there? She found a place that matched a place from her alternate reality, and it even came with a ready-made lover but perhaps he is someone taking advantage of a situation. A beautiful lady presented herself. How many men, single or otherwise, would turn down the advances of such a young lady?