Amadeo hadn't thought much of the dream at the time.  But now was six months later and everything was different.  The dreams had begun effecting him and still he didn't tell anyone about them because he was too embarrassed.  He hardly went to the Limelight anymore, though he desperately wanted to.  He still saw everyone at the cafes. That only made it worse for him in a way, because when he saw them he wanted them all desperately.  He'd been having sex much less it was getting so he could catch himself thinking things like he'd been sixteen last time he went so long without it. He told them he was considering retirement, but just considering.  They all still wanted him.

It was his divorcee that was his last constant diversion.  He got dressed to go to her house.  He didn't dress as if he would go to the club.  He wore denim shorts and a neat pink button down shirt.  He combed his hair straight and let it hang loose. 

Tanya lived in an old townhouse recently restored.  Amadeo had his own key and was allowed to come whenever he wanted.  He drove his roadster over there and let himself in.  He called out to Tanya when he was inside the front door.  She called back from the kitchen above.  Amadeo went up there and immediately found a bottle of Coke in his hand.  Tanya was smiling at him still wearing her office clothes.  She was wearing pink too and it looked good with her skin, which was even darker than Rubio's.  "I'm going to change, entertain yourself," she said.

Amadeo watched her go up the stairs.  He downed half the bottle of Coke and then went down the narrow hall into Tanya's living room.  All the floors there were wood. The sound of his sandal soles, as he walked, was a comforting sound, he felt safe, connected to the Earth.

 He knew she was an art buyer for a gallery and her eye for art led her to buy some very nice pieces for her own home.  She had a collection of ancient masks and figurines in the room.  And she had a beautiful piano which was really Amadeo's; she couldn't play it and she had bought it after they met just for him to play.

He sat at the bench to play.  It wasn't hard for him to just pick up and play a melody.  And it didn't take long to find the chords that would go with it.  He was playing his song by the time Tanya came into the room in her robe.  She sat beside him.

"Does it have words?" she asked.

Amadeo made up some words to sing for her.  "Words just words can be distracting.  I want you to touch me.  Tonight Tanya."

"How'd such a deep voice get in such a small body?"

"Must be in my jeans," Amadeo laughed.

"Would you please not wear your foil?" she asked. "Don't you ever want to go with out one?"

"I don't feel like arguing."

 "Then don't.  Can't you just do this for me.  Amad, haven't I treated you very well?"

For a second he was very angry at her for asking such a thing.  Faeries never spoke of such things, they just disappeared when you stopped making them happy.  But Tanya had stopped thinking of him as just another Faerie, she knew him too well.  "I told you before if you want to have a baby you don't go about baiting Fay.  Faeries don't, won't, have children."

"Please, Amad.  No one has to know it's yours.  There is no risk at all for you."

Amadeo got up and walked across the room.  "I can't I just can't have a child.  It doesn't matter if you tell no one.  I would know.  And I could not let you take the responsibility.  Don't you think I know what I'm doing.  I am not a child.  You can't mother me...and you can't make me be a father."

"Then I can give your child your name.  I'll have you give me money to support it.  You have enough of your own."

"Tanya, Faeries don't marry humans unless they plan to become humans.  I don't love you that way and you know you don't love me.  You chose wrong, Humans don't tempt me at all."

"What about your girl in L.A.?  The one you are going to marry when you retire?"

Amadeo was surprised.  Of course that wasn't true, but it was the story he told to all the mortals he knew when they wondered why he made a trip to Los Angeles once a year.  The truth would have shocked even the Fay.  He turned to look at Tanya, "I told you about her?"

"You confessed a lot of things to me late at night."

Amadeo tried furiously to recall how much of the story he might have told Tanya, but he couldn't.  "Well it's I who have tempted her.  She can give me what I want."  He just hoped Tanya didn't push too hard.  She knew him just well enough to question that he'd ever want marriage to anyone.

"I know you haven't been going to the Limelight."

"I almost forgot that you scout Fay."

 "They already say that your protege is ready to take your crown, he want's to change his name to Succubus.  What does it matter if you give me a child, which is the only thing I can't get for myself when you are going to retire anyway?"

"Oh, Tanya, I wish I could tell you.  I don't want to retire.  I want to be a Fay Queen.  I just have trouble staying happy enough now."

"You should go to your doctor."

"I have.  There isn't anything wrong.  I'm still disgustingly healthy.  I just have nightmares."

"Is it a psychic thing?"

"I don't think it is."

"I could have a child if I have my doctor agree to use sperm from a bank.  But what do I tell my child?  I could easily have a child if only someone would get me pregnant.  And who today would do that?  Only the Fay do not ask commitment.  And I know you.  I could say to our child that their father was beautiful, brilliant, and talented."

"I wish you can find someone.  I won't do it.  And I'm not such a good choice.  You wouldn't know how to raise a child that can throw objects around the room just by thinking about it.  And when they are young or very emotional they have no control at all."

Tanya looked down before looking up.  "I can't force anything on you.  I'm going up to my room.  You can come up there if you want to."  She left the room.

 Amadeo found his Coke and drank it even though it had been sitting.  He lay down on the sofa and closed his eyes.  He counted backwards to himself to relax.  He wanted to get a vision.  Then the feeling came , near weightlessness and the fuzzy electric feeling.

But he was only back in the room with the coffin.  He woke himself immediately.  He lay there on the sofa touching his eager penis through the denim.  It was a real nightmare but it never failed to get him hard now.  It was hopeless.  There was absolutely nothing left.  He got up and started up the stairs.  He wanted just for a little while not to think about anything.

She was sitting up in her bed reading a book.  "Shall I read you a story, Amad?"

He went to the bed and crawled over to her.  He slipped a hand around her neck and kissed her.  She locked her mouth on his and took his shirt off him.  He pushed her robe back off her shoulders next.  He took hold of her hips and pulled her forward.  Amadeo took down his shorts before laying on her.  "My Fay," she said, "My beautiful red-headed Faerie.  I do want you."

Amadeo couldn't think to speak.  He wanted release and having sex now with Tanya would give him at least a semblance of that.  He saw her frown as he put on his gummy-foil.  She didn't stay mad at him.  She held her hands on his ass as he thrust in.  And then inexplicably, he completely lost it.

He turned away from her and hid his head in the pillow. He could feel her pressing against his back.  "Is there something wrong?"

"Yes," he said sounding like a child.

"What is it?"

"You're warm," he whispered.

She left him alone in the room.  He closed his eyes. Nothing was good anymore.  The dreams spoiled everything.  He hadn't made a choice to love dead things.  He couldn't help it.

He felt something cold on his neck, lips.  And freezing hands sliding across his skin.  "You can keep your eyes closed," she whispered.  He kept his eyes closed and turned to face her.  Her lips were cold when he kissed them.  When he felt the cold hands between his legs he drew his breath in a gasp but he was as hard as he could ever remember being.

With his eyes closed it wasn't Tanya he was moving over it was a cold dead thing.  And he felt better than he had in months.  He found his release and then suddenly realized she had taken the foil from him and opened his eyes.

It was just Tanya there.  She had a bucket of ice beside the bed.  She didn't see how horrified he was because her eyes were closed.  He got up and went into her bathroom.  He turned the cold water on and got in the shower.

Amadeo just stood there leaning into the water with his forehead and hands against the fiberglass of the shower stall.  He was crying.  Crying because she'd made him do what he didn't want to do.  He was crying because he had given in to his desire for dead things.  Amadeo was positively horrified.

 Tanya didn't come into the shower, but she stood just outside.  He sensed her there and turned to see her shade pulling on a robe.  "Do you have what you wanted?" Amadeo asked rather sharply.

"I hope so."

"Well, I hope so, because I don't think I'll see you again." He waited for her to say something, but she didn't.  He wiped hot tears from his eyes though the water was washing them away already.  "If you find out you're pregnant I want you to tell my family about it, if I'm not in New York anymore."  Amadeo didn't believe he could even stay in the city anymore now.

"I'll tell them."

Amadeo turned off the water and stepped out of the shower.  He took the towel she gave him.    "You wont get lonely.  Like you said, there are other Fay ready to take my place."  Amadeo put his clothes on.  He reached in his pocket for her house key.  "I really can't come here anymore."  Then he left her house.