But then I looked at her, wearing only my black greatcoat, apparently oblivious to the temperature. She was standing at the rail, hair blowing lightly in the icy wind, like a Viking queen surveying her lands, and suddenly I didn't feel the cold anymore.

"You would make a fantastic photograph," I told her. "Always, but especially right now."

She laughed, caught by surprise. "Sweet talk from you? This is a cold day in hell."

"Cold enough." I set my mug on the rail and kissed her. Why not? We were a fait accompli now. Besides, nobody could see much through all this fog anyway, if anybody was looking. "Maybe there isn't any hell after all. I wonder how long I've loved you."

"Not long enough." She smiled all the way into my eyes. "So one night with me canceled out hell for you? Or have you finally just had enough of your bad imagination?"

"She wasn't just my imagination."

"I know."

"She was real. You know that, and so do a couple hundred people from last night." I considered. "All of whom are probably still talking about it. Maybe we should call in sick today."

"I didn't say she wasn't real. I'm saying she had to come from somewhere other than the usual place. My guess is that the somewhere is your pointy head."

"More like my pointy soul," I said darkly, turning away to brood over the deck rail.

She came up behind me and kissed my shoulder. "I'll take all the points off. Just give me time. In the meantime, if you have to repress anything, repress Botticelli cherubs or cute little fuzzy bunnies. Whatever won't hurt anybody if it gets out. Unlike the witch."

"She was real, Cass."

"I know. But so am I."

That struck me as being a perfectly wonderful fact. I was about to suggest that the sunrise start without us when the first light began to glow on the horizon. She held on tight. In five minutes, the sky was full of diffused gold, as the sun slowly began to burn off the fog. I felt as though we were two tiny figures in a light globe that God had just shaken.

"Beautiful, isn't it?" Cassie murmured.

"Very."

"I know it's trite--watching the sun come up together. But I don't care. I say we should dare to be trite. What do you say?"

I laughed. "Trite may be as close to normal as you and I ever get again." She didn't say anything. "Cass?"

"You're going to miss her, aren't you?" she asked softly.

She wasn't gone, not really. But I didn't see any point in telling Cassie so--not that morning, of all mornings. "Maybe. Some."

"Much?"

"I don't know," I lied.

"Well, I'll work on that too. It's not like I didn't know that you're a fixer-upper. But you have possibilities." She gave me an affectionate little squeeze. "Now, what if I call in sick for both of us, and we go back to bed?"

"Works for me. Meet you there in a minute."

She took her time detaching herself, but didn't argue, and finally went in to find a phone. Not sure what I was feeling, I took my time collecting our coffee mugs.

Yes, I was going to miss Monica, but not for the reasons that Cassie probably thought. With Monica, I'd had an unbeatable excuse: She was a supernatural being, and she made me do it.

I had no such excuse now. Cassie was many things, but none of them supernatural, and although she may have started what eventually happened last night, I had willingly finished it. Worse, it had been a highly romantic, wildly erotic, zero-atheists night. Somewhere in my pointy soul, a Big Stick God was bound to start pounding the drums soon, howling for blood.

Suddenly, though, I knew that was a crazy way to think. The world was full of consenting adults of greater, bolder sexual wickedness--people who might whack a Big Stick God right back--who went on reveling in their pleasures, triumphantly alive. Cassie and I were alive, too. What was more, she was inside right now, guiltless, loving me, waiting.

To hell with what anyone else might think or say or do. I loved her, too, and we were going to work this thing through, one sunrise at a time.

Mugs in hand, I was almost to the door when a shadow fell over the deck, and a raven lighted on the deck rail. My heart stopped for a second--partly from dread and partly from hope.

"Monica?" I whispered.

The raven cocked its head but said nothing. I stared at it, and it stared at me.

Then I remembered: Cassie was real, and Monica was...

Well, nevermore, if we were lucky.

I scared the bird away, locked the deck door behind me, and took the stairs up to the bedroom two at a time.

(c) 1999, ROCFanKat