Charity Claire floated in the warmest of tropical seas. She’d never known she could feel this good. Or that it could last this long. Beside herself with excitement, she’d allowed herself to try with Peter things she’d never done before.

At last, they flowed from white heat into warm red and she slipped into a dream.

An army of children marched with glazed eyes through an endless city, and she was a drum majorette in a ridiculous spangled glittering cap and short red skirt, crying with hearty cheer, “Follow me into the light. Keep up now, keep up!” But her voice was Mr. Smith’s voice, the band director at her high school, a sweet man who had tried his utmost to turn listless and unruly kids into a marching band.

Blushing, she saw she was naked and Mr. Smith kindly led the group while she got dressed, still marching. Then she realized it didn’t matter that she was naked because she was praetorious (the word held perfect meaning in her dream) and she leaped onto the podium, which was moving along with the band. “Follow me to glory!” she cried. “Follow me to victory!”

She came awake with Peter nestled against her, heart pounding from the power of the dream.

Gently she stroked his face with her white hand, enjoying a sudden image of a chocolate marble cake, and made herself say, “Sweetie, I need to go check on Tommy. I’ll be right back.”

Instantly he was the good father he must have been in his other life. “Aw, sure. Wow, how long have we been…?” He rolled beside her.

She felt electric inside; getting up from him was hard. “Hours and hours, I think. It’s wonderful, it’s, it’s a miracle. I’ll be right back, I promise.”

She floated up, weightless on bare feet, fished her nightgown from the tangle of blankets and smiled at the familiar smell of the soft cotton as she slipped it on. She didn’t look at the clock or open the curtains: she didn’t want to know what time it was.

In her living room, her answering machine splashed a hypnotic red gleam onto the ceiling. A voice murmured softly, the grandmother’s voice. She had never heard the grandmother speak. Charity’s heart sang and it came to her for no exact reason that she wanted to legally change her name to Charity Heartstrong.

The old lady sat in the stuffed armchair with Tommy on her lap. She was telling him a story. Rather than disturb them, Charity listened. The hypnotic voice had a charming old-world accent. “The little boy, he nestled into his Vater’s arms as they rode through the darkling wood. ‘Oh Vater,’ says the little one. ‘He comes for me. Can you not see that the Erlkönig comes for me?’ But der Vater, he says calmly, ‘Hush my little one, it is nothing but the sighing of the wind and the swirling of the fog. Speak no more and soon we shall be home and this night ride but a memory.’ And on he rides with the little boy in his arms…”

It didn’t seem like the kind of story to tell a little boy late at night in a dark room, but then Tommy had already met whatever bogeyman this Erlkönig was. He didn’t seem upset. Thumb in mouth, he nodded sleepily. Charity watched for another moment, feeling intensely the snug safety she had created in her home, then went confidently back to the bedroom.

Peter had turned away from her and she felt a dread that had nothing to do with him being a vampire. He would wake up and be through with her. He would dress efficiently while she stopped herself from doing anything to hold him. She’d lived that little drama enough times in the past.

Then she saw that Peter’s shoulders moved with gentle sobs.

Stricken, she realized that he was still a husband and she had snared him into cheating on his wife. “Peter and Charity and our little Tommy,” she had murmured like some kind of Snow Queen and he had stepped into the role.

As if to add to her misery, she saw the bedside clock: it was nearly noon! Behind the drawn curtains it was day and for the first time in her life, she had no-showed at work without calling in sick. The phone message must have been from her angry boss!

She might have run. She might have hidden in the bathroom and dressed quietly and slunk off to work. But instead she did the bravest thing she had ever done, far braver than mouthing off to her boss.

She walked the five steps to her bed and the man who lay there.

Maybe the grandmother’s story helped her: if she wasn’t the strong father, the Erlkönig would creep in with ghostly arms and sweep Tommy and all the others into the cold.

She reached out a shaking hand, which now looked as pallid as a vampire’s against his healthy brown, and touched his shoulder. Praying felt forbidden since she’d just been having sex with wild abandon but she imagined God something like the muscular Italian touching Adam’s hand on the Sistine chapel ceiling. Surely that God had also had a muscular sex life.

Peter seemed to take an hour to roll over and face her.