In the darkened theater, she watched him work magic.

He was alone on the stage, silhouetted by the glow of a bright light behind his perfect body, a single stone figure brushed by the dust motes swimming in the heavy air. The music was breathed in by the voice of a flute, and slowly he began his dance.

As his back arched and he yawned with a stretch, a thrill went through her unobserved.

The hard light behind him faded as a softer one rose up in its place, revealing the color of his olive skin and touching the tips of his expert curls with pale gold. He moved with all the strength and subtlety of the mountain, the trees, the wind itself, moved like the poetry from whence his character had sprung. His moves were flawless; they matched the beautiful alien music of Debussy as though he had written the prelude himself. Every tendon, every nerve pulsed in precisely the right tempo.

She was so enthralled by his performance that she had to remember to take a breath. When she did, it was as if all the sweet air brought a new life into her lungs, and she could almost feel his dance being practiced in her own body, her own arms and legs moving with the ebb and flow of the wonderful fantasy. She closed her eyes briefly and felt a delicious shiver.

His eyes were closed now, too, the playful ecstasy of the dance carrying him to a higher place, and he would have appeared to be lost completely if not for his performance having been so carefully rehearsed. She could not fathom him learning this part, becoming this beautiful creature every day for hours on end. It seemed like it would be too much. The way his expression changed as he moved drew her closer in the same way that the haunting melody grasped the fibers of her heart and pulled. She felt as though she were floating, no longer trapped inside the audience. She was being carried right into his beckoning arms, into his perfect dance.

Then all of a sudden he was not alone. The young nymphs brushed by his exquisite shoulders with their sheer scarves bristling his skin, danced a dance so equally beautiful and mesmerizing that she knew he was no longer hers. She watched him taken by their scent, by their enchantment, and her spirit sank slowly down and settled again reluctantly inside the confines of her skin. She noted sadly that even in the theft of his priceless heart, he was still indescribably faultless. She thirsted for his honey-sweet mouth, for his silent screams of joy; she watched the piebald colors bending over the muscles of his sinewy thighs and longed for the wiry strength in his chest; she let all the feverish madness of his fantastical beauty soak her with its warmth, and then she absorbed it, licked every drop from her lips and yearned to be washed with it again. And all the while he pranced flirtatiously around the young maidens on the stage.

In that moment she decided one thing: He would be hers, no matter what it took.

A single gowned wood princess now danced alone with him, threateningly close to his thriving muscles. Every time that she thought he would take her in his arms, the girl made an artful escape and a sigh of relief passed through his admirers in the audience. Still, the fleeting moments of relief did not stop the courting scene from keeping her on the edge of her seat. When at last the coy nymph broke away and capered backstage, her fingers relaxed their death grip on the armrest.

Why was her heart beating so rapidly, what strain of desire had forced her happiness to tears of unrequited anguish, the moment his lips formed her imagined name? For now did she believe in true, pure love, and this love only...

He twitched imperceptibly, and she could have sworn she'd caught one amber-blue eye, and held it in her tantalizing gaze.

For a moment her heartbeat stilled, and the shyest smile lifted the corners of her mouth.

He was the Faun, and he was her dream.