My wife is as terrified as I, fleeing with me through the dark and constricted alleyways of an old and decrepit city. The air is thick with the stench of refuse and the smell of food cooking over open flames as we pass between the cramped and overcrowded tenements that rise like cliffs around us.

This woman, whom I believe to be my wife, pleads with me to find help or escape, but we both know there is none to be found. We round a corner, only to see the Hoodoo, in his top hat and ancient suit, silhouetted in a cloud of steam billowing from the buildings around us.

“Please, Im sorry!” I beg, but the man’s grin carries no mirth.

“There is no help for you,” he replies as he points his serpent-headed cane. “You have no sorrow for your words or your deeds. Your regret now is only that you must pay the price for your sins.”

My wife cries and pleads, but the man only has eyes for me. “Uncaring and rude you were to me, ignorant as the rich always be. So many of the poor have you wronged, and you never cared to know what was done in your name. Monied wretches! Hah! Only now do you see.”

Raising his cane, his eyes roll back, and his voice resonates with a deep and eerily melodious chant.

“I curse you now,

both you and your wife,

with this harbinger of doom.

Her heart will grow cold 

and unmercifully hard, 

as my curse become her tomb.

And you, her man, 

will suffer her fate 

as the weight of the years pass by.

Haunted you’ll be 

by the face you will see

from the depths of your own minds eye.

Life after life,

you’ll live and you’ll die,

haunted by an unknown need.

Scream she will,

in silent despair

until, by your tears, she is freed.”

***

There was a scream of terror on my lips when I woke. My heart was pounding in my chest, and my skin was covered in a cold sweat that thoroughly soaked my sheets. I felt as if I’d fallen from a great height, and my mind raced as images of a dark man with a top hat and a tattoo’d face pronounced his sentence over me, and the woman I loved.

I have been haunted by this same dream for as long as I can remember. Those words, spoken by a man I have never seen, echo in my soul.

Once again, the dream faded quickly, its details evaporating from my mind like a wisp of smoke. Only the sound of his curse, uttered with a cajun twang, and laced with the poison of his hate, remain to haunt my day. That, and the eternal beauty of a woman whose smile is all that can bring calm to the tempest in my soul.

They say that artists are usually tortured by their inner thoughts. I have heard this pain is what drives us to create things others can only imagine. For me, at least, that is only partially true. I’ve been sculpting out of marble and stone for as long as I could hold a hammer and chisel, but most of my creations have nothing to do with my many, vivid dreams. Those works pay my bills, but they mean nothing to me.

No, the one piece I keep is the one I could never sell. It is a life size work, one of such beauty that it almost pains me to gaze upon it. When I do, I know it was less my creation from the stone than something I freed from its grasp. I call it ‘Forlorn Love’, for that is what I feel when I gaze upon it, but in my heart, I hear the name ‘Rose’ calling out to me.

Posed in a moment of sublime happiness, she stands as if leaning in toward a lover, with her lips forming the same hopeful smile I see in my thoughts. Her body is petit but round, with pleasantly wide hips, and breasts that rise full and apparently firm from her chest. Her nipples are hard and thick, easily visible as they poke through the thin gown that forever clothes her marbled body. She is literally the woman of my dreams, and my heart aches to know I will only ever see her realized in the cold form of a marble statue.

“Good morning, Rose,” I whispered as I caressed her cheek. Often, I came down to my shop to drink my coffee with her as if she were something more than stone.

“Now, don't look at me like that," I chided. “Is the fact that I’d rather spend time with you than a woman of flesh and blood really that pathetic?”

Her carved eyes stared silently back, mocking my words, and even her iconic smile seemed to fade as if she were scoffing at my foolishness.

“I know,” I said in reply to her muted silence. “You’re right, I need to get out and live. I just wish you were more than rock. I wish you could speak, Rose. I wish you could tell me who you really are. Is that so much to ask?”

Silently, Rose stared back. She seemed so real that I often expected to hear her reply, but her lips never parted, and the stone of her body never carried the warmth of life I craved so deeply.

“I dreamed of you again last night." I told her. "It was the most frightening of my dreams, Rose. The one with the Voodoo man and his curse. I hate that dream, yet I almost look forward to it these days.”

Rose’s expression remained frozen, but I could almost hear her question, and I answered with an exasperated sigh.

“Why? Because, in it, you are alive, Rose! It is the only one where I can see you in life! The only one in which I can touch your face! For all its horror, it is the only time I’m really able to be with you! For that reason alone, I never want it to stop. Does that make sense to you?”

I shook my head and caressed her cheek again.

“Other dreams haunt my nights, Rose. Sometimes I see myself as a painter, frantically fluttering my brush over the canvass, creating the same vision of beauty as I behold in you. Other nights, I am a musician, composing sorrowful music to a long lost love. In each, I am seeking that same feeling of love, and helplessly searching for an answer to a question I can never ask. Who are you, Rose, and why do you rule my dreams?”

As has happened on so many mornings, a tear from the loss I felt formed in my eye and dropped wetly on the stone of her hand. I had once even believed that these tears might break the curse the Hoodoo laid in my dreams, but like all fantasies, such things carry no power into the stark reality of the waking world.

"Obsession is a wicked curse." I told her as I gazed into her unblinking eyes.

"Even something as fantastical as a dream begins to carry a reality when it appears enough, Rose. My dreams of you seem so very real. It's as if I am living in another time. I desperately want to believe they are real, if for no other reason than it would prove I'm not insane."

"No," I admitted after a pause. "That's not quite true. No, I want my dreams to be real because it would mean that you are real. My Rose, my Forlorn Love. If only I could remember those dreams in greater detail."

I gazed at her but she remained silent to my ears. Lovingly, I caressed her cheek again as I prepared to leave. "My darling," I said, trying one last time to make her hear. "You have no idea how hard I try. Each morning I clutch at those thoughts, those memories of you, only to have them burn away like the morning fog."

***

Pondering this later, I realized that I needed those memories if I was ever going to find peace in my life, or perhaps even the love I sensed laying just beyond my grasp.

I began recording myself as I slept, hoping I'd speak of her in my sleep. I kept a pad and pen by my bed, and quickly scribbled anything new I could recall before the memory slipped away. In time, a story unfolded, one I never expected. It was a story that chilled me to my very bones.

The earliest of these, if time even mattered, was in the days just before the Civil War, and the curse of the Voodoo man. This woman, a dark haired beauty named Rose, was my wife of many years. I was a wealthy land owner, if the scenes of rolling hills and tilled land were true. We were happy, and lived a life of blissful ignorance.

The man I was in those dreams was far different from the man I am today. He was proud and arrogant, and he treated those beneath his station with a criminal disdain. It was just this arrogance that his, or should I say my, destruction was wrought. Somehow, and even now the details remain obscured in the haze of my vision, I incurred the wrath of this man. In his vengeance, he cast a terrible curse upon me and my wife. She was taken by the spell, and swept away while I was left behind to be tortured by her memory for all eternity.

I had other dreams of other lives. I lived as a painter and a composer, as a writer and a philosopher. In all those incarnations, I was haunted by the lost memory of my beautiful Rose. It seemed the Hoodoo's curse was meant to follow me throughout the ages and beyond the grave. In all those lives, I struggled to break the curse, and in all of those lives I failed to set my love free of his power.

It seems ridicules to speak of such things as being real, but obsession is a powerful force. Over time, these dreams became my reality. I spent hour after hour, and day after day with my marbled love, trying to beg her forgiveness. Trying to free my Rose from her mystical cage. Those dreams, and the Hoodoo curse, no longer seemed the stuff of fantasy to me. In my mind, I had accepted them as real, and I longed to find a way to bring my lost love back to flesh and blood.

For months, I searched old libraries and dug through ancient tomes of mysticism and magic. I found all manner of supposed cures and methods of dispelling a curse, but my Rose remained a thing of stone. All the while, my dreams only became more painful to bear.

Finally, in my despair, I came to her again. “I am so sorry, Rose." I begged. "I have tried everything to free you. I have tried in this life and in so many before this time. Each time, I fail.”

I could sense her smile, but underneath, I knew she was suffering far worse than I.

“I brought this upon us, Rose,” I confessed. “It was my arrogance, and my ignorance that brought us to this end. I am the one who deserved to suffer, Rose. Not you. Please, my love. Please forgive me.”

Hot tears rolled down my face, not simply the tears of my loss, but of regret for the man I once was. One after the other, they poured from my eyes and dripped in wide splashes one her marbled cheek. The pain I felt was unbearable.

It was then, in my darkest moment of despair, that the miracle I sought came to pass.

The polished white of marbled stone softened as my tears rained on my Rose. The warmth of life, and the glow of her skin spread from her cheeks, until her frozen form become the body of the woman I had for so long seen in my dreams.

Warm arms encircled my neck, and her soft lips found mine. My Rose had returned to me and I was overcome with joy!

“Rose, is it you? Are you really here? I can barely believe it!” I gasped, completely and joyfully amazed by her sudden reality.

“Yes, husband!” she replied with fresh tears in her newly awakened eyes, “It is me, your Rose. I have waited so long for you, Mark. I’ve waited through so many lifetimes. You brought me back. You brought me back to you!”

“You know, my name? You know who I am?”

Rose nodded and wiped the tears from her eyes. “Yes, I know you, husband. I have watched you in all of your lives. I have seen your pain, my love. In all those years, you never forgot me. You never gave up. Whatever your name may be in this life or the last, I love you now more than I ever have. You saved me, husband. You saved us both.”

I was overcome. All of my years of pain and longing were washed away in the single moment. I kissed her lips and held her tightly in my fear that she might vanish again. Her silken hair tickled my face, and she returned each kiss with a passion that equaled my own.

“Love me, husband,” she whispered. “Make love to me as your wife. Take me to our bed and let me feel alive again.”

"Yes, Rose, I will." I replied with growing joy. "Nothing in this world would make me more happy." Sweeping her up in my arms, I dashed up to my bed and carefully laid my wife into its soft embrace.

The thin covering I'd carved as clothes into her statue had become a light, gossamer cloth, transparent enough to reveal the fine details of her body. It clung erotically to her skin in such a way that every movement she made filled me with a great desire.

I might have expected her to cover herself with her hands, or perhaps hide her modesty under the sheets while I disrobed, but Rose languidly stretched her body as she watch me reveal myself to her. All the while, her deep brown eyes sparkled with a playful glint, and her gaze shamelessly flowed down my body until it came to rest on my growing manhood.

Reaching out, she took me into her hand and stroked my length until my erection stood proud and firm.

Her pleasant laugh followed, and I chuckled with her as the pleasure of her touch began coursing through me. Her grip on my shaft was tight and firm, and she pumped me slowly, causing my knees to tremble.

"I had forgotten how you felt in my hand," she murmured. “So hard, yet soft. It amazes me that I can make you like this. That I can have such a profound affect by simply holding you."

Rose sat up on the bed but her hand never left my cock. "You know, husband, I have been with you all these years. I watched you, and I know how much you've missed me." She spoke wistfully, as if she was lost in thought.

Cupping my balls in the palm of her hand, she felt their weight. All the while, the speed of her other increased on my glans. "I have also seen you lay with other women."

"Rose, I'm sorry..." I began, but she shushed me with a smile.

“You have nothing to apologize for. You’ve been a saint. There was never a need for you to be a priest as well. You were a man in all of those lives, and a man needs comfort. I could never begrudge you that.”

I could barely even speak. The warmth of her touch, and the constant rhythm of her hand on my cock, were weaving a spell over me and I eagerly succumbed to her wiles. Drops of translucent moisture appeared on my glans, and she worked the lubricating juice into my skin as her hand continued its up and down course over my throbbing erection.

"I have seen the things you've done with those women. Things we never dreamed were proper in our time,” she went on. “I long to feel you touch me like that, husband. I long to do the same to you. You've freed me from the Hoodoo curse, and now, like you, I want to be free of the shackles of my day."

Her mouth drew close to my cock as she spoke, and with pursed lips, she graced my glistening head with the most tender of kisses.

I moaned in ecstasy as Rose parted her lips and slid her mouth down, allowing my cock to slip over her tongue. Her wet embrace pulled on my flesh, sucking on me with a gentle pressure. It was an exquisite sensation that soon had me trembling in need. She seemed to be exploring my shape in her mouth, and my taste on her tongue. Deeper, and with greater effort, she sucked, until my shaft was moving in and out of her soft lips with a graceful ease.

"Oh yes, Rose. I think you are going love living in this time."

"Mmm, I already do. I love how you feel in my mouth. I never would have imagined that the part of you that feels so good inside me would be this wonderful to suckle."

Rose smiled warmly, then taking me by the hand, guided me to the bed.

"Lay down for me. I wish to do this for you properly, as a woman should for her man.”

With my knees already threatening to fail, I was in no position to argue. Eagerly, I lay on my back and watched, mesmerized as this beautiful vision of a woman rose to her knees and ran her tongue up the length of my cock.

“Oh, my God, Rose. That feels so good. You’re making me so hard for you.”

“Mmm, that is my desire. I wish you to feel like a man.”

“It’s working, Rose,” I moaned in return. “It’s working really well.”

The moist embrace of her mouth slipped back over my cock, pulling it up and taking me deep. I felt the subtle flicking of her tongue swirling around my glans as she caressed me with loving care. Through my fog of desire, I watched her as she knelt over me, bobbing her head as she sucked.

Her body, the shape I had carved from the vision of my dreams, was the most perfect and sexy I’d ever seen. Her hips swayed hypnotically as she suckled my cock, and her back arched seductively with each downward motion of her head. My gaze traveled over her, taking in the erotic beauty of her every curve, until it came to rest on her firm and heaving breasts.

Like perfect cones, they hung down, pendulously heavy from her chest. Her nipples were hard and pert, and I couldn't resist rubbing one against my palm. The pebble hard nub felt wonderful in my hand, and I pinched it hard, until Rose whined around my cock.

Fearing I’d gone too far, I pulled my hand away, but Rose pulled off my cock and brought my hand back to her breast.

"Do not be gentle with me. I love the feel of your touch. Pinch me until I wince. I want the pleasure and the pain. Unleash yourself on me if that is your desire. I want you to make me yours again.”

Rising, I took her in my arms and kissed her deeply. “You are mine, Rose. Just as I am yours. I’ve dreamed of you for longer than I can remember, and I need to have you now.”

Biting her lip, Rose pushed me back down and lifted my now throbbing cock to her lips. “Then take me, husband. Do to me whatever you desire. It is my desire to satisfy your carnal needs, and I long to feel the heat of your passions.”

Though I loved her with all my heart, my lustful needs could not be denied. Holding her head in my hands, I began thrusting upwards, forcing my cock deeper into her throat until she was coughing saliva down upon on my balls. Her face reddened with effort, but though she was struggling, Rose made no effort to pull away.

I was in a moment of heated frenzy, caught between hazy memories of a proper woman from another time, and her desire to enjoy our passions in a more modern way. The warm wetness on my cock, and the soft caresses of her lips sliding over my sensitized flesh, caused me to lose any semblance of control. My heart pounded in my chest and my masculine needs overrode my tender sensibilities.

Sucking with renewed effort, her lips caressed my shaft with the subtle touch of butterfly wings. Over and over again, her tongue flicked out and licked me with wicked intent, sliding and probing under my head until I was panting with need for my ultimate release. With a feral grunt, my body grew tense, and I pulled back until only my head remained in her mouth.

"I'm gonna come, Rose!” I gasped sharply. "I want you to swallow it all! Show me you can do this for me."

Rose nodded and squeezed her lips around my pulsing shaft as my hot cum exploded into her mouth. Easing my grip, I allowed her to suck me through it all. The hot mixture of her saliva and seed spilled out from her mouth, running down my shaft and pooling in the tangled mass of my pubic curls.

“Oh, fuck, Rose! I cant believe how good that felt.” My heart was racing as she slid against me and my chest rose and fell as my breath came deep.

“I loved having you in my mouth. It gave me such a sense of power. I feel like such a hussy, and as your wife, I wish to be one for you.”

Rose blushed and giggled as she spoke, and I could see how strangely liberated she felt. With a gentle touch under her chin, I brought her lips to mine and kissed her deeply, enjoying the lingering taste of my pleasure on her lips.

“Oh, goodness, husband. I had no idea you would be willing to share that taste.” Her reddened blush deepened, and I could only chuckle at her surprise.

“There is nothing about our love that doesn't arouse me, Rose. No touch or taste I don't long to feel. I want all of you, and I want to give you all of me in return. There is no shame in our bed.”

Rose smiled and relaxed into the sheets. “Thank you, husband. I could ask for nothing more.”

“There is always more, Rose,” I whispered as I rolled on my side. Kissing her softly, I caressed her with my fingertips, tracing a soft line from her throat downward between her breasts. With slow and gentle motions, I fluttered my touch over her body, making her tingle with each gentle caress. Bringing my mouth to her still hard nipples, I sucked each into my mouth before biting her with enough force to make her gasp.

"Oh God, husband. You are making me as moist as the summer rains. I need you inside me!” she gasped, but I shook my head.

I felt sated from my orgasm, and in my playful afterglow, I was determined to tease her. I wanted to prolong our joy, and to make her earn my penetration of her body. “Not yet, Rose,” I explained. I want to show you how good you made me feel.”

“Oh my, are you going to… ohh yes!” Her words faded into a long sigh as my kisses trailed down her heaving stomach. With gentle love bites and wet kisses, my lips left a shinning trail over her skin until I had settled between her thighs. With my hands under her knees, I lifted her legs, pressing her thighs to her breasts, before slipping my tongue between the puffy swell of her lips.

I heard her sigh deeply, and her back arched slightly as I slid my tongue into the moistness of her depths. Dragging my tongue upward and back, I lathered her sex, until her petals opened like her namesake flower in the morning sun.

Writhing under my licks, Rose held her legs close, allowing my hands to caress her thighs. Like a gentle massage, I let my touch flow over her glowing skin while my lips sucked and glossed over her succulent flesh. Soon, her natural juices were flowing like dew, mixing with my saliva and coating her sex with a glistening sheen.

“That feels so good. You can kiss me so every day if you wish. I feel like I’m being wound on a spool. It is an almost unbearable pleasure, yet I only crave more.”

I could feel her hips rolling in my grasp, and I knew she was already getting close. My erection had reawakened, and my own need began to call. I could resist her desire no longer. Flicking my tongue upward, I began caressing her clit with soft, rapid licks.

“Unh, yes! Don't stop! Oh, my God, I’m going to scream… Ahh, yes!” Rose’s soft soprano grew husky and deep, and then I heard her make the most erotic sounds I’ve ever heard. He body wracked and quivered as her orgasm exploded, and she welcomed the earthy joy like a women who had been denied its pleasure for ages.

It took several long moments for her body to calm. Trembles and quivers rolled through her again and again as I softly kissed her mound. Finally, her breath returned and she smiled meekly, embarrassed at the strength of her moment.

"That was exquisite, husband. I never dreamed such pleasure could be felt. Please, come to me now. I want to feel you inside me. I want you to take me, and make me yours."

Moving over her, I kissed her deeply as she received me between her thighs. "I've wanted you just as badly," I explained. "With all my heart, Rose, I've needed you for as long as I can remember."

Rose took me in her hand and guided me toward her sex, brushing my head against her folds until I was coated in her dew. With I slight shift, I found her soft opening and pressed forward, spreading her lips around my intruding member.

Arching her hips, she drew me in, murmuring in bliss as I slid inside her. "Yes,” she intoned in a deep and husky voice. “I’ve wanted you for so long, my love. I have missed your strength. Come into me now, I want you so badly."

Gazing into her eyes, I braced myself for a long moment, until I was certain she was ready. Then, with a single, hard thrust, I drove my cock deeply into her wet and hungry channel.

Rose's eyes grew wide and her mouth formed an erotic ‘O’ of pleasure as I forced her passage open. Our connection was deep, and our bodies heaved as we became one. We were merging together, and we moaned in unison as the intimate joining of our bodies flowed into our hearts.

Her sex was slick and tight, and my movement inside her was as physically intense as it was emotionally powerful. We held each other close, touching, and kissing in harmony as our long denied moment played out in a symphony of passion.

Rose gasped each time I slid into her, murmuring in an almost pained excitement as my need grew hot. Faster and faster, I plunged into her until the bed was creaking below us. Holding her tightly, my lips found hers as I drove my cock deeply into her slick and clenching hole.

“Let me hear you,” she gasped as my moment approached. “I want to hear you peak! I want to hear you filling me with your seed!”

It was too much, and with a final, frenzied series of thrusts, I growled and tensed as my hot cum exploded from my body and flowed into her womb. Rose was panting hard as I came, and her eyes sparkled with joy as she accepted my essence. Breathlessly, I collapsed on her body, and she held me in her arms as the wracking pleasure of our lovemaking pulsed through my soul.

In the days and weeks passed, old memories of her from another life began to surface in my waking mind. Perhaps it was just having her with me, but I prefer to believe it was the effect of my breaking the curse.

Whatever the cause, I learned that Rose and I had been a couple in the twilight of our years, and in an irony that may have been a reward for my remorse, we were given a newfound youth, and a chance to fully relive our lives. If so, than the Hoodoo, who had caused us such sorrow, left us with a last blessing in reward for a lesson learned.