Or, to be more specific, Orchid thought, when she awoke alone in the massive round bed, she did not dream of being stalked by a psychic vampire, even though some would say she had gone to bed with one. She felt remarkably refreshed, given her energetic activities during the night. High overhead morning light blazed through the glass domed ceiling. It poured over the bed like warm honey-syrup and puddled around her in a delicious pool. No nightmares last night. Not one. The extent of her euphoria told her more clearly than anything else could just how much she had come to dread the stalking dream. For the first time she realized how it had nibbled away at the edges of her nerves during the past few days. She wondered if great sex always had such a revitalizing affect. The only way to test the hypothesis would be to do it again, she thought. Soon. She did not know why she had waited until last night to lose her virginity. Heaven knew that in her wild and reckless teenage years she’d done her share of climbing into backseats with the handful of young men who had the courage to date the daughter of one of Northville’s most important academics.
