I should have realized that I was falling in love with him sooner, but it is easy to overlook the most obvious things when you do not wish to see them. Things like how he was starting to focus on his dreams in his waking life, which is never a thing to be encouraged — that is another of the rules we follow.

My reasoning made sense at the time, or so I prefer to think. My goal was not to let him chase a fantasy, but to get him more accustomed to talking to potential romantic partners, so I intentionally avoided reading into what he wanted from a relationship, or what he found attractive. If I had paid more attention to what it was he was looking for, I might have realized what was happening.

Instead, I worked my way along, night to night, dream to dream, enjoying the fact that I seemed to be having an effect on his waking life — he was happier, certainly, when he went to sleep.

The sign I should never have missed happened one night when he was scheduled for what you would call a wet dream. Now, most of the time, I will pass such a dream off to a sylph who specializes in erotic dreams. Such things are universal and part of what we do, but even to a dream sylph they can be strange at times, so most of us leave the weaving of them to experts.

This time, though, I took the dream myself. While each person’s flight of fantasy is different, there are constants; the focus is usually on the dreamer, and it is usually rather perfunctory. Certainly nothing romantic from our perspective, nor should it be, though on occasion it can be fun.

I wanted him to enjoy himself, so for the first time I went looking in detail for what sort of person he found attractive. His mental list was not unusually long, and it was strangely vague. Missing were the famous faces and former lovers one might expect. It was as if even he was not quite sure what it was he wanted. I pieced together the best I could — a base of the co-worker from accounting with bits taken from women scattered among his fantasies. Perhaps I should have recognized the hazy fragments of faces that he had attempted to put to canvas, but I did not.

Regardless, my form was quite appealing if I do say so myself. I laid out the normal pattern for such dreams — a comfortable spot from one of his warmest and most pastoral imagined places, a striking red dress and some appropriate lingerie for myself, and for him the insubstantial idea of clothing, sufficient to provide comfort but easy to will away without going missed. For his state of mind I wove myself as someone he was romantic with, but no one specific.

These dreams usually get right to business, so I cheerfully led him down a path to a spot beside a glassy pond surrounded by broad-branched trees, and playfully pushed him onto the grass.

And then he surprised me. Rather than any of the things you might expect in such a dream, he looked directly at me, gave the most wonderful smile, and said, “Your eyes are beautiful.”

It’s not a line of any note, but it meant more to me than any other compliment could have. You see, while we sylphs have no fixed physical form, we do have what you might call a tell. In every dream, when we take an active role, there is some clue that is constant — a color, for which most of us are named. You would never notice it in a dream — we make sure of that — but mine showed in my eyes.

And then he surprised me again, when he said “May I kiss you?” to which I did not object. His was the kiss of an attentive lover, he ran a hand down my neckline, stroked my hair, yet he was so gentle I felt at something of a loss — I’m used to something much more direct in a dream of the sort.

Then came the greatest surprise, when he pulled away and asked me if there was something wrong. Now, there indeed was — he had so startled me that I had completely broken character, and it must have showed on my face. Yet I did not by any means want him to stop.

At that point I surprised myself, and took the first knowing step down this tragic path. I kissed him back this time, not playing the role of a fantasy in his dream, not even as a sylph enjoying an intimate moment with a dreamer, but as myself, nothing more, nothing less.

The dream lasted far longer than such dreams usually do, and yet seemed far too short to me. When he woke I stayed for a while in the dream I had woven, sitting on the grass of his whimsy, looking at the pond from his imagination, and not thinking particularly deeply about what I had just done.