The Lake of Dreams

The remembrance of that wonderful day was so vivid, the warm waters toying at her slit so rhythmic and enticing, that Gwen felt an orgasm welling up within her body, like a bubble trapped for aeons deep in the lake suddenly released and rising up, up through the murky depths to explode with a splash on the surface, dying as it was freed. Eyes closed, concentrating on the pleasure she felt, the young woman did not realize that her beloved had at last reached the glade and, seeing her glistening nude form gently bobbing upon the waters of the lake, was swiftly divesting himself of his clothing. Her gleaming body was entrancing, capturing Petr, drawing him in as if she were a sorceress who had laid a glamour upon him, and his erect manhood stood as solid evidence of his desire for her as he completed disrobing.

Their minds on the delights of the flesh, it took both of them by surprise. One moment Gwen was floating--both mentally and physically--with Petr preparing to join her; the next moment slim hands broke through from beneath the surface of the lake, grasping the young woman in a steely grip and dragging her beneath its waters! Snapped out of her erotic reverie, the shocked young woman flailed around, a scream forming on her lips. The water, formerly as attentive as a lover, now flooded cold and lifeless into her mouth, choking her as she coughed and gasped, her thoughts of escape now overridden by the overwhelming desire to breath. Her head spun; the glittering light of the stars blinked out as she spiralled downwards into the inky blackness, to be replaced by flashing lights and thunderous roaring, seemingly from within her own mind, before that too faded and there was only oblivion.

From the shore, Petr looked on in horror as Gwen sank beneath the waves. An anguished cry, as of an animal wounded by a woodsman's arrow, split the clear night air as he galvanized into action, sprinting into the lake before diving forward. Scant few seconds had passed until his strong, clean strokes brought him to the spot where Gwen had disappeared. Filling his lungs, he dove repeatedly into the now-sinister waters, but in the absence of sunlight, the gloom was impenetrable. Yet the young man refused to readily give up, to accept that his love had been torn from him before his eyes. It was not until exhaustion forced him back onto shore--his gut-wrenching sobs mingling with the cries of the night birds that Gwen had loved so dear--that he was forced to admit that she was gone.

He returned with many villagers the following day to search for her, but none save Petr and Gwen's mother would enter the lake, which once again bore a placid face. Yet though they searched the length of the day--until the shadows of the swaying trees had grown long, as had the fears of the villagers, who were growing steadily more insistent that they must be away from this accursed place by nightfall--no trace of the young woman was found. That night hushed voices around the village concurred--the Lake of Dreams had claimed another victim.

And in the grotto where he and Gwen had frolicked, Petr the blacksmith's son built a memorial to his love, fashioning her form in wrought iron as best he could, garlanded in wild iron flowers, serenaded by gleaming iron birds, cleverly constructed so that when the wind that rustled the long grasses caressed it, a low, haunting note sounded along the shore. Though he visited this shrine often (though never at night), Gwen's mother came but rarely, and the other villagers not at all. And the summer eventually turned to fall, and the trees lost their golden leaves and the white snow fell, chill blasts screaming down from the jagged peaks, and life in the village resumed its normal routine. In the fullness of time, Petr assumed the mantel of village blacksmith. He treated Gwen's mother like his own and never looked at another woman with love in his eyes again.