It’s the middle of the night. I just woke up from a very strange dream.

We were sitting at a table. I have no idea where it was, and I guess it doesn’t matter. I think it must have been some kind of sidewalk cafe. The table was very small, really just large enough to hold two cups of coffee and our two sets of elbows. We were sitting across from each other. You were wearing your green top, the one you have on in the picture you sent me. When I see you in my mind, you’re wearing that top, which isn’t surprising, since that’s the only image of you I have. In some of my dreams (both day and night), you are naked, because one of us has taken that top off.

As you can imagine, I like those dreams. I like to think of you, naked in my arms, our passion building as we make love. I like to think of you, naked beside me, as we recover from the exertion of our sex. I like to think of you, naked, holding me as we share a tender kiss. I like to think of you, naked, quiet, a faint smile on your lips, cuddling me as you sleep.

We were sitting at that little cafe table, talking. It was the first time we had met face to face. For some reason, we had agreed when we planned this meeting that we would not touch each other, even to shake hands, until we had finished our first cup of coffee together.

We’ve always been truthful, from the first time we wrote to each other. There has always been trust, from our first awkward phone call. I’ve felt I could tell you anything, and you’ve told me much, too. We’ve shared, and as our relationship has grown, we’ve come to love each other. In a way, I’ve felt that love was inevitable between us, and I’ve not been disappointed.

At our table, we talked, we laughed, we swapped stories and opinions, we did all the fun things we do together on the phone. Remember how that started with us? We traded phone numbers in our e-mails, and then we called. We were acquaintances. We became friends. It wasn’t long before we knew that we loved each other. It has only been a short time, you know, and yet it seems like we’ve loved each other all our lives.

We kept drinking our coffee. We were all alone, together, and every second was better than the one before. We could see each other. We could say anything we wanted to, and no one could hear us. No one interrupted us. No waitress came by to refill our cups, but they never got empty. After a while, we talked about that, wondering how that could be. We couldn’t touch each other until we had finished our coffee – that had been the plan. We had made an agreement, a promise to each other, so we couldn’t touch. We’ve promised to always keep our promises, so all we could do was talk.

It was a beautiful time. We talked for hours, and I loved you for every word you said, but I was getting impatient for your touch. Frankly, I was getting sick of coffee, and you seemed to be, too. Regardless of how much we drank, we couldn’t empty our cups. Did you ever have a frustration dream? One in which you couldn’t do something important, no matter how hard you tried? That’s what I felt. I was so frustrated by the situation, and there didn’t seem to be anything I could do.

It took a while, but I finally got angry. I tried to hide my anger from you, but you saw it. You started to cry.

By now, I know that you know how I feel when I see a woman cry. It can be any woman, a little girl, an old woman on her deathbed, a complete stranger, or a close friend. I’ve told you about that before. I’ve told you how I feel that I have to fix things. I guess I have some sort of hero complex. I dream that knights in shining armor can be real, and I think I must become one when a woman is upset. It’s been that way for as long as I can remember. Sometimes, I wind up looking foolish, I guess. Sometimes I feel like Don Quixote, tilting at windmills, in my case, thinking that I can dry a woman’s tears. It’s worth it, though, because sometimes, in some small way, I succeed. When I can watch a woman’s face change from tears to smiles, I feel like a god.

You certainly know how I feel when you cry, because I love you. That misunderstanding with your friend that upset you so much – I told you how I felt about that. I was prepared to walk to the ocean and swim across it, just to try to make your problem go away, just to fix things, just to dry your tears.

You cried last night because I had shared my upset about my situation with someone else before I shared it with you, the one I love. That made me so sad that I nearly cried with you. I hope you realize now how guilty I felt, and how it broke my heart. Here I was again in my dream, making you cry.

In my dream, I told you I needed to hold you, and you said you wanted that, but that we couldn’t do it until the coffee was gone. You were crying, and I was desperate. I had to do something. I had to fix it. So I did the only thing I could think of to do. I grabbed both our cups and dumped them on the ground.

We looked at each other, and I saw that your tears had stopped. In fact, it looked like you had never been crying at all. You were smiling at me just as broadly as you do in your picture. You asked me if we could be together now, and I said we should try. Then, at the same time, in the slow motion we sometimes have in dreams, we reached out our hands toward each other. For an instant, the tips of our fingers touched.

That’s when I woke up.

I don’t usually remember my dreams in such detail, but this one was more vivid than any I’d ever had. I’ve never tried to write down my memory of a dream, but I had to write to you about this one. I never wondered before about the origin or meaning of my dreams, even though I know that some people put a lot of effort into explaining dreams and finding their message. This dream was different. I had to give it some serious thought. I didn’t mind. In fact, I loved doing it, because it was a dream about you.

Some of the symbolism in this dream is obvious. The cafe table and the cups of coffee are things we’ve talked about as a part of our first meeting. Waiting to be together is something we’ve also talked about. At first, we wanted to meet to get to know each other better. Then we wanted to meet so we could see each other. After a while, we wanted to be able to touch each other. Now, we want to touch each other intimately, to bring our bodies together and to share our love.

Do you remember how this started? One of our early fantasies involved meeting in the coffee shop of a motel somewhere and deciding whether we would get one room or two. I think that waiting to finish our coffee could symbolize our waiting for the “right time” to meet. The fact that we couldn’t finish our coffee, no matter how hard we tried, was a symbol for the longing we now have to be together, and the fact that we still haven’t made the move.

I’ve decided that the fact that I woke up when we first touched is also symbolic, in a good way. I think our first touch will be so exciting, so thrilling, that it will jolt me awake from the blue funk I’ve been in for quite a while. That started, I guess, on that terrible day when those things happened that caused my sense of control of my life to go away. I’ve spent countless hours on the phone with you, crying on your shoulder about that. The only thing that has kept me sane, sometimes, has been you. I’m getting some control of my life back now, as you know, but we’ve said that we needed to wait to meet until things were better for me.

I’m tired of waiting for everything to be like it was for me. I know I can be strong enough now to work around the obstacles. I’m tired of waiting to finish our coffee. It’s time to dump it on the ground and reach out to each other.

We must figure out how to do this. Soon. We can’t wait any longer.

Now, I can go back to bed. I had to write this down, because I didn’t want to forget a single detail. I had to share it with you, and now I have.

We’ll talk when it’s daylight. I’ll stay up for a while to see if you read this when you get up. If you do, call me. We won’t talk long, because I know you have to get ready for work. If you don’t see this until later in the day, I can wait. I’ll go back to bed, and then I’ll call you later. We can make our plans. My life will then be centered on that goal of being together.

I love you.