Memory
by History's Deceit

As I rolled to the side, shifting the covers, she pressed up against my back.
``Danny, me boy, we've come a long way.''

Memory plays games when the nights are cold. Memory talks and I sleep, and we
all grow old.

The air conditioner kicked on in the hotel room, and my upstairs neighbor
stumbled into his bathroom.

``Danny, you love me, don'cha?''

I stopped thinking in terms of love a while ago. Maybe because I forgot what the
term meant, maybe because I found it in all the other terms I used. ``I miss you.
I want you. I need you.''

``That's what you say.'' She stroked the side of my face in a maternal gesture,
then rested her hand upon me, like a lover. ``That's what you say, now.''

I remember a night back in my apartment, a thousand miles away. You staring up into
my face with your mouth slightly open...expectant. I remember kneeling between your
legs on the couch, feeling my way across the varied landscape of your mons.

It's cold here, at night.

I remember the struggling inexactetude of sex, the melting and melding of feeling and
feeling, feeling my way along you with a startled kiss in the night.

I remember the vagueness in the sensation of sex, with the mind playing tricks through a
condom on my skin and yours feeling damp and cold with anticipation like ice in the
night.

Like a candle's flame with the wax poured on your belly to meet with and say hello to
the liquid pressure of my hands on your back gripping you to me and lifting you from
the cushion of the couch putting all the weight on your ass as you struggled to meet
a thrust, threading your hair with mine as my hands run through the red strands while
my elbow holds them down and you gasp as I remove the pressure.

And I remember kissing your lips - wet and cold with your breath, reminded of the
mechanics of our act, as the kiss pressed my chest against yours, the pressure of a
shoulder and the weakness of an elbow, before being poked by a knee.

I remember the soft quiet pressure of settling down with you on the couch, both of us
uncomfortable, but too sated to move, restless with pleasure.

``Yes, love, that's how it was.''

I can feel the soft points of her nipples catching, sliding along my back. ``That's
how it was.''

And Memory deludes. The smell of your men's cut shirt grows fainter now, reminding
me that the smell is mostly fabric softner, and that all the scents about you are because
of your soap, your shampoo, your conditioner, your fabric softner, your occaisional perfume.

Not you.

And Memory kisses my shoulder, a tepid pulse of doubt doubt doubt sliding in along the
floor.

And I roll over, throwing my arm around the waist of this girl, this phatasm who is taller
now in the moonlight through the window, maybe curly-haired, maybe high of cheek. Maybe
she smells of hotel soap and bottled water, maybe she smells of the whiskey I had two nights
before.

The moon's light fades, and in the last glimmer of it she languidly necks over to kiss me.

We brush lips.

She kisses maybe how you would kiss, how you did kiss me, how I thought I might have been
kissed on a night against the wall of my apartment, with the scent of the spice rack next
to us, while the candle wicked a sudden smoke and you looked at my eyes devilish with
happiness and uncontrolled yes you pulled me to you - with me ignoring the flame to meet
you, not noticing the heat of you as I would in a story, nor the feel of you as I would
describe later though I don't know it as then, nor the smell of you, nor the taste of you
as I cannot describe now. No.

No, I cannot describe. All my adjectives wander into maybe, into not-quite.

And when I kiss her, I don't know how she kisses, with a slight muoue of the lips,
with a flick of the tongue, after, with a hungry bite of the jaw. But she does
part her legs, and I do accept. And it is warm, under these sheets, and I am tired.

It's like this, when you're fucking Memory.

I remember a night with your face half-lit by the reflection of a candle, as we nodded
off in the altar of your bed.

I remember being warm, and clutching you because I was scared that it would all end in
a moment, and I would be as alone as I am right now, thrusting with Memory.

And I remember your arm coming around, and you did not grip me, but rested with me.

And I miss you.

And I miss you.

Memory sighs in my ear ``Soon.''

And I smile, and I tell her for you: ``Soon.''


I miss you,
f. aces

(see you at the airport tomorrow)
