Note: This story was dynamically reformatted for online reading convenience.
 
 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)