short thing #12

the desert is cold at night

She had written him a letter. Long ago. She’d sent it, too. And he’d sent one back. But now she’s waiting for the cursor to reply.

Blink.

Blink.

Blink.

He knew her words. And her his. They’d been talking for years. For hours and hours and hours. Years and years.

Blinking for years.

She wanted more than that. Now.

Once upon time they’d met and loved each other. In the physical sense. They’d known each other, so well, since then though. Known each other’s pains and tribulations. Partners. Exes. Lives. Details. And nothings, sometimes. Sometimes nothing. They had always talked. They’d had months off, too.

They lived so far away.

So blinking and talking and texting and emailing and chatting was all they had. All they’d had for years.

Except once. She had seen him. But he was busy.

He replies in riddles. Then words of love. Then current affairs and rubbish. She hates clichés. Everyone has read them before. Everyone know how the story is going to end. Every single time.

Pains and tribulations.

She misses him.

When they first met they were only there for the fun. They argued, good naturedly, even. There was no true love. Not for years. Maybe not even now. But she compares everyone else to him.

She doesn’t really know what he thinks. Most women don’t really know what men think. Really. But maybe it’s just her. Maybe she doesn’t really know what anyone else really thinks.

It sounds so paranoid when she writes that down.

He tells her ‘one day’.

She’s ok with that. She’s been ok with that forever. She certainly doesn’t need him. She gets on with her life just fine. Likes her life, too.

Most people don’t seem to admit that. Not in her country, at least. Liking your life is like being a bit of a tall poppy.

People don’t believe you.

Especially when they can see, from the outside, that you’re so obviously lacking.

When they were young and free, they loved just so. They came together in another place and they built a few memories there. Very few. But golden.

She remembers one afternoon, in a handful, when they were lying in the sunshine and he had his hand on her lower back. It wasn’t a sexual move, they were, in fact, fatigued from a morning of this, but they were comfortable and calm. There were no pretences then. There were no reasons to pretend, either way. They were chatting and sunning and friends. Maybe.

But his long hand was holding the small of her back as he held her tight to him. Her head on his chest as they laughed. His fingers just poking into the top of her jeans. Onto her arse. Into her arse crack. Just.

And she loved that.

Once he wrote her a letter that she read and read and read until it was worn out. Not so much the paper, but the words.

She read them until they meant nothing. And everything.

She wore them out.

They had once climbed a hill. It was paved in old stones and gold.

When they got to the top they kissed. But they didn’t have any money to go inside the Castle. They looked at the outside and dreamed about what lay within.

Then they got drunk. And returned to bed.

And kissed some more.

He would write to her every few weeks and then every day. And then not again for ages. They were not in each other’s pockets or back yards. They didn’t know each other’s day to day. But maybe, they knew each other’s soul.

If you believe in that sort of thing.

But most of their memories had been made with words. From great fucking distances. Great. Fucking.

She had screamed at him once and his silence hurt her more than any of the words they’d ever spoken or written or understood. His lack of reply. They had only truly had this one dispute, in all of those years, but it was real. Because the words they said were designed to hurt the other. She thought again, about not knowing what other people think. And realised she wasn’t sure. But her words had definitely been designed to hurt him.

Eventually he forgave her. And they came back together. But something had changed. The daydream had been tainted. And there was something more honest and real in it after that.

Something small and unbreakable.

Once you know the conventions of a way of writing, you can use and manipulate them to your advantage. But most often to the advantage of keeping your audience satisfied. She was dissatisfied with his conventions.

She was dissatisfied with his distance.

She was dissatisfied with every other man she had ever met since him. Yet she wasn’t sure if they were being compared to him in reality or to the memories of him.

Golden or otherwise.

The first time he’d seen her naked it was brightly lit. They had not been alone and the lights had been on. It had been the most exposed she’d ever felt.

It was also the most fun she had ever been.

She wrote a story today.

Once though, in total darkness, she remembers the strength in his hands. The way he would move her hips to a spot where it was perfection for them both.

His mouth on the inside of her. His tongue along the skin on her stomach. His teeth into too much flesh on the space between her shoulder and her neck. His arms long and twisted and strong around her.

At night, she remembers his golden warmth.

The times that had been real. And the times that had become so. The line between those had blurred so much she couldn’t quite remember what he looked like. What he tasted like. How he smelled. How he felt inside her.

She couldn’t quite remember if he had been an idea. Someone she had conjured once to get her through the cold desert.

She remembers not what happened. But how he felt.

Blink.

© Samantha Florence