Rediscovery

Disclaimer: The following story-- content, characters, and plot-- belong to me. Please ask if you would like to use anything.

Author\'s Note: The following story is a repost with edits. Please let me know what you think!

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I waited, my face schooled into a look of calm and peace that did nothing to portray the turmoil I was feeling inside. His face, on the other hand, was running the gamut of emotions. And so I waited for him to collect himself. Of course, I wasn’t surprised by this. I mean really, when was the last time that your soul mate whom you had repeatedly pushed away until she finally took the hint and married someone else showed up at your front door unexpectedly, a place she had never been before, and calmly knocked, as though you weren’t separated by time and pain and hundreds of miles?

When it appeared as though he had settled himself into one reaction or another, I spoke.

“Hi,” I said, casually.

He cleared his throat and replied, “Hi.”

“Busy?” I asked nonchalantly.

“Um, no. Would you like to come in?” I knew that was not one of the many questions he obviously had running through his brain, but I wasn’t about to let him push me away again until I had achieved my goals for this visit.

“Thank you,” I responded brightly, and he stepped aside to allow me passage. I looked around. The place was surprisingly neat, a sofa, an old armchair, the smooth surface of the coffee table marred only by a few coasters and some magazines, back issues of Guns and Ammo, Black Belt, and Men’s Journal stacked somewhat haphazardly. The walls were sparsely decorated; some framed photos of family and close friends, probably sent by his mother and sister, a few posters, nothing much really. In the corner was a small table where he obviously spent most of his time. There was an old computer, the screen and keyboard surrounded by file folders, loose papers, a few notebooks, a leather date book and a journal. Draped over the back of the chair was his shoulder holster and gun. I was caught off guard by that, I knew the care he lavished on his weapons, and his everyday service weapon would be no different.

He evidently saw me looking, because he spoke then. “I just got home a few hours ago, and I’ve been working on some back paperwork since, it was a long day. Excuse me.” And with that he moved past me, picked up the weapon, and headed down the hallway and into a room. I took this moment alone to gather myself. Seeing him had disarmed me more than I thought it would, but I had mentally prepared myself for that. What I had not prepared for was the smell in this apartment. The scent was burned into my brain. I had smelled it that first time I had gone to his basement, the first time he and I had made love, the first time I held him while he cried, the first time he did the same for me. It was the smell of him. I thought, after seventeen years, that he might smell different. I was very wrong.

Slowly, I made my way to the sofa and perched on the edge of one cushion, my fingers running over the covers of the magazines. The oldest issues looked well read and the newest had bits of paper sticking out of them, obviously marked for further reading. As I heard him making his way back down the hallway, I slid back on the couch-- trying to look relaxed, calm, and comfortable; trying desperately to look as though I did this every day, as though this wasn’t one of the most important days of my life. He looked at me as he came back into the room, and I smiled at him.

“Something to drink?” he asked, and I nodded.

“Whatever you’re having is fine,” I stated. He moved into the small kitchen, and I heard the sounds of the fridge opening, the tinkling of glass bottles, and finally the sound of the release of pressure, that oh-so-refreshing and crisp sound that a bottle makes when you pop its top. He came back in and handed me a Tröegs Rugged Trail Nut Brown Ale. I’d never had one, but I enjoyed the darker beers, so I took a sip. It was good, not too bitter, very smooth, almost tasted as though it had a hint of chocolate.

Slowly, stiffly, he sat in the chair located kitty-corner to the couch, took a sip of his beer, and looked at me.

“What are you doing here?” he said, straight to the point.

Fair enough, I thought. I shifted, trying to gather up the words I needed to say, the questions I wanted to ask. I put the beer carefully on a coaster, folded my hands together in my lap, and took a deep breath. Then, I shifted again, picked up the beer, and took another sip. Leaning forward, I held the bottle in both hands, between my knees, and tipped it slightly, fingering the paper label around the neck. I took another deep breath, let it out through my lips, and then looked at him.

If it’s possible, my sudden show of nervousness seemed to both relax him and put him more on edge. His knowledge that I was at least as nervous as he seemed to make him feel a bit more comfortable, but the very fact that I was nervous probably revealed that this visit was something extremely out of the ordinary. I am sure he realized then that this wasn’t going to be some pretense of an old friend, in town out of the blue, stopping by for a quick and surprising visit. He understood that the time had finally come for the conversation that we had never had, and I saw him nod slightly in acceptance. That was all I needed to start.

“I have some things I would like to tell you, some questions I would like to ask. The only requests I make is that you hear me out, and that you answer me honestly. Though I don’t expect it of you, I do think you owe me at least that much.” I said this slowly, softly, not wanting to scare him off, not wanting to push him into pushing me away again.

He nodded once in response. “I’ll try,” he said.

“Okay,” I pursed my lips for a moment, and closed my eyes. I took a deep breath. And then I began.

“I have a good life. I have friends that I trust, that I share good times and bad with. I have a good career, and though it is not what I originally intended to do, it is something I enjoy, something I feel is a worthy thing to do. I have a house; it’s small, in the city, and in a neighborhood that is undergoing a transformation from very bad to safe and comfortable. On the weekends I do yard work, gardening. And the house has a small attached sunroom, which I have converted into an atrium of sorts. I grow plants, and I have created a comfortable reading space. There I research, I drink tea, I read books and I think. I have a husband, a wonderful husband, who supported me while I finished my degrees, and then I did the same for him. I am thirty two years old, I have been married for thirteen years, and I love my husband very much. For all intents and purposes, I should be very very happy.” Here I paused, and took another deep breath, then looked up at him. “I’m not.”

He raised an eyebrow in response and took a sip of his beer, but he didn’t say anything. And so I pushed on.

“When I met my husband, I hated you. I couldn’t stand the fact that you existed. I wanted nothing more than to get away from you and everything that had happened. Eventually, I loved him, and we married. Once, shortly into my marriage, you asked me if I was happy, said that was all you were worried about, and I told you that I was. That was the truth then. However, as time went on, I realized that not only did I not hate you, but that I still loved you. I have thought about you every day, several times a day, for the last thirteen years. I dream about you at least once a week. I have spent all of this time trying to figure out what the hell my problem is, why I can’t let go of you, why I can’t love my husband with my entire being like he deserves. Finally, I thought that maybe, just maybe, if I could get some information from you, some honest information, that it might lead to a resolution of sorts, that it might close all this up once and for all, and then I could move on. And so I came here, hoping that you and I could do that, could finish this.”

I took a sip of my beer, then took a deep breath, and said, “What do you think?”

He gave me a weak smile and put his beer down on the table. Then he leaned forward, elbows on knees and hands together between them, and said, “What do you want to know?”

“Why did you avoid me after…” I had to stop for a moment. I bit my bottom lip and looked at my feet, and then I said softly, “after the abortion?”

He crossed his arms over his chest, leaned back in his chair and looked at the ceiling, breathing deeply. After a few moments, he looked back at me.

“I was seventeen, impulsive, and desperately in love with a beautiful, intelligent, spontaneous and happy girl. She was my best friend, the light of my life, the only thing good I had. Her energy fed my soul. And I destroyed her. I took her light and I crushed it. That weekend was one of soul searching for me. I sat with you and held your hand while you were on that table, the doctors wielding vacuums and blades in a place that had only ever before been a place of love and devotion, a place where we joined together in bliss. I held your hand, and I wiped both your tears and mine from your face. Then I went home with you, and I held you as you sobbed, as you slept. I saw the exhaustion and pain on your face, and I realized that I had done that to you. I was responsible for that. And I thought if I wasn’t in your life then you would get your light back, and I wouldn’t be able to crush it again. And so I left you alone. I extricated myself from your life.”

My mouth hung open in surprise. I couldn’t help it, I was shocked. I was speechless. I mean, how do you respond to something like that? I shook my head slightly, trying to clear my thoughts, trying to indicate to him some refusal of his responsibility for my pain that weekend. Trying to figure out what to say next. I needn’t have worried, for he spoke again.

“I found, however, that I couldn’t avoid you. I couldn’t stay away from you. Our lives had become too interwoven for that. Instead, I chose to ignore you. I pushed you away, again and again, in the hopes that you would find someone else, that you would find your light again. In a way, I think that I wanted you to hate me.” He looked around a little, shifted in his chair, and let out a sigh. “Then a year later came that fight. That horrible fight. I hadn’t spoken to you all that time, and then I said something glib, something light, something that I knew would hurt you more than if I had said something cruel, and you responded as you should have, with a slight insult to me. But I was so, I don’t know. There was all this pent up emotion. And the shock that you had the power to insult me as easily and swiftly as I had insulted you made me angry, and so I did something I have never done before or since. I still can’t believe I did it, and to this day, I feel terrible about it. God, I can’t believe I hit you! And then it was on, right? You and me and all of the crap we had carried around that year. Punching, biting, hair pulling, kicking. It happened so quickly, and then they pulled us apart, and they ushered you into a car and me into a bedroom, and then you were gone.”

He paused again, and then cleared his throat. He looked at me for a moment, and then he got up and walked across the room, stopping with his back to me, as he fingered some of the papers on his desk.

“I couldn’t believe it when you called me there later. I didn’t know what to say to you. And I don’t think you know this, I was crying with you, I had tears on my face like you did. And the things you said to me, I had no response for how powerful those emotions were, how much you felt for me, and I for you. And at that moment, I was petrified. Kids aren’t supposed to feel shit like that. And so I pushed you away again.”

He turned back to me then, a sad, resigned smile on his face, his eyes bright with wetness. “I knew it when you met him. You sparkled again. You were happy, and it made me miserable. But I had made my choice.”

He sat in the chair at the desk, then, and resumed talking. “After you had been with him a year, I was amazed when you broke up. And two weeks later, you were with me, and there was going to be three nights, away from the city, away from our lives, away from him. And when you invited me into your body again I couldn’t say no. I had dreamed of being there, of being with you. Oh God, having your arms wrapped around me, smelling you, holding you all night after. Everything came rushing back. Everything. And I thought of the look on your face when you were on that table, and I couldn’t allow myself to do it to you again. So I reverted to habit, and ignored you the whole next day. And then you approached me again, you wanted to talk again. What I told you that night was true. I was scared. I had never been so scared of anything in my life, and I was terribly afraid of the level of emotional intimacy that you and I shared. And so I pushed you away again. And that was to be my last chance, because the very next summer you married him.”

We were both quiet then, and still. Each of us was lost in thought; absorbing what the other had said, reliving the emotions that this talk had brought up. Finally, he stood and stretched, rolling his shoulders a bit. “Another beer?” he asked, and I nodded.

When he returned, he handed me the bottle and sat on the other side of the couch, sipping from his own.

I finished off my own slightly warmed first beer, and then cleared my throat. “I know what happened that weekend before I married, I know what you did.”

His face registered confusion, then disbelief, then something like fear, trepidation.

“Katie told me,” I said softly, “Two days before the wedding.” I tried to keep the bitterness out of my voice, but in truth, what she told me was part of the reason I was here.

“Oh,” he said softly, then, “I’m sorry…I…she…you shouldn’t have had to hear that. I was…I was distraught. She shouldn’t have told you.”

“Oh, come on,” I choked out bitterly, with a mirthless laugh. “If I wasn’t supposed to hear it, why the hell did you go to her? You could have chosen anyone. Instead, you go to one of my bridesmaids, whom you haven’t spoken to in years, and you cry on her shoulder about how much you still love me? I thought you were going to be honest if you were going to speak at all.” My voice rose with my ire. If Katie had never told me what had happened, that seed of doubt about whether or not I was doing the right thing in getting married would never have been planted. And I know the only reason Katie told me is because she thought I needed the whole truth before I did something not easily gone back on.

“Why did you choose her?” I asked gently, after checking my emotions. “Why tell anyone at all?”

“I don’t kn…” He cut off that comment when I shot him a look. “Alright, I do know.” He cleared his throat, and then cleared it again. “I guess I thought that maybe, if I could tell someone close enough to you, if I could get the message to you in time, that maybe I might have another chance. When I found out you were getting married, I guess I wanted another chance.”

“Mmmm…” I started stiffly. “Why not come to me?”

“Would you have spoken to me?” He asked quietly. “Would you honestly have listened to me then?”

“Yes,” I said, without pause, without having to think about it. “I would always have listened to you, I hope you know that. I have always been ready to listen to you.”

“Oh,” he said, and then there was silence again. We both sat and sipped on our beers, both collecting our thoughts, ourselves once more.

After some moments, the quietness having gone on too long perhaps, he spoke again.

“I was afraid, I have always been afraid.” I could tell how much it shook him up to say it. Hell, I was shaken that he had admitted it.

“So was I,” I said as I looked at the floor. “God, don’t you know, that whole time, the years we spent together, I was petrified? The only thing that kept me sane was being with you. And then I didn’t even have you. Shit.” I stood up after putting my bottle down on the table, and I started to pace from the kitchen to the hallway, my arms wrapped around my stomach tightly. I was breathing heavily, trying to figure out how to put what I was feeling into words. Finally, it just came out.

“I was fine that weekend, you know? Yes, I was sad. Yes, I was upset and traumatized. Who the hell wouldn’t be? I was barely sixteen, you were seventeen, and we had all of our options stripped away by our godamned parents, who are supposed to protect us, not hurt us. We had created a life together, you and I, and they gave us no options but to destroy it. Was I supposed to be calm and composed after that? Shit, babe, of course I was crying! The only thing that got me through that weekend was having you there, right there with me! And then on Sunday night you kissed me goodbye, said you had to do homework and that you would call me. I was home for a week then, recovering from that damned “procedure”, and I was all doped up on pain meds, so I didn’t notice anything out of the ordinary. And then I come back to school, and you won’t even fucking look at me! That’s when I broke darlin’. It wasn’t because of the abortion, it wasn’t that decision. It was your decision that you and I were over. You were the last person in the world I felt I could trust, and you took all my options away as well. Yeah, you broke me, but only because you fucking left me.” At some point during this speech, I had stopped pacing and turned to look at him, my finger pointing accusingly, my other hand balled into a fist at my side.

And when I was done speaking, I just collapsed onto the floor, kneeling and looking at nothing in particular. I didn’t even realize I was crying until I felt his fingers wiping away my tears. He had moved to kneel in front of me. His touch brought me out of whatever spell I had put myself under. I looked up at his face, the tears still streaming from my eyes. And I noticed he was crying then too.

“God,” he whispered, and I don’t think he even knew that he had said it. I reached out to wipe at his tears, and then I stopped.

“Why have you never gotten married? Why have you never been involved with anyone seriously?” I didn’t even realize I wanted to know until the words were out of my mouth.

He took his hands from my face and swiped at his own tears then.

“It wouldn’t be fair to commit myself to a woman,” he whispered back. “I have three commitments in my life; my brain goes to my job, my energy goes to staying in shape, and my heart still belongs to you.” He smiled weakly. “There’s no room for anyone else.”

“Oh,” I said in response. And then my hand continued on its journey. I wiped the tears from his cheeks with my thumb, first one side and then the other. And then I traced his face, his forehead, his eyes, his nose, his jaw. When my fingers began to caress his lips, he took my hand in his, kissed my palm, and then pulled my hand away from his face.

Still holding my hand in both of his he asked quietly, “So, what comes next in your plan?”

I snorted then. I think it was supposed to be a chuckle, but my nose was all runny from my crying. “I don’t know,” I said through a smile, “I thought you were going to tell me that you never really wanted me anyway, that I was just a childhood sweetheart. I didn’t exactly plan for this.”

“Ah,” he said, his thumbs stroking the back of my hand. Then he lightly fingered my wedding ring. “Where does he think you are?” he asked quietly.

“Here,” I said, again I didn’t hesitate. He looked at me in disbelief. “He’s my friend before anything else. Like you, he just wants me to be happy. I told him that I was planning to come here, to resolve my issues once and for all.”

“And have you?” he asked me.

“No,” I said, “Not yet.” And then I raised our hands to my lips, and kissed his thumbs, first one, and then the other. “Not yet,” I whispered, while with my other hand I reached up to caress his lips once again.

He sighed, and then he grasped both my hands in his, and looking at our hands clasped together, he asked, “Why are you doing this?”

“I have to know. I need to know if what we had all those years ago was real. Don’t you want to know if it was real?” He looked up at me as I spoke, and then suddenly his hands were on either side of my face.

“Let’s remember together,” he whispered, and then his lips were on mine in the lightest of kisses. He was questioning, begging to be let in, but still hesitant, as though not convinced that this was right.

I mewed softly in response, my breath coming out onto his full lips, and that was all the encouragement he needed.

Wrapping his arms around me very gently, he pressed harder against my lips, his tongue just darting out to taste them. As I opened my mouth in response, he pulled back. I opened my eyes, and realized he looked slightly dazed.

“Let’s...” he started, “Let’s move this into the bedroom.

I nodded and began to get to my feet.

“Wait,” he said softly, “I have dreamed of this for so long, wanted you here for so long. I want to do this right.” With that he leaned in and kissed my eyes, my nose, my cheeks, and my chin. His lips were feather light against my skin. Then he took my hand and kissed first the back of it, and then the palm.


“Are you sure this is something you want to do?” he asked, looking at my hand.

“I think it is something I need, something we both need,” I responded, threading my fingers through his and giving a light squeeze.

And without another word, he led me into his bedroom. It was neater than I remembered he kept it when we were younger, and the smell of him here was even more overpowering. He squeezed my hand gently and then let go, moving to his bed and pulling the covers back. Then he turned to me and smiled. He walked back over to me, placed one hand on the back of my head and pulled my face to his. Again, he kissed my forehead, and then my lips.

Slowly, hesitantly, he skirted his tongue over my top lip, and then my bottom. This time when I opened my mouth, he didn’t pull back. Instead, he slipped his tongue between my lips. My senses were reeling. As the taste of him overwhelmed my mouth, his smell washed in waves over me, and I began to quake with the electricity of touching him. It had always been like this with him. From the very first kiss we had shared, sparks had passed between us every time we had touched. Both of us would end up losing control, which is why we had found ourselves making love over and over, at the most inappropriate times. Everything else had always gone away in those moments. Nothing was as important to us as touching each other. Indeed, nothing else existed. This time was no different.

As my tongue met with his, I moaned again when I felt his hand trailing down to the nape of my neck, brushing my hair aside so he could make contact with my skin. His other hand had come up to rest on my hip, and I found that my arms had wrapped themselves around his waist.

His fingers stroked the back of my neck as his tongue stroked mine and the hand on my hip was guiding me gently toward the bed. He broke the kiss as he sat me down on the edge of it.

“I don’t remember not loving you,” he whispered, as his hand went to the buttons on my shirt.

“I know,” I said, with a soft smile as I reached up to pull the hem of his t-shirt out of the waste band of his pants.

“You’ve been in my life, in my mind, in my heart since I was barely out of childhood,” he said, his fingers deftly unbuttoning each of the buttons on my blouse. That was when I noticed that his hands were shaking slightly.

“Mine too,” I responded as I let my hands touch the skin of his waist for the first time. He finished opening the last button on my shirt and closed his eyes, sucking in his breath as I ran my hands to his stomach, lightly brushing the dark hair there with my fingertips.

He opened his eyes, then, and knelt before me. My hands fell to my sides at the look on his face. It was pure unadulterated adoration. I became paralyzed with the emotions running through me at that look. It had been so long since anyone had looked at me that way. In fact, it had been since him. No one looked at me the way he did, like I was the only one in the world. That was the look that had first gotten me into his bed, and it was the look that always broke my heart when I realized I would never see it again. The tears were in my eyes before I knew I was going to cry.

He had stopped looking at my face. Instead, his eyes had moved to my chest, and his hands reached up to push my shirt from my shoulders. As he opened it, and my chest with my simple cotton bra was exposed, I saw the hint of a smile ghost across his lips.

“Still so beautiful,” he whispered. His hand reached out to touch my breast as I moved to finish the removal of my shirt.

That slight movement dislodged the tear that had reached my jaw, and it fell upon the top of my breast.

“Oh,” he gasped out. “Please, don’t cry.” He quickly was up off his knees, and then sitting next to me, wiping away the tears with his fingertips.

“I’ve just missed you so much,” I said, my voice cracking.

And then there were no more words. He began by kissing the tears away from my face, his lips and tongue drying those that had already escaped my eyes. And then he began to kiss my lips. I pulled on his t-shirt then, my fists balled up in the fabric, and tugged him closer to me as I kissed him back. I began to ease back on the bed, and he lifted his hips so that I could lift my legs onto it. As I scooted up and over on the bed, placing my head on a pillow, he tugged his shirt over his head, and it was my turn to gasp. He smirked, and then a true smile graced his face as he lay down next to me.

He leaned over me, resting his weight on his elbow, and kissed me again. Our lips and tongues were hungrier this time, more demanding, and I snaked a hand out to trace the definition of his torso; his pecks, his ribs, his abs. I sucked in a breath when his hand reached out for my breast, and in response I ran my fingers over his nipple.

“Mmmmmmm,” he moaned out. And then his lips were traveling over my jaw, down my neck, across my chest and were latched upon my nipple, still encased in my bra. As the sucking sensation overwhelmed me, I ran both hand down his stomach, and began to unbutton his pants.

In turn, he came up and kissed me on the lips again, his tongue mating with mine as his hand went down to unbutton my jeans. Just as my fingers hit the curls under his boxers, my pants were unzipped, and he began to tug at the waste band. I pulled my hands from his pants and leaned back on my elbows to lift my hips. Getting up onto his knees, he lowered my pants down my legs, kissing my hip softly as his fingers brushed my ankles.

“Shit, shoes,” he murmured, and I giggled. Letting go of my pants, he leaned down and untied my Converse and removed them, first one and then the other. Following that, he finished pulling my pants off my feet, and tossed them unceremoniously onto the floor next to my shoes. Then, he grasped the back of one of my ankles, his fingers stroking the soft flesh just behind the bone on the inside; he obviously remembered that odd little erogenous zone of mine. I whimpered, and saw him smile. He then pulled off my sock and kissed that same tender spot. Then he gave the same treatment to my other foot.

He stood from the bed and toed off his own shoes, then bent over to remove his pants. I watched the muscles in his arms and back ripple as he peeled off his socks. When he looked back up at me, my eyes were half closed and I was panting slightly, my lips parted. He smiled wickedly and moved to join me on the bed again.

He lay down next to me, fingers playing over my skin, not touching but close enough that every little hair that graced my body was disturbed, making me break out in goose bumps and shiver a little. He chuckled softly and then reached one arm behind my back to unclasp my bra. Again, I placed my weight on my elbows, lifting slightly to give him better access.

With my bra removed, his gaze swept over me, and I saw again that look of adoration.

I couldn’t wait any longer; I was overcome with a powerful need for him. I wanted to touch him, taste him. I wanted to have him inside of me again. I reached over and grasped his shoulder, pulling him on top of me. He complied, and settled himself between my hips as I began to kiss him all over. Gods, yes, he still tasted the same. I had memorized each and every part of this man by smell and taste and touch, and I remembered each part with uncommon familiarity. I licked behind his earlobe and remembered even as I tasted the slight tang of his soap there. I kissed and suckled his neck, the salty sweaty taste and the slight coarseness there. I licked his collar bone, his shoulder, the smoothness of the skin almost overwhelming me, flooding me with memories. He, meantime, was running one hand over my chest and belly, his weight resting on his other arm.

I wrapped my arms around him, forcing him to collapse upon me, and I began to try to thrust against his hips as I kissed him wildly, hungrily.

He growled lightly and then said against my lips, his voice hoarse, “I wanted to be gentle, take this slowly.” And then he kissed me again, his hips now thrusting in a rhythm with mine, our still clothed pelvises rubbing roughly together.

“Don’t be,” I gasped out, “I need more, now.”

He smiled, and moved off of me to remove my cotton bikinis. He ran his fingers through my curls, and then pushed two of them into me, just once. I gasped and moaned with need, and watched as he brought those fingers up to his mouth and sucked them clean.

As he made to kneel between my ankles to have better access to me I stopped him.

“Later, I want you now.”

“When did you become so demanding in bed?” he questioned, but I knew it was rhetorical.

He removed his own underwear, and I looked at him. I had never really looked at him before. I had always been too shy, too embarrassed about sex when I was with him. Though I knew the touch and size and smell and feel of him, though I could do anything with him with my eyes closed when we were younger, I had never really seen this part of him. It looked, amazingly, exactly how I thought it would.

“You’ve never looked before,” he said, and I nodded.

“I know.”

He reached to his night stand and opened a drawer, putting his hand inside and pulling out a box.

“I’m on the pill,” I said quietly, “It’s okay.”

“I figured you were. I mean, I just assumed. But I still don’t...I mean I don’t think...I won’t be comfortable without one.” He looked at me then, really looked at me.

I was surprised. What I read in his eyes was fear and embarrassment, and those emotions were powerful enough to compete with the desire and lust that was still obviously pooled there. I nodded once and he gave me a weak smile.

He tore open the package, and I watched as he unrolled it over himself, and then he settled down between my legs again.

“So long, for so long,” he whispered, brushing stray tendrils of hair away from my face and studying my features yearningly.

“Yeah,” I said, and then I placed both of my hands on his cheeks and pulled him in for a sweet kiss. It soon deepened, and we both were ready for more. I put my hand between us as he lifted up to give me access. I grabbed him, and placed him where I wanted him, and then we both looked into each other’s eyes as he moved into me slowly.

We eagerly looked at each other’s faces, waiting for the responses to run across, hoping to see what we were doing to each other, whether each was feeling that same overpowering electricity. And though we had been so demanding earlier, so eager and hungry for this, our love making was slow, and gentle, and we poured into each other’s eyes and bodies everything we had ever really wanted to say, everything we had ever felt. And as I watched his face, I knew that he was feeling all the things that I was; elation, regret, lust, sadness, love. I knew that all of the memories of our past were flashing through his mind just as they were mine.

He reached a hand up and ran it gently over my cheek, cupping my jaw. Our hips were still moving rhythmically against each other.

“Oh, God. I love you so much,” he said, his breath slightly hitched.

It was then that I noticed the first tears forming in his eyes.

“I love you too,” I said, as I started to cry with him. “God help me I love you too.” And my voice was choked with all of the emotions I was feeling; love, passion, forgiveness, but most of all, regret. Regret because I knew that moment of fear that he had while we discussed protection was still between us. Regret because I knew that within his devotion of love he was also voicing his determination that he would not ruin my life. Regret because I knew that it would take a lifetime to heal all the wounds and get over all the fears. And though I knew that if I told him that I would end my marriage in a second to make a commitment to him he would accept it, still we could never be happy, because he would not forgive himself for what he felt was his ultimate betrayal of me. I knew that he still completely believed that in order for me to be happy, I had to be away from him.

And so, I knew even then, as I kissed the tears off his cheeks, and then kissed his lips, that I would let him tell me that he could never be with me because he was too afraid to be with me, and I would tell him that everything was resolved and that I was going to go home. And I would thank him, and he would kiss me goodbye. And then I would say that I thought it would be best if we never contacted each other again, and he would agree.

And then I would leave, and I would let him believe whatever he needed to believe. I would return to my life, my home, my husband. And I would try to accept that I had reached some closure with him. But I would always know that I had been too weak. I had let him push me away again.

As our lips devoured and our tongues dueled, I began to run my hands up and down his back. I urged him with my hips to move faster, harder. And then I let our contact, our love, our current moment wash away those thoughts as I resolved to enjoy every moment that I had left with him.

We were both panting now, our bodies hot and slick, our faces wet with sweat and tears as we were both still crying openly. The physical sensations took over completely as our hips crashed against each other and he thrust harder and faster and more recklessly inside of me. My breath was now coming out in moans, and I felt myself climbing swiftly towards that all powerful precipice. As my orgasm took over me, I scratched ruthlessly down his back and cried out, and he pushed into me one last time and moaned, his orgasm pumping inside of me.

He collapsed on top of me, and buried his face in my shoulder. We were both breathless, coming down. Finally, he kissed me softly and then rolled onto his back. He removed the condom, wrapping it in tissue from the box on his bedside table, and then tossing it into the wastebasket a few feet away. Then he lay back down, one arm curving up to support his head.

I rolled over then as well, placing my cheek on his chest and reaching a hand up to play with the hair there.

He wrapped his free arm around me and then said, “It hasn’t ever gone away really, has it? This thing you and I share?”

“No,” I answered. I felt again as I lay there how perfectly our bodies matched up. I had never realized it before. With no other man was this a truly comfortable position. One or both of us would always get uncomfortable after a short while and move away. With him, we had always been able to lie this way for hours, even before we were physical, when we were still just friends. We would lay this way in the grass in the park and talk until it was time for us to go home.

“When are you expected home?” he asked, his hand rubbing up and down my back.

“Monday. Late on Monday,” I responded.

“So we have the whole weekend,” he stated, and I nodded my head.

“Hmmm...” he said, then, “Let’s get some sleep.”

“Good idea.” I smiled up at him, and kissed his jaw, then pulled the covers up over both of us.

As I felt his breath even out beneath me, a small tear escaped my eye as I contemplated the coming goodbye.