It's You and Me in Here

Draped in thin white linen, his sun-kissed body rests peacefully on top of the double bed. His dirty blonde hair looks scruffy from all the pulling and tearing of the finished night. The muscles on his back rise slowly as he breathes, sucking oxygen into his tranquil dream, his brown eyelashes fluttering slightly as R.E.M. imprints images on the blank screen of his mind.

Melancholically I come to the conclusion that I am not the subject of his dreams. The faint smile on his face confirms my suspicion.

In a hotel room too hot for myself to sleep in, I watch him sleep by my side as the radiant orange beams of light creep over the edge in the horizon. The beautifully yet plainly furnished room looked almost as it had a couple of weeks ago when I first checked in, were it not for the few pieces of clothing scattered on the floor and the disarranged bed. There was his black wife beater that I had hungrily ripped off his back just a few odd hours before, the blue skirt his fingers had fumbled with to expose my naked skin. His clothes had as carelessly fallen on the floor, as my tears had, when he had told me he would leave me.

He wasn't the type for similar theatrics. Instead he had only looked at me mournfully, more concerned with my reaction. He had said it pained him since I had been such a good friend. I gave out a sorrowful chuckle at the irony of him having found such an ill-fitting title. But I suppose he was never the one with words.

I pretended it wasn't that big of deal. We both knew he would leave this place someday. Yet I had always hoped to entertain the idea that one day we might meet again. But the empathetic manner in which he broke the news of his departure, like a father telling his child that Santa Claus was not real, hinted that he was to cut me off cold come morning.

The silent tears creep in again. In my head I see the handful of times we spent our nights together. Like an earworm there is no end to the loop; every time the montage of our happy memories comes to an end, it rewinds and all the images turn a shade bluer. All those loving words grow hollower, his behaviour more distant. But the script remains the same.

I swallow back my sobs. I was perfectly aware last night shouldn't have happened. No self-respecting human being would eagerly kiss the lips that were so solemnly saying goodbye. As tears had run down my face, I had searched for comfort on his pale pink lips until they responded with pity and then with lust.

When was it that he came to mean so much to me?

The urge to touch him grows inside me: the wish to feel the muscles of the arms that had steadily lifted me against a wall, making me scream profanities as he fucked the lights out of me. It was almost like there was no filter censoring the words and moans streaming out of me, but I dreaded to let his name escape my lips, to have my voice betray the emotion that his caress fired up in me.

He would never know. And now it is imperative that he shouldn't.

Reluctantly, I resist my desire to caress him. Although my fingers might never brush the smooth surface of his flesh again, I would rather have him by me a minute longer than risk him waking up. He might not know a lark from a nightingale but the sun still rises from the east, not the west.

Light pours into our chamber like sand in an hourglass. Desolately, I mouth a curse to the unwelcome intruder that has come to end the night, while the rays wipe away the tears from my eyes, consoling me with their warmth and preparing me for the inevitable. But the sting of the approaching goodbye remains as excruciating as ever.

I would miss him. Maybe sometimes he would miss me too.

Some minutes pass. Slowly he stirs from his slumber, his lids uncovering the hazel irises that I had come to love so tenderly. Languidly he rolls on the bed to face me sitting next to him, my features perfectly composed.

"Good morning," I greet him with a gentle smile. "Would you like a cup of tea?"