The Bittersweet Memoirs Ch. 01

On one occasion, we went out into the country on bikes, taking a long dirt track through the rolling hillside, eventually finding ourselves in an irresistible situation: We had found a clearing with well-maintained grass, and natural walls formed of twisted eucalyptus trees - a perfect location to set a towel down on and relieve ourselves of the build-up of sexual frustration and lust that had resulted from our separation, with the convenient shade of a massive radio tower on a brick shack. We spotted a camera, and set up just out of view, and made love under the full view of the sun, naked and pure in the breeze of autumn, her nipples hard as diamonds in the cold air as she rode me to completion, and rode her bike back to her new temporary home with my cum inside her, staining her panties.

Back at their house, we would spend time in their pool, despite the colder days, an excuse to feel our skin against one another. But everything was forcibly kept civil, and polite.

Eventually, the strain grew great. University had resumed after the summer break, and I had little free time, being a new student in a new university. We texted and emailed and skyped, and I am unashamed to say we cried on the phone together.

Eventually, weeks between visits turned into a month, and I saw the futility, the desperation of our situation. I did the unthinkable, and went over to visit her, and broke it off with her, telling myself she'd be better off without the heartache, and pain of separation, that long distance relationships should truly be a recognised form of torture, that she'd be happier without me, able to move on. I held her in my arms, and we wept, til we were weak and utterly depressed.

There are many things I have come to regret in life, but that attempted "act of kindness", misguided and ultimately cruel as it was, is chief and greatest among them.

Laura, who came over to stay for a year, ended up leaving after 7 and a half months, returning home early and depressed, having lost her first love, and seemingly the capacity to smile. Her new exchange family held no appeal to her, and in the weeks after I told her we needed to break up or we'd both lose our minds, all she did was cry, until she begged the exchange agency to send her home to her mother and sisters.

Still, although we had broken up, and I felt like a murderer, like filth, like I had betrayed the only good thing to have happened to me, we kept in contact when she returned to France, and now when my family travels through Europe, we always visit. The reunions are always emotional, bittersweet and painful, the wound always raw, but eventually she understood why I did what I did, and forgave me for it. But I will never forgive myself.

Even now, many years later, I still love her. If I could, I would have her again in my life, have her as my wife. But we live a world apart, separated by great oceans, both thoroughly entrenched in our lives and work.

Laura was everything a person could want. She was smart, almost intimidatingly so, and clever too - and I maintain that being smart and clever are two different things. She was plainly gorgeous, in every way, and had a sweetness inside her that could not be denied.

But Laura was also melancholic, conflicted, and in pain. She yearned for her home when she was here, even when we were together there were time when her emotions would overwhelm her, and she'd weep for her family, and spend all night on skype to her sisters, pouring out her pure, lovely heart. You must remember, Laura came from a tiny village, in provincial France. She had never been apart from her family, never been alone in a strange land before.

If I could go back to when we were separated, when she was taken from me, with all I know of life today, without hesitation I would have told her to go back to France, apply for a visa, and return as a tourist without the exchange agency pulling strings, and live with me. But I didn't.

I didn't fight for her pure, innocent love. I did not fight for her lovely, soul melting eyes, and her shy, lip biting smile. I did not fight for her clear mind, her clever words.

And so she is gone, and I admonish you, dear reader, to remember this when you find yourself in the embrace of someone you love, being told you cannot keep them:

Fight back. They ARE worth it.

Do not let your happy memories, your love, your affection, your care and your reason to live be taken from you, lest it all be tainted by sadness and bittersweet conflict every time you reminisce.

Yours, with love and pain, S.

Si vous lisez ceci, mon amour, sachez que je suis désolé, que vous me manquez, et que j'aurais aimé que ça se termine différemment