August 10th 20XX

We listened to BadBadNotGood as we lost ourselves in each other's flesh. That night it started out innocently, a kiss here, a wipe of a tear or two from who? I don't want to say. A hand placed exactly where it shouldn’t be. In the sweaty lonesome dark we had each other, for there seemed to be so little time left to be together. I don’t remember sex feeling this good with her or anyone else for that matter, so good that tonight it didn’t even feel like I had a condom on and this euphoria had been going on for hours, all in an attempt to ignore that we both knew that the early morning flight was coming, and well, eventually…so were we.

Katherine told me she needed to go back home a week ago. There was a pause in the air when she told me and my instant reaction was to reach for her hand and she grasped mine and for a little while we held hands in bed. We just laid like that, silently waiting for someone to say something that would change what was going to happen, but we haven’t said anything to each other since she told me and for the rest of that far too hot summer day, we just held hands because I didn’t want to let go, but I knew I needed to. Tonight though, locked in this embrace we hadn’t said a word. We already knew exactly what we wanted from each other and the reality that whatever was going to happen next was beyond what either of us were prepared to ask for or commit to, even if deep down the question was right on our lips, hanging by some thin red thread.

I asked my sister unashamedly for the plane ticket the next day. I hadn’t seen her since my birthday and I apologized for only coming by when I needed money but she understood without even needing me to explain what was going on. I feel bad but I just showed up at her huge house hidden in an intense suburbia. It was the first thing in the morning when the weather wasn’t horrid and hot yet, but it soon would be and it would make the concrete sidewalk and the surrounding houses a veritable oven. I was dressed in some graphic tee of a band I don’t listen to with some cut up jorts, my sister answered the door in a bathrobe and pajamas, her aquiline nose greeting me first, and when I walked through the door she gave me a cup of coffee without asking and to my hollowed pleasure, the coffee was warm and sweet.

“How much do you need?” She asked the question without emotion and I, in turn, answered the same.

“I don’t know. Maybe 300 bucks, I know it’s short notice….” I couldn't look at her, I just stared at the table in front of me and the beautiful plates she always seemed to have out whenever I came by.

“What happened to that girl you dated? (REDACTED) I think her name was?”

“It was a long distance thing Elaine. I broke things off.”

“Why’d you do that Arthur? You didn’t talk to me about it but whenever I saw you have a genuine smile or you had an extra pep in your step I knew what it was which was of course…love. Goes without saying, but still! My own little brother who had gone through so much, in love!”

“Was it love though?”

“What do you mean Art?” Elaine stirred some cream and sugar into her coffee.

“I mean like, it was long distance”

“Oh? I didn’t know that. Well, I suppose that depends on you Arthur. Did you love (REDACTED)?”

“I don’t know how to answer that, Elaine. I don’t think I’ve ever even loved someone who I’ve dated in person. Let alone someone I could be actually open with.”

“Well haven’t you been open with that blonde stunner you brought to Farth’s place?”

“Yeah but…that’s different. Everything is different with her. It’s like it’s beyond any conception of what romance or attraction is supposed to mean.”

“Arthur there’s only one word for that feeling it’s-” I interrupt her with a raised finger. She thankfully stops but I heard the aggressive mixing of her spoon in her coffee.

“I don’t think love is supposed to feel this way. I thought it was going to feel more like what I felt for (REDACTED).”

“And what’s that feeling?”

“A complete and total escape of everything. Like I’m living another life where y’know, I didn’t have to live what I had to live through. Where the old Arthur didn’t matter and I can just be the letter A, y’know, start from the beginning of the alphabet and be whatever I want or need to be. I thought it was going to be a rebirth.”

“And what’s it feel like with Katherine?” Elaine takes a small yet audible sip of her coffee. “It’s how I get the most flayvah” she’s not even really Italian or from the east coast but sometimes she’ll take on the east coast accent. I don’t really understand why.

“It’s like I’m me and it’s okay, but it’s not the same me. It’s not a rebirth, it's just a new path, and it’s good but maybe not good for me. I’m not explaining it right, I’ve just spent so long single and then so long looking for that new life in another person and neither approach was working and now I’m not sure of anything. I’m just sure that if we’re together, I’m going to change as a person because of her, and not because of me.”

“So what’re you going to do?”

“I don’t know. She needs to go back to North Carolina though, she starts school in like a week or two, maybe sooner. I don’t remember, I've just been in shock since she told me. We haven’t said a word to each other since she told me.”

“Don’t worry about it, give me her number I’ll get it situated but afterwards, just….don’t be a stranger. And if you need anything else don’t be afraid to ask.” She said with a bit of warmth and when she finished speaking she put her hand on my shoulder and with tears fighting to screech out of my face I said so quietly, so quiet it was less than a whisper.

“Thank you.” and she handed me a hundred hundred dollar bills and without a word I knew if I needed anything more from her I could get it and when I went out the door I gave my sister a small hug. On the walk to my car I fell to the now scorching hot sidewalk and crashed and slammed my forearms against the heated concrete, bleeding and yelling and wishing that Katherine could stay, or that I could let myself go.

That was yesterday or the day before or the week before I can't or don't want to remember because it's been so hard living in the quiet next to Kat. This kind of hurt is not an unfamiliar feeling to me but looking back on those previous heartbreaks they don't feel nearly as bad as this. Maybe it's because she's still here, or maybe it's just a slow bleed out made worse by the heat in the air and the lust between us. I guess that's why we've been fucking for so long tonight.

She kisses me, not me kissing her, she's kissing me and I'm inside of her and I'm so exhausted that I can barely move my hips anymore but I'm still hard but the shift from her kissing me on top of how raw everything is and has been and I know will be, so I just shudder and cry again and feel all of what she feels for me, and the next moment her tongue is down my throat and she’s coiling around me like a serpent. I feel like as soon as this overwhelms and pushes me beyond she's going to bite my head off like some kind of spider and I'm fine with that because at this point there's no better or worse feeling than to be under her control, and she knows that and she's kissing me and the tears whispering down my face melt into our now shared sweat. My heart stops beating and there's a pause in the dark and without thinking I say something that I don’t think I was ready to say and without a second thought I let it all go, groaning in ecstasy as I give in to the exhaustion and fuck the woman I love as deeply as my body will let me, and as I do she shudders, shakes and melts away. Afterwards the rhythm of our heartbeat in unison sends us to a dreamless sleep, for there hasn't been a sweeter dream than the one we have lived together this past summer.

I don’t want to talk about therapy, there are just other things I need to take care of, like Katherine. It’s the early morning and the A.C. in my room is pulling double time, the bed smells like a mixture of sweat, cum and Katherine’s perfume, I think about not washing the sheets for a few months but I know the smell will be gone in a few days and after that any lasting physical mark Katherine has left will be gone. The girl is wrapped around my arm sleeping snugly, I’m up before her for once and I think about getting up to make us breakfast but I argue against it ultimately, even a numb fully asleep arm isn’t going to be enough to get me to waste any amount of time that I can spend with her, awake or otherwise.

The flight is at 2 P.M., Elaine ended up arranging a charter plane to Charlottesville, New Arroyo is up near Fort Jones so the nearest international airport is five to six hours away in Sacramento and I’m not ready to drive, I stare up at the ceiling, my vision fuzzy. The exhaustion ripples through every facet of my body, it rings in my eyes and my heart and I’m not prepared to do anything but sleep, and so for a little while after I wake up I allow myself to sleep, my long black hair spreading and splayed out underneath like the long limbs of an octopus, each tendril lovingly grasping at the queen sized bed and at my newly proclaimed love.