The Need of Memory
a friday fantasty from the imagination of Miss Virginia Prude
I can hardly breathe to think of it, that it was—it is—real. That you wanted me with such unchecked determination. That you spoke my name, one word laden with meaning, hushed like a lover. Like one who loves
That you came to me in the night smelling of club and cigarette, all hands and hunger, fingers all places at once, the ache of it with me still. That you drew my leg across your hips, your hand drawing across my thigh, your eyes half asleep. You pressed your lips on my neck, ate my mouth with your lips—so full, so clever. Wrapped your lean arms around me, drew me into your body. The intensity of it leaving me as hazy as a dream.
I want to remember: your confessions, your fantasies. That you wanted me in you and on you and you on me and in me. I want to remember your fingers in my hair, lifting it away to reveal my face, turning us in front of the mirror to watch me take you in.
I need to remember your smile, breaking like a door that opened to shine a blade of light across your face. So rare to see a man smile in the midst of hunger—pure, impulsive, like a secret joke, a riddle just for two. And your glee…at being under my hand, under my control, submitting to the press of my hands on your wrists, the ever-lengthening stretch of your body, the pressure and stroke of me everywhere while your skin tightened along all the delicate edges. The tension in your voice groaning out your readiness.
I need to remember the way you longed for me, with hunger and the need to be touched, to touch, to be lost in the sensation of one another. I need to hold on to the soft touch of your kiss on my inner thigh, of your chin glistening in the bed sheets. The husk of your parched voice asking “Do you like this? This? This?”
Will it continue, the richness of these things? Your skin in my mouth, my tongue on your neck, your hands on waist, your lips on my breasts? I hedge against uncertainties, against the vagrancies of personality and time. In case this fails, in case one night is unexpectedly, unforeknowingly, our last. I stokepile memories, rebuilding these things in my mind, in my body until I am sure they are real.
