Author's website: http://freespace.virgin.net/jodie.mouse

Disclaimer: i've borrowed them

Author's Notes:

Story Notes: (mild) slash

"Who's Steve?" Ray asked.

We had just made love for the first time. Ray was lounging back on the bed, olive skin and dark hair a stark contrast against the crisp white sheets. I looked at him, trying to decide if I should tell him all the details...or may be a revised version of the truth full of omissions.

Details, feelings, memories clear as mud.

"Benny." he sighs, green eyes soft, "You don't have to tell me. I've just been wondering that's all."

I wondered how much, how hard, he had been thinking about this. Whether the making love was a prelude to asking me this question.

My Ray was so furtive. He driven for hours to get to this hotel. Already I was beginning to feel like his dirty secret. But I loved Ray enough to forgive him that and the way he clutched his religion to him like some kind of talisman. A protection against this -- against us. In this way he reminded me of Steve.

Steve of the quick hand and sharp tongue. Steve who made me feel so inadequate but so much loved at the same time. I know I'm not making sense. When I fall in love I lose my rationality. Victoria proved that. Victoria...Steve...Ray.

"Steve was...everything." I say finally.

And like Victoria he almost destroyed me, as I'm sure Ray will. The adage `love is blind' has never been truer with me. Except I'm not blind exactly -- more not wanting to see. A selective blindness even when my eyes and my heart tell me that it is all going to go so wrong. For the small voice that says I deserve better than this there are a hundred thousand telling me I'm worthless. The hundred thousand voices sound like a mixture of Steve's, Victoria's and now Ray's voices. Entwined in a nightmarish aural vision of my own creation.

Ray places his head on my shoulder. I can feel him waiting. Waiting. And as I stare at the ceiling the room melds away and I am staring at ice and snow. Bright white like a new sheet of paper. The lake frozen. A lone figure skates. Steve.

Like Ray, like Victoria I loved to watch Steve, to breathe in his beauty. To get so close to him I could see each individual pore of his skin. Each hair. The flecks of different colours in his eyes. Green, chestnut, brown -- depending on the light and his mood. They could go from darkest brown to a moss green.

Eye are supposed to be the windows of the soul. I look at my eyes in the mirror and wonder about myself. I can't read what I can see there.

Steve is skating across the ice. His movements are lithe, supple, almost reminding me of a cat. When he spots me he skates closer towards me, spraying small shards of ice in his wake carved off the lake by sharp metal. He laughs as he skates up to me. Kisses me.

"He was an old lover." I say back in the hotel room.

Old lover.

I wonder if Ray wants anymore from me but he nods like he already knew this and I was only confirming his suspicions.

"Was he good -- y'know..." Ray says voice tailing off.

"Does it matter?" I ask.

"No." he says untangling himself from me and sitting on the edge of the bed.

And I think -- if it could just stay like this -- in this room where there is no outside. Where Ray is loving and passionate. Where he doesn't have to pretend -- where our relationship does not have to be a secret.

I wonder if he loves me.

End Just Another Steve Story by Jodie Louise: jodie.mouse@virgin.net

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