Author's Website: http://www.dementia.org/~jacquez/writing/fanfic.html

Disclaimer:

Author's Notes: Thank you kindly to Cara Chapel, whose sharp eye and excellent beta skills improved this vastly.

Story Notes:

The children would have had her eyes. In some twisted way, thinking about the children that might have been makes this easier.

It reminds me that this is only fantasy. If I think too much about the arc of her body beneath me or the press of her heels on the back of my thighs--if I let myself feel her again, I forget that she isn't here.

The calluses on my hand are another reminder. Skin on skin still feels good, but I am always aware that it is my own hand on my body.

I think about my father's cabin, about Diefenbaker romping outside with my children, the ones with her eyes. I think about a daughter with her hair and a son with my father's shoulders playing pond hockey together.

I think about Victoria, sprawled on my bed, her hair spilling over her bare shoulders, her mouth open against mine, her legs wrapped around me, drawing me into the heat of her body, trembling as I enter her, thrusting into her and feeling her rise to meet me. Or her legs over my shoulders, the smell of her musk in my nose and the taste of her arousal wet on my tongue and lips.

Hell.

No. No. No.

Don't think of that.

O God.

God.

Thinking about her, remembering her--despite all that she's done and all that she still does in my nightmares, she's still there in my dreams. Still there when I touch myself, when the slick feel of my own hand on my dick becomes her hand.

I roll to my side and still my hand. I'm shaking. I don't want to stop, but I can't do this anymore. I can't think of her. I can't even dream of what might have been, of children with her eyes, of a home.

I can't. Not anymore.

It's dead. Let it go, Ben, I tell myself.

Think of something else. Think of someone you haven't had.

Think of someone who hasn't welcomed you into her body, who hasn't had her fingers on your hips or her mouth on your neck. Think of someone who has never cried your name or trembled at the touch of your lips.

I can't. I should, but I can't, and I start to move my hand again, willing myself now to remember her, to feel her again, the slickness inside of her and her long strong legs and her soft hair.

My entire body is shaking. My legs tremble--sweat in my elbow--breathing short--

Yes. Yes. Yes yes yes--hell--o god--

I bite my tongue hard enough to draw blood as my come splatters on my hand and stomach.

O God.

I curl up around myself, around the pain that feels suddenly fresh again, shaking and cold from the sweat drying on my body.

O God.

I wrap my arms around myself and refuse to cry.

Make me nothing
human: not alive, not dead.

Whether I deny what is not in my
power to deny, or by deception

seize it, I am damned.

--from "The Second Hour of the Night", Frank Bidart