Author's website: http://www.dementia.org/~jacquez/writing/

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Ray pressed his nose into the hair at the back of Stella's neck and pulled back gently on her hip. She murmured in her sleep and shifted against him, easy as that, following his lead, like always. Or not always, not anymore, but like she had when she was thirteen, and had two left feet but knew how to follow his lead and didn't think he was a wimp because he knew how to dance. She never laughed at him for being short or nerdy or the son of a meat-packer; she only laughed at him for things he did, like falling off of fences or accidentally hitting himself in the face with baseballs. He hit himself in the face with baseballs a lot, because he loved hearing her laugh.

And besides, Stella was forever getting gum in her hair because she didn't take it out before she went to sleep, so he laughed at her a lot, too.

He looked over at the ashtray on the bedside table, and it had old ashes in it from when he'd still smoked, and it had a drying piece of gum in it now, one that Stella had spit into his mouth when he'd kissed her earlier. He'd cracked up and taken it out and stuck it on her nose, and she'd put it into the ashtray and he'd tackled her to the bed when she wasn't looking.

Mostly he got her in bed when she wasn't looking these days. Since the divorce, anyway. A couple times a month, she'd be at his door or he'd be at hers and they would stare at each other, awkwardly, and then one of them would turn on the radio.

And that was that--they were dancing, and then they were laughing and then somehow, when they weren't looking, weren't guarded enough for just an instant, they were fucking. He never thought of it was making love, not anymore--it was always fucking, always with a hard edge to it and the desperate feeling that maybe, maybe, if they fucked a little more or a little better or if he made her come a few more times or maybe if they did it against a wall or the door or in the shower, maybe that connection would snap back into place.

And it'd be love again, like it was love when they were thirteen and learning to dance, or sixteen and he was reading Batman while she did her French homework, or eighteen and staying out all night because they could.

But it never was.

Ray slid his hand down the outside of her thigh, feeling soft hairs catch on his hand, and she turned in her sleep, burrowing against him, her nose against his breastbone, her nipples against his stomach, her leg sliding between his.

She smelled like ink and sex and Ivory soap.

He reached out to get the light and knocked the ashtray off the table. It thumped on the floor, and as he gathered her in, pulled her closer, he could just barely smell bubblegum underneath the ashes.

End Everything You Don't Think About by jacquez h. valentine: jacquez@dementia.org

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