by Susan DiPlacido
(06/09/04)

Morning is the worst time of day. Whether the bleeting alarm jolts me back to reality or I swim up on my own from the quagmire of sleep, it sucks. It happens in those first seconds as I'm brushing the dreams from my eyelashes, before I know where I am or what day it is. It cracks with lightning dread. Mike is gone. Mike is gone and he's never coming back. I'm alone. I'm alone and Mike is dead.

And it sucks.

Sometimes someone is next to me, sometimes I'm alone. Either way, I pad to the shower and slip in a few more minutes of solace, standing in the steam, skin slicked by the warm water. Drops trickle crooked lines down my legs and pool at my feet before draining away. Until I turn the faucet off and bring it to an end.

That's not a bad part of the day. Absorbed in my thoughts and the calm cleansing of the water, I'm content. Sometimes the guy who's not Mike joins me, and I pretend. A finger touches my hairline, dead at the center of my neck. I sigh. My spine tingles, a chasing shiver anticipating where it's going to land next. The finger moves downward, gracing each vertebra. I straighten reflexively as it passes. Back arched, head thrown back, water falls on my chest as the finger comes to rest in the tiny hollow at the base of my spine. I sigh again as the whole hand is tangible there: human heat, bare skin rubbing and undulating, deciding where to move next. I'm happy.

It lasts until the water goes cold. Then the reverie is broken and I reach up and turn the faucet off. I go to work. Or I do other things. The details don't matter, because it's neither good nor bad. It's just filler.

Sometimes people get impatient with me, but it doesn't last long. They go back to their lives and I smile extra bright for a few days, gamely date some guy who's not Mike for a few weeks so they don't worry. So they'll stop saying things like you have to move on. Or Mike is dead. Even after all this time, I'm still not quite sure how they expect me to respond.

That's the reality, to them. Anything that strays from the absolute is an illusion.

Time. We can't gather it in a box and label it for later. Love. What's love? It's not tangible. But it's real.

When it comes to time, Mike and I were out of synch a lot. We grew up together, but he was older than I was. So when he first noticed me I still thought boys were stupid. When I thought he was cool, he was ready to start fooling around, but I was still shy. When I was ready to start getting busy, he was away at college with a girlfriend. When he was ready to play again, I was getting my footing with boyfriends. He was ready to get serious, and I was ready to play. I was always behind. Then, one day, I caught up.

We fell in love.

Then he jumped ahead of me again. He died. Now I'm waiting to catch up again.

"Till death us do part." That's the rule I break. Vows are promises. Rules for love. We never took those vows anyhow. He can't move on and meet someone new. Why should I? For others, it's grieve, mourn, and then move on. Build a new life, a new love. Why is it so important to have a new one?

Love can't be tasted, touched, smelled, heard, or seen. Love is fluttering in the tummy, an insistent heartbeat, a feeling of happiness, the way they look at us, the way they touch us. The things they do, the words they say. It can't be bottled: it's their essence. Physics, or magic. Energy. Energy is never created or destroyed. Energy is never destroyed, it merely re-groups. Love is energy.

Mike died. My love didn't.

So I pass the time and have a few laughs and a few more drinks. Then someone catches my eye. Sometimes it's the way he stands. Sometimes it's his cologne. Sometimes it's his dark hair. But there's always a reminder of Mike. And that turns me on.

I'll be at least a little warmed up by rum, my mind blurry and easily confused. My body prickling with excitement, flashing lights and pulsing bass. I stand close to him, the guy who's not Mike, and see if there's a spark. As he's talking to me his forearm brushes across my breast. Already wired, my nipple hardens. I lick my lips and lean closer. He brushes again, this time with his hand. Breath catches in my throat and I lean into the touch.

He was flirting before. But now as my nipple pokes the fabric of my shirt, he's looking at the rise and fall of my breathing. He gets brave. He runs his thumb across my nipple. He sighs on my neck. I get wet, immediately: he'll fill the void, and that's enough.

So I take him home. I fix us drinks and lead him to the bedroom.

I strip languidly, because I want it to last. We're kissing, his mouth on mine, warm lips and a hint of stubble, and when his tongue slips out the first time it sends a frisson up my spine. I lay him back on the bed and climb on top. I reach down and touch him. He's hard already, and he sighs as I take hold of him. Head fogged, crotch pulsing, I want to rub his cock against my clit. But I know if I started that I'd catch fire too quickly and I wouldn't be able to stop. And I'm not really believing the lie yet, so I tease him, stroke him a few times.

The last vestiges of rationality tug at me: I stop long enough to get a condom on him. Once that's done, I take another drink of rum. It's slow comforting heat sliding down my throat, warming my belly, soothing my mind. Freeing me. I pull him on top of me. That's what I wanted to feel, the weight of him pressed against me. He kisses me again, deeper, more insistent. He works a hand down to my breast, rubbing it, teasing circles around the nipple I tempted him with. When he tugs on it and slips me more tongue, I groan. My eyes flutter open, and even in the dim light I pick out differences: his hair is lighter, his nose smaller. So I put his free hand over my eyes so I can't peek.

He obliges, this one. I stroke him again in appreciation. It makes him pant and squeeze my breast, sending a pulse right between my legs. Our breathing makes the air dense and balmy. I flutter my eyes open and closed against the soft skin of his palm, lashes grazing and teasing. Soft lips drop a kiss upon the side of my neck and my shoulders hunch against the touch.

Thick and sultry, sweat and flesh, the tang of my dripping cunt. Salty but warm. Moist, hot breath, whispering, lips close, barely touching, moving to my mouth. His hand moves off my face but I keep my eyes closed. A line of kisses falls down my throat, a tongue licks my collarbone. I grab hold of him, start guiding him to me.

A hand moves across my chest: smooth, warm, lower. Down to my belly, rubbing back and forth across it while my neck is being kissed. Sucking on my lips, teeth grazing pleasantly, the weight and warmth of another body. I breathe deeply, blindly stroking him, and he does the same. His hand dives between my legs. Like a cat in heat I arch into it. He rubs a few times and finds my hot spot. Strong fingers make slow circles around my clit.

I writhe under him, using mental images of Mike. The air is even heavier, laden with humidity, soaked with lust. I'm charged. Heart racing, pulse coursing, spine tingling, I'm present and alive, we both are.

Nerves on edge. I inhale roughly. The moisture, the heat, the salt of sex courses through my lungs, some of it absorbed, the rest forced back out again with a moan. He stops rubbing my clit -- I could scream -- but right away he places his hand over mine on his cock and lines himself up. Sudden and deep, he thrusts inside me.

I buck and moan, eyes still clamped shut; I wrap my legs around his waist, move into him, and then we're fucking. I hope this one doesn't leap ahead of me. Mike, sometimes he was faster than I was at this, too. He usually made it up to me or finished me off so that we'd be even. But I've had enough of being left behind. From the way this guy who's not Mike is sending silvery shivers down my spine, I doubt he'll come before I do. But he's panting and working, propped on his elbows, hips thrusting. As insurance I wriggle a hand down between us and stroke myself, conjuring images of my lover while my fingers rub.

He groans in a hoarse voice, encouraging me. "Yeah, work yourself, baby." I wish he wouldn't do that, talk, it's not the voice I'm imagining. My clit is responding and he feels so good inside, all that friction and heat, burying deep, hitting the spot. But it pulls me back off the edge. At least he's turned on by me and he feels so damn good and my eyes are still shut, picturing what I want. He talks again: "That's so hot, baby."

I shush him, then pick up the pace to get the spark back. He puts his hand on my wrist, feeling me working myself, and picks up his pace too. I'm burning, rubbing furiously, he's driving into me, and I'm picturing everything that's going on in my mind with Mike's hand holding my wrist, Mike's cock deep in me, Mike whispering to me...and then flushed and sweaty, breath ragged, tingles erupt, and I'm right there. Pleasure that can't last. I hover on the edge, sucking breath, so good, so extreme I can't force myself to stop or pull away.

Like a lighting crack, I come.

My whole body jolts, breathing stops, every muscle contracts. I don't even try, I just think Mike. He's still thrusting, sending shockwaves all through me and I pull him close and hold on tight. We're alive. He stops, starts shaking, coming inside me as I shudder back into relaxation.

Exhausted, we lay still. Panting, warm, coursing with energy. I sigh again, stroking his back, just conscious enough to whisper a pre-emptive "Shhhh."

Twilight: not asleep and dreaming, not awake. Sated. Dazed. Warmth next to me. Feeling in love with Mike.

It's the best time of the day.

Love is energy. Energy is never created or destroyed.

It just shifts and changes, but then it regroups. Until I catch up, I have this. Flowing through me, around me. I can't shut it off. Because I'm in love with Mike.

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