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by Mike E. Swope
Mainstream, 10 pages.
Originally Published in Sanskrit, Volume 22, 1991
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I met her on a Thursday twenty-five years ago when I was seventeen. I believed in love, like everyone else, but I’ve never lost faith, not once over the twenty-five years. Her name is Crystal, Crys for short. She’s what I don’t understand. She’s a year older than I am, which makes her forty-three. She’s gorgeous, just like she was at eighteen; maybe even better. Her hair hasn’t lost its dark brown color, and her body’s still trim. I could tell you where I met her, but that’s not important. What matters is that we met and our bodies fit together like a spiritual puzzle. My hands ran across the firm contours of her breasts, thighs, and shoulders as if practicing some ancient, traditional form. We were a wonder, a miracle. She felt the same, expressed by the way she touched my chest with her fingertips and my buttocks with her hands. There was that something fantastic between us even then, in our late teens.
The sex between us was great; it always is with someone you love. I learned this early. Crys and I dated for six years, but in that time we split and made up so often I quit keeping track. The last two times we split I began seeing someone else, just as she did, but it wasn’t the same. I came to know what love really is after we separated. I missed her tremendously. She missed me, too, I know, but she can’t admit it to herself. I’ve often asked why.
Our last split she began seeing a man named Don, someone she knew from work. We separated after she went to the lake with him on the Fourth of July, the day before my birthday. She called me before she left and said she was going with her sister, Janet, but I knew something was wrong. I felt it. Sensed it. But I gave her the benefit of my doubt and said, “Okay.” Two hours later Janet stopped by and had no idea where Crys might have been. I was the one who called it off; I’d been betrayed. But we never accomplished letting each other go. She called even after we separated, just to talk. She wanted to know what was going on in my life, what I was doing, where I was headed. I tried not to tell her, but I couldn’t resist for long. I used to get so angry at myself for divulging the information; it was really none of her business. She could have come back at any time.
She did kind of come back. Late one Thursday night she came over and brought me a cherry chip cake with white icing in a throw away pot pie pan. She couldn’t tell me why she brought me the cake. I still don’t know. The note she handed me read, “I can’t help but think about you when I make a cherry chip cake. Sorry.” I refused it at first. We shy away from the things we don’t understand. She set it on the lid of my trash barrel and walked away. I followed and stopped her. She said she didn’t know a thing about what was going on with me because I’d quit telling her, and no one knew anything, which was exactly the way I wanted it. Those factors I could control, better than I do myself, but with her being there in front of me, I told her what she wanted to know. It wasn’t foolish. It was the right thing to do at the right moment. I asked her to take a walk with me, and we walked, and I told her what was happening with me, with school, and with the grad school I was going to attend. When I was through, I picked her up and carried her back up the hill and set her down by her Cadillac. It was the right moment, so I hugged her, and she hugged me back. We ran our hands over each other’s shoulders and backs, like we did in the beginning. We ended up in her Caddie, the wide front seats moved back.
“I’m here because I can’t sleep at night.”
“And it’s not because of me, right? You told me before it wasn’t.”
“I dream about you, Jack.”
“What do you dream about?”
“I can’t tell you.”
“Why not?”
“Because.”
“Don’t you think I deserve to know.”
“I dream about this.”
“Have you forgotten what it feels like?”
“It’s been so long.”
“Does your body remember?”
“Yes. I haven’t been satisfied since. No one can make me feel the way you do.”
“It’s always better with someone you love.”
“I’ll always love you.”
“Then what’s the problem? Come back to me.”
“I can’t.”
“Then why’d you come over?”
“It wasn’t for this.”
“Then why?”
“Not for this. I come over and you make my dreams come true.”
“I’ll haunt you forever, Crys. Someday you’ll marry me.”
I believed that then, that someday she’d be my wife, that someday she’d realize that what she feels for me is love, real love. So I ate the cake she gave me in a bowl of milk in the morning. It was delicious, one of the best cakes I’ve ever had. I washed the pie pan instead of throwing it away and left it on her doorstep while she was out with Don. I did it so she’d know the cake was gone, and I wanted her to wonder if I’d eaten it. She found the empty pan and called on Sunday afternoon, asking if I’d thrown it away -- [End of Preview.]