If anyone asks now, I tell them: Paris is a beautiful city. I’ve never not thought this.

I hear she’s not there anymore, and I guess for a time she and it, the city, were one and the same, as in, she was there and I was not. I’m in this city, and six hours at the speed of sun separated us even before either of us stood up to move. Facetime and texts and emails made it easier but how easy could it be.

If anyone asks now: no, there wasn’t a happy ending. I’ve never expected one.

• * * * * *

I do this sometimes, and I feel the blip of heat wash over my face when I catch myself: I fantasize about what could have been. Is it wrong that now I imagine more the things I could have done more than I recall her face, her smile, her eyes, or the feel of her nude body against mine?

Regret is an awful, terrible thing.

But it feels so tempting and bittersweet, the nostalgia mixing in gently with the sad and sorry feelings that bring at once the false hope of different choices and the sickeningly sweet fantasy of a life different than the one that envelops the reality of the present.

It is times like this, and maybe I’m wrong, but I force myself to recall that which I can have no regret over: the things that have passed and will never pass again – acts and motions and senses and

• * * * * *

It was not the last time we fucked, that I choose to remember. It was some time before that, maybe around my birthday, some time she let herself into my apartment and she barely opened her small carry on luggage the entire time she was here. Some time, long ago, when I opened my door to see her waiting for me.

The door shut loudly behind me of its own weight as I kicked off my shoes and in three strides crossed into the living room and where she and I were suddenly face to face and without a word lip to lip and hands and arms wrapped around each other thirsty for each other’s touch as if it would never be quenched without drowning.

The couch was the closest and we collapsed into it together, hips suddenly grinding and those jeans were so tight against her legs and ass that I peeled them off of her so they flipped inside out before her ankles and feet popped out and she deftly reached in to undo my belt and my dress pants. Shirts were pulled up and over our heads and her hair ballooned out before splashing over her shoulders in a golden sunburst the last thing I saw before my eyes closed as I plunged in with my mouth.

It washed over me in waves and I swam up and against the current to meet her lips and the kiss on my lips like a breath to my lungs burning for air before the next wave flushed me down again deeper still and I swam with my body arms and legs and pushing and the current pulling me down and up and again another kiss before going under.

It was like this: it was like drowning; it was like swimming against the current, the pull of the water both so strong and fluid and yet the tighter I held on the more it slipped out of my grasp.

• * * * * *

And this is what I choose to remember, like now, in the icy hold of New York City winters where you have to remind yourself of the shortest month as the coldest cruelest month in which winter decides to bare its teeth in a flash you can’t yet tell if will result in a bite.

The sun is golden and it splashes against the golden sand battered by the golden waves with the golden seafoam washing like molten steel over the endless forever gold of the coast forever eating at the land forever sinking into the golden ocean.

Time does move forward here, seconds piling on top of seconds like the grains of sand formed by the sighing yield of the craggy titans cliffs; a surrender by inaction, rocks and boulders and rough stone facing a forced retreat into infinitesimilarity to dust. It is nothing, and what was left – the places we built and lived in and told each other stories in and laughed and cried and fucked and slept and woke and slept again were hollowed out long ago before the sea (the golden sea) moved in to take the place of our long forgotten ghosts.

And in the water the sand swirls by the backwash of the waves and beneath the surface it sifts and what we knew settles down down down until the light – the golden sun – is nothing but a haze and it’s far and it’s cold at the bottom and nothing moves anymore not because it can’t but because it’s sunken.

She lives lit up in tiny screens nowadays, with the bright Parisian sun filling in the air around the pictures and sounds. Her hair seems blonder, brighter, in swoops and curls, brought up one day and then flopping fashionably around her face the next. Her voice, too, sounds so colored with French, as if the cuisine has altered the very movements and gestures of her tongue.

And here, with the rainy month of April refusing to give way, it makes me feel like everything around me is so pedestrian and monochromatic. A gray New York is instantly dirty and grimy, like the forgotten and discarded day-old newspapers collecting and brooding in the corners of subway cars. The frequent showers make it all a runny and cold soup.

I tell her of work and stress and things that I shouldn’t be wasting our time with, and it fills me with regret as soon as it leaves my lips. She smiles and I forget my cares. It’s the feeling of missing her that makes it so bittersweet.

The laptop lid is closed and I put it aside. The bed feels too cold all of a sudden. It is the presence of her absence that sits heavy beside me. A terrible companion that the cheap and free porn on the internet cannot chase. Reading of blogs and other smutty narratives just fall short tonight.

And still I cannot deny the half-hard state the endless Tumblr pages (filled with shot after shot of eroticism) have left me in. And the videos on YouPorn and Redtube leave such a visceral afterimage (whether I want them to or not) that I’m filled with want.

So I shut my eyes and shield myself from everything else (from everything not her) and instead fill my senses with the last memories I have of her, the ones that seem so far away and wrapped in the misty air of recollection. From the last glimpses of her face with eyes closing and lips ready for a kiss, to the smell of her moisturizer/makeup/perfume, to the feel of her skin beneath my fingertips, to the warmth of her body on top of mine, to the reassuring sounds murmured between her lips and tongue, to the weight of her breasts pressing against my chest. I do what I can to dream her up and with me now, time and distance be damned, and to soothe this sting of need.

Her lips, yes, wide and full, then wrapped around my cock and that sharp sound of the breath rushing up her nostrils. Or the grasp of her hand at the base before she guides it in with her legs parted and her pussy (wet and) willing. The arch of her back and the tightness as she writhes beside, under, on top, and poured all over me. The twitch of my own coming harder and faster like an echo that grows instead of fading with each time I am inserted deeper and deeper into her.

But as my eyes open it is with a pain and a pop, the fantasy suddenly gone without any of the effort took to conjure it. I’m left with a second to catch my breath, gather myself and wash my hands in the bathroom, before returning to the bed, alone, deflated, and no better or worse.

(This, actually, was prepared in advance, but does fit this week’s Wank Wednesday prompt so here it is.)

Her legs trembled and quivered as she held her hips above my lap in a deep squat, knees bent and arms held out for balance. Turning her head to look at me with pleading eyes, she shook even more, the stress on her back and thighs wearing her patience thin.

I made her shed the sweaty gym clothes in a crumpled heap by the couch— the yoga pants that were so tight on her ass rolling off her legs, the bulky and shapeless sweatshirt unzipped and slid off her shoulders and arms, and the sports-bra-tank peeled up and over her body. The tight clothing left lines on her skin, and she smelled of fading deodorant and sweat. And then, I put her in position hovering over my lap.

My pants were undone and around my ankles with my cock standing stiff through the fly of my boxers. Any movement caused it to brush against her suspended pussy and she only sighed louder and shook with strain. I bet the tops of her thighs burned with lactic acid, and her back ached with stiffness. She wore sweat on her back like dew and her hair was already matted down from her workout at the gym.

I undid my tie and the sound of fabric rubbing was loud in my ears— was it loud in hers? The shirt too, button by button, and I moved slightly when pulling it out from underneath me. The head of my cock pressed against her pussy and she rocked back slowly. She let a whimper escape her lips and I slapped her ass, making her twitch and turning the skin a bright pink.

I pulled my undershirt off my body and over my head, cock bobbing back and forth, tapping against her pussy lips. Her balance was wavering and her arms moved to steady herself. It had been enough.

Pushing her shoulders forward but her ass back toward me, I let her know: “You do all the work.”

She put her weight down, my cock suddenly thrust upward within her fiery hot cunt with a soft squish. Her hands grabbed my knees and she began to bounce up and down. I slouched down further on the couch and my ass slid forward, lower so she could get more leverage.

“Faster,” I said, staying still and watching her ass ripple as it slapped against my hips.

“Faster,” I said, hearing her panting and her grip on my knees tighten.

“Faster,” I said, slapping her ass to spur her on.

She landed hard and squirmed and stopped to catch her breath. Her neck and back glistened.

I pulled her off me and we went into the bed, and she collapsed while I fucked her from behind until my lungs burned and my chest heaved and I too dripped with sweat and tire. She closed her eyes and kept her ass angled up toward me until she finally shuddered with cum— pussy contracting and milking me. I fell forward and my cock slipped out as I came on her ass and thighs.

And that’s how we fell asleep, in sheets damp with sweat and cum and exertion.

(25-April, 2011: And so we meet again, Fleshbot!)

“I miss the feeling of you next to me,” the tinny voice says, the sound coming to me faster than the image can catch up.

She is in bed, I can tell by the pillows and headrest behind her, and the time difference is like that, because I just grabbed food on the way home from work. I’m hoping the bags under my eyes don’t show. I’m hoping the weary misery of her absence isn’t picked up by the tiny camera and shot over the wires and reformed on her screen for her eyes to see.

“Do you remember that time,” I say slowly, hoping so much that the movement of my lips isn’t too far behind the sound, “we got stuck in the rain over on the West Side?” She nodded.

We’d gone to an Indo-Chinese fusion restaurant that got some review on Yelp, and the food was terrible, over-spiced, and over-priced. The waiter kept looking down her shirt, my napkin was dirty, and we vowed never to trust online reviews again. And after leaving no tip (the first time I think I’ve ever done that), we stepped out to a miserable cold rain that soaked our jackets and seemed to dribble through her umbrella.

“We got home,” I retold the story, “and the first thing we did was peel off all our clothes and climb into bed.” She smiled and interrupted.

“You were an ice cube!”

“Hey, I think I was the one who warmed you up though,” I reminded her.

I smiled and our hearts ached and I’m sure we thought a little about fucking and a lot about how far we were, and just talked a little bit more and both decided it was time for bed, since neither of us was a fan of phone or video sex. Those alternatives would be pale and shallow, and in no way adequate enough.

“Your cock,” she said, slowly bringing her hand to it and letting her fingers nest in the short pubic hair, and it wasn’t an insult or a jab, but merely a reflection as she finished her words: “gets so small when you’re not fucking.”

The television was on, but the volume was off, and the lights were off, so the room was lit with the flashbangs of commercials, scene changes, and random washes of green and blue. The sweat had cooled and the sheets now soaked us back. In all honesty, these were signs I should have gotten up, dressed, and made my way home.

“Yeah,” I said, acknowledging my limp and shrunken cock. I wasn’t offended or joking, but answered with the same tone as hers: “I’m a grow-er not a show-er.”

She left her hand on me and her fingers made the smallest of motions, and that was enough. I grew and it was soon that I was stiffer and fuller, and she noted the size difference.

“Travel-size,” she said, holding her index finger and thumb apart. “And fun-size,” she stretched them apart as wide as she could, but this play— this light-hearted and tender moment— was much too much for me to bear and I put my hand on her head, grabbed a fistful of her short brown hair, and roughly brought her mouth to my cock— it must have tasted salty with drying traces of my cum and her pussy— and the talking stopped because she knew what I wanted her to do.