Perishable

"Was it the fifth or the eighth?" He's leaning against the bathroom sink, looking over at her. She sits on the edge of the tub, holding a washcloth against her nose. The slightest touch usually sets her nose to bleeding, and today is no exception.

Her response is muffled, but he can tell she's chuckling. "Officially? The eighth. But that first dance was the fifth."

By "officially," she's referring to when he kissed her under a winter sky. They ended up dancing at a high school thing, then a couple of days later he found a reason to justify picking her up from her house. They pretended to go to an extracurricular meeting after school.

Instead, they were their own curriculum, and lonely days faded into the past.

"Right, right. Oh, I remember both nights like they were yesterday, for sure," he exhales wistfully. "I guess I've just gotten fuzzy on the dates themselves."

"It's not like it really matters anymore, does it?" The bleeding has stopped, and she's dabbing her nostrils.

He watches her as she moves in grace and beauty, doing this mundane thing. He remembers moving her in ways that were more closely related to need and urgency than anything graceful or beautiful.

But the beauty is always there, even in destruction. He never tires of seeing her, feeling her, the scent of her.

She begged him to hurt her, and he did. She wears fingerprint bruises on her thighs, and when she connects the dots, she'll find a picture sketched in passion. A slap is what landed them in the bathroom, taking a breather near the tail end of a wild night.

To be fair, he didn't know about the easy bleeding, and she didn't tell him.

The picture of her smiling through the crimson curtain, though, was equal parts creepy, terrifying, and fiercely arousing.

He takes her in, admiring her nude form. Unselfconsciously, he wears his nakedness as easily as a three-piece suit, and around him she is much the same.

Two children and a few decades haven't changed her much from those days in the back of his car.

"What?" She looks up to catch him catching an eyeful of her.

"How did we end up here?"

"You smacked the shit out of me, remember?"

He smiles, but the smile doesn't reach his eyes. "You know that's not what I mean."

"And I know you still owe me a few more minutes in that bedroom."

She stands, stretches, tosses the washcloth into the tub. It makes a satisfying sound against the enameled cast iron. She steps over to him, stretching tiptoe to give him a peck on the cheek. Her arms drape across his shoulders and her fingers lace behind his neck.

Bending, scooping, he carries her back into the bedroom.

Framed photos of her husband and their kids watch things no one should see. She laughs, cries, calls his name, and it's like thirty years never separated them.

Satiated, satisfied, she gasps for air, spent. He stretches on the bed alongside her, hands behind his head. He watches the ceiling fan slowly spin. She reaches over and runs a hand along his chest.

"I miss you," she says in a whisper.

"I never went anywhere," he darts his eyes over to her, and he catches her flinch.

"I think the 'us' you knew wasn't the same one I did," her words are a rush that has nothing to do with exertion. "Love is--"

"A perishable skill," he interrupts her.

She withdraws her hand, and sits up to look at him.

"That's a funny word, 'perishable.' Do you think we rotted? Wilted? Spoiled?"

His eyes drink her in again, and he sighs. The thirst is never quenched, the cup is never full. "Everything is a kind of dying, ain't it?" He catches her brown eyes and glances over at one of the framed photos and back again.

Her shoulders slump a little, but she doesn't look away. She holds out a hand, and he takes it.

It's a comfortable silence, then she changes the topic. "When can you meet next week?"

"A better question is how will you explain the bruises?"

She grins, and idly pokes them with her free hand. Diamond and gold glitter from her ring finger.

"I'm clumsy?"

"You really should be careful how you fall, you know." She grins when he says that, kisses his fingers, and stands to dress. He watches every stretch of muscle and flex of skin.

They used to be in love, but now she's somebody he used to know.

"I'm free Tuesday," he says as she smiles.