Run by the awesome Molly Moore and Wriggly Kitty, #StoryIn12 is the latest meme to take Twitter by storm. A daily prompt is posted every morning and all and sundry are invited to write a 12 word story that includes it. Some of my offerings have taken root in my head and are insisting that they be turned into blog posts at the very least. So I’ve challenged myself. I’m gonna turn each of my twelve word stories into 500(ish) word stories that may or may not be erotic. Here we go…
A handful of memories. That’s all I’ve got to show for the six months I spent loving Greta Ellison. I’d given her everything I had while we were together. My time, my heart, and my body. My car, the deeds to my house, all my money. I’d been so busy handing my life over to her I hadn’t even realised that she was giving me nothing in return until she and everything I’d ever owned was gone.
Yes, I’m angry. And not just at her. I’m angry with myself for being so naïve, so blinded by love and lust that I practically facilitated my own ruin. But more than that, I’m angry with myself for being incapable of transforming my love for her into hate.
Even now, as I sit in this bus station with a ticket to my home town crumpled in my hand and my tail tucked firmly between my legs, I can’t stop pining for her. My eyes are pointed at an exhaust grimed window but I’m not seeing the hectic scene on the other side. I’m wandering around my own head. Picking at memories. Getting too easily swept away by a montage of flushed skin, parted lips, flaming hair, and olive eyes, and a soundtrack of loud cries, soft sighs, and deep, desperate moans. Each fragmented remembrance builds a picture that torments me incessantly.
In the middle of it all is a perfect image of her face. I latch onto it. Pull it forward, right to the front of my mind until the flickering images stop. I enlarge it, frame it, preserve every detail so I’ll never forget how deeply this rose can wound with her thorns.
No, I don’t want to see! I try so hard to stop the static image becoming active, but as Greta told me before she left me, I’m weak. A masochistic part of me presses play and the image springs to life.
Buses come and go. Someone sits beside me, leaves, and is replaced by someone else. They speak to me, but I don’t respond. I’m watching the scene playing out behind my eyelids, crossing my legs to hide my shame, berating myself for not being wise enough to have seen the inevitable.
Memory shows me Greta resting her hands on her bare thighs, pushing her ass against her heels. Looking up through fluttering lashes at the two men standing over her with sweat dripping from their hair. I watch her mouth open, see her tongue appearing from behind her teeth, flattening against her chin as she waits patiently for the imminent shower.
I hear the fuck-drunk laugh that bubbled from the back of her throat when she saw me standing, stricken, in the doorway. They’d looked at me. The men. Her laugh had alerted them to my presence but seeing me didn’t stop them. They redoubled their efforts and, as one, they’d sprayed her face and broke my heart.
After they’d left I’d loved her. After she left I’d loved her. I wish I could forget her, but I can’t. Not when I’m still fighting so hard to remember.
