I Still Remember

by Bliss, Harper

  After I’ve put myself together as best as I can, smelling of lavender and satisfaction, I find my way to the reception area. My legs are still a bit shaky and my cheek still tingles where Amy kissed it last. I half-expect reception to not be there and wake up in my old bedroom in my parents’ house, sweaty from a passionate dream. But there’s Amy, leaning against the reception desk, one ankle crossed over the other. She looks so different from when I first walked in. A lot has changed since then.

  “I presume you have a party to go to tonight.” Amy’s voice is playful, almost seductive.

  I remember the reason why I’m in town and all the prying questions on my relationship status I have to look forward to. “Yes. Oh, joy.” I check my watch. “But it only starts at seven.”

  Amy draws her lips into a pensive pout. “Let me check with the boss if I can take the rest of the day off.” She tucks her chin in and looks at her own chest. “Great. She agrees.” She sends me a wide smile and I’m sixteen again.

  We exit The Body Spa together and I wait for her initiative as we stand around on the parking lot in front.

  “Did you know I live in my parents’ old house now?”

  Due to the fact I appear on TV five times a week, Amy probably has a lot more superficial knowledge of me than I of her. I realise I know nothing about her life. “Really?” But, oh gosh, the memories that place holds.

  “Yep. Do you still know the way?”

  I nod. I could never forget. “See you there in ten minutes.”

  I step into my rental and notice my hand is shaking when I put the key in the ignition. I’m going to Amy Waters’s house. It’s the only thought occupying my mind as I drive the route I could take blindfolded—still, after all these years.

  I used to ride my bike to Amy’s house. An old beat-up BMX I inherited from my older brother. I’d attach cards from a deck to the spokes with clothespins and pretend it was the scooter my parents would never allow me to have.

  The Waters house is still in the same spot in the same street, but that’s about all that still resembles the memory I have of it. The bricks are no longer red and the roof is flat instead of slated.

  I sit staring at the sleek, whitewashed walls of the rectangular shape in front of me, when a knock on my car window wakes me from my daze.

  “Coming?” Amy’s arched-up eyebrows ask—just like they’ve always done.

  I get out of the car and, apparently, I can’t hide the look of bewilderment on my face.

  “If this surprises you, wait until you see the inside,” Amy teases. But I’m not really interested in the inside of her house—not for now, anyway. I want to go round the back and see if the pond is still there. That pond where we passed hours of our youth just lying around and dreaming out loud of the kind of life I knew I would never lead.

  Amy catches my glance and it’s as if she can read my mind. “Come on.” She curls her fingers around my wrist and drags me to the path circling around the house. “You can admire my flair for interior design later.”

  My pace quickens as we approach the backyard. To my surprise, not a lot has changed. The pine trees are still there, and so is the pond. I can see its surface flicker through the spaces between the trees.

  A rush of tears pricks behind my eyes. I have to breathe in deeply to stop them from crashing through.

  “I’ve spent a fortune redoing the house, but this is still my favourite spot.” Amy stands behind me and her voice sounds exactly the same as then, except, everything is different now. I turn around to face her.

  “Did you know?” I ask, the words coming out a bit shaken.

  Her face mellows into a soft expression foreign to me. Is this how she looked at her husbands when they proposed? How did she regard them when the divorces came through? But I’m no different, not having had a romantic relationship last longer than a few years. I broke my record with Celia, who, in the end, I also successfully managed to chase away. I blame the job. Presenting the morning news doesn’t make for a lot of date nights. Or maybe the right woman simply hasn’t come along yet.

  “How could I not?” Her fingers intertwine with mine. “You were my best friend, Eli. Of course I knew.”

  My heart beats in my throat. Why did I never say anything? What if our years of friendship turned out to be one big missed opportunity? What if it could have been so much more than me sneaking glances and pining for her secretly?

  In my teenage mind, Amy was the cruel one for, supposedly, never being able to return my affections. But in the end, I was the one who left without looking back.

  This baggage hangs heavy in the air between us, thick like the remnants of summer clouding the late afternoon.

  “I’m sorry for leaving like that.” The words tumble out of me like a confession, like something that should have been said ages ago.

  “Hey,” she yanks my arms up by the wrists and places my hands on her hips, “I always told myself you simply loved me too much to stay.” Amy was always the brave, hopeful one. But when she puts it like that, my defences against the tears burning behind my eyes crumble.

  “Gosh.” Tears stream down my cheeks and I can’t wipe them away because Amy is holding my wrists.

  “You’re here now.” Amy leans in and presses her lips against my cheek.

  It’s the simple truth. I’m here, by Amy’s pond and she just kissed me again. I’m no longer Eli the lovesick teenager. I’m Elise Frost, the morning news anchor who caused a riot on a lesbian website when she dared to exchange her signature glasses for a new model.

  “I am.” Amy’s been running this show long enough. Unafraid of whatever happens next, I loosen my wrists from her grip. I bring my hands to her cheeks and draw her near. When our lips meet, the past falls away and I easily shake off whatever’s left of my teenage self. We’re two grown women and this couldn’t be more perfect.

  While our lips meet again and again, I trace my fingertips over the skin of her arms until they find the hem of her tank top. I don’t just want to get underneath, I want it off of her. I hoist it over her chest and break the kiss to pull the top over her head. I’ve ogled those collarbones long enough. As gorgeous as they are, I need more.

  Heat travels through me at high speed and I do hope there will be time for slow caresses and endless gazing into each other’s eyes later, because I can’t stop myself now. My actions border on the edge of frantic when I pull the straps of her bra down and scoop a soft breast out of its cup. Feeling its weight in my hand brings me pause, though, and I stop to worship it. My lips are drawn to the dark brown of Amy’s nipple and when I taste it, I taste her. I taste afternoons riding our bikes along the high street, looking for excitement. I taste the sun that slanted across the tops of the pine trees when we sunbathed in this very spot. I taste our history.

  Amy’s hands are in my hair, her fingertips zapping electricity through my scalp. I fall onto my knees and drag her with me onto the grass. It’s an unexpected struggle to get her bra off amidst the tangle of limbs we have become, but I want her naked beneath me more than I’ve wanted anything in my life.

  I think about the times I laid down next to her on this indestructible patch of grass, dreaming up the courage to do something about the heat that throbbed under my skin.

  Between the mad frenzy of tugging off our clothes and getting our hands on each other’s flesh, I see all of my dreams come to life. I see it in Amy’s eyes. The same desire I once suffered from, now sizzling between us, years too late but, simultaneously, right on time.

  I marvel at the strong muscles gleaming beneath the skin of Amy’s thighs as I strip off her trousers. Her legs are tanned, and why wouldn’t they be with a backyard like this. Before I rid her of the last piece of clothing—her panties—I make sure I’m as half-dressed as she is and take everything off except my knickers.

  Stretching my arms alongside her head, I look down at her, at the desire chasing away any doubt from her face and the ripple of her biceps as she brings her hands to my hair
again. I’m beyond words, so I let my mouth crash down on hers and I kiss her.

  Amy’s elbows lock around my neck and the way she holds me close to her couldn’t express my own emotions better. It’s as if I found something I didn’t even know was missing, but can never let go of again.

  “Do it,” she hisses into my ear when our lips break apart for a split second. “Fuck me, Eli.”

  And maybe it’s in the way she pronounces my childhood nickname, or maybe it’s the heat coming off her skin mixed with the nostalgic power of our surroundings, but the tears start stinging again. I’m quick to swallow them away and peck a moist path down her shoulder, over her exquisite collarbones, stopping at her breasts. I bend my elbows so my own nipples skate along her stomach. They’re hard and stiffen further as they meet the soft skin of her belly. I suck one of her nipples into my mouth and rub my teeth against it.

  “Ooh,” she moans, and it’s enough to set my pussy on fire. My entire body seems to vibrate as I nibble on Amy’s nipples. And then the scent of the grass hits my nose and a light breeze rushes over us, making my skin break out in goosebumps, and the picture is complete.

  I travel lower, kissing my way along Amy’s belly button until my lips reach the hem of her panties. My tongue slips under briefly and already her muscles contract. I take the hour of foreplay she experienced when she fucked me on her massage table into consideration, and proceed. I place a trail of light kisses on the panel of her panties, before pulling it aside and exposing her pussy to the air. Then a whole new perfume hits my nose, pure arousal blending with the promise of a beautiful late summer night.

  I look at her puffy, shiny lips. At how pink and perfect they are, and how wet they are for me, but before I threaten to get over-emotional again, I press my mouth to her pussy and inhale.

  “Oh god, yes.” Amy breathes heavily, twining her fingers through my hair.

  I push myself up and, while removing her panties from her legs, find her gaze. I remember how she hardly blinked earlier that afternoon as her fingers meandered towards my pussy. We have a lot to talk about. Later.

  After positioning myself comfortably between her legs, my arms cradling her hips for support, I lick Amy Waters’s pussy for the first time. I believe it must affect me much more than her, despite the fact that, the instant my tongue connects, her pelvis shoots up and her nails may leave permanent scratch marks on my scalp.

  I trail my tongue all the way along her lips and let it circle around her clit. Every time I repeat the action, my tongue burrows a bit deeper between her folds and I taste her musky, heady perfume.

  “Eli,” I hear her murmur, and I’m so lost in the trance licking her puts me in, she has to grab me by the hair to get my attention.

  “What?” I scan her face for signs of pain or discomfort, but a big grin awaits.

  “Straddle me, please. I need to taste you.”

  I begin to think I know exactly what went wrong in Amy’s two marriages, providing they involved the opposite sex. The way she fucked me so assuredly earlier and now this question are hardly signs of someone new to the lesbian lifestyle. I’m also beginning to wonder how much of my life I wasted by leaving Amy behind twenty years ago.

  Happily, I oblige. I slip out of my soaked underwear and crawl up to her.

  “Are you sure?” I ask, more to tease than to know, because I recognise certainty when I see it and it’s staring right back at me.

  In response, she pulls me on top of her and there I sit, my legs wide above Amy’s mouth, hers spread in front of me. Never in my wildest dreams, I think, before lowering myself, my knees sinking into the grass of our youth.

  When her tongue grazes against my lips the first time, I nearly crash through my elbows. My nipples press into Amy’s belly as I position my mouth over her pussy. When she sucks my clit into her mouth, white heat crackles through my skull and I all but lose it again.

  I have Amy’s pussy to attend to, though, and this is not an opportunity I want to waste. I’m in no position to add fingers to the mix, so I put all my effort into licking her. Every time Amy sucks my lips or clit into her mouth, I do the same, until my brain reaches the point at which it can’t compute anymore. Amy’s tongue flicks my clit, while my own face is buried between her legs, breathing her in, lapping at her essence. And then it’s too much again.

  I come. My knees shuddering against her shoulders, and I could scold myself for my lack of self-control, because I certainly haven’t given as good as I have gotten yet, but really, who could blame me for that?

  I regroup quickly, because it’s also a little bit a matter of pride, me being the out and proud lesbian in this alfresco sixty-nine position. I launch a fresh onslaught of licks on her clit, because she can’t be that far off. I trill my tongue against her swollen bud and I feel her fingertips scrape my buttocks.

  “Yes,” she says and it spurs me on. Her body trembles underneath mine, her nipples hard pebbles against my stomach. “Oh god.” And I sense the climax making its way through her body, pulsing through her muscles, but I only stop licking when she gives me a light pat on the backside.

  I topple off her onto the grass and I can feel a fit of giggles build inside of me. This is what it came down to? A quick rumble by the pond?

  “Come here,” she says, and opens her arms as wide as her legs earlier.

  I nestle in the crook of her elbow, and we both lie in silence for a while, waiting for our breath to steady and for our brain to find the words. Amy speaks first.

  “I do hope for your sake none of my neighbours have zoom lenses on their cameras.”

  In any other circumstance, a blind panic would have rushed through me at the mention of nosy neighbours, but not when I’m in Amy’s arms.

  “No one recognises me without my glasses and fancy tops on, anyway.”

  “I did.” Amy draws me closer, and a million questions race through my mind, but, perhaps because of the early-evening sun dipping lower behind the trees, I’m all of a sudden very aware of the reason for my visit and how I might not make it to my father’s big birthday party on time and in a presentable way.

  “I don’t suppose you want to be my date tonight?” Reluctantly, I wrestle myself free from Amy’s embrace.

  She pulls me back in. “Don’t we have some lesbian processing to do first?” Her hands shoot up my back and, instantly, set my skin on fire again.

  “Not the kind you have in mind right now.” I smile against her neck. “I have to go."

  “Will you come back after?” I revel in the obvious tension in Amy’s biceps, a big indicator she doesn’t want me to go.

  “I don’t have to tell you what the Frosts are like, do I? It might be a late one.”

  “As long as you don’t leave town without a word of warning.” Amy’s voice is a whisper, barely able to be heard above the rustle of the wind.

  That’s exactly what I did years ago. One day, I simply couldn’t take it anymore. I couldn’t be witness to Amy and Brett’s blossoming romance one minute longer. So I left. It was as much self-preservation as it was cowardice, because I failed to say goodbye.

  “I promise.” This conversation should not take place while we’re both naked in Amy’s backyard. “I really have to go now.”

  As I scramble for my clothes, sadness overtakes me. What if twenty years is not enough to forget the hurt I’ve caused her? What is this, anyway? Because, I may want to bring Amy breakfast in bed tomorrow morning, but as far as I know she’s still a twice-divorced heterosexual woman—and nothing has changed at all, except for the few grey hairs sprouting from my scalp and the deepening laughter lines Joe, my make-up guy, always makes fun of.

  Amy watches me leave. She’s still naked, not making any effort to cover herself up. I bend down to kiss her on the forehead—and to commit the scent of this afternoon to memory.

  It was the beginning of summer after our high school graduation. Amy and I both knew we’d be going our separate ways at the end of it, each to colleges mile
s away from one another. But we had one last summer of lounging by the pond, talking about boys—in Amy’s case—and trying to muster up the courage to tell her how much I loved her—on my part. We had big plans to visit each other during breaks, and the Christmas reunions we’d stage would be epic.

  Because I couldn’t bring myself to tell her, I felt more like a fraud every day. One afternoon, something inside me broke. I was sitting by the edge of the water, eyeing Amy as she ducked above and below the surface. When she pulled herself out, a million water drops clinging to her skin and reflecting the summer sun, the vision I had of her was too much.

  No one knew how I felt, and I couldn’t tell my best friend. Insecurity, teenage hormones and the overwhelming sense of not having a clue as to who or what I was, knotted into a ball in the pit of my stomach. It sat there growing every time I looked at Amy. And I looked at Amy a lot those days.

  “Brett’s bringing his friend Paul tonight. You know, the handsome one from basketball.” Amy plunged herself down next to me, spraying my skin with water drops. “Surely, he must be good-looking enough for you, Eli.”

  I resented the fact that she just didn’t see. That she felt the need to set me up with boys I wasn’t even remotely interested in. That she assumed I was just like her. At the same time, I knew it was wrong to feel that way. And I wanted her so much. I wanted to kiss her and tell her to forget about Brett and Paul. We spent all of our time together and we got along so well. Why was that not enough?

  But I knew it didn’t work that way.

  “I have to go.” I started getting up, for once almost more repulsed by Amy’s half-naked body than turned-on.

  “Now? Why?” Amy arched up her eyebrows. “You are coming tonight, aren’t you?”

  “I’ll see.” Suddenly, I couldn’t get out of there fast enough. “I’ll let you know,” I said more to myself than to her, as I made my way out of Amy’s yard.