Look, I admit, I'm at least partly responsible for the situation. It's my fault I'M here, and not his, er, mine.
The pronouns can get really confusing, so maybe I should just back up. It's not easy being a clone, or, shall I say a time-displaced duplicate of him. I mean, of myself (see?). The accident happened a while ago, really long enough for him, the other me, to get used to it. We both decided that we'd stay in the same house and have the same life; he owed me that much, for saving his (my) life.
I DON'T...
Her breath rose from her body in swirls of ash. The air wheezed from her as you would expect the air would travel through a burnt husk of a body. Each night she burned, crumbling into herself, waking in a bright fury with the morning sun. Some called her a phoenix, a goddess of the volcano, Pelée.
I was a lowly stream, trembling, trickling in her wake. The heat of her caused my innards to boil, and the creatures would leave me. The earth heaved with her breath, the tumbling rocks rolling, the sparks floating away with the grace of...
I couldn't sleep with her next to me. The window was wide open, and there was something resembling a breeze rustling in through it, but the bedroom was stifling, and I could feel every molecule of my skin bonding inextricably with hers. I peeled myself away painfully, and she bristled.
"Where are you going?"
"Babe, it's hot. Really. I'm gonna go sleep on the couch."
"What's wrong with me? Why can't you just sleep on the other side of the bed?"
"There is no other side of the bed. There's no space to do anything but cuddle, and I can't...
I couldn't sleep with her next to me. The heat of her, the weight of her, the pressure of her next to me, none of it was what I had known before. I could barely believe she was there, breathing softly and quietly, but the signs of her seemed to be irrefutable proof.
I couldn't think with her next to me. Her brown hair splayed out on the pillow around her, curls and ringlets that covered her ears, ran down to her neck and then to her bare shoulders. Her presence, her pink lips parted just slightly, none of this...
I couldn't sleep with her next to me, he said. She was tossing and turning, not to mention I couldn't stop looking at her. Her blonde hair rolled up onto her head in a knot, my college t-shirt, and her Superman underwear- I just couldn't take my eyes off of her. She was beautiful.
In the morning when I was still looking at her she smiled wide, loving that I was already (well, still), awake. She kissed my forehead and slid closer.
"Dude, what are you doing, you said you didn't love her."
"I can't help it, the way she...
I couldn't sleep with her next to me. Rigor mortis set in long ago, and her arms tented the blankets, letting far too much cold air underneath for me to ever get comfortable.
Move the body? I couldn't. Decay bound the corpse to the mattress, and removal would ruin the fine bedding.
I loved that mattress.
I'd paid for the whole night, thinking that I might as well go for the whole enchilada.
Half an hour would have been $80-plus, the "plus" being a sliding scale based on what I wanted to do in the half-hour. An hour would have been $200-plus. She said the full hour cost more than two half-hours because the clients usually wanted to be more exotic if they have a whole hour to work with.
I paid $2000-plus for her to stay with me the whole night. All the hours she'd do nothing but sleep with me, she could have been...
I couldn't sleep with her next to me. I knew what she had done. It was despicable; it made my stomach churn. But there she was, next to me, sleeping soundly, like a baby without a care in the world. Her breathing came in short shallow gasps. Her snores got on my nerves and as I try to sleep all I can think of is what she's done. What I've done, now that I know. I'm part of it. A romantic evening, a shared bottle of Merlot, shared secrets; too much. A night of passion, a night of disgust. Now...
I couldn't sleep with her next to me. i was half scared that she would just disapear, it had been so long since we had been here like this and I could hardly beleive it was real. I just wanted to watch her, soak in every last detail of this moment I knew couldn't last.
I wanted to remember how her hair fanned on the pillow. Some might liken it to a halo, but to me it seemed more like a lion's mane. I wanted to remember how she smelt, how her chest gently rose and fall as she slept,...