Billie

I felt it in her body loves ago. Call it what you will: her psyche, soul, essence, the ghost I never got to know that haunts me down my later years. A fool, I wanted flesh, her buttocks and the small of her back bent beneath my thrusts, her red dress open, chestnut hair against the wall, creamy face pressed deep into the bed till climax and exhaustion merged with dawn. I could please her, but could not keep her long. Three binges later she was packed and gone, her scent still married to my skin, her song so like a sparrow’s in my trembling hand, a song I could not free, or understand.