Vintage, baby.

No Trace Left

Ever since I was young, I have shared beds on sleepovers. The feeling of companionship, the errant limb occasionally finding itself wrapped around your waist, and the warm body next to you. That's love.

Now that I'm older, my mother thinks I am doing illicit things with everybody who shares my bed. I don't know why she seems to think that. I only did illicit things with one girl. And now, there's no trace left.

One thing about sleepovers, the morning is sad. The end of the companion for a night, it's back to a cold, lonely bed. Especially after your sleepover friend leaves.

You go about your room, picking up the clothes thrown around the room, carefully placing them in a hamper by the door. Remember how she said, in a low voice, "Fair is fair." and she made you take off your shirt, too. Now, you move to the bed, removing pillows from the pillowcases, thinking of her hair. Brown hair, falling in the way until she asks you for a hair tie, which you give gladly. The pillow cases, too, go in the hamper.

Before touching the bedsheets, you remember her body, smooth as velvet, soft as silk. You remove them, balling the sheets up, tossing them over your shoulder. All that is left is the fold-up futon, disguised so carefully as a couch against the far left wall. She pushed you against it and kissed you in the red light of your lava lamps.

You fold the futon, and put it against said wall. The floor is bare. There is no trace left of the beautiful girl who shared your bed She has gone home, back to her boyfriend.

You both must pretend it never happened. The only ones you will ever tell are each other. Every time it happens... if it ever happens again. The secret smiles, the too-long, but too-short-to-bed-suspicious hugs of congratulations, and the way you look at each other and laugh whenever somebody mentions sex. Finally, the note she wrote on your wall in a secret place that no one will ever see.

There are no traces of her, except in the darkest of your secret places.

-October 2003