She wore me out, if I’m being honest. In a good way at first. But then so as I was just exhausted. Don’t get me wrong: I’d give anything just to have one more day with her. Being with her it was like I was really alive for the first time.
I’ve never been with a girl like Marie. She was straight up, you know. She just called it like it was. I was in this bar and she just came right up to me and she said I was so pretty she wanted to eat me up. I wasn’t sure about her calling me pretty, but I thought she was so fucking gorgeous.
After just the one drink, she took my hand in hers and she said we should just pretend like we were lovers. ‘Who knows,’ she said, ‘one day we might be.’ And she kissed me like we’d been together forever.
That about sums her up. Everything in a breathless hurry. Like one of them mayflies and they fit their whole busy lives into a single flurry day.
We went dancing on that first night, and we didn’t step off the floor once. And she kept touching me, my arm with her fingers or her hand flat on my chest like she was holding me back. And we had to shout over the music to be heard, and she kept laughing and pouting and blowing me kisses.
Afterwards we went back to my place. It was an apartment on the edge of somewhere. She opened the window in my bedroom and in the streetlight yellow dark she said we were to undress. Then we just stood there, not touching at first, just looking. She said she wanted to always remember me and memories were made sharper by really looking and tasting and listening. I could hear her breath coming short and quick and I tasted old beer in my mouth and she looked like a model or an actress.
In the morning she was awake and reading books from beside my bed. As soon as I opened my eyes she was asking me stuff about them – why I was reading this or that and what I thought about the book and what others I’d read. And she was kissing me, too, and touching me between my legs, all at the same time.
We ate breakfast sitting at the small table. Marie said we weren’t to dress and she asked me if I thought her tits were big enough and we shared the one cup of coffee. She had the tv on for the news and the radio was playing quiet music that should only be heard loud so that it was like the fizzing of a bee or a black fly.
‘Can you stand on your head?’ she said, and before I could answer she was standing on her head and it was just the sexiest thing ever. She said I was to do the same and I did, and we looked at each other upside down, except it felt like we were the right way up and it was the world that was all wrong.
We spent the whole of a week together and she wouldn’t let me out of her sight, and she was always doing that, always challenging me to do things she could do. Like cartwheeling across the road where there was a crossing and the cars had stopped and were waiting for us. Or climbing over high walls so that my shoes were all scraped. Or crawling like a snake through Woolworths – till a man in a shiny peaked cap asked us to leave.
Once we got into a phone box together and she said she wanted to wear my underwear and she wanted me to wear hers and we changed there in the phone box where anyone could see. I go to that phone box sometimes just to remember and I still can’t believe it.
And we ran everywhere we went, flitting here and there and all over. I called her Mayfly Marie and she called me Fuck-wit. And I didn’t see an end to it coming so maybe she was right.
‘Why’d you sleep so much?’ she said one day. She’d read all my books by then and she’d tidied up and washed all my dishes. The tv was on for the news and the radio was fizzing like before.
I didn’t have an answer. I just shrugged.
She leaned in and kissed me and it was the only thing that was slow with her, but it was breathless all the same. Then she got up and dressed and left.
I was relieved at first. I slept for a day and a night. Then when I woke I missed her and I miss her still.
Patricia Ann McNair 
She wore me out, if I’m being honest. In a good way at first. But then so as I was just exhausted. Don’t get me wrong: I’d give anything just to have one more day with her. Being with her it was like I was really alive for the first time.
I’ve never been with a girl like Marie. She was straight up, you know. She just called it like it was. I was in this bar and she just came right up to me and she said I was so pretty she wanted to eat me up. I wasn’t sure about her calling me pretty, but I thought she was so fucking gorgeous.
After just the one drink, she took my hand in hers and she said we should just pretend like we were lovers. ‘Who knows,’ she said, ‘one day we might be.’ And she kissed me like we’d been together forever.
That about sums her up. Everything in a breathless hurry. Like one of them mayflies and they fit their whole busy lives into a single flurry day.
We went dancing on that first night, and we didn’t step off the floor once. And she kept touching me, my arm with her fingers or her hand flat on my chest like she was holding me back. And we had to shout over the music to be heard, and she kept laughing and pouting and blowing me kisses.
Afterwards we went back to my place. It was an apartment on the edge of somewhere. She opened the window in my bedroom and in the streetlight yellow dark she said we were to undress. Then we just stood there, not touching at first, just looking. She said she wanted to always remember me and memories were made sharper by really looking and tasting and listening. I could hear her breath coming short and quick and I tasted old beer in my mouth and she looked like a model or an actress.
In the morning she was awake and reading books from beside my bed. As soon as I opened my eyes she was asking me stuff about them – why I was reading this or that and what I thought about the book and what others I’d read. And she was kissing me, too, and touching me between my legs, all at the same time.
We ate breakfast sitting at the small table. Marie said we weren’t to dress and she asked me if I thought her tits were big enough and we shared the one cup of coffee. She had the tv on for the news and the radio was playing quiet music that should only be heard loud so that it was like the fizzing of a bee or a black fly.
‘Can you stand on your head?’ she said, and before I could answer she was standing on her head and it was just the sexiest thing ever. She said I was to do the same and I did, and we looked at each other upside down, except it felt like we were the right way up and it was the world that was all wrong.
We spent the whole of a week together and she wouldn’t let me out of her sight, and she was always doing that, always challenging me to do things she could do. Like cartwheeling across the road where there was a crossing and the cars had stopped and were waiting for us. Or climbing over high walls so that my shoes were all scraped. Or crawling like a snake through Woolworths – till a man in a shiny peaked cap asked us to leave.
Once we got into a phone box together and she said she wanted to wear my underwear and she wanted me to wear hers and we changed there in the phone box where anyone could see. I go to that phone box sometimes just to remember and I still can’t believe it.
And we ran everywhere we went, flitting here and there and all over. I called her Mayfly Marie and she called me Fuck-wit. And I didn’t see an end to it coming so maybe she was right.
‘Why’d you sleep so much?’ she said one day. She’d read all my books by then and she’d tidied up and washed all my dishes. The tv was on for the news and the radio was fizzing like before.
I didn’t have an answer. I just shrugged.
She leaned in and kissed me and it was the only thing that was slow with her, but it was breathless all the same. Then she got up and dressed and left.
I was relieved at first. I slept for a day and a night. Then when I woke I missed her and I miss her still.