Guthrie, he says I don’t love him. Not really. Not like he loves me. To the moon and the stars and back, he says. With every inch of him. Right down to his very soul. And he says I don’t love him like that and so it isn’t really love.
‘If you loved me like that then you wouldn’t bear to be apart from me. It would tear your insides and such a nesting ache in you and all your thoughts spinning round in your head, like butterflies in a hard-blowing, unkind wind.’
Guthrie, and he loves me like that. Thinks he does. Says it often enough. And he writes me long letters when he’s not near and he tucks ‘em into the pockets of my coat when I’m not looking so I can discover ‘em and be surprised when I’m by myself. And he says he needs me and he wants me, and he says there aint no difference between his needing and wanting – only, I think there is.
We go to the library sometimes. It’s warm in there and he don’t have to blow on his hands before he touches under my clothes. And there’s a place that is out of the view of Mrs Blaize and ‘slong as we’re quiet as mice or dunked biscuits, then we can kiss and say each other soft whispers.
Sunday and the library’s closed. And Guthrie says he’ll die if he don’t see me. I tell him I got to go to church Sundays and he says he’ll go, too. Guthrie’s godless, so that’s proof again that he loves me – that’s what he says. And I can feel him watching me when I pray, watching me sharper than God, and I suck in air and feel as though I can’t breathe.
After, he says he knows a place where we can just be ourselves. I tell him I ain’t sure. I tell him it’s Sunday and it’s God’s day and not a day for sinning. That’s when he says again how I don’t really love him and it hurts when he says that and it’s supposed to and I don’t think him saying it is a sign of his love at all.
‘To the moon and the stars and back again, and with all of me, and right down to my soul.’
I do not think godless people has souls.
And we go up to Brooker’s wood and we walk off the track till we might be the only ones left in the whole world and not even God can see us it’s so hid. And he kisses me then – not like library-kisses, but hot and wet and moaning. And his hands, cold as fridge-meat, running like ferrets under my clothes and touching rough and not gentle.
I want to push Guthrie from me, but that’d be proof again that I don’t love him. So I close my eyes and I pray – for time to stop, or if it won’t stop then for it to fly fast as jet planes and all of Guthrie’s breathless wanting to be done. And after, I know he’ll be Guthrie again and needing without the wanting. And he’ll just be quiet and near. And I’ll tell him then how I love him – and the words’ll be plain and simple and true, and in the moments after, well, Guthrie will get that I love him – really love him and not anything about stars and moons and souls.
Patricia Ann McNair 
Guthrie, he says I don’t love him. Not really. Not like he loves me. To the moon and the stars and back, he says. With every inch of him. Right down to his very soul. And he says I don’t love him like that and so it isn’t really love.
‘If you loved me like that then you wouldn’t bear to be apart from me. It would tear your insides and such a nesting ache in you and all your thoughts spinning round in your head, like butterflies in a hard-blowing, unkind wind.’
Guthrie, and he loves me like that. Thinks he does. Says it often enough. And he writes me long letters when he’s not near and he tucks ‘em into the pockets of my coat when I’m not looking so I can discover ‘em and be surprised when I’m by myself. And he says he needs me and he wants me, and he says there aint no difference between his needing and wanting – only, I think there is.
We go to the library sometimes. It’s warm in there and he don’t have to blow on his hands before he touches under my clothes. And there’s a place that is out of the view of Mrs Blaize and ‘slong as we’re quiet as mice or dunked biscuits, then we can kiss and say each other soft whispers.
Sunday and the library’s closed. And Guthrie says he’ll die if he don’t see me. I tell him I got to go to church Sundays and he says he’ll go, too. Guthrie’s godless, so that’s proof again that he loves me – that’s what he says. And I can feel him watching me when I pray, watching me sharper than God, and I suck in air and feel as though I can’t breathe.
After, he says he knows a place where we can just be ourselves. I tell him I ain’t sure. I tell him it’s Sunday and it’s God’s day and not a day for sinning. That’s when he says again how I don’t really love him and it hurts when he says that and it’s supposed to and I don’t think him saying it is a sign of his love at all.
‘To the moon and the stars and back again, and with all of me, and right down to my soul.’
I do not think godless people has souls.
And we go up to Brooker’s wood and we walk off the track till we might be the only ones left in the whole world and not even God can see us it’s so hid. And he kisses me then – not like library-kisses, but hot and wet and moaning. And his hands, cold as fridge-meat, running like ferrets under my clothes and touching rough and not gentle.
I want to push Guthrie from me, but that’d be proof again that I don’t love him. So I close my eyes and I pray – for time to stop, or if it won’t stop then for it to fly fast as jet planes and all of Guthrie’s breathless wanting to be done. And after, I know he’ll be Guthrie again and needing without the wanting. And he’ll just be quiet and near. And I’ll tell him then how I love him – and the words’ll be plain and simple and true, and in the moments after, well, Guthrie will get that I love him – really love him and not anything about stars and moons and souls.