Remember Me – Part 4

Here’s The Whole Thing.

The moon waned toward new. She became more and more agitated, unpredictable, explosive. She screamed for no apparent reason, threw things across the room. Anything could set her off. Sitting in the same room with her could be dangerous. The only the sea calmed her, eased her. We spent a lot of time at the cove in the evenings watching the waves, and the moon drift across the sky.

Less than one-quarter of the platinum disc remained now, waning toward the crescent. The tides grew stronger as the new moon approached. And as the tides strengthened, so did her emotional outbursts.

I never knew how she’d be when we left the cove. She might attack for any question, any difference of opinion, any wrong word or facial expression. Or she might be the most tenderhearted, loving, caring person I’ve ever known. She vacillated between extremes, sometimes within moments. Her instability heightened as the moon, and the tides, continued to change.

I couldn’t resist her. I knew I should stay away from her, she wasn’t balanced. But when she rose from the sea, I was powerless to keep myself from her. I watched her hypnotic dance and the raw passion and uncontrollable lust took over. After, the sheer power and depth of the tenderness threatened to crush my heart.

I couldn’t leave her. Ever.

I loved her.

And the moon waned on.

But I worried about her. How much more strain, how much more upheaval, could she tolerate? I worried her mind would snap under the stress of the shifts, as sure as the tides in the cove, just as inexorable. When she was all right, her happy musical laugh lilted, she challenged me with her ideas, thoughts, opinions, insights. When she wasn’t … she wasn’t. She wept as if heartbroken, sobbed so hysterically she couldn’t stand. And if anything opposed her, if any insignificant event caused diversion from what she wanted in those waning moon nights, she exploded in violence and uncontrolled fury like a rabid beast.

We always reconciled soon after, always with physical intimacy. Our carnal times became more brutal during the anger, more tender during storm eyes. She peaked and plummeted, like the crests and troughs of squall-driven waves. I stood in the tempest face and its rain, hurled by violent emotional winds, stung my face like needles, threatened to flay me like pellets. Then the eye broke, the sea calmed, and she’d be herself again. For a time.

Night after night, the tides shifted. I left in the morning, and she was not there when I returned. I went to the cove and waited, found her, and she danced. Every night.

I considered the change in her, its conjunction with the change in the moon, in the tides. I wondered, pondered. But no one, no matter how much they love the water, is linked to the sea, tied to its behavior and shifted when it did. No one.

Coincidence, I asserted. Or perhaps, just perhaps, I’d fallen in love with a lunatic. Literally.

I sought answers, beside myself. I didn’t know where to begin. To ask caused her volcanic temper to erupt. It escalated to violence, devolved into sex, and ended with loving softness and caresses. It was too much sometimes. And I could not drive myself from her. I sought her every night no matter how her actions, or her words, confused me.

She insisted I knew her. I had no memory of her … surely I’d remember such a remarkable woman, so beautiful, intelligent, such a force of nature. How could a man forget her in his lifetime? I didn’t know her, didn’t know her name. I stopped asking. It only infuriated her.

She promised eternity more than once. I never knew what she meant. I merely sat and listened when she did. She clung to me in her sorrow as if to a life preserver on the open sea, and I held her. I stopped caring about her clammy moistness. I made myself ignore the drenched mattress in the morning, the pooled salt water on the floor, the stench of rot, sour brine. I left in the mornings and didn’t look back, afraid to see her decayed visage, those clattering hidden miniature monsters in her maw, those unseeing staring eyes and icteric teeth. I ignored it all and my pounding heart, and wanted more than anything to know why I saw her like that, why her eyes glowed in even the dimmest light, how she knew me, what her name was.

She was almost catatonic the night before the new moon. She didn’t eat. She didn’t speak to me. She stared at me instead of the moon, arms on the headboard. I wanted to say something, ask what was wrong, but didn’t want to upset her. She appeared so … frail, fragile. I touched her warm, sensuous knee.

“The new moon is tomorrow,” she whispered, her luminous gaze riveted on me.

“Yes.”

She paused, sighed, laid a hand on mine. “What’s my name?”

I looked at her delicate fingers, her smooth hand as it stroked the back of mine.

“Tell me my name,” she repeated, her music-voice enthralling, chiming.

“I … I can’t.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know what it is.”

I braced for her explosion, the pyroclastic floe, to rip me to the bone and burn me to a crisp.

It never came. Instead, she shook, her eyes poured tears as clouds pour rain, hand over her mouth. She sobbed, sobbed, sobbed, and I reached for her, but she stayed me with a hand on my chest. The pain, the torture in her eyes was more than I could bear.

“You don’t love me,” she choked through her weeping. “You don’t, do you? Did you ever? Or have you just forgotten?”

The knife of her words pierced my heart and twisted. Tears burned my eyes, seeing her so despondent, mournful, injured. I shook my head,, pulled her to me, held her against my chest.

“No, I do love you — I do — more than anything, more than anything I’ve ever known! I love you! I do!”

Moments passed; she clung to me white-knuckled and cried into my chest. I stroked her hair, ran my hand down her back, and held on for dear life. I couldn’t imagine she didn’t know, couldn’t tell, wasn’t able to see as if it were branded on my forehead that I loved her. Every thought was her, every breath was her, every moment was longing … for her. How could she not know?

Why did she expect me to know her name?

Helplessness swept through me. What could I do to find out her name? If she wouldn’t tell me, how can I know? I wondered if asking around the village would bear any result. She collected herself presently and shifted her body to lay back on my chest. I wrapped my arms around her and kissed her hair soft. She brushed my arms with her nails absently and stared unseeing into space. The tears dried for a moment, and she sniffled.

“It’s our last night together.”

Another white-hot bolt of shock laced with fear stabbed through me like a whaler’s harpoon. I froze and my heart throbbed so hard I felt sure she heard it.

“Our last — why? What have I done? You’re leaving me? You’ve never told me — “

“My name? You already know my name. You always have. But you never remember. I have to go. I don’t want to. But tomorrow is the new moon, and our time is over.”

“Our time is over? Our time doesn’t have to be over. You said we’d share — “

“Eternity. Yes. I thought we would. I thought this time it would be so.”

I tried to remain calm, and held her closer to me. “I can’t let you go. I … I’m mad for you. Everything I see is you. Everything I feel. Everything … all I have is you. I don’t … please. Please don’t go. I … I’m sorry, when did you tell me your name? When?”

She squeezed my arms to her and held me. “Oh, my love … you still don’t remember. It’s been so long — so very long — and you still don’t remember.”

“Please, why is this our last night?”

“Because you can’t say my name.”

“That … I don’t understand.”

“I know. You never do.”

“I never do? What do you mean? What are you saying? What can I do to convince you of my love?”

She chuckled then, but it was mirthless, empty. “Say my name. That’s all.”

The world blurred in front of me, and I blinked. My vision cleared when fat tears slid down my face. My anguish wrenched my being, like I was physically hurt. I couldn’t bring myself to let go of her, though I only knew her for two weeks. She was everything to me, and I wanted her for my own.

“Please … please, I’m begging you. Tell me your name, and I’ll say it. I’ll shout it. I’ll run through the streets screaming it, pay a pilot to tow a banner with it. I’ll do anything. Anything. Please. Please tell me.”

She turned to me then, still in my lap, and her gentle hand lit on my cheek.

“I can’t. You must say it.”

“Wh — I don’t understand.”

She gave a sympathetic nod. “I know. You never do. But I hoped … you seemed so much like you this time. You had moments when I thought … I thought this year you’d finally remember. I thought it was this year. But no. You can’t say my name, and so it’s our last night together.”

A sob escaped me before I knew it was there.

“No! Please! Don’t leave me. I love you.”

“Say my name. Just say my name.”

I wailed in agony. I’d never known such pain, such a hollow, gutting sensation. It disemboweled me, like a prize fish for mounting. I sank against her. She held me, her sea mist and flower scent filled me as she shushed me, stroked my back gently, kissed my hair tenderly. I felt her tears splash on my skin while she enfolded me.

“Please,” I mewled, weak as a kitten. “Please.”

“I can say no more, love,” she whispered, her breath soft on my skin, her kiss that followed softer, sweeter. I didn’t want life without her anymore, and I was losing her.

“Please! Tell me your name! Please!”

“I can’t, love. I can’t.”

“I want to say it, I want you to stay.”

“You have to remember.”

“Remember? Remember what? Your name? The name you’ve never told me?”

She nodded. “Among other things. But … you can’t.”

I cried, partially angry with her, partially in agony. Felt like an animal caught in a trap. Fear, frustration and pain swirled in an emotional fog. My thoughts silted, muddied, I didn’t know what to do. I held her, desperate and frightened.

I wanted to comply. I wanted to remember. I didn’t even know what I had to remember, but I struggled for it, thrashed like a maniac through my memory, searched for some piece of her. Everything was gray in my head; only the last two weeks with her came clear in memory. Nothing before her mattered. I couldn’t find it, didn’t want it. When did she tell me her name? What moment did I miss, did I let slip by, now so critical? Why couldn’t I remember her uttering it, her voice so sweet, musical, melodious, like a song played in heaven. How can it be she let her name pass through those beautiful, sweet, soft lips and I missed hearing it?

It wasn’t possible. I heard every honeyed note her mouth played, every guttural growl of carnal pleasure, every climactic scream, every sensual curse … I heard everything she said, every sound she made, and I didn’t remember her saying her name.

She hadn’t.

“Shh,” she hushed, and touched my lips when I raised my head. “Don’t struggle so now. It’s our last night together. Let’s be fully one, once more.”

She untangled from me and disrobed, her beauty stole my breath, and lay down on the bed and covered herself with the sheet. Her outstretched arms beckoned, and I discarded my own garb, then slid beside her.

She was cold. As cold as death.

“You’re so cold,” I lamented, and pressed myself against her, letting her draw the warmth from my own flesh. I didn’t care.

“Warm me. Warm me … one last time.”

“Please don’t say that.”

She touched her fingers to my lips. “Shh. The sun is coming. We have only a little more time. Don’t be sad now. There is time for mourning later. For now, be with me. Be with me.”

“I want to be with you forever.”

“Be with me now.”

I took her in my arms, and she warmed. She warmed like the sun on a chill autumn dawn warms the world as its rays embrace it. I held her so close, as tight as I could, and tasted her skin. I tasted the saline of her tears and softness of her lips, the delicate texture of her cheeks, hands and breasts. I tasted the musky part of her and the smoothness of her stomach and the firm muscles, rippled from dancing, under her skin. I tasted the recesses of her ears, her navel, the backs of her knees. I bathed her with my tongue and savored every inch of her. I memorized her with my mouth, hands, tip of my nose, my bare chest, my hardened nipples. I ran my hand through her hair, and clutched the back of her head in our crescendo. Again and again, over and over I went to her, needy and yearing, and always the pang of sorrow, of loss, of anguish, lay just beneath the ecstasy, the exquisite physical sensations. Somehow, our lovemaking was more passionate, more satisfying, more explosive than any other night. And when we finished, we held each other, never moving, never releasing, until pure contact aroused us again. We united, bonded, and shuddered and moaned in our joy time and again.

I fought sleep as long as I could, watched her, but at last my eyes slipped closed and I fell off.

She slept fitfully before I left that morning. I didn’t wait for deep sleep to overtake her, and wondered if it would. I showered in the claw-foot tub and dressed in the bathroom. She tossed and moaned in her sleep, the sun still behind the horizon. I knew leaving today was a gamble. I knew I might never see her again, but wanted to do whatever I could to learn her name, to say it to her before the new moon took her from me. If it did, I would never know why I had to remember, or what.