Reflection on the Future

(Sudden Fiction)

Asher Black

Two Lovers art provided by Asher Black
Two Lovers art provided by Asher Black

Her smile is liquid, watching the dark-haired young man across the room, then looking back at me.

“You still make me hot, you know.”

“Nnn. You’re not supposed to say things like that when we’re out.” I grin. “You know what it does to me.”

“Yes,” she says. She bats her eyes deliberately. “That’s why I do it, of course.”

I squirm pleasurably and inhale the sharp, woody aroma from the mug before taking a sip, then pull it along the full surface of my palate.

She watches the languid motion in my throat as I swallow. Shows her teeth.

I look, finally, at the younger models of ourselves. “What do you think they’re talking about?”

“If I had to guess?” She looks again. “I’d say they’re talking about us, of course.”

“Really?” But I know it, too.

“Mm. Well,” she says, “it would make sense.”

“True.” I savor the next sip of coffee even more.

“They’ve shoplifted a few glances at us. And now she’s saying…” But her tone is academic.

“Wait. Say it like you.” I lean in. “Say it now.”

“All right.” Her tone is mildly covert. “They look like they come several times a week for coffee and just to talk.”

“And to look at each other, and flirt, like we do.”

“Yes. Surreptitiously, because it’s so wonderful to draw it out and then go home together afterward.”

“Yes, it’s diabolical. And it makes him want her.”

“Yes. He wants her.”

“Nnnrrr . He can’t help it.”

“No. He shouldn’t try. He should just let it happen.”

“He can be ferocious, though, if necessary.”

“Oh, she’s quite sure of it. In fact, she’s counting on it.”

“I want you.”

“As I want you.” She purses her mouth over the rim of her mug, letting the steam moisten the fleshy surface. She doesn’t paint her lips. When the blood flows to them, they are all the more genuine and interesting.

“She’s young and lovely,” I say. “but I want you even more now than I did then. If that’s possible.”

“Mmm. I know what you mean.” She inhales suddenly. “Look.”

The young woman is placing a small, sharp green leaf in his hand. The young man presses it gently to his lips.

“Can you tell what she’s asking him?”

“The same thing that’s on our minds, except that we know the answer.”

“Yes,” she says. “Will it always be like this? Will we be like them when we’re older? Wanting each other just as much? Always friends and still lovers?”

“There’s no difference for us.”

“Always looking at each other, and always tangled together in our thoughts, always a little short of breath.”

“One shared mind in two bodies.”

“I hope so.”

She reaches across the table to touch him. He slides both of his hands into hers. She pushes her ankles along the insides of his.

“It’s all they can stand.”

“Her knees are a little shaky.”

“And he’s just barely trembling.”

“Let’s go home, too.”

Her palm is warm and absorbent. He knows his pupils are dilated. Mine are. She sets the invisible dial ahead to the date when we left.

“Of course, we could tell them.”

“But we won’t do that. They already know. They only ask so they can hear the internal answer.”

“Just like when I ask if you want me.”

“Yes. Just like that.”

“So they can hear the response in their words, know it in their thoughts, and find it with their hands and tongues.”

“Looking back or looking ahead, there’s one constant.”

“It’s everything. It’s the whole world.”

I pull my hand from my pocket. It holds a small preserved green leaf.

“They always knew.”

“Yes, we do.”

Time opens, and two lovers plunge into it.

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