Free Sheets by Helen Ruby Page A

hard. These . . . these are the best of times, here in me now.”
    And with that he understood.
    He remembered the first time he had brought her to the apartment, laid her on the bed, kissed her face, and kissed her face, and kissed her face, until she’d asked him to stop kissing her face and kiss something else. And he did. And she did. And the excitement of that first time was woven in the very fabric that now stood before him, a fully formed woman.
    It was almost funny —cut some holes in the sheet and you have a ghost costume, right? But this was no costume. This was no ghost. This was real.
    It was her. A living, tangible memory?
    She was as beautiful as he ever remembered, and his desire grew as he stared, unmoving except for one body part.
    “Not possible, my love.”
    He caught himself, mildly embarrassed. “Yeah, I figured.”
    “Is it possible that you are more handsome than thirty years ago?” she smiled at him, an eyebrow lifted in admiration.
    And he recalled “. . . that time when we sat on my bed and talk ed about the club we would open.”
    “You recorded it so we wouldn’t forget all the details: where the speakers would go, what kind of effects, the design, the lights. We certainly shared a love for the music.”
    “And dancing.”
    “Yes, and dancing,” she reached for his hand. The sheet swirled around in a billowing, grand dance.
    He bowed dramatically. “You know, more got recorded on that tape than our plans for our club.”
    “Ah, well . . . she lowered her eyes in a feigned shyness. He knew better. She had been anything but shy.
    “Where are you now? What are you doing with your , er, life?” He had so many questions, he didn’t know where to begin. “How is this happening?”
    “Those are answers that do not even matter, luvah boy. My gosh, where is your sense of wonder?”
    And with that, he let it all go . . . the memories overlapped and fell over one another in a rush to reach his words first. The excitement of it all filled him to the very edges of his being, like . . . “Like when I taught you how to shotgun because you didn’t want to smoke it yourself.”
    “ Ah ha, yes. Tell me again, how did it go?”
    “I would take a deep inhale. And then you would put your lips —so damn soft, it was ridiculous—against mine—”
    She interrupted. “Uh, it was actually your lips that were so soft.”
    “Then you would inhale as I exhaled. And then we would just keep kissing and kissing and I would be all over you and you would be all over me. And the feeling . . . I remember feeling just like I do now. Like the love was all over me, covering me, like a warm blanket,” he said, shaking his head at the power of the memory. “Wow. I miss that so much.”
    “I have been with you always because you never let me go.”
    And with that, she tumbled into a tousled mess to the ground—so like her, the flair for the dramatic.
    “ Oh, and don’t get paint on me.”
    Then silence. Stillness. He willed the sheet to move, speak, emit something, anything. But there was nothing more.

    W hen he had finished his painting project, he stepped back to admire his work for a moment, his mind full of thoughts, his body tired in that healthy way that tired can be. He washed the brushes, closed up the leftover paint in the can, washed his hands. He placed all the tools in the bucket, along with the rags to use another day for another project.
    H e folded the sheet, carefully end to end, then again and again, until it was a neat square. He walked it to his dresser and carefully laid it in the top drawer, next to some old photos of family and friends, the leash from his first dog, the baseball from his first college homerun, the cassette recorder with the tape still inside it. And he closed the drawer.

Acknowledgements
     
    To the support team at thewordverve :
    Pam for her amazing concept with the cover art.  We needed a hot sheet shot and she gave us one! 
    And editors Billie and Deborah for