You tend to miss the love you put away in someone else’s body. This is why sleeping with my friend made me miss him even more. I am Sarah, I am Megan, I am Shannon, I am Anne, I am Beth, I am every girl who ever thought sex would make them forget love. And he couldn’t be the archetype of the faceless stranger. He was my friend. He was Matt, Jim, Joe, Steve, Brian, sitting on the porch with a beer and talking about last night’s concert, flicking a cigarette butt onto the lawn.

I was intent on fucking him. The more and more I thought about it, there was less of a real reason to. When it came right down to it, I wanted to because I could. I had something to prove to myself and when it was all over, I would know what it was.

In the corner of a waning party, I sat close to him and he put his hand on my hip. He lay next to me on the couch when everyone was gone and we watched TV together. After much channel surfing, his roommate came home from the bar and shut off the light in the living room. Already I felt like I was betraying him somehow. I hesitated for so long, I noticed him doze off.

I pretended to adjust the covers and fell to his face to kiss him. He held my face hard and kissed like he meant it. He kissed that hard the whole night.

He was unsure of where he was allowed to put his hands, at first. Incredulously, I began to slide his shirt off and I pulled him on top of me. I was enjoying this, and yet I was hastening like I wanted it to be over. This felt like medicine, somehow. For some reason, I had to do this. His stubble scratched my chin so I disengaged and he slid down to kiss my shoulders and my chest. What?

Now this felt too intimate. He felt like someone else, showing this kind of affection to my body. He felt like someone I still remember, somewhat. I used to share a bed with him, but I can’t remember how long ago. It feels like a long time, and for that one night I wished I could forget his name.

The more I thought of it, I realized that their lips were similar. And their bodies, both soft and slender. They even kissed the same, at times. I sent him to get a condom and I took off the rest of my clothes. I was hungry, and I didn’t know or care who I was fucking anymore. While he was in his room, I thought not of him, but of that long slender body that used to sleep next to me. I thought of the window over his mattress on the floor and how I always woke up before him. I was allotted the privilege of looking over every morning at the light that hit his angles and curves and of fitting myself over those curves. I remembered fucking him in the morning; both of us drowsy and bleary eyed, sleepily touching lips and holding each other tight.

I lifted the covers when he returned and undid his belt faster than I knew I could. In my memory there’s a gap between what happened then and when he put on the condom. I remember him first putting it in. I gasped into his ear and dug my nails into his legs; he was bigger than I was used to. For the first time since I began to combine these two different people, something diverged.

He kept a measured distance, and his hips never touched mine. I tried to pull him close, I clutched his back and his legs, I tried kissing him, but it was no use. There was too much space between our bodies for me to ever fully enjoy this. I was looking for some semblance of the intimacy I had before, a vestige of which he showed me earlier. I kissed his hands and his neck, but he still kept apart.

After much fumbling, I took control. Conveniently, the only light in the room happened to be the moon. The cover fell to the floor and the windows had no curtains. Just about anyone could’ve seen us, but I didn’t realize it at the time.

I ground my hips into him hard like I was showing him how it was done. He moaned, he held my hair behind my head and got his fingers tangled in my curls. I bucked my hips harder and harder each time, and with our chests pressed tightly together I wondered if this was closer than he could stand. At one point, he eased me up so he look at me. I was out of control, and in the dark of the room and the shade of the furniture, I could make out his eyes darting up and down.

I collapsed back onto him and pushed, pushed harder and harder into his body, taking everything that I needed from him and more. Newly unconcerned with waking up his roommates, I didn’t restrain myself. My hair spread itself over his face as I rested my head on the couch next to his. I moaned louder and louder with every thrust of my hips and somewhere under my hair and my voice, I heard him saying my name and gasping for air. I clenched my teeth, tightened my legs and arched my back. He wrapped his arms around me squeezing me tight and told me I was beautiful. I felt my muscles moving under my skin in all these strange ways that my mind couldn’t keep up with. I let out one last low howl and hung my head low.

He pushed my hair back and told me he adored me. I looked away and kept silent. He was probably still drunk. But what could I say? I didn’t speak this language anymore, and I hadn’t for a long time. I didn’t even understand.

I remember the next morning. Upon waking, I expected to find myself on that mattress next to that window, and I could roll over and wrap myself around that familiar slender body. But, I was naked on the floor of that sun-widened living room. He snored on the couch above me. I saw his back, covered with scars, and all I could think of was how the morning light moved over his back and how very close I always awoke to him. But very close was still too far if my body wasn’t touching his.

Ann Marie Awad is a freshman English major and a Literary writer for Generation.