Read-Only Memory

This was the memory he liked best.

It dropped into his mind with pixelated edges, blocks of opalescence gradually sharpening into the clarity of approximated reality. A wave of queasiness always accompanied the shift and gave him something to focus on until the visual acuity stabilized. It didn’t help that the memory started with movement, with his final step down the stairs from the second floor.

The huge Victorian house would have aggravated his current sensibilities, all that space with no real purpose, but the neusim program locked him out of any thoughts other than those he formed at the time. Currently, that was wondering where she’d gone while he washed the previous day’s trip and the night’s sweaty embraces from his body.

The grand staircase ended in a foyer, though the word barely seemed to measure up to the vastness of the entryway. His fingers ran over the elaborately carved balustrade as he stepped down to the polished wood floor. A quaint hall stretched to the kitchen, and a great room adjoined the foyer through a double-wide archway.

They lit a fire last night in the cavernous fireplace, and he passed through to check that the rosy-orange embers had faded to cold gray and white ash. They’d started a game of Monopoly, playing more idly than seriously, and it sat abandoned on the oak coffee table. Tiny green houses and slightly larger red hotels dotted the board, and he grinned. Neither of them landed on the coveted Boardwalk, but they snatched up plenty of other spots. Stacks of money stood on their respective sides. He considered pilfering a few slips of the colorful paper from her side on the left and placing them on his side to the right. He shook the thought away.

What would be the point? She’d probably give him the money if he just asked.

He strolled through the great room, admiring the curated collection of board games, the antique rolltop desk, and the intricately carved grandfather clock. Rich fern-green walls lent the space an austere air, as if the room itself expected the occupants to pass their time inside in a funereal fashion. The irony of their relaxed evening joking and toying with a board game amused him. A narrow archway opened into the formal dining room, and he realized neither of them had stepped foot in it.

Maybe I’ll make dinner for her tonight, and we can eat in there.

He enjoyed these simple moments from long ago. They comforted him. Reliving such nostalgic scenes had become his meditation.

He turned left, passing the grandfather clock with its steadily swinging pendulum, and rejoined the hallway. The kitchen opened up to his right, faux-antique appliances nestled against the white walls. A farmhouse-style table large enough to seat eight guests for breakfast dominated the center of the room. He gravitated to the sink beneath the window offering an unblemished view of the enormous backyard. Though the property’s acreage separated the house from any neighbors, a privacy fence wrapped around the entirety. The bright late-morning sun spilled golden light over the full expanse and in through the spotless window.

She reclined in one of a pair of loungers she’d grabbed from the back patio. Her skin glowed in the light, glistening with the suntan lotion she asked him to apply before she went out. His breath caught at the way her smooth skin had radiated warmth beneath his careful fingertips. How he’d kept squirting only the smallest bead of lotion on his hand before rubbing it in. An ineptitude born of a lack of focus rather than an abundance of ulterior intent, though she teased him about it anyhow.

Her playful tone bantered with him. You just want to keep rubbing me.

While she wasn’t wrong, that wasn’t his motive. You’re just too beautiful for me to think straight.

He sucked in a deep breath. He’d forgotten to breathe. She had nothing to drink out there, and he pulled the fridge’s long retro handle. The door clunked open, and cold air rushed out from the broken hermetic seal. It blew across him tightening the bare flesh of his forearms with chill bumps. Food jammed the fridge full. When he’d rented the place for the week, he asked the owner to stock the kitchen with enough food for all seven days. She didn’t disappoint.

He pulled out the large pitcher with ice cubes and lemon slices suspended in a copper-hued liquid. He found two glasses and filled them both. He made sure to put plenty of ice and lemon in each one. She liked it that way, and he’d grown to like it too. He put the pitcher back in the fridge, and containers of sliced fresh fruit beckoned him with vibrant colors. They could feed each other cuts of mango in the sun. But carrying them outside would be a hassle. He ignored them for now and grabbed the glasses of tea.

The countertop nearest the door allowed him to open it without spilling either drink, and the outside air enveloped him with dry heat. So far the summer hadn’t been as tempestuous as the last few, and the atmosphere hadn’t turned oppressive. The sunshine bathed him when he stepped from beneath the overhang into the day. The tea caught the light and sent glinting refractions through the vessels.

His heart thud-thudded in his chest as he neared the lounge chairs. Her beautiful tanned skin glistened in the powerful light of the sun. His eyes traced the curve of her jawline to her shoulder. Even from this distance, he got tangled in the cream-colored string of her shoulder strap. He followed the fabric, and it fanned out wider and wider to support the ample swell of her breast. Embarrassed by his voyeurism, he slid his gaze to the nearby pear tree.

Sturdy gray bark led up to thick branches. A curving limb extended to the heavy, ripe fruit weighing it down at the tip. The shape and fullness mimicked her body, spreading a different kind of heat through him.

Beautiful expectations of how the rest of the week would go unfolded for him. Nibbling fresh fruits and vegetables alongside artisan cheeses. Sunsets spent holding one another under the perfect chromatic clouds of the darkening sky. Midnights of crackling fires and games leading to breathy passion as they made love in all the rooms of the Victorian house he’d rented.

A creak of the patio chair drew his attention back to her. His eyes landed where the tied string of her bikini bottom rested against the velvety curve of her raised hip. He closed the final few steps and looked at her face, her body twisted to let her peer up at him from behind her sunglasses.

Her lips curled in an impish smile. “Careful. You’ll get me wet if you spill.”

Her teasing laugh coaxed a smile from him. He wagged his eyebrows. “I thought you might be thirsty.”

She nodded and pushed herself up, giving her back an exaggerated arch. She reached for the glass. “How’d you know what I was thinking?”

His smile grew as his chest fluttered. “I guess I heard your thoughts.”

She gazed at the muscles of his arm and grinned lewdly as she took the tea from him. “What am I thinking now?”

“That you can’t wait for me to hold you.”

She took a sip of tea and moaned in appreciation of the flavor. “You got that right.”

He tasted his own tea. The sweet, frigid liquid cooled him off from within. “Are you enjoying it out here?”

She nodded. “Yeah, you should join me.”

“Okay. You’ll get my back with the suntan lotion, right?”

“Of course.” She reached down to the ground beside her and brought up the tube.

He sat on the lounger beside hers and stripped off his shirt. His skin tightened as the cool lotion spread over his shoulders. Her fingers danced in smooth strokes across his flesh as she massaged it in. Her closeness kindled a warm sensation that started in his solar plexus and spread out through his torso into his limbs. His mind went blank, all chatter soothed by her touch. He closed his eyes, and the world fell away to the buzz of pure pleasure.

In the scarlet-tinged darkness of his closed eyelids, the stretched glitch-lines of the neusim signaled the end was near. His tears blurred the feed, and the channel noise scattered into opalescent pixelations. He reached up and removed the transmission crown. He considered setting it up to play in a loop but didn’t want to numb himself to the playback. He opened his eyes to the darkness of his microapartment.

That was the memory he liked best.

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