Alphabetical Orders by Amelie

to be a night of hot sex and hotter sex and I just fell apart.
    Oliver threw the covers from his legs and leaped over to me. His long, strong arms engulfed me. I felt safe again. It was like he was a shield from the rest of the world and it felt like we could stay that way forever.
    We lay in bed for hours. He stroked me and sang me songs and rocked me gently to sleep. He cuddled me close and held me tight and told jokes about his life on the army.
    Our kisses were tender and delicate and brought my heart back to life.
    Eventually I fell asleep.
    There was no sex that night. It didn’t matter.
    When Simon makes love to me, I remember those moments with Oliver. It’s the feeling of security and the sense that nothing bad can ever happen again that flashes through my mind. It was so beautiful and warm that reliving it relaxes my whole body and gets my heart beating.
    Oliver never made it back. He didn’t even make it through the first week. He was taken out by an IED. The only comfort was that he died instantly. I’d like to think he remembered our last night when his life flashed before him. I hope I was the last thing he saw.

R is for Raspberries
    T here are times when I rely on my imagination.
    I picture Gail.  She’s lying on a bed in a room with the sun blazing through the window.
    She’s wearing nothing but raspberries. They circle her nipples, form a line down her stomach and cover the triangle of her pubic hair. Her eyes are closed and there are berries balanced on her lids.
    She holds her arms out.
    “Eat me,” she urges. “Eat me clean.”
    I go over and take the first of the raspberries from her eyes.
    How sweet it tastes.

S is for Snow
    W hen Ravi called me and said he wanted to meet, I wasn’t sure what to do. My head was screaming ‘no’ and my heart yearned to see him. My mouth was the winner. It said ‘yes’ before the rest of me had time to make a decision.
    We met in a quiet bar down a cul-de-sac that we’d used to frequent back in the good old days. I’d not seen him for three years and we’d not shared more than an occasional e-mail or Facebook post.
    The thing was it had taken me all of that time to get over him. I’d worked hard at getting my life back together and it seemed silly for me to risk going along. As soon as I saw him, though, all doubts flew from my mind.
    He looked incredible. His skin had the glorious rich colour to it that I loved, his hair had grown down to his shoulders and his eyes sparkled. Even though it was the middle of winter, he was still wearing flip-flops on his feet.
    He leaned in and pecked me twice, once on each cheek. I soaked up his scent and squeezed his hand gently. I’d already lost any determination to keep my distance, but still knew I needed to be careful.
    In spite of all of our scars and recently healed wounds, we got on as if nothing had ever gone wrong between us.
    After a few bottles of beer, we ordered a bottle of full-bodied red wine and sipped it by the warmth of the open fire.
    It turned out that Ravi’s life wasn’t going as well as he might have hoped. His bright talent still hadn’t reached its full potential. He said it was because of me. That he had never forgotten what we had and hadn’t really been able to move on.
    He explained why he’d left me all those years ago. How he’d fallen for a French woman at work who was ten years older than us and that they’d ended up having a torrid affair. He didn’t know why he’d done it because he knew that he truly loved me, but the sex appeal of the woman had been too much. Her name was Amelie and she was married to the brother of the boss. The night he’d left, he’d popped out and given her a call. Her husband was suspicious and had ripped the phone from her hands to threaten him with a violent end. Ravi had panicked. He couldn’t bear the idea of me finding out and had just run off. It was a breakdown of sorts, he said. He’d been in therapy since, though, and now he was ready