Miles Forgot

Miles Burden as was common with a name like Miles; amounted to very little. His parents often reminded him of his ‘disappointments’, almost as much as he chose to forget them, that was the other thing about Miles, he forgot, a lot. It seemed absurdly ironic that his parents were in fact the ones that blessed him with such an unfortunate name, a foul deed they later blamed on his deceased grandmother who by all accounts was clinically insane when she told them he reminded her of Miles Pointdexter. Being ‘stupid’, or as he chose to call himself, ‘mildly forgetful’ made him the butt of most practical jokes played in his boring uneventful life.

So for so alluring a creature to find him so instantly appealing made him suspect he was again falling victim to someone’s cruel hoax.

“Excuse me,” he said pretending not to have heard her ‘deluded’ compliment. Rare for anyone to actually speak to him, and not tell him to do something, he forgot the last time anyone was just ‘kind’ to him.

“Miles is such a beautiful name.” He only watched her lips move still unable to digest her words or take in so much loveliness. He averted his eyes and scanned the room, assured he would catch his so called friends sniggering in some dark corner at his expense. The other folk around them merely laughed and continued to make the banal small talk which always made him leave these dull functions early. He’d forgotten why he attended the black tie event, but he remembered something about free food and at least one free drink, still it beat spending another night on World of Warcraft.

“I need a drink,” she said. There was indeed method to her madness, another penniless alcoholic he would subsidise in return for a short grope in someone’s closet. Beggars however were in no position to be too choosey and she was so very beautiful and who knows, with a few drinks inside her, he might get ‘inside her’. He’d never actually been with a woman; well have intimate knowledge so to speak. He never felt comfortable around the opposite sex, and it was hard to be of dating quality when he was still living at home and rode a bike to work. He’d failed his driving test numerous times, he always forgot something.

Together they crossed the crowded room to the small bar, and she nestled on a stool pulling his hand to bring him closer. No doubt he was now her pet on a firm and tight leash with a wallet to satisfy her liquid appetite, he’d met her type before. The bartender caste that disparaging ‘how much did you pay her to pretend to like you’ look before placing the martini before her. Either she expected him to order his own drink, or was too busy gulping down hers to inform the bartender that Miles Burden would have a grape soda, or orange juice. Alcohol was never really his thing, he forgot how it happened. He did recall his parents picking him up from the police station, but only because they featured it on that long list of ‘disappointments they’d endured. Apparently the day of ‘infamy’ as his mother usually called it was after just one drink.

She gasped as if she had drunk out of the sea of tranquillity and leapt off the chair and threw her arms around him and locked his mouth in a hard and penetrating kiss. He could definitely feel tongue, this was a first for Miles; he just hoped he wouldn’t forget it. He did not resist her crude intrusion, he found it somewhat liberating to be in a woman’s mouth. Whatever his work colleagues had paid her he would inform them later, it was indeed money well spent.

Miles tried to wipe the self satisfied smirk off his face as she spun back to the bar and ordered another Martini. Miles supplied the requested monetary satisfaction, plus tip. The bartender smiled, probably calculating if these were the suckers that would pay for that weekend in Costa Rica he’d been planning since he left high school. The merry dance Miles and his insatiable if somewhat inebriated companion were now engaged in continued well past the gathering’s end. Only after a few hundred dollars was lost on booze and an irate closing manager, did they eventually leave.

“Will you be ok?” She only laughed at his genuine concern and danced along the kerb, in some drunken like stupor paying homage to ‘Singing in the Rain’. It wasn’t actually raining and she wasn’t really singing, she sounded like she was gurgling mouthwash. He hailed a cab as she was in no fit state to do ‘anything’ and he felt obligated to get her home safely, and who knew, after a few coffees she might reciprocate his generous cash advance. He forgot the address she gave, but found the streets instantly familiar, in fact erringly so, though he could not remember why. She curled up in his arms and laid her head in his lap, though he feared she might throw up.

“Don’t do upchucky in my cab,” the Arab looking driver must have said it a hundred times in something resembling English. Miles just didn’t want a lap full of vomit, the tux was a rental. Someone had been sick on him once, he just couldn’t remember who, or when, but it happened, of that he was quite sure. He never had an unreasonable fear of anything that hadn’t actually happened to him, that’s why he never feared heights, because well, he’d never actually fallen.

“Stop the cab, stop the cab,” she screamed. They were driving over Pointdexter bridge. Miles threw the driver his last twenty and decided to keep his ‘happy’ companion out of the middle of the road, instead of waiting for his change. The impatient driver obviously decided he was owed a big tip and shouted;

“blessings on your children,” as he sped past. Miles caught up with her as she ran out of songs, or air, and sat on the sidewalk giggling to herself.

“You have the most beautiful eyes,” she said. Miles knew she was a professional, but she was taking the whole ’pretend to be in love with a loser’ thing way too far.

“You can stop now, ” clearly aware he’d spent a small fortune on this girl which perhaps facilitated her need to continue the charade. “Please stop,” he begged the girl whose name if she’d mentioned it, he’d forgotten.

“Miles I’ve always loved you?”

Now as much as his imagination had conjured such moments, with some beautiful Hollywood starlet, or Avatar, whispering those words, naked of course; it seemed somehow magical to hear them come from a ‘live’ woman. Even his parents never professed their love of him, a relative said it once, but he seemed to recall she might have been insane. He couldn’t stop the tear trickling out of his eye, or swallow the large lump in his throat. Loneliness could be cruel existence, but he promised whatever happened, never to forget this moment.

“You don’t remember me do you?” He stared into those baby blues, and stroked that strawberry hair and followed those sun browned legs that went on forever. Maybe this was all a dream, an ancient teenage wet dream, resurrected?

“Cathy?” wow he remembered a name, high school 87, cheerleader, gorgeous, as gorgeous as the delightful creature talking to him right now. It couldn’t be, she ran off with some football player or insurance salesman, like all the beautiful girls did in that small town. His memory was coming back, small parts, glimpses, flashes of something, something before high school; something before he became a nobody.

“Remember when I threw up on you, right near this very bridge.” He was sure she wasn’t bragging or lying but the recollection still brought out her infectious laugh.

“That was you, homecoming?” She merely nodded and waltzed in the middle of the street. He remembered stabbing her with a corsage, and walking back along the bridge, alone. She got drunk and ran off somewhere, with someone else. That night, until now, was the highlight of his life

“I always had a crush on you Miles since junior high, but then you know high school cheerleading usual shit. I tried to find you after I graduated college.” Cathy Gordon went to college, now he remembered where his parents neighbour’s daughter went. “Your parents said you got a job in town so I moved back home.”

“Rewind you did all this just to be with me, but you hated me,-- didn’t you?” He couldn’t clearly remember everything from ‘that’ night; it might have been the same night he got drunk.

“I was always so afraid you’d reject me. I guess I needed the drink to give me that Dutch courage they’re always talking about.” He had no idea what she was blabbering on about but somewhere she’d mentioned being into him and that was really all he need to hear. He scooped her up and carried her across the street. She kissed him again, longer this time, further, definitely more tongue. She jumped out of his arms excited by something floating in the middle of Lake Watoka that rested quietly under the bridge.

“A floating dock, I’ve always wanted to make love on a floating dock.”

Miles just wanted to make love, but if Cathy wanted sex on a floating dock, why not. She ran out of her clothes and skipped down the bank before diving into the water. She was more akin to a mermaid when she emerged on the floating dock. The moonlight hit her naked body as she waved, and he could swear he never saw anything more beautiful, he would have remembered. She yelled something, and then collapsed, probably still drunk, while he barely had his shoes off. He placed his clothes carefully down as he knew they weren’t his to sully in such murky waters. He walked out to meet her, embarrassed to be naked but excited that tonight was to be, thee night. The water was bitterly cold and deep, and getting deeper. Thankfully she was still breathing, he could just make out her chest moving up and down, and it was just then he remembered, he couldn’t swim.