‘Well I don’t believe… bloody fairy-stories.’

‘You’re always so fucking certain, aren’t you? So cock-sure.’

‘Look, no fucker ever comes back… so it must be nonexistent or, like I say, so fucking really good there that no-one wants to!’ I know it’s an old joke, but I know it winds her up so it’s just perfect. But she takes this stuff so seriously and now she’s upset. I turned the screw too far. Damn! So, gently, I try to release the tension. ‘Listen - if I go first and if there is anything after this, I’ll come back and tell you.’ Josie rolls her eyes. ‘No, I promise! No matter what it costs me, I’ll do it.’

‘You’d give up eternity just to lose a fucking argument? You would, wouldn’t you? You’re a stubborn, contrary bastard.’

‘Josie, sweetheart, I’d give up anything for you.’ It’s corny, but I mean it. And I’m sure she knows it.

‘OK.’ And suddenly she’s matter-of-fact. ‘We’ll have to think of a sign, something that would let me know it’s you.’ My puzzled frown begs an answer from her. ‘These are our earthly bodies. In spirit we may look totally different.’

I shake my head, look to the ceiling in mock despair. We kiss, we laugh, she sighs. I break the long silence that follows by quietly singing our song, Steely Dan's special song about a very special girl:

‘When Josie comes home, so good.

She’s the pride of the neighborhood.

She’s the raw flame, the live wire,

She prays like a Roman with her eyes on fire.’

I gaze longingly through the condensation-streaked window. The touch of lips on lips creates a pang of yearning that tears and burns my guts. My reflected face contorts with pain and I crumple, yet somehow maintain my balance. Now she strokes his thigh, he touches her cheek. I recall our first date, her first intimate touch. How my blood coursed and boiled… A slender, tentative hand slides into his groin and his hand reciprocates, disappears beneath the hem of her short black dress. Their breathing becomes rasping and laboured. He murmurs into her hair, deep impenetrable rumbles that cause her to squirm and push towards him.

‘Yes, oh yes!’ At first her voice is a whisper, then a squeal and now all barriers are down. Their hands suddenly have no bounds. Fingers frantically open buttons and zips, then steal inside to probe and squeeze. His hungry kisses fall to her neck. She sighs and her head eases back against the car seat. Down he travels, into her cleavage. She gasps and her mouth falls open. Her wide, wild eyes pierce me, then lance the darkness beyond the moon-splashed rooftops behind me. Silver tears suddenly streak her cheeks. She sobs and he freezes, his worried gaze searching her face for meaning, for direction.

‘I’m sorry… I… I have to go. I’ll call you. I…’ She cradles her face in the palms of her hands and shakes her head. He sits back in his seat, confused, hurt, then risks curling a soothing arm around her shoulders. His face shows genuine concern for her and there is no outward sign of the frustration he must be feeling. She reaches to the floor for her bag and he gently clasps her elbow.

‘Listen… it’s… it’s fine, honestly... No rush. Call me… tomorrow?’ He smiles, looks down at the slash of white at his crotch where her hand had been only seconds before and zips himself up. ‘Take your time, but please don’t push me away. I don’t want to spoil this. Tonight has been fantastic. Thank you.’ He kisses her cheek. With eyes closed, bag hugged to her breast, she smiles and nods. A swish, a click and a clunk and she’s standing beside me on the footpath. A blown kiss traverses the glass between them, smoothes his frown. Mesmerised, he watches her purposeful strides carry her swiftly up the path. Keys jangle, a lock turns. The Georgian front door swings open and Josie disappears inside. Only then does he drive away.

I sit on the stairs. The door slowly closes. She rests her back against the glossy red finish and stares through me again. I pulse with relief. Josie comes home. To me. As it always will be.

‘Oh, God… he’s gorgeous. What a great night! Damn! Damn! What the fuck is wrong with me?’ and she breathes deeply, searching her soul. ‘How hard can it be? Come in, Stephen… don’t be shy… make yourself at home. Shall I get you a drink? Or shall we… mmm.’ Her arms snake the empty air and she kisses his invisible face. Fingers now tease her breasts, belly and thighs. ‘Oooh, Stephen… God, that feels soooo good.’ Straps slip from shoulders and her beautiful tits are bared. I love these succulent, taut orbs with improbably large nipples that she now twists between fingers and thumbs. Eyes closed, totally lost in her fantasy, she picks up the dialogue. ‘Oh yes, oh yes! Ooh, I love that… Oh, God…’ One hand drops to her crotch and she strokes there while grinding her tight backside against the hard wooden door. I’ve never seen her quite like this. I bet no-one has. ‘Mmm, oh… oh… kiss me there… ooooh… lick… me… there…’ and she gasps as one hand lifts her dress and the other slides between her bare thighs. Stockings and suspenders turn her on so much that sex was obligatory when she donned them. ‘Your tongue… mmm… so gentle… oh…’ Shiny, black silk is pulled aside as fingers invade her. They plunge inside, up to the knuckles and reappear glistening with strands of mucous, like a slippery web. It has been two whole years so I shouldn’t be surprised at how aroused she is. ‘Lick me, Stephen… oh, Jesus…’ Her voice rises in pitch and intensity. ‘Oh yes, Stephen… lick me… fucking hell, Stephen… Stephen… I’m c…’

A rapping fist punctuates her cries, just two inches of solid mahogany away from her head. Oh, the shock on her face! Like the first time I caught her at it. I sensed it coming, but her surprise makes me laugh out loud. ‘Fucking hell, Josie, put your tits away before you open it!’ and I laugh again, an empty laugh full of shadows. She spins and spies through the glassy eye in the door. Her voice is a growled whisper.

‘Oh, my God! Stephen! Did he hear me? Oh fuck…fuck… fuck!’ all the while pouring her breasts back into her dress, adjusting her knickers, smoothing her stockings. Silvery traces are left on everything she touches, but she has no time to care, has no choice. Turning to the gold-framed mirror she pouts, tidies her auburn hair, takes a deep breath and exhales through pursed lips. A pause. She questions her reflection: ‘Yes?’ A nod returns. A smile. ‘Oh yes… and about fucking time too.’ He knocks again. She joyfully yet silently jumps up and down, punches the air, her face flushed and radiant. ‘Yes! Yes! Yes!’ Composing herself again, she carefully cracks open the door. ‘Yes?’

‘Hi, Josie… sorry to… I’m not… look, you left this.’ He holds up her black woollen coat across his palms like an offering, a Greek gift that opens doors. Helen smiles, bites her lip… and Troy falls. The dead and their monuments are usually erased slowly, by tiny abrasions, but this is cataclysmic. I feel myself imploding, disappearing. Her words flow easily, as if rehearsed.

‘Come in, Stephen…’ He hesitates. ‘Don’t be shy…’ The door opens wider and he slips timidly inside. ‘Make yourself at home.’ He looks like he’s about to run away. ‘Shall I get you a drink? Or shall we…’ The heavy door closes with a solid thunk and she leans against it. Arms coil around his neck like a python, hips gyrate against him. The delicious kiss is an order and not an invitation. He is shocked, momentarily turned to stone, obviously not expecting this change of heart at all. Inexplicably, despite the trauma he imparts, I can’t help but like him. The coat falls to the floor.

‘Are… are you sure?’ he splutters. Josie restates her intentions – far too heartily for my liking, but it seems life must go on. I am helpless.

‘Oh yes. Oh bloody-well yes!’ I know she won’t be disappointed. There is no solace for me there. I’ve seen him naked, watched him masturbate, heard him call her name into the darkness. Taking his hand she confidently, silently, leads him up the stairs. I dodge to the side. There’s a creak as they pass the step I was sitting on. It always creaked and I never found the time to fix it. I climb slowly, dejectedly to our bedroom just in time to see her dress cascade to the floor, in time to hear his gasp of admiration. The sliding mirrored doors afford him an incredibly comprehensive view. She is stunning, flawless. She is mine. Instinctively I stand between them.

‘Wow! You…’ Words fail him, ‘… have a fabulous body!’ I somehow know he’s not talking to me. Josie sidles sexily towards him, unintentionally burning me with the phosphorescent glow of her aura. It insulates her, protects her and she may have felt no more than a tingle from me. She passes through me, we separate and I suffer desperate anguish and desolation, echoes of my own body’s cleaving from spirit. Again I relive my own death: the terrible price I always pay for such intimacy. Exhausted and impotent, I watch her undo his shirt and peel it from his shoulders. Probing his mouth with her tongue she presses herself against his well-defined chest and reaches down to unfasten his trousers. Her nipples trace lines down his torso as she sinks to her knees. Deft fingers take the trousers down with her. They are removed in one smooth, well-practiced movement and she kisses his burgeoning erection through his pants. Elastic slides over thighs, lips envelope hardening flesh and he expels a long throaty sigh.

Inside me there is a deep, caliginous tract where I have stored the swallowed agony of our parting, the bitter diet of untimely separation. I was sure I had become numbed to it, was slowly digesting it, but on witnessing this moment I violently puke it all up. Retching, wretched, I am cast to the floor. Still, I cannot tear my stare away. She reads his eyes, registers his pleasure and instinctively fine-tunes her movements to his needs. What a lover you are… Oh, my love. My love. I thought I would be ready for this moment, but I am not. Not ready at all.

‘Oh, Josie. The nights I have dreamed…oh…’ He bids her stand and hugs her. Simply that. Not sex. Love. His turn to cry. ‘I love you, baby.’

‘Oh, Stephen, I… I…’ She hesitates, looks around our room. Don’t say it. Please… don’t… not here.

He picks her up gently, easily, carries her to our bed and tenderly lowers her down. The mattress now welcomes him with the slightest groan and he kisses her belly, slips off her knickers. Their lips meet again and he is inside her, sliding between her long slender legs. With a rustle of silk on silk, she wraps them around him, locks him there, sets the rhythm. Slow and smooth. Loving. They are making love.

‘I am here my love,’ but I am drowned by their intimate exchanges, their exertions. I’m unwanted, forgotten, an intruder in my own house. ‘I am always with you…’ but my voice is broken, forlorn. Options desert me. Need and opportunity quickly converge. My mind is made up for me as time runs down. I must keep my promise. The French call it la petite mort. The little death: the moment of orgasm when the mind touches and is blinded by oblivion. I kneel beside the bed, place my hands together in prayer and wait. Sweat glistens on her writhing flesh, trickles down the beautiful lithe body that was once ours to enjoy. Pupils spark and burn as eyes meld together. They are sharing, giving, overflowing with love. I am distraught, empty, desperate, stripped of all purpose but for this one final act. It is all I have left to give her. Their gentle movements slowly intensify and reach a crescendo. His face now twists and contorts, echoing my reflection in his car window barely half an hour before. I know he is near. She feels it too.

‘Cum for me, Stephen. Cum inside me.’

An acrid cocktail of emotions - pain, love, confusion, rejection, anger, fear, hate – shakes and stirs within me. His body stiffens into the rigors of reproduction, he closes his eyes and I make my move. As he urgently thrusts his life force into her, a brief schism rends his aura, splits him to the core. I slip inside.

‘Open!’ I think it: he does it. I look down on my beloved’s beautiful face, feel her legs around me. Waves of living pleasure sweep over me… so sweet, so unbelievably sweet. Once again I am succoured by the heat of her body, by her love. Her delicate hands cup my face. She is happy, yet silently crying. I concentrate. ‘Josie, I love you!’ He screams it. Too loud! She looks confused, amazed by his outburst. The old wooden clock in the hall whirrs and begins to chime midnight and I pray it won’t shake him back to earth. Thankfully, he is oblivious. I feel hot spunk speed through his loins and start to pump into her belly. His cock is beating inside her flesh like a living heart. She feels it too, gasps and kisses his lips. I know I have mere moments, but wish I could stay here forever. Feeling for the right balance, something akin to riding the clutch on a car, I find a whisper. ‘Josie, I love you. It’s me… Josie?’ Again, amused amazement curls her mouth.

‘I love you too, Stephen. I love you. Cum for me, my love.’

Then I sing, quietly, calmly:

‘She’s the raw flame… the live wire…’ The baited line is swallowed and the hook catches in her throat.

‘W… what?’ Her sublime face turns into a mask of confusion. His body shudders, begins to be wrested from my control as his orgasm subsides. She is slipping away and I scream in blind panic.

‘Josie! I’m here. Oh baby! It’s cold. So fucking cold! There’s nothing… nothing… God, help me! Hold me! Josie!’ My words echo inside the void, tail away to nothing. She doesn’t hear them, yet I sense her heart fill with uncertainty and guilt.

I find myself on the floor once more, virtually burnt out, a jettisoned fag end. Sparks of regret glow in a sudden zephyr of lucidity. When he said he loved her, I sensed her spirit leap with renewed hope. A future full of happiness opened up for her, a new life, an end to mourning. And he meant every word. I could feel it. Despite the cold veil of death that separates us, his words warmed even me, much as the sun used to bathe my face. But - Josie being Josie - she hesitated. And not for my sake, for his. She had to be sure before she replied so as not to hurt him. But the look in his eyes as they made love, convinced her and she said it. She said it to Stephen, not to me, even though I looked into her eyes at that moment. ‘I love you.’ I am suddenly devastatingly ashamed of my selfishness and stupidity. Their special moment is forever tainted and my presence simply threatens to ruin her future happiness. Christ, you were right: I am a stubborn bastard. You’ll never know how much.

‘Baby, I’m sorry. Forgive me… Josie?’ I’d cry if I could, but my eyes are dry, like black ice.

His breathing slowly approaches normality. He hugs her, shakes his head in disbelief.

‘Jesus, that was fantastic… I was gone, totally gone.’

‘Stephen? You OK?’

‘Oh, better than that! Phew…’ He is ecstatic.

‘You… er… started singing…’ By contrast, she seems strangely subdued.

‘Singing?’ He senses a vital change.

‘Yeah, remember? Steely Dan? ‘When Josie comes home…’’

‘I… er… when?’

‘When you were cumming… please say… you…’

‘I sang?’ He laughs nervously. ‘I sang ‘Josie’? … er… mmm, that’s a little surprising, but given the circumstances…’ He is incredulous. In the silence that follows she screws up her eyes, squeezes her temples between her palms.

‘Oh God… no… it can’t…’

‘Did I? I must admit - since you lent it me - I play it at home all the time. The whole album. Round and round. It’s fantastic.’ His revelation confuses her, distracts her from the possibility she was entertaining.

‘You played it? You know it? I didn’t think you’d… I…’ There is a knot of silence that neither is able to undo. Then she cuts it with our secret. ‘It was our song… you know, me and… and…’ She looks around our room, yet can’t even say my name, knows this is not the time. While his body simply holds her, his mind gropes for something to put this right. He takes up her theme, sensing her need for reassurance, consolation.

‘I’m sorry… I didn’t know. It’s… it’s a great song… can’t blame you… It’s about you… It must have been written for you.’ The words I spoke through him still reverberate in his muscles and his heightened senses search for traces. He finally makes the link to the pertinent lyrics.

‘‘She’s the raw flame, the live wire…’ That’s you all over. All over. ‘Raw flame, live wire’! Jesus!’ He pauses and then as an after thought: ‘Er… did you…?’

Her haunted look slowly dissipates, she smiles, shakes her head, kisses his forehead. ‘No baby… doesn’t matter. I will, I will. We have all the time in the world.’

He hugs her. She stares up at the ceiling, eyes narrowed, thinking, reminiscing. I float in her line of vision, trying to put myself at just the right distance so she is looking into my eyes. She meets my gaze but there is no connection. Unanswerable questions reluctantly but decisively depart her brow. The brown eyes soften and close as she buries her face into his neck. I failed. Thank God – wherever and whoever she is – I failed. I speak to Josie one last time.

‘You know I’d give up anything for you… so… I give up Josie for Josie. Goodbye sweetheart. Be forever happy.’ I start to sing, but my faltering voice grows fainter by the quaver.

‘Strike at the stroke of midnight

Dance on the bones till the girls say when…

Pick up what’s left by daylight

When Josie comes home…’