I shook my head.“I’ll play with you later. I’m almost done,” I could feel her pouting behind me enough that I turned around in the chair and p...uted back, “You know how I am with these things.” Her hands cupped my face and stroked my chin.“Just take a quick break. I was talking to a few friends in beginning trig and we were…” She looked thoughtful for a moment, trying to think of the best word possible, “discussing things each had done; we decided to try out some of the suggestions and I really. Quite pathetic for a man of fifty-eight years. Perhaps the torment was greater this time because I knew Gaynor was only a few miles distant, a phone call or text or e-mail away. I knew where she lived, where she sat and slept. But she eluded my fingertips and my eyes and ears. Physically, she had gone but, mentally, she was still very much inside me. Every day. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Christmas is a time for family and ours was only small. Neither Veronica nor I had surviving parents and we were the. "Who says I was teasing. Look what I brought with me," she held up the bottle of Whiskey. "A party favor." She stated with a smile. She opened the bottle, taking a huge swig before backing up toward the back entrance to the buses closing the bottle with every step."Are you going to have me drink this whole bottle by myself?" She asked teasingly. He shook his head, fire in his eyes, there was no way in hell he was going to allow that. He put his corona to his lips finished the rest in one gulp. She lightly pinched his neck in her sleep and murmured. ‘You bastard.’ … She was sunken, deep down and slightly comatose, in the soft folds of the bed, it’s feathery arms wrapped around her intimately and graciously as she half-slept. The air was too warm, sickly with a humidity which glued to her skin and made everything uncomfortable. The bed was stifled from perspiration and the minuscule droplets of moisture in the air, the thin sheets half thrown over her body were becoming clinging and.