I don’t mean her bum. Because she didn’t leave any skin in the game at all.

I wrote this just to tag onto the bottom (no, no … not another butt joke) of another fictitious piece I wrote a while ago.

She wandered back into my house one warm day in November. I don’t remember what year it was. She picked up the cigarette that she had discarded upon leaving, from where it waited, smouldering patiently in the ash tray. She put it to her lips and I felt the familiar warmth against my cheek as she inhaled and restored it to life.
Her hair was still dark and wild but she seemed taller. Perhaps it was just that she stood taller. Her eyes may have changed colour a little.
This time she had brought with her a faded canvas bag which she dropped onto the floor, leaving it to slump there like a dead animal.
She stubbed out the cigarette eventually, before smiling half-heartedly at me and walking into the bedroom.
She closed the door behind her and slept for two days without moving. I went in only occasionally, to confirm that she was still breathing.

While she slept I quietly emptied her bag and set about washing all of her clothes and leafing through her collection of paperbacks, searching for sections that she had underlined. Absorbing the words that she had taken into herself seemed an act far more daring and intimate than handling the underwear she had worn. There was a personal journal in amongst the books, but there I drew the line. It was not a matter of respecting privacy, but rather that I was terrified by what I might read.

When she finally awoke she swung the bedroom door open and walked past me naked, across the floorboards and into the shower. I heard the water splashing over her body and her gentle humming of a tune I vaguely recognised. When she emerged she stood and dressed methodically in front of me. It was only then that I realised I had never really seen her naked before.

When she was fully clothed she reached into her skirt pocket and magically extracted another single cigarette. She looked over suspiciously at the pile of her books that I had arranged on the table, her journal sitting on the top. She exhaled a cloud of smoke towards the ceiling before looking across to study me carefully.
“I’ve been thinking of giving up,” she announced, though it was not obvious, at the time, what she might have meant.
We just stood there gazing at each other for a minute or two, or until I could take it no more.

“Who the fuck are you?” I asked at last.
She fiddled nervously with a few strands of wet hair that refused to remain in position behind her ears. She smiled at me sweetly before she spoke.
“I was about to ask you the same question.”

*

And now, in reference to the poorly chosen title of this post, I cannot resist but finish on a silly note, the way all things are best finished. I should point out, in closing, that it is me who constantly finds himself as the butt of all jokes, and so always keeps his tongue firmly planted in his cheek.

She left a piece of her behind
A little trace that I might find
Out of mind, but not forgotten
Memories of her gorgeous bottom
We shared a moment, shed a tear
My eyes fixated on her rear
A target far beyond my class
But what a lovely piece of ass