He called late on a Saturday night. His voice slid over the ether and skipped across the ocean – technology bridging the gap between his house on one side of the planet and hers on the other.

“I miss you,” he said. “Come and see me.”
The next week he bought her a ticket.
Ciara thought it was romantic.
Mark laughed and decided it was the world’s most expensive booty call.
“Just see what happens,” I said and told her about the man I had left behind in South Africa.
“If it is meant to be, things will work out,” said Ciara.
Maura snorted and called her naïve.
“Treat it as a holiday romance,” she advised and told us about the lover that had moved to Germany. “Have plenty of sex, get him out of your system and then when you come home, forget about him.”
She shook her head. She wasn’t sure what she wanted, but she could not see him as a short-term sexual distraction.
Maura would not be dissuaded. “There are nearly five million people on this island. If you can’t make a relationship work with one of them, what makes you think you could with someone on the far side of the world?”
That gave her pause for thought. She hadn’t thought much beyond the immediate future but she did not imagine that either of them had the stomach for the complications of a long-distance relationship – passports and flights and jobs that separate us from those we love, a departure hovering over every reunion, the unfurling of a romance telescoped into one or two week periods and, then, long lonely months in between.
As the day of her flight approached her excitement grew, but so did her apprehension, Maura’s words of caution echoing in her head.
He met her at the airport. In her daydreams, their reunion under the bright lights of the arrivals hall had taken on the hallmarks of a made-for-television movie. She had imagined a long passionate kiss, the gripping of each other’s arms and bodies, a hug that by its very physicality aims to check that yes, this is real and not just a figment of your imagination and desire.
She imagined conversations with each of them tripping over their words, desperate to share all that had happened since the last time they met, since the evening they kissed and parted at this very same airport and she thought her heart might break as he turned to sadly wave good-bye one last time.
She imagined returning to his house, pulling off his clothes as they were barely through the door, desperate to feel his skin next to her skin, to feel his body next to hers, to taste him, touch him.
It was not like that. Of course not – life is rarely how we fantasize it will be. Between the idea and the reality, between the motion and the act, falls the shadow.
They were awkward with each other. The conversation was stilted and self-conscious. They kissed, but it was polite, as if they were strangers instead of lovers.
How had this happened, she wondered. In the months in between then and now, they had kept in contact. They swapped jokes, argued about ethics and politics, and counted down the days until they would be together again.
But now that she was there, the weight of expectation lay heavily between them.
She felt a little like a mail order bride: uncertain how to act as if she owed it to him to be perfect – a reward for his trouble and expense. He too seemed unsure of himself, like a teenage boy on a date.
He offered to take her bag and as they walked towards his car, she wanted to stop and shake him, to shout, ‘Hey, are you in there?’ She wanted to reach out and stroke his hair, or run her hands across his body, or pinch his arm – anything to release the human being trapped beneath his courteous, considerate exterior.
But that was impossible. She too seemed to have disappeared into herself and she couldn’t shake free from her agitation. Her mind was a blur, synapses firing randomly, a neuro-chemical stew of thoughts and emotions. She wanted to speak, but language and logic both failed her – instead she gave him a weak smile and hoped for the best.
Back at the house he offered her a drink. She gulped down the whiskey hoping that the alcohol would loosen her inhibitions. They talked but it felt as if there was a veil between them. The physical distance had been bridged, but in its place an emotional one had arisen.
They sat, looking at each other with sad eyes. Perhaps this is a kind of love, she thought, or perhaps like most relationships it’s just another kind of disappointment.
He took her hand and traced a path along her arm. She leaned over and they kissed, once and then more deeply. Despite the awkwardness that was still there like an unwelcome third person in the room, the passion that had prompted this reunion awoke inside her. As he ran his hands across her back, she felt her desire spreading across her body.
She removed her shirt and he took off his pants. He stopped and then laughed.
“Oh no,” he said. “I’ve undressed the wrong way.”
He pointed down. “It’s the dreaded sock gap. You’ll never be able to find me sexually attractive again.”
He stood facing her in his tee shirt and socks, his pale legs and genitals on display. He looked faintly ridiculous, but yet also vulnerable and human.
They looked at each other and laughed.
“Yes, you’ve ruined it now,” she said as she reached out and pulled him towards her. They fell upon the bed and kissed.
Afterwards they lay together on the bed and talked. The discomfort finally exorcised in the sweat and tangle of bodies.
She thought about their past and she thought about the unforeseeable future. But mostly she thought about the pleasure she felt as she nestled into him and he put his arms around her and linked his fingers through hers.
It was like some unseen force was putting the pieces of a jigsaw back together. Would they be able to find all the pieces? For now, at least, things were fitting just right…