So, this is our lives now.

And then we got tossed into the desert by Tina Turner.

When SSLF fell, each of us started posting R-Rated content in our own way.

It was 1968 - the summer of the passion. Planet of the Apes was all the rage and someone had shot MLK. Nixon was headed for the White House while high school kids headed for Vietnam.

I had just lost my virginity to the girl from Newport Beach; beneath the boardwalk to the sounds of waves against the sand. I woke up to the light between the cracks above and the crackling of tourist corn dogs deep-fried. Her name was Anita and she was here with her father from West Germany. We were both scared she'd go back and never see the California sun, so we stayed on the beach until the sun went down again. She said her father would be worried sick if she didn't come home, but I was worried she'd up and leave the second she disappeared from sight, like sand castles here on the coastline. I asked her if she'd miss the California moon and how it hung over the bay, guarding everyone here. She said it was too much like her father and like that she rode her bike away, promising to find me.

Every day I'd come back to the beach, hoping to bump into the girl with sandy hair and little freckles, in her yellow sundress. The tide would set out and come back in, day in, day out. Days turned to weeks, weeks to months and those months grew into a year. Anita had never come back. Even with my desk job, I knew there was no way to fly to Checkpoint Charlie and find her. She was just a phantom needle in a sinking haystack and I couldn't let myself drown.

I didn't go to the beach anymore. I grew tired of the boardwalk, sick of the golden sand and sapphire water. If I ran into Anita, I wouldn't know what to say, or what to do. I let the thoughts wash off me so I'd never let the worry catch me. Time moved on and so did I. Eventually I was a husband and then a father and then a grandfather until I was a widower, alone in Newport Beach. My children cared for me but I knew that I was a burden on their lives. They had children of their own and shared my responsibility out of love and dedication.

Soon the phone stopped ringing and the grandkids stopped visiting - I was alone again, but I knew that I had done everything I could in this world. With this comfort, I returned to Newport Beach, beneath the boardwalk, just to relive my youth. The boardwalk was nothing but a lingering memory, out of service, devoid of life. Still, the beach was alive, perhaps even more so than it ever had been.

I don't know what I was looking for; a footprint of her sandal, or a carving of our names together. I was ready for Anita now - ready to fall in love all over again and lay down to admire the California sun. Dawn to dusk the sun went. In and out the tide came. The moon peeking above the water. With the passage of time, Anita had entered and left and returned again, taking my heart with it.