A kiss is still a kiss

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I've not done a song story for a while but here is a slightly different song story. Explanation at the end. 

She was beautiful, her dark Moroccan eyes enchanted me, captivated me, while her skin was so pure it was like spring water trickling down a mountain. She made me want to paint her although I’d never painted anything more than a garden fence.  Morocco, the land of frustration. Beautiful women but unattainable each and every one. I sat on my stool at the bar drinking my gin and tonic looking at the picture I’d taken of this incredible woman. Rick’s was busy, full of tourists trying to get the full Casablanca experience, even though Rick’s Place was just a shabby mock up of an imaginary bar. Latifa was on my mind, Latifa was on my screen, but still the same old story, why did I always fall for women who just couldn’t be mine?

I should have asked her to join me for one drink, but I never make plans that far ahead. I knew then I’d regret it, maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow but right now and for the rest of my life, but what could I do?

I looked up at the drinks lining the back of the bar and caught a reflection of myself in the mirror. Looking at me, pining like a lovesick teenager. My problems didn’t amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world. Why did I come to Casablanca? There are other places, I could have gone anywhere but no I had to come here to this town of frustration.

Then I saw her, her mirror image coming towards me. Of all the gin joints, in all the towns, in all the world, she walks into mine.  She smiled. I smiled back.

‘Here’s looking at you kid.’ I said as she sat on the stool next to me. I was still looking at her reflection in the mirror rather than her soft, brown tempting skin.

‘Kiss me. Kiss me as if it were the last time.’ She said to me. My heart flipped, I longed to kiss this beautiful woman but knew that it would not be possible.

‘I can’t,’ I said. ‘You know it’s impossible.’ I wanted to, I wanted it to be the beginning of a beautiful friendship but I knew I couldn’t go there, it might only be a little kiss but a kiss is still a kiss.

‘Richard!’ She said. ‘ I can’t fight it any longer.’

‘After tonight, I'll be through with the whole business and I am leaving finally this Casablanca.’ I said. ‘Where I’m going, you can’t follow, you know that, so would good will coming of me kissing you.’

I noticed in the mirror Latifa wipe a tear away from her face.

‘Now now’ I said and turned to look at her, lightly touching her chin, raising her face so I could look into her eyes.

‘You know how you sound…? Like a man who’s trying to convince himself of something he doesn’t believe in his heart,’ she said.

It was true, I wanted to stay, I wanted to kiss her, but it was all too complicated.

‘Here’s looking at you kid.’ I said as I slipped off my stool and disappeared into the night.

So as well as lines from as time goes by, also there are lines from Casablanca the film laced throughout the story. As provided by this website.