For the IndieInk Writing Challenge this week, Wendryn challenged me with "You've been keeping a bottle of champagne for five years, waiting to celebrate something specific. Tell the story leading up to finally getting to drink the champagne." and I challenged SAM with "?"Art imposes order on life, but how much more art will there be?" -Bob Dylan"
I was never a drinker. It wasn't that I had anything against it. I didn't have an allergy, or any moral compunctions about it. I have never had a drinking problem. I didn't get drunk easily. I just never enjoyed it. It never became a habit. I kept some on hand for entertaining on holidays, but it generally just sat there until the next celebration rolled around. I always felt like I had to apologize for this.
I had bought the champagne without telling Elin. If she noticed, she didn't say anything. I tucked it into the bottom of the dark wood wine rack in the corner of the basement, covering it with the bottles of moderately priced red and white wine that Paul at the liquor store had recommended. I let it rest there, my dark, cool secret behind the boxes of college textbooks and old tax returns.
I stared at the bottle, the black glass with fading beads of condensation, the pretentious looking French script, the expensive liquid slowly becoming flat and worthless inside. It actually didn't taste good, but I could feel the alcohol starting to take effect the more I swallowed. It had a pleasant, flattening effect. That was what I was looking for, so I kept tipping the bottle and taking in more of the fizzy liquid.
I had awakened this morning to unaccustomed silence. They told you never to go to bed angry, but we had, another variation on the theme that was driving a wedge into our ten year marriage. I opened my eyes to an empty bed, with her side of the closet yawningly empty, stripped of her suits and dresses. A note in her precise hand, left on a Hello Kitty post it note on her alarm clock, said only, "I can't do this any longer."
I didn't blame her. Once we had settled ourselves into mid adulthood, and our friends started to slip into the haze of parenting, Elin agreed that it was time. What followed was a nightmare of doctors and drugs, side effects and painful shots. We were tormented by friendly advice, colleagues and relatives advising vitamins and rest, nostrums and methods of all sorts. Nothing worked, and we both began to resent the onset of the bitter, coppery smell that came without fail, reminding us how we were failing to heed our genetic call.
It was a peculiar sort of feeling, faceless but infuriating. No one understood unless they were going through it, and if they were, they didn't want to talk about it any more than you did. Once you want something and you can't have it, suddenly you see it everywhere. Elin had it much worse, attending countless work showers and child parties, feeling like she had to explain herself constantly. I knew a version of the same struggle, smiling at children visiting the office, watching secretaries grow heavy with child, listening to meltdowns in the grocery store. I listened to the new father stories, swallowing my anger, pasting on a fake smile and grinning through it. You couldn't be angry at anyone, because it wasn't anyone's fault.
We tried everything our budget would allow, and stretched for a few that we couldn't. Elin's moods darkened as time went on. Her body darkened and swelled with fluid. She cried, raging at me behind closed doors, cursing her fate. I swallowed my own fury, our still new relationship unable to bear the weight of both of our angers. It was hard not to feel inadequate, despite every doctor claiming that we were healthy, that there wasn't anything more we could do except keep trying.
Both of us logic bound, college educated creatures, there had to be something, so we both engaged in research, adopting every maxim, every strategy, every technique and supplement. Nothing worked, our biology letting us down, over and over, day after day, month after month. We snarled at each other, talking leading to fighting, resorting to silences that kept the tense, wary peace. It became a presence between us, huge and unknowable, invisible, but strong as tungsten.
We still made love, the Holy Grail of my teenage years becoming a grim, joyless task. It was mechanical, following the plan, doing the deed at the appointed hour. It was no longer love, no longer expressing in sweat and sound our eternal bond. It was as mindless as excretion, as erotic as changing the oil in a car. We stopped talking about it, the way we stopped talking about everything.
Now she was gone. She was probably in her sister's spare room, sleeping on the couch in her office, watching our nephew Sam while Kate telecommuted to her marketing job. I could call her, try to explain, beg her to come back. But the champagne I had bought to celebrate a completion of this journey put a haze over my own needs and wants. I took another slug from the bottle, and set it down unevenly. It could have spilled, but it didn't, and I laid back, closing my eyes to a room that was too quiet and a house that was too empty.
Wednesday, April 04, 2012
Monday, March 26, 2012
Indie Ink Writing Challenge: "The Things You Miss"
For the IndieInk Writing Challenge this week, Tara Roberts challenged me with "'Rhode Island is neither a road nor an island... discuss' Mike Myers in SNL skit 'Coffee Talk with Linda Richman'" and I challenged Brett Myers with "'The core is where you write, or do your thing. It's where artists come from.' -Joe Strummer"
We had tried listening to music, but she wasn't happy with that. An audiobook was next, but that wasn't any good either. I tuned in the baseball game, but she complained about that too. So we drove in silence, riding down the claustrophobic highway that runs through the state on the way to the airport. The buildings are unusually close to the road as you rush by them, as if the size of the state left them no room to spread out. It reminded me of Luke Skywalker flying into the tunnel, trying to destroy the Death Star.
"She came from Providence," I sang softly, "the one in Rhode Island-"
"I don't want to listen to you sing," she said flatly.
"Can I hum?," I asked.
"Shut up," she explained.
I slowed down as we approached a forest of brake lights. We had left ridiculously early, my father's prudent planning showing through. Even with traffic, we'd be at the airport 3 hours before her flight.
"I don't know why you insist I use Providence instead of Boston."
"It's nicer. It's cheaper. It's easier to get to. It's smaller."
"Bigger isn't always bad," she said.
I let that sit.
"Did you know there are counties in Texas bigger than Rhode Island?"
"Did you know I don't care?," she said.
The traffic loosened again and I went forward, only to have it slow down again. Progress by increments. Forward a little bit, then stop again. We listened to the little creaks and shifts and bumps that cars make when they are uncovered by silence.
"When do you think you can come back?," I said.
"I told you I don't know. It's going to take as long as it takes."
"I know you don't know. But when do you think?"
"Not for at least a month."
"You can call, right?"
"I'll call when I can," she said evenly. She half turned, looking out the window. "I'll be busy."
"I know. I just want you to know that I'll miss you." The traffic stopped again, right next to a billboard for a strip club. I thought about the time I went in one, congratulating a friend after he passed his boards, the parody of sexuality it was, love and sex and beauty reduced to a cold, unsentimental business transaction.
"I know that," she said.
"One of my father's friends was away from his wife for a year and a half once. And they survived."
"That doesn't help," she said softly. "Nothing helps, nothing makes it any better. We've said everything that there is for us to say. There isn't anything else. I don't want to do this, but I have to. I'll stay in touch as best I can. You'll write me, I'll write you. You'll miss me, I'll miss you. I just don't want to talk about it any more. I don't want to think about it anymore. I just want to get there, and get it done, and get back as quick as I possibly can so we can get back to our lives. That's it. That's all I want. I need this job, and we need the money. So just let me do it my own way. Don't comfort me. Don't tell me it's going to be OK. Because it's not."
We accelerated again, then stopped, creeping and beeping towards the airport exit. I could feel the seconds ticking by. She had been away before, and so had I. It had to be done. But it didn't get easier.
"I wish you didn't have to go," I said helplessly. She didn't say anything. I let a minivan move in front of me. "Marriage=1 Man + 1 Woman", the sticker on the bumper said. I wondered what kind of person insisted that nothing ever changes, that everything has to be the same forever. I could understand deriving some comfort from that notion, but it wasn't reality. Life wasn't like that.
"I'm going to miss the hell out of you," I said. I knew she didn't want to hear it, but I had to hear myself say it.
I found the airport exit, waited my turn, and then accelerated onto the ramp. This was it, a split in the path of our lives together, an onramp onto another part of our lives. The same, but also very different.
"I will be here when you get back," I said to her. She knew that, I'm sure, but she remained silent. When I pulled over at the curb, she got out without a word. I got out and helped her get her suitcases out, tipping the redcap as he spirited the bags away.
She slung her pink and black carry on over her shoulder, then turned to me, pressing against me, turning her head to one side and grabbing me tightly. I let my arms find her waist, and we stood there for a moment, among the chaos and the noises and the exhaust fumes. I eyed a cop warily, who looked like he was going to ask me to move along. He suddenly thought better of it.
"I'm sorry," she said into my chest.
"It's OK," I said.
"Goodbye," she said.
"Goodbye," I said, and she turned and walked into the terminal.
I got back into my car and moved back into the traffic pattern. I had lived alone before, and I could do it again. There would be less bickering about the television, and I could probably go to the movies more. Things would be different without her. But that was the thing about love. When you were in love, when you were part of something larger than yourself, you felt incomplete when your other half was gone. You missed the sound, the smell, the touch. You even missed the aggravation.
We had tried listening to music, but she wasn't happy with that. An audiobook was next, but that wasn't any good either. I tuned in the baseball game, but she complained about that too. So we drove in silence, riding down the claustrophobic highway that runs through the state on the way to the airport. The buildings are unusually close to the road as you rush by them, as if the size of the state left them no room to spread out. It reminded me of Luke Skywalker flying into the tunnel, trying to destroy the Death Star.
"She came from Providence," I sang softly, "the one in Rhode Island-"
"I don't want to listen to you sing," she said flatly.
"Can I hum?," I asked.
"Shut up," she explained.
I slowed down as we approached a forest of brake lights. We had left ridiculously early, my father's prudent planning showing through. Even with traffic, we'd be at the airport 3 hours before her flight.
"I don't know why you insist I use Providence instead of Boston."
"It's nicer. It's cheaper. It's easier to get to. It's smaller."
"Bigger isn't always bad," she said.
I let that sit.
"Did you know there are counties in Texas bigger than Rhode Island?"
"Did you know I don't care?," she said.
The traffic loosened again and I went forward, only to have it slow down again. Progress by increments. Forward a little bit, then stop again. We listened to the little creaks and shifts and bumps that cars make when they are uncovered by silence.
"When do you think you can come back?," I said.
"I told you I don't know. It's going to take as long as it takes."
"I know you don't know. But when do you think?"
"Not for at least a month."
"You can call, right?"
"I'll call when I can," she said evenly. She half turned, looking out the window. "I'll be busy."
"I know. I just want you to know that I'll miss you." The traffic stopped again, right next to a billboard for a strip club. I thought about the time I went in one, congratulating a friend after he passed his boards, the parody of sexuality it was, love and sex and beauty reduced to a cold, unsentimental business transaction.
"I know that," she said.
"One of my father's friends was away from his wife for a year and a half once. And they survived."
"That doesn't help," she said softly. "Nothing helps, nothing makes it any better. We've said everything that there is for us to say. There isn't anything else. I don't want to do this, but I have to. I'll stay in touch as best I can. You'll write me, I'll write you. You'll miss me, I'll miss you. I just don't want to talk about it any more. I don't want to think about it anymore. I just want to get there, and get it done, and get back as quick as I possibly can so we can get back to our lives. That's it. That's all I want. I need this job, and we need the money. So just let me do it my own way. Don't comfort me. Don't tell me it's going to be OK. Because it's not."
We accelerated again, then stopped, creeping and beeping towards the airport exit. I could feel the seconds ticking by. She had been away before, and so had I. It had to be done. But it didn't get easier.
"I wish you didn't have to go," I said helplessly. She didn't say anything. I let a minivan move in front of me. "Marriage=1 Man + 1 Woman", the sticker on the bumper said. I wondered what kind of person insisted that nothing ever changes, that everything has to be the same forever. I could understand deriving some comfort from that notion, but it wasn't reality. Life wasn't like that.
"I'm going to miss the hell out of you," I said. I knew she didn't want to hear it, but I had to hear myself say it.
I found the airport exit, waited my turn, and then accelerated onto the ramp. This was it, a split in the path of our lives together, an onramp onto another part of our lives. The same, but also very different.
"I will be here when you get back," I said to her. She knew that, I'm sure, but she remained silent. When I pulled over at the curb, she got out without a word. I got out and helped her get her suitcases out, tipping the redcap as he spirited the bags away.
She slung her pink and black carry on over her shoulder, then turned to me, pressing against me, turning her head to one side and grabbing me tightly. I let my arms find her waist, and we stood there for a moment, among the chaos and the noises and the exhaust fumes. I eyed a cop warily, who looked like he was going to ask me to move along. He suddenly thought better of it.
"I'm sorry," she said into my chest.
"It's OK," I said.
"Goodbye," she said.
"Goodbye," I said, and she turned and walked into the terminal.
I got back into my car and moved back into the traffic pattern. I had lived alone before, and I could do it again. There would be less bickering about the television, and I could probably go to the movies more. Things would be different without her. But that was the thing about love. When you were in love, when you were part of something larger than yourself, you felt incomplete when your other half was gone. You missed the sound, the smell, the touch. You even missed the aggravation.
Sunday, March 25, 2012
Terrible Minds Challenge: "The Marianas Trench"
Chuck Wendig, owner of all things Terribly Minded and master of all he surveys, has another Flash Fiction Contest, this time about settings. I chose The Bottom Of The Ocean, and present to you "The Marianas Trench".
Even the waves sounded unsettled. The constant grumbling of water hitting the shore echoed my unsettled stomach. I was nervous. I really had no reason to be. The day had opened gray and surly, low clouds promising rain that they hadn't yet delivered. Everything was clothed in a fog so thick you could hear the ocean, but not see it. I didn't know what I expected to find here, but I was pretty sure that, whatever it was, it wouldn't live up to my expectations. Nothing ever did.
"Just walk along the path, along Ocean Boulevard, where those benches are, next to the beach, and I'll meet you. I run down that path every morning with my dog Sparky, before 7. I have no problem chatting for a bit." That was the message she had left me, next to a tiny picture of Sparky, when I saw it on my Facebook page this morning. Business had left me in her city with a morning to kill before my flight leaves.
I had found her at that 21st century watering hole, apologizing at length for the atrocious way I had treated her, 20 years and several lifetimes ago. "No worries, we were young," she said then. When I discovered I would be within a few miles of her home, I asked for the meeting, not being shocked that she didn't immediately respond. When I saw her note this morning, it jump started a frenzy of activity, packing my clothes and showering and taking a taxi to be on the path at the right time.
I saw her pop out of the murk. She had a light jacket over some sort of exercise top and tight running pants. I gawked. I couldn't help myself. She still had the firm body of a teenager. If you didn't know, she could pass for a tall undergraduate, her long hair swinging back and forth as she ran, her dog, a friendly looking beagle, happily trotting along beside. Her face was unmistakable, angular and sharp like the prow of a ship.
"Sarah?," I said when she came close enough.
"Oh! Oh!," she said softly. That was absolutely her. Her voice was almost a whisper. I knelt down to acquaint myself with her dog, resting my luggage on the ground. I let him sniff me, then scratched him behind his ears gently. "I didn't recognize you with a mustache, Jon." And with 50 more pounds, she didn't say.
"It's me," I said. I wasn't sure what else to say. My heart pounded. "Your dog is beautiful," I said. So are you, I didn't mention. Age gave her a seriousness she never had before. She didn't need me to protect her from anything now. Maybe she never did.
"You teach marine biology, huh?," I continued, grappling for a handhold on the conversation.
"Yes," she said. "We're leaving on a research trip this afternoon. Three weeks diving to the bottom of the ocean."
"Three weeks?," I said. "What happens to this guy?" Sparky looked up at me, as if he knew I meant him.
"He stays with Aunt Sherry here on land. One of my students."
"What are you studying?"
"Basically, the life forms at different levels of the sea, and how they interact." She was dancing back and forth on her toes, almost like she was a boxer. Everything she did was uncommonly graceful.
"Don't robots do that?"
"Sometimes. Other times, we go down there."
"Down to the bottom of the ocean?" I thought about all that water, tons and tons and tons of it, pressing down on a fragile little cocoon of steel. I imagined her down there, her hair pulled back into a sensible bun, like she wore when she danced, checking items off a list or urgently typing on a laptop.
"Nearly," she said. She started stretching, trying to stay loose. She bent low from the waist and I peeked at her decolletage. It looked familiar. I remembered what she looked like 20 years ago without a top on, tiny, precious, and vulnerable, bones visible through the skin. She probably looked the same now.
"That must be scary. All that pressure bearing down on you."
"Well, it's like my boss says," she said, chuckling. "If anything goes wrong, there's nothing you can do about it, so there's no sense worrying. Nobody is coming to the rescue."
I felt a spasm of worry. Don't go, I wanted to say. Stay here. Stay with me. Let's find what we had before.
"You look great," I said, looking into her kind eyes, seeing how they were starting to wrinkle at the sides.
"Thank you," she said. "I try to stay in shape."
"We were something back then, weren't we?"
"Yes, we were," she said. "It was a long time ago. We were just kids. We didn't know what love was."
We know better now, I thought. Come back East with me. Let's make it happen again.
"I'm not sure I know now," I said.
"I'm not either," she said ruefully. "But I'm getting closer."
Sparky started to strain at his leash. A seagull was walking by, heedless of the danger.
"You have to catch your plane," she said.
"You're right," I said. I thought about her, alone under all that water, intent on her work, as far away from others as you can be. What kind of person does that? Clearly not the same girl who cried while I rubbed her aching legs. She didn't need anyone. Certainly not me.
"It was nice meeting you."
"You too."
"Good luck."
"Bye."
I watched her walk away, then break into a run, someone I was close to, now as distant as the very bottom of the Marianas Trench.
Even the waves sounded unsettled. The constant grumbling of water hitting the shore echoed my unsettled stomach. I was nervous. I really had no reason to be. The day had opened gray and surly, low clouds promising rain that they hadn't yet delivered. Everything was clothed in a fog so thick you could hear the ocean, but not see it. I didn't know what I expected to find here, but I was pretty sure that, whatever it was, it wouldn't live up to my expectations. Nothing ever did.
"Just walk along the path, along Ocean Boulevard, where those benches are, next to the beach, and I'll meet you. I run down that path every morning with my dog Sparky, before 7. I have no problem chatting for a bit." That was the message she had left me, next to a tiny picture of Sparky, when I saw it on my Facebook page this morning. Business had left me in her city with a morning to kill before my flight leaves.
I had found her at that 21st century watering hole, apologizing at length for the atrocious way I had treated her, 20 years and several lifetimes ago. "No worries, we were young," she said then. When I discovered I would be within a few miles of her home, I asked for the meeting, not being shocked that she didn't immediately respond. When I saw her note this morning, it jump started a frenzy of activity, packing my clothes and showering and taking a taxi to be on the path at the right time.
I saw her pop out of the murk. She had a light jacket over some sort of exercise top and tight running pants. I gawked. I couldn't help myself. She still had the firm body of a teenager. If you didn't know, she could pass for a tall undergraduate, her long hair swinging back and forth as she ran, her dog, a friendly looking beagle, happily trotting along beside. Her face was unmistakable, angular and sharp like the prow of a ship.
"Sarah?," I said when she came close enough.
"Oh! Oh!," she said softly. That was absolutely her. Her voice was almost a whisper. I knelt down to acquaint myself with her dog, resting my luggage on the ground. I let him sniff me, then scratched him behind his ears gently. "I didn't recognize you with a mustache, Jon." And with 50 more pounds, she didn't say.
"It's me," I said. I wasn't sure what else to say. My heart pounded. "Your dog is beautiful," I said. So are you, I didn't mention. Age gave her a seriousness she never had before. She didn't need me to protect her from anything now. Maybe she never did.
"You teach marine biology, huh?," I continued, grappling for a handhold on the conversation.
"Yes," she said. "We're leaving on a research trip this afternoon. Three weeks diving to the bottom of the ocean."
"Three weeks?," I said. "What happens to this guy?" Sparky looked up at me, as if he knew I meant him.
"He stays with Aunt Sherry here on land. One of my students."
"What are you studying?"
"Basically, the life forms at different levels of the sea, and how they interact." She was dancing back and forth on her toes, almost like she was a boxer. Everything she did was uncommonly graceful.
"Don't robots do that?"
"Sometimes. Other times, we go down there."
"Down to the bottom of the ocean?" I thought about all that water, tons and tons and tons of it, pressing down on a fragile little cocoon of steel. I imagined her down there, her hair pulled back into a sensible bun, like she wore when she danced, checking items off a list or urgently typing on a laptop.
"Nearly," she said. She started stretching, trying to stay loose. She bent low from the waist and I peeked at her decolletage. It looked familiar. I remembered what she looked like 20 years ago without a top on, tiny, precious, and vulnerable, bones visible through the skin. She probably looked the same now.
"That must be scary. All that pressure bearing down on you."
"Well, it's like my boss says," she said, chuckling. "If anything goes wrong, there's nothing you can do about it, so there's no sense worrying. Nobody is coming to the rescue."
I felt a spasm of worry. Don't go, I wanted to say. Stay here. Stay with me. Let's find what we had before.
"You look great," I said, looking into her kind eyes, seeing how they were starting to wrinkle at the sides.
"Thank you," she said. "I try to stay in shape."
"We were something back then, weren't we?"
"Yes, we were," she said. "It was a long time ago. We were just kids. We didn't know what love was."
We know better now, I thought. Come back East with me. Let's make it happen again.
"I'm not sure I know now," I said.
"I'm not either," she said ruefully. "But I'm getting closer."
Sparky started to strain at his leash. A seagull was walking by, heedless of the danger.
"You have to catch your plane," she said.
"You're right," I said. I thought about her, alone under all that water, intent on her work, as far away from others as you can be. What kind of person does that? Clearly not the same girl who cried while I rubbed her aching legs. She didn't need anyone. Certainly not me.
"It was nice meeting you."
"You too."
"Good luck."
"Bye."
I watched her walk away, then break into a run, someone I was close to, now as distant as the very bottom of the Marianas Trench.
Saturday, March 24, 2012
Trifecta Writing Challenge: The Really Useful Snowstorm
My fine friends at the Trifecta Writing Challenge will hopefully welcome this newcomer to their ranks, chiming in with a 33 word entry. For this weekend, they have provided you with 33 words, and you write 33 more. This is a little bit whimsical, but hopefully not without entertainment value. Parents of young boys will probably appreciate this more than most people.
“There’s nothing cute about it,” he said. The register of his voice indicated decision more so than discussion. She disagreed heartily and privately, staring past his head and out the window behind him.
"It's only snow," she said.
"It causes confusion and delay."
"You'll manage," she said. "You always do."
Sir Topham Hatt got up, got his coat, and headed out into the storm.
“There’s nothing cute about it,” he said. The register of his voice indicated decision more so than discussion. She disagreed heartily and privately, staring past his head and out the window behind him.
"It's only snow," she said.
"It causes confusion and delay."
"You'll manage," she said. "You always do."
Sir Topham Hatt got up, got his coat, and headed out into the storm.
Friday, March 23, 2012
100 Word Song: Raye
My pal Lance, whose blog will fight for its right to beat up your blog, has issued the 100 Word Song clarion call with Social Distortion's "Sick Girl". My story is called, simply, "Raye".
Raye spelled her name with an "E". That's how she would tell you. "Raye. With an E." When someone called her something, she would spit back an epithet even worse. There was no challenge she wouldn't take up, no one she couldn't outdrink, no outfit she wouldn't wear. She would fight at the drop of a hat, or even if someone happened to be wearing a hat. She lived her life angry, like she had a grudge against the universe for creating her. But no matter how she looked at the stick, it still said "pregnant".
Raye spelled her name with an "E". That's how she would tell you. "Raye. With an E." When someone called her something, she would spit back an epithet even worse. There was no challenge she wouldn't take up, no one she couldn't outdrink, no outfit she wouldn't wear. She would fight at the drop of a hat, or even if someone happened to be wearing a hat. She lived her life angry, like she had a grudge against the universe for creating her. But no matter how she looked at the stick, it still said "pregnant".
Wednesday, March 21, 2012
Indie Ink Writing Challenge: "Call To Arms"
For the IndieInk Writing Challenge this week, Cedar challenged me with "Your protagonist is suffering from extreme sleep deprivation. " and I challenged Leo with "?"But part of grace is not speaking-like the silent ballerina." -Courtney Love"
It got old, that was the surprising part.
Initially, it was a rush- her pregnancy, the waiting and worrying followed by the joyful spreading of news. The well meaning advice from older friends, saying jovially "get your sleep now, while you still can," and "be prepared to give up your social life!" The sheer volume of stuff- the gifts from relatives and friends, the hand me downs from neighbors, the shower gifts that remind me of my uncle's dictum that it took less time and equipment to liberate France than it takes to bring a young baby to the store- suddenly piles up, pushing CDs and bookshelves full of deep literate novels into forgotten corners.
I felt shoved into a corner, too. It was early in the morning, what Fitzgerald called the deep dark night of the soul, my dear Julie pathetically mewling, "I can't...I just fed him...I can't...," when the baby monitor blurted at us. We didn't formally take turns- there were functions where I was no help at all, but I tried to pinch hit to give her another few microns of sleep. The newness of it was gone, and raising a child was now grinding, endless work. I answered the call, padding into the room as his cries grew a little stronger.
We had to get up and work through the day, fueled by caffeine and willpower, but at night, we started getting snappish and resentful, each trying to outdo the other with tales of fatigue. As the novelty faded and the offers of help disappeared, we turned on each other like a pack of wolves. The joy of parenting faded into lists and work and errands and inconvenience as hobbies and other interests were swallowed by the massive whale that is The Boy. We tried all the sleep tricks they told you to use, but in the end, he outlasted us, and we got up when the caterwauling didn't stop. Neither of us had slept through the night in weeks.
I turned on the TV, muting the sound. It was on the sports channel, revolving highlights of the games and plays of the day. I watched the anchors move their lips, the multiracial woman in an angular blouse and the trim, suited man telling me about the Yankee who got injured, the strong pitching effort by an Athletic, the Cubs' struggles on the road. My son was silent the moment I picked him up, but I knew from experience putting him back down would not work, so I settled on resting him on my chest on the couch. He sighed once.
The overwhelming thing about fatigue was the stupidity. You walked into a room, having no idea why you went in there. You left your coffee on top of the car and drove off, forgot to return phone calls, made silly mistakes, lived everything in a general miasma of nothingness and doubt. You slept whenever you could, leaving no time to do anything else, and never once feeling rested. Everything felt flat and stale, and you started resenting your partner's sleep when you were the one who was up.
My son gathered himself into a warm bundle, almost immediately slipping into deep, even breathing. It was pleasing, but almost frightening, how trusting he was. I wanted to tell him, "I don't know what I'm doing. You know I'm new at this, right?" He calmed down so readily, slipping back into sleep once I chased away whatever had disturbed him. I could feel the peace radiating from him. I didn't feel worthy of this trust. He believed in me, for no good reason other than I came when he called.
I could change the channel, I thought, or get up and try to put him back down, but I felt the weariness deep inside me. My bones felt heavy, like moving them would take far too much effort. I decided against moving. I looked around our living room, baby toys strewn about, mobiles and blocks and stuffed whales. I saw dust in the corners of the room, and studied the angles and walls, looking for cracks and weaknesses. The lines of the walls seemed to waver the longer I looked at them. Were they really straight?
I didn't really want to go back to bed anyway. I knew better than to ask Julie for sex. We were both far too tired to do that. But it seemed like any physical affection, any tender gesture, was misinterpreted by her and merited a curt rejection. It was hard when you lived with someone and could barely touch them. People said it would be hard, said it would get better. I couldn't see that. It was like being in the Holland Tunnel, when you feel like you're so far underground you'll never get out.
The streetlights came through the lacy curtains Julie had hung over our living room windows. I heard a car drive by, and thought about something my mother used to say, "nothing good happens after midnight." There was a whole world full of danger, threats and violence and heartbreak and misery. My son slept away, safe and cocooned, unaware of a world that wanted to chew him up. He trusted me to protect him, and I watched a Royal homer off an Indian, and I wondered how I would ever live up to that.
It got old, that was the surprising part.
Initially, it was a rush- her pregnancy, the waiting and worrying followed by the joyful spreading of news. The well meaning advice from older friends, saying jovially "get your sleep now, while you still can," and "be prepared to give up your social life!" The sheer volume of stuff- the gifts from relatives and friends, the hand me downs from neighbors, the shower gifts that remind me of my uncle's dictum that it took less time and equipment to liberate France than it takes to bring a young baby to the store- suddenly piles up, pushing CDs and bookshelves full of deep literate novels into forgotten corners.
I felt shoved into a corner, too. It was early in the morning, what Fitzgerald called the deep dark night of the soul, my dear Julie pathetically mewling, "I can't...I just fed him...I can't...," when the baby monitor blurted at us. We didn't formally take turns- there were functions where I was no help at all, but I tried to pinch hit to give her another few microns of sleep. The newness of it was gone, and raising a child was now grinding, endless work. I answered the call, padding into the room as his cries grew a little stronger.
We had to get up and work through the day, fueled by caffeine and willpower, but at night, we started getting snappish and resentful, each trying to outdo the other with tales of fatigue. As the novelty faded and the offers of help disappeared, we turned on each other like a pack of wolves. The joy of parenting faded into lists and work and errands and inconvenience as hobbies and other interests were swallowed by the massive whale that is The Boy. We tried all the sleep tricks they told you to use, but in the end, he outlasted us, and we got up when the caterwauling didn't stop. Neither of us had slept through the night in weeks.
I turned on the TV, muting the sound. It was on the sports channel, revolving highlights of the games and plays of the day. I watched the anchors move their lips, the multiracial woman in an angular blouse and the trim, suited man telling me about the Yankee who got injured, the strong pitching effort by an Athletic, the Cubs' struggles on the road. My son was silent the moment I picked him up, but I knew from experience putting him back down would not work, so I settled on resting him on my chest on the couch. He sighed once.
The overwhelming thing about fatigue was the stupidity. You walked into a room, having no idea why you went in there. You left your coffee on top of the car and drove off, forgot to return phone calls, made silly mistakes, lived everything in a general miasma of nothingness and doubt. You slept whenever you could, leaving no time to do anything else, and never once feeling rested. Everything felt flat and stale, and you started resenting your partner's sleep when you were the one who was up.
My son gathered himself into a warm bundle, almost immediately slipping into deep, even breathing. It was pleasing, but almost frightening, how trusting he was. I wanted to tell him, "I don't know what I'm doing. You know I'm new at this, right?" He calmed down so readily, slipping back into sleep once I chased away whatever had disturbed him. I could feel the peace radiating from him. I didn't feel worthy of this trust. He believed in me, for no good reason other than I came when he called.
I could change the channel, I thought, or get up and try to put him back down, but I felt the weariness deep inside me. My bones felt heavy, like moving them would take far too much effort. I decided against moving. I looked around our living room, baby toys strewn about, mobiles and blocks and stuffed whales. I saw dust in the corners of the room, and studied the angles and walls, looking for cracks and weaknesses. The lines of the walls seemed to waver the longer I looked at them. Were they really straight?
I didn't really want to go back to bed anyway. I knew better than to ask Julie for sex. We were both far too tired to do that. But it seemed like any physical affection, any tender gesture, was misinterpreted by her and merited a curt rejection. It was hard when you lived with someone and could barely touch them. People said it would be hard, said it would get better. I couldn't see that. It was like being in the Holland Tunnel, when you feel like you're so far underground you'll never get out.
The streetlights came through the lacy curtains Julie had hung over our living room windows. I heard a car drive by, and thought about something my mother used to say, "nothing good happens after midnight." There was a whole world full of danger, threats and violence and heartbreak and misery. My son slept away, safe and cocooned, unaware of a world that wanted to chew him up. He trusted me to protect him, and I watched a Royal homer off an Indian, and I wondered how I would ever live up to that.
Tuesday, March 20, 2012
Meanwhile, on the other side of the world...
Sunday, March 18, 2012
100 Word Song- Saturday Night's Alright (For Fighting)
My amigo Lance, whose blog will pull the sweater over your blog's head and pummel it, refills the 100 Word Song chalice this week with a song called "Satisfied" by Ashley Monroe.
"Satisfied? No, I'm not satisfied. I know you think I'm never happy. But guess what? I'm not. What makes you think I would be? When I say I want to go out, I mean out, not down to the bar to watch the game. I mean someplace where you have to wear a tie, someplace where there is a wine list. God damn it, I want to feel like a woman again, and less like a brood mare. The baby is fine, trust me. Just look at me again, look at me like you used to. Make me feel real."
Wednesday, March 14, 2012
Indie Ink Writing Challenge: "Stealing Second"
Things were happening too fast.
When I played high school baseball, we faced off one day against a pitcher named Reynolds from a rival school. Big dude, rangy and athletic, so dominant he went relatively high in the major league draft to the Twins before blowing out a knee in Double A ball. He was a man facing boys. The day we had to play against him, our coach kept telling us to step out of the box and take some pitches to disrupt his rhythm. We tried, but he just stood on the mound and glared at us until we got back in and he blew us away. He threw a two hit shutout, and hit two home runs.
He had a momentum going, and we were just swept along in the current.
That's what today felt like- events were pressing, causing me to take everything too quickly and think too little. I had blown off Mo's presumed offer of a dash home for a quickie without really thinking about it when Aimee presented herself in my office, teary and hysterical. Was that what she meant? She certainly sounded hurt when she hung up. Was I in trouble again? Of course I was. Silly question. No matter what I did, it seemed like Mo always ended up getting hurt.
I looked at the food in front of us, decaying salad, a sandwich that suddenly turned my stomach, half finished drinks. Aimee's last words hung in the air, almost visible. There was no job in Philadelphia? What could that possibly mean? Was she leaving the job to get away from me? That can't be right- I'm not that significant. It was monumentally self aggrandizing to think she would throw a job away in this economy over a crush on a coworker. But what else could she mean? I had contrived this lunch quickly, intending what? To comfort her? I just couldn't leave things as they were, but I didn't know what to do. That happened to me a lot.
I remembered the Christmas party she had mentioned, everybody enjoying catered food and beverages in the hotel ballroom. I didn't remember it the way she did. She pictured Mo and I as connected at the hip that night, together even when separated. Cosmically joined. I remember feeling just the opposite. I watched my beautiful wife, trim like a teenager even after two kids, in a group with Dave and some others. I had heard all of Dave's stories, deciding I'd rather mingle than hear about the nationally known politician who was too drunk to say his lines, or the one about how nice Jay Z really was in person.
I circulated around the outskirts after Aimee left, feigning illness I now knew, talking to John's impossibly tall daughter who was going to play basketball at Texas Tech, trying to commiserate with Sylvia about the 7th month of pregnancy, asking Allen if he still played pickup at the YMCA. I was looking back at Mo, Aimee was right about that. I watched her as she listened, tilting her head the way she did when she was pretending to care. She laughed with her whole body, bending slightly at the waist, putting her hand on Dave's meaty arm. It may have been the beer, but it seemed like she kept touching him, and her hand stayed there longer than was strictly necessary.
She was laughing too loud, unnecessarily. Dave's stories weren't that funny. I watched her feet, like they taught us to do in psychology. She was open to him, receptive, her palms facing him, her head high, her neck bare and vulnerable. I knew I was being stupid, but I couldn't help the flash of lizard brain anger. Dave would. Would she? Would Mo have an affair with my boss? She hadn't done anything except for that laugh- that flattering laugh, that aren't-you-so-funny laugh, that I-love-a-man-with-a-sense-of-humor laugh. That unnecessary laugh. I never did bring it up after that night. She would have laughed in my face, probably tell me I was being ridiculous. Certainly made a crack about Aimee and those late nights over a drafting table. I couldn't say anything, but I remember the look she gave him. The laughing- the impress-you, I'm-happy-to-be-around-you laugh. I remembered the laughing.
Like any couple, we joked about it. At times, she would say with a laugh, "If somebody wants you, she can have you!," burying a genuine disagreement in a one liner. We never really pondered it deeply. I didn't. You knew it was possible, but you assumed there would be warning signs, danger signals. You assumed you'd see it coming, like the slider away on an 0-2 count. I thought about the Paul Simon lyric, "As if I never noticed/the way she brushed her hair/from her forehead." Was I missing something?
The diner was filling up. Other professionals, some couples, a mother eating with her college age son, an older man reading Gibbon at a table by himself. Dozens of little dramas, my role only as an extra in the movie in their lives. I looked around the room, listening to the bubbling sound of several conversations, the clanking of plates, the sound of a mixer in the kitchen. I felt Aimee's absence at the table, like a hole had been carved out of the room.
The waitress was hovering nearby. She had noticed Aimee's sudden departure, I assume. and was protecting against losing her tip. I felt a vague urgency. I had to do something- catch up to Aimee before she left. I felt strongly I would never see her again if I didn't. I thought about Mo, laughing hard at Dave's story, opening her body subtly towards him, her touch lingering on his forearm. The way she glowed as he looked at her. I set a ten on top of Aimee's on the table, left our lunches behind, and ran down the aisle and out the door. Aimee's car, a gray sedan that was trying to look like a Audi, was still parked under a large pine tree. I could see the exhaust puffing from the rear, and I begn to sprint, stones kicking from under my feet. I felt a hopeless yearning to cover ground, like I was trying to steal second while knowing I was too late and was about to be thrown out.
[Author's Note: This is part nine of a collaborative effort between Maid Marian, the marvelously talented proprietor of all the beauty at RunawaySentence.com, and the stupendously less talented myself. Part Eight is here, and Part Seven, which includes links to parts 1-6, is here. My character is married to Marian's character, Mo, and both of them seem on the verge of adultery. My character works for Dave, who just fired Aimee.]
For the IndieInk Writing Challenge this week, Kurt challenged me with "'I'll laugh until my head comes off, swallow until I burst.' -Radiohead, 'Idioteque.'" and I challenged Billy Flynn with "?"If you're a good person, hiding who you really are is just another way of saying that you've decided to let others establish your self worth." -Robert J. Sawyer"
When I played high school baseball, we faced off one day against a pitcher named Reynolds from a rival school. Big dude, rangy and athletic, so dominant he went relatively high in the major league draft to the Twins before blowing out a knee in Double A ball. He was a man facing boys. The day we had to play against him, our coach kept telling us to step out of the box and take some pitches to disrupt his rhythm. We tried, but he just stood on the mound and glared at us until we got back in and he blew us away. He threw a two hit shutout, and hit two home runs.
He had a momentum going, and we were just swept along in the current.
That's what today felt like- events were pressing, causing me to take everything too quickly and think too little. I had blown off Mo's presumed offer of a dash home for a quickie without really thinking about it when Aimee presented herself in my office, teary and hysterical. Was that what she meant? She certainly sounded hurt when she hung up. Was I in trouble again? Of course I was. Silly question. No matter what I did, it seemed like Mo always ended up getting hurt.
I looked at the food in front of us, decaying salad, a sandwich that suddenly turned my stomach, half finished drinks. Aimee's last words hung in the air, almost visible. There was no job in Philadelphia? What could that possibly mean? Was she leaving the job to get away from me? That can't be right- I'm not that significant. It was monumentally self aggrandizing to think she would throw a job away in this economy over a crush on a coworker. But what else could she mean? I had contrived this lunch quickly, intending what? To comfort her? I just couldn't leave things as they were, but I didn't know what to do. That happened to me a lot.
I remembered the Christmas party she had mentioned, everybody enjoying catered food and beverages in the hotel ballroom. I didn't remember it the way she did. She pictured Mo and I as connected at the hip that night, together even when separated. Cosmically joined. I remember feeling just the opposite. I watched my beautiful wife, trim like a teenager even after two kids, in a group with Dave and some others. I had heard all of Dave's stories, deciding I'd rather mingle than hear about the nationally known politician who was too drunk to say his lines, or the one about how nice Jay Z really was in person.
I circulated around the outskirts after Aimee left, feigning illness I now knew, talking to John's impossibly tall daughter who was going to play basketball at Texas Tech, trying to commiserate with Sylvia about the 7th month of pregnancy, asking Allen if he still played pickup at the YMCA. I was looking back at Mo, Aimee was right about that. I watched her as she listened, tilting her head the way she did when she was pretending to care. She laughed with her whole body, bending slightly at the waist, putting her hand on Dave's meaty arm. It may have been the beer, but it seemed like she kept touching him, and her hand stayed there longer than was strictly necessary.
She was laughing too loud, unnecessarily. Dave's stories weren't that funny. I watched her feet, like they taught us to do in psychology. She was open to him, receptive, her palms facing him, her head high, her neck bare and vulnerable. I knew I was being stupid, but I couldn't help the flash of lizard brain anger. Dave would. Would she? Would Mo have an affair with my boss? She hadn't done anything except for that laugh- that flattering laugh, that aren't-you-so-funny laugh, that I-love-a-man-with-a-sense-of-humor laugh. That unnecessary laugh. I never did bring it up after that night. She would have laughed in my face, probably tell me I was being ridiculous. Certainly made a crack about Aimee and those late nights over a drafting table. I couldn't say anything, but I remember the look she gave him. The laughing- the impress-you, I'm-happy-to-be-around-you laugh. I remembered the laughing.
Like any couple, we joked about it. At times, she would say with a laugh, "If somebody wants you, she can have you!," burying a genuine disagreement in a one liner. We never really pondered it deeply. I didn't. You knew it was possible, but you assumed there would be warning signs, danger signals. You assumed you'd see it coming, like the slider away on an 0-2 count. I thought about the Paul Simon lyric, "As if I never noticed/the way she brushed her hair/from her forehead." Was I missing something?
The diner was filling up. Other professionals, some couples, a mother eating with her college age son, an older man reading Gibbon at a table by himself. Dozens of little dramas, my role only as an extra in the movie in their lives. I looked around the room, listening to the bubbling sound of several conversations, the clanking of plates, the sound of a mixer in the kitchen. I felt Aimee's absence at the table, like a hole had been carved out of the room.
The waitress was hovering nearby. She had noticed Aimee's sudden departure, I assume. and was protecting against losing her tip. I felt a vague urgency. I had to do something- catch up to Aimee before she left. I felt strongly I would never see her again if I didn't. I thought about Mo, laughing hard at Dave's story, opening her body subtly towards him, her touch lingering on his forearm. The way she glowed as he looked at her. I set a ten on top of Aimee's on the table, left our lunches behind, and ran down the aisle and out the door. Aimee's car, a gray sedan that was trying to look like a Audi, was still parked under a large pine tree. I could see the exhaust puffing from the rear, and I begn to sprint, stones kicking from under my feet. I felt a hopeless yearning to cover ground, like I was trying to steal second while knowing I was too late and was about to be thrown out.
[Author's Note: This is part nine of a collaborative effort between Maid Marian, the marvelously talented proprietor of all the beauty at RunawaySentence.com, and the stupendously less talented myself. Part Eight is here, and Part Seven, which includes links to parts 1-6, is here. My character is married to Marian's character, Mo, and both of them seem on the verge of adultery. My character works for Dave, who just fired Aimee.]
For the IndieInk Writing Challenge this week, Kurt challenged me with "'I'll laugh until my head comes off, swallow until I burst.' -Radiohead, 'Idioteque.'" and I challenged Billy Flynn with "?"If you're a good person, hiding who you really are is just another way of saying that you've decided to let others establish your self worth." -Robert J. Sawyer"
Saturday, March 10, 2012
Flash Fiction Friday: "Don't Stand So Close To Me"
Over in Flash Fiction Friday Land,this week's task is to write 1500 words or less about, or involving, St. Patrick's Day. My story is "Don't Stand So Close To Me".
She was late. I told her it looked bad. I told her we couldn't let anything seem amiss. But she was late anyway. She strolled in, ironic Lucky Charms T shirt worn tight, sweatpants that were somehow still form fitting, and her deep brown hair pulled back into a devil may care ponytail. She took the blue exam book from me without a sound, turned to sit near the front and began writing. I tried to shoot her a look as I gave her the book, but she only smiled. It made my blood boil, the way she didn't care. She lived that way, heedlessly, like Fitzgerald's Daisy, not caring who or what she broke.
She was beautiful. They are all beautiful at that age, of course. But she was special, like she wasn't even human, as if a UFO had left her as evidence of a different, more perfect race. She looked artistic, like blown glass or spun silk, every angle perfect, every part in proportion with every other, the Golden Mean made flesh. Air smelled better after she had moved through it. I watched her as she worked, hair shielding her pages from her neighbor, her hand moving in her distinctive little girl script. She had to appear like all the other students, but I knew she wasn't.
She was forbidden. Being with her broke my employment contract, the canons of professorial ethics, and my own moral code, which held that in matters of the heart between adults, all's fair, as long as the power balanced equally, as long as both parties can refuse. When we were apart, I told myself, lectured myself. "You're no Humbert," I'd hear in my own head. "When she calls, don't pick up." But I did, God help me. I did. I always did, and I always buzzed her in, and we always ended up in my bed.
She was addictive. Two times a week, sometimes more. I was enraptured, unable to refuse. On the floor, in the bed, one night even on the balcony. Whatever activity she wanted, we did, from nearly the full Kama Sutra all the way down to her sitting on my floor, painting her toenails while I graded papers and watched the Mavericks game. We seldom talked. We had so little in common, what would we talk about? But she came in, helped herself to my food, and showered, and then she called the tune. I knew it was wrong, but I couldn't stop.
She was dangerous. She would do things, foolish things, things that would set off alarm bells in my head. One morning I saw her in a student lounge with an Oregon State shirt that I knew came from my closet, but I never had the nerve to confront her about it. Another morning she shut my office door and insisted that I pleasure her, right there, with a colleague just on the other side of the wall. But of course, I complied. I always did.
She was magnetic. A hulking frat boy in the front row, wearing a Fighting Irish T shirt featuring the traditional leprechaun with the shillelagh, got up and handed in his test. I watched him look at her longingly as he straightened. It was something I was familiar with- hotel clerks, wait staffs, passersby. She turned heads, male and female. I couldn't help but feel a moment of male pride, looking up at his athletic physique. He didn't seem the real bright type. "The closest you'll get to Notre Dame, son, is the beer from Ireland you're going to drink tonight," I thought.
She was mysterious. I didn't know how her school was being paid for, what her other classes were, where she lived, anything about her family. She seemed to have no feelings at all, other than the ones our activities brought her. When I questioned her one night about the grumbling I heard when I scheduled the exam for St. Patrick's Day, she shrugged as she began dressing to leave. "I don't care," she said. "You're going to give me an A anyway." She was right, but it was more damning to hear it said aloud.
She was finished. She waited until the appropriate number of students were finished, and then she got up, busying herself with putting away her pen and pushing in her chair. She picked up her water bottle and her purse, walking to the front to hand in her test. I looked up at her, no makeup, unshowered, and I was helpless. I thought about the first time I allowed myself to consider an affair with her. I feared it would wind up disappointing me, like when my father took me to meet a Star Wars actor at the mall, and it turned out it was Warwick Davis, who played an Ewok in Return of the Jedi. Some things are better anticipated than experienced, but she was not one of them.
She was gone. She was out the door and down the hall, off to heaven knows where, away until my phone rang late at night or she rang my bell at 1am. Foolish and male, I would always, always answer. I didn't dare look at her test paper until the final student, a diligent Chinese girl who always spent the entire hour, handed hers in shyly and walked quietly away. I listened to the silence for a moment before finally opening her paper. "I don't know why you make me do this," she had written, over and over again, for the first three pages, then finally an elaborate scrawled signature and a P.S. "Give me an A minus this time," it said, "so no one gets suspicious."
She was late. I told her it looked bad. I told her we couldn't let anything seem amiss. But she was late anyway. She strolled in, ironic Lucky Charms T shirt worn tight, sweatpants that were somehow still form fitting, and her deep brown hair pulled back into a devil may care ponytail. She took the blue exam book from me without a sound, turned to sit near the front and began writing. I tried to shoot her a look as I gave her the book, but she only smiled. It made my blood boil, the way she didn't care. She lived that way, heedlessly, like Fitzgerald's Daisy, not caring who or what she broke.
She was beautiful. They are all beautiful at that age, of course. But she was special, like she wasn't even human, as if a UFO had left her as evidence of a different, more perfect race. She looked artistic, like blown glass or spun silk, every angle perfect, every part in proportion with every other, the Golden Mean made flesh. Air smelled better after she had moved through it. I watched her as she worked, hair shielding her pages from her neighbor, her hand moving in her distinctive little girl script. She had to appear like all the other students, but I knew she wasn't.
She was forbidden. Being with her broke my employment contract, the canons of professorial ethics, and my own moral code, which held that in matters of the heart between adults, all's fair, as long as the power balanced equally, as long as both parties can refuse. When we were apart, I told myself, lectured myself. "You're no Humbert," I'd hear in my own head. "When she calls, don't pick up." But I did, God help me. I did. I always did, and I always buzzed her in, and we always ended up in my bed.
She was addictive. Two times a week, sometimes more. I was enraptured, unable to refuse. On the floor, in the bed, one night even on the balcony. Whatever activity she wanted, we did, from nearly the full Kama Sutra all the way down to her sitting on my floor, painting her toenails while I graded papers and watched the Mavericks game. We seldom talked. We had so little in common, what would we talk about? But she came in, helped herself to my food, and showered, and then she called the tune. I knew it was wrong, but I couldn't stop.
She was dangerous. She would do things, foolish things, things that would set off alarm bells in my head. One morning I saw her in a student lounge with an Oregon State shirt that I knew came from my closet, but I never had the nerve to confront her about it. Another morning she shut my office door and insisted that I pleasure her, right there, with a colleague just on the other side of the wall. But of course, I complied. I always did.
She was magnetic. A hulking frat boy in the front row, wearing a Fighting Irish T shirt featuring the traditional leprechaun with the shillelagh, got up and handed in his test. I watched him look at her longingly as he straightened. It was something I was familiar with- hotel clerks, wait staffs, passersby. She turned heads, male and female. I couldn't help but feel a moment of male pride, looking up at his athletic physique. He didn't seem the real bright type. "The closest you'll get to Notre Dame, son, is the beer from Ireland you're going to drink tonight," I thought.
She was mysterious. I didn't know how her school was being paid for, what her other classes were, where she lived, anything about her family. She seemed to have no feelings at all, other than the ones our activities brought her. When I questioned her one night about the grumbling I heard when I scheduled the exam for St. Patrick's Day, she shrugged as she began dressing to leave. "I don't care," she said. "You're going to give me an A anyway." She was right, but it was more damning to hear it said aloud.
She was finished. She waited until the appropriate number of students were finished, and then she got up, busying herself with putting away her pen and pushing in her chair. She picked up her water bottle and her purse, walking to the front to hand in her test. I looked up at her, no makeup, unshowered, and I was helpless. I thought about the first time I allowed myself to consider an affair with her. I feared it would wind up disappointing me, like when my father took me to meet a Star Wars actor at the mall, and it turned out it was Warwick Davis, who played an Ewok in Return of the Jedi. Some things are better anticipated than experienced, but she was not one of them.
She was gone. She was out the door and down the hall, off to heaven knows where, away until my phone rang late at night or she rang my bell at 1am. Foolish and male, I would always, always answer. I didn't dare look at her test paper until the final student, a diligent Chinese girl who always spent the entire hour, handed hers in shyly and walked quietly away. I listened to the silence for a moment before finally opening her paper. "I don't know why you make me do this," she had written, over and over again, for the first three pages, then finally an elaborate scrawled signature and a P.S. "Give me an A minus this time," it said, "so no one gets suspicious."
Friday, March 09, 2012
100 Word Challenge: Positive
My brother in arms Lance, whose blog will earn two technical fouls and be ejected when it meets up with your blog, has renewed the 100 Word Song cache this week with John Hiatt's "Have A Little Faith In Me". This story is called "Positive".
Her head dropped and her shoulders slumped. I didn't have to ask what the test said. Her hair was hanging in front of her face. She didn't make a sound, then suddenly blurted out a single obscenity. It sounded ugly.
"We can't afford it."
"I know," I said.
"I can't do it."
"I think you can. We can. But I hear you."
"I can't not do it."
"I understand." I swallowed. "I'll support you, either way."
"Do you want to?"
"Yeah."
"Why?"
"I have faith."
"In me? In us?"
"In you. And in us."
Her head dropped and her shoulders slumped. I didn't have to ask what the test said. Her hair was hanging in front of her face. She didn't make a sound, then suddenly blurted out a single obscenity. It sounded ugly.
"We can't afford it."
"I know," I said.
"I can't do it."
"I think you can. We can. But I hear you."
"I can't not do it."
"I understand." I swallowed. "I'll support you, either way."
"Do you want to?"
"Yeah."
"Why?"
"I have faith."
"In me? In us?"
"In you. And in us."
Tuesday, March 06, 2012
Indie Ink Writing Challenge: "I Swear To Tell The Truth"
For the IndieInk Writing Challenge this week, Allyson challenged me with "I've got half a mind to destroy the world that destroyed me." and I challenged Tara Roberts with "'There's a phrase in Judaism, 'tikkun olam', which means 'repairing the world.' The concept is that people shouldn't do something simply because the religion requires it but rather because it makes things- something, anything- a little bit better.' -Mike Mayo"
As an adult, I realized my grandfather probably said it to all the grandkids, but as a child, having him swoop me up high in the air, and whisper right into my ear in his smoky voice, "Don't tell your brothers, but you're my favorite!," was an intoxicating thrill. Being the only girl in a passel of brothers, I was special, for sure, but when he said that, I believed it, and I will always think that, in his heart, he meant it. In my case, anyway.
I was sitting with my legs primly crossed, wearing my very best power suit, the one that said I meant business. Black jacket, knee length skirt, ivory blouse, big girl heels, pearls. No nonsense, no fear, no remorse, no regret. I tried not to let my hand tremble as I poured water from the pitcher into a glass. The company lawyers had gone over it and over it with us. "Only answer what they ask," they said, "if you don't know, say you don't know, and most of all, for God's sake, look confident. It's a dog and pony show. They are there to make points and get on the evening news. They can't do anything to you, so just stare back at them blankly."
As I sat stiffly, waiting for the affair to begin, I pointedly did not look at the raft of cameras, flashes going, motors winding, that were taking in the scene. I thought about my grandfather, his rock ribbed honesty, and what he said to me when he caught me in a lie as a 9 year old. Having broken one of his drafting tools, I allowed my younger brother to take the fall, and then tearfully confessed an hour later, unable to live with myself. "Ally," he told me, "I'm disappointed you didn't admit it up front. But I'm proud of you for stepping forward. It's hard to be honest, especially when you've already gotten away with it. You show your true colors by what you do when no one's looking." This was far from no one looking.
Charles, Marion and I, the three people nominally in charge, were sitting in front of a House committee, here to testify about the rise and fall of our company, Intersection Mortgage. I had forgotten exactly what committee it was, but it didn't matter. It was our day to answer for what we had done, inflating our tiny firm beyond all reason until somebody, somewhere, realized that trees don't grow to the sky, and suddenly the party was over and all the money was gone.
"Don't worry," Charles had assured us both the evening before. "It's all grandstanding. As long as nobody admits anything, we get a few days of bad press, and then I'll hire you both as lobbyists at my new firm for double your salary. Just follow my lead," he insisted.
"You mean lie," I said.
Charles, the smooth, tan, thrice married CEO, laughed once, hard. "I'll deny I ever said it," he explained, "but yeah, essentially."
The questioning was coming around to me, and after the first Congressman, a cornpone Southerner with an accent as thick as Robert E. Lee's boot leather, finally finished his peroration, I had forgotten what the question was. I took a sip of water, then cleared my throat in as genteel a manner as I could.
"Could you repeat the question?," I asked.
"In summary, Ms. Haverman, I am asking you whether or not Intersection Mortgage, in your opinion, as a company, cared whether or not the mortgages you wrote ever got paid back?"
Everyone was too clever to ever say it- no policy ever said, "take every mortgage, no matter how crappy, no matter how much lying you have to do." It was a gradual thing, like the ocean attacking a sand castle. First you take a little bit lower credit rating, then you take someone who is retired but somehow making enough to afford BMW sized monthly payments, then you take someone a little more desperate than that. They always couched it in positive language. "Be creative," the memos said, "be flexible, be open to new approaches!" The memos came in, exhorting you to do more, produce more, get more people into more houses, and when your pay went up, and then up again, and then up a little bit more, that made you work harder, too. When you knew, in your soul, what they meant, and never said- just feed the beast, at all costs, and when this thing goes belly up, it will be someone else's problem. And that, in the end, was all that mattered.
I said things that I knew weren't true, I lied and cheated. I kept filling the pipeline with new loans, stuffing them in, as many as I could, watching my bank account swell with every little percentage point chip off the massive block of money. Some part of me knew that each one of these sheets I signed was a person, a soul with hopes and dreams and desires, somebody who wouldn't be able to afford this house in 6 months. Or in 3 months. Or even a month. I told myself I would look for another job, an honest job that wouldn't leave me trembling at the end of the work day, but it was just so easy to put it off for another week, another month, just save up a little bit more. I kept approving them, so many that in the end, I wasn't even looking anymore. Whatever it said, I just stamped it, signed it, and sent it off.
I leaned forward, picturing my grandfather's weathered face before the stomach cancer hollowed him out to a skeleton. "The truth never hurt anyone, in the long run," he used to say.
"In my opinion, Congressman?," I said.
"That's what I said, ma'am. Your opinion."
I knew what they wanted me to say. "Of course Intersection cared," the lawyer suggested last night, knowing this very question was coming. "Intersection's sole mission was to get the right family into the right home with the right mortgage. Then something about the American dream, and homeownership helping society, and motherhood and apple pie. All that crap," he said with a sardonic chuckle. The answer was right on the tip of my tongue.
"No, sir, I do not think so," I said. "I got the very clear impression that Charles could not care less whether or not the loans went bad, as long as they were off of Intersection's books when they did so." My voice sounded smooth and even, much more polished than I felt. My stomach turned, and I could feel the eyes of the other two at the table staring at me.
As an adult, I realized my grandfather probably said it to all the grandkids, but as a child, having him swoop me up high in the air, and whisper right into my ear in his smoky voice, "Don't tell your brothers, but you're my favorite!," was an intoxicating thrill. Being the only girl in a passel of brothers, I was special, for sure, but when he said that, I believed it, and I will always think that, in his heart, he meant it. In my case, anyway.
I was sitting with my legs primly crossed, wearing my very best power suit, the one that said I meant business. Black jacket, knee length skirt, ivory blouse, big girl heels, pearls. No nonsense, no fear, no remorse, no regret. I tried not to let my hand tremble as I poured water from the pitcher into a glass. The company lawyers had gone over it and over it with us. "Only answer what they ask," they said, "if you don't know, say you don't know, and most of all, for God's sake, look confident. It's a dog and pony show. They are there to make points and get on the evening news. They can't do anything to you, so just stare back at them blankly."
As I sat stiffly, waiting for the affair to begin, I pointedly did not look at the raft of cameras, flashes going, motors winding, that were taking in the scene. I thought about my grandfather, his rock ribbed honesty, and what he said to me when he caught me in a lie as a 9 year old. Having broken one of his drafting tools, I allowed my younger brother to take the fall, and then tearfully confessed an hour later, unable to live with myself. "Ally," he told me, "I'm disappointed you didn't admit it up front. But I'm proud of you for stepping forward. It's hard to be honest, especially when you've already gotten away with it. You show your true colors by what you do when no one's looking." This was far from no one looking.
Charles, Marion and I, the three people nominally in charge, were sitting in front of a House committee, here to testify about the rise and fall of our company, Intersection Mortgage. I had forgotten exactly what committee it was, but it didn't matter. It was our day to answer for what we had done, inflating our tiny firm beyond all reason until somebody, somewhere, realized that trees don't grow to the sky, and suddenly the party was over and all the money was gone.
"Don't worry," Charles had assured us both the evening before. "It's all grandstanding. As long as nobody admits anything, we get a few days of bad press, and then I'll hire you both as lobbyists at my new firm for double your salary. Just follow my lead," he insisted.
"You mean lie," I said.
Charles, the smooth, tan, thrice married CEO, laughed once, hard. "I'll deny I ever said it," he explained, "but yeah, essentially."
The questioning was coming around to me, and after the first Congressman, a cornpone Southerner with an accent as thick as Robert E. Lee's boot leather, finally finished his peroration, I had forgotten what the question was. I took a sip of water, then cleared my throat in as genteel a manner as I could.
"Could you repeat the question?," I asked.
"In summary, Ms. Haverman, I am asking you whether or not Intersection Mortgage, in your opinion, as a company, cared whether or not the mortgages you wrote ever got paid back?"
Everyone was too clever to ever say it- no policy ever said, "take every mortgage, no matter how crappy, no matter how much lying you have to do." It was a gradual thing, like the ocean attacking a sand castle. First you take a little bit lower credit rating, then you take someone who is retired but somehow making enough to afford BMW sized monthly payments, then you take someone a little more desperate than that. They always couched it in positive language. "Be creative," the memos said, "be flexible, be open to new approaches!" The memos came in, exhorting you to do more, produce more, get more people into more houses, and when your pay went up, and then up again, and then up a little bit more, that made you work harder, too. When you knew, in your soul, what they meant, and never said- just feed the beast, at all costs, and when this thing goes belly up, it will be someone else's problem. And that, in the end, was all that mattered.
I said things that I knew weren't true, I lied and cheated. I kept filling the pipeline with new loans, stuffing them in, as many as I could, watching my bank account swell with every little percentage point chip off the massive block of money. Some part of me knew that each one of these sheets I signed was a person, a soul with hopes and dreams and desires, somebody who wouldn't be able to afford this house in 6 months. Or in 3 months. Or even a month. I told myself I would look for another job, an honest job that wouldn't leave me trembling at the end of the work day, but it was just so easy to put it off for another week, another month, just save up a little bit more. I kept approving them, so many that in the end, I wasn't even looking anymore. Whatever it said, I just stamped it, signed it, and sent it off.
I leaned forward, picturing my grandfather's weathered face before the stomach cancer hollowed him out to a skeleton. "The truth never hurt anyone, in the long run," he used to say.
"In my opinion, Congressman?," I said.
"That's what I said, ma'am. Your opinion."
I knew what they wanted me to say. "Of course Intersection cared," the lawyer suggested last night, knowing this very question was coming. "Intersection's sole mission was to get the right family into the right home with the right mortgage. Then something about the American dream, and homeownership helping society, and motherhood and apple pie. All that crap," he said with a sardonic chuckle. The answer was right on the tip of my tongue.
"No, sir, I do not think so," I said. "I got the very clear impression that Charles could not care less whether or not the loans went bad, as long as they were off of Intersection's books when they did so." My voice sounded smooth and even, much more polished than I felt. My stomach turned, and I could feel the eyes of the other two at the table staring at me.
Monday, March 05, 2012
100 Word Song- Homeless
My main man Lance, along with his metallic pal Leeroy, continue on the musical literary affair of the heart called the 100 Word Song Challenge, this week concerning Richard Thompson's "Dimming of the Day". Lance posted a link to Bonnie Raitt's version, but while I have nothing against the multihued songstress, I like the version from Pink Floyd's Roger Gilmour, which you can hear here.
"It's time to go, ma'am."
I looked up at him. He looked serious and hard in his police uniform. He clanked whenever he moved. There was a pile of mail on the dining room table. It had gotten so hopeless I stopped opening it, the red words saying "FINAL NOTICE" notwithstanding. Richard was already at his brother's place with the kids, but there just wasn't room for me there. I missed him terribly. It was always his department to handle financial stuff.
I stood up, picking up the trash bag with my earthly possessions.
"Fixed rate, my ass," I thought.
"It's time to go, ma'am."
I looked up at him. He looked serious and hard in his police uniform. He clanked whenever he moved. There was a pile of mail on the dining room table. It had gotten so hopeless I stopped opening it, the red words saying "FINAL NOTICE" notwithstanding. Richard was already at his brother's place with the kids, but there just wasn't room for me there. I missed him terribly. It was always his department to handle financial stuff.
I stood up, picking up the trash bag with my earthly possessions.
"Fixed rate, my ass," I thought.
Sunday, February 26, 2012
Indie Ink Writing Challenge: "You Never Give Me Your Money"
For the IndieInk Writing Challenge this week, Tara Roberts challenged me with "'If I had a dollar bill for all the things I've done, there'd be a mountain of money piled up to my chin...' Annie Lennox" and I challenged Shelley with "'When you meet someone, you can get something out of him like when you first look at a painting.' -Gary Oldman"
I took it all out, laying it on the hard brown vinyl of the broken down couch in what we called the "locker room." It was no such thing, of course. People did change in here, and there was a tiny grimy toliet and sink that got some use, and a dirtier shower that mostly didn't, but that was the only way it resembled a locker room. I laid the bills out in front of me, the wrinkled and folded and sweaty ones, and fives, and tens and twenties, and a lone fifty. I knew paper money was filthy- years of biology classes had taught me that nearly everything was, and a hung over morning watching the Dr. Oz show confirmed that money itself was pretty gross, generally speaking.
But these bills looked especially dingy. Part of it, I knew, was where they had been. They had gone from sweaty Levis pockets into my cleavage, or underneath a strap on my hip, or in between my toes. I knew that when I looked at them, and that made them feel especially dirty. I organized them compulsively, in order by denomination, all facing the same way, then folded over. Not bad, so far- after paying everyone I had to pay, I'd go home with a full car payment, which wasn't bad for a night's work. The place was still half full, although I was getting the sense that most of the big dogs had gone home. The guys that were out there were the hangdog regulars, just staring at the nudity, putting off going home for one more hour. You could get a couple of bucks out of them if you tried, but they looked tapped out.
I folded the stack, returning it to my tiny, clear purse. You didn't leave anything of value in this room, I had learned early on. So ID, car key and phone came with me in this little plastic bag, while the small duffel that stayed in here contained a few changes of underwear, an extra pair of heels, and a pair of flats and a change of clothes to go home in. You were supposed to do a turn on the pole every 15 minutes, but as the night went on, they stopped really caring. As long as someone was up there, they were happy. And if they were happy, you kept being asked back. So you keep the bosses happy, you keep the parade of men happy, and your little bag fills up with cash.
I stood up, feeling the strain as my legs and back adjusted to being up in my heels. I thanked my years of basketball and track in high school that let me stand up to the pounding. I checked my face in the cracked mirror, tossed my hair around a bit, and headed back out. It can't hurt to take a shot- maybe there's a 20 year old kid who just got paid out there. The music turned from a dull throb into a banging, loud maelstrom as I entered the showroom. It smelled like beer, perfume, sweat, and desperation. A painfully skinny Eastern European girl was dancing now, her bony thighs almost a parody of femininity. There were maybe 10 guys in the room, and 5 other dancers, all milling about in the psychedelic strobes and flashes. I saw Roger, one of what I would call, for lack of a better word, my regulars, sitting down at the bar with a brunette I didn't recognize.
Roger had been coming in about once a month or so. If I was around, he would usually gesture me over and ask for a private dance. He was relatively polite, followed the rules, and was kind, so I was happy to see him. He was looking my way, so I made my way over, approaching him from the side away from the woman. He talked about a wife now and then, but you never knew. His name might not even be Roger. Mine certainly wasn't Mandy. I made my way in close, letting him put his arm around my bare waist.
"Hey, you!," he said jovially into my ear. You had to talk like that to be heard.
"Hey," I said back. "Is this your wife?" She was looking at me through cat's eye glasses, betraying nothing. She was dressed relatively plainly, a shapeless sweater and dark jeans and simple flat shoes. Mom clothes. I could tell her body was nothing too special. If this was who he had to go home to, it was no wonder he'd spend a couple of hundred dollars to look at me with nothing on.
"Sure is," he said, "Meet," and then he said her name. It could be Marie, or Mary, or Maureen. It didn't matter.
I leaned over him, intentionally pressing against him, and introduced myself.
"Nice to finally meet you," she said in a clipped voice.
"We had a talk about my coming here," Roger said. "She said she wanted to see what it's like."
I leaned over him again, my breast brushing his chest. "So what do you think?," I said to her.
"It's loud," she said. She forced a smile, like she was meeting me at a cocktail party. You bitch, I thought. You know your husband thinks about me when you fuck him, and it's killing you, isn't it?
"So do we have to pay double for both of us?," he said quickly. I could sense his eagerness.
"Afraid so," I told him. It was one of the iron clad rules. Along with no touching, a rule that could be circumvented, the boss said you could have as many viewers as you want in the tiny little sin studios, but everybody in there pays- $30 per 5 minutes.
He leaned over to tell this to her. I stayed close, watching her face register the news. She leaned in to speak to him, and then he spoke to her again. I wondered if she would share this story on a girl's night out, describing over a glass of Merlot how pathetically ugly we all were. Tell it right, I told her silently. Tell your little friends that we give your pathetic husbands something you never could.
"She wants to go by herself," Roger told me. I could tell he was disappointed.
"Fine with me," I said. Some girls wouldn't dream of giving another woman a dance. I wasn't like that. She probably just wanted to tell me to keep away from her man, or something, which was fine. Roger was cute enough, in his way, and he was nice, but there was no way I wanted to get in the middle of that-I just wanted his money. The wives never had any idea how simple their men really were.
She took a long pull from her beer and stood up, coming around the back of Roger's chair. I took her hand, which felt clammy, and led her down to the back of the room. Up a short flight of stairs was one of the bouncers, watching a series of video screens that showed what was going on in the private rooms. "Three," Charlie, an enormously fat man with a beard but no mustache, said in between bites of a tuna sub, and I led her into Room 3, the bass from the stereo fading to a rumble as I shut the door.
She looked me up and down. I was about 6 inches taller than her before the shoes. I knew I was prettier than she was, with a much better body, and I could feel the waves of fear and resentment coming from her.
"I don't know what the, uh, etiquette is...," she said gently.
"It's simple," I said. "It's $30 every five minutes. Charlie will say over the intercom when the time is up, and you can stay longer for another thirty, or we can stop. Totally up to you. As for what happens, again, it's up to you. I can just do what I usually do, or we can talk, or we can do nothing at all. It's totally your call."
I stepped out of my shoes, feeling the relief of being flat footed again. Some people wanted me to keep them on, and I was willing to oblige. But it was nice to be out of them for a few minutes, and it reduced the chance of turning an ankle.
"Do I, um...," she said.
"You don't have to do anything," I said. "You can stand, sit, lie down, whatever you like. The only rule is no touching, but they turn a blind eye to it unless I complain. Anything you feel like doing is OK by me, pretty much."
"Have you had...have other women... have they...done this?" I undid my top, watching her eyes as my breasts emerged. I was naturally big, but I had gotten some surgery a couple of years ago when gravity started to take a toll. They were pretty damn nice, even if I do say so myself. She stared, which was something I was used to.
"Sure. We get more than you probably think," I said. "Wives, like you. Some college kids. A few actual gay women. Not many." Maybe 1 out of 10 were sexually interested, but the majority were college students doing research, or religious crazies wanting to convert us, or various other agendas other than the single minded parade of men. It didn't matter to me. If they wanted to pay, they could read me Marcus Aurelius for all I cared.
Her knees were together, prim and proper. Now that she was alone, I could see she had a better body than I gave her credit for. She was still trim, which was impressive if she had kids, which most of them did. I looked at her tiny ankles, up her jeans, to her hips and her waist, her hands folded in her lap, and to her breasts, which looked a little more impressive when she sat up straight. Her eyes were locked on me, taking in my half nakedness. I stepped forward, putting one foot on either side of her tiny shoes. I leaned in, being sure to brush against her. I brought my lips to her ear.
"Just relax," I whispered. "Tell me what you want." She shivered.
I started doing my usual routine, rubbing, brushing, grinding. She was paying real money, so she'd get a real show, until she said something. I watched her watch me, because I was genuinely curious about her motives. If she got turned on, that was fine, and if she didn't, that was fine, but it was like playing an opponent you hadn't scouted- you wanted to know if they preferred to shoot outside, so you could try to prevent them from doing what they wanted. Her eyes were wide open, but she didn't make any sounds. I could feel her shift in her seat now and then, but she certainly didn't appear to want me to stop. It was harder to tell with her, but I thought she was liking it.
She put her hands on my thighs as I was facing away from her, and I covered her hands with my own, gently pushing them higher. I wondered how far she wanted to go, and it was pleasant, feeling a woman's touch, so much gentler than a man's aggressive one. I turned my head, whispering into her ear again.
"It's okay," I said. She didn't say anything. I felt her exhale heavily.
"What makes you...do this?," she said. Her voice was breathy, soft, the kind of voice you have when you're congested.
The truth tumbled out before I could stop it. "An ex boyfriend signed me up for a bunch of loans and credit cards for the business he wanted to start. Then he skipped out. I owe about 75 grand."
"Men," she said, in that tone that implied we women were all in this together. It was something my sister said too.
"Why not go bankrupt?," she continued, her voice still soft. I guided her hands a little higher. She wasn't resisting, but she didn't seem to be getting the hint either. A tiny part of me wanted her to want me.
"I don't think that's right," I said. "Plus I probably wouldn't be able to get into grad school if I did that. Once I pay that money off, I'm going to finish my degree." I don't know why I was telling her this. I didn't have to justify myself to her, or to anyone. I did the same thing she did- I gave my body away for money. The difference was I got paid in cash and didn't get pregnant.
Her fingers were finally on top of the tiny fabric triangle that separated me from a prostitute. I held her in place with my hand and pushed down, arching my pelvis from underneath. I felt some genuine arousal from inside me. I promised myself I would revisit this encounter inside my head later this morning when I was trying to get to sleep. This was getting interesting. After a couple of long thrusts against her hand, I turned over again, bringing my body up close to her sweater covered breasts. I felt her squirm again, and I let her brush her breasts against me. I looked at her eyes behind her glasses, and they were starting to cloud and lose focus. She half closed them, exhaling again. I came in close, my nose buried in the nape of her neck. I felt her body underneath me, pressing up. It felt just like it did with the men. I had her. I turned and buried my face on the other side of her neck, giving her a tiny kiss there. Her arms found the back of my neck, and she let me run a hand gently between her thighs. She gasped softly when I pressed against her, her back arching. She made a soft sound, high in her throat. I moaned gently, too, and I was only half pretending.
I picked my head up to look at her again, our noses centimeters apart. Her eyes were swimming with tears. It took me aback. I stopped moving and just stared. Her mouth started to move, and then stopped. Her lip quivered slightly. I felt a stab of alarm. I thought she was enjoying this.
"Are you okay?," I started to say.
"I have to go-," she said, the short, bitchy tone returning. I pushed myself up to my feet.
"I can stop," I said. "We don't have to-"
"No, no," she interrupted. "No, you're fine. You're great. That was so amazing. It was great. I just...," she said. Her voice was breaking along the edges. It reminded me of my 3 year old niece. You knew it was naptime when her voice started to get shrill like this.
"I have to go," she said again. She was standing up now, her hand digging in one pocket of her tight jeans. Her body was really a lot better than I thought. She threw a folded bill onto the cheap couch.
"I'm sorry-" I tried.
"No," she said again. "You're fine. It was great. Really. I enjoyed it."
"You can sit here, and-"
"No, I have to go, really."
She opened the door and was gone, her shoes making little click clack sounds on the floor. I looked at the bill, which I now saw was a fifty. I wanted to run after her, to ask what had happened, what had changed, what was wrong. I reached down and unfolded the bill. It was greasy, like the others, probably from the sweat of her thigh. Charlie watched me impassively through the open door as I put my top back on and slid the bill into my bag. I put my heels back on, gave Charlie a shrug in reply, and walked back onto the floor again.
I took it all out, laying it on the hard brown vinyl of the broken down couch in what we called the "locker room." It was no such thing, of course. People did change in here, and there was a tiny grimy toliet and sink that got some use, and a dirtier shower that mostly didn't, but that was the only way it resembled a locker room. I laid the bills out in front of me, the wrinkled and folded and sweaty ones, and fives, and tens and twenties, and a lone fifty. I knew paper money was filthy- years of biology classes had taught me that nearly everything was, and a hung over morning watching the Dr. Oz show confirmed that money itself was pretty gross, generally speaking.
But these bills looked especially dingy. Part of it, I knew, was where they had been. They had gone from sweaty Levis pockets into my cleavage, or underneath a strap on my hip, or in between my toes. I knew that when I looked at them, and that made them feel especially dirty. I organized them compulsively, in order by denomination, all facing the same way, then folded over. Not bad, so far- after paying everyone I had to pay, I'd go home with a full car payment, which wasn't bad for a night's work. The place was still half full, although I was getting the sense that most of the big dogs had gone home. The guys that were out there were the hangdog regulars, just staring at the nudity, putting off going home for one more hour. You could get a couple of bucks out of them if you tried, but they looked tapped out.
I folded the stack, returning it to my tiny, clear purse. You didn't leave anything of value in this room, I had learned early on. So ID, car key and phone came with me in this little plastic bag, while the small duffel that stayed in here contained a few changes of underwear, an extra pair of heels, and a pair of flats and a change of clothes to go home in. You were supposed to do a turn on the pole every 15 minutes, but as the night went on, they stopped really caring. As long as someone was up there, they were happy. And if they were happy, you kept being asked back. So you keep the bosses happy, you keep the parade of men happy, and your little bag fills up with cash.
I stood up, feeling the strain as my legs and back adjusted to being up in my heels. I thanked my years of basketball and track in high school that let me stand up to the pounding. I checked my face in the cracked mirror, tossed my hair around a bit, and headed back out. It can't hurt to take a shot- maybe there's a 20 year old kid who just got paid out there. The music turned from a dull throb into a banging, loud maelstrom as I entered the showroom. It smelled like beer, perfume, sweat, and desperation. A painfully skinny Eastern European girl was dancing now, her bony thighs almost a parody of femininity. There were maybe 10 guys in the room, and 5 other dancers, all milling about in the psychedelic strobes and flashes. I saw Roger, one of what I would call, for lack of a better word, my regulars, sitting down at the bar with a brunette I didn't recognize.
Roger had been coming in about once a month or so. If I was around, he would usually gesture me over and ask for a private dance. He was relatively polite, followed the rules, and was kind, so I was happy to see him. He was looking my way, so I made my way over, approaching him from the side away from the woman. He talked about a wife now and then, but you never knew. His name might not even be Roger. Mine certainly wasn't Mandy. I made my way in close, letting him put his arm around my bare waist.
"Hey, you!," he said jovially into my ear. You had to talk like that to be heard.
"Hey," I said back. "Is this your wife?" She was looking at me through cat's eye glasses, betraying nothing. She was dressed relatively plainly, a shapeless sweater and dark jeans and simple flat shoes. Mom clothes. I could tell her body was nothing too special. If this was who he had to go home to, it was no wonder he'd spend a couple of hundred dollars to look at me with nothing on.
"Sure is," he said, "Meet," and then he said her name. It could be Marie, or Mary, or Maureen. It didn't matter.
I leaned over him, intentionally pressing against him, and introduced myself.
"Nice to finally meet you," she said in a clipped voice.
"We had a talk about my coming here," Roger said. "She said she wanted to see what it's like."
I leaned over him again, my breast brushing his chest. "So what do you think?," I said to her.
"It's loud," she said. She forced a smile, like she was meeting me at a cocktail party. You bitch, I thought. You know your husband thinks about me when you fuck him, and it's killing you, isn't it?
"So do we have to pay double for both of us?," he said quickly. I could sense his eagerness.
"Afraid so," I told him. It was one of the iron clad rules. Along with no touching, a rule that could be circumvented, the boss said you could have as many viewers as you want in the tiny little sin studios, but everybody in there pays- $30 per 5 minutes.
He leaned over to tell this to her. I stayed close, watching her face register the news. She leaned in to speak to him, and then he spoke to her again. I wondered if she would share this story on a girl's night out, describing over a glass of Merlot how pathetically ugly we all were. Tell it right, I told her silently. Tell your little friends that we give your pathetic husbands something you never could.
"She wants to go by herself," Roger told me. I could tell he was disappointed.
"Fine with me," I said. Some girls wouldn't dream of giving another woman a dance. I wasn't like that. She probably just wanted to tell me to keep away from her man, or something, which was fine. Roger was cute enough, in his way, and he was nice, but there was no way I wanted to get in the middle of that-I just wanted his money. The wives never had any idea how simple their men really were.
She took a long pull from her beer and stood up, coming around the back of Roger's chair. I took her hand, which felt clammy, and led her down to the back of the room. Up a short flight of stairs was one of the bouncers, watching a series of video screens that showed what was going on in the private rooms. "Three," Charlie, an enormously fat man with a beard but no mustache, said in between bites of a tuna sub, and I led her into Room 3, the bass from the stereo fading to a rumble as I shut the door.
She looked me up and down. I was about 6 inches taller than her before the shoes. I knew I was prettier than she was, with a much better body, and I could feel the waves of fear and resentment coming from her.
"I don't know what the, uh, etiquette is...," she said gently.
"It's simple," I said. "It's $30 every five minutes. Charlie will say over the intercom when the time is up, and you can stay longer for another thirty, or we can stop. Totally up to you. As for what happens, again, it's up to you. I can just do what I usually do, or we can talk, or we can do nothing at all. It's totally your call."
I stepped out of my shoes, feeling the relief of being flat footed again. Some people wanted me to keep them on, and I was willing to oblige. But it was nice to be out of them for a few minutes, and it reduced the chance of turning an ankle.
"Do I, um...," she said.
"You don't have to do anything," I said. "You can stand, sit, lie down, whatever you like. The only rule is no touching, but they turn a blind eye to it unless I complain. Anything you feel like doing is OK by me, pretty much."
"Have you had...have other women... have they...done this?" I undid my top, watching her eyes as my breasts emerged. I was naturally big, but I had gotten some surgery a couple of years ago when gravity started to take a toll. They were pretty damn nice, even if I do say so myself. She stared, which was something I was used to.
"Sure. We get more than you probably think," I said. "Wives, like you. Some college kids. A few actual gay women. Not many." Maybe 1 out of 10 were sexually interested, but the majority were college students doing research, or religious crazies wanting to convert us, or various other agendas other than the single minded parade of men. It didn't matter to me. If they wanted to pay, they could read me Marcus Aurelius for all I cared.
Her knees were together, prim and proper. Now that she was alone, I could see she had a better body than I gave her credit for. She was still trim, which was impressive if she had kids, which most of them did. I looked at her tiny ankles, up her jeans, to her hips and her waist, her hands folded in her lap, and to her breasts, which looked a little more impressive when she sat up straight. Her eyes were locked on me, taking in my half nakedness. I stepped forward, putting one foot on either side of her tiny shoes. I leaned in, being sure to brush against her. I brought my lips to her ear.
"Just relax," I whispered. "Tell me what you want." She shivered.
I started doing my usual routine, rubbing, brushing, grinding. She was paying real money, so she'd get a real show, until she said something. I watched her watch me, because I was genuinely curious about her motives. If she got turned on, that was fine, and if she didn't, that was fine, but it was like playing an opponent you hadn't scouted- you wanted to know if they preferred to shoot outside, so you could try to prevent them from doing what they wanted. Her eyes were wide open, but she didn't make any sounds. I could feel her shift in her seat now and then, but she certainly didn't appear to want me to stop. It was harder to tell with her, but I thought she was liking it.
She put her hands on my thighs as I was facing away from her, and I covered her hands with my own, gently pushing them higher. I wondered how far she wanted to go, and it was pleasant, feeling a woman's touch, so much gentler than a man's aggressive one. I turned my head, whispering into her ear again.
"It's okay," I said. She didn't say anything. I felt her exhale heavily.
"What makes you...do this?," she said. Her voice was breathy, soft, the kind of voice you have when you're congested.
The truth tumbled out before I could stop it. "An ex boyfriend signed me up for a bunch of loans and credit cards for the business he wanted to start. Then he skipped out. I owe about 75 grand."
"Men," she said, in that tone that implied we women were all in this together. It was something my sister said too.
"Why not go bankrupt?," she continued, her voice still soft. I guided her hands a little higher. She wasn't resisting, but she didn't seem to be getting the hint either. A tiny part of me wanted her to want me.
"I don't think that's right," I said. "Plus I probably wouldn't be able to get into grad school if I did that. Once I pay that money off, I'm going to finish my degree." I don't know why I was telling her this. I didn't have to justify myself to her, or to anyone. I did the same thing she did- I gave my body away for money. The difference was I got paid in cash and didn't get pregnant.
Her fingers were finally on top of the tiny fabric triangle that separated me from a prostitute. I held her in place with my hand and pushed down, arching my pelvis from underneath. I felt some genuine arousal from inside me. I promised myself I would revisit this encounter inside my head later this morning when I was trying to get to sleep. This was getting interesting. After a couple of long thrusts against her hand, I turned over again, bringing my body up close to her sweater covered breasts. I felt her squirm again, and I let her brush her breasts against me. I looked at her eyes behind her glasses, and they were starting to cloud and lose focus. She half closed them, exhaling again. I came in close, my nose buried in the nape of her neck. I felt her body underneath me, pressing up. It felt just like it did with the men. I had her. I turned and buried my face on the other side of her neck, giving her a tiny kiss there. Her arms found the back of my neck, and she let me run a hand gently between her thighs. She gasped softly when I pressed against her, her back arching. She made a soft sound, high in her throat. I moaned gently, too, and I was only half pretending.
I picked my head up to look at her again, our noses centimeters apart. Her eyes were swimming with tears. It took me aback. I stopped moving and just stared. Her mouth started to move, and then stopped. Her lip quivered slightly. I felt a stab of alarm. I thought she was enjoying this.
"Are you okay?," I started to say.
"I have to go-," she said, the short, bitchy tone returning. I pushed myself up to my feet.
"I can stop," I said. "We don't have to-"
"No, no," she interrupted. "No, you're fine. You're great. That was so amazing. It was great. I just...," she said. Her voice was breaking along the edges. It reminded me of my 3 year old niece. You knew it was naptime when her voice started to get shrill like this.
"I have to go," she said again. She was standing up now, her hand digging in one pocket of her tight jeans. Her body was really a lot better than I thought. She threw a folded bill onto the cheap couch.
"I'm sorry-" I tried.
"No," she said again. "You're fine. It was great. Really. I enjoyed it."
"You can sit here, and-"
"No, I have to go, really."
She opened the door and was gone, her shoes making little click clack sounds on the floor. I looked at the bill, which I now saw was a fifty. I wanted to run after her, to ask what had happened, what had changed, what was wrong. I reached down and unfolded the bill. It was greasy, like the others, probably from the sweat of her thigh. Charlie watched me impassively through the open door as I put my top back on and slid the bill into my bag. I put my heels back on, gave Charlie a shrug in reply, and walked back onto the floor again.
Wednesday, February 22, 2012
100 Word Song: "Crossroads"
The once and future King of England, Lance, whose blog will get a 5 minute fighting major when it encounters your blog, has renewed the one hundred word song story challenge, this week featuring Oh Land and their song "White Nights". This story is called "Crossroads".
I loved him, but he scared me. We were sitting at an intersection, staring up at a green light. Somewhere, a siren wailed. He was listening intently, his head cocked like a dog. I watched him.
"Where are we going?," I asked softly.
"Follow the sirens," he said, making a right turn and accelerating. "That's where the action is."
I could feel the sweat pooling on my lower back as he accelerated through the night.
"Why do you keep doing this?," I said against the rushing air.
"It makes me feel alive," he said. I hoped he was right.
I loved him, but he scared me. We were sitting at an intersection, staring up at a green light. Somewhere, a siren wailed. He was listening intently, his head cocked like a dog. I watched him.
"Where are we going?," I asked softly.
"Follow the sirens," he said, making a right turn and accelerating. "That's where the action is."
I could feel the sweat pooling on my lower back as he accelerated through the night.
"Why do you keep doing this?," I said against the rushing air.
"It makes me feel alive," he said. I hoped he was right.
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