1 comments/ 5474 views/ 1 favorites Charming Company By: Anitole I am a bachelor. I must confess, that is an inauspicious note upon which to begin but it is a fact that continues to permeate through my life no matter what actions I take to circumvent it. I was born into this world with the love of two parents and subsequently the regard of a few close friends—but that is all. Not to say I have never been in love. Quite to the contrary—I fall in love everyday. This is my curse. I love women but due to some disagreeable and unintelligible circumstance that I wish I could control, they do not seem to love me. I'm assured that the reasons are not of any physical or emotional impairment on my part. I am often told I am handsome and amiable but... You see, I can't even finish the sentence. Nobody can. It is always "Roger, you're quite charming, but..." and then the sentence tapers off into silence and the woman speaking commences to fidgeting and doing her best not to look me straight in the eyes. They cannot, for some reason, ever bring themselves to love me. It is bothersome to the extreme. I often feel an immense pain whenever the moment inevitably comes that I am given the brush off. Some of the women have cried, others were very reserved. I most assuredly have held back tears on more occasions than any person should ever have to do so. It is because of this fault that I resolved myself some time ago to giving up the retched pursuit of my own happiness. All the relationships I've had ended on amiable terms. I never had a woman throw things at me or shout. Of course, I think many of the women I've had affairs with would be quick to say in my defense that I'm not the type to give them cause to be upset or violent. On the contrary, they would attest that I am simply "the nicest guy." Adjectives such as unassuming and intelligent would come up, phrases like well spoken and mild mannered...I suppose some would say I'm caring and compassionate. I've always tried and succeeded at being all these things to people. If I've ever met somebody who took an immediate dislike to me it was because I have an air of condescension to my demeanor. My friend Hugo says it's what he finds most charming about me. I'm a know-it-all and sometimes a slight snob. "Never to the point of being hateful," he assures, I'm just "hard to shut up." I don't know exactly how it all began. I suppose it was just a dare I made myself. An experiment of a sort intended to pass the time and satisfy curiosity. I can't take credit for the idea; that honor passes entirely to Hugo. I'll admit he intended it as a joke when he came up with it but... Well, the lonely and miserable become rather deranged and desperate when given the proper push. We were in a bar, off Lexington, when he picked up the pitcher of beer and poured himself a second mug, smiling at me as I watched a group of office workers at a far booth. One of them was a slim red-haired girl with an abnormally large smile I found rather attractive. "You wanna hear something?" I turned back to him. "What?" "You wanna know how you get a girl like that to talk to you?" "Money, lots of it." Hugo giggled. He liked it when I told jokes, even when I didn't tell them he laughed at them. "No, man, no," he said, through his giggle fit. "That works okay though. Good guess. But I mean actual talkin' talkin'." "If I let you tell me will you go let me go back to staring at the pretty red-head?" Hugo looked down the bar and ferreted her out from the small crowd. "She's okay. But listen to me. I'm imparting a serious bit of information." "Okay. How do I get women to talk to me?" "Get hitched and women will talk to you all the time. It's a synch. I used to walk into bars all the time, remember? I'd maybe pick up a girl once in a while if I was lucky, but then I met Jackie and I got married. Now..." He held up his ring finger to show off the little silver band he'd been wearing for the past three years. "...I go out by myself I get talked to all the time." "Is this your way of telling me that you're cheating on your wife?" Hugo sniggered. "I'm just saying that they talk to me now. And do you know why?" "No. Why?" "'Cause they know I wont turn into one of those obsessed needy stalkers if I decided to actually carry on with them. Let's face it, Roger, women today don't really want relationships. They want to carry on with no strings attached. A lot of them hold off on getting into anything serious until it's absolutely last call." "Last call?" "You know, for kids. Look at Jackie and me. She went through college and had herself set up as a clothing designer long before she met me. Now we're married and fucking all the time. I mean, it's gotten so that all she has to say to me is 'Hugo, I'm ovulating' and I'm on her like butter on toast." "Hugo, I'm ovulating?" "Sexiest come on she's got these days." "You've been reduced to a Pavlov experiment, is that what you're saying?" "Pavlov?" "Russian guy... Never mind." I bought the ring from a little store on Lafayette Street. I figured nine bucks at discount is a fare price to pay for some decent entertainment. A part of me did recognize it was a little perverted and odd, but most fun things I do are these days. Some guys jump off bridges or out of airplanes. People pay hundreds of dollars to pilots to fly them as close to the eye of a hurricane as is possible. That millionaire, what's his name, that one with the $500,000 car-boat who owns his own island in the south Pacific, he's always blowing obscene amounts on stupidity. Anyway, it was all a gag in the beginning. I made up a name for her. I called her Jo, short for Josephine not Joanne. I even wrote a post card in feminine handwriting, addressed it to myself from London, and forged the postmark. It was a week before someone noticed, a girl in a bar. "Waiting for your wife?" "No, just having a few after work." She was youngish, about 23. The bartender asked her for her order she looked around and then at me. "What you drinking?" "Porter." She ordered the same and took out a cigarette. With a careful pause, she seemed to want me to light it for her. I took a match from the bar and did so. "You look married," she said after releasing some smoke out the side of her mouth. "Do I?" "I mean you have this air of, I don't know, being older. How old are you, by the way?" "29." "See, and I bet you've been married a while, huh." "A few years." "I'm Kris, by the way, spelled with a K. What's your name?" "Roger, spelled with an R." And that was it, we were talking. It was easy after that, she told me about her boyfriends, her pets, her parents, asked me what kind of books I liked to read, and at the end I bought her a drink and she asked me if I liked Bartok. "Love him," I said, signaling the bartender. "You don't. Nobody ever knows who I'm talking about." "Bela Bartok. He's a Hungarian composer. My mother had some of his records when I was growing up." "You're shitting me. You know classical?" "I know stuff I like." And we were off again. I asked her if she'd mind sharing a pitcher of New Castle and she accepted. Twenty minutes later she'd listed every composer she could think of, getting my yay or nay on them. Mahler... Yey, Shostakovich... Yey, Shubert...Yey, Puccini... Nay, Bach... Nay, Beethoven... Yay, Brahms... Nay, Bruckner... Nay, Verdi... Nay, Mozart... "Last call!" "Oh shoot," She checked her watch and then looked at me. "You kept me talking all night, you wicked man." "Sorry." She was standing up now, with some difficulty. "Now it's going to be hell to get a cab." "I can call one for you." She looked at me, the way drunken women look at drunken men. "You could offer to drive me, you know." I shook my head. "Not in my state, Miss." "See, you do act married. You called me Miss. Only little boys and married men ever call me Miss." "Would you prefer I called you something else?" She leaned in. "Where is your wife, Roger?" "Away." "Business?" "Sort of." "Is she handsomely pale?" "Breakfast at Tiffany's?" She playfully hit my shoulder. "She makes you watch old movies, then?" "Nope, found that one on my own. And as per your original question, Miss Kris, I only marry the pretty ones." This brought on a fit of giggles. Not stupid giggles but close, inebriated. We stood then on the lip of the great precipice. I could tell she was weighing something in her mind and it was right then that the bartender handed us our coats and I helped her into hers before shrugging into mine. "Why are the charming men always taken?" She swayed a bit and I caught her, putting my hand at the small of her back to steady. "Do you always ask such random questions?" We continued on until she pointed out her apartment door. After I took the key and unlocked it for her she turned around and kissed me. It was easy. What? So, I lied. Millions of men lie to millions of women every day. She says "I'm a vegetarian," and he says "Ditto, bring on the tofu." She asks, "Am I prettier than your last girlfriend," he responds, without hesitation "No contest, you win in every category, including the wet tee-shirt contest." It's all a part of keeping people happy. One lies to avoid the painful reality, to facilitate the wonderful fantasy... to keep oneself in supply of nookie. And, when you think about it, I actually did the girl a favor. What if she'd gone out and found a man who was actually married and then slept with him? See my point? Anyway, I thought about asking for her number before I left the next morning, but I didn't. Drunken tumbles are one thing but a full on affair? I wouldn't be able to pull that off to save Nietzsche from going insane. Besides, married men don't give out phone numbers, I shouldn't think. They'd be worried of the mistress phoning and the wife answering. True, I didn't have said wife but if I gave the number to the girl it would be out of character and she would probably have grown suspicious... I left her a note saying thanks and that she was a lovely girl. The ring stayed on the finger and three nights later I bumped into another very attractive girl. She put the sushi on the table. "Eating alone?" "Yeah." She did that quick glance women do. Left hand, third finger, "yep, he's married." "She out of town?" "For a few days. She's an international trade consultant." "What do you do?" "I'm an adult film star." She snickered. "Really?" "No, haven't got the tattoos for it. Actually, I'm a theatrical agent." She looked over her shoulder and then sat down across from me. "When's your wife get back?" "I'm on my own for three whole days." "Gets back Saturday, then?" I read her nametag and smiled, "If Saturday is three days from today, Fran." She looked at her name tag and smiled. "Sorry, I sat down without asking, didn't I?" "It's alright," I said. "I like the company." "Its ruff when they're gone, isn't it?" "Huh? "Especially so early on, I mean." "Early on?" "I can tell you haven't been married long. Me, I've only been at it a few years now." "Ah," I took the hint and looked down at her left hand, third finger. It was small and silver and had a modest little stone in it. "Do the two of you have a place in the neighborhood?" "I..." "The reason I ask is, Vince and I, we just moved here last month from Boston and we haven't had a lot of time to meet some new friends, you know?" "I..." "We're having a barbeque at our place. We're inviting as many people as we can. Well, I take that back. We're inviting most of the people in our building and as many people that we come across that rub us the right way, you know?" "Um, yeah." "It's just, you seemed kind of lonely and you say your wife gets back the exact day were having our thing. It's kismet." "Karma." She was already writing down the address. "It's off-off Third Avenue, just north of west 38th Street. We just put our name on the buzzer last week. I swear we are not crazy." And that was when her manager called out to her. She thrust the address at me and was gone with a smile back in my direction. Shit. I blame Hugo. Of course I planned not to go. But then, as I was preparing to leave, I realized I had no cash and I was forced to pay with my credit card. She had my name and she could hunt me down with her husband in tow and have me disemboweled, drawn and quartered. Damn it, Hugo! Perhaps it was compulsion; I don't know. Deep down, I may be sick; my judgment skewed by too much time spent in an empty apartment looking through old photographs of myself with that girl I knew in college, or that one I met at the coffee store, or that one who was the actress who lived with me for almost a year. I've seen in movies where people have a fire in their grate and spend the evening burning such photos while drinking wine an toasting the bright and sunny future. Monumentally brave of them and cowardly of me not to follow suit with their Hollywood stereotype closure sessions. I wish I could burn them but they are my memories and despite all the tears they bring on they remind me of the happy moments as well. Kisses on the subway, summer days in the park, trips to rock canyons and log cabins... I suppose you'll think its stuff to soft and mushy for a man to reminisce over. They are fragments of heavenly contentment though. Cream colored arms draped over my chest in the soft light from the window next to the bed, whispered lines from books spoken into clean smelling long hair; all moments I'd expect to piece together in a montage of happiness, obscuring all the disappointments. Anybody can guess at any number of reasons why I hopped the subway out to Greenwich Village and the wonderful "couples only" barbeque. Maybe it was because the waitress woman had been so pretty, maybe it was because I just couldn't give up the lie. Not showing up, to me, seemed like a confession that I didn't in fact have a wife. So what if I didn't have a wife? That wasn't my fault, per say. I'd had tons of women I wanted to marry and I'd even proposed twice or three times. I'm rambling, aren't I? Story: I knocked upon the red apartment door with light but persistent knocks and was admitted posthaste. I presented my hostess with the bottle of 73' Bollinger I'd picked up from a very nice little boutique on 5th Avenue. She took my light summer jacket, hung it up, and then we hugged like old friends. "Fran!" "Roger!" Ha, so she had read my name from the credit card. "Sorry I'm late, the subway was murder." "Late? You're ten minutes early." "Am I? Shit, I'll go back outside and wait if you like. It's no trouble." My joke brought a slight laugh to her face; very gratifying. "Where is your wife?" "Oh, damn it, she's still in London. Turns out she was at the gate, boarding pass in hand, when her mobile rang and poof. Now she's back in the financial district until God-only-knows-when. I love her dearly, but she's a power woman with her priorities," I sighed. "You know, secretly I think she made up the delay just to torture me." "Don't all women like to torture their men?" He was a tall and quite goofy looking man. I must admit I was rather disappointed. Fran was a picture, Botticelli on roller-skates; I'd expected her to be paired with a Cary Grant of the new millennium. But he wasn't Cary Grant at all. He was gangly and looked sickly, with pasty pale skin and hair that was falling out in patches. Hell, he was 30 and already balding from the back, the poor ugly idiot. "Roger, this is my husband Vince." "Vince, nice to put a face to a name." "Likewise, Roger. My wife tells me you like eel-rolls." "Only the spicy kind," I smiled as I shook his hand (didn't mean either the smile or the handshake, but he thought I did). He was dressed in a very unfashionable blue Henley shirt that was only half buttoned. A tuft of hair stuck out from the collar. Over his faded and ripped jeans he wore a blue-and-white-striped apron with something or other tattooed across it in French. I didn't like Vince. "Well, you two get acquainted while I go and put this on ice. Vince, wasn't this nice of Roger? It's imported." It's imported. What a sense of humor. She left me standing with her husband in the entrance hall while she walked off with the bottle of R.D. "So Fran tells me you're in show business." "I was until a few months ago. Now I'm on a bit of a sabbatical." "Writing a play?" "No, but now that you mention it, I could. I even have a title in mind." "Oh?" I lifted my hand and wrote the imaginary marquee in grand neon across the air of his front living room. "How much I'd love to kill you, sir." "Sounds like a comedy." I'll admit that one made me laugh. In all there were three couples not including myself and my absent and ultimately imaginary wife; Vince and Fran, Harry and Evelyn, Doreen and Grant. I disliked Grant most of all. He was an actor. Actors are the worst part of theatre. "So Roger, any calls coming up that would suit me?" "I wouldn't know, Grant. I've been out of commission for a few months." "I've been in a slew of revivals." "I'm sure you have." "You're more off Broadway, right?" Fran came to the rescue. "No business at the table, boys. Vince and Harry might feel left out." "What is it you do, Harry?" I asked. "Finance." I nodded, apt to hear more, but Harry just chewed his salad and seemed to stare at something invisible just to the left of the table's centerpiece. Evelyn smiled at me and shrugged an apology. "He's with Bagley, one of the many up on Wall Street that nobody knows about but who make the world go round. "Oh, then he might know Roger's wife. She's in," Fran lay down her fork and put her fingers to her temples. "Now don't tell me, Roger. It's something like 'International finance,' right?" "International trade relations. Her name is Josephine Angell." "Harry... Harry! They're asking if you know Roger's wife." Harry looked up and I repeated the name for him. he shook his head. "Nope, never heard of her," Harry wiped a bit of ranch dressing from his chin and then went back to munching like a giraffe. "It's really a shame she couldn't be here tonight," Evelyn gave her best attempt at an apologetic look before letting her true animation shine through. "Still it must be grand for her to travel all around. I've always wanted to see London." "It is lovely when the fog is slight and you can see things," I said. "Are you from there, Roger?" I cocked my head toward Doreen, the frumpiest of the three wives who had managed to say very little besides 'Hello' and something like 'Blah blah animosity in the White House'. I measured my surprise. "Why? Do I sound British?" "It's just every time you say something it's like you're quoting a book or something." "I don't read a lot of books. I haven't the time." "Still, you sound very nice; your speech, I mean. Almost English at times. Don't you think, Fran?" "He's just overly educated. Right, Roger?" "Mom and Dad didn't skimp on the Plato and Socrates, sadly." And dinner went on. The women asked me questions and I answered them. We talked about politics and the weather and music. They all seemed to like everything but classical. Doreen liked Jazz, so I took a bit of a liking to her toward the end of the conversation. We riffed a bit on Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, Count Basie, Davis, Mingus and Wynton Marsalis. We talked while all the husbands ate chicken. They didn't seem too keen on anything but finishing dinner so that they could retire to some room of the house to watch football. I helped clear the plates afterward and then went into the living room and played Boggle™ helping the girls finish off the champagne. Nobody seemed moved to comment upon its expensiveness or its quality. I thought it was quite good. Charming Company After the final scores were tallied and the game was over the other couples left two by two until only I was left standing in the entrance hall. I was shrugging on my jacket and trying not to be too obvious about looking at Fran's breasts as she helped me into it. Vince could be heard in the den watching the post-game show. "I really wish I could help you clean up," I said. "I hate to think of you doing my dirty dishes." "Oh, some time we'll all come over to your place and you'll have to clean up after all of us. That's how it works." She smiled as she tucked the tag of my jacket into the collar at the back of my neck. "You will come and see us again, won't you, Roger? We're going to try and make this a monthly thing, you know. We all get together and talk about the trials and tribulations of being Manhattan couples." I stared at her. "Or, I guess I should say that the husbands will drink beer and watch the game while the wives talk about the trials and tribulations of being Manhattan couples." "I don't much care for sports." "Well, you'll be allowed to join us girls then, won't you?" "And play Boggle™?" "Or Pictionary™." We both chuckled. "I'm really sorry Joanne couldn't make it." "Oh, I'm secretly glad. She sounds like she'd have been a bit of a bore. I hate business people." "Harry is 'business people.'" "Yes, and you saw how well he managed to do. Six whole words!" We stood silent for a moment before I squeezed her hand and left. My apartment is very big and I don't like it. Big equates empty to the nth degree when you're single. Even when the lights are on there are too many shadows. Not enough sounds other than the odious rumble of the furnace. Maybe I should get a smaller place? But, still it's good for entertaining. Cocktail parties, cast parties, social masturbation where I make sure all the right people get laid. Those who can't do teach, right? I walk over to the coat closet and put away my jacket. Then in the kitchen I put the little paper plate wrapped in tin-foil on the top shelf of the refrigerator. "Music." The stereo sputters a bit and then starts to play Mahler's 5th symphony in C sharp minor. A very prolific piece; Imagine Hell and Heaven playing a game of war with the whole thing set to very sad music. The depression is setting in. It's a side-affect of the medication. Just a shower and then you'll have to go to bed. I want to sleep but I don't want to go to bed. The barbeque was nice, the people were nice, and the night was overall a good one. Now it would turn into something ugly as all nights do these days. I walk to the bathroom and strip. In the mirror I shave away some tension and try not to notice the movement behind me. I know it isn't real. It never has been. I must have torn my place apart a dozen times looking for the little rodents and make-believe things I see scurrying into cabinets and under couches. I'm half-done with my face when the buzzer rings. "Who is it?" "Roger, it's Fran." I let my finger hover over the button on the call box a moment before I pressed it. "How did you know where I live?" "Phonebook, goofy." "Oh," that was logical. "Come on up. I was just about to step into the shower, but I'll be decent by the time you make it up. I'm on 27." I decide on gray slacks and a black silk shirt. No shoes. Very unassuming but sexy, I think. "Wine?" "I'm sorry to burst in on you." "Did I forget something at your place?" "No." I pour two glasses of some decent red stuff. "I just..." She stopped and tilted her head slightly to the right. "I felt like I wanted to talk to you some more." "Really? I'm flattered." "I know it's late..." "I got nothing I'd rather do than keep from going to sleep." I turn to find her standing right in front of me, her lips close enough to kiss. Then I feel the shooting pain and I fall to the floor. I scream in pain as she pulls the trigger on the taser gun again so another shock runs through me. "You're not married, are you!" It is not a question, but a statement. She's figured it out. "What are you talking about?" "You're buzzer downstairs says Roger Angell. It doesn't mention your wife at all." "I..." "And also, tonight, I noticed you talked about your wife's name being Josephine and then why you left you said you were sorry Joanne hadn't come..." After this final jolt of pain I nearly pass out. When I come to my senses I look down to see that I've wet myself. I open my shirt to see the red burns from where the clamps caught me. "He has cancer, you know." I look up at her. "Huh?" "Vince. He has Leukemia; he's had it since a year after I met him. That's why we came to New York, so he could be near a specialist." "What?" I try to get up but she pulls the trigger agains and my arms and legs jump back to the painful rigidity of the fetal position. She leaves. Out the door before I finish the spasms. I eventually regain my composure, though there are still burn marks on my chest where the electrodes sunk in. There are two small holes charred in the shirt -- it is ruined. I lurch to the bathroom and strip. In the mirror I examine the damages before taking stock of myself. Maybe the ring thing is a bad idea? I look down at it -- the little silver glint feeling almost natural on my finger after only a couple of weeks. Then I think back over the dinner. Harry and Evelyn, the other two, what where there names? And finally Fran and her sick and dying husband. He'd been very polite actually. As I turn on the shower and strip out of my trousers I can't help but think the whole thing was rather eventful and fun, to say the least. The cold water causes the burns to flare up a bit with pain but then the pain turns dull and tingles through my chest. Men go through several emotional phases after a traumatic experience with the opposite sex. Whether he has been dumped, or stood up, or tasered, he moves into a sort of recovery ritual. The length of the phases may very depending on the man. But generally there is a phase of denial and non-acceptance, a phase during which the woman in question receives several unwanted telephone messages riddled with promises of change and maturity if only she will come back. This phase can last anywhere from a mater of days to a mater of months. Granted, after a few months of changed phone numbers, restraining orders, threats from her new boyfriend... This phase passes or (in some cases) results in violence. The violence is the turning point into the phase of anger. The level of anger and its focuses are variable. One man may chose to hate himself, another may choose to hate his girlfriend, the most intelligent men develop a raw festering passionate dislike for all humanity and spurn the very concepts of human contact and congenial interaction. Such intellectuals are overloaded nuclear reactors of anger causing lesions and radiation sickness in others. Their friends avoid them for fear of psychological maledictions. This period lasts anywhere from a mater of days to a matter of decades; depending on the length and depth of the emotional abyss that needs to be filled by pain and loathing. Such anger has lead to mass genocide, homicide, suicide, and has been known to cause the odd industrial "accident." Eventually the anger abates with the onset of the addictive phase. Men take up unhealthy pastimes or vises in order to numb themselves against the pain. Some men drink, others gamble. A great many of them go out on a quest to find as many women in the world who look exactly like their now ex-girlfriend and they fuck and suck themselves silly out of vengeance and pride (secretly crying in the darkness of the seedy motel rooms all the dirty dirty while). Close to the end comes the analytical phase, where a man begins to think harsh utilitarian thoughts about his own sexuality and emotive processes. For example he begins to ponder his sex's inferiority to the fairer. To him everything seems deficient when held up to the female. Her form is better, her judgments less often questionable. Even her orgasm... Not just physically but emotionally, the female orgasm is better and he knows it, because he has seen it and heard it and smelled it and tasted it. He knows that for her, the orgasm is rapture, a gift. Like receiving flowers and jewelry from a lover, or in the instance of self-service a vision sent from God on high as if in answer to prayer conducted with soft gasps and half closed eyelids. In the shower, on a bicycle, in the bedroom with the aid of a small electrical talisman, she asks for and receives her gift from heaven with sighs and a smile and then she rolls onto her side, a wave of calm overtaking her, warmth and comfort enveloping her, the sheets seem to take on an extra softness and the light of the room shines at odd angles so that things that were not important beforehand are now transformed into significant ingredients to a perfect universe. There is a thank you, usually unspoken, and then a slow subtle glide into relaxing sleep. Men are much less smiled upon. The masculine orgasm comes from labor and suffering, it is a regulated thing—regulated so that it is timed to perfection because to come too soon is to mar the miraculous event that is the female counter part. If it comes too late, it is a sign of a sort of retardation, of uselessness. You are on the first hand too young and unseasoned for the battle and on the last hand too old and weak to be of aid to the cause. The actual ejaculation itself is like a wound. It comes quick and then after a flash it is gone, taking with it all sense of space and time. The victim is sucked into a black hole, a kind of dark underworld with nothing but sound waves carrying cruel laughter and tears of anguish. Light cannot escape it and fades to darkness and sound muffles. Nothing slows down, in an instant it is all gone and it is as if death has passed through the room reminding you of the time. Women, when they think about it, will probably realize how quiet their men are during the mechanics of love. When your man makes a noise of pleasure is it very far off from a cry of pain? Thus is male masturbation ultimately pathetic and sad. Instead of being a gift from heaven it is more or less a self-inflicted wound; a cut made as an assurance that one is still capable of feeling anything—even if it is fear and pain. It is like riding a roller coaster or base jumping from a bridge. Afterward there is no slow drift into sleep. There is a blackout, from which a man awakes feeling dirty and drained of his life's fluid. He is weak and no one mourns him, just like a soldier on a silent battlefield left to rot in the sunshine like bitter fruit. One thing is certain, of all the phases men enter and go through, acceptance is never an option. Old men die in their beds, surrounded by loving family members—each child and grandchild and great grandchild a testament to the success and beauty of a life well lived—and secretly, deep down inside, under years of age and time, there are still scars that sting when the wind blows just right. Scars that remind them, unto their last breath, that life and love can be ten times more evil than good in some spots. I stepped out of the shower feeling very much alone. At nearly one o'clock in the morning I wished there was someone to call. Hugo lives in what is referred to as a baronial mansion. He's one of those people who married a lot of money and then, fortunately, never did much after that. If you ask him though, he'll tell you he's an unpublished writer. Unpublishable, if you want to know the dire reality of the matter. Hugo chokes on his drink, he's laughing so hard. Other people don't pay him any mind. He's a kept man, not the really person important to laugh with. "You mean like a stun gun?" "Yes." "Open your shirt. I got to see this." "This is not the time or the place." "God sakes, Roger. You tell me a story like this and you expect me to believe it without proof." "You can't make this shit up." I see her coming before he does. "What has he got you laughing at now, dear?" Jackie is pretty in that I-wore-my-hair-in-a-ponytail-until-I-was-thirty-to-feel-closer-to- the-animals-I-love-so-much kind of way. She's cropped it shorter in the four years I've known her, but she still looks odd without $15,000 of horse underneath her. "Roger was tasered last night." "What?" "He's been pretending to be married and this woman... What was her name?" "Fran." "She figured out that he was a low down lying dog and she electrocuted him." "Pretending to be married?" I hold up my left ring-finger for her to see. "Eleven bucks at a pawn shop." "That's sick, Roger!" "I know," I said. "If it makes you feel better it wasn't my idea." "Oh no," Hugo ditched his drink on a passing try of champagne. "I never told you to buy a wedding ring and engage in fraud. What I said was that once a guy gets married women talk to him." Jackie's eyes went quizzical. "Are you saying you think your wedding ring helps you get girls?" "No, honey. I'm just saying I get approached, talked to..." "You're a moron," she turned her focus back to me. "And you should know better." "It was a nice theory. I thought it deserved a field test. So far I'm one and one." "You mean you actually slept with a woman under the false pretense that you were married? You're a pig." "I'm a desperate man. Desperate men make the best pigs. You see, dear, I know that Hugo got the last good woman there was and now I'm an empty shell with nothing but work to do from nine to five and time to kill." Jacqueline swished her jaw around a bit, a sign that she was digesting what I'd said. She was a woman who liked to tear things apart and analyze them before responding. "First, I have to say I'm flattered that you think I'm the last good woman, however, I know you, Roger. Compliments are your medium of artistic expression. What is really the issue here is that you feel you have to dawn a persona and play pretend to get into a woman's pants. That is what makes you the ultimate evil in the eyes of a woman." "Evil?" "Yes, evil. Why can't you just be yourself?" "I am myself, Jacqueline. "I just make it apparent that there is someone out there who thought the real me was worth more than just a first glance." "I..." "Spare me the home woven recycled psychology from your first semester in college. I know what I am..." "Don't get snippy." "Don't put me on the couch." "Why are you doing this, Roger?" "Doing what?" "Playing women like were some kind of game?" "Women are not a game. They're much too hard on the heart to be a game. Men kill themselves and others over women. Wars have been fought over women." "What war was ever fought over a woman?" "Ever read The Iliad?" She made a face that could launch a thousand ships. Jacqueline hated when I unsheathed the sword of literature. For a writers wife she was quite unnerved by high-minded talk about bundles of words written by dead white men thousands of years before her birth. "I still say it's wrong." "I don't disagree." Hugo had spent the whole time with a stupid grin on his face. I'm sure this was the reason I was his friend. I had arguments with his wife he was much too careful to have. I think secretly he loved watching his wife explode, if not entirely in a sadistic way. He waved down the nearest tray of champagne and plucked up three glasses. "Honey, just because something is morally reprehensible does not mean it is entirely wrong." "He's causing harm!" "And he got tasered, honey. It's eye for an eye." She looked at me again, vicious. "You deserve worse." "I go home every night to an empty apartment. Believe me—I'm punished beyond all articles of the Geneva Convention." Hugo lifted his glass in a mock cheer, "To the tortures of the bachelor, he never knows how good he had it 'til he's married." Jacqueline surprisingly lifted her glass to this toast, but added her own addendum, "And to the stupid husband who will be staying in one of the guest rooms tonight." Four years and you can tell they still love each other deeply. The late night movie is on the television. It's a thriller tonight, I don't really care though. I like the noise. Just as Grace Kelley answers the phone and the man jumps out from behind the curtain and tightens the stocking around her neck the buzzer sounds. My watch reads 2:45 a.m. "Do you know what time it is?" "Roger, can I come up?" It's Fran. I pause a moment and look at the speaker in dismay. Should I ask what she wants? I shake my head and press the button unlatching the door far below. I don't change. I just wait in the open door for the sound of the elevator arriving and her footsteps on the carpet of the hallway. She's in pajama bottoms and a too-large sweatshirt under her over-coat. Her face is blotched, red under the eyes. "Hi," I say. "I'm not going to taser you again," every word seems like a sniffle. "I deserve it." "I came to..." the sentence fades and she fidgets. I stand aside inviting her in. She walks tentatively, taking off her coat and dropping it over the counter. The sweatshirt is baggy, a dirty grey; it's a man's size and without asking I can guess what's happened. "What about the others?" "They were all his friends, not mine." She walks over to the couch and sits, wiping her eyes on the sleeves of his shirt. "I don't have many friends." I sit beside her, taking care to stay distant. "You're afraid of me?" Already the tears are welling faster in her eyes. In movies the man always tells the woman she's beautiful when she cries. I just couldn't say so with Fran. She looked pathetic. "I shouldn't have..." "You like Alfred Hitchcock?" Her face does a strange thing that reminds me of a person having a minor stroke. It's only a moment before I realize how random my question must seem. I point to the television. "There's an all night marathon. I was just going to sit and watch it I'm being weird aren't I? I'm sorry, I don't know how to deal with grief. I'm such an asshole. You really shou..." She leans in and kisses me. Not romantically, or sexually. In fact, I can't describe the manor of the kiss. It tastes like tears and is very brief. When she leans back it is into the sitting position. Her eye's focus on the screen, on Grace Kelly swaying half dazed toward the bedroom after killing her would-be killer. I take the remote and take the film off of mute. The music is post violent crescendo, and as the scene dissolves into the next. I see a sense of calm come over her face. The tears are drying and she is snuggling up in the corner of the couch, her feet tucked up under her backside. "We can talk if you want," I say. She looks over at me and shakes her head then looks back to the film. I'm at a loss until she turns back, her lips parted to say something. "Do you have any popcorn?"