Monday Night

She had finished reading the biography of a famous artist by a fellow who had worked for the artist, and mostly she had liked the book, but at times she thought the writer was too pleased with himself. Perhaps, that was just a by-product of being too close to your subject. She didn’t know, but she sensed that in many ways the book was a love letter to the artist in a way even the writer didn’t understand. The end feeling for her about the writer was that he was too proud of himself without a certain kind of love to be involved. Deep love like that of a mother or lover that never leaves, even when they leave you.

What fascinated her most was the way the artist acted during a breakup from a lover. It was so similar to how everyone acts, he went on a diet, started lifting weights, pursued someone else in the opposite manner in which he had loved the lover who left. She was inspired by this and liked to think that it was similar to her behavior of the last two weeks of August, where she openly pursued matters of the heart in order to blur the memories of something that didn’t work out with an active reality.

They had never dated, well, not really. She supposed it was the way it felt to start a car that never starts. You could get dressed, have your hair just right, get into the car elegantly, and then go nowhere. But because you look good and know it, a somewhat daring feeling for an aging woman, you might imagine you got somewhere while still really being in your driveway. Illusions have a way of clinging onto beauty, like invisible ghosts, felt only as cool breezes that seem to offer relief, but do they?

The famous artist also said something else about love that she liked and related to immensely. This thought was about the beginning of love and he said, “These things just happen” and shrugged off the responsibility of the insanity that must always be present in order to warrant the label of love. The insanity had many forms but it usually meant a sudden change of behavior which people around the lovestruck could gossip about. A change in the way the person in love might laugh. The way a phone call or text could produce larger-than-life smiles, a private joy. Maybe they swayed in their walk and simultaneously were able to get up earlier and stay up later without affecting the quality of the glow of their skin.

She didn’t know it, but she hummed when she fell in love. It was usually Smokey Robinson’s “You Really Got a Hold On Me” which may have been on the nose but it was also just right. But that part of the love, where she hummed, was over and these last two weeks of August had to be spent moving in anything interesting that might lead to love so that sadness--or the most dreaded of disasters, heartbreak--didn’t move in.

The moving on, or the forgetting, or the trying to forget or delusion began in an ordinary way. It started online as things tend to do in 2019 but she tried to keep it to a minimum on that platform. And by minimum, she meant that she didn’t chat too much. It was too easy for her. Sometimes she was just making joke after joke, “Oh yes of course I love the beach?” and “You love to travel too, how odd and exhilarating?” It mostly made her sad that these men believed her. Hope was really some powerful shit and you didn’t need to mainline it. At its best, she felt online dating was merely buying a chance at love. Too many questions or too much flirting would lead to expectations that didn’t do anybody any good. There’s a certain amount of fantasy involved in all love affairs but the built-in distance of online dating could intensify that in the wrong way. If you weren’t careful you would be walking into a sexual fantasy you felt sad not to fulfill or some other more personal expectation that emerged from a heart too lonely for any sane person to take a chance on.

After a weekend of fishing, her term for swiping right liberally, she had narrowed it down to two dates. The first had fallen through on that weekend but was now moved to Monday night, which was tonight. Wednesday she would have another date.

She knew something was wrong with this fellow but she couldn’t tell what it was from online. It was obvious though there was something wrong because he put that he had four homes in three different countries directly in his bio. People do love to flex in Manhattan about their wealth but that direct statement meant he needed to flex, he needed his money to get the kind of girl he wanted. It was doubtful that she was the right kind of girl but she was curious to see what could possibly be wrong with him. He was smart, but not in a way that excited her, and was some kind of CEO. He certainly had hustle, that she could not deny, but she knew all success also involved luck that the successful always found ways to take credit for. He had another dreaded trait that she associated with insecurity, a Burning Man habit.

Playing into this habit she dressed a little bit like a steampunk school girl for their first meeting. She wanted to look innocent but also like a sexual fantasy. She liked to be underestimated, the outfit helped that. He had picked a wine bar, that she had already been to with a dear girlfriend to gossip about boys. She liked it there and could walk. It was dark and could be romantic if she wanted it to go that way.

She waited at the narrow, small front bar of the restaurant, he was late. She knew that his looks were average but it was a Monday night, you can do whatever you want on a Monday, and nobody notices. She crossed her legs at the ankles, her tan summer legs very apparent under her short red skirt. The bartender chatted her up just enough and when she mentioned she was waiting for someone he didn’t linger.

“What can I get you?”

“A glass of Merlot, please.” She said it earnestly and crossed her legs again, this time at the knees.

Fifteen minutes later he showed up and what was wrong with him became very apparent. He was short. This wasn’t your normal short like five feet four inches to five feet six inches. This was the kind of short that got a medical term. She of course didn’t know the term and would easily offend with the terms she did know. She thought Dwarf seemed more likely than midget but she didn’t know for sure, but were those offensive? She almost laughed, not because it was funny, although it was, more because how does one mention it. If she were prone to cruelty maybe she would have walked out, citing cramps or his lateness as a reason. But he wasn’t at fault for his height anymore than she could take credit for her pretty face.

He asked for a table in the back and lucky for him it was just them. The waiter was the only one who could really see them and that was only when he dropped the food off. She had given him an awkward hug, reaching down the way one does with a child. Then quickly they were whisked away to the back.

“Sorry, I was late. Old habits die hard.”

“It’s no bother. Glad you came” She said, unsure if she was.

“I love your outfit. It’s very sexy.” She laughed at this. Priding herself for guessing right.

“Just a late summer special. Show off the tan while you can”

“Show it off you should!”

He was excited about her beauty the way she couldn’t be about his and until the wine set in she felt jealous. That is to say not jealous of him but jealous of what he is feeling. He had just come back from the Hamptons visiting friends and said the drive took a bit longer than he had anticipated. She waved off the excuse, saying she didn’t need an explanation and that her living so close to here made it really not a big deal. They were through their first bottle of wine and it must have warmed him up too because he began ordering a lot of food and more bottles of wine. She felt charmed by the gesture and a bit embarrassed. It was Monday night.

As the food began to come out in spurts, she felt endeared to him. He had three cats and a dog. She thought what a queer thing. He must be lonely. He talked about his years as a consultant, which made him feel enslaved to “the man.” She understood it in a sense but she thought no real enslaved human could relate once they saw his salary. That his entrance into fintech had felt like the kind of problem-solving that inspired him and his recent exit from a company he started set to go public was because he didn’t want to sell things. She liked that. She didn’t want to sell things either. She wanted to discover them.

He asked about her exes. She didn’t say so much. Just that he wasn’t available, and he wasn’t really her ex. Nearly four years prior had been a break-up that was ugly but old news and for the most part, she was enjoying being a free agent. She grabbed a bacon-wrapped date stuffed with blue cheese and popped it into her mouth like it was a little wish. She smiled brightly and looked directly at him.

He grabbed her arm and she felt how small his hand was on her body. She let him kiss her anyway. There was an excitement she hadn’t expected. His skin was soft. She was surprised at herself for not minding how large she felt next to him. She thought maybe I’m wrong, maybe size doesn’t matter. In a blur of Manhattan madness, the nearly 600 dollar bill was paid and she was in the back of an Uber, with a tiny man hand edging up her skirt.

He lived in the 30s on the Westside near a new very posh condo but it wasn’t that structure it was an earlier one. It’s the one that became so insufferable on social media because the new tinder must have photo was no longer cuddling a sedated tiger but a smart Uniqlo outfit in front of “The Vessel”, it’s seemed terribly trite to her but lately she thought maybe such trends were simply a time capsule. Years from now her children, if she had them, would look at these mass-produced puffer jackets and “The Vessel” images and decide something about that time, impossible for her to know what. Maybe it would be tacky or maybe they would want to recreate something about this moment, it felt like corporate decadence to her, which was her slightly more elegant way of saying boring. When they got out of the Uber he was leading the way to his building that had all these young foreign couples hanging out outside. They looked so stylish and carefree like undergraduate college students. Momentarily, her Monday night felt exposed. Had they noticed she was with a twee man, did he make her seem unattractive, did anyone care? She felt ashamed at the thoughts and caught up to her date, smiled at him, and curiously looked around the building. She was drunk.

She guessed it was a nice building. There was a lot of wasted space she thought but that was the true hallmark of luxury in Manhattan. Only when a building has too much of something can it waste it. She doesn’t remember if, when they got on the elevator there were other people and when he pressed number two, shallowly she thought, well it’s not the penthouse.

They tumbled into his apartment. It was expensive but cheap, because there were millions of places that looked just like it. Furniture that you would see in Instagram adds if you followed mainstream Techo artists or wanted to be cool after your divorce. . He mentioned he owned the place. It smelled a bit like cat, which she could forgive because she had her own cat, but it wasn’t desirable. The three cats, two dark brown and one tabby, greeted them at the door. He said the tabby was deaf and did she mind if he quickly fed them. His dog which he said was a golden retriever wasn’t there. He had boarded her for the weekend. She thought that was a little strange but there were a number of things about herself that could be considered strange, like her inability to go on third dates, but maintaining near lifelong friendships, so she stopped thinking about it.

She washed her hands in his bathroom and met him in the living room filled with all this ugly modern furniture with cat hair peppered on it. Three cats is a lot by most standards. Nobody should want to take their clothes off in this room, she thought, as she sat down on the couch. She stroked the deaf cat’s head, he was an old fellow. The ring leader, the largest brown cat put his head under her other hand, unafraid to demand attention. The shy brown cat looked on, she couldn’t tell if he was interested in her or just interested in what his cat family was doing.

The cat party ended when he took her hand and brought her to the bedroom. The short walk there made the size difference obvious, again. When she got into his bedroom she liked it much better than the living room. There was some kind of air filter so the air was cleaner and cooler. She laid down and took her shirt off. He began touching her, greedily and it was obvious he didn’t really like her.

It was her fault though, for being in this situation she let boredom and hormones get the best of her. She had known there was something wrong with him, and she was motivated by curiosity. She wanted to pity him. Wanting to pity him said something about her, maybe she was looking for power, and as this thought swirled in her mind she wondered if she was walking into a realm of the amoral. She projected onto him. Thinking that his size would make him tender and kind because he was atypical, but people don’t work like that. People are as good as they want to be, it doesn’t matter what they look like. The same experience could affect people in completely different ways. Poverty could make one man bitter and another man ambitious. She wondered how this man was poor.

She looked at him again. She watched him caress and begin to kiss her body and felt sorry for him, even though he was enjoying himself. She should have felt sorry for herself but she couldn’t figure out how to turn the pity inward, so she laid there, trying not to look pained.

She tried to relax and closed her eyes, alcohol and time were winning. They also seemed to be her friend because with her eyes closed she finally began to enjoy herself. Seeing tiny man hands and feeling tiny man hands turned out to be two very different experiences. Her mind lit up like a carnival. The sensation of sweet hard sour candies seemed to be in her mouth and she could not get enough. Her body tingled high from the sweet with tiny shudders from the sour.

Her eyes still tightly closed, she moved her body in strange new ways trying to meet her partner where he needed to be met. She felt as though she must look distorted, the spitting image of a funhouse mirror, and she laughed joyously. When he tried missionary and kept asking her to lift her hips up, reality set back in and she felt like he was asking for a lot. She turned over convincing him of another way and her images of lights and carnies and sugary treats and greasy hot dogs returned. She felt youthful.

Her vision dulled as his ride was over and soon they were lying side by side in the bed, she was too scared to open her eyes.

“I don’t cuddle. It’s just not a good way for me to sleep.”

He said it so factually but it was a huge relief. Being held was when she fell in love with someone. It was never the fucking.

“Whatever floats your boat,” she said and then laughed a tiny laugh.

She turned away from him as he began to snore. She had a busy day at the office tomorrow and considered leaving, but for some reason, that felt rude. She rolled over and looked at him again, she couldn’t help but think that he looked like a gerbil she had buried in her parent's backyard. They had morning sex too. This was even more to her liking, no kissing due to morning breath and no looking because she feigned sleepiness and never opened her eyes. When he was done, she assured him her not climaxing was because it was their first time together. He made her coffee that was very good. She sat up drinking it in bed. Elegantly untangling her hair.

He offered her breakfast but she was ready to go. She had used mouthwash after the coffee and felt an ok amount of clean as she tossed on her clothes from the night before. She wanted to leave before this began to feel like a crime scene because once the pleasure of sex wore off, she’d realize she did something to fill the time, not what she really wanted to do. He stood at the door as she left, he wanted to kiss her goodbye. She bent over and pecked him on the cheek, and hurried off into the hallway.

When she had made it outside she realized she was hungover. He texted when she was in the elevator that he bought her an Uber and had written the license plate number. She texted back thanks and an emoji heart. In the Uber, a reggae song she hated played and the driver flirted with her in a way that almost didn’t bother her. He asked where she was coming from and she said only that it was a long night and she didn’t think he was tall enough. He laughed. He said it was a worthy complaint.

He dropped her off at her apartment. She showered and dressed in a whirlwind and headed to the law office, imagining what it might feel like if she found flowers on her desk. She knew she wouldn’t but she thought it anyway. This was her way of brushing off the responsibility of the night's mediocre, he could be in love with her and the flowers would be proof. She was surprised that when she thought about last night, there was a certain enjoyment and pleasure attached to her thoughts.

Tuesday flew by and she found herself in bed early, singing to her cat as she was known to do. His orange fur contrasted against her white comforter, reminding her of clouds, maybe this could be her little piece of heaven. Wednesday morning rolled around and at around 10 am when she was in the office nursing her second cup of coffee she canceled her date with some other online connection, she wasn’t up for it. Monday had been so late, and she still felt enough things from that interaction to know she wasn’t dead inside. This other fellow could wait, or disappear, what is it that everyone says, something about the sea?