SKETCH OF LATE AFTERNOON
The woman and the man are not old. Not yet. True, the skin on her face is so tight that it mismatches the sagginess elsewhere, and when she smiles it sometimes seems as if it might crack. He has visited the plastic surgeon less frequently, and looks both younger and older than he is; younger because he still stands with a military bearing, older because his eye, though it falters no more than in his youth, now seems to show age rather than weakness.
They had thought to buy a house in Florida, with a pool and a guesthouse, but in the end she could not bear to leave her North Shore home – the home where she had raised three children and been through, so far, one and a half husbands. The home which also had a pool, and a garden that was almost featured in House Beautiful until she decided that her privacy would be far too invaded for comfort.
She looks at him with scorn, and hatred, and love. He looks back at her with emptiness. Perhaps he will play golf tomorrow, he says, though he does not really care for golf. He took it up to please her, just as he bought her a business, and moved into her house, and gave up going to all the common places where he felt at home. He fantasizes, briefly, of killing her with a sharp stiletto across her tan neck, the blood crimson and beautiful and alive. He loves the freshness of the image, and can actually hear the sound of the tear and the damp smell of death. She is still looking at him though, so he blankens his mind.
She had seen the quickness of his eye, the interested, intent look. Perhaps he wants to make love, she thinks, only she thinks in pictures not words, and visualizes a purebred poodle humping a purebred cocker spaniel. It has been several weeks since the act has occurred, but she has been so busy, deciding about the house, entertaining. Her “routine,” as she calls it, takes many more hours a day than it used to as well; the health club (not one where young people go, who are so smelly and sweaty), the tanning booth, washing and conditioning and coloring her hair, putting cream on her face and rinsing it off. At times it occurs to her to wonder for whom she is doing this routine if not to hump him, but she answers herself, “For myself, because I’m worth it!”
Her fingers are long and sinuous, her nails painted and perfect. She has him get manicures as well. Years ago he fussed about it and was embarrassed, but the girl comes to the house and her English isn’t good enough to gossip. His nails are short, of course, as a man’s should be, and shiny – little blobs of pink like a newborn’s ass with whitish half moons at the bottom. She supposes the half-moons come from his childhood. But that was before her and not very interesting.
They are sitting in their perfect living room, idly sipping martinis. She does not like to drink, particularly, but she likes the idea of martinis. She knows that, had she been a man, she would have done well in the fifties.
The living room is her room; she insisted they have the piano although they do not play, and she chose the knickknacks from her travels to stores all around the world, and she commissioned the paintings. The den is his room, because she conceded to the home entertainment center with the big screen TV where he watches football if they are not too busy.
It is a hot day and they both think at the same time about installing air conditioning. Neither one of them speaks their thought, however, for fear of renewing the argument about whether to sell the house and move to Florida. In fact, he does not care, but he argues to please her. If they stay, he would like to get air conditioning, but, after all, it is her house.
She looks out the picture window to the gardens. The phlox and roses are bright patches of color that please her. She recounts to herself that there are 123 distinct plants in the back yard, and each one flowers perfectly. Their lawn care company put in a time release watering mechanism for each plant. She is not too proud to admit that she doesn’t understand how it works; her garden is the best, and that’s what counts.
The doorbell rings, and he jumps a little, sloshing some of his drink onto his hand. He is confused for a moment about whether he should dry off or answer the door. Then he remembers that the maid will answer the door. He thinks that the gin will dry by itself in time, but she is looking at him so he goes and wipes his hand on a plush red towel in the bathroom. Then he washes his hands for good measure, and moves to dry them on the towel, and wonders whether he should put it in the hamper, since now it has gin on it. But he wouldn’t know what clean towel to put up in its place, so he’ll leave things be.
His birthday is coming soon, and she’ll throw him a party as she always does. He was born on the fourth of July. For that reason they went to see a movie of the same name, but it was sad and political and not their type of thing at all. Because of the date their friends are always free. They go to great lengths to give him extravagant presents: picnic baskets with complete meals and champagne; the very latest golf balls that you can only buy in Japan; beautiful hand-knit Irish sweaters. His mind wanders to when he was very young and his favorite uncle gave him enough cash to go to the movies every Saturday for a year. He’ll never forget the vibrant red of Flash Gordon’s costume – the blood lust that even the good guys could feel back then. It is not the same as traveling to Japan or Ireland to buy him something, he thinks, but after all his uncle was poor. He wonders if he will ever like anything so well again.
He learned to dance at the movies. He needed a job and everyone knew that they would hire you to dance with the old ladies in the Catskills if you had any talent. So he went to Fred Astaire’s latest twelve nights in a row, and practiced at home while the others slept.
She fell in love with him by dancing with him, feeling the firmness of his hand on her waist, the command with which he spun and dipped her, while his aftershave invaded her body. His first wife had fallen in love with him for the same reason, and other women here and there as well. She does not know or care about them. She no longer likes to dance with him because he is clearly so much better at it than her that she feels foolish. At parties she steps aside and lets him dance with the ladies among their friends, while she dangler her leg out of a slit skirt, and smokes a cigarette (although she does not like to smoke and generally does not inhale) through a long filter and sips her martini and smiles like Mona Lisa, whom she studied in art class most of a lifetime ago and has seen in person many times.
He is still in the bathroom, looking at the towel. She will be waiting for him, annoyed. He rejoins her and smiles a little foolishly as he picks up his drink again, careful this time not to spill anything.
It was no one at the door, just some college kid wanting money to save the whales. She hates that crap, and told the maid to send him away. She is glad he was not here, because he would have given the kid money. She knows that he gives cash to beggars in the street when he thinks she is not looking. She used to tell him not to, but once aware that she too had seen their condition, he felt he had license to get worried and teary-eyed and sentimental. Although he has told her strange stories about the Great Depression, his father rebuilt the family fortune. They have nothing in common with the beggars. It reflects badly on her when he demeans himself so.
At their age it makes little difference but she is younger than him by several years While he remembers FDR as the man who saved his family from starvation, she remembers him as the man who made the world safe for democracy. She doesn’t understand why he is not more nostalgic for those times, since, after all, it was the war that made his father rich.
Evening has softly stolen the afternoon. The colors on the flowers in the garden have become deeper, richer. She is satisfied. He, too, looks out the window and sees the blood-red sun lowering itself into the horizon, and feels awe.
Note from Jasmine Gold: As the name of this blog indicates, I write erotica. Check out my dark, dystopian novel about naked sex slaves, Mindgames. Your darkest fantasies, with a phenomenal plot and characters you will come to think of as beloved friends. Available on Kindle and Kindle Unlimited and in paperback. Or read my book of short stories about hot, consensual sex, The Mature Woman's Guide to Desire, available on Kindle and Kindle Unlimited.
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