One moment. Breathing, living, circulating. These are things we all have to do. Everybody breathes until they are dead. This is an obvious one.
One moment. He was in love with me for one moment. For one moment, there was no one except for me. There was no wife, there was no boyfriend, there was no wall.
"Where is your wife?"
"Oh. She's... on hiatus. For a while now."
"From what?"
"From me."
"Oh."
Was he pushing his arm against mine, or was I imagining it? I looked at him in his perfectly tailored suit. When you are a successful college professor, you can have lots of perfectly tailored suits. All of your female students will want to be with you, want to slide their hands under your perfectly tailored suits. He had this affect on his students. I should know, he was my Sociology professor for the six years I was in college. He did not just affect the female students; he made the girls feel strangely flirtatious and men slightly aroused and threatened. This man, he was so handsome, he was so dark, he was so close.
He said something. It's difficult to be sure of what, all I could hear was the din of alumni laughing and half full glasses of champagne clinking. Women laughed pretentiously in their perfectly tailored, one-time worn evening dresses.
"What did you say?"
"I said, how was the drive back up here? As I recall, you don't come from these parts."
"Oh. No, I don't, but I actually only live about thirty minutes away from campus these days. With my boyfriend."
"Oh?" he smiled, cocked his head. I caught the brief scent of his aftershave. "What are you doing? I haven't seen you in nearly three years." It's true. I graduated three years ago, I never looked back.
"What am I doing? Well, right now, I'm at a party."
"No, I meant, do you have a job? Because, I was thinking, you might want to go into teaching... You could always come back to the old Alma Mater."
Yes. I thought. Say that again. Don't let me go back to waitressing at that stupid diner, owned by my stupid boyfriend and his stupid fists.
He spoke again.
"I'm sorry, what did you say?"
"I said, come to my office. We can discuss there." He said this into my hair. He was a large man. Not large in the fat sense, but his shoulders were sizable in his perfectly tailored suit. He was a foot taller than me.
"Oh, okay."
--------
I found myself again in the room I spent so much diligent time in three years ago. I instinctively sat in my old seat. I am a creature of habit.
He chuckled, leaned against the table next to me. There was polite chatter. Small stories shared about "the student who showed up and vomited on his final exam" and "the one time my dog ran into traffic unscathed" and "that's the reason I can no longer eat tangerines." As the night waned, I looked at his clock. 1:56 am.
"Oh shit, oh shit, shit!" I stumbled over my own feet, my sister's heels catching on the floor.
"What's the matter?" I could not see him, he was behind me.
"It's just, it's late, it's so late. He hates it when I'm late."
"Who does?"
Instinct kicked in. "No one. No one will be. Nothing."
He gently grabbed my waist. But he held me fast. There was no escaping, I knew I couldn't move my legs, I realised then that he had frozen me to the spot.
But I was wrong. He turned me around slowly, brushed the strategically placed hair from my forehead. He saw it.
Standing here, with his hands on my hips, it was not difficult to imagine making love to him. Gently lifting my skirt, hands in his hair, sliding together, two fragile creatures clinging to each other for warmth and shelter. He needs me.
On queue, he breathed in, drew me closer. My face was buried in his tie. I shut my eyes, inhaling the complex smells of his life. Books. Aftershave. Pine trees. Rosemary.
The clock struck once. Two am. He looked at my eyes.
The clock struck twice, setting off a wave off kinetic energy. Two am.
I slid my fingers into his hair, he slid his hands down, over my body, over my borrowed evening dress. He tasted of god awful champagne and cinnamon. Like nothing in particular and like everything.
I moved my fingers into the rim of his perfectly tailored slacks. He grabbed my hips and pulled them into himself. Breathing, living, circulating, loving, wanting, dying.
Ringing. An awful ringing. He pulls away, reaching sheepishly into his pocket.
"Yes dear?" he says.
I am quietly putting my heels on, sliding my dress down over my thighs. He straightens his tie. I grab my coat. He looks at his watch.
"Yes, I know, it's 2 am. I'll be right home."
He expects me to be standing right there when he turns around, I'm sure. Too bad.
Three minutes, thirty seven seconds, and 200 or so feet of running in heels later, I'm seated by the wheel in my car. I clench the wheel, unclench it, clench, unclench. I look at my phone. One new message.
"Where are you bitch?"
Out the windshield I see a young couple. They are not alumni, not dressed nicely, perhaps only freshman. They are so young, so beautiful, so happy. I tell myself if they see me, if they acknowledge me, I will live on. I will quit my job, quit this life. Start writing again.
Look up look up look up.
As if on his own accord, he looks up. He smiles, he looks back at his beautiful young girlfriend.
I put the car in drive, I back out, I get on the road. No turning back. Breathing, living, loving, dying, smiling, and the earth still spins.
