My Short Story, "Among the Shoals."

 

 

Copyright Glo Lewis 10/8/2023

 

Dear Readers of My Blog, 💚

 

I have decided to share my short story, “Among the Shoals” with you. Here is the story below (As usual, God bless, and I'll be in touch soon):

 

 

Among the Shoals

Copyright Glo Lewis 10/8/2023 

 

 

 

 

 

   Sometimes I use my binoculars. I can see into almost every piece of glass on that house as there are no blinds. Earlier, the man straddled a chair wearing only a green garter belt, stockings, and crimson stilettos. His round, white buttock was turquoise with tattoos. He raised his leg, and the pendulous testicles swung like those of an old bloodhound. Feral red hair sprouted from his gluteal cleft and his head.

   Now he is squeezing her throat. Before this, there was yelling, and then the screaming started. Her arched posture, arms flailing, exudes terror.

   He has released her neck. I am watching the assault through a slat in my bedroom mini blind. The light is on over their stairs, where they are now standing, so I can see them clearly. They look to be in their thirties. He spit on her, and she is wiping it off her face, which is ruddy and swollen. She is crying-- a frail, thin, light-brown female.

   “Portland Police Dispatch-- Central Precinct.”

   “My next door neighbor just tried to strangle his wife. We live on Skidmore Street in Portland,” I whisper into my cell phone-- the only light around me.

   After the police arrive, their red and blue colors swirling, and arrest the man, I notice the silhouette of a black cat in the neighbors’ front room window. He is obviously meowing, because his mouth is moving, but from where I stand, his cries are silent. I want to rescue him, but I know it’s impossible.

 

***

 

   A few days later, I went outside to speak with the woman in her inconsequential yard. “How are you?” I asked.

   “Fine,” she said snottily, so I knew it wouldn’t go well to ask about the feline, but I did anyway.

   “How’s your cat?”

   She wrinkled her forehead and gave me a perplexed look. Her skin had a burnished glow around the new bruises like a patina. “Why are you asking about Rafael?” she asked.

   “Just wondered,” I said, discomfited.

   “Why should you wonder about him?” Her eyes widened, white above brown like old-fashioned nonpareils, and she put a hand on her hip.

   “Look, no offense, okay? But your man is traumatizing you and your pet. He shouldn’t be allowed to live with you again. He crossed the line.”

   “How do you know about that?”

   “The police were here.”

   “Yeah, so?”

   “So, domestic violence always escalates, and eventually, he’ll kill you and maybe your cat too. But he’s hurting both of you already because there’s no peace in your home. An animal should know peace in their home, and so should you.”

   She threw up an arm and stared at the distant streets. After a minute, she put her head down, and the frizzy brown curls fell over her face. “Mind your own business,” she growled into her chest. “I own ‘im.” She trudged up the concrete stairs to her front door.

   “You’re wrong about that,” I called after her. “We don’t own the animals. They share our lives, but we don’t own them.”

   Not long after that, the woman moved out. By that time, I had already sketched the whole scene with my charcoals-- all of it-- the high-heeled man sans clothes, except for the garter belt, choking her in the stairwell under the stark, dangling light bulb and the dark cat crying out, but mute to the night. Later, I sold that piece, entitling it “Noir,” for $500.00. That’s what I do-- capture the face of silence in shades of gray, black, and white.

   In the late hours, between working on my art and getting sleep for the class I teach in drawing with charcoals, sometimes loneliness breezes through me like freezer cool on cool. I jump up then, go to the computer, and check my dating site emails.         

   I met Adair online in 2002, when I was forty. I should have known right off that he’d be a phony, because one of his online photos prominently featured his large hands, fingers splayed across his muscular thighs at the wheel of his Chris-Craft Cavalier, the sparkling water of a boat marina shimmering enticingly in the background, as though advertising that he has a big penis. I mean, come on, can you imagine leading with the nuance of your sex organ instead of some social grace as a prelude to dating? But of course, when this real live man messaged me then, I disregarded the signs.

   Surely he’s aware of the adage that if a man has substantial hands, he’ll be well endowed. In my experience, however, this assumption is unreliable, because while a man may have the equipment, he might not be able to get it working. Nevertheless, Adair’s hands are sizable, so, to be honest, I did wonder how gifted he was in his Calvin Klein's. But, while it’s fantastic to have great sex (if you can get it), it’s much more important to be with someone who has good character and who is kind, smart, fun, and most importantly, who makes your heart soar for only him.

   Anyway, at that time, Adair lived in Longview, Washington, near the mouth of the Columbia River, whereas I lived where I still live-- about forty-four miles away in Portland, Oregon. My car was an old, midnight blue Volkswagen Beetle that tended to break down if I drove it for too long at one stretch. Therefore, I wanted a man who lived close by, though not so nearby as to be a pain.

   I was a single parent, and my art center job didn’t pay very well, but it enabled me to be home with my daughter, Paige, in the evenings, when she was a child, and provided time for me to sketch. Recently, I’ve begun to sell some of my nudes, but I’m far from rich. What I am is lonely. The Internet is a boon for women like me. We can connect with eligible men without leaving the house.                                                                                                

   Back then, I emailed the dating site a good photo of me. My hair looked too black. But my brown eyes are bright, and they came through as my best feature. I lost about fifteen pounds before I joined the site and started receiving mail from Adair. For the first time in years, my jeans were loose.

   I was attracted to Adair’s profile right off, first because of his blond hair and sky blue eyes. (I have a small fetish for blond men’s armpits, particularly if they hint of the scent of Ralph Lauren’s, Polo, that fabulous men’s cologne, and I’ve been told that other women also find this area of male anatomy intriguing, however odd such an intoxication may be!) He was tall-- six feet four-- and in shape, although I prefer a more medium-sized man with a slender frame. He was fifty-one but looked more like forty-six. Mostly, I appreciated that he wrote about fidelity, in his emails, which, he emphasized, was important to him.

   After corresponding by email for three months, we met one night at 9:00 p.m., in the cocktail lounge at Stanford’s in Portland. From across the room, he recognized me from my photo at the dating site and waved. I crossed the ambient, noisy bar to where he was seated in a booth. “Adair?”

   He rose and took my hand in his thick paw. “Sharon?” I nodded, and he said, “We meet at last.”

   “So we do.” I slid into the booth seat across from him. He wore a gray blazer and a maroon polo shirt. The cocktail server hurried over, and Adair and I ordered the red house wine.

   I smiled and stroked the green silk scarf tied around my neck. I had feathered my dark hair along my face, and I wore shiny orange lipstick.

   Adair remarked, “You seem taller than 5’ 6.” 

   “It’s my shoes,” I lied. “They have a heel.”

   “So what do you think?” he asked, squinting behind his gold-rimmed glasses. “Are you satisfied with my appearance?”

   “Yes. Very nice.” It was obvious that he was seeking compliments, but I didn’t want him to have the edge, so I was reticent about praising his assets. My philosophy is, if you give a man an inch, he’ll take twenty miles.

   The server brought our drinks and left.

   “Your eyes look so dark in your online photo that at first I thought you were blind,” said Adair.

   No offense to blind people, but what an asshole! I should have walked away at once. When I told my mother on the phone the next day, she gasped. “Blind! Your beautiful eyes?”

   But you know-- I hadn’t had a date in several years, and I had already invested three months in getting to know Adair through writing without any whisper of this kind of ugliness. I wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt. And as embarrassing as this is, during that time, I was desperate for a relationship. Since my husband died, when it comes to men, despite my keen observation skills, I always sell myself short and stick around too long. I guess it’s my religious persuasion to “turn the other cheek” that gets me into trouble. You’d think I would learn better because this has never paid off.

   I once had a boyfriend say, “I like a bitch.” This statement evoked sexiness, but it turned out that he meant a gal like that would be standoffish with other guys, so he wouldn’t have to worry about her fooling around on him. Most men need a woman to nurture her inner bitch-- to keep them in line, so listen up, ladies!

   After three drinks, Adair walked me out into the moonlight. He seemed more under the influence than I felt. It was nearly 1:00 a.m., and we had been in the bar for four hours. Standing alongside my car, he asked me to dance with him. How romantic, I thought, slipping into his arms. We moved slowly in the circle of lamplight on the gray parking lot. His lips, surrounded by new whiskers softly grazed my cheek. I liked him.

   The first time we had a real date, I let him pick me up at my two-bedroom apartment. Paige, who was twenty, had moved from her duplex with roommates and showed up half the week at my place, letting herself in with her key. I barely saw her; she used my apartment like a hotel room to shower, sleep, and leave. But when your kids exit the nest, you must adapt or perish of a broken heart. You have to let them go.

   So on our first date, Adair drove me in his Ford coupe to a chic jazz club in Portland. He parked, and we walked to the corner, where I threw my arms around his neck and kissed him hard-- for effect only-- not because I felt any passion for him. I was remembering dates from years before with men I loved then, the images of which swam through the shoals of my younger heart, in that nearly forgotten watery chamber. (Google Dictionary: “shoal: * “A large number of fish of the same species swimming together; **An area of shallow water: submerged sandbank visible at low water, and in high water is hidden danger or difficulty.”)

   I could see that he was surprised and perhaps fascinated by my sudden show of affection. People call unpredictable actions “getting a wild hair,” but really, since most of us want to be perceived as exciting, we may say and do things that very often come across as little more than acting. I guess you could say that I was acting on a wild hair. In retrospect, I was simply confused, because I hadn’t really dated in so long that I had embarked on a mysterious journey into the new me in this revolutionized world of dating. I wasn’t sure how to behave. I was winging it all the way-- a gull lost at sea.

   The host seated us near the cocktail server station. We ate shrimp fettuccine and drank dry white wine from cobalt-stemmed glasses. Adair nodded in the direction of the four twenty-something female servers, clamoring with their orders for the bartender’s attention. “Do you like thong underwear?” he asked. He wanted to be sure that I noticed him watching their glittering waistbands. But my daughter wears this skimpy underwear, so I’m used to her bending in tight black pants, the top of her panties shimmering. I wasn’t about to tell him that, however.

   “I do like it,” I said nonchalantly.

   “Own any?”

   “As a matter of fact, I do. My daughter just gave me a thong as a gift.”

   “Did she? What does it look like?”

   “It’s hot pink with little rhinestones that spell ‘Bitch.’” I didn’t tell him that there’s no way I’d let him see my ass, with or without that thong. He might see me from the front, if he plays his cards right, I thought, but I’m too old to flaunt my haunches, and older women will doubtless agree with me on this. The time of our muscular horseflesh has passed, though the horse still whinnies if petted nicely.

   The pretty server came over to check on us, and Adair flirted with her. She reared back as though highly offended-- maybe thinking, The gall of this grandfather! And Adair, apparently well practiced at his game, acted oblivious to her displeasure. Whereas I, a cynic, observed and sipped my wine, hoping for behavior more respectful of me down the road. A fool, ignoring the red flags!

   Later, back at the car and inebriated, we kissed as passionately as teens for almost an hour, until the windows fogged, and we had to wipe them with the backs of our hands.

   I let him talk me into it, and we headed for his place, which was nestled in a suburb of Longview, Washington-- almost an hour to the north of Portland and the Oregon border.

   The ranch-style house was grand and ablaze with sparkle. It seemed that every fluorescent in the place was on, even the crystal chandelier gracing the kitchen ceiling. And he was nice. A real gentleman. “Will you come to my bed with me?” he asked sweetly.

   “I will,” I said, and he turned off lights, as we lurched down the blue-carpeted hall. His bed was huge. And I was surprised that the room was so beautifully decorated. Men don’t normally have throw pillows or keep their homes so well, I believed.

   We kissed and fell onto the white, puffy spread, clutching at each other and thrashing about. I stopped short of intercourse, because I wanted to see him again, and if you do that on the first date, what’s there to look forward to? Why should he see me again?

   It was 4 a.m. when he drove me home. He had plans to go fishing with friends on the Columbia; the salmon were running.

   After that, we had several more dates, and he requested that we take our profiles offline and see each other exclusively before I agreed to have sex with him. But I insisted on an H.I.V. test first, which we both passed.

   Like a virgin in an arranged marriage, I cried during dinner before we had sex for the first time. Though we tend not to admit it, most people have hang-ups in this area, even if, as I did, we want to do the deed. Significantly, I didn’t want to get close in the way that intercourse can propel a woman toward a man. I knew Adair wasn’t good for me. Emotionally, I needed far better. I felt like an idiot-- a woman completely unmasked by her tears and fear. It was such a darned shame that I had been celibate for so long and desired sex because he wasn’t worthy. Fortunately, as we were taking a bubble bath together, before we did the thing, my designer tanned legs crossed alongside him, Adair said, “My wife was 5’4”.” He said it in a way that seemed intended to make me feel like I was too tall for his preference. When I’ve stripped down to my skin with a man, I expect him to be nice to me. After Adair made that remark, I became guarded and expected the worst. Therefore, as I strolled barefoot to the bed in a white towel, it was no problem detaching myself from him. I simply let go of all illusions. I saw clearly that he had had to warm up with Viagra a few hours beforehand, and that he lost steam mid-stride. I couldn’t even feel him inside me. As it turned out, it always went like that with him.

   Then we’d get up in the morning, and the kitchen would be hot and bright as the electric chair-- sun streaming through every casement. I like a shaded room-- it’s kinder on the nerves. But there we sat, sweat beading over our upper lips like sparkling jewels, as we crunched toast spiced with orange marmalade and drank coffee made thick by sweet cream.

   At night, he liked to stand on the step just above the sunken living room and kiss me. Straight across from us were the pale blue, floor-to-ceiling front-room drapes, which were usually open a couple of feet. He had told me about one of his married friends who called him a “lucky devil” when he heard about me. “Are you kissing me here so that your neighbor across the street will see us?” I asked, irritation in my voice.

   “No. Do you think that’s my motivation? To impress my neighbors?”

   “I don’t know. I wonder about it.”

   “Stop wondering. Would I do such a thing?”

   “I don’t know. Would you?”

   “Don’t be silly.”

   I was skeptical. That was exactly what he was doing-- using me to enhance his bachelorhood in the eyes of his married neighbor-buddy.

   We went to dinner at an Italian restaurant. The blond, balding waiter bounded over to our table in white apron and sneakers with a grin so huge, it mystified me. Adair’s face shook, crumbling and disintegrating like stale cake. It was alarming, and I’ve never seen anything like it. I wondered if Adair was insane. “Are you all right?” I asked when the waiter had gone.

   “Why do you ask?” he inquired snidely.

   “Because you look so upset.”

   “I’m fine.” He glared at me.

   We stared absently and without words for a long time at the big picture window across the room. After a time, he spoke of his second wife, Ada. “She cheated on me with her ex-boyfriend from the time that we first started dating and all through our marriage.”

   “How do you know?”

   The restaurant door opened, a white-haired couple entered, and the table candles flickered in the chilly spring air.

   “After she moved out, I found a leather letter case that I had given her on the top of our closet. I opened it and found copies of love letters from her to the man-- about a dozen of them. Some of them mentioned sleeping with him in my bed, when I went to my father’s funeral in Texas. Others showed that when she went to L.A., she met up with him, while I was home ironing her twenty-six pairs of jeans. Such betrayal! It shattered my trust in women.”       

   “Then obviously, there’s no chance for us,” I said, smoothing the red-checked tablecloth.

   “Why do you say that?” He rocked back precariously on the two rear legs of his wooden chair, as if to put distance between us. I was saying something too close to the truth.

   “Because you said your trust has been shattered. When something is shattered, it’s not just broken-- it can’t be put back together.”

   “I meant broken.”

   “You said shattered.”

   “Forget that. I know what I meant.”

   “You can’t judge all women by your ex-wife’s actions.”

   “I saw a therapist a few times. She says it’s up to me to continue or not. But I don’t think that I can do it-- go through all of that-- what it would take to heal. The therapist says I might be one of those guys who hurts women emotionally for what my wife did to me; or I might not realize what I’m doing.”

   “I don’t think you try to hurt women.” I was hoping for the best, but the future with this man looked bleak as gray skies.

   He grimaced, as though he had contempt for me being too stupid to intuit that he really does try to hurt women, but I ignored it, as I do with men, because it’s difficult for me to confront them. And this is because I’m afraid of their potential for violent outbursts. Consequently, I usually endure their injurious behavior until I can’t stand them, which is usually when I have a mental laundry list of negatives about them; in this scenario, I determine that there is far too much wrong with them from any woman’s point of view, and then I leave the relationship entirely. I never, and I do mean, never, harbor any illusion that I can change a man, because once a person is grown, you can’t overcome their self-determination unless they want that too. By the end, the relationship is so dead a crust has formed on the stink of the carcass and the winging of buzzards overhead casts a quicksilver shadow. I should far more prefer to be like American movie stars of yore who were not afraid to raise their voices in telling off such a man and storming off, but it can take a long time for some women to reach this crescendo in their tolerance for bad behavior; the reason for this is complicated and nuanced, but I think that many women are very wise to the inherent danger of mentally dueling with a man, and I’m in this savvy set. We would sharply prefer to simply say it’s not working out; I’m not feeling the attraction any longer, and diplomatically end it. Because why argue and fight with a psychopath? Why waste your time and life force on such a person? Don’t invite or welcome their insane rage! Just slip away into safety-- and do it over the phone. My father taught me: “When in doubt, don’t.” For example, I once had a psychopath that I was unfortunately married to briefly, ask me if he had ever lied to me. Obviously, he wanted to determine if I was aware of his lies. I wanted to ask if he had ever told me the truth! But, discretion is indeed the better part of valor, so I simply said that I didn’t know, avoiding an argument with a dangerous man whose ancestors in the prehistoric world probably belonged to that other, more violent tribe of monkey men. But lest you misunderstand me, if you find a good man, whose precious heart beats with love and intelligence, take care of him well because lucky indeed are you in a world where being human is not necessarily something to be proud of.

   However, I digress. After dinner, Adair and I saw 8 Mile at a theater near the restaurant. “My daughter likes Eminem. She says he’s got balls, because he doesn’t back down from a fight,” I said, after the movie.

   “He’s a punk,” said Adair, striding hurriedly through the movie theater lobby, fuming.

   When we got to his house, we pulled my overnight bag and makeup kit from the trunk of his car into the house. In the foyer, he slipped out of his street shoes and slid his feet into one of several different pairs of size 11 house sandals which seemed to beg for a room of their own. "Remember to take off your shoes,” he said.

   We settled into the burgundy leather sofa of the den, and he popped in a Fleetwood Mac concert CD. “Sit with me,” he said. I sat between his legs, where he patted the couch. “Take these off.” I removed my top and bra, and he pulled me back toward him and held my breasts. “Look at that,” he said, squeezing one of my nipples, as though a nipple were quite remarkable. We moved to the carpet. He threw down a blanket, and we had sex, which was over in a few seconds.

   Afterward, watching the lead singer, Stevie Nicks, I said, “A guy I used to date once said that I look like her-- other than the bottle-blonde hair.”

   “I actually think the other lady is sexier.” (He meant the second female musician in the band.)

   Of course you do, I thought, having a keen ear for assholery. A few weeks later, I had to drive to Los Angeles with Paige, and an ex-boyfriend of mine, Gabe, to try to retrieve the car that Gabe had given her, from an unscrupulous mechanic’s shop. The insurance company had already paid the man for the

repairs from an accident that Paige had had when visiting L.A., but the guy 

wouldn’t release the car, because she refused to have sex with him.                                                                                  

   “I’ll be back in a few days. And don’t worry, Gabe and I are getting separate hotel rooms,” I told Adair.

   “If I had to do something like go retrieve a car for my daughter, I wouldn’t allow you to stop me!” he said, disagreeably.

   “I wouldn’t think of trying to stop you.”

   I called him from work when I got back, and he behaved strangely. After a few hours, I had insightful misgivings-- women’s intuition-- about his distant behavior on the phone, prompting me to check the online dating site. Sure enough, his photo was posted as available for dating. I took a break and called him again from inside the empty conference room on my cell phone. “Adair, I saw your ad online.” He was quiet. “I’m so disappointed. I believed in you. I guess we’re through. That’s what you want, right-- to see other people?”

   “I guess so,” he said.

   Disappointed that he was such a coward, I went immediately and told a friend of mine at work in a different part of the building. We stepped outside, where I cried and was embarrassed by both the fact that he had dumped me and that I was tearful.

   “You should call him again and give him another chance,” said a lesbian co-worker a few days later. She had never in her thirty-two years of living had a relationship. “Everyone makes mistakes,” she said, standing over our gray cubicles, snapping Chiclets between her teeth.

   “No. This was a real betrayal. He wasn’t even going to tell me that he was breaking up with me.”

   “Still. You should call him. Take the high road-- that’s something I always admire about you.”

   Apparently persuaded by that praise of my character, I replied, “What would I say?”

   “Ask him if he wants to talk about it.”

   I called him after work, sitting in my car on the company parking lot. “Adair, do you want to talk about things?” I inquired.

   “Sharon! Yes! Let’s meet though. I don’t want to talk about it over the phone.”

   We met at a Starbucks's near me. I climbed into his car, and we circled the drive-through. He turned to order, and for the first time, I thought the back of his head was too large. Since then, I always think of him as “big head.” I know it’s strange, but things like that can bug a person. Apropos of nothing, I’d find myself doodling bulky heads lolling on the shoulders of stick figures. In this same vein, I once knew a lazy, drug-addicted psychopath-- friend of a friend-- who complained bitterly that he had broken up with his girlfriend because her feet were bigger than his. “Big foot!” he called her, curling and uncurling his toes in white socks over the coffee table, a filterless cigarette wet in his lips.

   As it turned out, though, Adair and I made up. It seems he was jealous of my ex, Gabe, and couldn’t bear that we would be on the road together. Once I was back, he got over it, and we started dating again. “Watch out,” my friend warned. I never trusted Adair after that. I kept my feelings for him shallow as a low tide in the shoals of my heart.

   Summer came. Adair invited me out on his speedboat. I wore a bikini top with a tied off shirt over it and Bermuda shorts. When we arrived at the boat launch on the Columbia River, Adair leered at two teenage girls. By now, I wasn’t surprised.

   Once in the drink, the sunny day bloomed like a great yellow daisy. We cut through the dancing diamonds of water at a high rate of speed. Adair asked me to remove my shirt and bikini top and lean against him behind the wheel. It sounded like freedom-- an erotic adventure! No one could tell that I was shirtless as we zipped through the waves at top speed. I leaned back against Adair, and he cupped my breasts. The wind felt wonderful. Across the spray, a couple of boats zoomed by.

   “Let’s get down below,” said Adair. He lowered the speed of the boat to a slow drag, and we slipped into the small cabin-like area under the hull. He pushed me back, entered me, and it was over. “We’re headed into a slue! I’d better get up there!” exclaimed Adair, throwing on his T-shirt and shorts.

   I remained below, struggling with my bikini top, as Adair guided the boat quickly into the inlet and docked it alongside a wharf.

   As I finally twisted into my top, I saw the quizzical expression on the face of a teenage boy, who appeared to be about 15 years old. He apparently worked at the pier and helped to guide the boats to their moorings. Wouldn’t you think that Adair would have warned me about the kid at the dock, so that I’d be sure to dress quickly and get up top? It seemed that he wanted to embarrass me. The young man’s look said, “Aren’t you a little old to be gettin’ some on a boat?” And here I felt compelled to practice my own look of obliviousness as in, so what if the kid thinks I’m a tramp! Let him live a little and develop his own little black book of dark secrets, which-- be honest-- we all have, and then he might be qualified to judge me-- but only then.

 

***

 

   One morning, as Adair and I were making up his bed, he took hold of his giant penis, which resembled a big red sausage, which in actual use never really got hard. He cradled his member in his arms as one would a scowling baby. Since he couldn’t keep it erect anymore, what good was it? I wondered. Just a lot of baggage to pack around in his walking shorts. But as he stood there holding his private, he may have felt vulnerable when I didn’t ooh and ahhh and slather him with high praise. But what am I, a connoisseur? And frankly, he’s too much of a worm for me to audition for the role of grateful girlfriend. Although, in retrospect, I should have run over there, squeezed the tip of his penis the way he had my nipple, and remarked with dismay, “Look at that!” Therefore, I pretty much ignored his meat-gathering stance. I just smiled, as if to say, “That’s nice, dear,” and continued making up my side of his bed.

   I hurt his fragile ego, because after that, Adair and I fizzled. He said he wanted out.

   “You’re just a garden-variety jerk! I won’t spend one more minute thinking about you!” I ranted in an email, along with a page of criticisms about his hostile conduct during the relationship-- no longer taking the high road. “You sorely need that counseling you talked about!” I closed.

   “Thanks for the scathing email!” he fired back. Then he apparently drove all the way from his home in Washington to mine in Oregon to leave a paper bag on my doormat containing a ten-dollar bill and the second CD (left at his place) in a two-part Melissa Etheridge album package that he had bought me for my birthday. He had written a letter too. I thought he left the cash to make me feel like a ten-dollar whore. And while that doesn’t say anything about me, it tells you what he was, doesn’t it?

   My phone rang at 11:00 p.m. one night, months later. I answered with good cheer in my voice, because my life was going well, and I was enjoying a new relationship. The caller was quiet and hung up after a moment. I figured it to be Adair.

 

 

The End