I wrote this last night and afterwards realized it’s the most self-indulgent thing I’ve ever written. Ugh. Enjoy.
There was something really striking about the way the light was falling across the skin of his shoulders, it bounced and curved against them with a softness that appealed to the moment. I know that men are supposed to be robust and handsome and he definitely was, but in the prettiest way imaginable. He looked dashing in a suit, the way Jane Austen would like her heroine’s lovers to look, but lying next to me without all those clothes to give him the persona of a gent he just looked like the most beautiful person I had ever seen.
It wasn’t going anywhere, both of us knew that. We were both too jaded from past heartbreak, emotionally unavailable to the point where the defeat felt both inevitable and welcomed. But the way the light shone on his shoulder blades, glowing against his tanned skin, is forever burned in my memory.
I remember meeting him, by chance, on a sad Friday evening. The love of my life was getting married and I played the part of the woman scorned perfectly. I wished for a cigarette, even though I didn’t smoke, and I listened to Roman Holiday play in the background, wondering what it would be like to be as demure as Audrey Hepburn. I went out to drown my sorrow in gin martinis, because any woman who doesn’t drown their man troubles in gin is undeniably healthy. That’s one clear mark of my character: unhealthy, in habits, mind, and intention. The healthiest thing about me might be my acute self-awareness, but even that is troublesome the majority of the time. He was sitting across the bar by himself in one of those suits and drinking draft beer. I like men who drink draft beer; they have taste but aren’t trying too hard to stand out. He corrected me when I misquoted Hemingway who said he drank to make people more interesting. I knew that’s what he said but it was refreshing to be reprimanded by a stranger.
So then we talked across the bar until I moved over there, the small change purse wrapped around my wrist dangling, feeling the appropriate amount of inebriated. He was too, but he plays the quiet type when he drinks.
“I’m Beth, by the way.” I told him as I slid onto the stool. He sat there, brooding like James Dean, embarrassed he didn’t realize that dialogue often leads to conversation. “And your name?”
“Nigel.” He glanced at me and then back to his draft beer, almost empty. The bartender offers him something else, he decided on jack and coke. That’s when I really knew we weren’t meant to be, and because of it he became much more attractive.
“What brings you here, Nigel?”
“Business.”
“What kind of business?” He refused to look me in the eye, so I made a further point of staring at his strong jaw and defined cheekbones and the wrinkles next to his worn eyes.
“Family business.” He told me, clever answer, I’ll grant him that.
“Oh,” I began to flirt here, “I was hoping for show business.”
“I’m sorry to disappoint.” He was magnificent; I’d never met someone who was so sincerely like me in my entire life.
So then an hour or so later, after two or three jack and cokes, we were rolling around on my 500 thread counts. I had bothered to light candles for some reason, now I can’t remember if they had been lit all night or if I lit them when we got back, but either way the setting was in place. I had shaved earlier that day when I was trying to make myself feel pretty, it hadn’t worked but still paid off now as he kissed my thighs. As soon as he was down to his skivvies I saw how innocent he was, vulnerable in a way I completely understood. Vulnerable and naked behind a thick, solid wall of apathy that was so lacking in desire it felt comatose.
The passion we felt for our momentarily joined and consistently awful existences made for wonderful love-making, lots of kissing and caressing and throwing every bit of our souls into this distant connection because it was all either of us had. He fell asleep shortly before I did and that’s when I noticed the shadows and the light on his shoulders and back. They were soft but clear, what was dark stayed dark and the light was light, but the line in between looked blurred and scarred all against the expanse of his muscles that were toned from some sort of physical activity, I never knew what.
The next day he was gone and I wouldn’t have wanted it any other way.