“Hey,” she said. “Thank you for the — uh — attention. You’ve made my day. Really. But I must go. I’ll see you in the next life.”
She turned to leave, but then she paused—O, che sarà!—leaned in close to Paul, and gave him a soft kiss on the cheek. Then she laughed again and walked away. No, it wasn’t just a walk. It was a magical act of transportation. Delirious, Paul watched her leave. He marveled at the gifts of strangers, at the way in which a five-minute relationship can be as gratifying and complete (and sexless!) as a thirteen-year marriage. Then he made his way back through security and to his gate, caught his flight to North Carolina, and bought a pair of 1962 Levi’s for $1,250.
Of course, Paul was a liar, a cheater, and a thief. He’d pursued the beautiful airport stranger without giving much thought to his own marriage. And sure, he was separated, and his wife and three teenage daughters were living in the family home while Paul lived in a one-bedroom on Capitol Hill, but he was still married and wanted to remain married. He loved his wife, didn’t he? Well, of course he did. She was lovely (was more than that, really) and smart and funny and all those things an attractive human being is supposed to be, and she in turn thought Paul was a lovely, smart, funny, and attractive human being. They had built a marriage based on their shared love of sixties soul music on vinyl — and vintage clothes, of course. Or perhaps Paul had built this life and his wife had followed along. In any case, they were happy, extraordinarily happy, right? Jesus, it was easy to stay happy in a first-world democracy. What kind of madman would stay that long in an unhappy marriage, especially in an age when people divorced so easily? Yes, Paul loved his wife; he was in love with her. He was sure he could pass a lie-detector test on that one. And he loved his three daughters. He was more sure about that.
But if he was so happy, if he was so in love with his wife and daughters, why was he separated from them? Sadly, it was all about sex — or, rather, the lack of sex. Simply and crudely stated, Paul had lost the desire to fuck his wife. How had that happened? Paul didn’t know, exactly. And he couldn’t talk to anybody about it. How could he tell his friends, his circle of men, that he had no interest in sleeping with the sexiest woman any of them had ever met? She was so beautiful that she intimidated many of his friends. His best friend, Jacob, had once drunkenly confessed that he still couldn’t look her directly in the eyes.
“I’ve known her, what, almost twenty years?” Jacob had said. “And I still have to look at her out of the corner of my eye. I’m the godfather to your daughters, and I have to talk to their mother with my sideways vision. You remember the time we all got drunk and naked in my hot tub? She was so amazing, so perfect, that I had to run around the corner and throw up. Your wife was so beautiful she made me sick. I hope you know how lucky you are, you lucky bastard.”
Yes, Paul knew he was lucky: He had a great job, great daughters, and a great wife that he didn’t want to fuck. And so he, the lucky bastard, had sex with every other possible partner. During his marriage, Paul had had sex with eight other women: two employees, three ex-girlfriends, two of his friends’ wives, and a woman with one of the largest used-clothing stores on eBay.
After that last affair, a clumsy and incomplete coupling in a San Francisco apartment crowded with vintage sundresses and UPS boxes, Paul had confessed to his wife. Oh, no, he didn’t confess to all his infidelities. That would have been too much. It would have been cruel. Instead, he only admitted to the one but carefully inserted details of the other seven, so that his confession would be at least fractionally honest. His wife had listened silently, packed him a bag, and kicked him out of the house. What was the last thing she’d said? “I can’t believe you fucked somebody from eBay.”
And so, for a year now, Paul had lived apart from his family. And had been working hard to win back their love. He’d been chaste while recourting his wife. But he was quite sure that she doubted his newly found fidelity — he traveled too damn much ever to be thought of as a good candidate for stability — and he’d heard from his daughters that a couple of men, handsome strangers, had come calling on his wife. He couldn’t sleep some nights when he thought about other men’s hands and cocks and mouths touching his wife. How strange, Paul thought, to be jealous of other men’s lust for the woman who had only wanted, and had lost, her husband’s lust. And stranger and more contradictory, Paul vanquished his jealousy by furiously masturbating while fantasizing about his dream wife fucking dream men. Feeling like a fool, but hard anyway, Paul stroked as other men — nightmares — pushed into his wife. And when those vision men came hard, Paul also came hard. Everybody was arched and twisted. And oh, Paul was afraid — terrified — of how good it felt. What oath, what marital vow, did he break by imagining his wife’s infidelity? None, he supposed, but he felt primitive, like the first ape that fell from the high trees and, upon landing, decided to live upright, use tools, and evolve. Dear wife, Paul wanted to say, I’m quite sure that you will despise me for these thoughts, and I respect your need to keep our lives private, to relock the doors of our home, but I, primal and vain, still need to boast about my fears and sins. Inside my cave, I build fires to scare away the ghosts and keep the local predators at bay, or perhaps I build fires to attract hungry carnivores. Could I be that dumb? Dear wife, watch me celebrate what I lack. I am as opposable as my thumbs. Ah, Paul thought, who cares about the color of a man’s skin when his true identity is much deeper — subterranean — and far more diverse and disturbing than the ethnicity of his mother and father? And yet, nobody had ever argued for the civil rights of contradictory masturbators. “Chances are,” Paul often sang to himself while thinking of his marriage. “Chances are.” And he was singing that song in a Los Angeles International Airport bookstore — on his way home from the largest flea market in Southern California — when he saw the beautiful stranger who had rebuffed him three months earlier at O’Hare.
“Hey,” he said. “It’s Sara Smile.”
She looked up from the book she was skimming — some best-selling and clever book about the one hundred greatest movies ever made — and stared at Paul. She was puzzled at first, but then she remembered him.
“Hey,” she said. “It’s Nonetheless.”
Paul was quite sure this was the first time in the history of English that the word nonetheless had caused a massive erection. He fought mightily against the desire to kiss the stranger hard on the mouth.
“Wow,” she said. “This is surprising, huh?”
“I can’t believe you remember me,” Paul said.
“I can’t believe it either,” she said. Then she quickly set down the book she’d been browsing. “These airport books, you know? They’re entertaining crap.”
Her embarrassment was lovely.
“I don’t underestimate the power of popular entertainment,” Paul said.
“Oh, okay, I guess,” she said. “Wait, no. Let me amend that. I actually have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“I guess I don’t either,” Paul said. “I was trying to impress you with some faux philosophy.”
She smiled. Paul wanted to lick her teeth. Once again, she was wearing blue jeans and a white T-shirt. Why is it that some women can turn that simple outfit into royal garb? God, he wanted her. Want, want, want. Can you buy and sell want on eBay?
“Are you still married?” he asked.
She laughed.
“Damn,” she said. “You’re as obvious as a thirteen-year-old. When are you going to start pawing at my breasts?”