Some things in nature are empirical. Consider men, for example. They were all the same. They all wanted to have their cake - indeed, fight like starving mongrels over it, and in the end they never would have the good sense to eat it. In all probability, they didn’t know how. All they ever wanted was to bury it in the ground till the time it turned to compost. As she sat on the plush seat sipping her claret, she took the liberty of bringing her hands close to her face and sniff at the wrists for one fraction of a second. She relaxed to the cool cascade of confidence rushing from her head to the soles of her feet. The Donna Karan perfume had been a good choice.
“You think the Bartlets will be here by 9?” She asked without averting her gaze from the pearls on the woman sitting next to them. It was rather picturesque, since she had dark eyes and a rather ostentatious hair-do. Again, her attention turned to her own hands which were small, white and delicate, with almost disproportionately long fingers. Glancing at the other’s meaty hands with their painted fingernails, she triumphantly concluded that she would not need a string of pearls for many years to come. A shadow of a smile played around the corners of her mouth.
“Per-aps”, was all the reply her husband could muster. He sat on the other side of the small table set for four. He was approaching middle age, and his hair was allowed to grow a good way down his brow in the defense of his increasing baldness. Apart from that, he looked clean enough, with smooth-shaven cheeks and a clean, white shirt underneath his dinner jacket. Older than the former by about a decade and a half, he might have been rather good looking once but had allowed his body to be ravaged by the seven deadly sins liberally enough, as a result of which he was given to corpulence. His cheeks glowed in the light from the chandeliers like a baby’s buttocks. From time to time, he glanced anxiously at his watch, or took out a napkin from his pocket and mopped his brow.
She placed both her hands on the table, and bent forward, her eyes glowing with the light of youth. “Don’t you think that that picture there is adorable? I could spend the whole summer lying naked on that stack of hay, eating nothing but tangerines!” She had lovely, even teeth.
He hadn’t seen the picture yet, as he would have to turn a full one hundred and eighty degrees to see it. Should he risk looking at it? His curiosity had been piqued. After all, what had he to lose anyway? He could always take a look, scowl, and may be upbraid her for having such perverted thoughts. Yet, something held him back. So, instead, he grunted something inarticulate and started feigning an ache of the neck and the shoulders, and to relieve himself of it, he did the most fantastic contortions, all the time trying to look at the picture without actually seeming to do so. At last, he gave up, realizing that he had already been caught in the act by his wife who was smiling innocently and pretending to be enthralled by the picture whilst her lips whistled a merry tune, ever so softly. Chagrined, he called to the passing waiter and ordered a second scotch for himself, indignantly refusing the offer of a spot of soda as the waiter handed it to him, preferring only ice.
After a while, he had emptied his glass and proceeded to light a cigar. His nicotine-stained fingers fumbled as he tried to light a matchstick. She watched him struggle for the greater part of twenty seconds, and then she fished out a silver lighter from her handbag and cupped her hands over it as she held it out to him. Still, she did not light one for herself.
Punctual to a T, the Bartlets arrived. Mary wore a black strapless gown with a stole made of imitation fur casually thrown across her shoulders. Despite her thirty-five or so years, she had a nice body and a brilliant smile. She was a real-estate agent and her looks went not a little way in giving her the power and respect she received from all her clientele. In her spare time, she was a PETA activist and a campaigner for the poor, suffering children in Uganda. Brad was a corporate lawyer, and played basketball. She couldn’t help noticing how becoming the dusky blue suit was that he wore was over his perfectly chiseled body.
“Hello Clarice, hello Brad.” And there were greetings all around. In a moment Brad had cast aside all his melancholy and was beaming as he shook hands with Don. Then he enthusiastically strode forward to kiss Mary. She merely closed her eyes as she steeled herself to the inevitable. Like all fat men, his kiss was a profusion of wetness. Don also kissed Clarice, and the latter accepted it gracefully enough, smiling all the while as they took their seats. If Don had moved his lips away from her cheek in the general direction of her throat, one could hardly tell whether she noticed. When the men had done with them, the two women embraced warmly and each in her turn complimented the other on how well she had turned out.
“And how’s the baby,” Clarice began as soon as they had sat down.
“Oh he’s such a darling,” the other crooned. “You know it was only last Tuesday that he said his first words – Mamma, he says to me when I pick him up straight after coming home from work. I was so delighted I didn’t know what to do. And the cute little rascal, understanding perfectly well what a priceless piece of goods he was, kept saying that same word over and over again. When Don came home, he thought I’d been sick my face was so red with joy.”
“That’s right,” Don rejoined. “Mary just adores the baby. You know, this morning, I wake up to sounds of “get up, sweetheart. Would you like me to spank you?” when I open my eyes to realize that all the while she’s talking to the baby. Makes me wanna be a kid again.” He smiled rather mischievously as he said this, and the wrinkles that formed at the corners of his eyes were undeniably handsome. Mary gave him a playful clout on his shoulder and the latter tried to have his revenge with a kiss. Clarice smiled sweetly, and a trifle wearily.
Brad took advantage of the clamour to take in an eyeful of Mary’s wide, supple shoulders and her ample breasts. There was something intoxicating about the smoothness of her arms and her rich, sonorous laugh. True, Clarice was a beauty of sorts, but she was rather lacking in meat. This was uncharted territory, full of treasures, and his mouth watered at the thought of what he might find there given the chance. With extreme power of will he extricated himself as if from a bottomless pit and his eyes met those of Clarice. For a brief moment, he fancied that she winked. He’d expected to find anger in that gaze, but instead, those eyes seemed to egg him on in his pursuit. This made him nervous, since he was a man with a very limited capacity of thought and used to live his life based on a rigid set of convictions that were practically non-existent. To ease his mind, he ordered a bottle of champagne.
“Ah, champagne,” Mary twittered. “You know, Brad, I am not supposed to drink that. Alcohol never did me any good ‘cause I get high so easily. The last time I got drunk, I insisted on doing a kind of solo burlesque at the parking lot with everyone staring, and all it took was three marguerites.”
This greatly pleased Brad and he himself insisted on filling up her glass. He filled it to the brim and made her take the first sip, with the glass still in his hand. “Well, if you insist. But, I don’t like it.” She made a comic face and claimed the glass to herself.
“So, Brad, how’s work?” Don ventured.
“Work’s a bitch,” he replied. “No matter how great the quarterly figures turn out to be, the paycheck’s still the same.” Brad made a good deal of money as vice-president to a prominent investment banking firm in the country. He lived in a posh locale, owned two cars, a swimming pool, and a penthouse. Rumour was that his unparalleled abilities as management were not a little abetted by the fact that an uncle from his mother’s side of the family was a member of the board of directors. The other rumour was that the money was the sole reason why Clarice chose to marry him in the first place.
So, the champagne was drunk. Clarice daintily sipped from her glass and held it perfectly at the stem, with the little finger pointing outwards. Both Brad and Mary finished their first glass greedily and immediately went for a refill. Mary started off holding the glass nearly as perfectly as Clarice, but halfway through her second, she lost interest and wrapped her fingers around the top as if it were a coffee mug. Don, on the other hand ordered a whisky for himself and drank it slowly, pausing for the ice to melt. Everybody seemed cheerful. Even the mild-mannered Clarice had let her hair down and told them a funny story from college when they’d been on a camping trip and someone had stolen all their clothes as they bathed in the river. Everyone roared with laughter and Mary went into conniptions. A second bottle of champagne was ordered. Then, Dan narrated one of his own, of the time when he worked pro-bono for a ninety-two year old veteran of the First World War. The joke was that grandpa was accused of rape by his twenty-nine year old nurse in search of some easy money, and the case was won by simple medical report in which it was proven beyond doubt the accused was thoroughly incapable of any of the villainous acts he was charged with. Again, everybody seemed to think it was funny and the result was very much as before. Food was brought in, and Don challenged the obese Brad to a steak eating contest. Brad accepted gleefully, and the two ladies were very much fascinated by what they saw, but feigned disgust as the two men tore huge chunks of pink meat and filled their mouths with it. But even before he was through with his first steak, Don declared he was full, and promised to foot the entire bill as a penalty. Brad, who took the challenge much more seriously, was delighted and ordered a second steak just to stamp his authority. Don laughed cheerfully and lit a cigarette. He then stood up and did a parody of a bow he’d seen in an historical movie of the Elizabethan times as a tribute to Brad, and both women were very much tickled by it. Mary laughed so hard that the tears came.
Halfway through her meal, Clarice asked to be excused. As she got up, Don caught a glimpse of her flimsy shoulder blade and a whiff of her perfume made its way up his nostrils. He shifted uneasily in his seat. Clarice disappeared behind a curtain. On the other side of it were two doors facing each other, one marked with a man symbol and the other with a lady symbol. But, she chose neither. Instead, she leaned against the wall with one arm gently resting on her belly, and lighting a cigarette, waited.
Precisely three minutes later, Don asked to be excused as well. By then, Mary was very drunk, and she and Brad exchanged little confidences and giggled like a pair of school kids. Like Clarice, he too made straight for the curtains, and once he was behind it, immediately wrapped his arms round the slim waist of Clarice and started kissing her neck fervently. She did not close her eyes immediately. Don had his back to the drapes, and from her vantage point she could see just about enough through a tiny gap in the curtains to know exactly what was going on at her table. She could see Mary and Brad, very much tipsy, laughing, Brad reaching forward, the slight rustle of the tablecloth with Brad sliding his hand up Mary’s thigh, Mary jumping up as if electrocuted, Brad’s immediate recoil, Mary standing tall and looking like an Amazon, Brad’s fervent apology, and finally, Mary stumbling her way towards the door leaving Brad sitting all alone with his head on the table. The elegant woman in the pearls adjacent to them turned to see what was going on. At this point, she stopped looking and aligned Don’s mouth over her own. She then allowed herself to be enveloped by the smell of Don’s expensive aftershave as the cigarette slipped from between her fingers.
Five minutes later, the two of them made their way back to their table. By now, they felt so confident that they didn’t even bother to return separately. Brad was sitting on his chair looking very pale, and Mary was still standing at the doorway, smoking. The sounds of the chairs as Don and Clarice took their seats made her turn. She made her way back to the table in a straight line, twice knocking against the other tables but apologizing not once, and said, “Don, we have to leave. NOW!” Before he could protest, Mary was already picking up their stuff and gathering up her imitation fur stole around her. As Don walked past Clarice, he winked, but Clarice remained immobile, as though the man she had been kissing a minute ago with so much passion were now a total stranger.
With the Bartlets gone, the two of them once again found themselves all alone at the table. Brad looked as if he’d seen a ghost. He was sweating profusely and had unbuttoned his collar. It seemed to Clarice that in a single evening he’d aged a decade. He looked like a man who’d just lost everything he owned, so many times over. Meanwhile, she herself looked very much at ease and lit another cigarette as she sat opposite him with her eyes lowered.
They sat this way in utter silence for around ten minutes or so. During that time, Clarice once again turned her attention to the picture on the wall that had earlier caught her eye, and she had her mouth slightly open. The light from the chandeliers above fell on her beautiful chestnut hair and lent her an ethereal glow. As he saw her sitting there through the film of mist created by all that cigarette smoke, she seemed to him at once the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen. He cursed himself for forgetting that so often.
“I was thinking,” he began. But the words got caught in his throat as she turned to face him and smiled. It caused the same sensation of hollowness in his stomach as during a plane taking off. “I was thinking,” he began again. She smiled again, as if for encouragement. “Its been a long time, Clarice, that we’ve been on a vacation, you know, just the two of us. Clayton has just returned from a week in the Bahamas, and he tells me of this really nice hotel where you have all this authentic food and the view is great, too. I was thinking, maybe next month, after the Goldwyn deal is signed.”
“That’s a lovely idea, Brad,” she said. He could see her pupils dilate.
“And I was also thinking,” he continued, somewhat calmer now. “Next week its your birthday. Do you have, like,” here he struggled to find the right words. “Is there something you really, really wish you could have?”
She laughed, and pondered over this for almost a minute. When she opened her mouth once again, she sounded as though she knew exactly what she wanted. “I’d like you to buy me a pearl necklace,” she said simply.
Yours sincerely,
Jude
