Nightwork: Stories

GOOD NIGHT, SWEETHEART

I date an old man, a man so old, I am afraid to see what he is like under his clothes. I am afraid of his old mouth and his old breath. His eyes, when he looks at me, are watery and sad, even when he is laughing, and he is often laughing, just behind me, at a joke I have made. This old man seems to like me. He takes me to dinner; he lets me talk and talk, like boys used to do. My mouth waters with the pleasure of it, telling stories whole, being heard; I order dessert; I flirt. All this heat hatches my face. I feel it, and I am happy, schoolgirl happy, with a man I am afraid to kiss.

I have done my share of kissing — so what am I afraid of? The teeth, their leafy transparency? His teeth remind me of my grandfather’s teeth, and the shock, up close, of all that metal inside his mouth.

I never talk to the old man about my grandfather. My past reads earnest as a yearbook; I mostly keep it to myself. We have an understanding, the old man and I — he keeps the talk since the last wife’s death. Always, he pays for dinner.

I like watching him take out his wallet. He seems very shrewd to me when he takes out his wallet — on his own, no need of me. I can get excited; I admit it. He looks good to me then. His brick red neck, his grizzle — a kind of overgrown look he has — hair in the ears and growing over even the knuckles, I am attracted to this about him, and especially to his knuckles, his hands. His hands are brown and easeful; I want to touch them. So why is it, when he touches me, I flinch?

I worry when the meal is over.

I worry about the walk home.

What does he expect?

His face blurs and tires; there is no sign of wanting, none that I can read. Used to be the body knew; the body made the decisions. I could smell it, all that want, and I knew what to do. The awkwardnesses — putting on a coat, taking up my purse — were only felt as tweaks on the way to the next event. The point was to leave — never as it is now: to wait, to consider. The point was move fast, get home, get anywhere.

Outdoors, indoors, rooms — all rooms — once even on a porch to a house I was helping christen: It happened anywhere, sometimes even with restrictions, insurmountable now, so drunk or dopey, the room turned to fuzz. I had sex when I was tripping, when I was sick with the flu, and often in the middle of my bleeding with so much coming out of me, I should have been embarrassed, not as I was, indifferent to precautions and towels, staining the bed, me, him, seeing his mouth red, but I cannot see this old man’s mouth ever being red.

His age bleaches even his past.

I cannot see this man’s mouth at all.

He has pinched up his muffler. We are walking against the wind around the building where I live. The building is dark; even the doorman is absent. No one is waiting up for me.