A DIM BEDROOM, sprawled on the bed. She told me that she had sworn off men, for all time, on account of our serious inadequacies in every department, but that didn’t stop her from walking in and climbing into bed alongside of me, while we watched some long-forgotten TV show from the Nineties, something action fantasy, like Xena: Warrior Princess. We began to kiss then, which surprised me, but I went with it, then quickly I had the shirt up, revealing pleasant rolls of womanly middle-aged fat. Like pre-baked pastry dough. I disappeared into her chest with soft and long licks until her son came into the room for a moment. With a certain deftness I repositioned us in an instant, so that it looked like we were just reclining.
The moment he was gone, the sex continued. I wore a condom and she inserted a female condom, which looked like one of those clear plastic bags you get at the supermarket, you know, the kinds you fill up with bananas or chestnuts. The friction of my plastic against her plastic rendered the whole experience double plastic. I couldn’t feel a thing. I didn’t know if anything was happening. Somehow I had lost all sensation in my body. Her own freckled face wore a haunted, sleepy expression. “Are we making love?” I asked her. “Because I just can’t tell.”
After the double plastic incident, I left the house, took a long drive. It was a sunny day, I was cruising down some boulevard in a sprawl of gas stations, supermarkets, and telephone poles. Sonja was there, waiting on the street corner, about eight months pregnant. She looked beautiful with her blonde hair, all dressed in black, plus that big fat gut showing beneath her.
What else was there to do but give her a ride?
“But why are you still being nice to me?” she asked. “Can’t you see I’m carrying another man’s child?” She wasn’t very happy about being treated so royally by me, with the chauffeur escort business — we had just pulled into a home improvement store parking lot. “Because you are you,” I told her. “And I still like you, wherever you happen to be in your life.” I went on, “Plus I am going to miss you. Once that baby pops out, you are going to disappear for a while. You are going to be in the baby cave or cocoon. It’ll be years before we ever have the chance to have a normal conversation again.” Sonja found all of this disarming, but she softened upon hearing it.
Inside the home improvement store, there was a carnival, and Sonja paid a few euros to throw giant balls at some targets. Maybe she would get a prize. She threw another ball and struck the target. Lights began to flash. Then my eldest daughter walked by and started to watch Sonja. “Who is that woman?” she said, almost in awe of this pregnant Amazonian throwing balls at a home improvement store carnival. “She is amazingly beautiful,” she said, as if she was observing an especially colorful fish at an aquarium. “She is,” was all I could say to that. “She is.”
north! 