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By Root 904 0

was just as spare and empty as hers, I repeated without thinking why. For some reason we got on the subject of female medicine and I gave her the name of my gynecologist, Dr. Moosbrugger. I said I worked a couple of dumb jobs. She listened to me as if every time I made a commonplace observation it was the most noteworthy event of the day. We talked about cloning, hair dye, and personal web sites. As if we were two musicians, we kept striking chords. I don’t know how else to say it. She leaned forward toward me. She laughed and nodded. For the first time in my life I felt myself hanging on to somebody’s words, hanging on for dear life. By her expression, you could tell that she hung likewise on mine. Tightrope hanging, as we reached for each other’s hearts.

You don’t know that you’ve crossed a border until you’re over on the other side. At that point you see where you’ve got yourself to and whether you’re done for or not. Plenty of friendships have a latent erotic component. But before I had even quite realized that I was attracted to her — well, I knew I was because I wanted to be more like her than I was like myself — the old terrible magic coalesced into the air, and I realized with a sort of shock what I wanted to do. Dear God, I wanted to put my hands on her as a trial, just as a test. I wanted to put a hand on her face or on her arm because I thought that if I did that, I would be so happy. I just wanted to feel her skin but of course I wanted to feel the muscle beneath her skin and I wanted to get at the soul underneath that muscle because I could smell it. I had never gotten a whiff of Bradley’s soul and at that moment at the table in the King’s Armor I had a flash that I never would. The menu of sensations in this post-softball evening was mostly new to me. But at that table I could smell her soul and I wanted it. She being a woman, et cetera, it was scary. But it was uplifting too. That’s what you have to know.

When she laughed she opened her mouth and I saw her teeth. Well, now, and hello. I had a new thought: I love those teeth. Never in my life have I felt so private to myself with those feelings banging around in my skull. They were white and straight, those teeth, and I thought of a line of French poetry I had learned in junior high: God, how good it is to look upon her. I can’t remember the original, only the translation. I shuddered with the excitement and fear of it. I was inventing each moment as it arrived as if I were in a car shooting down the side of a mountain without brakes.

I also felt as if I had been shot. That’s how strong it was. Or maybe punched. Poor Bradley, he had no idea what was happening to me. Poor me also.

Well, she said, I believe I will put some money in the jukebox. She stood up and sauntered through the cigarette smoke over to the Wurlitzer. Behind her the smoke swirled as it filled the space behind her. As I watched the smoke eddy in those patterns in her wake, I realized that my new friend was just about all that I wanted forever and ever and ever. You can’t dictate to yourself what you want. You either want it or you don’t. I suppose I was drunk by then. She put a dollar bill into the jukebox and started programming. She stood in front of that jukebox with her hip canted to the right. She was profiling for my benefit, I noticed.

She walked back slowly to the table. Her ponytail bobbed a little as she walked. I’d never seen a woman walking that comfortably before. Oh she was secure in herself, and in despair and exaltation all at once I wanted to be free of Bradley and secure in her, and I shocked myself so much with that thought that I quelled it. She did a promenade thing through the smoke and the noise. The noise quieted in my head when she walked. I had the sudden perception that she was my royalty. I would bow down to her somehow. I would do it without drawing attention to myself or to her. She cleared a path through the room and the smoke swirled in to fill the space behind her as previously. Nobody noticed her all that much except me. Majesty and control in a woman