Please note that the characters and situations in this story are fictional
and are not intended to represent any real person, living or dead.

The Fifties

by

Paul G. Bens, Jr.

Do you know what it is like to catch a glimpse of what you want after so many years of feeling--no, of knowing--that you'd never, ever feel that way again? It's that one moment where your heart opens up and lets someone in, something it has refused to do for as long as you can remember. When it happens it's as potent as electricity and as dangerous, but you feel as alive as you could ever be. And you forget the past, the present, the circumstance of existence, society's mores, the wounds that the times have brought, because you know that a single second can change your world. You just don't know how.

We meet at a tiny hotel in Cincinnati, Eugene and I, every Tuesday. We have for months. I was thirty-nine when we met at a bar where respectable men come to meet people like me, those of us who live quietly secreted lives in the edges of the world. They are dark places with sorrowful music where we don't have to speak in whispers of our perversions, but are required to remain careful of authorities who are always looking for one of us to act upon our passions.

Eugene is married. I understand that. I know the rules and I don't care. As long as I can continue to be with him, I just don't care. I do wish we could be open: walk down the street holding hands, enjoy a peck on the cheek at the movies, kiss in the street just because the emotion calls for it. But my kind gets beaten for that, taunted and jeered. I don't want to be murdered for my love. I just want my love.

I always take off work early when we meet. I translate Korean for the U.N. and I make sure that all my work is done so I can get to the hotel, shower, set out the meal I've prepared, turn down the bed. He'll never get divorced. I know that. Especially not for someone like me, someone with whom there is no future. But I don't care about that, even when he speaks of "what ifs" in our pillow talk.

His favorite meal is Italian spaghetti, and I always fix it at home and bring a steeping pan of it to the hotel. The concierge, at first, thought it strange, but the scent of the sauce won him over. Now I fix an extra plate for him, the other in our relationship for whom I have no envy or hatred. He seems grateful, enough to turn a blind eye to what is going on. He knows about Eugene and I. He pretends not to care. Good spaghetti is hard to find.

I bring my grandmother's antique silver candlesticks and two candles. They aren't lavender or pink, but rosy bright tapers that will burn throughout the night of our lovemaking. I set out a lace doily on the dresser, put the candles on it and place ancient bone-fine china on a little table that sits before the window. Even though we are on the 117th floor, I draw the shades. Eugene wants to do what we do in darkness, without fear of prying eyes, though I prefer the light.

Eugene always arrives at seven, except this night. I know something is wrong even before he arrives, but when the door opens nearly an hour later and he looks so beautiful, I forget my doubts. I don't notice that his smile is not as genuine and that his eyes don't sparkle like they always do upon seeing me. I'm in love. He is married. I thought neither one of us cared.

"Alex," he says as he takes me in his arms, "I'm so sorry."

"It's all right," I say. He smells like the rain that covers his jacket, fresh and clean.

"I'm so sorry." He rubs my back.

"Come, sit down," say I and I take his jacket, shake out the damp. His white starched shirt clings to his body in all the right ways. His tie is charmingly askew.

"I can't," he says as he runs his fingers through his slick, dark hair.

"Do you want wine with dinner?"

"Alex, didn't you hear me?" He asks.

"I heard you." I light the candles, ladle sauce over thick plump noodles. "I bought some of that new cheese you like. I thought I'd grate it instead of Parmesan."

"I have to leave."

"Please sit down."

"I mean it. I have to leave."

I take the plates of spaghetti from the table. I dump the noodles into the pan and the sauce spills onto me, leaving a bright red mark over my left breast pocket. "Damn it!"

I go to the bathroom and try to wash it out. I rub and rub but the mark won't leave me. He follows. He watches. I can see in his eyes that he does love me. It is just too difficult.

"I'm sorry." He is. I can tell.

"Well, that's okay, Eugene. We'll just have a longer, better dinner next week."

He shakes his head. "That's not what I meant."

"I know what you meant. But I need to pretend. Just for a little while." I turn to him, looking for permission to feel what I don't want to feel. I think I see a tear in his eye. "Will you stay tonight?"

He walks away, into the bedroom. I can hear his sigh. He wants to stay; every muscle of his strong back tells me the truth of it. He is picturing us naked on the bed, reveling in what we share, feeling himself move inside me in a way his marriage does not afford. It's not just the sex he thinks about, I know that, too. It can't be just the sex.

"Can't we go away somewhere?" I ask, pleading in my own small way. I swore I would never do that again. Ever. And look where I am.

"Alex, if anyone found out..."

"How would they? If we went away somewhere?"

"How would they not?" He says. His words are not cruel, though they hit me that way. They are a reminder that I am a failure. I've tried to pass before. Dress differently. Walk differently. But I am made all the more obvious for the effort.

"But if we went away..."

"There will always be people."

"But not in the country. Somewhere far away."

"Don’t make me say it, Alex," he says, but I do not listen.

"Someplace where we can live together..."

"I'm married!" He says. "I don't want to lose that. I refuse to lose that. It's good."

"If it so good," I say, the weapon of my words pointed at his eyes, "then why me?"

"Because..." He stammers. "Because you're special."

I realize the hurt in him and I soften, as I always do when love starts to leave me. I go to him. Kiss him. He flinches, as if my lips are painful now that he shall never taste them again. "Do you want to?" I ask, taking his hand, trying to lead him to the bed where I know I can bewitch him. He stands his ground, pulls me into him and holds me. We sway ever so slightly.

When we first met, he made my heart so light and hopeful that I wanted to dance. I no longer want to dance. I don't ever want to feel that happy again, for I know it will not last. Not for me. I pull away and in that single second, my world has changed.

"I have to go. Get to the transport station so Har..." He stops, knowing that hearing the name will hurt me.

"Then you better go," I say as I ease him into his jacket.

"Alex," he says, but I turn away, not wanting to see the sorrow in those eyes, not wanting the pity on his face to be my memory of him. I want to remember the smiles and the laughter that brightened me. I know deep in my heart he loves me, or loved me. He is married. I know that. I know the rules. But I also know that he'll never feel whole without me...or someone like me. That doesn't make me feel better. I wish for his happiness, probably even more than for my own.

The door closes silently and I know I'll never see him again. Not in this way. Perhaps we'll run into each other on the street. In our passing eyes, we'll know what we shared, even though those who travel with him will not. I hope he will smile when that happens.

I sit on our bed for the longest time, trying to decide how to get on with my life. "Sad," I say aloud, and the room hears me, changes the hue of the walls from dusty rose to vibrant yellow, brightens the lights, and opens the shades of the window to let the cityscape shine in. It didn't help.

"I need to laugh," I command, and the blank wall opposite the bed shimmers to life from ceiling to floor with images of some situation comedy family, all happy and smiling. I stare at it for a few moments, finding nothing funny about a family I can never be a part of, can never have. I change my mind. "News," I say.

Walter Lancaster's comforting face comes into my room, prepared to perform just for me, and the bass of his voice assaults me from little speakers hidden in the furniture and the walls. "Good evening Alexis Newton. This is Tuesday, February 19, 2153, and here's what's happening in your world."

February 19.

"Alexis Newton," I say, "you are forty years old today."

Always vigilant, Walter Lancaster takes his cue, breaks from a story about the Western Hemisphere President Alwashi's latest diplomatic mission to the East and wishes me, "Happy Birthday, Ms. Newton."

I don't wonder if Eugene remembered, because it doesn't matter now. I start to pack my things, ignoring news that I know doesn't really matter. I look at the candles, my grandmother's candlesticks, the fine china. I leave it all behind. I don't want any of it.

I walk to the nearest transport station, the one at Fountain Square where a bronze woman rains down healing waters from her hands. I see all the people, holding hands: men with their husbands, women with their wives. And I see the singles, some of whom must be like me, with envy in their eyes, and a few women who try to pass, like I had once done. "Times change," someone once said. But they do so far too slowly.

As I reach the fifth level of the square, he is there, waiting on the opposite platform for Air Train number thirty-seven back to Chicago. I am on my way home to New York. The number ten arrives first. Eugene smiles. I smile. He will go home to his marriage, to his husband, and I will go home to my empty apartment. He waves as I step on the train and then he is gone as I am whisked away. In his eyes, I have disappeared, and in that single second I know that we both wonder when the world will change.

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© Copyright 2005, Paul G. Bens, Jr. All rights reserved. Originally published in issue 9 of Chick Flicks e-zine, 2006.