Wednesday, May 7  

Age

Vic turned 29 a month ago. Sometimes, when her feet hurt from walking or when she thinks about the distance between then and now, she feels much older. She doesn't feel like she looks 29, whatever 29 is supposed to look like, but she worries that her insides may have aged without her knowledge. That one day, she will wake up and age will have leaked out of her, crept up on her, ontop of her. She cares only because she knows she won't be able to get away with shit anymore when that day comes.

age: noun 1. A particular time notable for its distinctive characteristics 2. A long time verb 1. To grow old 2. To bring or come to full development.

It's been 4 days since she's seen Jon. She is surprised that she doesn't miss him more than she does. But she realizes he was just a pair of hands in the end. That other pairs of hands are still available to her if she doesn't decide to call his back.

But it is on this 4th day of his being gone and her being easy about it (and therefore a very vulnerable day since everyone knows that going without sex after having nearly drowned in it for weeks is not an easy stage), it's on this 4th, dry, libidinously dead day that William calls.

At 2:30 in the morning, her cell phone rings. Twice. The first time, she is barely brought out of sleep. The second time, she reaches over to the bedside table and presses "answer". She hasn't heard William's voice this rough and wet in over a year. He does not use this voice when they pretend to be friends and have lunch together at the restaurant in Little Italy.

"I feel like I need to sleep beside you," he says. And so it begins again. They enter the age of him wanting her back. As opposed to her wanting him back. It comes and goes, like fashion. It's retro chic. And you want it the way you secretly want to wear flared jeans and cord jackets but don't like to admit it.

"Why?" Vic asks carefully. She does not want to have sex. With anyone really except Jon, but most especially not with William because it never ends well.

"Not for sex," he assures her quickly. "I feel lonely for you. I just want to be beside you. I won’t keep you up. I still have the key you gave me for the cats when you went away."

She pauses and then, knowing she shouldn’t, she tells him it’s okay if he wants to let himself in.

An hour later, the outside door opens and William is suddenly there in the dark. He undresses and slips into bed beside her. He whispers to her sleep ear, "I wish we could just have gotten married."

Vic notes that a lot of the men she's met, dated, fucked in the last year have used the word 'marriage'. She wonders why that is. It must be that they’re aging. Her included.

"Where was that offer 2 years ago?" she replies sleepily and drifts back into unconsciousness. She dreams about Jon and wakes up holding Williams hand.

When she lifts herself quietly out of bed to get ready for work, she inspects William's perfect blond hair. His pale, freckled skin. His guitar calloused hands. And she nearly doubles over with the pain it causes her.

She feels her age. She feels it bad.