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His doubts focused on the act itself. Not the erection, upon which he felt confident he could depend, but rising to the occasion of his own expectations.
He'd claimed that her appearance didn't matter and conceptually, that was true, unless she was fat or even . . . the truth was that he simply could not abide certain shapes of ankle. Certain (dis)arrangements of teeth. His own wife was exquisite and fit, embarking on her dawn jog even while nursing, and for what? For a man who did not set out for a jog, at dawn or ever, and whose devotion did not preclude assignations such as the present one, although the fearless email cowboy was, so far, posture only — for he had been faithful.
Fourteen years. The phrase rise to the occasion of your expectations kept bronco-bulling into his brain in an ironic gospel rhythm, orated by Jesse Jackson or Johnny Cochran, to the point that he was annoyed, as if he were channel-surfing and hit over and over the same footage of the Simpson trial or Diana's funeral.
Only the day before, at lunch, two female colleagues had proclaimed that men were better at separating their work from their personal lives because they knew how to compartmentalize. "They just lock up all those pesky emotions," this (sour, stubby-fingered) woman said, "and get on with things." True. Still, things shifted, like the clothes in a garment bag that has been badly shoved into the overhead bin. In the middle of trying to solve some demanding problem at work he would also "think":
- garment bag [shit all smooshed]
- wife's grilled salmon in marscapone cream sauce
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with pancetta over arugula
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[should have office dinner party]
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[[hate everybody]]
- projected fourth quarter earnings
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[fuck her in kitchen — kids summer camp?]
- meeting at gate
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[perfect grill marks]
— whereupon the whole jagged free association would dissolve into a runaway train of fear and fantasy (wrong gate, plane late, great kiss, fired, Quick! Broom closet!, wife sees fingernail trails on back, divorce, remarry, awful stepkids, everybody hates me, she only loves me because she doesn't know me, if people knew me they would love me) that seemed as if it could only be resolved by the act alone.
Until his sanity itself seemed to depend on him entering this woman he didn't know right this minute.
Or not.
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©2000 Lisa Zeidner and Nerve.com, Inc.
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