"Wolf" - a reading (on YouTube)
He scanned the lounge for prospects, focusing on the margins. Somewhere among them was the one he would wake up next to, hopefully not screaming this time. That seemed to disturb them more than anything he did with them, though he was never quite certain. The kind that were attracted to him now always kept their own mask fixed upon their face just as he did his.
He never sought them out, no more than by frequenting the places where they gathered. Perhaps they thought he was one of them, desperate for any human contact, any touch no matter how brief or harsh. The luckless, the lonely, the broken. Perhaps he was one of them after all.
Alcohol fueled the fire in his side. The pain was a relief from the bland sameness of his day to day. The numbness, the blackness, the leprosy that had dulled his heart but left his fingers feeling, spreading like the angry lines of poison that flowed through his veins since she was gone. The stranger who had taken her from him had been a drunk, too. He imitated that man now, perhaps hoping it would bring her back.
He ignored the ones who reminded him of her. Their hair, their eyes, their bodies, their posture, nothing could be similar. And none could seem too caring. That left him the ones who defined themselves by what the world did to them, the ones who no longer complained. The ones who seemed to want confirmation of what they thought they deserved. And he was more than willing to provide it, if only because they were not her and never could be.
As he scanned the dimly lit room, he spotted a prospect in red sitting at the bar. Alone, no companions to keep her safe, overtly playing with a ring, though not a wedding ring, ignoring the young man next to her who was trying to chat her up with a free drink and a line she'd heard each of a thousand nights before. When her eyes wandered to his, he knew. He shook his head lightly at the ineptness of his rival before he looked away. He was certain that within minutes she would occupy the empty seat beside him if only to escape the other predators, not realizing that beneath the gray, tailored wool, he, too, was a wolf.
"Is this seat taken?" Her voice was as sweet and clear as vodka over ice.
A clever man might have responded by saying, It is now, or, I was saving it for you. He simply said, "No."
She settled in beside him, adjusting her skirt while casting uneasy glances toward the man at the bar now staring openly at them both.
"What a creep," she said. "Can you believe he actually asked my bra size? Some guys just don't get it." She turned to face him completely. "Buy me a drink."
He didn't bother giving her the once over, just met her eyes.
"I'll pay you back before we leave," she added as if she believed it. "I just want to get that guy off of me."
He flicked his hand toward the bartender and held up two fingers, pointing first to her then himself.
"Thanks. I owe you," she said with relief.
He then looked at the power player still at the bar, staring about a yard beyond the man's left shoulder, which made it appear as though he was looking right through him. He kept his face expressionless as if the other man didn't exist. The lack of acknowledgment always unnerved them. The younger man glared back with a mixture of hatred and envy for a moment without getting a reaction before he finally broke off, rose and turned to leave, no doubt in search of easier prey.
"That's two I owe you," she said sweetly as she watched his back retreat toward the door. "I think you're the only one in here who hasn't hit on me."
He almost smiled.
---
He awoke chilled by sweat on the edge of a scream. His heart pounded as he waited for the phone to ring again as it had the night he'd received the news. It took him a moment to figure out that it hadn't rung, that it wasn't going to ring, that this wasn't that night. That night was gone, dead. This was just a pale memory.
Four thirty, he knew without looking at the clock. As he slowed his breathing from a series of gasps, he smelled her scent mixed with brandy and the dry air of a hotel. Her steady breathing told him his near scream hadn't awakened her. Nor was he likely to after the night they'd spent, unless she was an unusually light sleeper.
He tried to remember anything about her but couldn't. They all blended together after so many. He rarely remembered specifics, just that in the end they usually said they had never done anything like that before. From the sounds they made, he believed them. Most were so eager to please he could do nearly anything he wanted and often had. In that they were all so unlike her.
But she was gone now and someone had to pay.
The brandy went to cotton in his mouth, her sweat to salt, her sweet taste to bitterness. He needed water, needed air. He needed space. He needed to be alone.
He rose slowly, quietly. Whose room was this anyway? His eyes adjusted to the pink light of sodium vapor oozing around the curtains. It was hers, always hers. He spotted the pile of co-mingled clothing at the foot of the bed, dropped where it had been stripped away like an old scab revealing tender skin beneath. He untangled each article of his from hers, and still managed to come up with her bra clinging to his shirt. Curiosity overcame him. He smiled as he read the label. Why ask when they came off so easily and then you could discover for yourself?
As flashes of the previous evening came back to him, his head went from dry to aching. He had been insistent, pressing, stretching but never piercing her flexible moral boundaries. She, too, would ache in the morning, from the alcohol, the activity, and the guilt of unexpected pleasure. So many of them thanked him if they stirred before he left, confiding in the darkness they had always been curious, that they were glad they had explored with someone like him. The few he saw in the stark light of morning rarely did more than smile with downcast eyes and burning cheeks as they sipped their lattes at the checkout desk, secretly hoping he would not approach. Their memory of the night before was like a dream, fleeting, disjointed yet filled with emotion. Any words he would speak would jar them back into the reality of what they had done, the entanglements, the consequences. He always let them keep their illusions. What they never knew was that the night wasn't about them at all, except in the most abstract sense of who they weren't.
He gathered his clothes and padded silently toward the bathroom. The light seeping under the door from the hall and the red LED of the hairdryer hanging by sink were just enough for him to dress, just enough for him to wipe his face with a cool, damp cloth. But not enough for him to see his reflection in the mirror, the one she would no longer recognize if she were still alive. The feral creature he had become without her.
© 2007 Edward P. Morgan III
