She’d given me no reason to think I could win her. Yet I’d pursued her anyway. Dinah was like an exiled queen, chary and aloof, trusting no one. And I was the bastard prince, castoff from another kingdom, who’d dared to enter her tower. But instead of taking something, I gave her something. I showed her my wounds, and coaxed her into revealing her own. I taught her to trust me.
And then I betrayed that trust. True, it had been unintentional. Nevertheless, it had happened. My former place-holder girlfriend Jelli counselled me to confess: “If she’s the one, Mitch, she’ll forgive you.”
So, that night, over pizza at Dinah’s studio apartment, I slid into a no-big-deal rendition of “I Massaged an Older Woman I Wasn’t Even Remotely Attracted To.” It had gone too far, I conceded (omitting the fact that “too far” meant all the way.) Dinah had had multiple lovers (as had I). So I hoped she’d respond with an unflappable “pfft.” She didn’t.
She hurled her dinner plate at me. “I trusted you,” she said, “and you’ve shattered that trust!” I looked down at the splinters of the glass the plate had struck, and then looked up and asked her to forgive me.
“Why should I?” she asked.
“So, are we over?”
“Probably. I don’t know. But right now we have to meet Ashley at the theatre.” Ashley Carr was co-founder of our university’s Drama program. We’d arranged to see a movie with him at the Wilshire Theatre in Fullerton.
The theatre was cold. Or maybe it was just me; my stomach wouldn’t stop quivering. We hadn’t spoken a word on the way there. Dinah got up and left halfway through the movie. Fifteen minutes later, I searched the lobby. Cracked the door to the Women’s room. Called her name. She wasn’t in the theatre.
I went outside and scanned the street in front. Nothing. Circled the block, and saw no one. Tried the next two blocks in either direction. Ducked into a bar, and described her to the bartender. “Yeah. Looker. Think she mighta left with someone.”
I tried to list her as a missing person at a nearby police station. “You married?” asked the baggy-eyed night-deskman. “No? Well, no offence, but if every girlfriend or boyfriend who disappears…you know what I mean?”
I drove back to Dinah’s apartment, expecting to find here there. Knocked. Silence. Pulled her spare key out from under the potted salvias, and let myself in. After anxiety-praying for hours, I finally fell asleep.
Well before sunrise, I heard a mechanical roar, jumped up and opened the door. A faceless motorcyclist rumbled away as Dinah walked past me into her apartment.
“What happened?”
“What do you think? I need a shower, and some sleep. Come back tonight if you want to talk.”
I did. It was dusk when I returned. Crossing the abyss of silence, I asked, “Are you going to see him again?”
“No,” Dinah grunted. “I don’t even know his name.”
“So, revenge sex?”
“Call it that, if you want. Anyway, now were even. I had to put myself down where you are if I was going to stay with you. And I want to. I think. Do you still want me?”
“Yes.”
“All right. Maybe we can climb out of this pit together.”
I followed Dinah into her walk-in closet. She hung up her coat, then turned and wept into my chest. She lowered herself to the floor in the semi-darkness, and I joined her there. We kissed as we never had before, vulnerably, desperately. Finally, she said, “I think we should stop having sex. Isn’t that what your new faith teaches? I mean, until we’re…”
“Married? Kind of, I think. But right after this.” She laughed. We talked about the possibility of getting married. And then we made love for what we knew…
Would be the last time.
Like this:
Like Loading...
