He saw it all, he felt it all and it came after it was over.  It was that he didn’t want it and so how could it not have been there and like it went back and always was and he sat down and waited for it to mean something.  There was the chair in which he sat and the carpet beneath his feet and the hum of the fridge and the hum of the ceiling fan and the toilet was running and the walls were white and the front door was open there it was outside, the dark cold and inside it was not as dark, not as cold and he waited and there were brief moments of yearning snuffed by their own ambiguity returned by the same and in this way it grew—with each return, with each insistence upon its necessity, the inexorable profundity by which it presented itself and the fickle temperament of its ephemera, fulfilling its role through its very uncertainty of that role : to leave and to return not because it did not know where it belonged nor because it had nowhere to go (though it didn’t) but because it was curious either which way; wanted to know what went on in the midst of its absence but the only way to find out was to return, which ultimately defeated the purpose and so it too, one way or another, bore its own futile yearning and with that it grew while he waited and for a very long time nothing worth mentioning changed…

There she stood in the doorway with a bag of groceries under each arm, not quite able to close the door behind her. Her eyes drifted to the couch as it sat in the living room, black leather and wafting the stale musky odor of Jim’s cigarettes. She moved towards it with a sort of nervous haste and sat down, finding comfort in the familiar way it sank under her weight.  She set the groceries next to her and folded her hands in her lap, her gaze set adrift as if her eyes worked apart from her head, exploring every corner of the room and back again, each swing of her pendulum stare raking in more of the inexorable loneliness confided by the emptiness of the place.  Unpacked boxes littered the otherwise barren room, instilling within it the cold, lifeless quality of a warehouse.  She was here for this now. 

            But Jim would be home soon from wherever he was and the apartment would collapse its abyss and fill into home.  It was killing the time between now and then which summoned Paula’s distress.  She let out a sigh to get it all moving and with some of her mind clear she considered the boxes. She could start with the biggest ones, get those out of the way, then move onto the smaller ones.  But there were more small boxes than big boxes an the smaller ones would take less time and when she was finished with those she would only have a couple more boxes left.  But those would be the big boxes and that would take a while.  Maybe it would be best to approach the unpacking process by necessity.  Unpack the dishes and the stationary and the toiletries and everything else they would need before long and have Jim deal with the rest. But they hadn’t thought to label the boxes and so she couldn’t be sure which box contained what.

            She walked into the bedroom, cluttered with more boxes than the living room and wondered how it was she and Jim had acquired so much stuff.  The apartment smelled of fresh paint not Jim’s cigarettes and where were the windows there was only one it hung above the kitchen sink and she could not tell if that bothered her so she remained in the doorway, curling and uncurling her toes in the carpet, sturdy and flocculent and untrodden, charted yet unexplored territory and she was there alone.  Through the carpet a small glimpse of the future exposed itself—white carpet stained with whatevers, black divots burnt into the fuzz from Jim’s dropped cigarettes, scratches on the walls, dust under the windows and a mess unrestrained by boxes.  Though it was not a good vision, Paula found some consolation in it.  Keen on the idea of bringing that vision to life with Jim in this place she pondered excitedly the stains of the future, smiling at the unpredictability of when the first spill would take place, what would be going on around it and if she would even notice when it happened—or would it simply be there one day, the leavings of some anonymous donor. She took it all in with the nervous excitement one feels upon embarking on a new adventure—relief in the break from monotony and the directionless, uncomfortable quiet that comes with trying to piece it all together, step by step.

They had moved in that afternoon.  Work was no good where they came from and Jim’s mother, who lived only a few blocks away from their old place, was driving them nuts with her constant nagging about when the two of them were going to give her a grandchild.  Time and again they told her that when they had enough money to support a child, they would consider a child.  But work was no good so there was no money and so, until something changed, there would be no grandchild.  It was impossible to tell whether they moved to escape Jim’s mother’s harassment or to appease it, but rent on the new apartment was manageable and the neighborhood was quiet and Jim already had two job interviews lined up. Jim, with his broad shoulders and large, square eyebrows and a smile that was so delightful to Paula because it came so rarely and so arbitrarily and was always so ambiguous as to make one wonder if he was smiling at them or some secret goings on in his head.  That extraordinary smile of his left her perpetually mystified, endeared, filled a gap that, to her, seemed so prominent in other marriages—that eventually there’s nothing more left to learn, nothing left to wonder about.  After so many years together people have each other pretty well figured out.  No more surprises, just a simple loss of intrigue.  But Jim had his smile, beseeching her love over and again.  That smile assured her there was always something more to discover about Jim.

            As much as it was in Paula’s nature to worry, it was just as so that, like any well practiced veteran of neuroticism, she occupy her mind with simple activities to prevent her from worrying too much, and so when she finished putting away the groceries and Jim still wasn’t home she busied herself by preparing dinner, though it was only three o’clock.

It wasn’t until nearly four o’ clock that Paula heard the front door open.  She spun around angrily, ready to lay in on him.  While she was preparing dinner she had written in her head a devastating speech which she planned to deliver to her inconsiderate husband upon his return, but the words scrambled and faltered and muted when she saw in his hand the flowers he had brought for her—not that she was a sucker for flowers, it just so happened that it was the most radiant, magnificent bouquet she had ever seen and so in lieu of her speech she placed the palms of her hands on her man’s cheeks and their kiss was deep and long and loving.  With dinner prepared early, they ate early.  They ate pot roast and potatoes and green beans while they stared mesmerized at the flowers and talked about how sudden it all was. 

They had not yet assembled their bed, so after dinner they cleared some of the boxes in the bedroom and laid their mattress on the floor.  Their first time making love in their new apartment was long and raucous and ended well.  Sleep came easily for both of them.  

Jim was already gone when she woke up.  Was off to his first job interview for a receiver position at a local pharmacy.  Paula would not be working.  She had never worked.  When she was sixteen she received a large inheritance from her grandfather who had passed of kidney failure.  This inheritance, combined with a lifelong battle with agoraphobia provided her with enough reason not to seek work.  The two had agreed that they would dip into the inheritance only when necessary and save the rest for when they had kids and they went to college, so it was up to Jim to support the family.  Jim, who was raised in a traditional household with a mother who did not work, was comfortable with the arrangement.

Paula laid awake in bed, myriad boxes towering over her, seeming to stretch and curve and lean in, begging to be dealt with.  The ceiling fan spun wildly, producing a soft hum audible and white buzzing emphasized the silence.  There she stayed paralyzed for the better part of an hour and when at last it played itself out into diminutive unthreatening innocence she got up, dressed, and made breakfast.

While she ate she considered the boxes in the living room, but again decided it was a job they should tackle together. Those boxes were filled with years of her life with Jim and she thought it would be nice to unpack the contents item by item, pausing to reminisce on each one.  They could talk about the day when this photograph was taken, or how they both owned that record even before they met.  She could tell him why she kept that clock all those years and he could tell her how much he loved that guitar, maybe even play her a song from his old band and she would remember how she pretended the songs were good because he looked so sexy on stage.  Yes, it would be best if they unpacked together, she thought as she chewed her omelet.

She rinsed off her dish and placed it in the sink and smiled at her flowers, running the palm of her hand across the tops of the petals, which tickled her in a way she found entirely sensual.   She smiled at the thought of Jim using the flowers on her later, run the petals across her belly, her inner thighs, the bottoms of her feet.  Perhaps tomorrow they could decorate the bed with the fallen petals of the dying buds.  Her cheeks flushed and her loins blazed.  She removed one of the flowers from the vase and, lifting her shirt, proceeded to run the petals delicately over her belly, pretending it was Jim’s hand which controlled the flower and not her own.  She shivered, sighing with a lascivious frustration that was not altogether unpleasant, and replaced the flower to its vase.  It was a lovely arrangement and she found herself oddly torn between using the petals to adorn their bed and wanting to keep their beauty sharp and fresh.  She wondered if they would live longer if she changed the water in the vase.  Or perhaps the water was now saturated with the stems’ natural nutrients.  She decided that was probably the case, and that she would change the water tomorrow when the nutrients would surely be depleted.  That made a lot of sense to her and, satisfied with her decision she took a long shower where she, upon discovering the removable showerhead, proceeded to masturbate, fantasizing about Jim and the flowers.  She only ever fantasized about Jim, maybe because she didn’t need to fantasize about anyone else and maybe because she thought it would be somehow disloyal to do otherwise.  She didn’t know for sure, mostly because she never really thought about it.  But she was content to have the man of her dreams and the man in her life be the same man.  A dream come true and back again, in and out of her head, in and out of reality like some constant, ethereal sex Jim was performing without ever knowing it.

At once her dissolved around her, interrupted with a crash as the bathroom door slammed open.  She let out a shriek of surprise which roused her loins into a subtle yet exhilarating climax, leaving her trembling with both fear and pleasure.  She fell against the shower wall at the height of her orgasm, dropping the showerhead and covering her privates.  More shrieks escaped her in short, succinct yips in rhythm with her fluttering loins.  One final, loud scream cascaded through her when Jim threw open the shower curtain, grinning mischievously, having performed his trick yet again, pulling out from her imagination and into reality.  He wasted no time in removing his clothes and joined her in the shower.  She had hardly had a chance to come down from the panic that swept her moments ago before Jim finished what she had started with the showerhead, and again by way of his own indulgence. When that was over they took turns washing each other, both of them working to avoid the cold air outside the hot water when it was their turn to do the washing.  Paula’s hands were still trembling as she ran the washcloth over his back and though his expression was illegibly blank, she could sense within him a certain satisfaction at the prevailing effect he had on her.

“Let’s get out of here,” said Jim when Paula finished washing him.

“Sure.  You want me to make you some breakfast?”

“Yeah that sounds good.  It sounds real good.” 

They stepped out of the shower and dried themselves off.  Paula grabbed her jeans and began to dress herself.  “Don’t do that,” said Jim.

“Don’t do what?”

“I like you naked.  Cook me breakfast naked.  I’ll eat it naked.  It’ll be something.”

Paula blushed and turned her head coyly away, not quite hiding a playful grin.  They made their way to the kitchen where Paula noticed a second bouquet of flowers sitting in a vase next to the first.  It wasn’t quite as good as the first one, but still remarkably beautiful.  And it solved her earlier dilemma.  The first bouquet could render its petals to more amorous usage and they could still have another to look at while they ate.  This one was of blue and purple flowers, which stood to make a nice contrast next to the orange, yellow and red bouquet.

“Another one?” she said.  “What for?”

“I got a second interview,” said Jim, plainly and proudly  “Bought those to celebrate.”

“Oh that’s wonderful!”

“Yeah.  I go in on Thursday.  I think I got this one in the bag but I think maybe I’ll go in to interview for that other job tomorrow anyway.  What do you think?”

“I think that’s a safe plan.  I had an omelet earlier.  Would you like an omelet?”

“Yeah.  That’s it.”

Paula warmed her naked body by the heat of the stove.  Even with her back turned to him, she felt Jim’s eyes on her.  It made her feel sexy and she was sure to shift her hips and arch her back, really giving Jim something to look at while she prepared his omelet.  Then Jim said something quite strange. 

“Maybe don’t shave your armpits for a while.”  She did not know how to respond, so she continued about her work, foregoing her teasing movements while she scraped the omelet from the pan and onto a plate and served it to him.  She sat at the opposite end of the table where she had to shift her chair to be able to see him past the two bouquets.

 Jim had not made any attempt to explain himself so finally, she asked “What?”

“Yeah.  I dunno.  Maybe don’t shave your armpits for a while.  See how it feels.  It might be good.”  He shoved a forkful of omelet in his mouth and nodded his approval at the taste.

“You think you’d like that?” she asked.  “You’re into that?” 

“Yeah.  I dunno.  Yeah.  Just a thought.”  His voice was muffled by the food in his mouth and a bit of egg spilled out and caught on the scruff of his chin.  He wiped it away with a napkin.  “You don’t have to if you don’t want to.”  Another forkful.  “I just think… yeah just grow it out.”

“My armpit hair.”

“Yeah.  Just something I’ve been thinking about.  I know it’s silly but it’s just armpit hair.  Be less hassle for you and I think I’d like it.  Just think about it.”

She thought about it.  Had a difficult time making any sense of it.  Jim had always requested, rather assiduously, in fact, that her legs and armpits always be clean-shaven.  He would not make love to her unless she had shaved her legs and armpits that day.  She searched his face for any sign that he wasn’t serious but he just went on eating his omelet as if his request was as normal as if he had asked her to add a little salt to his omelet, or as if nothing had been said at all. The very idea confused her, but she supposed Jim was right.  It was just armpit hair.  She could try it for a while and if she didn’t like it she could always shave it off.  So when Paula took her evening shower she shaved her legs but not her armpits.

The next day Jim was interviewed for a job as a bookkeeper at a racing track. Paula knew he had gotten a second interview for that job as well because he came home with a third bouquet.  When they made love on a bed full of fallen petals her armpits itched.  It was only a small difference, a miniscule growth of hair that Jim did not seem to notice but she noticed.  Her armpits burned and she was unable to climax, her mind too focused on the burning and when Jim was through she left for the bathroom where she rubbed lotion on them, considered shaving, and decided to keep on with it.  The itching would fade in a day or two. 

On Thursday he had his second interview at the pharmacy and Paula knew he got that job because he came home with a fourth bouquet.  And a fifth after his first day at work at the pharmacy and yet a sixth when he accepted the job at the racetrack and again a seventh after his first day working that job.

He presented her with each bouquet as though it was a surprise, producing it from behind his back, handing it to her and telling her the good news as though she could not have guessed by the flowers themselves.  They had not finished unpacking, yet every room was adorned with a luxurious bouquet.  They had run out of vases and so they began splitting them up into multiple bouquets, placing them in cups.  There were two vases on the kitchen table, one on the living room table, one in the bathroom, two cups on the mantle above the fireplace, a mug on each nightstand at either side of their bed and another in a glass on top of the fridge.  Every morning when Jim left for work she would throw out a bouquet or two, and every evening he would come back with another.  Sometimes, while presenting them, he smiled.  Sometimes he didn’t.  She hated when he smiled with the flowers.  There was no mystery there.  She knew what was behind his back.

The boxes had not yet been unpacked.  It had become something of a running joke between them.  Every day at dinner they would insist on unpacking them the following morning, each of them knowing it would not get done.  One morning while Jim was getting ready for work he tripped over one of the boxes and broke his arm.  Paula drove him to the emergency room.  The waiting room was filled with the sick and injured, some of them coughing, some of them bleeding, some of them with ice packs on arms or legs, some sleeping some moaning some in wheelchairs some of them haggard and homeless and helpless and pleading and sniffling and crying and some of them were children.  She sat with Jim as he filled out his paperwork but her agoraphobia was getting the best of her.  Witnessing the many ailments of the patients in wait was absolute torture for Paula, who fiddled with her dress as though she would find wrapped in it some talisman of comfort.  So many miserable people and she needed to be home.  Could not wait with Jim any longer.  He understood.  He was well aware of her own ailment.  She kissed him and told him to call her when he was through so she could pick him up.  As the automatic doors opened in front of her she turned back to see Jim smiling at his arm.  She smiled her own secret smile and left.

Once home again Paula was able to relax and, upon doing so, felt somewhat guilty about leaving Jim alone in that place and so on her way back she stopped off at the flower shop he was so enthusiastic about to pick out her own bouquet for him.

The shop was no bigger than one hundred square feet, packed from top to bottom with flowers both common and exotic, of colors familiar and unimaginable and none of them had the slightest hint of age.  At the far corner of the shop, replacing a group of purple tulips to an empty vase was a young woman. Even from behind Paula had a sense about her.  The florist gave off an air of complete tranquility and though Paula could not see her face she knew she was beautiful, knew she was smiling, knew she was happy.  She watched her without saying a word, admiring the delicate sensibility by which she went about her work, holding the bunch of tulips in one hand, removing a single stem with the other and placing it in the vase not carefully, but knowledgably, as though she had gained their trust.  Paula watched her for some time and when the last of the tulips had been put away she turned around to confirm her beauty, her smile.  Her eyebrows had an interesting angle to them, like two triangles settled above her eyes.  A massive set of dreadlocks were held back by a purple and green bandana and an army green tank top revealed a charmingly plump set of arms.  Paula smiled back at the florist as she passed by rows and rows of her flowers.  She felt a tinge of jealousy at this young girl’s beauty, thinking of all of Jim’s visits to that place and immediately dismissed it as paranoia.

“Hi!” said the florist, her voice soft and enthusiastic.  “What can I do for you?”  Paula informed her that her husband had broken his arm and wanted to get for him a nice get-well bouquet.  “Well isn’t that sweet of you,” said the florist.  “You don’t often see a wife buying flowers for her husband.  Usually it’s the other way around.  I think that’s really nice of you.”

“Thank you,” said Paula.  She considered mentioning her husband to the florist, as they were no doubt acquainted, but, perhaps out of the same paranoia, dismissed that thought as well.  The florist directed her to some premade bouquets and while they were indeed beautiful, it was obvious that Jim had hand picked the bouquets he brought home, so Paula explained to the florist that it would be more personal if she were to hand pick the bouquet herself.

For almost half an hour the florist helped her pick out what she claimed was the most beautiful arrangement she had ever seen.  Paula agreed that it was indeed a magnificent arrangement and thanked her for her help.  As the florist tallied the cost of the flowers, Paula caught a flash of something she wished desperately to ignore, to forget or to somehow unsee, but it was there and so it always would be.  The hair under the florist’s arms was dark brown and quite long.  Longer than her own.  And thicker.  And softer.

“Seventy-four dollars,” said the florist.  Paula pulled the cash out of her wallet with shaking hands and paid for the flowers and walked at an erratic, disoriented pace back to her car.  Once inside she inserted the key in the ignition but did not turn it.  As she sat the florist emerged from her shop, holding the bouquet Paula had just purchased. 

“You forgot these!” she said from outside, extending the arm which held the bouquet towards Paula’s car, revealing every strand of hair underneath.  Paula rolled down the passenger side window.

“Just set them on the seat, please.”

The florist started to say something else just as Paula turned the keys in the ignition, the words lost under the roar of the engine. 

Sam made movies.  Good ones.  I’d see him in magazines and interviews on TV and everyone said he was a big shot and they all wanted to know where the ideas came from and whenever we walked down the street together people would point and whisper in each other’s ears and ooh and ahh and sometimes his fans would come up to us and shake his hand and tell him how he changed their lives and some would ask for his autograph or to take a photo with him.  None of them ever really said anything to me unless they were being polite.  But they wondered about me.  Wondered who I was and why I was hanging out with a big shot like Sam.  I would stand there with my widening gut and receding hairline while his fans fawned over him and I’d keep my mouth shut and put my hands in my pockets and wait it out.  That was the worst.  I hated his fans because they reminded me that I could have been a big shot too if I hadn’t been so full of myself fifteen years ago when I quit on Sam to do something really great.  Now my gut hung over my pants because I sat in a cubicle all day and drank too much and never got a chance to exercise while Sam wrote and directed and starred in all his movies and was quite handsome for forty. 

            Gorgeous women would approach him.  Real killers.  I’d look at them and know they weren’t for me and never would be, which always made me a little nauseous.  The girls would talk to Sam, nervous and flirting and flaunting it—offering their sex to him like display merchandise.  He didn’t cheat on his wife often, but every once in a while a real goddess would emerge from the flock and I would see him slip his number in her coat pocket, smiling coyly with his charming lips and charming jaw and charming eyes and charming gestures.  I guess there are some things no man can turn down. I could have given it to them better than Sam because I needed it more.  You could say I hated him a little bit for that, but Sam was a good guy and never talked to me about his affairs with those women.

            The thing about Sam though was that he was a weirdo. I ignored it mostly but I had to wonder if I was the only one who really knew he was a weirdo.  You see, Sam had a thirteen-year-old son whom he put in all his movies.   That in itself wasn’t so weird—the kid could act—but what was weird was that his son was killed in every one of those movies.  Car wreck, crossfire from a gunfight, disease, suicide, murder, drowning, explosion, whatever.  Somehow the kid always ended up dead.  Still, they were good deaths that made people tear up and applaud and whisper to each other in the theater as they thought about their own deaths or the deaths of their kids.  I thought a lot about why Sam liked killing his son in his movies, but I was a good guy too.  I never talked to Sam about it.

            I think it’s safe to say my bitterness towards Sam started around when his first movie came out.  I was working on a screenplay that I felt pretty good about when one day as I was driving down Sunset Strip I saw this billboard with his name and his face splashed all over it.  He was wearing that charming smile and his finger was pointed up to the sky for some reason.

            After I saw that billboard I drove home and began working diligently on my screenplay.  I would type and type until I was too tired and drunk to hold my head up.  I hung corkboards on all of my walls, pinning up character outlines and potential plot twists and rough drafts of scenes and I would study them for a while, rubbing my chin and pacing back and forth with a bottle and a cigarette, feeling like a real screenwriter, a real genius in the making.  Then I’d get back to work and hammer out a few pages, thinking about Sam and his billboard.

            Then my screenplay was finished and I wasn’t sure where to go from there.  I thought about calling Sam and asking him to put in a good word for me to his agent but decided against it.  I had quit on Sam with the belief that I could do something great without him and that’s what I was going to do.  I pitched the screenplay here and there, traded a few copies for their weight in rejection slips.  Then, when Sam’s movie hit theaters I went to see it.  I had to admit that it was good even though I didn’t want to.  As hard as it was to watch the first time, I went to see it again the next day.  And the day after that and the day after that.  For a week and a half I watched his movie until I was able to recognize every flaw, every plot hole, every bit he had taken from when he and I worked together until I felt better about his movie being a “box office hit” because I knew it wasn’t really any good.

            I piddled around with a second screenplay.  I was hardly halfway through it when I saw Sam on another billboard advertising his next movie.  I gave up writing screenplays.

            It had been a little over three years since I had last seen Sam when he phoned me to tell me he had some big news and ask if I could meet him for lunch the next day.  “On me, baby!”  I agreed to meet him.

            We met at this nice Jewish deli in West LA.  By the time I arrived Sam was already seated, dressed sharply in a brown three-piece.  He stood up to greet me, flashing his immaculate smile and motioned for me to have a seat.

            “Shit man, that’s a nice suit.  Wish I would have dressed up.”

            “Don’t even worry about it.  How the hell are you?  It’s been way too long, baby!” Sam had never said baby before.  Must be show biz talk.

            “I’m okay.  Not really anything to talk about.”

            “Really?  Not working on any screenplays?  You know I could probably put in a good word for you if you had something good going.”

            “Maybe I’ll take you up on that.”  I think we both knew I wouldn’t.  He was safe.  “But let’s forget about that for now.  What’s your big news?”

            “Oh my god.  I’m getting married.”  He said it sort of deadpan so I wasn’t sure how to react.

            “Hey…!  That’s… great!  Who is she?”

            “She’s kind of, um… well she’s this girl.  I haven’t been seeing her long but I knocked her up.  She’s a good woman so I figure what the hell, right?”

            “I guess that’s the way you gotta do it.”

            “Exactly.”

            The rest of the meal went well.  We talked about all the bad movies we made together in college, about the good ol’ times in the good ol’ days.  He never once mentioned his recent success and I didn’t bring it up either.  Sam was a good guy.  I had forgotten that.

            We began spending a lot of time together.  I think it was his attempt at one last grasp towards something normal and free before he got married, which was fine by me.  He paid for everything: lunches and drinks and trips to museums and movies and one night we even tried to sneak up to the Hollywood sign to get drunk but were spotted by a security camera.  We dove over a fence into the mountains to hide from the cops and I landed in a pile of poison oak and Sam paid for the calamine lotion. 

In all that time we spent together I kept expecting him to ask me to be his best man but it never happened.  On the day of the wedding I discovered that the position had gone to some guy who was in the biz with him.  I guess that’s how those things go.  At the reception Sam introduced me as an up and coming screenwriter to the members of his new tribe.  When they inquired about my work I shrugged my shoulders and drank my drink and rambled off some bullshit until they lost interest.  I felt bad for Sam, sticking up for me in front of his movie buddies only to have me act foolish, but he didn’t seem to mind.  Sam was a good guy.

            The baby came shortly after the wedding and for a while I didn’t see Sam.  He called sometimes to fill me in on life with his new family, leaving out the parts that had to do with his movies, which I appreciated.  The conversations were always pleasant.  Then I’d go to work in my cubicle and remember that while I was in there, Sam was out making movies.  That was never pleasant.  Some nights I’d come home thinking I had a great idea for a screenplay, but whenever I sat down to start it I’d remember Sam and all his movies and all his billboards and walk away from the page and brush my teeth, lay out my clothes for the next morning, have a few nips at the bottle and go to sleep.

Then his next movie came out and that was the first one where his son died and that made me feel a whole lot better.  Sam was a good guy, but he was as screwy as the rest of us.  Then the next one came out and again he killed his son.  This went on for many years in many movies and I never knew what his wife had to say about that because Sam and I never talked about his movies.  Anyway, I was glad he kept killing his son.

            One afternoon, a few days after my fortieth birthday, Sam invited me to a party.  The house where the party was held reeked of money.  There was a pool outside with lots of people lounging and drinking around it but nobody was swimming.  A fireplace roared in the living room as people in white suits made their rounds with platters of hors d’oeuvres and Champaign and I felt as awkward as I had at his wedding because everyone around me was in nice suits and I was in a decent suit but it didn’t fit me quite right because I had bought mine untailored at a department store.  Sam introduced me as he had before: as an up and coming screenwriter, which I resented to a certain degree but let it go because the tribe would at least feign interest in me and that was better than being snubbed altogether. 

The party was full of young girls in skimpy outfits all drinking and dancing and having a good time and I sat on a couch and drank expensive whiskey and watched them.  Sam came and sat next to me to make sure I was enjoying myself.  I told him I was.  We started in on a bottle of scotch and were talking about the good ol’ times in the good ol’ days and that was alright but I knew those good ol’ days belonged only to me now.  Sam’s days were better than ever. 

The drunk was getting heavy and I sensed something ugly bubbling up inside me when this girl of about twenty approached me.  She was wearing a short skirt and a skinny top and her hair fell over her shoulders like a bottle of spilt ink.  Without a word she made herself comfortable on my lap, swinging her arm around my neck, giggling and playing with my suit collar.  Sam smiled and said, “I think she likes you.”

            “Is that true?”  I asked her.  “Do you like me?”

            “I’ve always had a thing for fat, balding Jews.”

            At first I thought she was making fun of me but she kissed my neck and Sam laughed and I laughed and I kissed her back.  She had a spritely, acrobatic tongue and strong, smooth thighs and her breasts heaved in my face and I started growing hard against her.  She noticed, grabbed it, stood up, and started leading me away from the party.  I looked back at Sam, who, with that sickeningly charming smile that I had never really liked until now, shrugged and gave me a big cheesy thumbs-up. 

            The girl, who’s name I did not know, walked me down a long hallway and into a bedroom.  I didn’t know who the house belonged to but whoever it was had enough money to put a chandelier in a guest bedroom.  The girl threw me onto the bed and performed a slow, drunken striptease.  A little clumsy but sexy nonetheless. Once completely naked she pounced on me, tore off my ill-fitted suit, and went down, working me in her mouth with that acrobatic tongue of hers.  I couldn’t believe my luck.  Actually, the situation at hand seemed impossible, like I didn’t deserve it.  Having this beautiful, young woman on top of me felt wrong somehow, like I was just some fly in the ice cube of her day, resting in the glass of her life and soon she would discover that fly, tossing it to the floor, forgetting about it while the ice melted around it and perhaps it would be brought back to life but its wings would be too damp for flight and so it would stay there, cold and withering while the party raged on around it. 

            I was a stranger to myself with this woman and, as badly as I wanted her, I felt myself going soft, resigned to a rubbery, wet log resting against my thigh.  Sam grinned his charming grin at me in my mind’s eye.  That was it.  I threw her off the bed and kicked her on her ass right out the door and into the party.  We were both naked and everyone was looking at us.  At the flaccid, useless muscle between my legs.  Sam turned away from his important friends, raising his eyebrows and frowning at me with a look of great concern.

            “Hey Sam!” I shouted, “If you want your kid dead so badly, why don’t you pay me one of your millions to take care of it for you!”  The mouths of every one of the party’s attendees dropped open in silent screams of flabbergast.  All except for one.  Sam, good guy that he was, produced the most genuine smile I had ever seen on a man.  He walked past me and into the guest room, grabbed my clothes, and handed them to me.  He put his arm around my shoulder and gently walked me to the front door where, in spite of my nakedness, he gave me a strong, friendly hug, and let me out.

The only time I saw Sam after that was onscreen at his next movie.  It was pretty a good movie and when it was over I smiled because it was obvious he had been thinking of me when he made it.  His son had survived the whole goddam thing.