The Middlesteins(18)
These are the things Middlestein told himself as he drove to the half hooker’s house, the things that might make what he was doing okay in his book. If a friend of his told him he had done the same, Middlestein would like to think he wouldn’t have judged. World’s oldest profession. Biblical. Don’t knock it till you try it.
She lived two towns over from him; the streets were empty, and he arrived at her condo fifteen minutes early—now there’s no traffic, he thought, just when I could use a little traffic—so he drove around in circles for a while; past a massive Kmart with a gardening center that made him sentimental for his backyard, even though his wife would never let him touch a thing; strip mall, strip mall, strip mall; a drive-through hot dog stand, which he contemplated visiting, only he didn’t want hot dog breath; the high school his grandkids would attend in two years, and where he hoped he would see them graduate—they were both so bright, he bragged about them to everyone he knew, they were the best thing that had happened to their family in a long time and he was going to fight till the end to make sure he got to have them in his life, his daughter-in-law be damned—and then, after exactly seven minutes, he turned around and headed back to Tracy’s condo, past the sparkling, bubbling fountain in front, parking in a guest spot as instructed, and finally hustling his way up to her apartment. He was more eager than he had realized, and he found himself out of breath before he reached the last flight of stairs. Is this really happening? he asked himself. Yes, it is.
She greeted him with a kiss on the cheek and a gentle hand on his arm. She was wearing this sort of half-slip kind of top. It looked like lingerie but also it could just be a really nice shirt—what did he know about fashion? It was pink, and she had blown her black hair straight, so it was even longer than usual. The black fell against the pink silkiness, and it looked phenomenal. His penis grew slightly hard.
Inside, a plinky jazz song played. Her apartment was three times the size of his. Can I even afford her? It was done up in a frilly decor, with a hodgepodge of antiques that looked as if she had gone from house to house over a series of decades and plucked just one piece of furniture from each: There was a long, narrow, modern glass kitchen table with plastic white chairs, and a molded plywood chair next to a shag rug, a diner-style table in the coffee nook, a club chair, a Mission oak armoire, piece after piece jammed next to one another, and that was just in the first room he entered. In the middle of it all was a giant red velvet fainting couch, and it was there that Tracy directed him to sit. She probably lay on it all the time, he thought, and he pictured her lying on it dramatically, little puffs of breath emanating slowly from her mouth.
“This is a nice place,” he said.
“Thanks,” she said. “I inherited it.”
On a tiny bronze coffee table next to the couch, there was a framed picture of her with a white dog. Middlestein pointed to it. “Adorable,” he said.
“She was,” said Tracy. “Mitzi died a year ago.” She jutted out her lower lip and made a sad face. “It was sad,” she said. “I’m saving up to buy a new one, but they’re so expensive. She was a bichon frisé. I always have bichons frisés. I’ve had three. You have to go through a breeder, you know. You should never use a pet store.”
“Oh, yeah, why not?” he said.
“They’re so mean to the puppies,” she said, and she looked sincerely distressed. She snapped out of it almost instantly. “Let’s not talk about this. It’s depressing. Let’s talk about happy things. Like you and me.” She put one hand on his knee and the other in his hand. “I knew you wouldn’t be able to stay away. I had a feeling about you.” She kissed him.
This was an out-of-sight kiss for Middlestein for two reasons: one, because he was not expecting it, and second, because that Tracy was a phenomenal kisser. She had soft but firm lips, and she was good at reading men and knew instinctively what they wanted, whether they wanted to be in charge or whether she needed to take control. She made gentle noises of joy, or dark dirty laughs, whatever she thought they needed to hear. This translated into the bedroom of course, too. She’d be on top, bottom, sideways, whatever. She hadn’t enjoyed sex in years, what did she care anyway? Much older men had ground that desire out of her since she’d been a teenager. She just wanted a new dog. Why hadn’t anyone bought her a dog yet? Maybe this guy would buy her a dog, what was his name again?
Middlestein let himself be consumed by the kiss for a moment longer, and then his mind wandered to his current self, his physical form, his sixty-year-old body, which was still lean enough—he had been a runner for years, at least until his knees gave out a few years ago—but sagged in parts. He had an old-man chest, the flesh around the nipples puffy yet drooping, and he had gray hair everywhere, on his chest and back and around his penis. He wasn’t terrible-looking naked, but there was no hiding who he was either. He didn’t know if he could contend with even a glimmer of disappointment on Tracy’s practiced expression. Then he realized it wasn’t so much about being naked with her as much as it was about seeing her naked. Seeing a real-life, healthy woman in the nude, up close, personally, intimately, safely. But how would that work? Was it even worth whatever it was going to cost him?
He pulled away from her, allowing himself to touch her hair, and then her shoulder, which he noted later must have been dusted with glitter, as he found traces of it on his fingertips, and on his pants.