Avenue would afford so much less of the pleasure it once did. I couldn’t walk it as I did in my youth. Why has life gone as it has?
I sigh deeply, audibly, and buy figs, picking each one carefully. I shop only at the stands that allow one to touch the fruit and vegetables. I prefer yellow figs; they are sweeter than purple ones. The market people know me well. The good ones let me do as I please. I take my time but this is hardly a demand here. I am thankful for their familiarity. I talk with Sultana, who has sold me the figs, about some kittens she has and think to ask Helen if she’d want to adopt another. Yá sas, yá sas, I call out, leaving the market. Yá sou, Horace, kali mera, Sultana calls out in return.
The harbor is quiet at this time of day. I eat my lunch rather late, usually in my rooms, an old habit I can’t or don’t want to break. I look up from the street. Helen’s not on her terrace and her curtains are drawn again. Is she being a naughty girl? I’ll have to pay the piper with Alicia; no doubt she’ll invite me to tea again, which will be more like an inquisition. It is very odd, I’m completely conscious of this, it is odd that I went to visit John, but I could not help myself, and that’s what I’ll tell Alicia. I had a desperate need to know. Then I’ll add, I’m bored and unhappy, and I will complain about Yannis and pluck at the strings of her heart. Then we will discuss men and love and perhaps she will confess her infatuation with John. After all these years—we have in many ways grown up and old or up and down together—she will ultimately forgive me. She must, as our town is too small for petty enmities.
I open the door and find Yannis on the bed, quietly reading, which I like him to do. He may even be studying to please me. I feel a rush of affection for him and walk over to him on the bed and ruffle his hair. He turns and smiles and I believe he may even feel some real affection for me. Would sex now spoil this precious moment? Lust rises in me and my sex responds, rising too. Yannis undoes my zipper and gently strokes me, until I reach a delicious orgasm. I am with Helen’s John. I am a young man with long hair like his. We are lying side by side and I am as beautiful as he is. Yannis doesn’t want me to bring him to orgasm. This may have been an entirely unselfish act or a mercenary one. But I am happy. I have for a moment forgotten myself, what I truly look like, how foolish I may appear to others and myself.
Yannis moves from the bed. He leaps off it, with terrific ease. I feel old. I am old. Yet, and this surprised me, for I did not expect aging to be like this, my desire continues to be and has remained and remains the same as if I were thirty. It may not be the same as it was when, at seventeen, just a ride on a bus produced an erection, when desire always settled in one’s genitals. No, not like that. But with age, desire suffuses one’s whole body, one’s whole being, and is so much more difficult to satisfy. In a way it is more clearly life itself, life itself that is desire, that is as elusive as fantasy, amorphous fantasy.
I pride myself on being an older man who can rise easily on occasion. I must repeat this to Gwen, which reminds me of why I invited her here. How good it will be to discuss the intimate details of life with a true friend who is, in her way, as strange as I. And she is only twenty years younger, not forty years or more younger than I, as is Helen. Gwen has reached the age of truth. I like to think of my forties that way—the age of truth. And what will Gwen’s truth be?
I must ask Nectaria to find a room for her since it won’t do to have her stay here. I have my habits, my routines which are fixed, to some extent, although they can be broken every once in a while. There is not enough space, in any case, and Gwen will want her own room, I’m certain. I hope she is no longer using sleeping pills, for they make her cranky in the mornings.
I sigh deeply, audibly, and buy figs, picking each one carefully. I shop only at the stands that allow one to touch the fruit and vegetables. I prefer yellow figs; they are sweeter than purple ones. The market people know me well. The good ones let me do as I please. I take my time but this is hardly a demand here. I am thankful for their familiarity. I talk with Sultana, who has sold me the figs, about some kittens she has and think to ask Helen if she’d want to adopt another. Yá sas, yá sas, I call out, leaving the market. Yá sou, Horace, kali mera, Sultana calls out in return.
The harbor is quiet at this time of day. I eat my lunch rather late, usually in my rooms, an old habit I can’t or don’t want to break. I look up from the street. Helen’s not on her terrace and her curtains are drawn again. Is she being a naughty girl? I’ll have to pay the piper with Alicia; no doubt she’ll invite me to tea again, which will be more like an inquisition. It is very odd, I’m completely conscious of this, it is odd that I went to visit John, but I could not help myself, and that’s what I’ll tell Alicia. I had a desperate need to know. Then I’ll add, I’m bored and unhappy, and I will complain about Yannis and pluck at the strings of her heart. Then we will discuss men and love and perhaps she will confess her infatuation with John. After all these years—we have in many ways grown up and old or up and down together—she will ultimately forgive me. She must, as our town is too small for petty enmities.
I open the door and find Yannis on the bed, quietly reading, which I like him to do. He may even be studying to please me. I feel a rush of affection for him and walk over to him on the bed and ruffle his hair. He turns and smiles and I believe he may even feel some real affection for me. Would sex now spoil this precious moment? Lust rises in me and my sex responds, rising too. Yannis undoes my zipper and gently strokes me, until I reach a delicious orgasm. I am with Helen’s John. I am a young man with long hair like his. We are lying side by side and I am as beautiful as he is. Yannis doesn’t want me to bring him to orgasm. This may have been an entirely unselfish act or a mercenary one. But I am happy. I have for a moment forgotten myself, what I truly look like, how foolish I may appear to others and myself.
Yannis moves from the bed. He leaps off it, with terrific ease. I feel old. I am old. Yet, and this surprised me, for I did not expect aging to be like this, my desire continues to be and has remained and remains the same as if I were thirty. It may not be the same as it was when, at seventeen, just a ride on a bus produced an erection, when desire always settled in one’s genitals. No, not like that. But with age, desire suffuses one’s whole body, one’s whole being, and is so much more difficult to satisfy. In a way it is more clearly life itself, life itself that is desire, that is as elusive as fantasy, amorphous fantasy.
I pride myself on being an older man who can rise easily on occasion. I must repeat this to Gwen, which reminds me of why I invited her here. How good it will be to discuss the intimate details of life with a true friend who is, in her way, as strange as I. And she is only twenty years younger, not forty years or more younger than I, as is Helen. Gwen has reached the age of truth. I like to think of my forties that way—the age of truth. And what will Gwen’s truth be?
I must ask Nectaria to find a room for her since it won’t do to have her stay here. I have my habits, my routines which are fixed, to some extent, although they can be broken every once in a while. There is not enough space, in any case, and Gwen will want her own room, I’m certain. I hope she is no longer using sleeping pills, for they make her cranky in the mornings.
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