Majestic

  

She should be over joyed being here, in a place like this, she thinks as she fingers the elaborate wooden carved bed frame, something out of a Charles Dickens novel, as is the whole sea side town they have come to for the weekend.

She moves over to the bay windows where she looks out on Main Street and can just see the small shops that line either side, candy and ice cream, wind chimes and such, things that might please her another time, but not now.

She keeps looking at her phone, waiting for it to ping with the arrival of a text she knows will not come.

“He’s not thinking of me,” she thinks, sadly, a bit angry at him, at herself, thinking she’s been deserted, and perhaps part of the reason she agreed to come here with this other man, maybe to made the man she really wants a little jealous, only the whole plan seems to have backfired, and she’s here, alone with him, for an extended weekend.

Her man is somewhere else,, maybe with someone else, too, as if they have come up with the same nasty idea at the same time.

What do they say, great minds and all that? And she wonders if he is as miserable being with the other woman, as she is being with this other man?

“Is something wrong?” this man asks, calling from where he is unpacking his bags near the dresser, a familiar face, who has planned this little get away for some time, his wife somewhere visiting relatives elsewhere, as far away as her man is from her, only this man is relieved where she is in pain.

“No, everything is fine,” she calls back, aware of how hollow her lie sounds.

She should be grateful.  This man is trying to make this a special weekend for her, opening up his purse strings for something very special, something memorable, a tender memory she might take home and cherish for the rest of the summer, only he’s not the man she wants, and he in some ways knows it, doesn’t care, all he wants to do is fuck her, and she knows that, too.

She wants love; he wants sex and is willing to pretty it all up to make it seem something more, something romantic, only it just isn’t love regardless of how he packages it.

“Are you expecting a call?” he asks, coming back towards the large bed with its huge white pillows, glowing a bit in the slanted sea side sunshine, a religious community, she thinks, giggling a bit inside when imagining what all the good Christians with their prayer books might think if they sense what he and she have planned.

“No, not really,” she says, and turns the phone off, reluctantly, cutting off her last possible contact and the last possible chance she might hear from him over the weekend.

She sighs. She owes it to him to give him a good time after all the trouble and expense, this man who she agreed to come with. She should at least pretend to have fun.

She doesn’t expect love from him; and she’s not dead set against getting a bit of pleasure from him, maybe he’ll be as good a lover as he claims he is.

Perhaps he can even satisfy her. Sometimes all she can expect from any man is for them to make her cum.

Only he wants to have sex right away and gets a bit suspicious when she says she wants to go for a walk on the beach first, stalling the inevitable for a little while anyway, good or bad, satisfying or not.

Her brain is spinning and she is overwhelmed with confused feelings, and hopes she won’t wake up early in the morning like she sometimes does when she’s alone at home, that hamster in her brain rallying around on the wheel in her head, thinking of him then and now, the man she wants to be with and can’t, and regardless of how much this man spent on this little adventure, she wants to be with the other man, basking here in luxury or even in some sleazy motel. Being with him anywhere is enough.

She keeps thinking about the phone, how he might text, and how she would not know about it, and cannot answer. He – that distant he – might think she doesn’t care.

Reluctantly, this man leads her out, through the lush halls of the hotel, down the wide gilded steps to the street, then up the street, in the opposite direction of the stores to the wide street bordering the beach, she pausing to glance at the open air place of prayer with its seats facing the ocean and the large wooden cross sticking up out of the sand.

They walk to the end of the pier that points out into the waves, a cluster of stone at its feet, a strong breeze blowing back her hair as she clings to the railing, a breeze that helps clear her head.

“I suppose to be having a good time,” she thinks. “Why am I here if I’m not?”

There is something awesome about this place, cluttered with its religious icons, as if she was in a temple built for ancient gods, gods that walked with her, instead of the man whom she has come with.

She pretends she is there with the man she loves, holding his hand, feeling his loving touch, seeing his loving look, hearing his loving words whispered in her ears.

Then when this man presses against her, kissing her passionately, she pretends it is the man she loves, wishing more than anything it was.

They break off the embrace to watch the sun set, its long glittering reflection stretching the whole way down the shore line, a magical moment, imagined being with that other man.

But the whole illusion bursts when this man insists they go back to the hotel.

“We came here to fuck,” he said, “not look at pretty sunsets.”

Fucking is all he ever thinks about, as she does, too, but as much as she needs to, she again craves the other man, his touch, his scent.

This man wants to get as much fucking in as he can for the weekend and wants to start before they go to dinner.

The whole situation seems absurd.

But she nods, and accompanies him back to the promenade, then to the hotel again, that magnificent building with gold trim glittering with the last vestige of the sinking sun.

Once in the room again, he won’t be denied, pulling off her blouse and pants, pushing down onto the bed, mounting her like a dog mounting a bitch, which to him she supposes she is.

He is rough, pounding the life out of her, his cock going deep into her.

She likes I rough, and yet for some reason, feels little real pleasure in the act, feeling his arrogance as he fucks her, each thrust a declaration of dominance, she almost resents, almost wanting to make him stop, only, she likes being fucked, closing her eyes, trying again to imagine it is the man she wants, and feeling his hard cock using her to please her, rather than just to get off.

With this man, she is going through the motions like a puppet, feeling this man inside her, on top of her, his mouth on hers, but it only confuses her more, making he ache for the other man, wishing she could rush into those arms and have him fuck her the right way.

It’s only sex, she tells herself. She’s been through worse – and cringes over that time when, well, a time she doesn’t think about.

She has to tell herself in the midst of this that this man means well, even if his lovemaking is selfish, and she really does want to enjoy it, and in another time and place, if there was not this other man somewhere, she might enjoy it more.

When it is over, they go down to the dining room for a meal. She feels the magic of the place, the table cloths and silverware, and sees herself dressed up, a regular Cinderella absent the pumpkin coach and glass slippers.

Will her prince charming come to see if the slipper fits?

Yet as beautiful as it all is, and romantic, she can’t appreciate it, or this man. He is simply the wrong man, regardless of how good the sex is.  She isn’t happy, and longing for more than this man just can’t provide.

In the room again, he rides her once more, harder even than before, almost ruthless, and she takes it, even enjoys it, perhaps like a good Christian, punishing herself for all her indiscretion, for coming here with the wrong man, for trying to make the right man jealous.

Later, this man falls asleep, she sneaks out, down to the street, and then back to the pier that stretches out into the ocean where the sea breeze blows back her hair and dries her tears.

Then, in the dark before dawn, she switches back on her phone, and fines a message: “miss you,”

Maybe it’s the ocean. Maybe it is the breeze, but suddenly all the weight has been lifted from her shoulders. She texts back, “Wish you were here.”

 

 

email to Al Sullivan