teflon

I took my compact binoculars that I packed for watching birds, sea sunsets. I used them once to patrol the perimeter of our town against suicide warriors.

The theater, minutes away in Natania. Bring Tewtie out to the café during the intermission, watch her being watched by unattached and charming strangers, watch her react by returning their gazes or refusing them.

Maybe not, not to bring her out there, so as not to repeat my own extremely Short Term Sentimental affair. I would not want someone else fly his flag victoriously this time. I would not want to bring her out into the balcony, to watch someone else watch her gently pat her chocolate stained lips with a demure napkin. I would not want it to rain, forcing all the theater mavens under the balcony, so that a gallant stranger could introduce himself to her, and then to him, markedly, leaving both of them with no choice but to cordially invite him to an after-theater snack.

I would not want someone else to repeat my feat, to take up his invitation to come to his hotel for late night drinks, but, in reality, for me, the husband, to bring her to the stranger’s room, to watch passively as that stranger would spread his ambitious yet gentlemanly authority over my wife, proclaiming his strange, brazen masculinity unimpeded by the tactful cuckold, the masculinity rewarded with her elegant meekness and closed eyes.

No, I would let her go hungry and feed her after the theater rather than feed her to the gallant competitor.

“Tarte,” she said in a whisper. ”It means late in Italian.”

In the darkness I saw her and the whites of men’s eyes savoring her outline. Sadness at my boundless jealousy, and sadness at fate.

“You think we’re tragically late for something?”

She waved her hand in a royally quiet gesture. I caught a whiff of the perfume I picked. She heard me inhale the scent. She rested her hand on the gold-leaf and red-velvet lushness of the loge. Perhaps that is how Anna Karenina looked in a theater, astonishing in her beauty, and hurting in her shame. Shame. Shame at such nightmare.

“No pasaran,” I said in Spanish.

“They will not pass?” Tewtie asked me, whispering.

“That’s right.”

“Who are they?”

“They,” I said, pointing into the darkness.

“Paranoia,” she whispered patting my hand.

“No, Kitten. Parabellum,” I said and directed our hands to pat my jacket, feeling the comforting mass of the trusty Nine Millie.

Pawn

Quite sublime.

Bravo.

It must be said, I despair at your penchant for the dramatic finali. Do you write such in jest?

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teflon

Dramatic finali seem to be part of my life, which most of the time is in jest. I don't know how that happens. I understand it better when I write about it, albeit in a veiled manner.

ms. vodka

My goodness, teflon, I am in agreement with pawn here over the first quoted comment.

excellent... and i would love to read more...

snuffypuffer

I dig this little parable of jealousy, Teflon. Narrator seems to be a little bit of the unsavory type. Was this intentional? Just sort of comes across that way. Although that really only comes across with the last line. Other than that, you did a good job building up the insecurities.

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teflon

I think this is therapeutic, to write about the innermost fears, in hopes of not letting them take their own course and maybe materialize.

How is it that the narrator is seen as an "unsavory type?" Maybe unintentional. Biographic and veiled. But I am still curious.

snuffypuffer

I just think that a person who will bring a handgun to a theatre isn't someone to bring home to mother. Unless it's a police officer on duty, or in a profession where one's life is at risk at all times. I see it wasn't intentional, and was probably just my interpretation.

Sorry if you took offense, I didn't mean any.

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teflon

no ffense taken, far from it, just curious!

this is worse than the Wild West, it's ...the Middle East! This is Natania, afterall, the city most loved by the suicide bombers. Of course I took my Nine Millie along. It feels good to be a gun-wielding goon, ready to pulverize the head of a terrorist at the flick of the index finger, watch the relaxing concert and rest your hand in the lap of your much-ogled wife.

Have you seen "The Year of Living Dangerously?"

snuffypuffer

Ah, I see where you're coming from now. Not unsavory at all, just a sad fact of life in your part of the world.

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