érase una mujer, érase un hombre

by jennifer

they met each other by chance.

the woman had moved half way across the country for a new job. and in the wake of her departure there was the end of her relationship. the end that had left her feeling as if there were an enormous hole in her center. left her off-balance. and empty. it was only fitting that she move. literally, figuratively. move.

the man had also moved. returned home to this town on the cusp of the ocean. for a year he had nursed himself painting landscapes of the ocean. each painting colored by the melancholy of his failed relationship in that other city, that other life.

the woman's friend invited her to dinner.
the man's brother invited him.
her friend and his brother were old friends.

at dinner, the friend and the brother talked and laughed loudly about their past adventures. reminisced about school and travel. exchanged gossip about classmates. the woman and the man spoke little, but enjoyed the generous amount of red wine filling and refilling their glasses.

the woman felt laughter bubble from within; she was laughing at the man's witticisms. she asked him to see his sketchbook. he obliged and was receptive to her compliments. thanked the woman, almost surprised that she'd noticed his talent.

"sketch me!" she demanded in her drunkenness.

the man smiled shyly and demured. "wait," he said, and quickly drank another glass of wine.

soon he was furiously moving his pencil along the thick unlined paper of his notebook. flipping pages over, beginning anew.

"i can do better." and commanding, "close your eyes." "i can't quite get the lower lip. something about the lower lip."

she was flushed and amazed at her likeness appearing on the sheets of paper before him.
she was flustered that he could see her.

when he was done, they laughed over the sketches. a hand on the elbow. another on the knee. sloppy affection and compliments.

all the while the friend and the brother as if on another plane.

"do you want to see one of my paintings?"

the man lived and painted in the back house. there were dozens of pictures of the sea--by day, by night. from different coastlines, varying seascapes.

a sheepish grin appeared across the man's face as she admired his work.

he kissed her, and the woman dizzily kissed him back.
and back. slowly, drunkenly, sloppily, deliberately.
the man and the woman smiled into each other, laughing and testing their limits as strangers.

the woman, still drunk, slept fitfully, frequently shifting her position on the man's bed.
the man met her every movement. not a minute of the night passed when his leg was not touching her leg. or his arm her shoulder; his back hers; their feet intertwined. they slept seeking the other's warmth. they slept drawn and desiring and missing intimacy.

the next morning, the man and woman awoke bashful. the man made the woman hot tea and led her along a path near his house by the ocean. they sat on a bench under the grey morning and watched the silver glint of the early sea rush against the cliffs. talked soberly and shyly about what had brought them there.

the man found himself talking about the end of his relationship, the one that had driven him home. he found himself saying the name of his ex-lover and numbering the months that had passed since she had left him. the woman sipped her hot tea sympathetically. let his story silently reverberate with her own.

they shared a good-bye kiss under the chill of the morning. the man gifted the woman a small painting--a blue and purple night vision of the sea under dim stars.

later that morning, the woman told her friend about how the man had slept. so aware of her every movement. always keeping at least a small touch. a small tenderness.

"that's nice," the friend remarked. "sometimes," she said, "it's nice to pretend."

yes, the woman thought, grateful to have filled her emptiness for even the smallest moment. sometimes it's nice to pretend.