by Robert WEXELBLATT

On the Tues­day be­fore Thanks­giv­ing, Al­ma and Joel, stu­dents at North­east­ern Uni­ver­si­ty and Boston Col­lege, re­spec­tive­ly — un­der­grad­u­ate and grad­u­ate, re­spec­tive­ly — were both aboard Am­trak on their way to Philadel­phia and Bal­ti­more, re­spec­tive­ly, to spend the hol­i­day with their re­spec­tive fam­i­lies when three pas­sen­ger cars de­railed on the no­to­ri­ous­ly per­ilous curve at Frank­ford Junc­tion killing two pas­sen­gers and in­jur­ing fifty-one; yet, de­spite be­ing in the sec­ond of the three cars, Al­ma and Joel suf­fered on­ly mi­nor scrapes so that he was able to car­ry in­jured peo­ple out of the over­turned car and she to tend to them, a joint ef­fort which made a bond that two years lat­er even­tu­at­ed in their mar­ry­ing one another.

Alma’s preg­nan­cy was un­planned, a sur­prise, and turned out to be dif­fi­cult, re­quir­ing an emer­gency Cae­sar­i­an sec­tion with com­pli­ca­tions that meant Al­ma and Joel’s son would on­ly have a broth­er if they adopt­ed, which, af­ter many dis­cus­sions, lengthy ad­vice from their par­ents, and much wa­ver­ing, they did.

The boys were of an age, got on well, were loved equal­ly by their par­ents, lived placid­ly in their leafy sub­urb un­til pu­ber­ty when, al­most overnight, one turned mo­rose, hos­tile, se­cre­tive, alien­at­ed, un­hy­gien­ic, iso­lat­ed, pierced, im­po­lite, dress­ing on­ly in black jeans and black shirts so that, though his class­mates were ter­ri­fied, they weren’t sur­prised when one morn­ing in home room he lift­ed from his back­pack a Kabar hunt­ing knife he’d bought on­line and start­ed swear­ing at and try­ing to slash those of his class­mates who didn’t flee at once, and he was still do­ing this when the School Se­cu­ri­ty Of­fi­cer Sal Ac­cetta burst in and shot him in the chest, a fa­tal shot which the mar­riage of Al­ma and Joel al­so did not sur­vive, and which so trau­ma­tized Of­fi­cer Ac­cetta that four months lat­er he was ad­mit­ted to the Austen Rig­gs Cen­ter in Stock­bridge as a long-term res­i­dent, the fe­ro­cious cost of which was paid by the af­flu­ent suburb’s grudg­ing­ly grate­ful tax­pay­ers aug­ment­ed by a co-re­sponse grant from the Com­mon­wealth of Mass­a­chu­setts’ De­part­ment of Men­tal Health.

Like Al­ma and Joel, Of­fi­cer Ac­cetta and his wife Jeanne had two chil­dren and lost one when his daugh­ter Giu­lia died at the age of three of an un­treat­able con­gen­i­tal heart de­fect, a fate her par­ents had been as­sured would come in­evitably and soon, though the doc­tors couldn’t say ex­act­ly when, so they had time to steel them­selves, get ready to face the blow to­geth­er, al­so to pre­pare Guila’s big broth­er David who, when he had grown up in­to a kind, in­tel­li­gent, and im­pos­ing six-foot-three law stu­dent reg­u­lar­ly drove him­self and his moth­er from Boston to Stock­bridge and back every week­end to vis­it his fa­ther, in the course of which vis­its David fell in love with Be­lin­da Do­her­ty, an at­trac­tive young nurse who, over time, and af­ter many strolls through the Center’s grounds, rec­i­p­ro­cat­ed so that, in due course, they were wed at Saint Mark’s, her family’s church in Pittsfield.

Be­lin­da and David had three chil­dren, all ro­bust in body and mind, the old­est named Sal­va­tore af­ter David’s fa­ther and who from an ear­ly age was ob­sessed by avi­a­tion so that when he en­rolled in Boston Uni­ver­si­ty he al­so signed up for Air Force ROTC, served the re­quired four years, re-upped for an­oth­er four, then left the ser­vice to be­come a pi­lot with Delta Air­lines and was at the con­trols on a flight from Boston to Los An­ge­les when his plane lost one en­gine over Kansas and the land­ing gear jammed so that he had to pull off a near­ly mirac­u­lous bel­ly land­ing at Gar­den City Re­gion­al Air­port, sav­ing all aboard, in­clud­ing the beau­ti­ful and bril­liant clas­si­cal schol­ar Ophe­lia Lang­horne whom I met at a pro­fes­sion­al con­fer­ence three years lat­er and mar­ried last June.

Filed under Fiction on June 19th, 2026

—

Care to Share?

by Tom BUSILLO

I was in the back­seat with Bil­ly. The first time I’d ever been there with a boy. Fay and Am­ber had talked about what it was like, but the whole thing seemed gross. I couldn’t imag­ine do­ing what they were talk­ing about.

I’d met Bil­ly through ten­nis. We were both on our var­si­ty teams and had en­tered some mixed dou­bles tour­na­ments to­geth­er. He was nice as boys go, and things were be­com­ing serious.

We were mak­ing out when he tried to take it further.

“I’m not ready for that,” I said.

“But don’t you love me?”

“Of course. Just… not that. Not yet.”

“It’s okay. I’ve got a bet­ter idea.”

He reached down on­to the car’s floor and then un­ex­pect­ed­ly held up his Babo­lat Pure Dri­ve ten­nis racket. 

“You’re go­ing to like this,” he said, nod­ding to­ward the rack­et, then be­gin­ning to rub it gen­tly across my skin. 

“What are you do­ing?” I asked, think­ing it ridiculous. 

“Just re­lax. trust me.”

He was right. I felt some­thing I’d nev­er felt be­fore. The grom­mets were cool and firm. The graphite frame moved gen­tly against my collarbone.

“Oh my god,” I whis­pered, not be­liev­ing how good it felt.

The strings brushed against my shoul­der — slow, de­lib­er­ate. The sen­sa­tion was un­like any­thing I’d ever felt. The ten­sion in the strings gave just enough, draw­ing a long, silent line across my skin like a bow over a cello.

My breath caught.

He moved the rack­et down, trac­ing the an­gle of my shoul­der blade. I felt lit from with­in. Glow­ing, be­ing wor­shipped in the lan­guage of pres­sure points and car­bon fiber.

I lost track of time — we could’ve been there an hour — when I no­ticed con­den­sa­tion on the in­side of the car win­dows, saw that the moon had shifted. 

And then I whis­pered, “Let me do it to you.”

He hes­i­tat­ed. “I don’t know.”

“Come on,” I said, gen­tly tak­ing the rack­et. “Just close your eyes.”

I brought the rack­et to his shoul­der. The mo­ment the strings touched his skin, he shuddered.

“Wow, that feels so good,” he said.

We kept trad­ing po­si­tions — me rub­bing him with the Babo­lat Pure Dri­ve, him rub­bing me, us rub­bing our­selves. It was ut­ter­ly deca­dent. And fantastic.

At one point, he said, “Let me do your elbow.”

It was pure bliss. My el­bow had nev­er been touched like that before.

Sud­den­ly, he stopped.

“I’ve got a sur­prise for you,” he said, be­gin­ning to un­buck­le his belt.

“Whoa! I thought we agreed —”

“No, trust me,” he said, reach­ing in­to his shorts.

I couldn’t be­lieve it. Star­ing me in the face was the biggest can of ten­nis balls I had ever seen. I’d heard ru­mors about cans with four balls — but this one had five! And they were Dun­lop Fort Tour­na­ments — the most ex­pen­sive balls on the planet.

“I’m speech­less,” I said. 

“Why have three when you can have five? Am I right?” Then he said with a wink, “Now for the open.”

He pulled back the tab and popped the lid.

Pffft!

I can’t de­scribe the sen­sa­tion I felt in that mo­ment. It eclipsed all pri­or open­ings. Rip­ples of plea­sure shot through me when the vac­u­um seal was re­leased and the smell of the rub­ber in­tox­i­cat­ed me. I was in heaven.

And then, just as quick­ly, it was gone.

“Do you have an­oth­er can?” I asked desperately.

He laughed.

“A D’Antonio al­ways comes pre­pared,” he said, reach­ing in­to his shorts again and pulling out a sec­ond five-ball can.

“Are you ready?” he asked.

“Do it!” I near­ly screamed.

Pffft!

The waves of plea­sure were even more in­tense this time.

“Do you have an­oth­er one?” I pleaded.

He laughed again.

“Ba­by, I can on­ly fit so much in my shorts.”

I was on the verge of some­thing, and I wasn’t about to be denied.

“Make the sound with your mouth.”

“Huh? What?”

“The sound… you know. Of the balls opening.”

“Re­al­ly?”

“Do it!” 

He nod­ded and gave it his best shot.

“Pffft!”

“No, that’s too low in pitch.”

“Pffft?”

“A lit­tle higher!”

“Pffft?”

“Al­most there!”

“Pffft! Pffft! Pffft! Pffft!”

That did it. For a mo­ment, I was out­side my body, float­ing in space. I may have blacked out — the sen­sa­tions were that powerful.

Af­ter­wards, he kept mak­ing the sound over and over, but it be­came annoying.

“Ba­by, just cud­dle me,” I said.

I wish I could tell you that every time was like that. It wasn’t. We’d caught light­ning in a bottle.

And I wish I could tell you we last­ed longer to­geth­er, but he com­mit­ted a se­ri­ous dou­ble fault when he cheat­ed on me with Amber.

“He pulled out his ten­nis rack­et and tried to rub it on me,” she said. “What a weirdo.”

Yeah. Maybe.

But you nev­er for­get your first time.

Filed under Fiction on May 22nd, 2026

—

Care to Share?

by Jason PRIMM

Un­til Colleen walked in­to the gym­na­si­um, my plan was to be­come the pick­le­ball king of Ba­ton Rouge. I was go­ing to be­friend, bepick­le, and belove some rich but still well put to­geth­er wid­ow or di­vorcee, so that she would be­come a part­ner in this dream. I would present my pas­sion for her and my pas­sion for a neigh­bor­hood pub that looked out up­on ten in­door courts, in­clud­ing one show court, in a tumble. 

I was run­ning the Church of the Abun­dant Christ Pick­le­ball Pro­gram. The on­ly thing more pop­u­lar around here was Je­sus at Christ­mas. And mon­ey. And porn. There I was sur­round­ed by at­trac­tive di­vorcees and young wid­ows with bo­soms like the prows of small ships. Women that were age ap­pro­pri­ate and still in touch with their bod­ies enough to take on the rel­a­tive­ly new sport of pick­le­ball. They were still seek­ers. And the one that com­mand­ed my at­ten­tion was the one that I couldn’t have. 

Colleen wore a di­a­mond cov­ered cross, bright bright red lip­stick, and a smart short ten­nis skirt that whipped the air with every turn, leav­ing a wake of un­ful­filled de­sire for every­one but her obliv­i­ous hus­band. Which was prob­a­bly the at­trac­tion to be­gin with. 

Her move­ment on the pick­le­ball court was painful to watch. She stum­bled for­ward with no plan and an im­pos­si­bly slow re­ac­tion time to the balls that were hit­ting her feet and sail­ing by her slow-mov­ing pad­dle. But her re­cov­er­ies from these fruit­less swipes were op­er­at­ic. They said with the pow­er of twen­ty or so trained voic­es wear­ing Viking hel­mets that you want her mov­ing slow­ly in your bed. 

I was paired with her and a thought­less clod slammed the bar di­rect­ly in­to her. She didn’t flinch, but caught the ball against her chest, and as she fell slow­ly to her butt, she held it there. 

She turned to me and clos­ing her eyes, said, “This is the fun­ni­est thing that has hap­pened to me in a long time.”

It was sweet and phys­i­cal and those words were meant on­ly for me to hear. They weren’t flir­ta­tious words, but I felt like her whole be­ing said them to me. Af­ter that, my one goal was to have her.

And that was why we were signed up for the city tour­na­ment at an av­er­ag­ing of our two abil­i­ties, 3.5 and be­low. I doubt we will win a sin­gle match. She presents the great­est coach­ing chal­lenge in my short ca­reer as pick­le­ball coach. If the rules had al­lowed it, I would have fac­tored her abil­i­ty as a neg­a­tive num­ber. Tru­ly it would be bet­ter for her not to be on the court at all or to be a lit­tle off to the side watch­ing me smack the ball. But as un­like­ly the out­come, win we must for me to have any chance of quench­ing the de­sire that she has stirred up in what had been, for the last few years, a calm beaker. 

It was a sur­prise to have this itch­ing. To re­mem­ber what she wears and how it fits her and to be look­ing for­ward to see­ing the sight again, the two inch­es of cleav­age, the shad­ow of nip­ples, the flounce of the skirt. I felt like some sort of trag­ic knight. She was mar­ried and by all ac­counts, and the ac­counts are kept quite ac­cu­rate­ly at this church, she was hap­pi­ly mar­ried. I have seen them to­geth­er. They do not present as lovers, but what do ap­pear­ances mean anymore?

Af­ter I set up the nets and winched up the bas­ket­ball goals in the gym, I went to the re­stroom to make my­self pre­sentable. Colleen was com­ing an hour ear­ly for a les­son. I brushed my hair and straight­ened my shirt. I would have her to my­self. Of course, it was too soon in our re­la­tion­ship for any­thing to hap­pen. She must see me for a while, in a hum­ble light, as use­ful and com­pe­tent but with a cer­tain reck­less­ness in my look. On­ly my eyes had li­cense to pur­sue my suit. 

I heard the heavy door of the gym slam shut and her voice echo off the wood­en court, “Yoo hoo?” 

Like a fool I an­swered from the men’s room, “Hold on.” And then be­cause I didn’t want her to think I was a slob, I washed my al­ready washed hands and hit the hot air blow­er with my el­bow and stood in the twin streams of heat, the blow­ing air and my desire. 

To­day she was wear­ing a teal ver­sion of the same out­fit that she had worn yes­ter­day. She had picked her uni­form. All the out­fits must have been bought on the same day. The trendi­est brand. But no thought was giv­en to the pad­dle. It was like the sawed-off end of a ca­noe. She smiled at me. 

Be­fore I let her hit a ball to­day, I de­cid­ed to go back to the very start of things. That was the best chance to suc­ceed. I had to build every­thing back up from scratch. I had her stretch out her arm and show me her grip. I thought of that bare arm on the shared arm rest of a movie seat and how it would feel to have it rest­ing on top of mine with our fin­gers in­ter­twined. Of course, the grip was wrong. I ro­tat­ed it so that her knuck­le was lined up with the prop­er bev­el. I in­di­cat­ed where she should stand and walked back across the net. I asked her to hold up her pad­dle and show me her grip, in those few sec­onds the grip had al­ready shift­ed back to where she had it be­fore. I fed her a ball to dink back at me and the an­gle cre­at­ed by her poor grip popped the ball back up. Even the most fee­ble of the se­nior play­ers would raise their stick thin arms and slam that ball back at her. Some of them would do it on pur­pose as a re­venge that she was beau­ti­ful, that time had moved on with­out them, and that the heads of their men turned when she went by.

“Let’s try that again. Try to keep it a lit­tle low­er. Why don’t you check your grip?”

She looked down at her hand and smiled back.

“All good.”

…

I was liv­ing in my friend Paul’s pool house and in re­turn I had to keep up the pool and the hot tub and any­thing else that popped in his head when I was around him. He was di­vorced too and his kids had left what was the left of the nest. The main­te­nance was tougher than it had to be be­cause he was a swinger and the pool and the hot tub and the fif­teen-foot-tall fence around his back yard were the are­na that this part of his life was played out in.  Rub­bers kept clog­ging the fil­tra­tion sys­tem. The flung ones hung in the branch­es of the bush­es be­hind the hot tub. I com­plained to him about it once, as­sum­ing that it was one of his guests, but he asked me if I would rather him be un­safe. I start­ed us­ing the ice tongs that are kept in the pa­tio bar to grab the of­fend­ing ma­te­r­i­al. When I’m done, I dunk the tongs in the pool and shake them a bit to clean them be­fore I put them back. I don’t swim now un­less I’ve just shocked the wa­ter back to a pris­tine blue. This is both­er­ing my friend. When he asks me to go for a swim with him, it is like he has of­fered me a bite of some­thing that he thinks is de­li­cious and is of­fend­ed that I’m squeamish.

We are play­ing in the tour­na­ment to­geth­er in the over fifty 4.5 and above cat­e­go­ry. We will prob­a­bly win it and I will hate every mo­ment un­til we are stand­ing to­geth­er with the medals around our necks. In that glit­ter­ing de­ceit­ful mo­ment, I will feel like I be­long somewhere. 

My old house isn’t far from his. Some­times I go out of my way to dri­ve by its cir­cu­lar dri­ve­way and doric columns to re­mem­ber that I was once a pros­per­ous and re­spect­ed man. The doric columns weren’t my idea, but I grew to love them. My ex-wife, Robin, had been poor grow­ing up and she want­ed to make sure every­one knew that she wasn’t any­more. One day she brought home two jock­ey stat­ues to sit at the two round­ed en­trances. They were iden­ti­cal ex­cept one was paint­ed white and one was paint­ed black, be­cause, as she said, she was rich, not racist. They are still there guard­ing the entrance.

We met at work. We were both ex­ec­u­tives at a chem­i­cal com­pa­ny that made ad­di­tives for gas. Her of­fice af­fair with the CEO of the com­pa­ny put her in charge of our de­part­ment. Mine with the will­ful and bored daugh­ter of that same man got me fired and start­ed the down­ward tum­ble. He thought I did it out of re­venge, but I just couldn’t fig­ure out a rea­son on an out-of-town work trip, af­ter three beers at the Rus­ton Hol­i­day Inn bar, to say no to the pushy own­er of a twen­ty-five-year-old body. He just wouldn’t or didn’t want to be­lieve me that it was no big deal. 

Maybe that wasn’t the start of my demise. Maybe it was turn­ing a blind eye to my wife’s af­fair, or it was some­thing else, some seem­ing­ly be­nign ac­cep­tance of some­thing small and shame­ful. The last years of our mar­riage were a cor­nu­copia of such mo­ments. Those of us who aren’t in ther­a­py are free to live in mystery. 

My wel­come in the pool house was wear­ing thin. I could ex­tend it by ac­cept­ing an in­vi­ta­tion to one of his get to­geth­ers. I would be­come a part­ner in crime in­stead of a judg­men­tal wit­ness. But I’ve seen the par­ties through my drapes, every­one work­ing so hard, the women with their eyes closed in con­cen­tra­tion, and the men sur­round­ing them, bored and cap­tive to that mo­ment of dis­ap­point­ing relief. 

Some­times the peo­ple wan­der in­to the pool house look­ing for the bath­room. I look up from TV to see them, the men usu­al­ly with­out tow­els point­ing to the half bath­room by the door. They give off that fake com­radery that is usu­al­ly dis­played in greet­ing from the next uri­nal over. The women from be­hind their tow­els have a more com­pli­cat­ed look. First, a shad­ow comes over their faces, not shame ex­act­ly, maybe dis­ap­point­ment over this leaked in­for­ma­tion about their sex lives, and then that is shook off be­cause who cares what the mid­dle-aged pool boy thinks and the pleas­antries they give me are bright, the grace of winners.

…

To get ready for the tour­na­ment, Paul and I drove to Gon­za­les, a sub­urb of Ba­ton Rouge to play at the Lamar Dixon Ex­po Cen­ter. We want­ed the feel­ing of siz­ing up un­known play­ers. We placed our pad­dles in the stack and saw the dis­ap­point­ed look of the two young men who drew us. They thought we were the typ­i­cal old farts who thought they were bet­ter than they were. They bare­ly spoke to us and seemed to be in a pouty hur­ry to get the match over. Paul made a point of ad­just­ing the brace on his left knee be­fore we start­ed and walked with a pro­nounced limp out to the court. They asked to split up the teams and when we said no, the tallest of them shook his head as if to say, your fu­ner­al old man. 

Paul said to me, just loud enough to maybe be heard on the oth­er side of the net, “These peo­ple ain’t shit.”

Pick­le­ball is my hap­py place. When I played com­pet­i­tive ten­nis, I was a ner­vous wreck. He was bring­ing that old bad en­er­gy to this. We start­ed a lit­tle slowly. 

Af­ter I missed a third shot drop in­to the net, he start­ed chirp­ing at me, “Is that the best you can do?”

That made me mad enough to miss a high fore­hand vol­ley. Back at the base­line, he leaned in­to my ear and said, “Hope you aren’t teach­ing that at the church.”

I hit the next re­turn as hard as I could out of anger and they popped the ball up and Paul slammed it at the tall one’s feet. They didn’t win an­oth­er point.

Each time that Paul and I hit them with the ball or sent it spin­ning be­hind them, we apol­o­gized with ex­tra flour­ish­es, claim­ing luck, ex­am­in­ing the ball or our pad­dles as if some­thing was wrong with them that such mirac­u­lous shots were hap­pen­ing. It was a pol­ished rou­tine. By the end of the match, the young men re­mem­bered their man­ners and when we tapped pad­dles at 11 – 3, they both said, “Thank you, Sir.” 

Of course, there was some­thing grotesque about this. With a lit­tle train­ing, these young men would clob­ber us old men. We aren’t beat­ing death by beat­ing less skilled young peo­ple. We aren’t get­ting any younger. Win­ning here will not help us win in life. Per­haps our life­long fo­cus on rac­quet sports is part of our prob­lem. We could have been team play­ers in team sports in­stead of nar­cis­sists tor­tur­ing our­selves. It’s not as gross as be­ing a swinger or lust­ing af­ter an­oth­er person’s wife who may be the worst pick­le­ball play­er in the world. Or is it?

The venue sold beer and hot­dogs, and we sat on a pic­nic bench and watched the matches. 

“How’s the church pick­le­ball going?” 

“Good.”

“That’s one of them, right?”

Colleen was walk­ing through the open area to put her pad­dle in the stacks.

“Yes.”

“Damn. They build church ladies dif­fer­ent these days. I think I know her. Colleen?”

“Yeah.”

“Hold on. This is who you are play­ing in the tour­na­ment with, right?”

Our beers were full and our hot­dogs were half eat­en. I wasn’t go­ing to be able to avoid this. He was go­ing to see her play. As soon as he saw her hit the first ball, he would know ex­act­ly what was on my mind. 

I point­ed out an­oth­er court with some good play­ers. But he kept watch­ing her court. He was watch­ing her. They were just warm­ing up, dink­ing back and forth but that was enough.

“You’ve got your work cut out with that one.”

“I know.”

“I don’t see why you have to play in the tour­na­ment with her just be­cause you are giv­ing her lessons. Y’all are go­ing to get slaughtered.”

They had be­gun to play, and she swung wild­ly at an easy ball. I could tell he saw what I saw when I looked at her. 

“How can she be so beau­ti­ful and so bad at the same time?”

“I don’t know. How do you know her anyway?”

“She was a friend of my wife. Ex-wife.”

He gave me a sly grin.

“I know what is go­ing on here. She’s mar­ried you know. That doesn’t have to stop you though.”

“It’s not like that.”

“Too bad. My wife used to say that she was bored. That’s the kind of cou­ple that shows up at my parties.”

“She’s on the board at Abun­dant Christ.”

“Yep. That’s what I mean.”

“That’s ridicu­lous,” I said. 

He gave a long low whis­tle. “You’ve got a lot to learn about the world.”

So do you, I thought, filled with an in­tense ha­tred for my friend. He thinks those par­ties make him world­ly. Maybe they do.

“Do you re­mem­ber when we had to dri­ve all over the state to play?”

“Yeah.”

“I kind of miss it.”

It was a shared re­lease from our fail­ing mar­riages. We were on the same time­line. They were both hav­ing af­fairs and glar­ing at us as we were won­der­ing why there was noth­ing that we could do right. He didn’t have the Jaguar yet. He would dri­ve his Vol­vo sta­tion wag­on down the nar­row two-lane coun­try roads with sug­ar­cane fields on ei­ther side at nine­ty miles an hour. I liked the dan­ger then, but his dri­ving made me un­easy now. I was sur­prised to re­al­ize that I missed those times, too.

“I’m hav­ing a lit­tle get to­geth­er this Sat­ur­day. Might be a lit­tle big­ger than usu­al. More of a par­ty than usual.”

“I’ll have it ready.”

“You should come. I know you are not in­to it all, but the first hour or two will just be a reg­u­lar par­ty. Chips and dip. Nice people.”

“I’ll think about it.”

“This is a lit­tle awk­ward, but it’s go­ing to rain. I need the pool house for the night.”

“No prob­lem. I’ll go to a movie or something.”

I was so dis­gust­ed with my­self and him that I wished I had dri­ven, but it would have been sil­ly for us both to dri­ve. When we left, I had to low­er my­self in­to his Jaguar and lis­ten to him rev the mo­tor and feel him race to­wards the red­lights. He put on Rush’s Red Bar­che­t­ta when we hit the in­ter­state. He was lost in the song. It didn’t mat­ter that his mar­riage end­ed or that his kids bare­ly talked to him or that we had gray hair or how many Vi­a­gra he had to take to get through one of his par­ties. We were speed and po­et­ry and met­al bent around air. Maybe he was right about this car. Maybe my end­less killjoy about any­thing os­ten­ta­tious was wrong. As I thought this, he down­shift­ed and my head was un­com­fort­ably pushed back in­to the headrest. 

…

The next day, my ex-wife, Robin, asked me to lunch. Every few months, she called up like this and some­times we end­ed up back at our house. It wasn’t good sex for ei­ther of us, but it was bet­ter than noth­ing. I sug­gest­ed Pinetta’s, an Ital­ian restau­rant that had seen bet­ter days. Our bet­ter days. She texted back, “Okay, but this isn’t go­ing to turn in­to one of those af­ter­noons. I have some­thing to tell you.” 

I got to the restau­rant first. The dark­ness in this restau­rant was near­ly com­plete. The joke was that this was the per­fect place to have an af­fair be­cause no one can see you. There was a lit­tle pool of light by the door where the cash reg­is­ter and phone were and an­oth­er com­ing from the small win­dow in the swing­ing door that led to the kitchen. The walls were cov­ered in dark oil paint­ings of wind­mills and fox hunts and cathe­drals. Above the paint­ings in a line that ran around the room, dusty or­nate beer steins hung. 

The old man seat­ed me and I wait­ed for the new bad news. 

The front door opened and I blinked my eyes against the white light. She stood in the closed door­way a mo­ment and wait­ed for the restau­rant to come in­to view. In that mo­ment, I could see her but she couldn’t see me. Her face was not yet arranged to meet me. It was the face that I re­mem­bered from when we were first in love, open and pa­tient. She was wear­ing her cor­po­rate cos­tume, a dark blue dress and brown purse with a gold chain strap. She closed her eyes and when she opened them, her face had changed. The eyes had nar­rowed and her lips were tighter. She was here to solve a problem.

She strode to the ta­ble and hung her purse on the chair. 

“How are you, Robert?”

“You know. Same old, same old.”

She nod­ded. She knew all about it.

“I have to tell you something.”

“Should we or­der first?”

“Of course.”

The old man emerged from some un­seen spot in the dark­ness with his or­der pad and pen in hand. We or­dered and he nod­ded. He pushed through the swing­ing door and then we could hear the clat­ter of pans as he be­gan to pre­pare our food. 

We made small talk. Mat­ters of house main­te­nance. It was still some­thing we owned to­geth­er. There was a squir­rel in the at­tic. She heard it every night run­ning across the bed­room ceil­ing. Some­one had been called to get rid of it be­fore it chewed any wires. She was good about things like that. If it was just me, I might lis­ten to that squir­rel for years be­fore I did any­thing about it. 

The old man brought our food. She had the trout and I had the lasagna. It came in a lit­tle black iron pan and was still siz­zling when he set it on the ta­ble. I watched her eat her food as I wait­ed for mine to cool. I won­dered how many such meals we had had at this restau­rant. Thir­ty, forty? When we first came here, there was a singing wait­er on Fri­day and Sat­ur­day night. His voice was good and his taste in old R&B was im­pec­ca­ble; but I dread­ed him com­ing to the ta­ble in his red waiter’s tuxe­do. She loved it. Was that some ear­ly sign of incompatibility?

“Phil and I are go­ing to live together.”

“The man who fired me with­out cause?”

“You fucked his daughter.”

“She fucked me.”

“I know. That is the part he can’t get over.”

“Still?”

“He feels guilty about it.”

“Fir­ing me?”

“God, no. Lex­ie knew about the affair.”

“What are you telling me?”

“She did it to get back at him. To make things right.”

“How long have you been sit­ting on this information?”

“A while. I just didn’t want to take any­thing away from you about that night.”

My food had cooled down and I start­ed eat­ing. I didn’t feel hun­gry, but I need­ed the con­ver­sa­tion to stop for a moment. 

“Didn’t he cheat on you?”

“Yeah. But we re­al­ly talked things through. In fact, that’s when I learned that bit about Lexie.”

“When are you moving?”

“This is the part that you aren’t go­ing to like. We are ren­o­vat­ing his house. I don’t want a sin­gle trace of his old wife there. We are tak­ing the place down to the joists. He’s go­ing to stay at the house for a month or so un­til our house is ready.”

“My house?”

“Grow up. It’s just for a lit­tle while.

“He’s not both­ered by all the traces of me in our house?”

“He doesn’t care. And then you can move out of the swinger’s den.”

The old man came and asked about desserts. He of­fered a crum­ble cake and an ap­ple pie that we turned down. A pun came to me that I knew that she would hate. I want­ed to tell him that we had filled up on our just desserts.

Be­cause I had no one else to com­mis­er­ate with, I shared what Paul had told me this afternoon. 

“You wouldn’t be­lieve this. But be­cause it’s rain­ing, he needs the pool house tonight for one of his parties.”

“Why do you put up with that bull­shit? You’ve got mon­ey. You don’t need to stay there.”

I didn’t tell her the truth about that. I lived there be­cause I didn’t want to be alone. When she left, I walked across Perkins Road to George’s, the bar un­der the over­pass. The bar­tender gave me a nod to ac­knowl­edge that he hadn’t seen me in a few years. And then a more com­pli­cat­ed look came in­to his eyes, and I re­al­ized that Phil and Robin must come here. The LSU game was on the TV, an ear­ly sea­son shel­lack­ing of the Uni­ver­si­ty of Texas at El Pa­so. By the third quar­ter, the rain had be­gun, and the game was de­layed for light­ning. I drank enough to for­get the par­ty was go­ing on and that I was sup­posed to go to a movie. 

When the Uber let me out, I ran around to the side gate while the rain blew side­ways in­to my face. I walked in with­out knock­ing. There were about eight peo­ple in var­i­ous stages of un­dress spread across the den. They all looked up at me. I stood a mo­ment with my wet shirt cling­ing to me and wa­ter run­ning down my legs. I guess I could have left, but I was drunk, and be­sides, it felt like every­body in the world but me was get­ting laid. My wife and Phil and prob­a­bly his daugh­ter, Lex­ie, with some­one bet­ter than a mid­dle-aged co-work­er and Paul and this whole room of people. 

I said the on­ly thing that I could think of: “Sor­ry, I’m late.”

The woman with the most clothes on, a lit­tle younger than me, with hip­pie length red hair that was draped across her breasts, a tie-dye cov­er up, and red satin panties, held her hand out to me.

“Hi, I’m Jan. You must be Robert. Paul said you might be coming.”

I rolled my wet sleeve up and shook her hand. There were sheep­ish waves from the others. 

“Where is Paul?”

“Oh, he’s some­where around here.”

I went in­to my room and changed in­to a dry t‑shirt and jeans. When I came out Jan was walk­ing around with a tray of Jel­lo shots.

“Vod­ka, red bull and cher­ry limeade.”

She put the tray down and we touched plas­tic shot cups be­fore we slurped down the Jello. 

“So is there a jar of keys.”

“It’s not the fifties. We aren’t that formal.”

“Sor­ry, I’ve nev­er been to one of these things.”

“Don’t wor­ry about it. I’ll take care of you.”

This made me blush.

“I mean I’ll show you the ropes.”

“You’ve got rope?”

It was the first time in a while that a woman had laughed at one of my jokes. There were in­deed chips and dip. I was talk­ing with Jan and an­oth­er woman with jet black dyed hair that I was sure that I knew from some­where else about her spinach and ar­ti­choke dip. It was de­li­cious. The eti­quette of the mo­ment was be­yond me. They were both at­trac­tive in dif­fer­ent ways. The en­er­gy was charged, and I was glad that I was wear­ing jeans. It seemed a faux pas to me to re­veal that the par­ty or these women or those women in var­i­ous parts of the room had made me ex­cit­ed, be­fore I knew any­one was in­ter­est­ed in me. How much do you have to like some­one to have sex with them at a par­ty like this? In the re­al world, peo­ple be­long to each oth­er. There are cou­ples and dates and histories.

A man came out from be­hind a cur­tain strung across the en­try of the laun­dry room that was pro­vid­ing some mod­icum of pri­va­cy to a few peo­ple. It was an­oth­er per­son I knew but couldn’t place. The woman with black hair looked over at him, and he nod­ded. She took my hand and led me to the cen­ter of the room. Jan dimmed the lights and turned on a small light pro­jec­tor that made pat­terned lights move across the wall like a dis­co. I was hav­ing trou­ble re­mem­ber­ing the name of the black-haired woman. It start­ed with an M. She had tak­en off her shirt, and her breasts were large and hung down in a way that spoke to the world’s abun­dance.  They swung back and forth as she walked. Her ass was pleas­ant­ly round. This wasn’t like the wispy twen­ty-five-year-old daugh­ter of the CEO. I was be­ing of­fered some­thing sub­stan­tial. It would be churl­ish not to ac­cept the boun­ty be­fore me. As she led me, she was tak­ing big steps in her high heels. She was per­form­ing for every­body. She whis­pered in­to my ear, “Glove up.”

As I was fol­low­ing in­struc­tions, she got on all fours and wait­ed for me to fin­ish putting on the con­dom. She looked back at me and the oth­er man wait­ing. I didn’t re­al­ize it at first, but we had both been led. She grunt­ed when I en­tered her. I was hop­ing in all this con­fu­sion and at­ten­tion, I wouldn’t loss my erec­tion. When she felt my re­solve flag­ging, she reached back and slapped my right hip like a jock­ey might hit a horse’s rump with a rid­ing crop. 

I was hav­ing trou­ble un­til I imag­ined Colleen in her pick­le­ball skirt. In my vi­sion, she took my pe­nis in her hand with a per­fect con­ti­nen­tal grip. Thir­ty sec­onds lat­er I came to a shud­der­ing stop and pulled out. Step­ping back, hold­ing my pe­nis with its full con­dom, I watched the oth­er man en­ter her. The woman stand­ing be­hind me hand­ed me a wad of pa­per tow­els to dis­crete­ly slide the rub­ber in­to. It on­ly took a few sec­onds with the new man for M to start mak­ing loud nois­es and buck­ing back­wards against him. 

“Thank you, Jan,” I said, when she held the trash can out to me, pleased that I had re­mem­bered a name in a so­cial situation.

I was dumb­found­ed watch­ing the dis­play. The man seemed no bet­ter en­dowed than me and for the life of me I couldn’t see any­thing dif­fer­ent about his tech­nique. Jan stood with me watch­ing them. He paused and turned back to make sure that we were still watch­ing him be­fore re­new­ing his ef­forts. See­ing his face at a dif­fer­ent an­gle made me re­mem­ber how I knew him. He was Colleen’s hus­band. She was here with some­one, and Paul was nowhere to be seen. The math was not dif­fi­cult. Jan saw the look on my face and as­sumed that I was dis­ap­point­ed that I had not been able to please M in the same way. 

“It’s like a pick­le jar,” Jan said.

“What do you mean?”

“You loos­ened it.”

It was a com­ment of­fered com­plete­ly out of kind­ness. And de­spite its re­cent use, my man­hood swelled when she put her hand on it. I didn’t think I could fin­ish at that mo­ment, but I knew that I nev­er had to play pick­le­ball with Colleen or Paul ever again. 

Filed under Fiction on April 24th, 2026

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