Stockings or pull-ups?

Describe what you were wearing from head to toe, or toe to head if you rather. I want visualize you, sitting there with that little sultry pout, pretending you are focused.”

The blood rushed to her face, caught off guard by his directness. He, a prominent business man, handsome, suave, respectful stole a glimpse into her soul.

“I told you” she responded, “I was in all black with red lips and rouge, only a whisper of my white skin peeking through.”

“But what was the fabric, where was the whisper?”

Her heart began to beat a little faster, and her mouth grew dry, aroused by the seductive and artistic approach of this unexpected observer. She was vulnerable and transparent, read.

She cleared hear throat and responded. “Black stockings with a little diamond pattern, a silk high waist pencil skirt, black cashmere turtle neck, and hair pulled back sleek, and don’t forget my snake-skin pointed toe-pumps.”

“And the supposed whisper?” He countered, more concerned with what was not covered than hidden.

“My neck, strong but tired from hovering over the keys, posture not what it should be.”

“Women have a unique power,” he grinned, “And they are usually completely oblivious to extensive nature of this power.”

She laughed at his comment, because she did in fact know her power, he told her nothing new.

“It is in the details you see,” he proposed. “For example, do you wear stockings or pull-ups?”

His language dated him.

“Stockings ofcourse.” She blushed. “I am seeking no scandal. There is nothing sexy about the office…”

“I do not allude to a scandal, and I too believe “sexy” is for off the clock. I just know the power a woman holds if she harnesses it. Do you know what it does to a man, to see a classic beauty, dressed with the upmost modesty, and to catch just the slightest glimpse of flesh between her skirt and cusp of her pull-ups? It is intoxicating, it renders a man immobile for just a moment, and then you look at him as though you know. He becomes your slave…”

She could not hold back the laugher, “But it is so cold out!”

“I suppose you are right” he smiled. “A glimpse of the neck will have to do.”

Men

He told her life is best lived in boxes and she responded with a curious stare.

“Boxes?” She questioned, “And what my dear do you mean by that?”

“My success,” He explained “I attribute to my boxes. A box for love and passion, a larger box for work, another for hobbies and so on. If you want what I have, you must create boxes.”

And she looked at him, a handsome man, but aged by the stress and responsibility hidden in the lining of certain boxes and she wondered if she too could actually compartmentalize her life.

-

“Women who are 35 are crazy” he explained.

She laughed, never quite able to predict what he would bring to the table. Her look was enough to beckon an elaboration.

“They wake up one day and look at themselves in the mirror and ask what the hell have they been doing since college. They wanted to keep up with the boys, and at the end of the day they failed, and now their eggs are drying up and the successful men want the woman they were 10 years ago. You take them on a date and they want a ring, not an appetizer”

He looked at her and continued, “Men like myself want women like you.”

Her stomach clenched, and she remembered something her father once said. A man and a woman can only be friends for so long before one wants more.

He was that one.

-

“Something about you pulls me in. I can’t place it. Maybe it is the sadness in your eyes. They are so beautiful, but so sad.”

She uncomfortably laughed and said she was the happiest girl in the world. And began to list reasons as to why, creating a case for her contentment, but she trailed off..

He looked at her with a serious stare and said “No, that is not true, there is something behind those eyes, hidden in that heart.”

And she felt vulnerable. She missed being misunderstood.

-

She lost her mind, and her heart.

“What do you want me to say??? Give up everything, come with me to Israel? Forget your dreams, make sacrifices.”

Yes, she thought, I want you to say precisely that, or maybe just that you love me. That I didn’t follow you around the world to discover I can’t keep you for myself. That you were meant for another.

But she discovered precisely that. A delayed flight back from Panama, a restless sleep on an airport floor, and a silent drive home. She then understood why there are thousands of novels written about broken hearts.

-

“Come with me to Paris!” He said with an unattractive dose of enthusiasm.

“Oh, don’t be silly” she responded.

“I’m serious. Or Vegas, London, New York, the moon…Just come with me somewhere”

She sipped her dirty martini and grimaced at the bite of the vodka. She turned to him with kind but sad eyes and replied, “I don’t think I can ever fall in love with you . I don’t feel the connection you do. I see you as a friend, but we can never be more. I’m sorry”

“Love?” He questioned. “ I’m not asking you to jump beneath the sheets, just to take a chance on me. I will make you a queen.”

But she did not want to be a queen.

She never spoke to him again, preferring her pauper she left in Panama.

The Boogie Man

To wake in a sweat. To fear for just a blink that the dream was true, that all was lost, that her imagination had stained her sheets. That she had taken a risk, and faced the consequences, whispered a forbidden thought and been heard by the masses. Once a marble goddess crumbled into ashes by actualized thoughts…

But it was just a dream.

Yet she tiptoes through the night, immobilized by the twilight. Fearful of who and what awaits here when she relinquishes control of her breath and thoughts. Circles beneath her eyes are the evidence that she fears something much greater than the boogie man. For while he resides beneath her bed, her mind consumes her, and grips her in a mad, passionate and unforgiving fury…

But these are just dreams we speak of.

Then she will fall into a pool of diamonds that taste like sugar, and never get tired of their sweetness. She will bathe in fountains of champagne that keeps her ageless. No care or reasonability in the world. No disappointments or doubts, none disappointed or doubtful of her..

But it was just a dream.

And reality assumes a post somewhere in between the cold sweats and bliss while not entirely independent of one another. Neither a goddness, nor a heathen, she is merely a human who sometimes dances on the brink of extremes.

Dis-Aloosive

“What is your favorite word?” my hair-stylest asked me as he applied white goop to my locks.

“That’s a good question,” I replied. “Give me a minute to think.

I considered the words I say most often, the words with a funky sound, the words I hold onto because of their deeper personal meaning.

“Disillusioned!” exclaimed my friend sitting in the chair beside me. “Becca loveeees the word disillusioned” she giggled.

I looked at her and laughed. This had recently become a word I probably say too frequently: When someone asks me to do something I certainly will not, when I am asked on a date that is implausible, when someone makes an erroneous assumption about me and my intentions. This world is disillusioned..

“That is a good one” I said with a grin on my face, but I think my word has to be elusive.

“Eelluusssiveeeee?” said my stylist mocking. “And what does that mean miss sassy pants?”[1]

I explained that it means that something has a bit of mystery, a person, or a concept you can’t quite put your finger on.

“Oh, like me” he said smiling. “Let’s see, how would you spell that…A-L-O-O-S-I-V-E…You girls and these big words.”

We all laughed.

“Well can you be disaloosive?” He asked cracking a smirk that revealed he was completely unserious.

I thought about it, and suggested that maybe it is when someone discovers your secrets, and you are not so elusive anymore…

I hope to never become too “diselusive.” I think there is something intrinsically sexy and classy about keeping a bit to oneself. I think too often we fall into the trap of becoming open books, thinking that the world is actually interested in hearing everything we have to say. When in reality, the person who likes to hear themselves talk the most, is well, themselves…

[1] Apparently some think I am sassy. Strangest thing.