the affair

        Bernice enjoyed her sunsets on the terrazzo patio, sipping demitasse espresso, and waiting for her husband. By twilight she would be sharp and smart and ready to start anew with the booze. Today she sat in the shade of the frangipani. She strummed her folk guitar in the bossa-nova style of Luiz Bonfa and Charlie Byrd. Samba triste.
        Blue notes, in melancholy chords.
        Waiting for Mac was like waiting for Godot.
        She grew bitter.
        She put away the guitar. Klick-klacked in canvas-top wooden clogs, over to the al fresco bar.
        Bombay gin and Rose's lime juice with crushed ice. A most excellent tonic for the sagging spirit.


                                                                                 *

        Footfalls beyond the garden gate. Not an idle carefree gait. Not McEwan's. Whose?
        Maurice. "Where's the Guv?"
        "Somewhere."
        "Returning soon?"
        "Maybe."
        "Splendid. I came to visit you."
        "Ah. Hah."


                                                                                   *


        Leisurely they smoked their own. Maurice relished his Cuban cigar, blowing neat rings toward Bernice. She responded with coquettish exhalations of Player's Navy Cut. She wore a cotton print blouse with a rain forest motif and stone-washed blue denim shorts. He wore a rumpled safari jacket with sleeves pushed up. No  shirt. Genitals abundantly packaged within a black Speedo. She arched her spine so that her breasts rose and her nipples pressed against the fragile cloth. Her voluptuousness achieved the desired effect. His eyes were taking copious notes, causing her to blush and her nipples to grow hard. She leaned forward to pick up her drink. The glass was beaded with icy sweat. Her freckled bosom swung and came to rest with a jiggle. She saw that he had an erection.
        She giggled.
        Maurice grinned. "What?"
        "Tit for Tat."
        "What a child you are. Teasing a man like me."
        "What kind of man?"
        Her green eyes zinged like summer lightning.
        Together they laughed and blew more smoke.


                                                                               *


        Night-blooming floral vaginas opened langorously in the dark. Their perfumes invaded the patio. The torrid jungle crept closer. Bernice imagined jaguars posing passively as shepherds, with monkeys and wild pigs in placid repose. A tableau from Rousseau. Then as her visualization reconstructed itself in a cascade of pixals she saw the same animals in a greasy nightmare from Bosche. Her mind quivered. Incandescent jelly on a knife.
        "Are you still with me?" He was massaging her warm thigh.
        "Just thinking."
        "About Mac?"
        "No."
        "Let me fix you a fresh drink."
        "While you're up, turn on the colored lights."
        "Christmas bulbs!"
        "They hang all year. I've thrown away the boxes."
        Maurice found the switch. The lights were strung overhead in a canopy of small nebuli. And others tracked along the stucco wall. They reminded him of those cheerful Texas ice-houses (beer-joints along the highway) where every day and night there was fiesta. Outdoor wooden tables and benches. White-flour tortillas crammed with spicy beef stew. On the side chipotle and chorizo. Nachos con queso. And bottles of beer so cold that when he ordered, Dos cervezos, por favor!, the barman inside the dusty shack had to yank the frosty bottles apart. With dramatic flourish: Muy frio!
        Lots of laughter.
        On road trips Maurice preferred the company of women. Saucy farmgirls and spicy students away from Mami and Papi for the first time in their budding lives. Cinnamon-hued lilies of the field, their conversations were artful, lilting, and playfully devoid of that tiresome machismo he found in peckerwoods and truckstop heros.
        Sexual encounters were fluid and come-what-may.
        If the chicks liked beer, then so much the better.
        At the ice-houses Christmas lights were strung overhead and glowed all year. He thundered across the prickly pear wasteland in a huge Dodge Challenger. British green with racing stripes. It dominated the road. Redline was an existential drug. Riding in that car actually gave him a hard-on.
        Those were the days!
        His infant business struggled to stay alive. He could not pay someone to distribute his stuff. So he did it himself. He drove from Texas to California, all routes leading to Sedona and Santa Fe.
        New Age shoppers listened to his mojo spiel. He awakened their totem spirits. Flirting and fucking. It was all salesmanship. Baubles, bangles and beads.
        He learned to sell in bulk to gurus, faith healers and professional shamans. In time he became very well connected. His sixth sense allowed him to intuit market trends. He found answers not in the crunching of dead numbers, but in the sniffing of sagebrush at dawn. Whenever his journey hit a snag and he was beset with frustration, misery and fatigue, there was always a Texas ice-house glittering in the desolation.



                                                                             *


       The colored lights caused Bernice to smile.
        "Thank you so much."
        "You are welcome."
        Maurice removed his sweaty safari jacket.
        Touching his third nipple, she asked, "Is there a story to go along with this?"
        "As a matter of fact, there is. According to Daddy Doc."
        "The witch doctor."
        "I can introduce you."
         "We've met." She shivered and folded her arms, hiding her breasts.


                                                                              *


        Like most affairs it began with a caress and a loss of control. For months they had been tantalizing each other. Experienced epicures, they savored moments of heightened attraction. Discussing art, music, philosophy and literature, each would become aroused to the threshold of sublime madness. Controlled sexual energy enhanced the pleasure of their company. So went their tantric theory. It was a fool's game.


                                                                              *


        Bernice placed a CD on the Bose system, spread some sheet music upon the Byzantine rug and fired up a dozen candles in a haphazard glut throughout Mac's library. Then she brought forth a volume of Frederico Garcia Lorca.
        Candlelight glinted in her fiery pubic thatch and in the hurricane swirl about her impish face. Booze had brought a waxy blush to her pixie nose. The light also shone in the sweat of her heavy breasts, hips and thighs. She was enticingly zaftig and Maurice loved to stroke her paunch.
        She smiled upon the lust he still displayed.
        It had been an hour since she took in hand his quaking rod and kissed the nappy curls that trekked into the badlands of his groin. She recalled the slapping of their bellies, the savage rutting.
        "Tonight," she announced. "We have a program of Crumb. Voices Of Spanish Children. Based on poetry by Lorca."
        Music began playing and Bernice traced the notes on the page as they heard them. His eyes followed her fingertips. He knew deeply that he would never forget this exquisite romance.
        His mind drifted into the moment.
        This was absolute sensual euphoria.
        All of his romances had been peak experiences. All had been pyrotechnic, but brief. He did not rue this. Nor did he rue the future of this thing with Bernice.
        Suddenly he wished to ask, what did she ever see in that self-absorbed scatter-brained twit McEwan.
        "Can I ask you something?"
        "No," she replied with the softness of rapture. "We are busy with the music."