Rockets Versus Gravity

by Richard Scarsbrook

  Four big bedrooms! (Three of which have not yet been slept in.)

  A heated driveway! (“Nice!” James mused. “We can switch it on in the winter to give the local homeless people something warm sleep on.” Sidney rolled her eyes and huffed, “It’s for melting snow, James. There are no homeless people in this neighbourhood.”)

  The biggest Premium Selling Feature of them all, though, in Sidney’s Professional Opinion? Seven bathrooms! SEVEN! Her voice trembled with emotion as they signed the mortgage documents. “We will make a killing when we flip this place!”

  James understands now that no house they share can ever really be a home; in Sid’s own words, it’s merely a “deficit-financed equity upgrade.” He hasn’t bothered unpacking all his clothes from the suitcases yet, and his guitars are still sealed inside cardboard travelling closets rented from the moving company, whose drivers know James and Sidney by their first names. James is wary of letting himself get too comfortable here, since Sidney and her colleagues are already predicting that their new neighbourhood is going to get “very hot, very soon.”

  If James complains even obliquely about the hassle of moving homes approximately every eight months, Sidney just shrugs and says, “Moving is easier than renovating.” Or, alternately: “I deserve better. I deserve more.” There is a hardcover book on Sidney’s bedside table that reminds her daily of her newfound mantra:

  YOU DESERVE BETTER!

  YOU DESERVE MORE!

  Rule the Boardroom! Rule the Bedroom! Rule the World!

  James notes cynically that reading this book has not resulted in more bedroom proclivity from his wife; in fact, their sexual liaisons have actually decreased since she started reading this tome.

  “… and it’s going to be the hottest day of the season so far,” an over-caffeinated DJ hollers through the speaker of the clock radio, “a record-breaking thirty degrees Celsius, or eighty-six degrees Fahrenheit. So get out there and make the most of a —”

  “Oh, shuddup!” Sidney moans as she pounds the snooze button with her fist, glaring at the LED digits glowing 6:00 a.m. “Gawwwwwd! Why is it so fucking hot in here?”

  “I can go switch on the air conditioning if you want.”

  James is not sure he can actually do this, since the state-of-the-art, multi-zone forced-air system has a control grid more elaborate than the instrument panel of a Boeing 747.

  “Gawd,” Sidney whines, “this humidity is insufferable!”

  She kicks her long, slim legs in the air, launching the Egyptian-cotton sheets and Indian silk–covered duvet off herself, and burying James beneath them. The hem of her nightdress lands eight inches above her smooth pubic mound, which she recently had waxed bald at the spa; the little bloody speckles have just faded away.

  James was fond of Sidney’s sparse triangle of strawberry-blond pubic hair, and he wonders why she would so abruptly remove a feature of her body that he had praised so frequently. Nevertheless, the sight of his wife lying there with her legs wide open, pubic hair or none, causes James’s erection to push up hard against the heap of down-filled bedding.

  He shrugs the duvet and sheets onto the floor and then rolls over toward Sidney, brushing the inside of her thigh with his fingertips. A few gentle stokes there used to be all it took to get her juices flowing. Just a few months ago, she would have been on top of him right away.

  She snaps her legs together, trapping his hand.

  “For gawd’s sake, James!”

  “Aw, c’mon, Sid.”

  She tugs his fingers out, pulls down the nightdress, and props herself up against her custom-made, virgin-down-filled Medium-Firm Side-Sleeper pillow. The muscles of Sidney’s trainer-toned arms are lean, tense, and twitchy.

  “No time for that,” she says. “I’ve got to show three different houses this morning, and I still have to wash and straighten my hair. This fucking humidity!”

  James reaches for her waist and says, “Just let it go curly today.”

  “Professional women do not have curly hair,” she says.

  Apparently, James muses, neither above nor below.

  “And you’d better get your ass in gear, too,” Sidney says. She swings her legs over the side of the bed, and her feet slap against the polished rainforest-hardwood floor before James can touch her again. “You can’t slack off just because you’re married to the boss’s daughter.”

  James sighs. As if working for Sidney’s father has ever been an advantage.

  Sid’s dear daddy had invited more guests to their wedding than James had. Harry Riskey’s VIP clients and colleagues sat closer to the head table than James’s own mother and father. After the wedding, Sidney’s parents sent around little albums of photos from the event to all of the guests, embossed in gold leaf with Our Daughter Sidney’s Wedding (as opposed to, say, James and Sidney’s Wedding). Harry Riskey vetoed the photo of James removing the garter belt in the traditional fashion, from beneath his daughter’s wedding dress, judging it to be “inappropriate to share with colleagues and clients”; but somehow another photo, which depicted Harry’s business partner, Baldric Gamble, posing beside the non-blushing bride, her left buttock clenched firmly in his right hand, slipped through the approval process.

  The photo album pretty much summed it up for James; he, the groom, in his tuxedo with the dusty-rose-pink bow tie and vest, was of equivalent value to the proceedings as the dusty-rose-pink bridesmaids’ dresses and the dusty-rose-pink ribbons tied around the chair backs at the reception.

  During the Pregnancy Scare, Harry Riskey had made three demands:

  James would immediately cut his long hair short.

  James would immediately quit playing music for a living and would come to work at Riskey and Gamble Insurance.

  James would marry Sidney within three months, before Sidney’s pregnancy started to show in an obvious way.

  Even after it was discovered that the pregnancy test had showed a false positive, James complied with all three of Harry Riskey’s demands.

  And here James is now.

  “And don’t leave that bedding on the floor!” Sidney scolds. “Those sheets are dry clean only, and that duvet cover cost three thousand dollars!”

  James picks up the sheets and duvet, and smoothes them over the mattress.

  James follows Sidney into the ensuite.

  She leans over the faux-marble countertop, her face an inch from the bevelled mirror as she inserts her contact lenses. “By the way, you’ll have to eat dinner by yourself tonight, okay?”

  James inches up behind her and encircles her waist in his hands.

  “Showing houses tonight, too?” he asks.

  His erection springs free from his boxer shorts, and he nestles it between her upturned cheeks.

  “Oh, for gawd’s sake, James, stop that. It isn’t romantic.”

  “But it’s fun!”

  “Maybe for you.”

  “I can’t help it! You have the nicest ass!”

  “Well, you’re right about that,” she says. “And no, I’m not showing houses tonight. I’m having a strategy meeting with Roland.”

  James’s penis deflates, and he steps back from his wife’s previously enticing buttocks.

  Roland. Roland Baron. Roland “The Red” Baron. The self-­proclaimed “Baron of the Upper Beach.” That’s what it says on his business cards, embossed in faux-gold letters right beneath his grinning mug shot, along with the phrase You Deserve Better! You Deserve More! Since it was Roland Baron who gave the book to Sidney, James assumes that the business card slogan was plagiarized directly from the book’s cover.

  James has five of Roland’s cards, one for each time that Roland has forgotten (or pretended to forget) that they’ve met before.

  “Nice to meet you, Jake,” Roland says (every time), handing over his card as if it’s the key to the city.

 
“We’ve met before,” James replies (every time). “And it’s James.”

  James can’t even purge any of his passive-aggressive anger by drawing a ridiculous goatee over Roland’s business card photo, because Roland already has one, trimmed so immaculately that it appears to be etched onto his chin with a black Magic Marker.

  For the past three business quarters, Roland Baron has been the Top Grossing Agent at the real estate brokerage where Sidney works; he’s got the translucent plastic tombstones on his desk to prove it. Roland claims that he invented the term “the Upper Beach,” and now he is the dominant real estate agent in the area.

  The Beach itself is a neighbourhood that runs parallel to the eastern beaches along Lake Ontario. For the sort of Torontonians who have become rich from capitalism but still want to feel as cool as they did during their wannabe-hippie-underground-university-newspaper days, this “upscale yet funky” area is the place to own a home. Some of the old-timers still call it the Beaches, but the influx of Limousine Liberals voted to rename it the Beach. Simple. Elegant. Refined. Like the people who have taken over the area. And yes, they actually had a referendum on the issue. It was that important.

  Just to the north of the Beach is the southwest corner of Scarborough, a satellite of Toronto that is a bit too low-rent and working-class for the bankers and lawyers from the downtown office towers. Coffee Time franchises still outnumber Starbucks, and there is more Bud Light on tap than any imported or microbrewery beer, so properties in Scarborough are a harder sell to the nouveaux riches.

  Then Roland Baron had an idea, a great, Grinchy idea: instead of “Southwest Scarborough,” he would refer to the area as “the Upper Beach,” and maybe some reluctant neo-capitalists would pay premium prices to live there. As Roland explains it, “When you meet some chick from Mississauga at a downtown nightclub, and she asks you where you live, the Upper Beach sounds pretty cool, right? I mean, Mississauga is Manhattan compared to Scarborough, but you just might get into that tight little, um, minidress of hers” — he winks here — “if you live in the Upper Beach. Am I right, or am I right? Or am I right?”

  By the time the other real estate agents had caught on to the ploy, Roland was already the Baron of the Upper Beach, with his name and likeness plastered onto giant billboards all over the area. Since he now had more business than one agent could possibly handle by himself, he benevolently offered a “limited partnership” to his colleague Sidney.

  Their partnership doesn’t have many limits, as far as James can tell.

  Since “joining forces” with Roland, Sidney wears low-cut blouses and push-up bras, because one of Roland’s maxims is “Mammaries Move Properties.” She wears thong-style panties now, too, because, according to the Baron of the Upper Beach, “Panty Lines Discourage Signings.” Or maybe the saying was “Ass Sells Grass.”

  Sidney has replaced their coffee maker, which James’s grandparents gave them as a wedding gift, with an espresso machine just like Roland’s, brought in from Italy by some importer with whom Roland attended prep school. Sidney also wants to trade in their perfectly good Honda Civic for a Lexus sedan like Roland drives. In the words of Roland Baron, “Your Car Is What You Are.” Or, in Sid’s own words, “You can keep driving that shitty old Honda if you want to, James; I deserve better. I deserve more.”

  “That’s what the Red Buffoon’s card says,” James observed.

  “Don’t call him that,” Sidney snapped. “Your jealousy of Roland is so … palpable. It’s not attractive, James.”

  Sidney has also been shopping around for a bigger diamond for the engagement ring that James bought her, even though the original cost him more than he spent on his first three cars, including their current Honda Civic. Roland says, “Winners Wear Their Winnings,” and apparently nothing says Winner more than a huge chunk of polymorphous carbon on one’s finger.

  Sidney deserves better. Sidney deserves more. Roland Baron has told her so.

  The Red Buffoon sends text messages to James’s wife almost hourly, and Sidney always responds immediately, even during their third-anniversary dinner last month. Just last night, Sidney’s omnipresent smartphone buzzed at 1:45 a.m.; it was Roland, sending her pictures of the precious dessert he was eating at some precious downtown restaurant with a six-month waiting list and no prices on the menu.

  “Does he have any idea what time it is?” James grumbled.

  “Winners Get Up Early, and They Go to Bed Late,” Sidney said.

  “Why the hell is he sending you photos of his chocolate soufflé?”

  “It’s decorated with edible gold leaf, ” Sidney said. “He’s actually eating twenty-four carat gold!”

  “His morning bowel movement will be quite a commodity.”

  “Just go back to sleep,” Sidney sighed, as her spa-manicured nails continued clickity-clacking on the keypad of her phone.

  James turns away from the mirror in the ensuite and tucks his mostly flaccid unit back into his boxers.

  “Didn’t you just have a ‘strategy meeting’ with Roland last week?”

  “Business is booming,” Sidney says. She stares into her own eyes in the mirror as she eliminates a single, imperfect eyebrow hair with zircon-encrusted tweezers. “We’ve got a lot to discuss.”

  “I can cook something when you get home,” James says. “I don’t mind waiting for you.”

  “This was our best sales month since we joined forces,” Sidney says, “so Roland is taking me to Canoe to celebrate.”

  Ah. Canoe. One of those restaurants where nobody pays the bill with their own money. If you don’t have a corporate expense account, or if you aren’t deducting the cost to reduce your net income on your tax return, you probably aren’t dining at Canoe.

  “Oh, okay then,” says James. “Well, I’ve got a doctor’s appointment this afternoon at Yonge and Eglinton, so maybe I could meet you and Roland at Canoe! Maybe he’ll remember my name this time.”

  “No, James. This is a business meeting. Absolutely not.” Her voice echoes inside the hollow of the faux-Moroccan-mosaic-tiled shower enclosure. “And if you want people to remember your name, then, well … be more memorable.”

  “Maybe I should punch that smug motherfucker right on his shoe-polish goatee. I bet he’d find that memorable.”

  “Don’t be a Neanderthal, James,” she says, turning her back to him. Then, over her shoulder, “Oh, I almost forgot. Priya wants you to stop by and help her hang some mirrors or something.”

  Priya is Sidney’s former college roommate, to whom she sometimes lends James as a “rental husband.”

  “Oh,” James says. “Okay. So, you have fun with the Red Buffoon, and I’ll have fun with Priya.”

  But Sidney doesn’t hear him. She doesn’t even seem to see him anymore. She’s pulled the tinted-glass shower door closed, and the hot water hisses from seven separate jets (another Premium Selling Feature). The water blasts her skin, dripping from her strawberry nipples, cascading over her lean, muscular shoulders and back. Rivulets cling to her tight, flat belly, twist around her long, lean legs. Vine-like streams flow over her round, personal-trainer-sculpted behind.

  Tonight she’ll wriggle into that shimmering top that clings to her breasts like wet, black spray paint. She’ll pull on that skirt that stops halfway down her thighs, the one that tucks in under her ass just right, and those dark nylons he loves, the ones with the lines up the back. And that thong James gave her for Valentine’s Day, that awesome pink one that folds just slightly into the now-hairless crease between her legs; that will get him going for sure.

  Sidney runs her slippery hands over the hard, tight contours of her body. Premium Selling Features indeed, she thinks.

  James wanders into the only other bathroom that ever gets used, and once his own shower is running from its single spout, he allows himself to fantasize about Priya.

  They are painting the hallway in
her apartment; he does the rolling, Priya does the details. Her breasts rise and her soft buttocks lift as she reaches with her paintbrush to touch up a spot she missed near the ceiling.

  Her long, straight black hair still falls in her face when she blushes or smiles, and that tinge in her deep brown eyes of … of what? What is it? Longing? Wisdom? Sadness? Regret? Whatever it is, that subtle tone somehow changes her from merely pretty to a rare kind of beautiful. And that aspect of her, whatever it is, never fails to arouse James. It makes him want to taste her, to touch her, to thrill her, to fill her with pleasure.

  Priya catches him admiring her and smiles.

  “Do you want to take a break with me, James?” she says. She peels off her paint-speckled yoga pants and brushes past him in the narrow hallway. He follows her into the small living room, where she lies back on her ancient sofa and opens up for him, her thatch of jet-black fur trimmed neatly around the edges, just the way James likes it.

  James begins stroking himself, feeling as if the rushing water is the only thing preventing him from bursting into flames and crumbling into a pillar of ash.

  Inconvenience

  When the argument begins, I’m trapped inside the “Employees Only” washroom at the back of the Gas ’n’ Snak convenience store. I’m not an actual employee of the Gas ’n’ Snak, but because my wheelchair won’t fit inside the washroom that’s reserved for customers, Khalid lets me use this one instead.

  “I’m sorry, sir,” Khalid’s voice says, “but until you comply with my request, I’m afraid that I cannot serve you.”

  “Look,” the other voice says, “just gimme my smokes, my lottery tickets, and my burritos, and we’re done here. Mmm-kay, Gandhi?”