by Dermot Davis
I don’t usually notice flowers or foliage very much but today I’m struck by how pretty all the flowers are: their bright colors and varied shapes and sizes, some of them dancing in the soft breeze. Of the many, probably hundreds of thousands of photographs that I’ve taken in my life, I don’t think I’ve ever taken one picture of a flower. After Still Life, Flower Photography has always been my number two on my ‘most detestable uses to put a good camera to’ list. It’s like what schlock art is to real painting: taking pictures of flowers demeans the medium and cheapens the brand, so to speak. Amazingly, I’m zooming in X10 to get a perfect shot of the petals of a pinkish-red wild grown azalea which is stretching its adventurous little neck over a tight-knit little bunch of hydrangeas.
I need to get out of L.A. more often, I decide. Actually, I have been here a few times before, not in Fairfax exactly but in San Rafael, which is close by (Mike’s parents moved up there from L.A.). It has never looked this marvelous to me before. Now I get why all the old folks describe this place as rustic and quaint. I’m not retiring any time soon, but I could definitely live here if I were.
I spend hours taking photographs of stuff that I never previously considered as photo-worthy subjects. Maybe my project direction is changing a bit and I should go with it. If someone told me a year, or even a month ago, that I’d be taking photos of flowers, bushes and hedges, mixed color ceramic tile and slate roofs, slanted wooden telegraph poles, cracked, potholed and unevenly surfaced tarmacadamed intersections and quirky local signage, I would have laughed in their face. I would probably have told them that subjects like theses were strictly for tourists, hacks and postcard photographers.
When I get back to the house, I’m pretty pooped. Some early guests have arrived. It looks like maybe they got here early to help because everybody is busy doing something to prepare for the party.
“Hi, sweetie. Have a nice walk?” Frances greets me with a tender kiss and a heart-melting smile.
“I had a great walk. Can I help with something?”
“Thanks, honey but you’ll just be in the way. You look all tuckered out, why don’t you rest for a bit? Oh, I know…” Frances takes a newly purchased book from her bag, leads me into the front room, sits me in an armchair and hands me the book. “I thought maybe we could try this,” she half-whispers with a hint of glee.
“The Art Of Tantric Sex,” I read the title out loud.
“This will blow your mind,” she says, again in a conspiratorial half-whisper. “I’ll go get you a drink.” As she heads off to the kitchen fridge to grab a beer and bring it back, I’m like, jumping up and down inside, just loving this whole grown-up relationship thing. When on earth did Roxanne ever sit me down and tell me I look tired and give me a beer and a book to read and just basically look after me like this, in general? Uh…never.
I was always the one looking after her needs, not so much because that’s the kind of person that I am, which I guess, I am, but mainly because the relationship was so always about her and her telling me what her needs were. We had more than one conversation where she seriously told me how her needs were not getting met in the relationship. Can anyone say, ‘Prima Donna?’ Looking back, I can see how I was a total moron for putting up with it.
“Here’s your beer, sweetie,” Frances says with a kiss on my head. When did Roxanne ever give me a beer and a kiss on the head? Not once. I sigh with peace and gratitude.
As I sit reading the book on sex, I’m dimly aware that more guests are arriving, the party is getting going and is mainly confined to the main room, dining room and kitchen. I don’t know anybody and to be honest, because most people attending seem to be in their sixties and seventies, I really don’t think this gathering constitutes a party, at least not according to my definition of what a party should be. I think one or two of them came on walkers.
Frances keeps feeding me beers and tasty appetizers and never once gives me a hard time for sitting by myself and not mingling. I personally hate mingling, it’s even an ugly word, and too close to the word ‘mangled’ to be a coincidence.
Besides, I’m finding this book about sex fascinating. Rather, I should say, it’s an okay book full of really weird sexual positions, which to my mind seriously borders on porn but what I find fascinating is that Frances wants to do all these positions with me! As I look at the strange sexual positions, I find myself mentally superimposing Frances’ face onto the model in the illustration. It’s pretty steamy and I’m getting turned on just thinking about it.
“Are you still sitting here?” Frances asks, knowing quite well that I’m still here, she’s been sneaking me beers all evening. I should probably get by now that even when she sounds earnest, she’s not always being earnest, she’s being jokey but I haven’t gotten it down yet. I think now that she’s actually being jokey.
“Best seat in the house,” I playact, a secret whisper into her ear. “If I move, I’ll lose it.”
“Don’t you want to go mingle?” she whispers back. Actually, now I’m not quite sure if she is playacting or being serious.
“Go mingle with the old people?” I say, still going with the jokey. “What do you say to old people?”
“Ask them how they feel about having wrinkles and saggy breasts.”
“And what would I ask the women?” I say, holding in a smile because that was a good one.
“I don’t want you talking to the women. Most of them are widows on the lookout for new husbands who still know how to drive and don’t have heart conditions. Talk to Mr. Darcy over there.” Although Mr. Darcy looks like he’s in his eighties, he still has a sprightly demeanor and a mischievous look on his face.
“What would we talk about?”
“I don’t know. Whatever guys talk about. Sports.”
“What do I know about lawn bowling?” The booze helps and I could have kept up our witty repartee for quite some time except some geeky dude in his forties comes through the front door, waves at Frances and off she goes to greet him. I check him out to make sure that he has no designs on Frances but by the way she greets him, I can see that she has zero romantic interest in him. So I go talk to Mr. Darcy.
“The weather is so unpredictable this year,” I say, hoping I sat by his good ear.
“When I met my wife first, that was all we talked about.”
“The weather?”
“Yes. Whether she would or whether she wouldn’t!” Mr. Darcy laughs hard but it takes me a few seconds to join him. He may have a few years on him but those neurons are still firing. “Whether she would or whether she wouldn’t,” he repeats himself, still laughing.
“That’s funny,” I say with one eye checking on Frances who is in the kitchen still talking to the geeky dude, I think I heard her call him, Ronald or Reinhold or something. Three elderly women come over and sit with Mr. Darcy. Somehow I get sandwiched in the middle, unable to escape without climbing onto or pushing over one or two of the old ladies.
They may be old but maybe Frances is right: each of the women do appear to be interested in Mr. Darcy. Had I not seen the movie, Grumpy Old Men, I would have thought flirting was only for the young but apparently the sexes never seem to lose interest in each other. Don’t know what to think about that or maybe I’d rather not think about it. I don’t want to lose the contents of my stomach putting those kind of images in my head.
“Suddenly you’re married and you have to live with this strange man for the rest of your life. What did we know?” says one of the women, as I tune into their weird conversation.
“My granddaughter asked me if she was marrying the right man. There is no right man, I tell her. You want a pork chop or a lamb chop? Take one or the other and make the best you can out of it. The right man is the man you marry.”
“It’s all about sex, nowadays,” another of the ladies chimes in. “They have to be sexually compatible and what have you. I was married to the same man for thirty years. We did it the same way, every time.”
“I’m
so glad I didn’t have to do that oral sex,” says one of the women, with disgust, which scores common agreement among the other women.
“He was lucky to have me lie still while he got on with it,” adds another, the three ladies at this point on a roll and seemingly enjoying outdoing each other with increasing levels of lewdness.
I’m honestly not sure if they are being serious or if they are sharing a secret joke, amusing themselves by trying to embarrass me or more likely, Mr. Darcy who looks like he’d rather be with the guys, if there were a group of old guys to hang with, which sadly, there is not.
“Excuse me, ladies,” I finally say, standing up. “Need to empty the bladder,” which is not a lie. When I climb to the top of the stairs and turn towards the bathroom, I discover that it is a party, after all and that I found the typical party line for the solitary water closet. A shifty-looking guy in his fifties standing in front of me looks out of place and can’t seem to stand still.
“The relationship I’m in, right now?” he says to me as if he knows me from way back and he’s finishing the conversation we never had. “Anything I want, she’ll do. Anything.” I feel like asking him if he’s mistaken me for his best friend from high school or maybe he’s telling a joke and this is his way of mingling with strangers.
“Like what?” I ask, playing the straight guy. “What do you mean by ‘anything?’”
“Anything. Kinky, S & M. role-playing, you name it. She’s wild.”
I’m not getting it and to make matters worse my bladder is about to explode. Is the guy being serious? “Do you find that sex games help to deepen your relationship?” I ask, with an overly serious expression.
“How do you mean?”
“That sexual games help to build up trust?” I say, now not knowing what the hell we were talking about. Who is this guy and what is he doing here?
“You don’t know what I’m talking about, do you?” he asks.
“Sure,” I say, at this point not giving a rat’s ass about anything this freakazoid has to say, “She’ll do anything.” This party sucks rocks.
“Freaking wild. You’ll meet her. Don’t you dare steal her from me!”
What is this insane guy talking about? “I won’t,” I say and turn my head hoping to signal an end to the madness.
“Ever go three way?”
“Only at the track,” I answer, doing my impression of Groucho Marx.
“Is that a joke? Only at the track?” he asks, looking seriously offended. He’s serious about a three-way with his girlfriend? What a douche.
“I’m sorry. Are you suggesting we go..?”
“Heck, no. I wouldn’t share her, are you crazy? Not with someone I just met. What if I did?”
“What?”
“You don’t seem that experienced to me. Not that that’s a problem. Could be to your advantage, haven’t developed any bad habits.”
At this point I decide to turn around to go pee in the bushes outside. A really cute twenty-five year old woman with a big smile to match her perkily erect, enormous breasts walks straight towards me, winks at me, walks right past me and kisses the weird dude on the lips.
This isn’t happening, I say to myself.
“What are you two talking about?” she asks.
“Oh, guy talk,” says the weirdo. “This is Martin, Frances’ boy toy.”
The freak knows who I am?
“Just kidding,” he then adds.
“I’m Stacy,” Stacy says with a flirtatious smile, extending her hand.
“Think he’s cute?” asks the freak.
“Yeah, I guess,” Stacy answers, another wink in my direction.
“Don’t be getting any ideas,” weird dude says, shaking his finger at me.
“Not me,” I say, now so totally in the Twilight Zone, I wonder to myself exactly where was the threshold that I walked through that transported me into this kinky sex netherworld.
“Let’s go get some more booze,” Stacy says and drags the creepy guy away. I thought he wanted to go to the bathroom?
“Having fun, yet?” Frances appears.
“Who are the hep cat swingers?”
“Steve and Stacy.”
“What are they doing here? Recruiting geriatrics for wild and kinky sex?”
“Steve is my ex-husband.”
Wallop. Crash. Bang. You’ve got to be shitting me, I say to myself.
The bathroom door finally opens and it’s my turn. Frances kisses me on the cheek and wisely departs. She must have seen my jaw drop and all the blood drain from my face. She was married to that guy? Seriously? Who is this woman and what am I doing here?
I’ve had too many beers but I still feel like drinking more. This whole geriatric party is one of the weirdest places I’ve been to in quite a while and that’s including the all night nudist-only rave that Mike and I ended up at once (totally by accident when we got lost on the way to Joshua Tree, long story) and the all women birthday party where I struck out with every single woman in the place and couldn’t figure out why until I found out it was a gathering of lesbians.
Maybe it’s too soon to be meeting Frances’ depressing friends, including sex-obsessed octogenarians and perverted ex-husbands. We’re probably rushing things a bit. We haven’t been on enough dates yet; just the two of us, where we can discover each other’s dirty little secrets as we playfully laugh and giggle beneath the sheets. Then, after warm and tender Zen sex, when we were both in the place of post-coital acceptance of confessed dirty secrets, she could have told me that she has this whacko ex-husband that spiked her drink on their first date and took her to Vegas where, next thing she knows, she wakes up married.
She would then explain that she stayed married to him for fourteen years because…because he was blackmailing her or worse, he was threatening to kill her parents if she left him. He would spike her orange juice every morning, just so she would aimlessly stumble through her day and not be in any mind to go to the courts to file divorce papers. Many years went by until he met Stacy and she told him that she would do anything he wanted, so he stopped drugging Frances and finally set her free.
When I get back to the safe haven of my armchair, I’m delighted to see that it is still empty so, not knowing of any other safe place in the house to hide out in, I sink down into its nurturing bosom and turn it ever so slightly away from any possible prying eyes. If I have to talk to one more freak tonight, I’m calling a cab and I don’t care if it bankrupts me, I’m heading back to L.A. tonight.
“Need help with that?” a young female voice says and when I look up, I see a totally drop dead gorgeous beauty who looks maybe around twenty years old. Hello, hello, hello, I say to myself, as if I have no internal controls, whatsoever. It isn’t obvious to me that I am just staring without saying a word until she extends her hand, “I’m Janice.”
“Martin,” I say, shaking her soft and tender hand. “Can I get you a drink?” I say, not knowing what to say and suddenly defaulting to bar speak.
Why is it that when a guy meets a beautiful woman, his heartbeat increases, blood rushes to his face, his palms get all sweaty and if he’s standing, he goes weak at the knees? There may be more symptoms, such as stammering, mental lock down, and/or amnesia and just plain old, talking nonsense but seriously, it’s not just me, this happens to most guys I know, so it’s got to be a biological thing, right?
Guys have no control over it, honestly. No matter how we mask it and look cool on the outside, just like a duck looks cool above water but if you look underwater at its feet, they’re flapping like crazy, going like, a hundred miles an hour.
Biologically, guys respond differently to beautiful women than they do to not so beautiful women. It’s a fact of life. It’s nothing to be proud of and most guys hate it and wish it weren’t so. Why? Because that gives a beautiful woman power over the guy. I know some guys who are powerless - literally powerless - to refuse their beautiful girlfriend anything that she wants. It’s pathetic to watch and it makes
men look like weak morons who deserve to be called names like pussy-whipped or worse.
I’m sure the not so beautiful women aren’t crazy about it either, which is why beauty products are a multi-billion dollar industry, I guess.
As for the beautiful ones? Well, word of advice would be tread softly and wield your power with fairness and justice for all. I saw a movie trailer once that said ‘Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.’ I think it was about the government and conspiracy theories but the maxim applies to everything relating to power, I think. Just something to bear in mind.
“I don’t drink,” says Janice. “I’m not twenty-one till August.”
“Want me to spike your soda?”
“Okay.”
As we casually stroll to the hard drinks table, I notice that that guy, Reinhold seems to be following Frances around like a lost puppy.
“This party blows,” says Janice. “Apart from white trash Stacy over there, we’re the youngest people here.”
“Only in age,” I say, sagely.
“What does that mean?”
“I don’t know. I’m wasted.”
“Want to see my short?” she asks, as I heavily spike her cola.
“Your what?”
“I’m a filmmaker. I made a short film.”
“Sure. I’d love to.”
Taking my hand in hers, she leads me off. “Come with me,” she says softly. As the guests begin to sing, ‘Happy Birthday,’ Janice and I enter the office off the hall which has a TV and a DVD player. Sitting me down on a sofa, she puts in her DVD and switches off the room light. I’m beginning to feel a little uncomfortable with the intimacy and I’m really not sure if I am doing something wrong, sneaking off from the main party.
“What kind of movies do you make?” I ask, in a neutral tone which I hope suggests that I’m only here because of my interest in student film work and art, in general. But, as the movie starts, she doesn’t answer and sits beside me on the sofa.
