Emancipated

“A little backbone once in a while wouldn’t cheapen your dangle,” she said with a twinkle in her eye.

I’d just apologized to the waiter for the fact that she had ordered a Dos Equis and that he had brought her a Tres Equis.

When, in fact, I was pretty sure she’d said Tres Equis.

Now what the hell was her meaning?

Which is exactly what I asked her.

“It means that you should learn to stand up to some people, my dear man. And it would not hurt that swagger of yours I love so much,” she laughed and slapped me in the area of my bum – which she couldn’t quite get to because we were seated.

Reading between the lines is sometimes difficult.

What she really was trying to say might be, “Stand up to others as much as you like, but be wax in my dainty little hands.”

However, there definitely had been some innuendo in the dangle.

So that I was not entirely surprised when she suggested going back to our room after a while.

– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2016)

Written around the words backbone, cheapen and dangle from 3WW.

Work

I’ve been coming twice a week to clean this illustrious writer’s house – thirteen or even fourteen years it must be. He used to meet people, have interviews, appear on TV, particularly after the success of his one and only novel The Deserted Planet, which, as you know, also became a movie everyone went to see. That was probably about ten years ago. He had a big party to celebrate his 70th birthday – I was there to help out in the kitchen. Lots of VIPs – writers, the mayor, people from politics and cinema. His ex-wife, that well-known anchorwoman. And then a gradual decline set in, fewer people came, he stayed home most of the time. Eventually he would no longer go on his habitual hour long walks. And now, sadly, his speech is as jumbled as his thoughts. His niece is taking care of him now, is getting paid for it and in control of everything. And stingy. He’s become haggard because she skimps on his food – while treating herself to fancy meals downtown with her boyfriend. He moved in a year ago. The slick, lecherous type. Has his eyes glued to certain parts of me whenever he’s around. Once he told me, when handing me my money, “You know, Felicidad, I love Latin women. A lot. There is something so exotically sensuous and seductive about them.” I keep the job because of the old man, who mostly sits in the living room now, staring out of the window.

– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2015)

Written around illustrious, habitual and jumbled from 3WW.

Final

Rose's jabs at me while we were having our weekly candlelight dinner at the Oasis, that place of Nouvelle Cuisine fine dining and excessive pricing, seemed a bit labored or even makeshift.

"There's something wrong with your jabs tonight, love," I said during a break.

She took her time chewing a morsel of boeuf whatever.

She cleared her throat; this was always a bad sign.

"My jabs, as you so conveniently call my part of our conversation, have come to an end. I'm leaving you."

"Don't tell me it's Julian Dent."

Julian Dent was her posh and good looking dentist. I'd long suspected that something might be going on there.

"No. It's not."

She took a sip from her glass of Merlot and savored it.

"Someone I know?"

"Yes."

"Who?"

"Your brother."

Now that was the final jab. Like one with a knife. And it had come easily from her, sounding neither labored nor makeshift.

She rose quietly and walked out of my life.

– Leonard Blumfeld ((c) 2015)

Written around jab, labored and makeshift from 3WW.