Friday was a bad day. That morning I had another row with Cedric. Late in the afternoon when the office was almost empty, the letters landed. I sensed instinctively what they were yet, even as I opened my envelope, a tiny part of me refused to believe it. Across the room, others were reading, too. Their faces showed they were similar letters.
Outside, early evening shadows slanted across the jagged line of rooftops. The setting sun seemed symbolic. A lurching feeling rose in my chest and, against my better judgement, I rang Cedric. "That's too bad," he said. A thoughtless reflex answer.
"I'll be home late," I said, just for the sake of saying it. I had nothing planned.
I put the phone down, cursing weakness. From across the room, Jason spoke quietly but audibly: "The slimy bastards." He had joined the same day as me.
By the time I got home, it was growing dark. I let myself in quietly, not wanting to alert Cedric. I was in no mood to face his moralising, his airs.
At the top of the stairs, I was met by the tinkling sound of a girl giggling followed by the muffled tones of Cedric's voice. I walked toward the room and stopped outside the door. More giggling, then Cedric barked something gruff, inaudible. The giggling stopped. There was a long silence before the girl said something short and sharp and then gasped. I waited until the gasping turned rhythmic. These days, Cedric did not even try to be discreet.
I went to the bathroom and looked at my face in the mirror. I didn't feel 40 years old. My skin was still smooth—not beautiful perhaps, but, as a boyfriend once remarked, it was the spirited face of a prima ballerina. I stripped off and surveyed my body in the cheval glass. I'm in great condition, I reassured myself. My hair was still black, breasts round and firm, belly flat, thighs smooth, the triangle of hair bushy. I turned and appraised my smooth buttocks.
Over the next days, I wandered in haze of changing moods; from despair to hope to despondency, and back again. Experienced people were always needed, I told myself. Maybe waitressing would do until something better came along.
Sometimes as I sat alone in the living room, I felt I was hallucinating: the grainy pattern in the chest of drawers appeared sharper; the facets of the crystal decanter glinted more brightly than ever; the curtains seemed a deeper shade of blue. I hadn't noticed before the sharp smell of the the polished wood.
But I found some solace, not with Cedric, not any more. Meredith gave me a number. I called up Alexander, a strutting, baby faced body builder, aged just 19 years old but already experienced with women like me. Meredith had recommended him. I knew she had visited him occasionally. "He will do you good, dear."
As I entered his room, I was hit by a oily odor of perfumes. It was a shadowy chamber lit only by dimmed electric candles illuminating a depiction of a small male figure with a huge phallus against a background of the painted columns of a Roman brothel. We watched each other undress in the mellow half light.
I began to sweat at the familiar burst of need.
He grew erect and moved towards me. His hand moved across my buttocks. I turned my head and kissed a huge bicep and he manoeuvred me to the bed, where we lay, side by side.
He fondled my breasts, belly and then pussy, a young Grecian maestro, stretching me up and up and up. I rolled back from him, he spread my legs and I watched his tawny, bulging arms, smooth and oiled, his glinting, expressionless dark eyes staring into mine like a laser.
He held back, held back, teasing me, knowing I was dripping, and then slid inside me.
Days later, Meredith and I met at the shopping mall cafe, amid the aroma of coffee and the clatter of cutlery and the hustle of shopping housewives.
Meredith always looked on the bright side. Life was an adventure, she told me the very day we met, both of us alone and lonely, all those years ago in the ground-floor common shower room of a shabby hotel on a tropical island resort. Her nipples were already stiff. Water dripped from her soap-covered body. The window was open. She knew that young men of the village, strapping, minimally clad and looking for foreign women, stood outside and watched her. For ten sun-filled, erotic days Meredith and I obliged both them and each other.
Now, at 55 she seemed not one ounce heavier than a dozen years ago on the island; her hair, now grey, was pulled back into a pony tail; painted eyebrows rising like arches over her dark, probing eyes; flame red lips, lines forming along cheeks and jaw; floral dress cleavage plunging deep between her breasts, showing the dappled skin of a woman who has spent too much time in the sun.
"Losing a job, dear," she said, "is no disaster. It's an opportunity." She smiled, teeth showing stains of endless cups of coffee and cigarettes. I felt a tingle when she reached over and caressed my cheek and carelessly let her hand drop so it brushed my breast.
Easy for Meredith to say, I thought, but said nothing. A free-lance artist, able to survive only because she was Harry's girlfriend. But how long would it be before Harry found a younger girl? Harry had met Meredith through me, and we shared him . . . Meredith, naked, speckled, mouth open, grunting and heaving under Harry's thrusting embrace.
For a time. Then Meredith was Harry's alone. My meeting Cedric eased the transfer of affections.
The young waitress took our order impatiently. The place was only half full but she was already under pressure. A sign on the door said, "Waitress wanted part time apply within". No chance, I thought.
Over the following days, Meredith and I surfed the "jobs" columns. I sent off three online applications.
On the fourth day I tried Craigslist. One entry caught my eye: an executive needed a personal assistant, "part-time but well-paid". There were "travel possibilities". In my excitement, I hardly registered the "and other duties from time to time" tacked on the end.
But Craigslist? I was doubtful, but Meredith was adamant.
"Go for it," she said, caressing my neck and shoulders.
I did answer. An hour later a certain Linda ——- wrote back. I sounded the ideal candidate, in fact just what they were looking for and Mr —— wanted to know if I could come for an interview? And could I send pics? Pics? I hesitated. Meredith did not. "Send him one. You don't have to accept, but maybe this will swing it," she said.
We found the firm's listing on the Internet.
