The Greatest Lover of Last Tuesday

by Neil McKinnon

  She was the embodiment of every star in all the damp nocturnal movies I had ever dreamed. I became convinced that love was just another term for the pleasant sensation that occurred near my groin whenever she passed by … and then I took the incredible leap of assuming that because I loved her, it followed that she loved me. Little did I know that this was the same twisted reasoning used by all who talk about love at first sight.

  Adriana set my thinking on a straight road. “Calling you a halfwit is two times generous. Your body doesn’t contain enough blood to operate your brain and your penis at the same time. Do you know how ludicrous it is to believe that having an itch will cause someone else to scratch? Do you also expect free meals when you are hungry, or complimentary brandy when you thirst?”

  “But I was in a daze,” I protested. “I felt like I had been dead my entire life. Falling in love shattered that illusion, but I knew that I could not be truly alive until Elena acknowledged her love for me. It was a very intense time.”

  “You are simple,” she said. “Usually a lover’s degree of passion is related to the extent of prior loneliness. As the term ‘being in heat’ applies only to animals, your obsession was most likely related to your level of lunacy.”

  Unfortunately Elena chose to hide her feelings for me, pretending that she wasn’t impressed by my urbane wit and sophisticated manner. Her act was good — so good that she daily forgot my name, though I shouted it out whenever we met.

  Inspired by suppressed desire, I became aggressive in my attempts to gain her attention. I took to standing on the steps of the library in order to speak to her as she passed by on her way to class. She steadfastly ignored my cheery, “Good morning.” When I held open the door to her classroom, she swept by with her nose in the air. After a few weeks I decided to increase my visibility. The autumn days had become cool and as the trees and shrubs took on the drab colours of fall, I did the opposite. Hoping to jar Elena into acknowledging my existence, I began to vary my attire, progressing from green suits with yellow ties to long red underwear with top hat and tails. She didn’t notice.

  One chilly morning I removed all my clothing except for a pair of red polka-dotted boxers. I might as well have been a bad copy of a Greek statue. Finally, bursting with suppressed hormones, and rationality blocked by desperation, I stood on my head wearing only my yellow tie. I was arrested for public indecency but I couldn’t have been happier. The ice had cracked! She was in stitches as the police wrapped a blanket around me and threw me into the patrol wagon. Days later, when I returned to campus, she smiled at me although she still didn’t speak.

  It was her attitude that made me determined to dive head first into the pool of committed men. I didn’t see how we could fail. Between us we possessed the only two requirements I considered necessary for a successful relationship — she was attractive and I was rich. Expense was unimportant. If that’s what it would take then I was prepared. From flowers to costly jewellery I smothered her with every type of affection money can buy.

  Cash worked where all else had failed and we began dating. She explained her previous aloofness. “You excited me so much I didn’t think I could control myself,” she said. “Fortunately my religious upbringing taught me to suppress desire. I can turn away from intimacy even when I’m smouldering inside.”

  She discouraged other suitors by pretending indelicacy — chewing gum, swearing, and referring to the act of love as “a trip to the bank.” My roommate, Edgar Martinez, wasn’t impressed. “She’s frigid,” he said. “When she spreads her knees everyone in town puts on a sweater.”

  My libido was in constant turmoil and as I spent more time with her the ache in my groin turned to rigid obsession. She had a habit of letting her skirt ride up which caused me to become practically incoherent as my entire brain strained itself in a futile attempt to focus my eyes on the shadows far up her thighs. Once in a crowded café she slipped her shoe off, smiled coyly and explained that a diamond ring was the best aphrodisiac ever invented, while beneath the table she massaged my personal accoutrements with her nylon-covered toes.

  Once, late at night, I parked my car on Foreplay Ridge and we kissed. She allowed small liberties as her tongue probed deep into my mouth. After an hour my scrotum swelled to resemble a blue soccer ball and I was barely able to whimper goodnight before speeding home to find welcome solo relief.

  She explained that she was letting our passion build for a special night when there would be an explosion unlike any since hot lava burst from Krakatoa’s smouldering crater to spill over an innocent landscape. I came to understand that the special night would be our wedding night and I began to imagine matrimony which I thought I could float into with impunity. Oh foolish me! I now know that no man who makes that trip ever returns to where he started. It’s like believing that flatulence and moveable arms will propel one through water like a porpoise, which is a safe enough delusion so long as one doesn’t plunge into the deep end of the pool. But plunge I did. We were wed exactly six months after I first set eyes on her.

  The day of our nuptials was cool and beautiful. The mountains that ring Lake Albatross provided a postcard-like backdrop to our ancient university buildings, and the sun created purple shadows on the slopes where elongated sepia strips delineated wet season run-off valleys. Wisps of cloud dangled over the peaks and encircled the summit of Mount Albatross like a wedding band circles the finger of a virgin bride.

  Elena had decided that we could not be married in the campus chapel because it was too small to accommodate all of her relatives and the several hundred other guests that she had invited. The ceremony was held off-campus in the Church of Our Lady of Perpetual Devotion, presided over by Father Alvarez, an elderly priest who came late to his calling after working many years as an interior decorator. In the dim afterglow of two successful careers, the good father spent much of his time reliving his past. Because of his habit of continually rearranging candles, banners, lamps and art, including statues of the saints and the Madonna, the church had become known to local parishioners as Our Lady of Perpetual Motion. I was unaware that the result of this particular ecclesiastical transaction would be an almost permanent attachment to my own Lady of Perpetual Indulgence.

  Elena’s sisters, Pantagruel and Gargantua known affectionately within the family as Panty and Gargle, served as bridesmaids, and her uncle gave her away. Because I had few relatives and no close friends, Elena’s brother, Nacho did me the honour of standing as my best man.

  Everything proceeded as planned. Father Alvarez pronounced us man and wife and beamed as I placed the ring on Elena’s finger — a ring that she had picked out and which weighed as much as a small tractor. He said I could kiss the bride but when I raised her veil she giggled and turned away so I only tasted the perfume of her ear. It was lilac and it produced the usual reaction. A small tent formed in my trousers and led the way as we proceeded up the aisle toward the rear of the church.

  Our reception was held in the Casa de Cultura which was festooned with flowers and crepe. Elena had helped with the decorating and it was obvious that a number of local florists would soon be driving larger cars. She had hired the city’s finest dance band and the value of the food and liquor on display rivalled the financial reserves of a small country.

  There were many speeches by Elena’s relatives. Nacho’s toast to the bride was joyous. “This is the fourth marital project that Elena has attempted, yet she has never suckled the warm milk of success,” he said. “But this time she has latched on to a full breast and we, her family, are eagerly looking forward to our turn at the nipple.” I found it puzzling that this statement produced a loud cheer and I received so many slaps on the back I was sore for a week.

  Adriana, fortified by brandy, couldn’t stop crowing. “You had too many pesos for your brains, old man. She almost sucked you dry. You would have saved a lot of money were it possible to hire wet-nurses to replace idiots.”

  Our nuptials were celebrated deep into the evenin
g. Eventually most of the guests demonstrated their unfamiliarity with free liquor by passing out. The exception was Elena’s mother. Holding her glass against my left ear she steered me around the dance floor, pausing only when her drink needed to be replenished. As the evening progressed she became unsteady and gripped me tightly for support. She was not a small woman and it was all I could do to keep her from sliding to the floor. Occasionally she gained control of her balance, straightened, breathed into my face and repeated the same phrase. “My little girl has a delicate personality. I’m concerned that you won’t treat her right so I’ve decided to live with you.” Like a naïve fool I assumed it was the liquor talking.

  Adriana’s response was to cackle. “I think you should have married the mother,” she said. “You might have become a better dancer.”

  Eventually it was time to embark on our honeymoon. We left the reception in a taxi and caught the late ferry to Isla del Amor, the island of love. The night was perfect. A large yellow moon hung over an inky ocean and music drifted along the beach chased by wisps of oleander and cinnamon bush. Waves caressed the warm sand and their rippling sound followed a path of moonlight to the open window of our suite at the Rose Posada.

  I ordered oysters and champagne, quietly so as not to startle Elena — she was in the bathroom preparing herself. Then I removed my clothes, applied cologne, and donned my honeymoon ensemble. My fantasy was about to come true — no, a lifetime of fantasies was about to come true. My order arrived and I poured two glasses of champagne.

  “What’s all this?” Elena asked when she emerged from the bathroom. My glow-in-the-dark bikini shorts were only partly covered by my gold satin bathrobe.

  “A prelude to the wonders to come … but why are you dressed like that?” I asked offering her one of the glasses. She was wearing blue jeans and a sweatshirt.

  She ignored my question. “Order more drinks,” she said. “Gargle and Mama are joining us. They have nowhere to stay so they’ll be spending the night here. I’ve found you a room down the hall.” She guzzled the champagne and tossed the glass out the window. I heard it smash on the patio tile.

  So there it was — my honeymoon fantasies dashed and broken like Elena’s champagne glass. I spent the night on a narrow cot in what must have normally served as a storage closet for brooms, mops, and maid’s supplies. Even my imagination proved to be poor company. I was so upset that I ended the evening beating my head rhythmically against the closet door.

  Elena’s family immediately moved into my house and I was generally ignored, except for those times when I took on the identity and function of a bank teller. Unfortunately, my wife was not blessed with anything like my accommodating personality, and her disposition effectively ruled out the expression of either my feelings or my fluids. Starting on our wedding night and continuing through our marriage, she not only refused to sleep with me but rather took a keen delight in deriding my personality, my physique, and my manhood. She said that I should have become a priest because given my lack of libidinous attributes the vow of celibacy would have been easier for me than that of silence for a deaf mute.

  For the most part her family echoed Elena’s sentiments. Her sister, Gargle, was the exception. She made no secret that she would be happy to come to my bed, but contrary to the implication inherent in her nickname, she was possessed of such an acute case of halitosis that wallpaper voluntarily disengaged itself whenever she walked down a hallway. I politely ignored her invitations.

  I will not bore you with the tale of my confinement in Elena’s connubial prison. Suffice it to say that the term I served while shackled by the bonds of matrimony was all hard time with no respite for good behaviour. I became a model prisoner, however, and was eventually able to effect a release by severing myself from a generous portion of my inheritance.

  I had not seen Elena for over fifty years. My search for her proved difficult but she had not left the city and eventually I tracked her down. She and Gargle were sharing a small room in a church-sponsored home for retired women of elastic virtue. Her residency at the home was not voluntary. She had replaced her lack of passion with a love of food and had grown exceedingly large — so large that she was no longer able to function in her chosen profession. She was now unemployed and penniless after a long service as an officer in the war against moral rectitude. She had descended through the ranks from high-priced call girl to working in a common bawdy house, eventually ending her career in the streets competing with a cohort of ‘peso pussies’, grimly plying a trade for which she had no liking or talent.

  “Why?” I asked. “You separated me from enough money to last three lifetimes. What happened?”

  “Oh,” she said. “I developed a love for the gaming table as well as for food. My family also acquired an incomparable ability to spend. The money did not last long.”

  She exhibited no sentiment and though I had expected to feel rancour, I could not be bitter after I saw her circumstance. Our meeting failed to generate any emotion. Instead I felt the same bleak nibble of frustration experienced by someone who selects a winning horse but discovers the odds are such that only the wager is returned at the betting window.

  As I stood to escape, I detected a familiar scent. Elena still wore lilac perfume. The familiar fragrance caused an unfamiliar stirring and I turned toward Gargle in search of an antidote. Her breath neutralized the lilac. I left and returned home to face Adriana’s curiosity.

  “Did you retrieve any of your lost vanity?” she asked. “Did your meeting trigger fears of conjugal bliss? Is there a lasting lesson when avarice meets pretentiousness?”

  I pondered Adriana’s questions. Elena had desired neither an intimate relationship nor a home. Her sole objective in leading a willing me to the altar was to lighten my unbearable load of financial viability which she saw as preventing me from living a pure and uncontaminated life of penury.

  The distance from love to where no trace lingers is five times longer than the distance from first encounter to complete enchantment. What starts as shared kiss frequently turns to shared house, shared relatives, shared wallet, shared bank account, and shared malaise. As the Buddhist says, there is no permanence in this world. Perhaps it’s fated that the one you adore today — the core of your cosmos and passionate heartthrob — will eventually become your most odious nightmare.

  Adriana, who has herself nibbled matrimonial cake on at least five occasions, is stoical. “Many of my choices were not the best quality of husband material,” she said. “However, I could always overlook their shortcomings when I was fully occupied with their shortcomings. You, old man, were forced to endure the hardship of unrelieved lust while the lady derided the very desire that had allowed her to lure you in the first place. Were you not so idiotic I could possibly feel sorry for you.”

  I’ve heard that there is a little of the whore and the virgin in every woman, and that these opposites are not in conflict but are really two dimensions of the same nature. Adriana does not entirely disagree, although she adds the caveat, “The concepts are meaningless without reference to men. You are all hapless fools who try to classify everything. Elena simply played the two roles that men have been defining for centuries — two roles that serve as straight jackets to enclose other aspects of a woman’s nature. I’m sure there was more to her … perhaps she was a female Robin Hood who took from a wealthy lackwit for the benefit of her family … or maybe she had an inner financial genius begging to be set free. You were deceived twice, old man — once by Elena and once by yourself. Her scheme only worked because blue balls are an affliction that spreads to the brain.”

  “I admit my thinking was riding a slow elevator, oh wise wart of womanhood, but that does not excuse Elena’s behaviour. My conscience is spotless.”

  Adriana nodded. “Your problem is your inflexibility. If you had lowered your expectations as much as Elena did, then your relationship would have worked … and are you sure your spotless conscience isn’t due to a vacant memory?” />
  “But she was a hypocrite,” I protested. “She professed desire for me but it was my money that was the object of her yearning. If the Devil truly resides in the bowels of the earth he must spend full days directly beneath Elena’s feet.

  Adriana looked like someone about to drown a puppy. “You are wearing blinders,” she said. “After all, a double-standard is better than no standard at all.”

  “But I was so much in love that I was a slave in the relationship.” I raised my voice to overcome her laughter.

  “You are thick,” she said. “It wasn’t love that was blind. It was you … and not knowing how love looks, you were fated to find it wherever you searched. You saw romance in a transaction that, at its best, contained as much warmth as the purchase of a block of ice.”

  “Nevertheless, Elena was my wife. Doesn’t that mean anything?”

  “Not necessarily. Nuptial knots may serve only to keep couples chained to the status quo while they play house. Even in a good marriage, maintaining a relationship can become a job where sex is regimented and fidelity excreted like sweat from an Egyptian slave. Elena didn’t use sex to get what she wanted — only the promise of sex. You were swindled, old friend.”

  For a moment I thought I detected sympathy in Adriana’s voice. The idea unnerved me and I left for home. Perhaps our nightly brandy was destroying her brain cells, or perhaps she was on a fast train to senility. After all, sympathy has utility only in the present. The past has no need of it. Besides, there are lessons in life that need no repetition. Either the student has died from his reckless foray into the realm of foolish experimentation or the results are so indelibly etched on his brain that no amount of suasion can induce him to repeat the venture. Love and marriage are not necessarily close relatives. I have remained single to this day.