The Love of My (Other) Life

by Traci L. Slatton

  Brian kissed me more deeply on my mouth.

  “Want to explain?”

  “No,” I said, but Brian was still kissing me, and the gallery faded away, and I started to respond.

  What luscious magic hold over me did this man have to elicit such arousal?

  He picked up my hand and kissed my palm.

  “Mm, you know I can’t resist that,” I moaned.

  Everything in me softened and opened. I lost myself in the breathlessness of the moment with him, and it didn’t matter that we were in a gallery. We could have been anywhere in the world, a crowded bazaar, or Grand Central Station, or alone in this quiet room.

  I simply wanted him.

  “Tessa, you’re a sweet, caring, beautiful woman and a gifted artist. In my world and here. Stop beating up on yourself. You’re alive, and you’ll figure it all out. It will work out.” He kissed my neck and clavicles.

  I groaned, my hips churning against him. Then I leapt up into his arms, wrapping my legs around him. I didn’t know what I was doing, but lately, I never did. It didn’t seem to matter because I was so desperate to change my life.

  I still didn’t realize that I would have to change myself first.

  Brian pushed me up against the wall next to the door. I vaguely saw his hand close and lock the door. Then someone’s shirt fluttered out into the air.

  * * *

  * * *

  19

  Performance art and real talent

  We finally emerged from the empty room, and I made sure to straighten my skirt. My shirt was buttoned incorrectly, so I hurriedly redid it.

  Gallery patrons were clustered around the flatscreens. A woman with kohl-smeared raccoon eyes and a beehive hairdo spied us. She began to clap. The sound drew everyone else’s attention, and they first stared and then clapped as well. A few people called, “Bravo! Bravo!”

  “What the hell?” I wondered.

  A distinguished looking older man pushed through the crowd. There was no mistaking his tall form and the distinct, craggy features of his distinct, craggy face. He loved himself with the steamy, torrid self-congratulation of a thousand suns, something that had once impressed me.

  Now it made me want to vomit.

  “Well done, Tess, good to see you. Nice work in there,” he said, in a faux British accent that, I regret to say, had also once impressed me.

  Had I been brain damaged back then?

  “Cliff Bucknell,” I said slowly.

  Cliff took my tone as the adulation he usually received and he preened. “So now you’re into performance art. Give up on those cheesy landscapes?

  There’s just no point to them. Beauty is so banal.

  Post-modernism is all about the anti-aesthetic. That’s the cutting edge. What’s really evocative isn’t evocative at all.”

  Once upon a time, this kind of posturing had enthralled me. Now, and maybe it had something to with how warm and real Crazy Brian was, it seemed silly.

  I asked, “What are you doing here?”

  Brian, his arm looped around my waist, interjected, “Why do I get the feeling that we were the stars of some show?”

  A slithery man dressed all in back stepped forward. “Great performance! An intense expression of scatological yearning.”

  “That wasn’t scatological,” Brian started. He did a double take. “What exactly did you see?”

  “Everything,” said the slithery man. “I’m opening an installation at the MOMA entitled ‘Altogether Human Beings,’ and I’d love to have you perform your piece there. It’s been recorded here, but I prefer performance art to be live.”

  “Recorded?” I reeled backward. “Cliff, you saw … ?”

  “Even in lovemaking, you’re, oh, idealistic and enthusiastic, but hackneyed. But then, that isn’t your real talent, is it?” Cliff laughed shortly, his eyes gleaming.

  Brian growled, literally, growled. He stepped up to Cliff and pushed him, hard. “Watch how you talk to her, buddy. And what are you talking about, ‘real talent’?”

  Cliff puffed out his chest but he receded a few steps. “She knows. Quite a useful gift for the shadow arts, even if she’ll never be a real artist. She made a reputation for herself.”

  I fled.

  Brian chased me.

  As we passed the front door, Guy, smoking a cigarette, stepped in my way. “The contribution of shadows is to make the light shine out all the more, and even that which can be considered ugly in itself appears beautiful within the framework of the general order. It is this order as a whole that is beautiful, but from this standpoint even monstrosity is redeemed—”

  “Not now!” I cried, half heartbroken, half outraged.

  “Call me, if you value your thumbs,” Guy said.

  * * *

  * * *

  20

  Apple of my eye

  Fourteenth Street teemed with pedestrians and a profusion of shops. I stormed along it with my shirt and jacket buttoned askew, my taped-on heel wobbling.

  As if I hadn’t bungled my past enough, now I was headlining in art porn. Could I sink any lower? This was all Brian’s fault. “You had no right to seduce me,” I spat at him.

  “You wrapped your legs around me, what was I gonna say, ‘No thanks’?”

  “Yes, if you were a gentleman.” I was really steaming.

  Brian laughed. “Right. Who was that pretentious old guy with the fake accent, and what was he talking about, ‘shadow arts’?”

  “That’s Cliff Bucknell. He’s the darling of the art world, the next Warhol.”

  “He’s the guy who made the skull?” Brian asked.

  “He’s the guy whose name is on the skull. I haven’t seen him in three years. How does he know I haven’t been painting?” Was I so transparently, humiliatingly obvious?

  “You’re painting now,” Brian pointed out. “You painted that beautiful landscape over the eviction notice. And all those canvases in your living room and hall closet.”

  “Those are from three years ago. I haven’t painted since then, until this week.”

  “My Tessa would never stop playing the cello because of a little rejection,” Brian said, in a puzzled tone. “What happened to you? Tessa, sometimes, to move forward in life, you have to take risks—”

  “Risks, I’ll show you risks,” I said. I burst into a sprint. My taped-on heel cracked off. Duct tape had its limitations, as we all do. I kicked my shoe into the street, where it was run over by a taxi and flattened pancake-style. Hobbling with one bare foot, I ran into the Apple store.

  The store was, as always, completely thronged with people of all ages and sizes and nationalities. If I had held still, which I did not, I would have heard twenty different languages being spoken.

  “Tessa, your foot, take my shoe,” said Brian, panting.

  I shouldered a punk teenager off the latest sleek, sexy iMac. My fingers tapped madly on the keyboard.

  “Google Brian Tennyson,” I muttered.

  “No, this isn’t a good idea, don’t,” said Brian, with a tone of alarm. He grabbed my arm.

  “What are you afraid of finding out?” I shook him off. “Brian Tennyson, all over the web, lookee here. I know about you, Brian,” I said, triumphantly.

  “You’re a professor who had a psychotic break from reality and had to be hospitalized.”

  “I am not!” Brian said, indignantly. “That never happened, not in any universe.”

  “Home page at Columbia? Maybe it mentions the institutionalization,” I mused.

  Brian couldn’t help himself, he crowded in next to me and peered over my shoulder. A page lauding Dr. Brian Tennyson filled the screen, showcasing his many honors and distinctions. He was a slicker, more polished version than the other-worldly Brian who had followed me around and tumbled into my bed. He really was down on his luck. I had a flash of sympathy for him.

  “I heard you were an author, but wow, three books. What a shame such a promising young professor had to be put in an asylum.”


  “Books?” Brian asked, pushing me aside.

  A spiffy Apple salesman approached us. “Hey, folks, my name is Jordan. Check out how blazing fast the new iMac is.”

  “This one is a best seller,” I pointed around Brian’s torso at the screen. “It was for the general public.”

  “How the Enterprise Can Beam Us Up! I loved it. This is you? Let me get Chad, he’s a Trekkie, and he totally gets off on your book.” Jordan tripped off, wriggling with excitement like a puppy.

  “I haven’t published any books in my world,” Brian muttered, softly. His eyes clouded over.

  “No books in dreamworld? You aren’t taking risks in hallucination land, Oh Beautiful Mind?” I asked tartly.

  “Thank you, but it’s not about risks for me, it’s about priorities. Who cares about papers and books and awards? My marriage matters to me. I spent my time with you, not locked away in an office, and I’m so glad I did!” Brian looked ready to burst.

  Jordan and another eager-beaver genius had joined us. “Dr. Tennyson, this is Chad.”

  “Dude, you’re a rock star!” Chad enthused, pumping Brian’s hand with even more enthusiasm than Brian usually displayed. “The way you explain the wave function of the universe is awesome. Are you writing a new book?”

  “He’s too busy living out his hallucinations,” I started.

  Brian swung around on me. “For Pete’s sake, Tessa. You’re just mad because everyone watched us on the TVs in that stupid art gallery making love.”

  Yes, I was mad, damn it. Rightfully so. “Don’t you realize, Rothschild will run that pornographic video of us on an endless loop until something stupider and kinkier comes along!”

  Jordan asked, “What’s the name of the gallery?”

  “That was pretty kinky,” Brian said, scratching at his beard stubble. “What did we do, five different positions? I felt inspired, and you were oh, so willing.”

  “What kind of crack is that?” I demanded.

  “Is that Rothschild Modern or Rothschild Masters?” murmured Jordan, fingers flying over the keyboard.

  Brian wasn’t done harassing me. He said, “It wasn’t stupid, it was enthusiastic. You had a good time. Good thing, because you needed one.”

  What the hell? “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  I demanded, frost chilling my words, and, I hoped, withering him into his place.

  “That I built my many worlds device and arrived here not a moment too soon,” Brian responded in a tone that matched mine. “You were so horny, you squeaked when you walked. If I’d arrived any later, you’d have been humping trees.”

  I was getting ready to let Brian have it when Chad jostled me out of the way.

  “Many worlds device?” interrupted Chad. “Is that what I think it is, Dr. Tennyson? Wow, if you invented that, you’re like Da Vinci, a real polymath superbrain!”

  “Thank you,” Brian said. “I don’t mean to sound immodest, but I accept your praise. It is a great achievement.”

  “Don’t you dare mention one of the great Renaissance masters in the same breath as this lunatic,” I said hotly, immersing myself in the incomparable Virgin of the Rocks and its glorious sfumato. “Da Vinci was a one-of-a-kind master. His use of perspective and psychological portraiture—”

  “Dr. T’s book was genius,” gushed Chad. “I loved the story about Einstein writing to his friend for help on the math for relativity.”

  Brian posed and affected a German accent.

  “Grossman, you must help me or I’ll go crazy!”

  “Erp,” squeaked Jordan. His eyebrows climbed up over his hairline and it sent an inaudible signal for other Apple geniuses to gather around him, watching what he found online.

  “Then Grossman accidentally came across the math. Einstein was stuck until someone else stumbled on it. It’s like these little chance happenings that affect everything,” said Chad in a tone of awe.

  “Makes you wonder, what would have happened if Grossman hadn’t found the math?”

  Customers around the store buzzed as they clustered around computer screens, from which spilled out heavy breathing and kissing noises. I stepped in toward Jordan, tried to wend myself through the geniuses gathered around him so I could see the screen better. That couldn’t possibly be the video of Brian and me, posted on the Internet already, could it?

  “I love metric tensors,” Brian said. “I used them in my invention to prove macroscopic decoherence.”

  “So there’ll be another book?” asked Chad.

  “Maybe,” Brian said, smiling. “I’ve discovered that it’s possible to build a device to traverse parallel worlds, using magnetic portals that link the sun to the earth. Would be a great book.”

  “Magnetic portals?” chirped Chad. But then he glanced at the screen and did a double take. I tried to push him aside but he was rooted to his spot.

  “Shut it down!” bellowed a senior-management-looking type who ran out from the back and waved his arms furiously. That’s when I caught a brief glimpse of naked, intertwined limbs to go with the soft, luscious moaning that emanated from every screen in the store. I felt a lightning strike of anxiety.

  Brian didn’t pick up on anything, he was so caught up in his imaginary science. “Flux transfer events. Because of the flowing through of tons of high-energy particles, they generate the conditions for many worlds travel.”

  “Shut it down!” hollered the manager again.

  I had had enough for the twentieth time in the last two days. Had it only been two days? It felt like a lifetime. “Would you please let go of your delusions,” I hissed. “Look around you. Do you know what they’re watching? I think it’s us. I didn’t need you to show up in my life and stalk me and seduce me.”

  “Oh, yeah, you did,” said Brian. “You’re the one who’s lost in a fantasy world of taking care of old people and punishing yourself for your past and living in the tomb of your failed marriage.”

  “My marriage didn’t fail, I failed,” I said. The manager of the Apple store was running from one Mac to the next and pounding on the keyboards.

  Brian shook his head. “That’s so neurotic. You have to cut that loose. David was never meant for you. He’s too rigid. You’re a kooky piece of work who needs a lot of holding. I could do that.”

  “Not everything revolves around you. Or sex,” I said. “I’ve got plenty of fulfilling relationships. I’m going to visit Mrs. Leibowitz.”

  “That’s not a relationship,” Brian said. “That’s you taking care of a dying old lady.”

  The video had reached a climax. My own ecstatic cries filled the Apple store. It was like one of those nightmares where you’re naked in public, only it was real. I was horrified into stillness like a pillar of salt.

  The Apple store manager sagged back against the display table and covered his face with his hands.

  “Dr. T, wow,” said Chad. “You are a true genius!”

  “You gave the lady a good time,” said Jordan with admiration. He led the other geniuses in applauding Brian. Everyone joined in except some children whose eyes were shielded by their mothers. The store reverberated with thunderous acclaim.

  Brian held up his arms in the victory sign and bowed.

  “How dare you!” I could feel myself flushing scarlet.

  “I dare,” said Brian. “I take risks.”

  There was no escaping it, I was going to have to live with the embarrassment. Hadn’t I become an expert at intimacy with my own shame? I flounced towards the door while holding my head high. My uneven limping spoiled my dramatic exit until I realized I didn’t have to wear only one shoe. Turning around, I took it off and flung it at Brian, who ducked.

  “Dude, good thing you already got some,” Jordan said. “Because I don’t think you’re getting any more.”

  “I’ve never actually had my own woman, so I don’t understand them,” Chad added. “But I’m pretty sure that when they throw a shoe at you, it’s not good.”

  Bria
n was staring at me with a look that was almost baleful. “No one, not physicists, not even Einstein, not the most brilliant genius of all physicists who comes up with the grand unified theory of everything in one simple equation, understands women!”

  Didn’t he get it? “I lost everything because of the risks I’ve taken,” I said. I left the store.

  I’d had enough insult with my injury.

  * * *

  * * *

  21

  Cavemen and peeky-toe stilettos

  I knelt by Mrs. Leibowitz’s closet and pulled out a pair of outrageously fluffy, sequined turquoise slippers. Old-fashioned silk dresses swirled around my head, muffling my voice.

  “You don’t mind me borrowing these?” I yelled to be heard through the fabric.

  “You don’t have to shout, dear, my hearing still works,” said Mrs. L. “I only wish my feet were your size, and you could have some real shoes.”

  “These are perfect,” I assured her. “No heels for me to break.”

  “Tessa, there’s only one antidote to breaking heels.”

  I climbed out of the closet and perched expectantly in the chair beside Mrs. L’s bed. I recognized that arch tone, and I knew from our long association that she would come out with something funny and unexpected. “Okay, I’ll bite. What’s that, Mrs. L?”

  “Four-inch high, peeky-toe, patent leather, fuck-me-now stilettos!” Mrs. Leibowitz grinned.

  “Mrs. Leibowitz!” I remonstrated, laughing.

  “Nothing makes a round ass look more enticing.

  The stilettos give you a wiggle, and men can’t resist that. Brian would love it.” She cut her eyes at me.

  I sighed. “Brian is psychotic.”

  “He’s eccentric. Scientists are like that.”

  “Brian is way further along the cuckoo scale than eccentric.” I scowled.

  Mrs. L shook her head. “My generation wasn’t so hung up about sex. In fact, we invented kinky sex.”