Wedding Rings
Some keep them on. Some take them off. I wonder where the ring goes when it’s no longer on the hand, what places a man keeps it so it’s not lost or forgotten for a day or a full weekend or even a few hours. Many married men have hired me on their birthdays. Married or no, many enjoy talking about their sons, if they have them. They do not soon tire of describing how handsome and smart and accomplished he is. On occasion, the handsome part is true. If there are two sons, one will be the clear favorite.
“Show me a picture,” I said once, after listening for some time about this miracle of a boy.
“I’m not showing you a picture of my son,” he said.
I kept looking at him.
“Oh, alright,” he said, and reached for his phone.
*
Weeks before, I took some sniffs of something that hurt and for a time the night was wonderful. A man I’d known but not known for years met me in a bar, and then later we went to my hotel room and he laid his head in my lap while I stroked his hair in a trance on the bed. After my girl friend left us, he asked if he could masturbate and he came quickly while I touched him. There may have been some unspoken pact that neither of us would write about that. Or maybe he forgot it even happened.
I am still capable of feeling used. I am still capable of having a sexual experience that makes me feel like my entire life has been a cruel joke.
*
The date went wrong with one father client, a man I’d seen several times before and remembered fondly. It started out so promising. “You’re a witch!” he cried early on in our reunion. He’d repeat it again now and then, ducking his head afterwards like a child hiding from something that embarrasses him. It crumpled later and I wanted to blame him but it might have been all my fault. I felt like a statue with a human being buried inside. Everything was muffled: the sadness, the anger. I just tried to hold still.
Before I left, I stood in the Sunday light of his hotel room, holding the image of his son.
“You wouldn’t stand a chance with him,” he said meanly, like that would hurt me.
