Belle in the Big Apple

Prologue "Is that all?" It was an acorn. If Mamma had ever found herself in such a situation (though I swear on Grandmother's opera pearls she never had the displeasure of such an off-color moment), she would have mitigated the unease, clapped her petite hands together in awe and exclaimed, "A Chinaman! It's a verah, verah smawl Chinaman!" Yep, an impotent Chinaman, his cap firmly in place. But it was his pecker. Lord. I sat there on the silk coverlet, heels tucked beneath my ample bottom, staring at the smallest, most flaccid pecker on the planet. Dear God of all things great and small -- how did I get myself here? Just moments ago Fritz and I had been standing on Sullivan Street, outside my apartment building, my keys firmly in my hand. I knew what I wanted and it wasn't him. But for some reason, I slid in the small jagged key (not the big, smooth one that I loved to run across my cheek) and pressed on the door. Why? I don't know why. I didn't want it to give. We crossed the threshold anyway. My first Manhattan boyfriend. These are the things you are supposed to do, I tell myself, looking down at the hairs on my thigh, white as birch bark, standing at attention like toy soldiers from the static electricity. I moved my gaze up to his eyes, squeezed shut like a child's, trying to disappear into their own blackness and shame. Suddenly, I wanted to take back the words, dinners (so many dinners), forkfuls, mouthfuls, spoonfuls.... Iwas a twenty-five-year-old commodity who had to face facts: sex with a man his age would be fast, bland, uninspired -- I would always be the fresh catch of the day that had been flash-fried instead of slow-roasted. He reminded me of a fisherman out in the Gulf, fighting ten-foot swells and the merciless Florida sun to catch one prize snapper. It's finally on his hook, his aging cronies congratulate him -- a gleam of envy in their eyes -- he can almost taste the sweet, clean flesh. Problem is, by then, his forty-eight-year-old body is exhausted and just a touch resentful of the damn thing. Mamma told me twenty-five was the best year of her life, I think, sitting naked on the bed, watching Fritz's body slowly relax after his defeat, his eyelids fluttering open. "I'm gonna reload and then we'll try again in fifteen, hmmm?" he asked, staring up at me from his pillow with the reverence usually reserved for clergymen and neurosurgeons. His arm reached up for the comfort of my breast. "Three hundred and sixty-five days of glamorous livin'," I liked to tell myself. Since I was a girl, birthday candles served only two purposes -- as vehicles for licking Mamma's chocolate buttercream frosting and as a means to subtract from that magic age looming in the future. Twenty-five, twenty-five...there was something that made it the year of singular beauty and opportunity. It was supposed to be the time when my profession, my sentiments and my social circle formed a flawless sphere -- a shape as perfect as a hen's egg. I deserved more. "You know what?" I said, easing myself away from him and off the bed. "I'm hungry." I slipped into the silk kimono he had brought me back from one of his finance trips to Bangkok. "Hungry? We just had dinner. My God, your appetites, Belle -- you always want more!" He was right -- I was never satisfied. New York City had taught me well. Copyright 2008 by Brooke Parkhurst 1 I didn't like not being able to buy strawberries. Blackberries were, of course, totally out of the question. Avocados, peaches and blueberries -- never. I supposed that I could no longer afford to eat anything with seeds: the strangeness of it all, in New York City. The roofs somehow grew trees. Husbands and wives sat up there, in the sky, on their chaise longues and patio chairs, reaParkhurst, Brooke is the author of 'Belle in the Big Apple', published 2008 under ISBN 9780743296960 and ISBN 0743296966.