Unknown Territory
He'd never known a woman quite in that way - A FIVE MINUTE romance
This is a revision from the 🌿Leaves archive of January 2024. If you’ve already read it, thanks so much! If not, you may find this five-minute romance entertaining.
He watched porn on his laptop every single day, regarding it as essential to his mental and physical well-being.. On the weekends, he’d be out with the usual suspects, shooting hoops, playing a little pool, watching the Nets on TV. They’d hang out in front of Sal’s barbershop, laughing and shouting, always horsing around, punching each other as if, somehow, brutish physicality combined with loud, crude speech was indicative of their manhood. You get the picture … Nick was young.
He’d find a woman at the club every Saturday night, any woman would do, as long as she rated a nine or ten on the Hotness Meter. It was just a game to Nicky, and with his muscular charm, he nearly always won. Women were willing to go to his bed, even knowing that sex was a just a contact sport to him, like wrestling or football. No meaningful gears in his head were ever engaged. He simply focused on his own pleasure — and the women, well, they had the dubious honor of going along for the ride. He often didn’t even know their names, addressing them all as oh baby. He lived up to everything he knew about what it was to be a man.
On Saturdays, he would go to confession and spill all his sins into the eager ears of his priest, the same transgressions repeated week after week. His confessor would say, “Ego te absolvo, but be careful, Nicky! Try harder for the sake of your immortal soul.” He’d then go to the gym to work off his penance, praying aloud his Our Fathers and Hail Marys to the rhythm of lunges and squats. He saw no incongruity in atoning for his sins while simultaneously toning his body. At mass on Sunday, he’d take communion with his family and begin the new week with a freshly-laundered conscience.
Then he met Angie.
Angle was the new woman at Il Fornaio bakery, who worked behind the counter making half-caff soy lattes and other exotic drinks. She looked nice, he thought, friendly. She’d teased him lightly when she took his order. Sitting in the corner by the window with his coffee and cannoli, he studied her as she worked. Angie, in her baggy T-shirts, loose jeans, no makeup. Her clothing revealed no curves or bare skin. She definitely was not like the women Nick was used to.
When he stopped in the next day, she chatted with him for a while about a book she was reading. “I saw the movie and I liked the movie better than the book,” she said, “even though the characters were miscast, but I wanted to read the book again anyway.” She told him she was taking classes to get a degree in forest management. “I want to go out west,” she said, “and work in the Grand Tetons or Yellowstone.”
She was like a new species to Nick. She had a way of looking him directly in the eye when she spoke to him; it made him feel a little queasy. “You are the strangest woman I ever met,” he told her, and she laughed, taking it as a compliment. Later, he told his friends, “I think she’s into me – not in a take-me-home-and-fuck-me way, but, you know, just nice.” He found himself absentmindedly rating her a five on the Hotness Meter, and then it felt somehow weird to even think about her that way. She was like a magnet, no doubt about it, and she was pulling at the iron in his bones.
He casually walked into Il Fornaio a few times a week, wanting to hook up with her, but he wasn’t quite sure how to go about it. She was an entirely new game, one he’d never played before. He didn’t know the rules or how to score points. She’d look at him with those unflinching green eyes and he’d feel a little unhinged, like she was actually seeing him, seeing all the way into his thoughts. It disturbed him.
Angie and Nicky began to slowly decipher each other. She knew he was a player, but she heard a kind heart beating in him. He thought she was a little odd, and he often didn’t understand what the hell she was talking about, but he was all in — she was the only thing that man could think of.
Angie was in no hurry. She’d kissed him a few times, but she didn’t go back to his apartment. It’s common for people to meet on line or in a club and, without thinking, jump into bed with a complete stranger. I’m not looking for that, she thought. I don’t want to be some guy’s random one-hour playground. She was more interested in exploring all the continents in Nicky’s head, hoping to discover the territory that lay a little deeper.
Little by little, Nicky risked revealing a more gentle version of himself, setting aside his tough image to just be who he was. She was letting him see her true self, too, showing him the real Angie, the one with the regrets, the flaws and fears.
This afternoon, stretched out on the carpet with pillows in Nicky’s apartment, they are listening to the rain fall into the alley below, an ancient Buddy Miles track is playing softly in sync with the hissing of the radiator. A faint, spicy scent comes from a bowl of oranges on the table and a candle flickers on the window sill. They’re not talking, they’re just lying there on the floor looking at each other, face to face, breathing, his sock-feet tangled with hers.
The inspiration for this piece came from the provocative film, Don Jon , written and directed by Joseph Gordon-Levitt. The film is quite graphic, and definitely not to everyone’s taste, but every once in a while, a hard-to-watch film veers off to a surprisingly sensitive ending and we find ourselves stunned.
"No meaningful gears in his head were ever engaged." - very funny. Seems the one that "catches you" always comes as a surprise. Very good, Sharron!
.. among your very best .. ever - & as a stand up & stool bartender I saw this nightly .. as well as being a single white male customer with an observant eye.. just ask Rebecca Goodall .. I write such stuff in my Fiction .. but can do so with astonishing veracity