Pretty Girls

The top shelf of the closet was high, so I needed a stool to reach its contents. It was crammed with an old duvet. Poking around underneath it, my fingers felt the hard shell of the shoebox; the thing I was looking for was inside it. 

I had always hoped a day would come when I would be happy enough with Inez to throw it away. But that day never came. 

Inez was on vacation with her mother in Marbella. It was nice having the house to myself. The distance allowed me to find her mildly enchanting again. I didn’t have to listen to her laugh at her own jokes, eat tiny overpriced dishes with her at pretentious restaurants, watch her roll her eyes at me when I say something she disagrees with, or listen to her nag about teabags in the sink. 

Our marriage might work if I could just frame her and stick her up on the wall, right next to the ludicrous Rothko hanging in front of our bed. That thing makes me anxious in the morning; I feel the colours shouting at me, screaming that something’s not quite right. Last year, over the course of a week, Inez had developed an appetite for abstract expressionism, so I was coerced into shelling out a revolting amount for what looks like a large lurid bruise. Her desire for Rothko started around this time last year, after her mother, a vapid botoxed socialite, gave her a coffee table book from the National Art Gallery for Christmas. I tried explaining to Inez how she could probably find a much better painting from a more talented, less famous artist at quarter of the price that would actually match our carpet and blinds. In typical Inez fashion, she accused me of being cheap, having no taste, then made sure she got exactly what she wanted.

I bought her the ugly thing. She has since forgotten about Rothko and is now keen on some surrealist called Miro. Thankfully, mother dearest suggested a girly getaway, which I was happy to pay for, so Inez couldn’t lounge around at home all day in her designer bra and panties dreaming about the Miro that she would soon manipulate me into buying. 

Perhaps my life would be much easier if I married someone who wasn’t 14 years younger than me. I imagine my life might be more pleasant if I shared it with someone less demanding, less vain, someone willing to pay her own way through life, someone who wasn’t an emotional vampire or a materialistic leech. But that would probably mean that I’d have to settle for someone plain, because girls who are built like Inez aren’t very good at putting anything or anyone before themselves. 

When we are out and she starts pouting because I don’t eat where she wants to or buy her something she likes, the lyrics from that Jimmy Soul song starts playing in my head. “If you wanna be happy for the rest of your life, never make a pretty woman your wife, so from my personal point of view, get an ugly girl to marry you.” Should’ve paid more attention to him before I bought her the ring.

Inez likes to tell people that she works, but making and selling little silk pouches for mobile phones at flea markets is not exactly what most rent paying adults would consider a real job. She likes to think of herself as a designer, even though she actually sells less than three pieces every month and earns enough for two meals, and we’re taking meals at Nandos or Pizza Express. She thinks that because what she does is “creative”, she really shouldn’t have to work as often or as much as the rest of us. She’s got what some might call an artistic temperament, only she has zero talent.

Whenever someone actually buys one of her garish and flimsy contraptions, for the next three days, I’d have to listen to her tell me what a gifted artisan she is and how “just you wait”, she will be the next big thing. “You see how intricate this piece is, the way they sequins glitter just so. I call it ‘the right light’, because when you find just the right light, everything changes. That’s the essence of this piece, get it? There must have been like a dozen stalls at the fair selling mobile phone accessories, but this lady took one look at my creation and said she would not bother with the other stalls. I bet once her friends see ‘the right light’, I’ll be getting loads of commissions. Designing is my destiny. I am sooo good. I should really just charge more of my creations, don’t you think? You know what I think? I think creative people like myself have minds that are most similar to God.” My skin crawls every time she uses the word “creation” to describe those useless little rags. I wonder how Inez would react if she found out that the woman took ‘her creation’ home and gave it to her cleaner of hairdresser for a Christmas present. I wonder what Inez would do if I told her the truth, not just about her silly phone pouches, but about how I really see her. But I spare myself that trouble, because she’s so exasperatingly thick that you can’t really have a decent argument with her anyway.

It doesn’t help that Inez is always right because she has that very unfair advantage of physical beauty. The world, myself included, condones her haughtiness and keeps her blind to her lack of wit or character because she is so damn pretty. She’s one of those women who come from a different mould. One of those birds so aware of the brilliance of their own feathers that they’ve become accustomed to always being venerated, pandered to and adored. Always looked at with an admiring eye and spoken to with a gentle voice. 

It’s said that beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but the truth is, there is a universal template – symmetrical, striking facial features, a slender, elongated frame with flesh in all the right places, a full head of hair, smooth, taut, flawless skin and a high level of touchability. When I look at a beautiful woman, I feel pleasure. I feel for a moment as if I am a more important, more interesting man, living a larger, more exciting life. Gazing upon female beauty is a transcendental experience, and looking at a pretty girl makes me feel vigorously alive. That seemed like a good enough reason to marry the bitch who is now my wife.

******

Inez returned home three days ago, on Thursday morning. On Thursday and Friday evening, we said nice things to each other and we made love once. But by late Saturday afternoon, we began to pick at each other again. We were watching a beauty pageant on TV. There was segment where a “humanitarian” award was being presented to the contestant who did the most charity work, probably because she knew she was going to be in the show. They showed Miss Nepal, a pleasant looking but flat-chested girl, smiling at scraggy looking little kids in some mountain village. The camera zoomed in on the faces of the poor village girls. “She’s a pretty one. Urghh, that one is just scary, her nose is so big, she looks like a boy,” I said. Inez shot me a glance that made me feel like a cockroach. “Dom you’re so fucking shallow! These are poor, starving little girls for God’s sake, and you’re looking at them like their pieces of meat. What the fuck is wrong with you?” 

“Darling, you’re the one who wanted to watch this crap. I’m just getting into the spirit. Don’t get on my case.” And like our many domestic scuffles, it escalated to the point where I just wanted her to disappear. As was happening more frequently, our bickering led to a massive fight. She was so mad at me, she yanked the phone from the living room out of the wall socket, I think she was planning to smash my head with it. I ended up sleeping on the couch.

It was Christmas Eve when Inez left me. On Christmas day, I took down the shoebox and opened it. Inside, were mementos from my past romances. From the friendship bracelet that Juliet made for me in high school to the lacy red bra that Natasha left in my dorm room when the two of us celebrated our graduation in my bed. Here was all the stuff from my life before the hot young wife. Photographs, postcards, letters and mix tapes from all my honeys of yesteryear.

Buried under all these love tokens was the red, leather bound address book.

I put the book away when I asked Inez to marry me. Having easy access to it made me feel like I was being unfaithful somehow. In my teens and twenties, this book was the heart of my romantic life. Strangely enough, after I got married, the book became more precious. Like that secret stash of candy you keep under your bed as a kid. It became a symbol of what was left of my free will, my right to do whatever I wanted, whenever I wanted, with whomever I wanted to do it with. Knowing that I could open that door if I so chose made me feel a little less caged. Like I still had my balls intact.

Within its pages were names with delicious memories attached to them. The best memories men have. Memories of flirty glances, knees brushing under tables, brassieres being unclasped, of flushed cheeks, damp panties, wet lips, moans and lung crushing embraces. Gestures that die with marriage. 

When my thoughts linger on these past loves, I don’t see their husbands or children, or the wrinkles and pounds that they’ve no doubt accrued with age. I see them as they were – nubile, malleable and gorgeous. I’ve always had a weakness for pretty, well-formed members of the opposite sex, and when at sixteen, I realized how easy it was to bed them and keep them for a while, I felt like I had discovered the secret to the universe. I’d like to imagine that if I showed up at their front doors right this moment, they would all still sigh, pull me into their bosoms and bury me in hungry kisses. 

The less I liked Inez, the more I would entertain the idea of calling one of my old flames. Leyla and Maartje come up in my thoughts often. Maybe I could call one or both of them to “catch up”, complain about my ex-wife a little, or maybe arrange to meet up and fuck?

I even considered calling crazy Carmen once or twice. Carmen was a yoga teacher with washboard abs, a short bob, caramel skin and the cutest little pixy nose, but she was a little too neurotic. I enjoyed Carmen because she always told me nice things about myself. In her eyes, I could do no wrong. Compared to Inez, Carmen treated me like a king and she made really good tea. But between having sex, watching foreign films, listening to her talk about her childhood traumas and then gushing about how wonderful I am, I couldn’t quite relax around her. She was nervous, too eager to please and suffocating. So I cheated on her and she left.

Leyla was a Turkish siren I met in a bar. She had come to London to study graphic design. She would invite me over to her small bedsit in Camberwell where she would roll me a joint, read my fortune with a pack of tarot cards before putting chocolate ice cream all over my balls and eating it. Leyla was a real bohemian roller coaster. After about a year of weed, tarot cards and sugary testicles, she got bored and decided to spend a year backpacking around the world. She wrote me a few times, but then she met a strapping German named Carl in Nepal and that was the last I heard from her. 

Maartje was a tall, big-breasted blonde air stewardess. The kind of girl that turns heads and gets wolf whistles. But she was frightfully jealous. Once, we were watching a movie, I think it was The Deep. Jacqueline Bisset shows up on screen in a wet T-shirt. My balls happen to itch, so I reached into my Y-fronts for a scratch. Maartje freaks out. She starts yelling at me, telling me how disrespectful I am, pulling my pecker while she’s sitting right next to me. That was the end of Maartje and me. 

Then there was Laura. Laura was an actress at the Youngblood Players when we met. She was frisky, wild and animal-like, the girl that all the boys, and some of the girls secretly loved. Aside from sparkly brown eyes, the most heart warming smile and a fit little body, she was clever, funny and kind. I always had a good time with her, even when we disagreed about things. She was like good coffee, I always felt perky around her and I didn’t get the jitters after. Laura made me feel like a baby in bed, safe and uninhibited. She was an easy companion. Sometimes I think she might have been the right one. 

******

A friend once told me that he spent almost a year wooing a model, some catwalk queen who was pals with Christie Turlington and Heidi Klum. When he finally bedded her, he woke up disappointed and a little sad, because with her naked body just inches away from him, this creature whom he was accustomed to seeing in a state of absolute perfection on billboards, Vogue covers and runways, was just a mass of flesh, bone, hair, pores and freckles. Up close, she became of this world, and the magic evaporated. 

By year two of marriage, I stopped wanting to have sex with Inez. I used to enjoy stroking her long dark silky hair, but I had started noticing her greasy roots more. At night, when the calluses on her heels rubbed against my shin, I pull away and keep to my side of the bed. Married life induced in me a state of mind-numbing boredom, so I had to think of other things to get me going.

Inez is slim, a little skinny in fact. Before, she looked statuesque and regal, but as my missus, she just felt too bony for any fun. I would much rather pet her like she was a kitten than make mad love to her. Sometimes, I’d find myself staring at the ceiling, imagining a fleshier, rambunctious Laura rubbing her thighs against mine. Sometimes, Leyla or Maartje would supplant Laura in my fantasies. Maartje had great rhythm and the vision of her creamy ass bobbing up and down in my palms, while her straw coloured locks whipped against my cheeks often did more for me than the sight and smell of my wife. 

******

After Inez left, I bought a stack of Xbox games to kill time in the evenings. But I got bored shooting monsters and breaking down doors. I work like a fiend at a hedge fund and even though I know I make more in a month than most men make in a year, I am driven by a fear that I will never have enough. 

At the end of the workday, I need a break. I need the company of a beautiful woman. I realize now that having Inez around calmed me down, looking at that pretty, young face made me feel like I didn’t have to keep chasing something. Even when she was being difficult, being so easy on the eye, she softened up the very bleak reality of day-to-day life. Owning beauty somehow made waking up at five every morning, sitting at a desk for ten hours every day and all the other tedious life-stuff like paying bills and buying milk worth it.    

I tossed the address book up in the air then caught it with my left hand. I picked up the phone and dialed Laura’s number. 

“Hello? May I speak to Laura please?”

“This is she. Who is this?

“It’s Dominic.”

“Oh my god. Dom! Talk about blast from the past! To what do I owe this honour?”

“I was just thinking about you, and I found my old address book with your number, so I thought, I’d call and say hi.”

“Really? That’s nice. So how are things with you?”

“Oh, could be better. I’m getting a divorce.”

“That sucks. I’m sorry to hear that. I have to say though, I’m not that surprised.”

“What do you mean?”

“You remember my friend Ruby, she was a secretary at your firm? When she told me you got married, I told her, I’d give you three years. No offence! You just never struck me as the type of guy who could go the distance.”

“Well, smarty pants, you got me wrong. I was married for five years. What do you mean anyway, I’m not the type of guy who can go the distance?”

“Well, you’re wonderful Dom. You’re a real catch, but lets just say, if we were both in the ocean and a shark was headed our way, I just don’t think you’d throw your body in front of it’s gapping jaws to save my life.”

“What idiot would? Wow, that’s what you expect your man to do? Make chump of himself to prove his love to you?”

“Something like that. Henry would.”

“Is that your husband?”

“Yes. We’ve got a couple of years under our belt. And two crazy boys. Josh is eight and Timothy is six. No more kids though, enough animals under one roof!”

“Well, I’ll be damned. I never figured you’d be ‘appy wife and a mommy Miss Laura. I figured you’d be on your way to Hollywood by now. What does he do, this Henry? For a living I mean.”

“He’s a manager at a hardware store. And I work at a travel agency.”

“You work too?”

“Yes, gotta feed those growing boys. The acting was a blast while it lasted, but it doesn’t pay the bills and I’m too much of a wimp to handle the rejection, over and over again. Believe it or not, I like my life better now.”

“You’re kidding right? You were such a good actress. No one commanded the stage like you. Remember the time when that fat guy from Glasgow climbed up on stage and chased you for a hug?”

“Oh yeah, I remember. And you just sat there laughing while I was terrified and embarrassed as all hell. Glory days! That was all too much hard work, and I’m not even talking about the acting. Exercising like a madwoman, all those silly diets, all that work trying to look a certain way. The directors will tell you it’s about talent, but that’s bullcrap. Ten percent is about talent and the other ninety percent is about how you look. Put a gun to their head and they’ll never admit this, but for the meaty roles, they want pretty girls, and then they want us to never age, never have a bad hair day, never get fat and never look tired. They just want us to stay pretty and thin. And I just didn’t have that in me. It was too much of a compromise.”

“So you’re a dog now Laura, is that what you’re telling me?”

“You’ve got some nerve Dom! You’re a real ars aren't you? Wonder why the missus left? You see that’s what I mean when I say you’re not the type to go the distance. You’re just too enamoured by the superficial. You know, in the four years we were together, I would wake up before you did, go the bathroom, floss, brush my teeth, mouthwash and all, brush my hair, wash my face then get back into bed before you woke up. The things I did to keep you sweet…”

“Awe Laura, you didn’t have to. I didn’t just like you because you weren’t a total cow, or didn’t have stink breath…”

“Yeah right. Hey, Dom, I have to go. I’ve got to get Tim to soccer practice. Listen, it was great hearing from you. I hope the other numbers in the book still work. Take care and good luck with life as a bachelor. I send you rockets of love and good vibes. I’m sure you’ll do just fine. Bye Dom.”

I hung up and crawled into bed. A dreaded lonesomeness crawled in with me. I stared at the Rothko. Windows of colour, a block of vermillion and a brilliant slab of mustard yellow set upon a muted grey background. I always noticed the loud, peacock-like vermillion and mustard that jumped right out at you, anyone would; but this time my eyes moved to the grey that ran along the edges of the canvas and cut through the two colour blocks. As I focused on this, it became clear that the painting was actually of a canvas painted entirely grey with the red and yellow thrown it as calculated distraction. The grey was soft, rich, soulful and rewarding. I relaxed, and slowly it all began to look good. 

Copyright® Michele Koh Morollo 2010