Letters to a Mistress

C.R.A.Z.Y.

Responsibility. The thought of ever being responsible for anything that happened never occurred to him. It was as if I gave her every reason to harass me. And even after she slit her throat in my bedroom, it was still my fault. Because I tried to prove she was after me. Because I tried to make sure she got caught attempting to take my life. Because I protected myself. When she first called me it was my fault for answering the phone. It was my fault, because I told her who I was. Responsibility. He never once took it, for anything that happened. Not even in the beginning.

Sitting at the edge of the bar alone, I looked down the long end of an almost empty vodka martini. This place, this was my home away from home. My home, was work. But here, here I knew everyone, and everyone knew what mood I was in, depending on the look on my face. It was nice to have a place like that. A place that you could feel comfortable drinking in without any problems, and no one there to bother you.

Natasha saw me come in, and with a smile, she took one look at me and decided to give me a strong one. 3 kisses on both cheeks to her and I took my usual stool close to the kitchen, where I could smell what I wanted for dinner. I didn’t notice anyone at the start of the evening, though the bar was moderately full. All I saw was every physical article that was around me. The detail of the antique cash register, full of dollar bills with a cash drawer that would never shut amazed me. It had small pieces of mirrored glass all over it, and when the front door to the bar opened, the streetlights made them glitter like a thousand diamonds. The plastic palms in the ceiling made you ignore how low the ceiling was, and how badly it needed repair. White lights mingled in between each leaf. When you were drunk enough, they looked like stars. But Natasha would hardly ever make my drinks that stiff, unless I asked for them. And this night I asked for them. Several of them.

It was that kind of day at work. The never-ending kind where everyone is selfish and wants to leave early and expects one person to take on the responsibility of 20. It was the kind of day where you finally had had enough and told your boss, in a kind way to “Fuck Off”. So I did. And afterward I was wallowing in the biggest mistake you could make in a wavering economy, when Marketing Executives like me are getting laid off left and right. Wallowing, on the cusp of the kind of depression you get just before you realize that you just might have to swallow your pride and admit you made a mistake to a person who does not even deserve the apology you are crafting in your head. It was the kind of day that you knew if you didn’t do what you did, you would more than likely go postal in the office and stab everyone around you with the last pen in your desk organizer because they have been stealing yours for weeks and you can’t take it anymore. It was the kind of day where, drinking would not make it better, no matter how much you drank. A day where fucking all night long would not make the pain go away. And then you look down your glass and realize, you don’t have anyone to fuck anyway. That depressing thought made me lift my head and actually look around. Look down the bar and see that there were actually people around me drinking also. And at the end was the most intriguing man I had seen in ages.

He wasn’t the most attractive thing in the world. Tall, thin, balding, grey, looking to be about 50, with eyes of a man barely 40. Time had taken some of his life, but you could still see in his eyes that he refused to let it take it all. His lips were barely existent, but were an interested red against his olive skin. Rose, which I had never seen in a man his age. I almost took him for North African, and was about to stop right there after remembering a freakish affair with a Moroccan. But what took me past that was the Russian that he was speaking.

Usually good with culture, I couldn’t figure it out. I was used to all the old soviets that came in and out of this place, but this was different. Something was not right about his accent, and that caused me to stare, and I did until I was tipsy enough to ask him; “You’re French aren’t you?” It was just a random guess, he had the look but there was still something missing. And what surprised me was that he immediately turned toward me and said, “Yes…how did you know?” Like a silly drunken sailor I said “French, French or North African?” I needed to know if I was getting myself involved in another demanding, over baring lover with tons of cash and a mother who would hate me for life because I was not Muslim. I had done that already and frankly I was not interested. But he answered the answered the sweetest answer that a woman, 2 martinis’s finished and on the brink of unemployment would want to hear; he was not Muslim and he was buying the next round.

We talked for so long we both forgot that he was originally having a conversation with a colleague of his, who was completely annoyed, not by our conversation, but because all of the attention was no longer geared toward him. His name, Thibault Masson, a photographer who traveled all over the world and had been in New York for 4 months. Married twice, widowed once and divorced once. Currently single, he was looking straight down my blouse any moment he could. His colleague was an obnoxious medical student and budding poet, who didn’t realize until hours later that we had actually had several conversations and also that I knew many of his friends. Thus, the attempt made to separate the 2 became easier and easier. Until finally, the budget conscious medical student paid his bill and left.

Thibault, or “T” as he loved to be called, completely entertained me with stories of his travels and the difficulties dealing with models and magazine editors. I entertained him with the counter stories of how difficult photographers were and how the more prominent their work, the more difficult they became. There was work we had in common. There was travel we had in common; he to Moscow for photo shoots more times than he could count, and me to St. Petersburg to open our company’s first Eastern European office. We talked about the responsibility of learning a 2nd and 3rd language. We talked about the responsibility of taking care of older parents; the patience one must have with brothers and sisters who try hard not to be jealous but still are because of your ambition and success. We talked about overcoming depression, drugs, unhappy relationships; we talked about everything that would keep 2 people in a bar, drunk, until 2AM. And when he walked me out, we talked about he responsibility of going home with someone you barely knew. “The world is full of crazy people you know”, he said as he walked me to the corner for a taxi. “But I want to see you again” And kissed me ever so gently goodnight before I got in the cab. It was as if I finally found the man that made sense. Honest, gentle, fun. I looked back and he was still standing at the corner as the car pulled away. He was looking at me with a smile on his face so real, I couldn’t believe any of this was happening. I went got home and slept like a baby that night. The next morning, I never bothered to call the office. I sent for my belongings and began looking for a new way to earn money. Later that afternoon I checked my voicemail and heard the most compelling message. That night he had called to make sure that I got home safely. He wanted to assure me that he was happy to have spent the time that he did with me and that there was no one else in his life at the moment. I found it sweet but still strange. To bad it was all a lie.