Elizabeth 339 Invitation Only Ch 01

I'm 6 years old. A mop of honey coloured Irish blond hair with freckles where the fairies have kissed me. Whorish creatures they may be, given the unlikely spots I've found freckles; cheeky at the very least. I am hiding in a tree house, high up in what I call a lonely tree. It's a type of pine with needled leaves that whine and sigh with each lost breath of breeze that struggles through the summer mirage and it sounds as lost and lonely as I feel. I curse my violent father and wish him dead. My mother cries while she waits for the ambulance and I hide least he finds me. Then moments later I'm 46, and typing words onto this stark parchment, trying to purge my soul. That small boy in the tree house had no idea who he would, in his turn, hurt. We scribe upon this clean black slate with knives, not chalk. We carve our paths into this existence, not feint them gently with erasable grace. Worse still, others slash their own shitty graffiti on our souls. Forgive these gross cicatrices should they underscore my text; I overwrite them in optimistic censure but I'm sure they are still clear.

A working week starts. The alarm hijacks a beautiful hardon. There was a dream which inspired it but be fucked if I can remember it now. The imagined smell of 'coffee to be' distracts me from my arousal so quickly that I'm almost ashamed at my hasty deflation. Dark grinds, hot steam, cold milk, fuck work. Really? I have to fuck a perfectly good week by starting it with work? And with hardons, coffee and redundant internal dialogue, my hate fuelled relationship with my existence begins afresh for week number two thousand, four hundred and forty of my life. The only true beauty in my world arrives as my week begins. One by one, my most magical manifestations seem to susurrate into this morning. A wife, a child, another older child. Such beautiful things I can't imagine how they found some gravity to me. Their breath and skin a warm familiar world. Kisses good morning. Cranky words, frowns, laughter, smiles, the business of another morning commences and another waltz around this hot yellow rock starts to roll.

"Fuck!"

"It's just a cup. Grab the dustpan."

"Mum's gonna spew."

"It's just a cup."

"It's her favourite."

"It's ok, she'll understand."

"What's this shit on my floor?"

"It's just a cup."

"It's my favourite."

"..."

"It was an accident... I understand."

Then next thing you know it's Thursday afternoon and the merry go round has spun with such centrifugal simplicity that it's almost Saturday sex and sleep ins and the anthem of Sunday's lawnmower, singing Briggs and Stratton lullabies to the week.

...

I stare at the computer screen. It hasn't made sense for near half an hour. It has words on it. None of them seem to form intelligible constructs. Perhaps it's an abstract piece; "Dali does foreclosure". I'm not sure but I know I'm supposed to be able to care about it. I try so hard, I say the things, I smile the things, I type the things, I do the people. Fuck, I just feel nothing. Some risk, perchance to live. I smile. She smiles back. We've fucked before and we'll fuck now but first we dance some social graces. Then etiquette saluted, we fuck for nothing and its lack of value shames me briefly but more, the complete lack of true contact eats my heart.

Dishevelled, she gathers clothes like dish-rags and hastily reassembles them upon her tiny secretarial frame. "Your 4 pm?"

"When you're ready."

The breeze of her leaving the office is a silky trail of sex and cheap perfume that I follow to the door. A mirror mocks me there and upon its suggestion, I adjust my necktie and brush wrinkles from my suit. Some fluid marks my charcoal trousers, more chalk on my soul's slate. Grimacing I re-take my throne behind any desk, in any office, in all the city. Another grey suit holding puppet strings and riding a laptop into glorious battles of bullshit.

A red leather purse flops discarded on the carpet. It's fallen open and cards and coins mock the precision of the designer décor with their careless disarray. I wonder briefly if Susan's vagina looks quite so casually used and much like this right now while I hastily tuck items back in embarrassment at my intrusion. "It's ok to fuck your secretary, to bury your face in her shaved pussy and lick at her insides but it's creepy to look in her purse?" I wonder at my mind sometimes and page her. "Susan, please."

Her pretty face smiles around the office door, "Again, so soon?"

Absently I dismiss her with a wave at her wallet on my desk and the gesture is like a blow to her. I smile as I watch her face battle with emotions and composure. She collects the purse and hurries out.

The 'four o'clock', wears a body and waffles with a voice but I am not engaged. I nod and gesture and take notes and use all the good grace I can muster but my appetite now is for home. The hollow empty gestures of this almost abstract reality are a script I have not written, for a play in which I wish not to be cast.

"But soft, what light through yonder..." I pluck a white rectangle from the carpet floor. "Elizabeth 339." Inked in simple cursive on a plain white linen card. This intrigue is welcome! Is this the spoils of Susan's purse or has some other visitor left this breadcrumb trail?

Turning the card in my hand, I address the suit across my desk, "Thankyou."

"..." he stops mid-sentence, "I, have we some understanding then?"

"No, and we are unlikely to arrive at one. I am disinclined to entertain your venture and do not wish to waste any more of your valuable time."

"Sir, this really is..."

"Good day." I stand and gesture to the door.

Petulant quite possibly, but prudent most assuredly, to limit his investment of time given my complete lack of interest. I follow his flustered form to the door and amuse myself with his puffed chest and reddened face. He stomps through the sea of cubicles like a child marched past an ice-cream stand; looking back and glowering every few steps, he leaves only quiet in his wake. I hand Susan the plain white card.

"Yours?"

Her sudden intake of breath and the speed with which her tiny bone like fingers snatch their prize surprise me. I watch her horrified expression as she tucks it hurriedly away like a dirty secret or the evidence of some ancient crime.

She will not meet my eyes, "Thankyou, it's nothing."

"Nothing?"

"No."

...

I ponder this still as I fuck my wife hard. I thrust against her and she grunts each time my thighs hit the back of hers and I, still, cant, work, it, out, fuck... I slam one last time then spill inside her. I slump on her back and her breathing slowly returns to normal. I become aware of my weight on her.

"What's wrong tonight?"

"Nothing, why?"

"That was intense."

"Oh."

"No, I liked it, just um... vigorous."

"Sorry."

"Don't be. Is something bothering you?"

"No. Good night."

"Oh... Good night then."

I lie awake beside her, yet miles away for a while. Her quiet sleep noises and the smell of her hair fill my awareness and slowly as I stare at the small sigma tattoo like an E on her parchment white neck I'm reminded that she is an entity. She breathes and eats and shits and fucks and feels and loves and reaches out to me, but like the rest of my world she exists on the other side of a thick sheet of plastic. Compassion is not impossible for me but neither is it common. In truth, it is at moments like these that I am vulnerable enough to allow her to really touch my existence. Ironically, I'm most human while she is sleeping and unavailable to witness what she likely needs most from me.

I ponder her humanity. Once she was a child. She has parents and friends and we share two children. She has studied; is independently financially secure and probably more intelligent than me but for one thing. She chose me. I know she had other lovers; we speak openly of such trivia. Yet from all the men in her world, she chose someone broken. I still don't know what called her to choose me but I fall asleep grateful that she did.

...

Only minutes later, I am stretching and picking the crusty remnants of dark dreams from my squinting eyes. I can smell my morning home first; coffee, toast, shampoo and steam. Then a slow crescendo of noise insinuates; children's chatter, my wife chiding, television talking to itself in the living room and tiny traffic noises held out by walls and windows. My eyes are next to claim awareness, slowly gathering images for my waking mind. They show me first the bathroom mirror and my stubbly face as I piss pungent morning urine. I'm in need of a haircut. The usually precise short back and sides is finding places to curl and make moppy waves. Sloppy. This won't do.

I text Susan while I shit. "Hair appt priority pls."

She texts back, "k" and I fumble through my other messages.

Ablutions complete and my message list now as empty as my bowels, I'm glad for a shower. Steamy jets of hard water blast me and I soap myself vigorously. I scrub my body clean but it's my soul that I wish I washed. I am ten years old, crying in the orphanage showers. I scrub myself red and raw but I cant wash away the systematic abuse. I hate them all so clearly that it's a thing I can chew. I hold it hard between my teeth and push the emotions and the mental pictures back inside the little box, in the darkened room, in the furthest wing of my mind.

The towel is crisp and scratchy cotton on my skin and wrapping it around me, I shave my ageing face. This mirror man is like an older version of the boy that lives inside. Sometimes, he is so unlike me that I can't even look at him for long. I don't feel like I own this nose or this jaw or these ears so I rush this job and nick my face. Real red blood on my white skin. A speck of truth on a false canvas.

I dress myself; carefully building armour out of layers of carefully cut fabrics until I am well hidden behind my constructed façade. My seven year old self seethes with anger. It wasn't him. It was the other child wearing a cowboy suit. He did it. He killed it. Stoned it dead and buried it. But it got out of the hole when it should have stayed dead and they found it. Why would they punish him? He was clearly not a cowboy. He was an Indian. Do they not understand? The world can have this version of myself today. A well dressed, carefully groomed white male, with steel grey sides to his short brown hair. The after shave still stings as I kiss my wife good morning and playfully slap her bum. She's summery looking on this autumn day. I don't like that her seasonal indiscretion annoys me but it does regardless.

"Nice dress, not too cold?"

"This old thing?" she pirouettes, "It's nice out today. We have playgroup in the park this morning."

I try to smile. It's a glimpse into her world. A crack in my existence that I can see through long enough to wonder what life is like for her. That annoys me too; I don't need this distraction before work.

"Nice. You have a good day Freckles."

"I will Dad - there's a rocket and swings and sandpit..." He's enthusiastic like all three year olds going to the park. I wish I had that same energy for my schedule.

"Mel, you dressed darling? Bus is almost here."

"Yes Mum. Just fixing my hair."

She's nine years old but dresses thirteen.

"Morning Daddy." Melanie hugs me, her warm arms around my neck and cheek against my fresh shaved face. These hugs are real. This contact real. This proximity profound. It's good and my heart delights for a moment before my mouth interrupts.

"Take that makeup off young lady."

"But Daddy, all the girls wear makeup."

"But darling, you aren't all the girls. We've had this argument."

"Oh, do I have to Mum?"

She stomps off to the bathroom and I regret I can't just shut my mouth sometimes. Is it so important? But things must be in their boxes. All carefully in place. I rationalise my compulsions into reasons but the truth is clear in my wife's eyes when I kiss her goodbye and leave for work.

"She's still your baby, she's just playing big girl dress-ups. You're going to have to get used to it."

"Not today."

And then I'm in a train with sweaty people. Trapped against the window by a woman wearing too much perfume, eating loudly. Lips slapping on her smelly tuna sandwich, she makes small growling noises with each bite. I struggle not to gag, willing all my senses out the window at the grey world with its graffiti walls and the click, click, click of the tracks. It is with almost sexual relief I finally feel the glass doors of the Grosby building close behind me and the elevator welcomes me like a womb.

My office smells like overnight. I'm not sure what it is, stifled? Musty? Stale? Something that needs the window opened and a little of the autumn breeze. My desk is cleaned and carefully arranged except for the post-it note stuck in the middle.

"Morning boss!" and a smiley face. "Back in 10, getting coffees."

This annoys me too. Today is wrong. I screw up the note and throw it across the room. It lands untidily in the corner near my bookshelf. Every day is like a Jenga tower. Each piece needs careful placement to build a nice tidy tower and some days things just don't stack up.

I have 23 emails. They are all marked urgent. I'm glad Susan filters my mail list. The trivia of social media notifications, marketing and other nonsense infuriates me. I enjoy this tidy more concise list. It is some order in my otherwise 'ajar' day. One by one, I address each mail. For the most part, they are diary bookings, requiring little attention but three stand out. A reminder from the partners that my application for the board is set for review and certain documents required, all of which I have prepared and filed. I make an outlook calendar entry and move on to the next, an urgent request from my ex-wife's solicitor requesting funds released from the settlement investment for an 'urgent medical procedure'. I make the necessary banking arrangements to pay for whatever cosmetic surgery is 'urgently' required this time and move on to the remaining e-mail.

"Notice of objection to proposed development." I read on through the jargon to find a small and rather un-assuming makeover development that is scheduled for a west-end theatre has been blocked on heritage grounds by a group of locals. It is unexpected and untimely, with potential to cost tens of thousands of dollars in wasted construction time. "...your representative to attend mediation proceedings with solicitors acting on behalf of the complainant and with other stakeholders at the proposed development site this 14th day of..."

"Fuck me, that's this afternoon." I think aloud.

"Morning boss..."

Susan hands me a tall mug of cappuccino.

"Susan, clear this afternoon please."

She raises a cheeky eyebrow at me. "Certainly, any other special arrangements I need to make? A nurse uniform perhaps?"

"Oh, no. Um, I have a meeting in the west end for that theatre development. I imagine it will take most of the afternoon. Do you have much on? You could assist if you have time."

"Sure. I'll clear my schedule too. Oh, hair appointment. Is 10.30 this morning ok?"

I run a hand through my scruffy hair. "Thankyou. That will be fine."

She sees the post it note in the corner and picks it up on the way out. I watch as she bends over. A dark line runs up the back of each stockinged leg and disappears under her black skirt hem. They are neat and perfectly parallel. I'm not sure what arouses me, the symmetry or the backside of my secretary but I'm hard, pushing against my trousers. Somehow, she knows and soon we are fucking. She is bent forward across the green leather top of my desk. Her skirt bunched up around her waist and her bare arse raised above her stockings while I plough her mechanically from behind.

She makes the right noises as I thrust; small moans and gasps like a porno movie version of enjoying herself and for the most part, I thrust as if I enjoy it but truthfully, I could just as well be having a wank. My left hand pushes her skirt higher on her back and as I buck in orgasm, squirting inside her like a milked cow, I see a small tattoo along her lower spine. A classy vine of sorts leads upwards from the top of her arse crack to roughly between the dimples in her lower back. I don't know why I've never noticed before. It's ivy wrapped around a sigma like my wife has on her neck. I wonder if Susan was a member of the same sorority in her college days.

"Boss?"

"Oh, yeah." I pull out. My half-soft cock plopping against her thigh. She giggles as her pussy farts out little blobs of semen.

I stand there with my pants around my ankles, sipping cappuccino while my penis returns to its usual unspectacular size, watching her re-arrange herself. "I needed that. Such a shitty morning." She looks at me and I figure it means I'm meant to respond.

"Me too. Thanks..." She's still looking at me waiting. "Oh, what happened?"

"Nothing. Geoff is being a jerk."

I'm not real good at reading these exchanges; does she want me to ask about it or is she finished sharing. She continues anyway, "Insists we visit his parents this weekend when he knows I have plans already."

I nod as she continues a story and watch her lips and tongue. I can feel myself getting hard again, which is probably not the empathetically correct response so I reach for my pants and return them to their usual state. She wriggles her own knickers on and smooths down her skirt and it is deliciously ironic to me that she is complaining about how her partner is a jerk to the man she is fucking behind his back. "You... don't really care? Or you think it's funny?"

"Just, well we are technically..."

"Yeah." She smiles, "I guess. In any case. He's being a jerk so it was nice to fuck him out of my head."

"Always a pleasure, let me know if there's anything else you'd like to forget."

She laughs and checking her face in the mirror on the door she returns to her own desk leaving me to finish my coffee and ponder how sex could be so intimately disconnected. I followed Mrs Beetson home one day. Her house was small and lonely at the end of the dirt lane. She was such a bright and large lady. Loud coloured dresses, big hair, and a loud voice always laughing. I snuck along the road from tree to tree watching her bustle the grocery bags against her thighs. When she went inside, I snuck to a window and peered in. She stood in the kitchen, her skirt raised and one hand pumping a large cucumber in and out between her legs. What an odd memory.

And then I'm lonely again. I stand freshly fucked by my gorgeous secretary in a 10th floor corner office after having left my beautiful wife and children in my lovely suburban home this morning and yet I'm empty. All these people I have in my life, but are they decorations or possessions. Have I any real connection to them? They are like shadows from puppets on a back lit screen. ...

My haircut is good. It's prickly short around the sides and scratches against the palm of my hand. Neat, precise and unmoving with the breeze. There is enough on top to bluster and I run my fingers through it to smooth it straight again. If only you could send your existence to a barber now and then. "Bit of a trim please. Tidy up those stray hairs and make it all neat and tidy again please. Oh and I've a bit of a cow lick there, that's right the bit where a nine year old came home to find his mother dead and his father passed out drunk with a gun on his lap. Yup, see what you can do with that please."

This is the park where Lisa brings the children. The wooden seat is hard and uncomfortable and the afternoon warm with a fresh breeze that reminds me autumn is nearby. Traffic noise and birdsong form a weirdly serene symphony. Children play on swings and climbing things. I once fucked a girl on a swing. She cried afterward; said that she wanted it to be special. I was confused about how you make sex on a swing in a park special and suggested we try again. She ran off home and I sat and finished the wine coolers we had been sharing. Susan returns with sandwiches, "Which one is your wife?"