Friday, April 20, 2018

Le Jeu De L'Amour Et Du Hasard--A Constantine Story

I get involved. I forget to add Dad's stories to this blog, and then I find one and I think, "Let's get back to that!" So, here is a short one.

I don't really have a story to tell, today.  In fact, I have a kind of reluctance about the whole project.  Anyway, it is the day before writing class, and I feel somewhat obligated.  So forget literary considerations and let's get on with it.

In the third year of my marriage, I began graduate courses at NYU, in Washington Square, NY.  Actually I enrolled in the program since if I stopped my GI Bill Entitlement, the monthly checks would stop, and I still needed the bread.

She came into the class in the middle of the semester.  She was tall, slim and long haired and spoke a fluent French.  I soon noticed that despite random possibility, it seemed she was always sitting on one side of me or the other.  I looked, peripherally at first, then appraisingly.  We spoke, and soon lunch was a daily affair.

She made it plain that she was attracted to me.  I avoided any commerce outside the university area.  She began asking probing questions.  The theme was obvious.  She was asking if I were gay.

Ok, you may rightfully say, "Why didn't you tell her you were married?"

That's a woman's question.  How often does a man encounter a sucubus, a rare charmer?

The fever reached its height when she did several scenes as Roxanne, in a reading of Cyrano de Bergerac.  I was entranced.  

I scribbled several lines of poetry on the inside cover of a text book.  I insist this was simply a scholarly exercise, inspired by the beauty of Rostand, the author of the work.

To make a long story short, my wife stumbled on the opus.  She said she had been dusting the book shelves.

"Are you seeing another woman?" she said.

No man can deliver an articulate answer to this question.

"Of course not," is a standard answer.

Moreover, no man has the intuitive perception of the female.  About  the charmer:

We were walking down the stairs on our way to lunch when she stopped suddenly.

"Ah, oui," she said in revelation, "vous etes marie, you are married."

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