Member-only story
Age And Adventure
I invited my younger self to dinner and this is how the evening went:
The food is getting cold. Jesus you are late, really late, but then you show up without apology. You are beautiful, your dress just a little too tight, a little too short — no bra, your nipples like headlights and your smile warm, already forgiving yourself for being so late I have no choice but to also forgive you — because that is our nature. We hold each other, and when we release, my whole body smells like Opium perfume.
You came here from God knows where -a party in a Penthouse suite in New York, the bed of a lover in Athens.
You bring wine, and not cheap wine, though when I take your smooth young hands into my veined knowing hands, I can see the way money slips through the gaps in your fingers, because money always equalled experience and there were so many places to go.
I want to tell you hard times are ahead for us and to brace yourself, to take better care of your body, but instead I let you uncork the wine and talk too much. Eventually you ask about me what it’s like to be my age and you lean forward. Your eyes are clear, un-hooded, curious.
When you admit we look old, I say you don’t start taking care of us for another eight years. You haven’t even moved to California or discovered Mexico yet or the lobster, butter and Margarita’s…
