The Circle

Excerpt

Emily Roberts is still in bed this Monday morning, although it’s late for her. Usually,
she’s up at dawn but not today. Her mind is busily trying to organize Matthew’s
birthday party for Saturday. She has invited about thirty people: friends,
some of his co-workers, even the boss, Bevan Longhorn. She has taken a chance
and invited him, but isn’t sure whether he’ll show up.
They have lived in a beautiful house in the northern part of Los Angeles for
about eight years, and she finds it very difficult to think of living anywhere else.
She wonders what is going to happen when Matthew retires, because he has
mentioned before that he doesn’t want to stay in the same house afterward
especially once Jennifer is gone.
Emily feels lonely this morning. She doesn’t want to get up. She misses
Matthew. Her mind takes her back to their early days as teenagers and to all the
beautiful things they used to do together. Her thoughts mesmerize her and cause
her to feel excited; she tosses and turns in bed.
Emily is a gorgeous forty-seven-year-old blonde who knows she looks as
baeutiful as most girls in the fashion magazines. She feels proud when looking at
herself in the mirror. There have been times when she wished she had the
courage to go out and be with someone, anyone, just for the sexual satisfaction
she misses so much.
Matthew has been away from her almost all the time because of devotion
to his career. Sometimes, she misses even the weekend quickies, although
those sessions only serve his satisfaction. Emily hardly ever comes to the
point of climax with his two- or three-minute efforts. But this morning is
different; she needs to be satisfied. She resorts to her small bottle of oil; she
leans over to the nightstand and takes the lubricant from the drawer. Two,
maybe three, drops are usually enough. She applies the oil and feels the
smoothness that always excites her. After a slow, methodical rubbing, her
body relaxes. Two or three more minutes, and her orgasm is dynamic as
always.
The nextminute she jumps out of bed and runs to the shower,where thewarm
water flows over her and relaxes her as her mind turns to all that she has to do
today. She needs to do so many things—to arrange for the food with the caterers
and to order the flowers. She needs to find a gift for Matt and she needs to organize
the house cleaners. The list of things to do seems endless. She completes her
shower and is rushing out when she hears the phone ring.
“Hi, Mom, what’s up?”
“Nothing, honey, how is your day going so far?”
“Okay, Mom. Listen, do you want to go out for lunch with me? It will give us
a chance to go over your list of things for Saturday.”
She would have preferred to be on her own today to meet with her good
friend Cathy, however, she agrees to meet Jennifer at Mario’s at one o’clock.
She puts the phone down and her mind flies free like a bird in the morning,
and her sexual hunger re-emerges from the depth of her being, as if something
special will happen today, but what? She tries to put the feeling out of her mind.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/0978186524

Yannis Ritsos – Poems, Volume V

Short Composition


This group of small houses, harmoniously written on

the sky-lobe and onto the sea, with its beautiful analogies

of lines and colours, doesn’t allow any suspicion about

the big differences among the inhabitants, their competitions

about one woman who breaks the glasses in her kitchen

and pokes the broken pieces of glass in her wrist, while

the other, naked and with a water pitcher on her shoulder,

gazes at the mirror, and the third woman empties on the table,

off a pink nylon net, nine big, dead birds, a gift from the horse

rider. Outside, the neighbourhood women gather, watch

suspiciously, each other’s elbow. The men have gone hunting

          since dawn.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1926763726

Marginal

Questions
The beggar always stood
at the corner as if to
oversee two streets
double pain single delusion
the woman was already undressed
as she waited for her first john
though the traffic was an issue
that night and God, the Overseer,
down in the wine cellar,
lost among the barrels,
had forgotten her. Autumn
leaves blown over fences
and I waited for the server to
produce the bill for our dinner.
Where is an exit from this travesty
where is the elusive answer?

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1771715987