I will, consider it

I like stories that require no ending, or an ending that does not result in happily ever after. My own personality is such that I don't require a lot of care, I don't demand and I don't have much expectations. So when I write about a story, about a woman and a man, typically the woman is on the submissive, non-drama side. I have spoken to many women and I now know that's not typically the case. But imagine a world where few things need to be said, imagine a world that two people could love each other but don't coexist in the same environment, imagine a love story that required no closure. This is a story about such two people...
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6 A.M., the skyscraper next to the hotel has started construction. Man wakes up. Meeting is at 7:30 in his San Francisco office.

“What’s your day like?” Man asks the woman.

“What?” Woman is still sleepy. She’s nocturnal, the opposite of him, who’s diurnal. Permanently diurnal, as in East Coast diurnal. She’s sleepy and wants to not talk.

“Tell me what you will be doing today.” Man insists.

“Well, I have a couple of deliverables to create, stuff for the Board, and a few presentations to edit. Not so stressful. I don’t have a stressful job any more.” Woman answers while her eyes are closed.

“Why do you ask?” She asks the man.

“Because I want to know.” Man does not give any reason and she’s too tired to drill on this topic.

“Do you want me to take these things with me?” He asks as he folds up handcuffs and blindfolds. Their toys, washed, cleaned and dried.

“Yes. I can’t take them home. Don’t forget the spanking device.” Woman does not know what it is called but she likes it. It hurts her. And she likes being hurt.

Man pounded her last night. Spanked her hard and then pounded her from behind, her face on the pillow, man told her to be quiet, so she was both ecstatic and in pain. It was like a simulated rape. Man rode her hard and deep, she was gasping for air as man pushed her face into the pillow.

They have been in this mode for quite some time now. She wonders how much of it is like the popular mommy porn series played out. She wonders whether man has read it. She has not. She wonders if man likes it because she likes it or if she likes it because man likes it

Five years and counting. Every few months, man comes into town and woman meets man in a hotel. They act as if they have never been apart. They catch up, briefly, and they spend the evening having sex, S&M style. Before the mommy porn book series was written. Woman thinks she and man are ahead of their time.

Man takes photos of her. Naked photos. And videos them having sex. To take home with. Man lives in the East Coast with his wife and daughter. Man has been married for the last fifteen years.

Woman lives in the West Coast with her son and her mother. She is divorced and has been seeing man since she filed for divorce.

“Happy birthday, baby.” Man kisses woman as he’s getting ready to leave.

“Thank you. It was lovely.” Woman is 45 and with dark blond highlights. Shoulder length wavy hair. Woman is curvy and well preserved. Woman’s ex-husband is 8 years younger. She’s always looked young. Ex-husband became ex when woman walked in on ex-husband having sex with her best friend.

“Will you bring them next time when we see each other?” Woman asks. She likes the toys he brings with him.

“Yes. I will. I have a meeting soon with the East Coast. I need to go, baby.”

“I know.” Woman does not ask questions about man’s marriage, his comings and goings, or whether and when they will see each other again.

Five years of the same pattern. Except woman loves the man now. With all her capable heart.

“One day, say 20 years from now, I’ll be 65 and you will be 70. If by then you want a true companion, I want you to consider me.” Woman requests of the man as man walks around the hotel room, making sure that he’s packed everything.

“OK.” Man says.

“OK what?” Woman wants to be clear.

“OK I’ll consider it.” Man leaps back into the bed and gently lies down next to her and puts his arm around her bare back, while extends his hands to cup woman’s bare breasts.

“I like the lights. The lights shines on Keira’s face. The end of everything. The unlikely relationship formed at the end of the world. Literately.” Woman tells man about the movie she saw on the plane. Man saw the same movie on a different flight and liked it too.

“What are you doing this week?” Woman casually asks.

Man knows by now woman does not ask man out on dates anymore or expect to see man after they just meet. Man must initiate it. Man is more relaxed around woman and decides to give her a run down of his schedule.

“Work, and my usual responsibilities.” Man says.

Man has gotten older lately. Woman remembers how they first met, some twenty years ago, when she was barely 25 and man was 30 at the time. They reconnected five years ago. Five years of blissful happiness, and lots of desperate longing and doubts in between man’s absence.

Man surveys the room and starts to sort their toys in his suitcase. Leaving only the present he bought for the woman. A strand of necklace. Man buys woman necklaces on special occasions. Short choker style always. He takes out a card, it’s a simple card he has picked up at an airport just before coming to see her, he writes in the card. “I love you and I look forward to another year of splendor.” He hesitates. Then he decides to take the card out of the envelope and puts the card in his briefcase. Leaving the envelope out, envelope has her name on it.

Man rarely shows emotions. Man wrote this note while thinking about his emotions and feelings. Now man is hesitating about the words written out. It seems to be a little too personal. What if woman now expects a final closure? A proper relationship and not just a proper date from time to time? Man has not prepared for any possibilities beyond the fun and adventures they have been having.

Best sex ever. Best fucking. Best blowjobs received. Best of everything they have ever done. Woman is giving. Woman does anything and everything man tells her to do. Man is soft-spoken, very agreeable, and does what his wife tells him to do. Man is powerful at work but has never been the person who wears pants at home. His stay at home wife does.

Man is a MAN in all senses of words with woman. Woman is submissive and likes to be in pain, and be told what to do and how to do it. Woman has always been compliant. Man likes that. Doesn’t every man?

“I will always love you.” Man is up again as he carefully examines the content of his suitcase. Including the card he writes for the woman. He declares his love but does not want to leave any physical evidence.

“Baby, I love you, body and soul.” Woman mumbles and is drifting back to sleep.

Man walks over to the edge of the bed, and kisses woman.

He kisses her lips, gentle, like feather, like he’s leaving his most precious thing behind. Like a piece of him is being left behind. Man wants to bottle woman up sometimes and takes her to places he travels to. Man has realized that he’s been in love with the woman, for sometime now.

“Bye bye.” Woman kisses him back. He tastes like spearmint or fresh mountain air, perhaps.

Man leaves the room. The same room they always book, top floor, overlooks the roof top garden at the adjacent building.

Woman starts to drift back to sleep. One more hour of sleep before she has to get up to go to work also.

She has told her mother, who’s living with her to take care of her son that she had an overnight business trip. No one needs to know that she’s involved with a married man.

Woman will wake up finding the only evidence of love is gone. The only card man has ever written for her in the last five years. The only love declared on paper.

Woman will find her necklace intact. A sign man does exist.

It will be another few months before she hears from him and before they see each other again.

It will be another year before man writes again. And take away what he writes at the end of their date.

It will be just that, a love story. A lonely, unsatisfying, no-ending love story, similar to the ending of Seeking a Friend for the End of the World. The movie both of them have watched, separately, and liked it, together.

It does not end, with them being together, certainly not when man is married and living in the East Coast, certain not now. But woman is hopeful. Her hope is hinged on man's acknowledgment of her 20 year plan, by him replying by saying “I’ll consider it”. Maybe when woman is 65 and man is 70, when their children have grown, when they are gray and frail, they’d finally be together, permanently. Maybe.

Man did say, he’ll consider it.