Recurrance

Awake from more of a long nap than a night's sleep, and not that restful, on the couch, over-dressed as I am and with the heat too high, remnants of the dream come with me as I fix a glass of ice water.

I had been in the apartment before, alone with her; yet, this time two younger men accompanied us. They were art critics from New York. I knew where the glasses were kept and went to get one, for the pizza had made me very thirsty. I wondered if I was being too presumptuous helping myself as the other two wandered about and made comments about art on her walls and books on her shelves  It was all too smug, easy, their flow about the place, and therefore subtleties were no doubt missed, like the transparent glass, the simple gesture of pulling it from the cabinet with its smooth rim tilted toward my face, of course interrupted as one of the boys had found half of a stale baguette and cradled it from the living room to the kitchen.

I have no interest in taking liberties, nor pursuing any hint, now at an age when dreams replace youthful impulse, intimacy as sharing such a station. And just now it occurs to me that this is what she was trying to tell me the last time we met, as uneasy as it was for me at the time to watch the pain cross her face. Why, I wondered, did she feel the need to tell me of past indiscretions? Was it a lead on? I had my share as well, and admitted such, and her faced smoothed. Perhaps that is all we both needed to know, that none of it ever brought joy, and therefore this new friendship would be safe.

I have downed four full glasses since I began this writing. No doubt, too much sodium in the pizza. I check my ring finger for verification, can see the pressure mark and barely slide my band up and down. Having recalled the dream, it will not return, yet the symbolic persists.