Chelsea Matinee — B.K. Smith

"2016 eLIT AWARD for Best Erotic Fiction"

For our first special date, I chose a dress that would be special. The texture was crisp but not solid as taffeta or poplin; it was capable of floating. It was fine cotton; unusual for an evening dress, but the color was graphite, with a slight flair, like lakes in soft pencil on cartridge paper. The top was fitted to my narrow frame, not too low, but with unfussy chemise shoulders. The waist was slightly dropped so that my long torso was straight like a pencil -- from there, the skirt, cut on a bias, flowed and floated over stiff netting. On the shoulder I had pinned my mother's gold brooch, a rose. On one of its petals shone a diamond dewdrop.

It was seven o'clock. Then eight o'clock. Then nine. I waited. I hardly knew him and already he was late; probably already bored with me -- they all get bored eventually. I knew why. It was vanity. I didn't feel attractive or alluring or desired. I quickly dismissed any notion of giving him a piece of my mind. I pulled up my skirt and undid my garters and carefully rolled down my sheer black silk stockings. I folded the stockings up together and put them on the table next to a vase of gladioli. After that, I painted my toenails Polynesian Pink to match my fingernails. I wiggled my toes while I waited for my toenails to dry, and then I unfolded the stockings and rolled them back up my legs. When I had done up my garters I put on my shoes -- all done -- and I waited some more. I was just another woman at his disposal, which made me disposable. The fact that I aspired to be a great painter meant nothing to him.

What happens when you fall in love with a man with no conscience? When you have been seduced and abandoned and left for dead? How do you reconcile your life, your truth, your fiction, and your memories? You spend the better part of your life trying to forget, and then you remember it one last time. You write the story from a safe distance of more than thirty years. You write it from memory where the true essence of the affair resides, and you release it into the cosmos finally, forever... May he rest in pieces.