Exhibition

“I think it broke.”

Lita doesn’t move, doesn’t speak.

“Did you hear me? I think it broke.” I check the latex remains on my deflating penis. Yep. It broke. I pick off the split skin, yanking out a few pubic hairs in the process, and toss it in the wastebasket.

She still doesn’t respond.

“Lita?” I give her shoulder a little tap.

She finally moves, turns her head a little and looks me in the eye. The right corner of her mouth twitches a bit, then creeps up, plumping her cheek, and her lips slowly stretch into a full smile, complete with almost-white teeth. She’s a little thick and saggy, way too much junk in the trunk, but that smile is killer. It stops just short of her eyes. “Yes?”

“The condom—it broke. You might want to do something,” I say.

“Do something? Like what?” She sounds amused. Her smile settles down to polite, and she looks off towards the ceiling.

We lie there for a minute or two. I feel like I should say something, but I don’t have a clue what it should be.

“See,” she says, “I break things.” She sits up, swings her legs over the edge of the bed. “No, I don’t exactly break them, I just... keep running into things that break.”

She grabs her panties from the floor.

“Are you leaving?” I ask. I’ve kind of been hoping for a double-header, but I’m less disappointed than I should be.

“Oh yeah.”

“Why?” I haven’t earned my brownie points for cuddling yet.

She pulls on her panties and starts arranging her bra, her back to me. I’ve never understood women and bras—all those straps, hooks, cups. How do they live like that, every day? Then again, they probably don’t understand how we live with our penises, tucking them into underwear, pulling them out to pee, drawing designs in the snow, worrying about them giving away our idle lusts at inopportune moments.

“You know,” she says, “I married a man who said he owned a gift store. Turns out his father owned the store, he just worked there.” Her bra correctly positioned, she pulls on her shirt and starts buttoning. “His father sold the store the year we got married. Turns out he couldn’t do anything else, so I supported him for ten years until I got sick of him screwing around. Don’t worry,” she says, turning a bit towards me, “I got tested for everything after we split.”

What a relief.

“I moved into a building that got condemned a year later. And I worked for a company that went under.” Shirt buttoned, she reaches for her jeans. “And today, I was supposed to have my first exhibition.”

Exhibition? “Exhibition of what?”

She steps into her jeans. “My paintings. Nothing special, amateur stuff. Water colors with ink. Abstracts—feelings, you know, like stuff I have to get out of my head before it kills me. Most of them I throw away, sometimes I don’t even finish them. But there were some I liked.”

She hikes up the jeans, zips and buttons. “So I had these paintings, and this guy at work took pictures of them, put them on his website. Some art dealer emailed him, said he wanted to put them in his gallery on Pearl Street, an exhibition, local artist and all.” She turns around and faces me. “What do I know? I said sure, and I brought over my paintings.”

Is that a tear? She brushes her hair back from her face, maybe wiping the tear with her palm. I’m not sure what to do here. I hardly know her, am I supposed to comfort her?

“I was flattered. I thought, wow, someone thinks my stuff is good.” Her voice gets louder; I get nervous.

“Turns out he wasn’t much of an art dealer. His landlord evicted him three days ago.” She puts her hands on her hips, then shrugs. A breath of silence. She drops her arms and looks at the floor. “I’d told everyone about it. ‘Come to my exhibition!’” Her voice drops to a whisper. “So I had to tell them all it wasn’t going to happen.”

She bends down to pick up her sweater.

“Tonight I figured I should have fun. That’s what people do, they have fun, they go out drinking, maybe get picked up and have a one-night stand.” She shrugs into her sweater. “I thought I’d try it.”

Wait—I’m the one-night stand? I thought she was the one-night stand.

She looks around the room, stopping when she sees her purse on the dresser. She pulls the strap over her shoulder. “So it doesn’t surprise me the condom broke.” She faces me straight on and does that slow-smile thing again.

“Hey,” I say, “you don’t have to leave. Stay a while. C’mon, Lita, it’s okay.” I owe her cuddling.

The smile snaps shut like a nuclear-powered mousetrap. “Nah, I’ve got to go.” She heads for the bedroom door.

“Wait,” I call. “At least let me take you home.” I get out of the bed, still naked, and follow her through the hall and living room to my front door.

“No thanks, I’m fine.” Hand on the doorknob, she looks at me—at my face, not at my dangling johnson, still damp and sticky. I fight the urge to cover it with my hand. She gives me a smile of unexpected kindness. “And my name isn’t really Lita. I’m forty-three years old, how could I have a name like Lita?”

Forty-three? I thought she was my age, maybe thirty-five, tops.

“Hey, did you get your paintings back? I’d like to see them.”

She waits a beat—I hold my breath—then yanks open the door. “Bye,” she says, and leaves. Me.