B     L     I     N     D
                                
     He always hated it, when she asked him questions like that. Most women did, to some extent,
  but somehow Toni always managed to leave him feeling like he was standing in the middle of
  minefield. With very, very heavy shoes on.
     "What do you mean," he rallied. "Do I think you're too old?" He took a swallow from his
  beer, the green bottle bobbing in the bright sun.
     "You know," she insisted, lying on her back, another bottle balanced on her taut stomach.
  "For dancing." She was a stripper, at thirty-eight. This always bothered her, crept up at the damndest
  times, a loathesome insecurity that lurked in the shadows like a B-grade movie monster.
     He pulled at the beer and worked out a response. "You've always drawn my eye."
     She smiled, briefly, drew her eyes down from the sky to look at him. "You haven't even been
  in there yet." Toni leaned up on an elbow to drink from her beer. "I've looked."
     It was an old joke. He knew that she knew, that he knew that she knew.... He kept promising
  that he'd stop by there one night, tip her higher than the other patrons, decide he'd fallen in love with
  her and stalk her to her car. Somehow he'd never made itit.
     Sometimes he wondered if he was the only man in the world who hadn't seen her naked.
     "Besides, I didn't mean looks or dancing or anything." He stayed silent, waiting, treading very
  lightly. "I just think it's kind of, you know, childish. College girl stuff." She pulled at the grass. "I
  should probably move on to something else."
     He took some beer, cleared his throat, shrugged. "Like what?"
     She drew a blank. He could tell. It was probably why she stayed a dancer--she never really
  thought about doing anything else.
     Toni let her gaze wander. Bartender, waitress, cashier...thay all sounded so trivial, so
  worthless. She almost felt sorry for having begun, now that he had cut to the core of the matter to
  leave her feeling confused and lost, like always.
     "Jack!" A thin voice, carried far on the breeze, reached the ears of the two lying agaisnt the
  grassy hill of the giant empty park. Two bodies, old and darkened by the years, watching the world
  drift by their powerless eyes.
     They both looked up. It was a thin, young girl running towards them, across the shaded grass.
     "It's Renee," Jack said, before Toni could make out the small figure. They waited listlessly as
  she ran up towards them, hugging first Jack, then Toni.
     The older woman met her gaze, shot an eyebrow up in inquiry as Renee stood proudly above
  them. "Look," she said excitedly, cramming a hand in her jeans pocket. She drew out a thin card and
  held it out, bright and shiny in the noon sun.
     Jack squinted. "Congratulations," Toni beamed, eyes dancing.
     "'Bout time you got that," Jack quipped, nodding at the driver's license. He paused, looked at
  his watch for effect. "And happy birthday, at that."
     Renee sat down next to him, leaned against him. "I aced it," she told him. "The evaluator said
  he'd never seen anyone get a hundred before."
     "That's-a my girl," he smiled, putting an arm around her. Renee leaned over to kiss his cheek.
  Toni looked away as she tongued his ear playfully.
     It was always the same. You can't keep up with that, she would sigh in exasperation. She's
  legal, he would reply. Barely, came the inevitable dry retort. Then he would twist out of harm's way:
  what, are you jealous? Avoiding the truth like a true jester. She would laugh at the idea, throw
  whatever was closest at him. In your dreams, she'd say to end it.
     Now she looked at him, watching the couple so lop-sided in age, as they slipped into an easy
  embrace. It had never occurred to her to think of him that way; the idea of getting more intimate than
  friendship allowed always gave her pause.
     She wondered, for a moment: if her were ever to show up at the club, would she be able to go
  on stage?
     "I thought I wouldn't see you 'til the party," Jack was saying. Renee looked at him, his jaded
  gray eyes, the strong expression he wore constantly that set him apart from other, lesser men in her
  eyes. So sure of himself, so self-reliant, so competent...she wondered if she could ever stand guys--
  boys--her age again.
     He shifted uncomfortably under the scrutiny, realized he didn't need to assure her that he had
  her present since he would see her later in the evening. "I, uh, I was excited," she was saying, smiling
  in her young, unknowing way. She looked down at her watch, made a quick expression of surprise and
  dismay. Ever the dramatist, he remarked to himself, won over as always by her latest look, her latest
  quote, her latest role.
     "I've got to get going," Renees explained, looking up and starting to rise. Jack helped her up
  with a hand on the seat of her Levi's that mader her smile.
     Quick thrills. An old man's thrills.
     They watched the girl lope down the hill, turning back to wave excitedly. Both raised their
  hands dutifully. Toni said nothing.
     "Don't say it," Jack warned.
     She took the bait. "Shouldn't do it, man." He looked away, cleared his throat. "I mean,
  appearances aside, you're too far apart. There's no real reason, nothing to hold it together."
     He took another pull from his warming beer. "It makes her proud to be able to attract older
  men, adults. It makes me feel proud to be able to attract younger women."
     "Children?" She snorted, finishing the sentence.
     Jack looked pained. "It's mutually beneficial. We both feel good about it." He took a sip from
  the green bottle, looked at intently for a moment, as if he could see how warm it was getting. "It'll last
  as long as it needs to." He ended by staring off into the distance.
     He sees it, she realized. The inevitable, the break-up, the end of it all. What is left when the
  novelty wears off, when the sex gets old and the hidden incompatibilities come forth. His eyes were
  solemn and focussed far, far away, into the future, on the day when he would find her with a younger
  man, on the day of their first fight, on the day when he would stumble across her teen-pop CDs and
  roll his eyes in disgust while she spat venom about his Bach, his Miles Davis, his B.B. King. 
     The thought of him, of his pain in the future, made her look at him critically again. He was so
  easily wounded, so unstable...it had become painfully obvious, when he started seeing this Renee girl.
  A young one, someone who could not attack him or wound him or take advantage of him, a teenage
  salve for his againg romantic wounds. And yet, in the end, she would only re-open them all.
     She slid over and held his hand, gripping his fingers gently. "So you are jealous," he smirked.
  She ran a nail sharply across his knuckles and he drew his hand away quickly. "Maybe not," he
  amended, checking the damage.
     "I don't like watching you do things that will only make your life worse," Toni told him.
     "Oh, you mean like working in strip clubs for a living?" It was her turn to look away, more in
  anger than in pain. He couldn't help the sharp come-backs, she knew, but that didn't make them any
  easier to ignore.
     Jack stared at his beer, emptied it, tossed the bottle on the grass. He never could figure out
  how to apologize, afterwards. And the only help he ever got was a venomous "Some restraint would be
  nice".
     He put an arm around her shoulders; she leaned her head against him, not saying anything.
     "Maybe they make some kind of  medication for pricks like me," he suggested. "Something to
  let us get along with normal society."
     She jabbed at his ribs. "You're not so bad."
     "That's not what you were saying earlier," Jack pointed out, toying absently with her hair.
     "I was blinded by your self-destruction," she growled in mock resentment.
     Jack laughed, bringing his hand back to the ground as he lowered his head, shaking slightly.
  He cleared his throat and stared out across the park. She said nothing.
     "So how come," he mused, eyes on the distant blurred clouds. "We never got together?"
     She shrugged. "I hate sex."
     He laughed. "You're an exhibitionist."
     She shrugged again. "By trade only. And sex is about the only thing we don't do, right?"
     Jack looked down the hill at some kids playing soccer. It rang true, all of the confiding and
  the accountability, none of the sex..."I guess. So you don't mind if I keep sleeping with young
  women?"
     "And you don't mind if I keep working at strip joints?"
     "But we should stop both."
     "Yes."
     Pause, the still silence of thought.
     "If I give up my young girlfriend and you give up your job, will you marry me?"
     She didn't say anything, just sat there numb and frozen, like a statue. Confused, lost once
  again.
     Jack waited an appropriate space of time and said, "I wasn't expecting a yes."
     She replied, "I wasn't expecting the question." And that was the most frightening thing about
  it, that the "no" hadn't risen quickly to her lips, while she "yes" hadn't worked itself out in her mind.
  She realized, simply, that she had no answer.
     There were no answers.
     Every day, every problem, every person had to be handled on the fly. Unprepared. Solutions
  were an act of exploration more tha an act of wisdom. Long gone were the days of advice an
  knowledge, the early trusting years where the lessons learned by other generations could be learned
  from and applied to each new situation. They lived now in an age of uncertainty, of complexity, facing
  each new day like stumbling pioneers on the frontier of awareness. Confused, lost; but ready, able.
  Resolute.
     She stood up slowly, gracefully, her every move a betrayal of her profession. With an easy
  grace she spun and leaned down, kissed him for the first time. Not long, not quick; neither cold nor
  passionate. She stood, as aware of his eyes on her as she was of any john watching her dance. "Give
  me a call," she told him. "After the party."
     He still looked at her, wondering all of a sudden how she had made him feel like the ground
  had disappeared. "It'll be late."
     "I'll be up," she tossed over her shoulder as she walked slowly down the hill. At the bottom
  she waved.
     He waved back, looked down at the empty bottle, watched her disappear among the distant
  trees.