Alternatives to Sex Read Online Free PDF Page B

was being honest when he said they’d never buy. They probably have no intention of buying. I knew the type well, the pseudoshoppers who figure it’s cheaper and easier to look at real estate on a week-day morning or a Sunday afternoon than to head to the beach or feign interest in a symphony. I extended my hand and pulled her up out of the chair. “We’ll poke our heads into the other rooms and see if we can find anything of interest.”
    The rest of the apartment was as wrong as the front rooms—dark, despite large windows, and poorly laid out. I made a point of showing her the cramped closets, using them as an excuse to brush up against her a little too closely a couple of times. I wanted her to like me, even though I wasn’t sure how much I liked her.
    “Scented candles,” Charlotte said. “What do you think that’s all about?”
    The air in the master bedroom was heavy with the cloying smell of artificial vanilla.
    “Undoubtedly what everything else is about—self-hatred and insecurity.” That, in abridged form, was my version of the meaning of life.
    The bureau was lined with small, framed photographs, a brief montage of the courtship and marriage of the owners, one of those young professional couples who look as if they spend all their free time alternating between healthy outdoor activities and massive drinking binges.
    “Why are they selling?” Charlotte asked.
    Office rumor had it that the wife was pregnant and that they were looking for a place in the suburbs. But it seemed too tidy a mirror image of Charlotte and Samuel’s move, and I was a little worried that it might sound to her as if the young couple was starting the richest part of their lives while they were sliding into late middle age and empty-nest irrelevance.
    “I have no idea,” I said. “Some people just want to make a change.”

Touch
    Charlotte and I were back in the living room when Samuel finished his phone call and emerged through the pantry door. He sat on the arm of the big, soft chair and leaned against his wife. It was unusual to see a long-married couple touch each other in public; most display a faint trace of revulsion at the idea. Samuel’s face, I saw, had a shiny cleanliness that made me think he probably got facials. I’d heard that a lot of heterosexual men of a certain age got facials, reportedly for reasons of professional advancement, the only acceptable reason for men to engage in any activity that might be considered vain. The trend of shaving one’s scrotum had also supposedly spread to heterosexual men. I’d been assured of this fact by a number of friends whose incontrovertible proof was always the same: “I’ve had sex with lots of straight guys who shave their balls.” From this I inferred that the trend had spread primarily to the kind of straight men who routinely have gay sex. It crossed my mind to wonder about Samuel in this regard, too, but only briefly.
    I was just about to suggest we all go out for lunch somewhere, so I could get a better chance to find out what they were looking for, when Samuel announced that he had to head back to his office.
    “I don’t think this is the place for us,” Charlotte said.
    “I don’t think so either,” I said. “But call me in a few days and I’ll have lots of other places you can look at.”
    “Good man,” Samuel said. He kissed the top of Charlotte’s head. We buttoned up our coats and jackets and walked out together.
    As I parted company with them in front of the office, rain pouring off the rim of their umbrella, I began thinking about how soon I reasonably could get in touch with them with the excuse of new properties to show.

“Style”
    Jack Nelson, one of my officemates, was on the phone, berating a client. Jack had a loud, deep voice and a sales technique that revolved mostly around intimidation and veiled threats.
    “Hey listen,” he brayed, “if you don’t want to buy it, that’s your business. But I’ll tell you one thing right