By J. E. Kane, V    (jedwardkanev@netscape.net)
Date: 18 March 2001

The Club

The Club
By J. E. Kane, V

It had only been a week since I broke up with Frances, but there hadn’t been a minute that went by that I didn’t think of her.  It was a Wednesday and I was playing golf with a couple of friends, John and Craig, from the old neighborhood.  John knew about Frances and I, but that was a long time ago, and he was polite enough not to bring it up.  I’m sure he thought it was long over; we’d basically taken the affair underground, and spoke of it to no one in the old neighborhood for many months.  I don’t know about Craig, whether he knew or not, but he probably did.  There weren’t really any secrets in that neighborhood.

“Sara’s throwing a Saint Patrick’s day party on Friday.  When I told her we were playing today, she said to be sure to invite you.”  John knew I’d purposely lost track of, and avoided, a lot of the old crowd that would be there, so he was a little surprised when I said I’d think about it.  I knew Frances wouldn’t be there.  She pretty much kept to herself, and never liked crowds, though she was sure to have a number of friends there who would have liked to have seen her.

I showed up early, around three o’clock.   The party was being held in a private room of a top steak house, downtown.   John and Craig were already there.  Of all the guys that that would be there, those were the only two I spoke to.  The rest of the time I spent talking with the girls I knew, and a few I didn’t, not in groups, as was more common at that party, but one on one.   I’d dated many of them, either before I met Frances, or during one of the many periods of time when Frances and I were broken up.  For each one I talked to, I fit her into the remembrance of my personal chronology of Frances.  A few asked me about Frances.  “Ended a long time ago,” I said.
  
There was something very remarkable about the way the women I knew were reacting to me at the party.  I’m not the best looking guy around, not even very gregarious, and only slightly charming; but virtually all of the women warmed sincerely and openly to me as we spoke.  Maybe it was because I was no longer in a marriage or a relationship, and so was available.  Maybe it was because I’d learned how to use my shyness, my smile and my eyes to connect with women.  But I really think it was that I had the look of someone who had loved deeply and lost, and so joined a great unspoken club of similarly affected people, who are condemned for the rest of their days to find only temporary interludes of respite from the loss in wine, song and sex, hoping to one day find love again, and hoping not, from fear, all at once.  Frances was the only woman I’d ever loved.  But the loss of her gave allowed me membership in a club I never before knew existed.  Eve, a former girlfriend from b.f. (before Frances), sought me out early and asked for a ride back to her place afterwards, saying that she’d taken the Metro in.  I knew that Eve would end up at my place and in my bed when I realized she was a charter member of the club.  She spent the rest of her time flirting with every man at the party, and I hardly saw her till the end of the evening, and didn’t mind or miss her at all.  

I was drinking red wine.  After enough of it, I’d crossed the bridge of remembrance, allowing Frances to slip from my thoughts, and surrendered myself to the temporary bliss of forgetfulness.   The party got wild, with some impromptu topless dancing by a few of the more wanton women, surely members of the club.  I sat alone, in the back, with this woman or that, talking and taking it in, but mostly just letting go of memories of Frances.   After a while, I think we were thrown out of the restaurant, so went clubbing with a group of about a dozen men and women, none of whom were a couple.   More wine, more wanton behavior, and generally licentious dancing had mercifully crowded all thoughts of Frances from my brain.  

Eventually, it was time to leave.  Carina, another old girlfriend, was passed out on the divan next to me at Oscar’s, the nightclub we ended up at, so Eve and I took responsibility for her, taking her to my apartment.   I went to the bedroom to get a quilt for the couch, but by the time I had it set up, Carina was already in the bed, and going nowhere.  Eve undressed her and disappeared into the living room.  I undressed and went into the living room looking for Eve.  Eve is not one who ever needed any prompting, and by the time I walked into the living room, she was standing there naked, her arms thrown up, waiting to embrace me.   So we did.   And it wasn’t long before she dropped to her knees.   And what happened next was not what anyone would ever call making love.  It was just sex.  On the floor sex.  Sex to forget.  Not even very good sex, given our states of inebriation.   But, at least it had been several hours since I’d had a thought of Frances.

I slowly came to, waking early in the morning light through the bedroom window.   Carina was on one side of  the bed, sound asleep.   Eve was in the middle, naked and with her head on my shoulder.  My first thought of that morning was of Frances.  Her head once rested on that shoulder, and I felt the pain of loss all over again.  I shifted to my side, and Eve instinctively turned her back into me, and I held her wrapped in one arm, and with my free hand tenderly began to caress her thigh and hip, tracing lines to her waist and the small of her back.  But, all the while I was thinking of Frances.   Maybe Eve knew that.  Maybe, it’s just that tender moments don’t count towards forgetfulness.  Maybe it’s against the rules of the club.  I’m not sure, but whatever it was, after a little of it, she woke fully and looked at her watch and said she had to get going for a morning meeting.  So, I showed her the shower in one of the bathrooms and gave her a fresh set of towels.  For a passing moment, I thought of stepping in the shower with Eve; but I thought better of it, and showered, shaved, got dressed and made coffee.  We eventually rolled Carina out of bed and into the shower.   When we were all set, I gave both Eve and Carina rides home.  

On my way back, in the car, I was wondering whether there were enough liquor in the world and women club members to have sex with to make me forget Frances.  I didn’t think there were.
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