he invited me over under the ruse of a movie night, but i knew better. still, it didn’t stop me from going over. i stayed at home long enough to not feel guilty about it. i made a nice dinner(steak ad eggs) and cleaned up afterwards, without any nagging. when the king tried to help me dry the dishes, i poured him a beer and told him to rest, go watch some sports. he seemed surprised, thankful, and not the least bit suspicious. men don’t have the same knowing as we women do. hell, i can smell it on him if he’s even thinking about another woman’s ankle. anyway, i’m getting off track, the point is, the kid asked me to come and i was heading out the door. i kissed the foreheads and the eyelids of my sleeping cherubs(and breathed them in), grabbed my keys, said goodbye and left,

When i got to the kid’sdowntown apartment, the lights were off. he buzzed me in and led me to the lounge where there a dozen lit candles, shoved deep into throats of cheap, old wine bottles. I was touched. What a romantic setting! He handed me a glass of pinot and we sat on the couch together, legs just barely touching. “have you seen Lolita?” he asked. I had, because i’m 15 years older than him, but i didn’t want to remind myself of that: “No,…is that Nabokov?” I queried (knowing full well who wrote the bloody thing having studied it literally DECADES ago at uni)i, and he smiled and said that no, it was a newer, better version. His generation was always looking for a newer, shinier version of everything. So, what did he see in me?