WIFE — a fiction by ollie francis
Exploring the age gap
Other times, it has been quite sweet — people genuinely concerned. *Is he taking advantage of you? they ask. Is it blackmail? Manipulation? It’s OK, honey, you can tell us*.
There’s not much point in responding. I know there are some girls out there who do sell themselves out — seek out the older guy — no connections, invalidate the prenup. I’m not naive. I know they are out there.
And I know all about the predators — those who take advantage of whatever power they can grab over the other. I read about one guy who ended up kidnapping this girl — kept her in a shed at the bottom of his garden for almost a year. His wife never knew about it. I’ll admit, that gave me nightmares.
But it is nothing like us. Nothing. Your hair, yes, I know it’s not anything like it used to be. I’ve seen pictures of when you were younger. You were just as handsome then, with your polo shirt and slacks, leaning on the rail at the edge of the dog track. I wish I’d met you then. I wish I had been born earlier.
That’s probably my biggest regret — I wish I’d known you earlier. We’ve lost so much time.
But whatever they say, whatever their looks acuse us of — I’m glad I met you now.
There was nothing seedy about it. We waited, as much as that might be hard to believe, until we felt it would be more appropriate. We know the law and we know we didn’t break any of it. That might be hard to believe, but it’s true. We knew what might be at risk if we didn’t; we weren’t prepared to lose any more years — maybe because we knew we might not have that many left to us anyhow. We both knew we wouldn’t have a full life together — but we knew we both wanted to be there to watch the sun go down.
His wife used to teach me piano. They had two in the house: an upright in the side room, a full-sized grand in the living room. I was only allowed to play that once before she died. She had wanted to show me the difference in sound between the three pedals on the grand — there were only two on the upright, of course. She had led me through, sat me on the stool, placed the page in front of me. I had been so nervous to touch the thing. It had a gloss to it — black and uniform. I thought it looked like volcanic glass.
It was only as I was playing the sequence for the second time (one time with each pedal, keep time, keep time. Listen to the tone, dear) that I had noticed him there, reflected in the mirror sheen of the key lid.
I slipped on the keys, distracted by the unexpected extra presence in the room. She noticed — had me turn, introduce myself.
There was something about how he sat, paper in lap, listening, watching. I’d never felt so important. My unexpected audience.
We don’t have any pianos in the new house. I don’t know if he misses the music or if he’s happy with the silence.
But I know, he’s worth the sacrifice.
Originally published on Tumblr
New fictions every day at http://ift.tt/1Tl0t8b
Support my work by buying my ebook, Good Fortune
Follow ollie_francis on Twitter or Facebook