Free My Favorite Midlife Crisis by Toby Devens

addressed a thousand gynecological surgeons about para-aortic and pelvic lymphadenectomies for staging purposes in ovarian cancer, yet I still could not bring myself to say, “Look, we are not a match made in heaven. Have another wonderful twelve years chasing twenty-five-year-old amazons with enough saline in their tits to float the USS Constitution . But count me out.”
    “That would be nice,” was what I croaked, wanting to bite my tongue clear through so the tip landed on his $300 Bruno Magli loafers.
    “Great. Think about where you want to go next week.” He pulled me into an awkward hug.
    Five minutes later, while I was reading my email in my underwear, my doorbell rang.
    “It’s Jeff,” the voice through the door said. “Can I use your bathroom?”
    “I’m ready for bed,” I answered. “There’s a restroom on the first floor, next to the workout room.”
    “I’ll never find it. Come on, it’s urgent,” he wheedled.
    The man could have irritable bowel syndrome, I thought. Or horseshoe kidney. Or more likely at his age, prostitis. How could I deny an ailing man access to the facilities? I’d taken the Hippocratic oath.
    I threw on a robe, opened the door, pointed, and watched him dash to the powder room, though not so fast that he didn’t take in my robe.
    Standing in the hallway, I finally heard the toilet flush, the faucets gush, and then Jeff was in front of me, all six feet six of him, bare from the waist up, shirt slung over his shoulder.
    “What do you think you’re doing?” I was beyond stunned. “Put your shirt on.”
    “You sure?” He held out his arms so that he looked like a hairy-chested, well-muscled Jesus. Come unto me. “I took a Viagra back there. It will only take a half hour, and we can put the time to good use. It would be a shame to waste it.”
    “Get your goddamn shirt on. And get out of here. Now.”
    “You’re missing out on some wonderful sex. I bet you don’t get a lot these days.”
    “Out!” I shouted loud enough to wake 8B.
    “Okay, okay, your loss, sugar.”
    I gave him a final push across the threshold.
    “I’ll phone you,” he called back over his hairy shoulder.
    ***
    When my father checked in at nine the next morning—Sylvie having hid the phone in the oven overnight—I said, as thanks for those salvation games he took me to at Memorial Stadium, “I have regards for you, Dad. From someone named Jeff Feldmacher. Do you know who that is?”
    And my father, who didn’t know his own name, said, “Go Birds!”
    ***
    The following afternoon, I sat next to Fleur at the Istanbul Style and Day Spa while her nails, painted Bitchin’ Red, dried and Tracy the manicurist ground an emery board against mine.
    “I actually shoved him out the door,” I concluded my Jeff Feldmacher story. “Now he’ll probably sue me for assault.”
    “He deserved it. He was a real asshole,” Tracy said. Twenty-three, college educated, she took no guff. She had what she proudly called “a potty mouth.” All of the female staff at the Istanbul were young and American. They peppered their conversations with foul language. The men were Muslim and looked the other way.
    “What bothered me most was his assumption that I’d be so grateful for the attention at my age, I’d keel over with open arms.”
    “And spread legs,” Tracy said. She was a therapist to all her clients. Better than a licensed shrink, too. The psychiatrists I know are badly screwed up. Also, they talk among themselves, which puts your business on the street. Tracy kept it in house.
    “Pity fuck,” she said. She motioned for my hand to soak in sudsy water. “You never heard of a pity fuck? Where guys feel sorry for you, you know, and like do it as a favor to you. Like if you have acne or cruddy teeth or something gross like that. Men will fuck a milk bottle, so what does it matter to them anyway.”
    “For godssakes,” Fleur waved her wet nails, “this woman is not a pity fuck. Look at her. She’s