Free The Dream Merchant by Fred Waitzkin

ankle weights he had given to her as a Christmas present some years back. She yearned to please him. This remained her primary drive. She couldn’t turn it off.
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    She blew her nose. When he came back from Israel he spent his days looking out, she said, pointing to the curved bay window. We still might have worked it out. This woman wouldn’t allow it. She was calling every hour from Israel. She was afraid Jim would forget her, his little sex trifle, so she called him every hour. She wouldn’t give him a moment with me, didn’t want to risk it. She wouldn’t give me a chance. He raced for the phone. Otherwise he was glued there, by the window. Despite not being in contact those first few days of separation, she called fourteen, fifteen times in a day. Jim and I would begin to talk, he would tell me how he was feeling or that I was his very best friend; I cried when he said that; he remembered a moment with his son in Canada. I gave him a hug and the phone rang. As if she had a camera in the room. This terrorist. And he would cradle the phone in a corner so I wouldn’t hear, but I heard everything. He called her baby. His baby. He was calling her these love pet words in the corner. Sometimes I couldn’t help myself and I raced into the bedroom and picked up the phone. I needed to hear it all, to wash myself in their stupid endearments. Oh, Jim, I’m so depressed, she would say with her little hot voice. Jerking him off. Oh, Jim, I can’t sleep. I miss you so much. I’m so afraid. I’m laying on the floor, Jim. What will I do? I have a stomachache, Jim. I miss you so bad, baby. These phone calls came at all hours in the night, so I couldn’t get my balance. I couldn’t sleep. She never thought about me, not for a minute.
    Sometimes after he got off with her he was very dark. He wouldn’t say a word until she rang again or he’d say terrible things. Phyllis, I can’t make love to a woman with big breasts. I always had big breasts and he loved them. I even made them bigger for him. She took a deep breath. He told me that he loves her feet. He always loved my feet for being so small, but now he loves her feet. She has feet like a man. Every night I rubbed his back, I walked across his back and he called me his darling. But after this woman, he said to me, Who could love you, Phyllis? Who could love you, Phyllis? He said that. Look at yourself. You’re a fat woman.
    She started to weep. Now, I was crying as well. I embraced her. We were both sobbing, our faces wet and gummy from her makeup. We laughed. Maybe I loved her for the first time that night. We were just people getting older.
    I held Jim in that chair, she continued, after he said to me he felt like blowing his brains out. He was so depressed, he didn’t know what to do. I love you, Phyllis. He said that. And then she called, at that instant. She was pulling him away from me. I love you, baby. I love you, baby. Phone sex. She had him. She had him. And he would speak to her in the corner, over there, clutching the phone for his life. They did baby talk. An old man speaking baby talk. If he went out for a few minutes, I picked up the phone and when she heard my voice she hung up. It would have been so human if she had said, Phyllis, it is Mara, could I please speak to Jim? But she heard my voice and hung up. She terrorized me. I was trying to get Jim together. He was so down and confused. What kind of person does such a thing?
    Once I knew she was coming, there was no changing it; I found the house for him myself. I knew he couldn’t manage. He was just sitting over there by the window. Each day was passing and he was sitting there. She was coming in four weeks. She was coming in seventeen days. He was paralyzed. I was afraid for him. I always did things for Jim. I drove him around until I found a little house that would work. It wasn’t much, not his style, but it was