Michael was excited at the prospect of introducing Emma to his best friend, even though Omar had none of the artist’s fanciful romantic feelings. Being a student of Schopenhauer, the cynic was well aware of the brutal biological mechanics involved.

For it was Schopenhauer who said love was the lie practiced on the individual by the species; and it was Schopenhauer who said nine-tenths the cause of love were the lover, and only one-tenth was the object; and it was Schopenhauer, in his infamous essay on women, who likened a woman’s beauty to the wings of a female ant: they fall off shortly after breeding because they become detrimental to the raising of young. These attitudes also reflected Omar’s own sober appraisal of the fair sex.

The coffeehouse was rather busy, and it took a few minutes for the men to get to the counter. Michael made the introductions. “Emma, this is Omar; Omar, Emma.”

The barista was effervescent in her pink. “Hi.”

It was clear to Omar who was the puppy and who was the leash. He wasted little time on salutations. “Michael tells me you’re in fine art photography?”

“Yes I am.”

“Well, if I were going to waste my time with an art degree, I would probably go into photography, too. You can always get a real job if the art thing doesn’t work out. Like working in a coroner’s office and taking pictures of bullet wounds, or bite marks on dead prostitutes.”

Emma grimaced.

Michael chuckled nervously. “That’s Omar for you. Always the optimist.”

The coffeemaker had more customers, so made the men their lattes.
Omar led his friend away to a nearby table, though he too could not take his eyes off the tall, leggy brunette.

“What do you think?” the painter asked.

“She’s wearing an engagement ring, Mike. Didn’t you tell me she was involved with a college prof?”

The friend offered a clarification. “There is involvement. Only it’s with a fiancé.”

“Is it a long distance relationship?”

“Well…”

“Is he around?”

“I haven’t met him, if that’s what you mean.”

“But you were with her last night? Right?”

Michael sipped his coffee in a diversion.

“How long have they been engaged?”

“Since high school. So it’s the real thing.”

Omar almost laughed out loud. “Real thing, my ass! She couldn’t commit to this guy in college, so now is using grad school as an excuse to shop around. Your for-shit timing has abandoned you at last. You’re in the catbird seat on this one.”

Michael would not be drawn into the speculation.

Omar looked over the sunny barista again, postulating, “She’s too damn perky to have spent much quality time on her back. I wouldn’t be surprised if this joined-at-the-hip sweetheart is the only poke she’s ever had. Did it get hot and heavy last night?”

The reserved friend always squirmed at these little forays. “Yes.”

His answer was too clipped; Omar put on his lawyer’s hat. “What do you mean by yes? You say yes like we’re playing twenty questions. Did you do it or not?”

The painter fumbled for a napkin. “Not technically.”

Omar was curt. “I know this song-and-dance well. You lead with your chin and she has you dancing by your short hairs. What happened?”

“There was a backrub, and some kissing.”

“A backrub, huh?”

“Like I said, it didn’t progress far.”

“Look.” The friend leaned back with a measure of world-weariness. “Don’t let this turn into another one of your from-the-waist-up-only relationships, where she only wants to yank your chain but not your dick. You must give off a scent woman can smell like money.”

Michael scanned the tabletop for a defense. “We’re friends. With privileges.”

“Privileges,” Omar griped. “She not an ATM.”

“No…”

The lawyer seized on his friend’s floundering as an opportunity to lecture. “You’ve had too little experience with women, Mike. When you get a girl in the sack, it’s like goddamn Disney World with you. You spend so much time surveying the park you forget to go on the rides. There are a lot of females in this world who will happily exploit your timidity in not demanding intercourse, especially if they can get a free three-hour backrub out of it. You need to insist on the main course, right off. Leave the hors d’oeuvres for later.”

Michael piped up. “She did initiate the kiss.”

The friend was not impressed. “If you marry a beautiful woman, you’ll spend one half of your life beating-off in the bathroom and the other half being paranoid about every man who looks at her—and there’s no end to that! You’ll never get a good night’s sleep until you either arrange for a disfiguring scar or get her knocked-up. Since (speaking as your lawyer) there is no legal penalty entailing jail time with the latter, that would be my advised course of action. The only thing less attractive than a woman missing a limb is a woman with a clinging child.”

“Your heartless, Ommie.”

“No. Just practical.” The lawyer looked up at Emma, scowling under his clinched smile. “You set yourself up for failure, Mike. You choose unattainable women because you have a high opinion of yourself, and when things go awry for whatever lame reason, its becomes one more excuse for you to engage your periodic bouts of self-loathing. You can never get the volume right.”

“You’re getting too far out on front in this, Ommie. One night of foreplay doesn’t equal a lifetime commitment.”

“You call a backrub foreplay?”

Michael quibbled. “Well, an orgasm was involved.”

“But evidently not yours.”

“No.”

“Let me guess,” the lawyer ventured. “She got sleepy so wrapped up the evening with a head fake?”

Michael sharpened the creases on his carefully refolded napkin.

The friend was solemn. “Remember, Grasshopper. It was Eve’s conniving wickedness to fake orgasms that got her and Adam tossed out of the garden. Love is war, my friend, and it’s always smoke and mirrors with women.”

“She’s complicated,” he explained.

“Complicated how?”

Michael was reluctant to part with it, but was in excuse mode. “There was a suicide attempt when she was younger.”

Omar smirked. “And what pretty, henna-dunked college woman doesn’t make that claim?”

“Why must you always be so smart at my expense?”

“Because I don’t want you hiding behind excuses—yours or hers. You can’t have a relationship without sex, and you can’t have sex if one of the participants is so high up on a pedestal you can’t grab her drawers. Don’t let her set the parameters, here. You only have to beat this fiancé’s hump time by a few minutes to move to the front of the class.”

“But there’s more to it than sex.”

The philosopher darkened. “For all your lofty notions of unsullied love, my friend, I know you polish your purple helmet just as much as you do your Boy Scout honor badges—if not more. Too much of your self-sacrificing in this regard is dressed-up cowardice. What was it Nietzsche said: ‘Verily, many is the time I’ve laughed at the weakling who thought himself virtuous for having lame paws’?”

Michael sprung a defense. “I can’t help who I am. And I have to proceed in the only way I know how. I wish I could be more decisive like you, but I’m not.”

“And what does that leave you with…? Greeting cards…? You can’t ask a woman to be her boyfriend, Mike. It doesn’t work that way. You have to assume the role before it’s assigned to you. You have to move in a few sticks furniture before she’ll let you set up house. Love is closer to the realm of the body than the mind. It’s about attitude. If she’s sharing her bed with you, then the fiancé is on the way out—which means you are on the way in. Words, sentimental or contractual, are—as I’m always saying—afterthoughts.”

“I know. I know,” the painter huffed. “I’m screwed on both ends. I can no more profess my feelings than I can act on them.”

“Which leaves the woman in the driver seat. Which puts us right back where we started this conversation.”

“I guess.”

Omar paused in his unsolicited advice, sighing, “If one of these ideal women ever ends up fucking you like a whore, you’ll have no leverage at all—no resentment left whatsoever on which to hang your spineless hide. God forbid, you’ll be so pussy-whipped, I’ll be lucky if the bitch let’s you send me a Christmas card once a year!”