“A solidão dos homens tem a medida da solidão de suas mulheres”
Lya Luft

He’d been dreaming of this woman who would go on top of him and grow taller as she approached ecstasy. At some point, she couldn’t go higher unless she flew.
During the day his thoughts were with her. He’d read somewhere the story of a guy who had mysteriously grown wings. He didn’t know what to do with them until he had an orgasm with a new lover - at that moment, his wings spread and he found out that she had been lost with her wings too.
He wanted that. A woman who could only get higher if she flew – and took him with her. The warmth of her body would warm his insides, would melt his hips into hers and from then onwards, the pace of their lives would be dictated by the moves of their bodies, of what happened between their legs. The food would taste like her sweat and every drink would remind him of her cum. They’d hold each other’s hands in an attempt to hold life itself in its most violent manifestations. Life as it is, as it was in the beginning – skin, saliva, desire. No invented fears, no excuses, no mystical theories.
He didn’t want to be a man who held on to his wife because he had nothing else to hold on to.
He didn’t want a woman who’d hold on to him because she had nothing else to hold on to.
Above all, he wanted a woman who could see that.
Pamela… she was sweet. Sex with her was... relaxing. His fiancée was lovely and he cared about her, but he was afraid she would never grow wings. Was he being pretentious? Maybe she was right – plastic beauty and a little show in bed. That's the stuff that keeps things going, right? After all she was hot and he even liked the strip-tease shows (she took classes for that), but the shows and the contortions were there to keep the relationship alive. It wasn’t the relationship that was dying. It was him.
But he’d rather die than break up with her. They’d been together for 4 years and he knew she would be heart broken.
He remembered once telling her to run away with him. Live somewhere far, have a life they’d never thought of having. She seemed so worried that he regretted saying it. That night she wore new lingerie and he was afraid her contortions would give her aches the next day. They had sex once and he could swear she had faked that orgasm.
That night he dreamed of the flying woman again.
In the middle of a meeting, the next day, he was caught drawing a naked woman’s body on the cover of the weekly report.
_ You’d better not let it out, Marcus. You could be sued.
_ For what???
_ Sexual harassment. Suzy saw your drawing. Don’t make me fire you.
He went to Suzy.
_ You’re a perv.
...
So be it.
…
What’s wrong with you people???
….
He took the rest of the day off. Went to a bar. He was looking for her, but there was no sign of her wings. At home Suzy’s judgment kept echoing in his head. “You’re a perv.”
He’d act like one then.
………
He made love to Pamela as if she was a sex doll.
………..
She said it was “lovely”. Then he knew…and wondered how long she had been faking it. And for God’s sake… “lovely”?!?
It occurred to him that he was faking too.
_ Pam, I need to talk to you.
_ Oh, me too. I had almost forgotten – the invitations are ready.
_There will be no wedding.
_ Why???
_ Because I’m starting to grow wings.