by Marc Levy

Martin saw the ad in a magazine, plucked from one of several tin boxes chained, 'handcuffed,' he had said to himself, to a traffic light on 7th Ave. He was in the habit of reading them, and kept a stack of fresh one dollar bills in a desk drawer. 'Insert your response in an envelope. Do not seal it. Put the box number you are responding to on the front of the envelope. Put a stamp on the envelope. Now place the envelope and two dollars into a second envelope. Seal the second envelope. Address it to Sity Singles, PO Box 4041 Ansonia Station, New York, NY 10025. Make sure you have placed sufficient postage on the second envelope. For multiple responses, repeat the above.'

Martin was forty-four years old and straight but he read them all. Women seeking Men, Men seeking Men, Women seeking Women, Couples, Anything Goes. Afterwards, he would return to the straight section. On a good day he would think to himself, well, you never know. Bad days he was less positive about himself. He scanned.

"SWF, 40's, attractive, well-traveled, successful, outgoing, literate, enjoys Bach to Bon Jovi, museums, art, theater, culture, seeks honest, caring, successful man for committed relationship. Note, photo, phone."

Too much for me to handle, he thought, and continued to finger down the line. The uncommon epithets, those with wit or clever word plays, sometimes made him laugh. Most often it was the odd or eccentric that attracted him. His favorite was, "Yeah, yea, I know the drill. I am woman, I am strong. Lonely SJF 46, seeks nice guy to fill a bowl of chicken soup for. Be sane and interesting. Got a job? Great! Let's meet!'

He thought of writing her, but the ad had disappeared the following month. Martin felt he had missed the opportunity of a lifetime.

'So far so bad,' he said to the lead painted walls. In five months he had moved six times since returning from a year's travel in Asia and Europe. Depressed and fragmented in the cramped and stuffy $300 a month YMCA room, he realized it was the same as '92, when he had traveled in Central America for several months. It had taken him a year to readjust. How was it that he could leave and travel, occasionally find himself in good company for extended periods of time, then come back and crash and burn? Where had he heard the phrase? From a chopper pilot. After the war.

"Good news, Aquarius. Your moon is in transit with Mercury. This is a good time to invest in stocks and bonds. Or buy that new 4x4 Rover you've been eyeing. Your special powers of imagination are now working for you, Aquarius. This is a great time to communicate your innovative ideas to those special persons around you."

Martin settled back onto the dismal foam bed and laughed through the haze of his anxiety. "Who you kidding, man?" he said to the four plaster walls and brown wooden floor. The words echoed off the rusted footlocker two feet from his head. Outside, in the firetrap hallway, someone shouted street directions into the pay phone.

"Left, bitch. Two blocks south, then hang a damn right. You got that? Bitch! Hoe! You got it?" It was Larry the Crackhead speaking with his girlfriend.

The phone slammed down hard. A moment later coins dropped into the machine; a deep voice spoke softly, perhaps to a wife. There were fifteen transient men on the floor. After six weeks Martin had grown used to the human parade.

He turned the page and continued down the list of Women seeking Men, reading just the first line of each ad.

"Let me be the chocolate icing on your thick fudge cake!"

"SWF Vegan sex goddess seeks thick hunk of dark meat."

"SWCFNS seeks Clint Eastwood look-alike with Richard Nixon values for LTR."

He smirked. They were hilarious, they flowed like poems, and took his mind off himself.

"The chocolate icing on your thick fudge cake," he mouthed, and tasted the wordplay.

Outside, Martin recognized the shuffle step of Jeremy the ex- Marine, intent on his evening toilette. Sixty pounds overweight, a chain smoker, the USMC bulldog tattoo still visible on his bloated arm, Jeremy collected welfare, visited his parole officer twice weekly.

Once Martin heard Jeremy talk to himself in front of the cracked mirrors over the communal sinks.

"Good looking corpse...gonna make a good looking corpse..." he repeated over and over. He had fought in Korea. He drank.

Martin wanted to speak to him, another vet. Jeremy kept to himself.

'Fucking Marines,' Martin thought. 'The Cav saved your ass beaucoup times.'

"Sexy Senior seeks gentleman for the company of his pleasure.."

"People say I have a lot to give but I give too much of myself."

Martin read on. About women in search of white knights, about candle-lit dinners and all life has to offer, ballet, sailing, opera, must like cats, mensch, hot times, unslim; then ran his finger once more over the black and white column of babble.

"...the company of his pleasure. You will not be disappointed."

He put the paper down, closed his eyes, recalled past encounters. Judy had written back immediately, eager to meet him, once out of prison.

"The police pulled me over because of a broken tail light. When they opened the hood they found ten kilos. But it wasn't mine. Honest. Anyway, I'll be getting out soon and would really like to meet you, Martin. You sound SO interesting." He'd thrown the scented letter and soft porn photo into the garbage. Bonnie promised high heels and negligees. But when they spoke by phone she rattled off a list of unquaint conditions, including $200 each time they had sex. "Well, no thanks," Martin said. "That's your choice," she had countered. "Have a pleasant day," he rejoined, then hung up. Ann from Canada sent a computer-generated letter, the dot matrix crotch shot poised over, "I really want to meet you, Martin Berry 1482 River Street, Tarrytown, New Jersey 10591 USA. But first I'd like you to see my very personal video, only $19.95 plus $4.95 for shipping and handling." He called the postal inspectors in both countries.

Once, three weeks before leaving the country for Central America, he wrote to a woman advertising in a literary magazine. "While the mouse is away the cat will play. Forties SWF has nine months alone while husband is on sabbatical. Seeking good lover." Martin expressed his desire to make love slowly; foreplay was most important. He had a fondness for standing in front of full-length mirrors and undressing women while he stood behind. 'I'll raise your skirt up and enter you, your breasts cupped in my hands. Would you like that? I'll kiss you everywhere. Where do you like to be kissed? Afterwards, when we're spent, I'll kiss you to sleep.' He sent off the note and forgot about it.

Her reply came ten days after the plane tickets for Guatemala arrived.

"Dear Martin,

Of the forty-one responses I received, yours was the only one that was straightforward and to the point. I too enjoy lovemaking standing up, but seated as well, and standing face-to-face, and in the bath. Martin, I would love to see you. Please call me soon to arrange our first meeting."

He wondered what to do. Stay, and lose the chance to travel? She seemed sincere. He wrote her the truth and departed a week later.

Martin carefully circled the oblong box. Sexy Senior. She can't be that old, he reassured himself.

Maryann called a week later. Her voice reminded him of cake sales and hand-knitted sweaters. They made small talk, chatted about the weather, music, their likes and dislikes, her garden, his travels.

"And what kind of work do you do, dear? To go to all those places?"

"Well, I get a pension from the Veteran's Administration."

"A government pension? Goodness! Were you wounded badly?"

"Yes," he lied.

"But you can, well, you know..."

"Make love?" Martin said to the older woman.

"Not that I..."

"Yes," he said, "I can do that."

There was a momentary pause.

"You're certainly welcome to drop by," she said flawlessly.

"I'd like to," said Martin, as calmly as possible.

"Three o'clock on the 20th?" she asked. "You can take a cab from the train station in Crestwood. I'll pay for it, dear."

"Sure," he said. "I'll see you then." He gently hung up the phone. 'Well, what have I got to lose?' he thought. She can't be that old.

Martin worked out extra hard for a week. Stretching and calisthenics. His body was trim. He weighed one hundred and fifty-five pounds. Afterwards, he would look at the war photo of himself taped to the wall. He could see no difference between then and now. It was a good shot, taken on patrol somewhere off Tay Ninh. He stood bent slightly forward, head tilted up, straining under the weight of his helmet and pack. The M-16 hung sideways, a stiff metal flag draped across his chest over three bandoliers of ammo, his aid bag, the forty-five, his canteens of water, the fragmentation grenades. He hadn't smiled, but looked directly into the camera, the angular features shock-set and weary.

"Say cheese," Larry Roy the point man said. But he hadn't and they were ambushed soon after. And Bill Williams was dead. When Martin looked at the photo he sobbed.

Pools of sweat glistened on the wooden floor. Even the window had fogged up. He stepped out to shower, face flushed, sweat streaming off his body from exercise in the cubicle room.

"What you been up to, man?" Larry whined.

Martin looked directly at the pitiful human being; the endorphins always burnt a pleasant hole through his private agony.

"Fucking," he said, dead serious. "I be fucking."

The communal shower was empty. The cold water felt good on his head and body.

"You's a sick motherfucker, old man," the young addict shouted. "Sick...sick...sick."

The shrill words echoed and drowned in the chip-tiled chamber. Martin grinned. The words rolled playfully off his tongue.

"The chocolate icing on your thick fudge cake."

He stepped out of the shower, toweled down, brushed his teeth. Why was he doing this, though he secretly knew. Depressed and anxious, Martin saw himself incapable of all but the simplest of casual encounters. Besides, since the war it had always been this way. Only now the government gave him money for Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. He recalled the exam thru the fractured mirror.

"All I know, I went back to Viet Nam last year and something snapped."

The psychiatrist had nodded curtly, raised his eyebrows with muted concern. Martin burst into tears for the rest of the hour.

'Well', he thought. 'At least it's a start.'

As far as he could tell, she lived a few towns over, had money, and they were both discreetly horny.

He took the train from Grand Central, got off at Crestwood, walked down to the stationery store, bought a scratch-off lottery ticket, won three dollars, and hailed a cab.

"32 Lincoln Lane," he told the driver, his voice uplifted. "Where you from, man?"

"Haiti," the cabbie said. The whites of his eyes flashed in the rear view mirror, the afternoon sun absorbed into dark brown skin.

"Haiti," Martin said. "You come over here before or after Papa Doc?"

"Ahhh. I left in the time of Baby Doc, my friend. It was hard. Very bad. I am here now many years. I have a house, my wife, children; the taxi, she's mine. For me that is enough. And you? From Crestwood? I haven't seen you before."

"Tarrytown," Martin said. "Just visiting a friend."

"She's nice in Tarrytown, yes?"

"Can't complain. And Crestwood?"

"Oh, Crestwood she's very nice, indeed. What number did you say?" Martin looked out the window at the manicured lawns, the unfenced yards, the well-kept Tudor and neo-colonial homes; felt the wealthy sway of the road.

"Thirty-two," he said.

"Yes, my friend. Twenty-eight, thirty...thirty-two she is." The driver glided to the curb of a large house with a red painted door.

"Here," Martin said, stepping out before the man could give him change.

"Have a good afternoon," he said, and snapped the door smartly shut.

"Yessss, a good afternoon," the driver said. He eyed the three dollar tip, then sped off.

Maryann looked remarkably like the mother of a friend from college, which, he calculated, would make her roughly sixty-four. She was old. They sat at her living-room table.

"Not too long," Martin said, in answer to how long the trip had taken. He noted her bronze tinted hair, the over-rouged cheeks, liver-spotted hands, the deep wrinkled lines of her face. Yet, beneath the blue silk blouse, her intriguing breasts. She was not very pretty, he thought, but at least....

Martin had not slept with a woman in nearly two years. He imagined how he would unbutton her, take the delicate cups into his hands and mouth. He would close his eyes, suckle long and hard, recall other women, unfasten his pants, penetrate her like he had not done in so long. He suddenly recalled the Columbian prostitute in Amsterdam, where he first 'crashed and burned' on the way home from his travels in Southeast Asia. They spoke in simple Spanish. About the price, what he wanted, and didn't: AIDS. He spoke to her easily, without shame. "I want sex first. Afterwards, will you let me hold you? Will you hold me? That's all I want." She undressed, set her clothes on the back of a wooden chair, filled a plastic bowl with warm water; placed a yellow towel nearby. After the powerful orgasm, she let him fall asleep in her arms. His head spun less for hours.

Maryann said, "Let me show you..." She gestured to the rest of her home.

"The bedroom?" Martin said, surprising himself.

"Why, I hadn't really thought of that, dear, but, oh, why not?" she feigned.

She offered her hand; he lead her upstairs to the second floor of the spacious house.

"It's the second door on the left, dear."

They undressed quickly.

"But why not?" Maryann said, looking from his limpness to her parted legs. "Why won't you do it? Honestly, dear. I thought... Don't you like doing that?"

Martin looked at her splayed naked on the double bed. Spindle-legged, her belly a cummerbund of fat, it was one thing to sit in the company of this older woman, quite another to...still, she had well- proportioned, near Venus de Milo breasts. And it had been so fuckin long.

Maryann rose up, touched him, drew him near. For several minutes he lay with her, not moving. She stroked the back of his neck. How did she know? That's all I want for now, old woman. Just keep doing that. I'll pay you. How much? Thirty guilders? Alright, alright, we'll do it, for God's sake. I'll probably explode. Let me hold you. Hold me. Hold me. That's all I want.

She grew restless, trailed her finger tips up and down the length of his cock.

"Oh dear, oh dear," Maryann said, fondling his splendid erection. "Martin, please."

Martin paused to collect his thoughts, to dilute the anguish of his reply. She really is old, he thought, and looked at the white and grey spangled stubble brooding between her legs. In college, the girls called him 'Mr. Hips' in awe of his churning loins. It was something he learned on R&R.

"Can you, well, help me out a little," he said to the pretty young prostitute at the Five Star Hotel in Yokohama, Japan.

"I've just come out of combat. I'm not sure I can, you know...do it." She smiled, unzipped the black cocktail dress, removed the long haired wig, counted his 30,000 yen, rapidly circled her hips clockwise, then counter clockwise; ground his virginity to pulp.

"Me good fuck, GI," she yawned.

He took a photo of her while she slept. The college girls went wild whenever he duplicated her technical sex.

Martin looked at Maryann. Not in a million years, baby. Not in a million fuckin years. Still...her breasts were beautiful. Oh Christ. He lay down next to her. It had been too long.

"Please, Martin, dear. Goodness, look how big you are. Don't you want to make love to me?"

"Like this?" Martin said.

With startling ease he entered her, closed his eyes, performed.

They awoke two hours later. He thought of the time it would take to return to Tarrytown. Cab. Train. Walk up the hill. Go to the Chinese take-out next to the VFW hall. He would give them money.

"Buddhist Delight," he would say.

They would give him food.

"Goodness, it's late," Maryann said. "Are you hungry dear, I can fix you something to eat."

She began to dress.

"Not yet," Martin said. He pulled her down beside him, nestled his head between her breasts, suckled ravenously, then softly kissed the perfect nipples, the aromatic cleavage.

"Oh, Martin, dear, it's 10 o'clock. I have work tomorrow. And I have to take my pills, you know. Can we make it another time? Shall we?" She slipped forty dollars on the night table. The sight of it made him uneasy.

"I'll call a cab," Martin said, letting her go.

In the lamp light he imagined she was good-looking in her youth.

"You'll call me next week, dear?"

"Yes," Martin said. He put on his coat.

Maryann hugged him before he walked out the door.

"Goodness, wherever did you learn to do it like that?"

He felt her frailness push up against him. Was she reliving her youth? She was old enough to be...he would not admit it. He had fucked her, and fallen asleep in her arms.

"The cab's here," he said. Eyes closed, he kissed her on the cheek.

"Get home safe, dear. Have a safe trip."

"Four dollah," the Chinese girl said, handing him the order.

"Chopstick?" he said. She always forgot.

"Soy Sauce?"

"Just one, please."

She tossed in three, plus a thimble of Hot and Spicy Mustard and two of the sticky goo Duck Sauce. It was their nightly ritual.

"Good night," Martin said.

"Goo night, mistah," she always replied.

He went immediately to his room, wolfed the food down, slurped water from a cold water faucet in the bathroom, brushed his teeth, lay down on the foam bed, clicked the overhead light switch off and drifted to uneasy sleep.