Fictional Friday

It was the summer of ’82 and Jim Malone was protecting an innocence growing increasingly theoretical. He was dating Agape when Eros walked by and afterwards none were ever the same.

Eros had agate blue eyes and Times New Roman hair which lay against the back of a tight red t-shirt. She pile-drived body and brain.

Jim never cared for Eros because she’d never cared for him. He knew his place and he’d seen the likes of her before, thinking her stagecraft, witchcraft, no more real than the gossamer of a salamander’s wig. That spring he pledged his troth to Agape out of abstract loyalty rather than concrete lust.

Most nights he hung out at Eros & Agape’s apartment. Eros hinted of rogue, a scent that increased as Jim failed to pay homage. Rebuff wasn't in her lectionary but he was unaware of her scent and unprepared when she left her underwear with a note outside his door, signed as secret admirer. Addressed to “Jim”, it caused great intrigue and discussion since there were two Jims who lived there.

Eros knew her prey well. The panties, more juvenile than lascivious, were dotted with cartoon hearts. The note struck a tone both sweet and mournful, asking why Jim did not love her. It dotted the i’s between lust and commitment, lighting in Jim a powderkeg of longing no human could supply.

He played it straight, telling Agape & Eros about the odd note & gift to Eros' feigned surprise. He said it must’ve been for the other Jim though neither he nor Agape believed it. Jim began offering smiles to the goddess Eros, growing weak-knee’d in her possibility. Yet even as he grasped she danced.

Eros left a second package pregnant with newfound swagger. To “Jim T.”, it said, adorned with a Mae West-ian summons: “Hey Big Boy why don’t you come up and see me sometime?”

Caught between worlds, Jim succumbed as though he had no choice. He offered Eros commitment and Agape lust, causing Agape to cry and Eros to die. Eros married a bricklayer in New Jersey soon after graduation. He never learned what happened to Agape, even after twenty-three years, even after the ache of lust was replaced by the ache of regret.