This text is part of a new series about connections in the modern-day world, how they are made, what they create, how they are lost and broken. All characters are fictional. Any resemblance with real, live human beings is purely coincidental.

 

 

She had chosen a table in the corner of a corner on the crowded, sunny terrace. Unforeseen circumstances had caused her to be ten minutes early for her appointment with destiny. As she nestled in to her corner of a corner, she reveled in the oddness of it all. Her loving husband had dropped her off here. She still could not quite get used to his permission of her escapades, although she was the one who had demanded it.

Be careful what you wish for, indeed.

In the country where she had chosen to live, especially in this Mediterranean region of that country, being a woman alone on the terrace of a bar might have gone unnoticed, but her glass of white wine, well outside of meal time, combined with her dizzy height, made her somewhat of a spectacle.There were never really any corners secluded enough to hide her, yet she actively sought them out at all times. She existed in an odd state of duality, desiring approval, fame even, all the while hoping to disappear.

Waiting made  her feel panicky. She had seen some pictures of the man she was meeting, they had spoken briefly. Their connection had taken form on internet. On a site dedicated to the sexually deviant. Maybe deviant is not the appropriate word, it has a derogatory feel to it. “Libertines, Échangistes and Mélangistes.” She especially liked, “mélangiste,” from the verb “mélanger” to mix. She had been a paying member of this site for at least a month before she had noticed this subtitle, probably because whenever she visited the site, she felt like a bewildered rabbit, dashing madly through a clearing during hunting season. This newfound subtitle came as a relief to her because she was not certain to be keen on having sex with a couple or a group and was afraid that she had launched herself down the wrong street somehow. Again! “To mix,” that suited her perfectly! It seemed to be a less rigid definition to her. She was not interested in codes and titles. She just wanted to explore sexuality in general. If she had already known what it was she was searching for, if she already belonged to some sort of group, she doubted that she would need to run across that clearing in the first place.

Like a shooting star on a black August night, a frightening realization darted through her mind and disappeared. The idea that one day, luck would not be so clement with her, that the probability was great that on one of these encounters, a man she had misjudged might rapidly knock out one of her pearly white teeth, call her a dirty whore, or worse. Far worse. She dismissed this unpleasant idea as quickly as she had thought of it. A man who looked a lot like the photos she had received walked by, searching, but not far enough into the corner of the corner where she silently assessed the situation.