The Aardvark, Part 2

“Another margarita please!” called Jude to the waiter. He felt guilty for speaking poorly of Virginia, but her love, once intoxicating and delicious as a flute of French champagne, had become an acidic cocktail of attachment and complaisance. She always needed him, he could never give her enough, and yet, she doted upon him, waited for his instructions, looked to him for guidance. There were times when she failed to do simple things for herself, like getting a manicure or repairing her computer, but there she was, greeting him at the end of each day with an offering; her time, her cooking, her body. He wondered if her love for him was stronger than it was for herself. When she slept, she fought ghosts and demons in nightmares that she couldn’t recall. She laughed blithely when he told her of her restlessness, but her slumber was so disturbed that he feared for her, wondering what malignant turmoil raged in her subconscious. Her body jerked, her limbs flailed, her unconscious mania forcing her suddenly upright in bed like a stiff board. He often held her just to settle her fits. She slept peacefully when their forms were bonded together, his arms shielding her in a protective embrace. She was to Jude, like a disabled child; genuine and innocent yet, undesirable and burdensome. He wanted her to be happy, but he had begun to feel that she relied on him for her happiness.
Jude’s iPhone buzzed, snapping him out of his reverie. Virginia’s smiling face filled the screen.
“Hi, I just got off work. Where are you?”
“I’m at Seville having a margarita.”
“Alone?”
“Amanda was here, but she left.”
“Who is Amanda?” Jude thought she sounded jealous, and was annoyed by her invasiveness.
“An old friend,” he replied curtly. “Are you coming up here?”
Several minutes later, Virginia, the aardvark, arrived at the restaurant. Jude reddened with embarrassment as she struggled to squeeze into the space beside him. He ordered two more margaritas and she chatted about her day at the museum, the competition for artwork, her student loans, and how she felt inadequate and out of place in her bourgeois work environment. Jude heard her, but he didn’t listen. He gazed at people passing on the street, thinking that she was self-absorbed and banal, her problems trivial and inconsequential. A shapely woman strode by and Jude stiffened.
“Jude? Jude?” Virginia was staring at him.
“Huh? What’s up?”
“Jude is everything all right? You seem distant.” Jude straightened in his chair.
“How so?”
“Things feel different between us. We don’t go dancing anymore. We haven’t been having as much sex. Are you seeing someone else?” her face was solemn and penitent.
“No,” Jude laughed. “I am not seeing anyone else. I’m just stressed out about work. The stock market is really tough right now. I’m not doing as well as I should. I can’t do all the things I planned for us. Do you have any idea how I feel, being unable to do the things I want for my girl?” Jude brushed his fingers against the thick rolls of fat on her neck. Virginia smiled, revealing sparse, stained, columnar teeth that reminded Jude of rotting wood. “I need you to be supportive babe, everything will be fine.”

“Jesus! What a miserable day!” Jude lamented to his colleagues as they downed bourbon at Ulysses, a well-known, Wall Street watering hole.
“I know man! If the market doesn’t improve soon, I’ll be out of a job,” groaned Mitch, another junior trader Jude at the firm.
“Dude, I’m already 80K in the hole and we’ve got three more weeks left in the month,” Brad said, throwing his hands in the air.
“Look on the bright side bro– that means you’ve got three weeks to dig yourself out. You’ve got to stay positive.” Jude hoped to raise his team’s spirits.
“Here’s to staying positive!” said Brad, raising his shot glass in the air.
“And shorts!” Mitch chimed in. The three men tilted back their necks and downed the brown liquor.
“Arrrgh!” Mitch, the lightweight, spat whiskey through his teeth and Brad and Jude erupted in laughter.
“I’ve got to piss,” Jude announced and sauntered toward the men’s room.
He stood at the urinal, relieving himself of the Johnny Walker Black that had helped him forget the day’s loss when the door flew open. An attractive woman with fluffy, brown hair and shinny, pink lips stepped inside.
“Oh!” she exclaimed, her checks flushing the color of her lip gloss. She slammed the door shut. Jude zipped his trousers and dipped his hands under the faucet. When he exited the bathroom, the woman was still there. She smiled, revealing a row of square, white teeth. Jude wondered how he ever fell for Virginia despite her odd and decayed smile.
“I’m so sorry about that,” the woman gushed. “The line for the ladies room is a mile long and I have to go so badly.” She hopped from side to side in her red pumps.
“Well the lock is broken, but if you want to go, I’ll stand here and man the door for you so you won’t be disturbed,” he offered.
“Would you? You’re amazing! I’ll just be a sec!” She darted into the men’s room. A few minutes later, she returned appearing refreshed.
“Thank you so much. You saved me from an embarrassing accident!”
“No worries.”
“Well at least let me buy you a drink for your chivalry,” she said, tracing her tongue along her plump, rose lips. Jude nearly tasted watermelon candy as he imagined her shinny lips grazing against his various bodily appendages.
“I won’t let you buy me a drink, but I’d be happy to have a drink with you. What’s your name?”
“Olivia,” she extended her hand.
“I’m Jude.”

Jude slowed the small, blue sedan to a stop on a brownstone-lined street and pressed his palm against the horn. After several minutes, Virginia lumbered out, her large posterior awkwardly following her short front limbs down the porch steps. Nearly two months had passed since the Dali exhibit and Jude was now accustomed to Virginia being an aardvark. He shook his head as he watched her laborious descent. She has so much to learn, he thought. Virginia entered the car and kissed Jude’s mouth, her tongue spreading a sheath of sticky saliva over his lips.
“I’m so excited!” she squealed and he discreetly wiped her fluids from his mouth. “A trip to the wilderness is all I really wanted before the end of summer. Thank you.” Her black eyes twinkled.
“I’m glad I can make you happy babe,” Jude replied with a closed mouth smile.
“Where are you taking us?”
“It’s a surprise,” he said as the car crossed the Throggs Neck Bridge.
It felt good to be out of the city with fresh mountain air blowing over his face. Jude listened to the radio and enjoyed the freedom of the open road, feeling so liberated that he almost forgot he was dating an aardvark. After a few hours, they arrived at a small cabin beside a quiet lake. Virginia inspected the property, circling the cabin several times, digging holes with her claws and burrowing herself in the dirt, while rolling around like a dog.
“It’s so refreshing to be out of the city!” she declared when she returned to find him sitting at a picnic table beside the water.
“It seems like you’re at home,” he said, focusing on the clumps of dirt spotting her tubby body.
“Yes, I always feel at home in the wild, as if it’s where I belong.”
“Indeed,” Jude smirked.
“Do you know how to swim?” Virginia asked, looking at the rowboat docked at the shore.
“Yes, but not very well, besides, I think it’s too cold today for swimming.”
“Perhaps,” she said coyly, “but we can go for a ride in the boat.”
“In that thing? There’s no motor on that boat!”
“Of course not silly! It’s a rowboat!”
“Here we go,” Jude grumbled. He didn’t want to row a boat. He didn’t even want to be at the park, but Virginia had pled relentlessly for a camping excursion until Jude finally agreed to a short trip upstate over Labor Day.
They climbed into the boat and Jude began to row. He found the oars difficult to maneuver, and the boat turned from side to side on the calm lake water without gliding away from the shore. Virginia snickered at his clumsy attempts to manage the rowboat. Jude leered at her, annoyed by her jubilance.
“My little prep-school boy,” she teased, referring to his boarding school education. “Let me try.”
She managed the boat with ease, pushing the wooden oars through the water naturally each time her meaty frame leaned back against the stern. Soon they were all alone in the serene tranquility of the crystal-blue water.
“Do you want me to take over?” he offered after some time had elapsed.
“No, it’s okay, I like it. Besides, this doesn’t seem like the kind of task for a prep-school boy.” She was enjoying teasing him, happy to find a physical activity she was better at than he, but he refused to banter with her.
“Prep-school boys know how to do this kind of stuff. I’m a city boy,” he corrected.
“Okay then, my little city boy,” she chided playfully.
When the sun became too intense, Virginia pulled in the oars and they lay back in the boat, floating peacefully in the shade of the trees. They remained on the water for hours, without talking, and when daylight began to fade, they rowed back to the cabin to eat. Virginia had packed homemade lasagna, but she barely ate, choosing instead to circle the trees with her snout in the dirt. Jude went inside so that he wouldn’t have to watch. When she was done, she joined him in the cabin, curling herself into the fetal position on the bed beside him, and resting her head on his chest.
“Are you happy?” Her voice was humble and submissive. Jude counted the rings in the wood of the rustic cabin ceiling.
“Yes,” he said after a pause. “Why do you ask?”
“Well I just wondered….you rarely complain or ask much of me, so sometimes it’s hard for me to know how you feel. It’s okay to check once in awhile right?”
“It’s okay. I was just trying to pinpoint your insecurity.”
Virginia’s body stiffened when he said this, and she buried her face in his chest. She held him closer and snuggled her snout against his neck, kissing it. Her breath was hot against his skin. He didn’t speak as he lifted her onto her hind legs and placed her wide, round bottom on top of his lap, entering her from behind, so that he couldn’t see her face tighten and contort as he slowly pushed himself inside her.

Jude stumbled into his apartment in the pre-dawn hours, drunk off Johnny Walker Black and Veueve Clicquot.
“That was so much fun! You and your friends sure know how to have a good time!” declared Olivia, her arm draped over Jude’s shoulder as her ankles teetered in her red pumps.
“Absolutely babe. I’m all about good times!” Jude agreed, removing a bottle of champagne from the refrigerator and uncorking it with a loud pop. The champagne spilled over the rim and Olivia squealed as Jude pressed the tip to her lips, letting the bubbly liquid spill down her chin. He kissed her, licking the champagne off her cherry lips. She giggled, her high-pitched laughter rising in the air like a bird.
“What’s that?” She pointed at the Elephants on the wall.
“It’s a copy of a painting by Salvador Dali. It’s called Reflections of Elephants,” Jude said and took another swig of champagne.
“Oooh. Are you an art critic?” Olivia cooed, taking the bottle from him. Jude blushed.
“No, but I know a few things.”
“Okay, tell me about this painting then Mr. Artsy.” She tipped the bottle back and the liquid ran down her neck and open chest.
“Well, Dali employed his paranoiac-critical method, challenging paranoia of the subconscious by yielding images of ferocious elephants in the reflection of the aesthetic swans.”
“Oh my God! I didn’t even see the elephants!”
“That’s because you, my dear, are a beautiful swan, and could never reflect beastliness,” he said closing in on her. She stumbled, and began to wedge her foot out of her pump.
“Leave those on,” Jude whispered and pushed Olivia’s face against the wall before descending to his knees.

The next afternoon, Virginia was outside Jude’s apartment, angrily ringing the bell. He saw her hairy snout on the video monitor and buzzed her in, concealing the condom wrappers and champagne bottle in the trash before unlocking the door. She waddled into the apartment, suspiciously glancing around the living room and sniffing the furniture.
“Why didn’t you call me back last night?” she demanded.
“My phone died.” Jude said and opened the refrigerator.
“Your phone died? Then why didn’t you call me from someone else’s phone?”
“I was drunk. I came home and fell asleep immediately. It happens okay.”
“No, it’s not okay! It’s not okay to tell me you’re going to meet me, and then have me waiting for you while your phone is off!” she said, her voice becoming vociferous. “What am I supposed to think Jude?”
“I don’t know Virginia!” He shouted and abruptly slammed the refrigerator door shut. “I went to a birthday party for my boss. I was going to meet you later, but I ended up getting drunk and my phone died. I didn’t call you. It happens! Think what the fuck you want!” he walked away. Virginia followed him to the bedroom.
“Listen Jude, I’ve been stressed out lately. I’ve been doing so well at work and with my art. I want you to be proud of me and see what I’ve accomplished. I know I’m probably feeling insecure because I’m emotional, but sometimes I feel like you don’t want to see me.”
“It sounds like you’re not very happy in this relationship Virginia. Just last week we were hanging out, having great sex….why can’t you just go out with your friends, while I go out with my friends and still know that we will see each other soon and everything will be okay? Why do you always have to find something to be insecure about instead of focusing on all the things I do that say I want to be with you? I’ve been there for you when you needed help, I pay for 90% of all our dinners and activities, I took you on trips, and all you do complain and act insecure!” he shouted. Virginia looked at the floor.
“That’s not true,” she whispered.
“It is true Virginia and you know what? I don’t have time to coddle your feelings anymore! I’m done with this relationship.” Virginia’s oval eyes rounded like quarters.
“But you said you were happy.”
“I was happy, but you’re just not what I’m looking for.”
“Not what you’re looking for?” Virginia’s voice screeched like an untuned violin. Jude shrugged.
“You can be aloof sometimes. You’re not focused. You say you want to have your own art show, but the entire summer has gone by and you’ve yet to stick to a plan and execute it. It makes me think you’re not passionate about your art.”
“It takes time to create a series of paintings,” she defended, “Besides, my first priority is to pay off my student loans and get myself in a comfortable financial situation.”
“That’s another thing! I’m tired of hearing about how hard your life was and how your parents aren’t there for you, like you don’t have friend in the world!”
“Jude you encouraged me to be open and you asked me about my past months ago! Now suddenly you’re judging me for it? If you had a problem with these things why didn’t you say something instead of waiting until it was too late?”
“Well I’m saying it now, and it is too late.”
“Jude I love you!” Her affirmation blasted into the deaf silence like a horn into a dense fog. Jude stood across the bed, stiff as a corpse, his retinas burning into hers with the morbid finality of a death sentence. Tears spilled out of Virginia’s eyes before she turned and fled the apartment.

It was mid-March in New York. The winter frost had begun to melt all around the city, bringing sunshine and the cheerful melody of birds in anticipation of spring. Jude awoke and stretched his limbs, yawning off the remnants of the previous evening. He and his girlfriend had celebrated her birthday at Santos Party House downtown. Jude stumbled out of bed and into the bathroom to freshen up. He could hear the sound of the television in the living room as he dressed. Olivia must be watching her Saturday morning cartoons. He smiled, recalling the trepidation he had felt when he pulled Olivia into Santos deserted staircase, and took her despite her protests of public display. Jude slipped on his sneakers and grabbed his keys.
“Olivia? Olivia I’m going across the street to get some coffee. Do you want something?” Jude stepped into the sunlit living room, where Bugs Bunny danced across the TV screen in a hat top and cane, but Olivia was not stretched across the sofa as he had expected, nor was she in the kitchen.
Olivia’s buoyant, aerial laughter skipped in the air above his head. Jude’s eyes ascended to a large, monkey-like creature with shaggy green and white fur, thick as a sheep dog’s, swinging upside down from the chandelier. It had three, long ivory claws on each foot, and a small brown face, with deep set eyes, a small, round nose, and appeared to wear a perpetual smile. Jude backed away from the creature, his mouth agape, stupefied.
“I’ll take a strawberry yogurt,” it said, still dangling from its short hind legs.
Jude ran from the apartment and dashed out of the building. He sprinted between weekend shoppers and past mothers pushing baby carriages until he was several blocks across town and came to an abrupt stop near the Museum of Natural History.
Jude collapsed on a bench, panting as his burning lungs struggled to absorb enough oxygen to calm his heart. He didn’t have a name for the furry animal hanging from the dinning room chandelier. It was an unusual creature he had only seen in books and on television, but he was sure he had heard Olivia’s voice requesting the yogurt that was her usual breakfast.
“This can’t be happening, not again! Why God? Why?” he moaned, cupping his face in his hands in despair.
After several minutes, Jude began to walk along the museum fence. The enclosed palatial structure sat on a wide lawn, yellow and withered from frost, and sparsely littered with tall, monarchial Elm trees. He watched people playing with their dogs on the lawn and tried to forget what waited for him at home. As he turned the fence, Jude caught sight of a lovely, hour-glass shape moving toward him in tight jeans and tall, brown boots. Her supple breasts jiggled impressively as she bounced along the sidewalk. A gust of wind blew as she approached, lifting her long, honey tresses into the air, and spreading them over her face like a cloth. Cute, Jude thought. As they neared one another, she shook her head and plucked the hairs away, revealing a familiar face.
“Virginia!” Jude exclaimed, shocked to see her feminine and beautiful again. “How are you?” Virginia straightened her back and held her head high.
“I’m great. How are you?” she said coolly, her telling eyes lingering on his sloppy attire, disheveled hair, and sweaty brow.
“Um, you know, same old, same old,” he responded, realizing he did not look his best.
“It’s great to see you. You look fantastic!” Virginia was silent, leaving him to wonder what was the appropriate thing to say next.
“Maybe we could….get together sometime. We have a lot to talk about.” His eyes pleaded with hers for forgiveness. Virginia’s pupils dilated as she slid her fingers into the pockets of her jacket.
“Maybe we could…if you weren’t a rat.” She strode past him purposefully and Jude realized he had never noticed how tall and statuesque Virginia was. His eyes followed her until she had crossed Columbus Avenue and was out of sight. "What a stallion!" Jude declared. Then he scurried home to feed the giant, green monkey some yogurt.

Copyright 2008