- Joined
- Aug 10, 2015
- Messages
- 25
- Capital
- Aira
MARIA / MARTIN
September 17th, 1951
Presidential Palace, AIRA: She was buffing her nails. The grating sound drove Martin crazy. She knew this, of course. And everything else about Martin.
“Do you have to do that right this instant, dear?”
She smiled coyly in the long pause. “Your slut doesn’t do this, Martin? Not in front of you. Oh no, Lordie Lord! She wouldn’t dare.” She exaggerated the inflection that black girls had.
Her husband was silent.
“I do. I dare, Martin.” The file kept grating against the collagen of her fingernails. Then she licked them, satisfied by their sharpness. She grazed them against her salmon-colored pants. They were expensive pants. She was a Benincasa before she was a Behaim, after all, so she wore designer pants. Most women didn’t wear pants in public, but Maria did. “You know, Martin, I have an idea.”
“As always.” He looked sullen.
“Do an interview. The coalition is falling apart after only one year. Do you know the things Stephen Ficks says behind your back?”
He was taking off his socks. Because he was inflexible, this looked ridiculous. “I’ve done interviews.”
“On television.” Grate. Lick. Scrape.
“I’ve done…” He struggled with a sock, hopping next to the bed like a cartoon character who had stubbed his toe. “…television interviews.”
“With a woman. In fact, with a black woman.”
Martin Belhaim put his foot down on the floor next to the bed, one sock half-on, hanging off his foot like a limp penis. “A black woman, Maria?”
Now his wife was talking fast. “You know Rachel, the singer? Rachel… Does anyone know her last name? I don’t. Is she a Benincasa? Maybe, some of them have our name. Anyway, she was at a little Benincasa gathering at Sanssouci. Beautiful creature, really. I think her great-great- something grandmother belonged to mine. We were talking about how wonderful her voice was, and how she was on the television, and I said she should interview you.”
He shook his head as she strode towards the bed.
“Some of them vote too, the black people, Martin. And she’s so popular with them. With everyone. And they're the majority.” She pushed him down.
The sharpness of her nails dug into his white shirt.
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