As a communist, he found dating a capitalist to be expensive.  But she usually picked up the tabs at the restaurants and wine bars, so he didn’t mind spending the money on gas to drive to her penthouse, or the parking tickets he subsequently accrued.  In his own mind, he considered her a patron, or a financier of the Cause.  After several months, though, not even he believed what he told himself.

She simply enjoyed his voice, how ecstatic he became when he talked about the rallies and union meetings.  It was lonely up in the penthouse, after all, away from all the people below, toiling about in the factories and stores, many of which she owned and established.  As a high-powered woman, she found that men in her tax bracket had a tendency to flinch at her presence, talked behind each other’s palms at the various business conventions.

Though they were both derided as hypocrites, they found comfort in each other’s presence.  Comfort, like that of a middle class family watching television in a living room after dinner, completely oblivious to the fluctuating numbers occurring all around them.

They had wildly differing interpretations of just about everything. No more was this true than with intimacy.  When she achieved an orgasm, she felt a rush similar to watching the stock market crash, tracing the sharp downward line in newsprint, the exhilaration of freefall, that moment you hit maximum velocity, and your body is suspended in midair; as though you’re  not falling at all, but you know the ground is coming up to meet you.

For him, whenever they made love, he watched himself disappear into her.  This vaguely reminded of how Karl Marx’s children were swallowed by hunger.

 

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