Parted.

Thus, the first email in the thread was from the case adjuster at ACE Insurance, Abby Polk, and had been sent around eight-thirty p.m the following evening:

Talked to the insured and he will not be available tomorrow for the site inspection. Mike, coordinate a follow-up.

Additional messages were from his investigator and the building inspector, both confirming receipt of Abby’s email.

Furious would have been an overstatement of how Mike felt in that moment, but neither exasperated nor embarrassed went far enough. Why use the Blackberry and Enterprise operating systems if you could never get your fucking emails delivered?!? Back in the day, there would never have been a confusion about something so critical as the God damn site inspection! Not when people picked up their fucking phones to make calls, instead of emailing every God damn thing!

Mike shook his head and grumbled as he walked back to the Coney Island subway station in a huff. The level of his anger was well beyond an average response to such a minor inconvenience, and a useless gesture even if anyone else around had noticed or cared. But he suddenly felt that he needed to get it all out of his system.

This wasn’t the life he’d signed up for when he went to law school!

Lawyer life was supposed to have been fun and exciting and glamorous. Something with the intrigue of LA Law and the quirky antics of Ally McBeal. Sure, an attorney’s job might be hard work at times, but the rush was supposed to be worth it. And in the end, the hard work was supposed to pay off towards a higher level of polish and poise and respect.

But the realities of attorney life weren’t the trapping expectations that had lured him in. He was sick of the early mornings and long commutes. And he was tired of the job’s banality and invisibility. He was sick of being chided by brusk, snarky insurance adjusters like Abby Polk; newbies to the industry with half his experience, education and age!

And lingering behind it all, he was sick of the pathetique of his life. Mike would never have imagined that he would spend his mid-life mornings begging a woman for sex; his middle-aged, mom-bodied wife of twenty years no less! And he certainly never would have imagined that he’d be regularly turned down, and frequently resigned to jacking himself off! Mike, like many men, still saw himself through the forgiving lens of past glory, and in his own mind, failed to realize how much middle age had mottled the attractive charm of his once cheeky looks.

As he walked and grumbled, he noticed the tall glass highrise condo buildings ahead. Their imposing profiles shadowed the view of the former Brighton Beach area as they crowded their way towards the boardwalk. Looking up, the buildings tempered blue glass reflected light directly into Mike’s eyes like the burning rays of sunshine he battled each morning. The buildings were similar to those going up along the coastline of all the boroughs in Manhattan; luxury highrise buildings designed by the wealthy for the wealthy, with floor-to-ceiling windows, in home gyms and child care centers, dog walks, indoor and outdoor pools, saunas and personal trainers and nutritionists and even concierge services akin to five-star hoteliers.

As a Queens native who grew up in rowhouse in Long Island City, Mike often felt an unspoken, lofty scorn towards these buildings when he passed them. He despised them haughtily with the argument that their presence heralded the looming gentrification of “the old neighborhoods”. But truly, secretively, he had more awe for those buildings than distaste, and in particular, awestruck wonder of those buildings’ tenants. The privileged residents of those glass towers were the new yuppies: millennials and Gen Zers—Christ, time flies!—who weren’t native New Yorkers but foreigners from as close as Connecticut and far as Timbuktu. Their faces, races and occupations all differed, but everyone who lived in those buildings had one thing in common: they flashed their unencumbered youth, white collar professions and stately addresses as if calling cards of privilege.

For real New Yorkers like himself, living in the City, like everything else about life, was supposed to require compromise! The achievement of a career in Manhattan meant a home in the dingy outskirts of the boroughs, and long hours spent commuting to and from work each day. Living in New York City required giving up space for modernity and vice versa. On Mike and Jennifer’s salaries—a senior insurance defense attorney and insurance adjuster’s, respectively—and with three young kids, life in the greater-New York City area was filled with compromises and trade offs.

However, for the wealthy and unencumbered, the compromises seemed to be few, if any. Mike was familiar with the cliché, “the grass is always greener on the other side,” but was nonetheless unable to imagine any but the most verdant life for those who lived in the glass high rise abutting Brighton Beach. Commutes were surely quick and easy. Childcare (for those that even had any children) must be easy, too, what with nannies and tutors and housekeepers. And getting laid by beautiful women was an obvious benefit for any man that lived in a building like that. No woman in her right mind could turn a guy down if she saw that that’s where he lived!

Mike was used to griping about such men with his colleagues at lunch; those preppy, soft metrosexuals that wore expensive skinny jeans to work and spent too much time on their phones. Mike had found the cliché adage quite true that “misery loves company”; complaints like that always made for a lively discussion, even more so than politics and gossip. He could already imagine the lunchtime conversation with the other senior attorneys when he mentioned walking by the Brighton Beach condo building:

“One of those monstrosities over at Coney Island? God, I hope they all sink in the next superstorm.”

“Christ, those things are the bane of this city. And all the fuckwads who live in them.”

“They’ll learn. Watch when they try to sell. You can’t spend everything you got on clothes and mortgage.”

“Yeah—good luck ever retiring, punk!”

“Geez, wait till they have kids, right? Welcome to the real world!”

Mentioning the condos would surely inspire some energetic fussing that would make Mike feel better for a while. But underneath his irritation and bluster was the biled tinge of envy. And as he walked along, Mike knew that the scorn he felt was really something empty and needy inside of himself.

Somehow, youth and money, time and success had evaded Mike Yarns. All that, and adventure, too! And romance! At least, they’d evaded the satisfying presence in his life that he’d always expected he’d enjoy. The shortcomings hadn’t come as noticeable lops; they’d snuck up in shallow cuts over years and decades, and always with excuses padded and passed off as personal choices:

The merits of Hunter College, when he hadn’t been accepted to either Columbia or NYU as an undergrad. A history major and minor in Spanish when advanced physics and organic chemistry prerequisites for the MCATs threatened his GPA. Touro Law Center out on Long Island when his LSATs and undergrad degree garnered little more than courtesy rejections from top-tier law schools.

And for decades, the same method of passing off shortcomings as personal triumphs continued. Telling Jennifer Campanelli that she was the love of his life when world-worried rejections wore down his last hopes that Vanessa Hernandez would ever come back to him. Snidely explaining to friends and coworkers why Jennifer was right, and private elementary school was a much better investment in the long run than the lease on a Maserati. A champagne toast with their mortgage broker twelve years ago over the pre-approval for a dated, overpriced three-bedroom cottage in Roslyn.

And, most recently, feigning excitement over a conditioned pre-approval from the bank for enough to afford to move to an almost identical, but more overpriced, dated cottage somewhere else on the island.

Excuses let Mike save face. To the rest of the world, perhaps, he appeared to be as successful and content as he wanted to come off. And yet, at an age when most men have collected their souvenirs of gallantry, he had amassed little more than barren hopes; dry and colorless like autumn leaves hanging too long on a tree that’s never born flower or fruit and yet every spring feels its sterile impulse under the pressure of rising sap. Like many of the world’s mundane and weary, in truth, Mike had merely reconciled himself to mundanity in a way that let him make it through the day and lay his head on his pillow at night. But he wasn’t yet so resigned that sleep came to him easily, or that his mornings begin without severe regrets deeper than just having let Jennifer pick puce-pink wallpaper.

Perhaps that’s why he considered the next things that happened to him to be the start of a great adventure and whirlwind romance. Mike was still staring at the glass behemoth as he walked and was so absorbed that he might not have otherwise noticed her. But for whatever reason that lowered his eyes at that very moment, she was standing on the corner of Beach Walk Avenue and glancing at him as he passed.

She couldn’t have been older than twenty-five, and yet, she was the girl he’d been waiting for at least the past twenty-five years. She was tall, easily five-foot-seven even without her graceful heels. And she was slim as a fashion model in her prim dark skirt, white button-up blouse and tan trench coat. Her dark chestnut brown hair was parted to the side like an old silver screen star, and it perfectly framed her delicate features while drawing attention to her enormous chocolate brown eyes. Those eyes met Mike’s for the briefest second before she looked away.

That second stretched on for Mike as if an eternity. There was no reason for such a dramatic response on his part, only perhaps that his grimacing and self-pitying had stirred in him some yearning for meaning and hopefulness and left him searching quickly for such in quick fulfillment. But gazing into the girl’s brown eyes, Mike felt himself falling head over heels, and it felt like nothing he could remember ever experiencing before. It felt like all the things he’d imagined love at first sight could and should be.

She was the girl from his fantasies; the girl who kissed him for her own sake and called him “Darling” when she was on his arm and out on the town, and “Daddy” when she was beneath him in bed!

Oh, he’d seen brunettes before—thin, pretty young women were more than plentiful in all parts of greater New York City, not just this corner on Brighton Beach, and often quite ripe for his imagination to run wild when time permitted him the leisure—but this precious vision before him wasn’t simply the visage of a beautiful dark haired girl, but rather an embodiment of his longing and hopefulness. Mike was sorely afraid that life might realize what luck it had bestowed on him in that moment and thus, in its cruel twists, snatch the girl’s apparition away.

But she didn’t disappear! And even despite the quell and tug of his heart strings, Mike might still have nonetheless kept moving on, but the girl glanced back at him! And this time, looked at him purposefully! Questioningly. Not looking past him, but deigning to acknowledge him from the pedestal of her perfection. Mike’s feet stopped and his heart began racing.

And the girl began walking towards him! With her long, leggy strides, she all but sashayed in her high heels and Mike’s jaw nearly fell to his chest as the distance between them closed. Surely, she couldn’t be coming to talk to him?

But she was! And she stopped only a few feet shy of standing intimately close to him, and cocked her head inquisitively as she spoke. Her lustrous chestnut hair caught highlights from the streaks of bright light bouncing off the glass condo buildings. She wore muted, flattering red lipstick that made her full mouth dazzling.

“Hi, are you Renty Francis?”

Her smoky, sultry contralto voice was purples and lavender, entirely at odds with the fresh bloom of her looks, and caught Mike so off-guard in its unexpected glory that he actually blinked repeatedly, as if dumbstruck and suddenly unsure of how to respond to the question of his own name. “I’m—no, I’m not. Sorry.” He shoved his hand forward in greeting and shook a bit too vigorously when she gave hers in return. “Mike Yarns.”

Mike didn’t think the girl could have been any prettier and then she blushed. His heart melted. “Omigosh, I’m so sorry. I… was supposed to have a ten o’clock showing this morning. But I’m starting to suspect ‘Renty Francis’ cancelled on me.”

“Are you buying? It looks like a nice building.”

She shook her head. “No, I’m an agent. Janie Phelps, Magellan Realty. My broker sent me out here to meet with this client. Apparently, he’s some big-shot attorney at Reedland Kirk. I wonder why he didn’t show? I hope I didn’t screw something up!”

Mike felt a lofty stirring of chivalrousness in his down beaten heart. Maybe the morning’s fuckups had been providential. Fate, even! If things with the site inspection had gone as planned, he wouldn’t be standing here now on Brighton Beach, almost toe-to-toe with a perfect dream!

And somehow, Janie’s description of Renty Francis as a “big-shot attorney” stirred some ill-seated jealousy in Mike. How odd, given that he knew neither Renty nor Janie and had no stake in the matter.

“Well, I’m an attorney, too. And I actually have been looking at houses—er, properties—for some time. Out on the island, that is. Maybe I could be a stand-in for your ‘big shot’ Mr. Francis, and go see your listing? At least that way, you can still truthfully say that an attorney showed up and you had your showing this morning.”

Janie’s big brown eyes narrowed and a tight half-smile quirked her pillowy red lips. She was suspicious. But she looked glorious; her long black lashes and beautiful, limpid eyes tinged her suspicion with a dreamy, seductive quality. And Mike was swept up in imagining the loveliness of waking in the morning to that very expression looking at him; smiling at him as if daring him not to be late to work as he reached for her lush, long body.

“That all sounds a bit too convenient, Mr. Yarns. My client doesn’t show, and you just happen to; and you're an attorney as well? And one who’s house-hunting too? Who happens to have time to spare and an interest in a showing?” Janie nodded her head and turned on her heels. “An early April Fool’s joke on me, right?” she asked, and her tone was reproachful of Mike’s interference as she sarcastically added, “Thanks, but no thanks.”

Mike chuckled good-naturedly and followed her, intrigued. Even with his polyester suits, middle-age spread, wedding ring and thin, receding hair, the women Mike usually encountered rarely brushed him off (with the exception of his own wife), and certainly never did once he mentioned that he was an attorney in Manhattan! He’d already been overwhelmed by Janie’s prettiness and now, he was captivated by her disarmingly candid rejection. He felt an immediate need to win her over. He didn’t want to let Janie get away without pursuing… something!

“I swear; I’m really an attorney. Not Renty Francis, whoever he is, but still: I’m here, and interested, and I’ve got time. And money.” Mike frantically fumbled to open his old, frayed Joseph A. Bank wallet. “My business card.”

Janie took the card and smirked while reading it. She looked at Mike again through her thick long lashes and he quaked, imagining how it would feel to have her look at him that same way, but between his legs and sliding the tip of his cock between her quirking, pillowy red lips as she parted them and stroked her tongue against his piss slit. Janie sighed, and Mike’s balls tightened.

“This is crazy,” she muttered, shaking her head. Mike shivered as she absently raked the flip of her brunette hair away from her face and grinned at him. “Ok. Let’s do this, Mr. Yarns.”

He made an unnecessary energetic show over her acquiescence and Janie gestured for Mike to follow her and they walked around the corner to the condo’s boardwalk side towards the lobby entrance. And Janie initiated small talk as they went. “So, where are you really looking to buy?”

Mike swallowed, suddenly feeling embarrassed to admit it. There was nothing remotely flashy, elegant or sexy about Glen Oaks or any other neighborhoods surrounding Roslyn. Nothing to promote the areas besides being good-old, sturdy Long Island communities for average middle-class families. And at the moment, the last impression Mike wanted to give Janie was the impotent truth that he was a middle-aged, middle-income husband and father.

“Well, I’ve been living out on the island for a while; it’s been best for my work. But really, I’m open to looking anywhere. I’ve been meaning to get back to the City for a while.”

Janie hummed softly and nodded understandingly. “I know there’s no real up-sell to you since you’re not really looking to buy. But to be honest, you really can’t beat the comps on this building.

“There’s a fifteen year tax abatement. All the interiors are designed by Hadas Metzler and the finishes and appliances are top of the line: Bosch, Porcelanosa, Miele. The commute, door-to-door, is ten minutes to Court Street and fifteen minutes to Fulton Street. There’s also deeded garage space with some units.

“And the homeowner association fees include a ton of amenities: indoor pool, a three-story gym, an entire outdoor terrace of loungers and picnic space, a chef’s kitchen, cold storage and wine storage. It’s a great building. And construction is completed; residents are allowed to schedule move-ins as early as April first.”

Janie escorted Mike into the building and he took in the sleek modern space. Before traveling with their kids commanded a huge portion of both budget and considerations thus downgrading them to more modest expectations, he and Jennifer had stayed at a few five-star hotels that left them awestruck and feeling slightly out of place. The lobby of the condo building was similarly luxurious with its understated elegance.

As Mike looked around wide-eyed, Janie checked in with the lone security guard, a squat built man in an oversized navy blazer and khaki pants. They whispered a few things back and forth and the man checked Janie’s ID and then took security photos of Janie and Mike. The guard then reached for a walkie-talkie, mumbled a few things to the person on the other end and told Mike and Janie to take a seat.

She sat carefully and prettily in a soft beige leather club chair and crossed her legs. “It shouldn’t take but a moment.” She smiled politely at Mike.

He noticed that she wasn’t wearing any stockings over her smooth, long legs. It surprised and intrigued him that so many young women he encountered professionally went without nylons. He remembered Vanessa Hernandez wearing stockings to bed for him a few times and allowing him to lick her pussy through them and rip them off before they fucked. And though he’d never fucked Jennifer in her stockings, he always got a perverse thrill watching her roll them over her legs as she dressed for work in the morning.

Jennifer had commented many times that she would feel “practically naked” in a skirt suit without stockings. With a jolting shock, he wondered if Janie felt naked at the moment, without any stockings under her skirt. And then he wondered too whether she was wearing any underwear. Hadn’t he heard something or read somewhere that young women consider panties just as outdated as stockings?