Flex

Another thing I liked about Henry’s mother was the passion and outspokenness in which she conducted her life; a strong female voice, her stories and stances always felt familiar to me beyond the parallels to my own mother.

An early memory of Henry and my time together involved him telling me a story of how his mother absolutely protested Asia- she didn’t care for the people or the clothing. She had a womanly European frame and didn’t feel like the shapeless Asian square cuts did her hourglass figure any justice.

I always liked this story as it mirrored a sentiment I had held from puberty where the explosion of my hips wouldn’t comply with the narrow box cuts my mother would attempt to conform them to.

As Henry and I sat in that café on Madison Avenue, the calmness of the all-white interior enveloping us, I reflected on this particular anecdote of Henry’s mother as I thought about those 17 year olds he had been with in Asia and their shapeless, narrow frames.  If that is what he was attracted to, I wondered how he would interpret my body, whose broad hips paralleled broad shoulders. Where the women of Henry’s Asia had flaccid flesh, I had menacing muscles- the kind women with disposable income in urban jungles were developing these days.

Fitness was the new status symbol as it signaled time, money, and discipline - all the things that the urban elect hold dear.

Question was- did Henry value those things too?

Or had he been too entrenched in the soft and shapeless women of his Asia to hold a real appreciation for the fighting figure of a sturdy American frame?

Another decaf cappuccino with two artificial sweeteners later, and I decided to let my mind retire to Henry’s now flexed forearms, a slight goose bump rippling through me as I imagined how it would feel to be compressed by them against his white shirt.