Marilyn met her lucky number in a bar. It was the number 23. And though she had never met a number in the flesh, it did not surprise her that the number 23 had a lovely eye-shape, their color aquamarine. The number sat next to her in a classy piano bar she had stopped into after a bad date with a man she met through a dating app. She worked for Kindling, the company that designed and launched the app, and while they couldn’t require it, it was frowned upon if you didn’t use it – especially if you were single. She stopped into the piano bar because it seemed elegant and she did not want to go home yet, not after spending so much time on her makeup, and because she wore the backless dress the color of flames that she loved to wear which made her feel shapely and provocative. It was late summer, and it would be the last chance she had to wear this dress for the season. What’s more, she was nearly 40 and she wondered how much longer her fair and fleshy skin would allow her to wear it at all.
But her skin was soft and lovely.
She put a lot of effort into it, and she knew without having to be told she was a pleasure to touch. It had been so long since she had been touched that she didn’t think twice when the number reached out and traced firmly the inside of her arm down to the elbow.
There was no pianist. A player piano stood on a small stage lit by a spotlight in the bar, playing Nocturnes by Chopin. Marilyn shivered at the number’s touch. It felt like different photographs. Matte in places, glossy in others. She looked briefly at it, it shined in the bar lights, like the lapel of a tuxedo. Then she looked back at her drink.
She tried to check her makeup in the mirror behind the gin bottles, soldiers standing at attention. She had noticed the number first ,two bar stools away. The stools were wide and plush, with high backs. She could have melted into them if she were not a little chilly, wishing she had a sweater. The number had moved one stool over, then the second, taking its time, allowing her to lose herself in the music. She had ignored the number’s touch at first, and it sat quiet for what felt like an eternity.
Hello, she said, finally.
The number was regarding her deeply when she looked at it. It was confident and did not seem to fear rejection or embarrassment. With such graceful serifs and sophisticated curves, could such an entity ever be accused of impropriety? It was like a question mark followed by an answer, both simple and profound.
What do you think of the Chopin? she said.
Without its answering, the number that let her know it was not fond of it before, not before this encounter with her, but that this evening it was intoxicating. Marilyn had not known the melody and had to search it on her phone because it had been perfect in the beauty and sadness her life seemed to culminate in up to tonight. She was not sophisticated musically, she liked music, but didn’t cultivate her knowledge. Rather she was a brilliant reader: she liked books on probabilities, biographies of mathematical equations, and a new genre of fiction classified as the geometrical novel.
When the bartender passed, Marilyn got the bartender’s attention and she bought the number a drink.
23 drank absinthe, and it allowed for conversation as the bartender slowly poured the hazy liquid over the sugar cube. As the number sipped from its glass, she looked around her wondering if anyone else could see it, if they thought it strange that here this woman was sitting and having a cocktail with a number. After all, they were somewhat celebrities, were they not? There was only one number 23 in the entire world, at least in terms of the Arabic decimal system.
Her lucky number bought the next round and another after that. It seemed to like classical music, and now the player piano played a prelude rather than a nocturne. Admittedly, it seemed strange to her. Jazz piano would have felt more appropriate, but maybe the human piano player called in sick and this is what the piano was capable of. At any rate, it interested 23 and made for something to talk about.
I have Gould’s late last recordings of The Goldberg Variations on vinyl, she said. At my apartment…
This was true. It had been left by an ex of hers, what she didn’t say or even think about in her headiness is that she had no turntable.
If you’d like to hear it, she told 23. You’re welcome to come back for a night cap.
They paid their tabs and left. The city was flush and rushing around them. The number walked a half step behind her and she kept having to turn to make sure it was still there.
After a while, the cocktails caught up with her and she felt wobbly in high heels. Once, she nearly fell, but her lucky number caught her in its crook. A block from her apartment, she took off her heels and walked on her own, unembarrassed. The number’s easy confidence made her unselfconscious.
She put in the door code, and the number entered with her, but stood at the foot of the stairs as she walked up to the first landing. She felt its aquamarine eyes follow the clockwork of her hips. She turned, blushing.
Come on, she said.
At her door, she felt its breath on her neck, fumbled with her keys.
Inside the apartment, she flipped on the light, but before she could turn, the number flipped it off again. Once her eyes adjusted, she saw that the number had streaks of phosphorescence through it. She put her hands to its shoulder and let it draw her close.
She loved the light it showed her own skin in.
She led it to her bedroom, not even bothering with music, pulled back the comforter on the bed, gestured for the number to lie back. The moonlight peaking through the blinds melded with its phosphorescence. She pulled the straps of her dress from her shoulder, then the dress itself down. She let it fall to the floor. And stood, once again, only she was naked now, in the glow of that lovely aquamarine. She stood there, knowing it could watch her forever, which she loved – and knowing that sent her over the edge. She put her knee to the bed, positioned her arms and legs, then lowered herself into the number’s embrace.
How to describe a number’s embrace?
Hands like matte finish, belly and shoulders glossy, but it was a number: it had no hands, no belly, no shoulders. And it seemed to envelope her, to engulf her in itself and she was left with the feeling of breathing underwater. Breathing underwater, which is impossible! Most of all, it was like making love to a color. The number gone now, she was inside it, and it inside her, it was… Aquamarine. It reminded her of an experience with her college roommate when they took ecstasy and there was this lava lamp in the room, and the drug made them feel as if they were inside it. But this – this – was her number, her lucky number – the one she included in all of her internet handles and passwords. The one she won on in roulette the one time she went to Vegas for her best friend’s bridal shower.
Once she finished, she was left with the beautiful, sleepy exhaustion that only comes after the body has been worked in conjunction with the mind and spirit and now a deep, almost religious rest earned. Drifting off in its embrace, the number 23 certainly had arms, at least in the dark. She wondered if in the light of day, if it would be more man, or woman. Or still neither?
Or both?
Are numbers diminished in daylight the way that other lovers are?
She woke in the morning, the sheets cool and maybe still damp with sweat, the impression of a three next to her like the outline where a shoulder and hip had lain.
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