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                              A MAGAZINE OF FICTION, POETRY & MORE!
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ISSUE #4
 
  $O.OO
FEB. 2004
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Older Men
by Charles Rammelkamp
"All the guys I know who left their wives for younger women almost always end up tragically."

"Tragic?"

"Pathetic is probably a better word."

"Why do you say that?  You think that's going to happen to us?"

"Time will tell, Shelley.  But usually either the woman is a gold-digger -obviously not the case with us, is it? - or the guy can't get it up enough to satisfy her, and the woman gets restless, loses interest, takes lovers.  This isn't the case with us, either, is it?  So maybe we'll last longer than most."

"Don't sound so insecure.  Of course it isn't the case.  Besides, as long as I can sit here on your lap and listen to your stories, I'll be happy."

"Sort of Scheherezade, huh?"

"But one with a dick."

"Well, there is one guy I knew who actually ended up ok with a younger woman.

Remember Phil Strohminger?"

"He didn't divorce his wife, did he?"

"I didn't say he did."

"Tell me the story."

"Snuggle up a little closer.  Ah.  Like that.  Some of this is made up, some is pure guesswork, but essentially it's what happened, Shell."

"I'm never sure when you're telling the truth, anyway."

                                       *******

Philip Strohminger, professor of writing and literature at a prestigious college in the Boston area, spent a summer separated from his wife.  The truth is that the separation was more Liz's idea than Phil's, but Phil went along with it just the same, aware of a certain distance that had grown between them, hoping that a little time and space might resolve the coolness.  They weren't having sex anymore, for one thing.

Phil moved to a bachelor pad in the Back Bay near Commonwealth Avenue and hadn't been there more than a week before he became involved with a woman he'd met at the gym, Jeanette Nadeau, a sales rep. for a textbook company.

To make a long story short, Phil and Jeanette, who was about fifteen years younger than he, had an affair that lasted the whole summer and would probably have gone on much longer if Liz hadn't called him in the middle of August suggesting he move back home.
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