Still-Life
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“Would you say it’s been like an affair, Teddy?”
“Definitely.”
“I’m pleased that you feel a bond, I suppose,” the MD said. “But it’s a painting in the end - not a person. A lifeless canvas.”
“Don’t be cynical, Doc. I speak only truth.” 
“She is not alive, an image created by drunken wannabe-painters in a warehouse somewhere bleak, probably on the outskirts of Reno.”
“Not even close,” I said. “Created in Baltimore by recovering mental patients - it’s some sort of an artist collective they got down there, apparently.”
“Are you bullshitting me?”
“Yes,” I said, and we both shared a good belly laugh. “I made all that up, but somewhere I bet it’s true.”
Social workers and shrinks insisted red flags should have shown up a lot earlier in my case. Libby, a 23-year-old who got her Social Work degree online at Smith College while she practiced her therapy on me during our romance. We lived together for twenty-five months in total during the pandemic, and she helped me a great deal. I felt she was a kind and wry and a very misunderstood young person.
“Did you have sex with Libby?” I was asked.
“She was an attractive woman,” I said. “So, yeah, we had sex seventy-seven times.” 
“Why stop at seventy-seven?” the doctor asked. “How old were you?”
“Does it matter?”
“Might be a crime on Libby’s part,” he said.
“I was fourteen going on seventeen and willing and able,” I said. “Libby was superstitious, so we stopped coupling together when we hit that magic seven-seven.”
“Did L take any part in your sexual escapades?” the MD asked.
“I begged Libby once if L could join us for a threesome, but she said it was too bizarre,” I said. “Said she wasn’t ready for that flavor of perversity.”
“If you had to choose, would you take Libby or the painting?” he asked.
“Libby left me at Thanksgiving Eve to elope with a strapping Milanese anesthesiologist from Yale University named Paulo who only wanted to swim off the Gulf Coast. That was like, his one lifelong dream and bucket list gig, scuba diving in the Gulf near a Galveston oilrig. So, Libby followed him out the door, and now they’re both heavy into scuba diving.”
“A charming story,” the doctor said.
“Similarly, Lilac and I were made for each other, Doc – nothing short of kismet.” 
“It’s a mother-fucking painting, kid!” the MD erupted, face beet red, pounding the wall beside him twice with his fist, spittle flying. “It’s not a living, breathing, sentient being.” 
“Don’t knock it until you rock it, Doc,” I said.
“I don’t know what the hell that means,” he said, and left the room in a huff. 
“She is my best friend, Doc,” I yelled. “Lilac is all I have left.”
“It’s a piece of art and is not alive,” he shouted back. “No pulse – dead as a doornail.”