The Closer

When she walked her calves calves cut edges on the backs of her leg like fish filet. The muscles rippled from there up the length of her sculpted, silken legs. Those legs grew out of a skirt that hugged her rump like Saran Wrap. All those hours in the gym and the green salad lunches with sushi on the side have paid dividends.

When she looked at you her eyes narrowed. She was a predator, a mercenary, a shrink, your best friend, and she wanted you to help her move product. She has erased all doubt that this is the way. Her certainty disarms you, victim of questions. Five minutes after meeting her, you will be ready to mortgage your house and move to Bali. If you have to swipe your card, no problem.

Here she comes. She has you in her sights and is smiling. You want to run, but your feet stay planted and you turn toward her, drawn to the flame. As a prisoner in your body, you exist to get the best deal you can, to pass on your genetic material to best prospect of survival and attractiveness. She is all that and more.

"Can I help you?" she says.

You hear something like "Can I save you?" but answer yes, she can help you.

You want to buy something, get more of what you don't really need, but that is the only thing that keeps despair at bay. You tell her what you want and she cuts you open with her gaze. She plants a decision in you to buy whatever it is that she is selling. She is the consummate professional, and her feet look edible. You want to chew on her toes, run your hands along her the musical strings of her tibia.

Her skirt is so tight is shows the delicate ridge of her hips, the faint bulge below her flat abs. The subtle mounds and valleys of her cast a spell over you, and she knows it. She has worked at this, has studied you and others like you. You are an easy mark, as transparent as a crystal cup. She fires the harpoon and reels you in.

Now that she has you, she is kind. She talks intimately about your options.

You want the best of the best because you want her to believe, that, like her, you are quality goods. You are both worshiping at the altar of goods, of product, of meaning in world of stuff and social climbing.

A stab of conscience disturbs your thrill at grasping and you feel the weakness of integrity, the choice to betray. You shut that down and switch back to the chase. It is what you have been trained to do. The economy runs on you making the choice to bleed into the river of consumption. You are lucky to be here. Millions around the planet want to be in your shoes, the have to power you hold in your credit card.

It is too much. You look at her. She is waiting. You take the plunge. You comfort yourself and look to the testimonials, the pats on the back of the faithful, and you hope they are right.

But then she moves on.

The thrill has passed and you are left there holding a contract that will slowly drain your life blood. Part of you wants more, wants that heat, that salivating hunger of acquisition again and again. Part of you, however, wants to drop it all and disappear into the woods, or a monastery.

The simple life. That's it. The only remedy is to get away -- to sever the cord, to run to where the radio waves, the nattering sales pitch, the cattle prod of motivation to consume, become a distant cloud of noise -- to a place where all of it, fades to atmospheric hum.

Ha, fat chance of that. You are wired to her. She knows it too. She is Alpha woman, genetically superior, and your DNA has no defense but to cave in to her.

How do you explain that yawning emptiness when she turns off her light and leaves you for the next target of opportunity?