Gabriel Freed

He called Cindy.

Gabriel: "You are no longer allowed to freely use the products of my grocery store for your restaurant."

Cindy: "Gabriel, what on earth are you talking about? You lost the bet, fair and fair. You can eat in my restaurant for free as many times as you wish. What's wrong with that agreement? You lost the bet. You can't possibly..."

Gabriel: "I am. You've been seriously manipulating me. I don't want to talk to you anymore."

Gabriel hung up. He was secretly laughing. He looked at the world around him. He felt proud. No more of God, no more moral rules. He was in chains. Now, he was free.

He began to walk like some of the black men that he saw passing by. He looked straight in front of him. He let his arms be loose around him. He swung them back and forth. His body seemed to move more smoothly. He felt good. He felt defiant. So this is how black men felt. There was nothing to lose. Who cares what people thought of him?

He walked past the stores and resturants of Koreatown. He walked further and further until he saw a nice, classy restaurant. It read, "Antonielli." He entered.

He ordered an appletini and waited. The waitress looked at him blankly.

"An afternoon drink?" Trisha asked.

Gabriel didn't know where the sound was coming from. At first, he thought that the waitress had made the remark.

"You're Korean, aren't you?" Trisha continued. Gabriel turned to his right and saw her. She smiled so naturally and was so beautiful. He didn't understand why she was speaking to him. At first, he thought that she might be a prostitute, but she dressed nothing like a prostitute. She was naturally very beautiful and she was smiling at him. He turned to the left and then looked behind him to see if there was another person she was speaking to. There was no one else.

"Yes, I am," he answered. Then he looked straight in front of him.

"Are you going to buy me a drink?" she asked.

He turned toward her once again. Was she serious? Was she hitting on him? He was short. He wasn't particularly intelligent. He didn't have lots of money although his mother was a wealthy widower. He just didn't get it.

"What would you like?" he heard himself say.

She sat right next to him.
"I would like a Vodka Martini."

He ordered a Vodka Martini. He thought that the waitress would look at him peculiarly, but she didn't. To be truthful, he felt a bit uneasy. He was almost waiting for her boyfriend to show up, after having used the restroom. He could imagine her boyfriend condescendingly eying him.

Trisha: "You're confused, aren't you? You are not quite sure who you are. You feel like you've got all this potential inside of you that is being put to no use."

Gabriel: "That's rather a strange thing for you to say. You hardly know me. I don't really know. Even if what you said was true, why would I speak to a perfect stranger about those things?"

"You're suffering," Trisha continued as she sipped the martini. "You have all these negative emotions toward the world, but you can't act out these negative emotions so you turn it back on yourself. You suffer instead of making other suffer."

"What are you talking about?" Gabriel asked, seriously confused.

"I'm not quite sure, " Trisha confided. "You look like you're seeing the world for the first time. For a long time, you were concerned with internal problems..."

"Is that such a bad thing?" he asked.

"I really don't know," Trisha responded, "In the end, even if we are innocent, even if we were as moral and good as we could be, even then, our nature is sinful."

He smiled. What she said felt so funny to him. What about people who had suffered their entire lives for being good? Was their reward simply heaven? What if there was no heaven? Would they still have been good?

Gabriel looked into her eyes. For a few moments, he could almost see what she saw. He wanted her so much, but he couldn't say why. What she had said sounded like such psychobabble, but it made sense. He wanted to kiss her. His head was moving slowly...

"Don't, " she started, "It's not what you think. You see, that's why women become so contemptuous of men. Men are devious. Men would do anything to attain pleasure. The goal is always pleasure, not the good. Do you want to kiss me because it is good or because it brings you pleasure?"

Gabriel smiled. He wondered what she did? Was she an actress? Then he wondered if he really projected the faces of actresses over his prostitute lover's face. He did, he thought.

"I was hoping that pleasure and good were exactly the same things. Sometimes we do good things for a delayed pleasure. Sometimes we do pleasurable activities to maintain our sense of goodness."

"Let me ask you this," Trisha continued, "Do you really think that it is so much better on this side of the fence?"

"I really don't know, but, at least, your world is objective. It's all around you, your culture. As for me, so much of what is inside of me stays there. And it is really chaotic inside of me."

"So that's why you are having a drink mid-afternoon, after having seen your psychologist, I presume."

He wanted to walk out. Something kept him on the seat though. He wondered if she was fucking with him. Was she seriously interested in him or was she just waiting for the right moment to humiliate him.

"What is your name?" he heard himself ask.
"Trisha."