From Behind

“It’s late, Mario, let me go”.
She threw herself out of the car, fumbled with the lock, for a moment the light illuminated the entrance hall. She wore a shirt that was a little big on her. He was impressed with the image of his thin shoulders disappearing into the door.
He had just asked her to marry him.
“Sabri, wait… where are you running? At least tell me yes or no. “
“No.”
It was the eighties, the years of prospects, of the still open future. He never saw her again.

Until this Sunday afternoon.
She is with a friend, one he does not know, they speak softly during the intermission of the film. Ironically, even now he looks at her back. The elasticated top wraps her body, there is a puff of flesh around the straps, and red pimples on the skin.
His wife squirms in the next chair, crosses her legs, then unties them. Mario gets angry, nudges her. “Stop it, Carla. You annoy the whole line. “
Carla sighs, stiffens, but then immediately resumes the hateful contortions in the cinema chair. Under the soles of her sandals, peanut peels creak, and the noise pierces his skull as he stares at Sabrina, without taking his eyes off her now weighted shoulders, from the bra strap that marks her flesh.