A Small Sock

A Small Sock         
        A small sock on a stairway. Almost certainly a woman’s. It leads to the basement of my small brownstone, which serves as a dorm, where there is just a common room, a bathroom, and the RA’s room. I have an image of her half-stumbling, half-falling, half-walking down the small stairway, partially entangled with her boyfriend, a sort of desperate groping. At some point, the sock comes off and falls. But it is the only article of clothing around, so the rest did not come off until her door was securely shut and locked. In a mass of flesh, sweat, fluid, and maybe a tear or two, they seek desperate solace in one another.
        I have no reason to think that their lovemaking is like that, however. It’s just more Romantic that way, even in its sadness. Somehow, I like it more to think they’re confused, feeling alone, and sort of mutually agreeing that, at least for now, they’ll try to find something this way. The more realistic course – that it’s just a couple of college kids having sex, giving themselves into their raging libido as much as I’d like to – holds no interest for me. Or perhaps she has ensnared him. I can almost see her looking disinterested, eyes open, fondling the cigarette she’s already contemplating having once he’s done. His eyes are shut, his back arches. He’s most of the movement. He’s a convenient source of sex, a slender, pale boy with a love of history who can also bring a slight thrill to her. But the thrill grows a little less brilliant each time, and soon she will discard him.
        I can deal with that image, too, because we were seniors together in the same high school, and I remember her previous boyfriend. He was a shortish fellow, but with a strong build. He wasn’t the most serious student, and I wonder if that’s what tore them apart. I didn’t even know they’d broken up until I’d found out she was my RA, and she introduced me to the new fellow. I didn’t ask what happened. For one thing, it’s not something you do when the current fellow is right there. Also, I actually have positively no right whatsoever to know. That, and they could’ve broken up right after we got to college, for all I know, and why bother asking now? Does she even remember, anymore?
        This new fellow is quite different. Tall, thin, bookish-looking. Did she consciously choose someone so different from the first man, or was it an impulse she didn’t understand? Still, aware of it or not, I have no doubt that the attraction was that he was almost the polar opposite of his predecessor. That is why the lovemaking must be something convenient for the both of them, or at least for her. The attraction seems odd, thanks to what little I really know of her. And it’s very little.
       Laundry. I remember there’s a small laundry room in the basement, as well, and that the machine was going earlier. So, now, some face that I can’t put a face to is merely carrying an anonymous pile of clothes to her room, and just happens to drop the sock along the way. I suppose I’d best knock on the RA’s door, hand over the sock, and tell her to send out a mass e-mail telling everyone a sock was found.
        Then I convince myself it’s too late to do that, and just put it atop the washer.
        Later, peering around, my RA can run over there, dressed only in an oversized t-shirt, grab the sock, and run back into her room.