Weeks after it was revealed that Leopold Bloom had carried on erotic penpal exchanges with a woman named Martha Clifford, Mr. Bloom has decided to step down from his post at his advertising firm.
"I hurt those closest to me," Bloom said at a press conference, choking up. "And for that I am sorry."
In letters he went by the name Henry Flower, partially to conceal his true identity from Ms. Clifford, but also as a literary reference to his penis, which in letters Bloom often referred to as a "languid floating flower."
Bloom claims to have never met Ms. Clifford in real life, though in letters she alludes to her desire to meet in person. "Dear Henry, when will we meet?" She writes in one letter. "I think of you so often you have no idea."
Since Blazes Boylan found Mr. Bloom's ripped-up letter from Ms. Clifford, other woman have stepped forth with even more lurid stories. A few claimed Mr. Bloom often ogled them on trollies, one said he made a crack about "her moving hams" outside the porkbutcher, and a young woman named Gerty McDowell said Bloom was masturbating in a public park while watching her contemplate love and life by the Sandymount Strand. "He had the saddest face I'd ever seen," McDowell said.
There were also allegations that Bloom had often cross-dressed in the outfits of his wife, Molly. But when this was brought up at the press conference Bloom brushed it aside. "I tried her things on only twice, a small prank, in Holles street."
On Wednesday, this sordid story took another dramatic twist, as it was revealed at a press conference at the Friars Club that Molly Bloom, Leopold's wife, was in an adulterous relationship with Blazes Boylan. "Its all his own fault if I am an adulteress," Mrs. Bloom said, referring to her husband. "What else were we given all those desires for Id like to know I cant help it if Im young still."
Friends closest to Bloom say he will try to work things out with his wife, but when asked what his next move would be, Bloom shrugged into his chest and said, "from outrage (matrimony) to outrage (adultery) there arose nought but outrage (copulation) yet the matrimonial violator of the matrimonially violated had not yet been outraged by the adulterous violator of the adulterously violated." He added, "in the midst of death we are in life," and shuffled away, darkly.
:-)