So D and I spent this last weekend together in Faraway City. I told Wife I had to give a seminar in the office there; I told my coworkers I was taking a couple days vacation; I flew out the evening of Thursday, got in after midnight, then met D’s plane close to noon on Friday. I am starting to write this now in the airport Monday night (and finishing it later in the same week). What about the three days in between? Several things stand out.
In the first place, it almost didn’t happen at all. Back last fall, D and I were bickering over how to pay for our next visit. I insisted that I would pay for the whole thing; D insisted that she would pay her share; and there we sat at a standoff. (See for example here and here
Sometimes I think I am past it sexually, or nearly. I’m almost fifty years old and D is radiantly sexy. We are in bed as I stroke, suckle, lick, squeeze, rub … but I don’t get hard. Maybe later, … sometimes I still wake up hard in the mornings … but that’s no guarantee that I’ll stay up. D just tells me that I can’t expect sex at fifty to be the same as sex at twenty, and that she is still perfectly content. (She also gently suggested that Pfizer sells medication for this sort of disappointment.) But it can be depressing.
D herself, needless to say, may be older than I am but she isn’t past anything. Her whole body, every inch of skin, every nerve, is a finely-tuned machine designed for orgasm. I told her this weekend how sexy she is, and she said, “Well thank you, I’m glad you think so.”
“That’s not what I mean,” I tried to explain. “I’m not talking about a private opinion, that you are ‘subjectively sexy,’ so to speak. My point is that you are objectively sexy. Think of a Ferrari: when you call it a fast car, you don’t mean that it’s my opinion or your opinion that a Ferrari is fast. You mean that it is designed to go fast. Every single design decision is taken with speed in mind. The engine won’t even work right at low speeds: the plugs foul, the engine dies. But get it up to 150 or 200 miles per hour, and it performs like a dream. OK, well it’s the same thing with your body, except it’s not about speed. Your body is designed to function under conditions of stimulation and orgasm. You aren’t built for celibacy; you get cranky and unhappy when you have to undergo it for too long. But slide into bed and suddenly everything falls into place. Suddenly you are firing perfectly on all cylinders. Sex is what you were made for … far more than any ordinary mortal. In some deep way, calling from eternity, sex is your destiny! This is what I mean by saying that it’s really not just my opinion. You are objectively sexy.”D was embarrassed by this. “Don’t be silly; I’ve gone years without sex before this.”
“Yes and you were miserable every minute. Look, it’s easy to see what I mean. How many other women do you know who experience orgasm when their toes are suckled?”
“Actually I read an article about toes online just the other day. I’ll send you the link.”
“Whatever.”
We talked about masturbation. D said that she hardly ever masturbates. Huh, what? How is this possible? Well, she said she feels that masturbation is kind of a cheat, because part of the real richness of sex is the deep relationship with another person. Fine, that’s true, but what about just getting off? We talked a little longer and she explained that when she really gets depressed it can be hard to feel sexy … then since she interprets the whole world through the lens of her libido (another reason I say she was made for sex) this means she spirals into despair. Fine, I told her, let Dr. Hosea give you a prescription. The next time you feel like that, masturbate. At the beginning you may be too depressed to feel much like it; but halfway through, you’ll feel a lot better and you’ll feel much more willing to go on. Trust the voice of experience on this. She said she’d think about it.
We talked about some of her previous lovers. She made a point of saying that every single one of them treated her well, every one was a gentleman of whom she had fond memories. The fellow who wanted to take her virginity when she was a teenager, the cultured older gentleman who finally did several years later, even the friend she called up when she was alone and deeply depressed and just wanted to get laid. She had only kind words for all of them.
We talked about my marriage, about Wife’s crazy financial decisions, about the thousands of dollars flushed down the drain over the decades for no discernable reason. I explained as clearly as I could why I never intend to let anyone else have any control over my finances or decisions, once the divorce is final. (Naturally this is why I had been so stubborn when she had tried to discuss paying for the trip.) She commented only that it was helpful to understand how I felt, and that she was hearing for the first time a level of anger and bitterness in my voice that obviously runs deep and that I usually hide when talking about Wife’s antics. Really, ya think?
Talking and fucking … we didn’t do a lot else. The hotel was one of these extended-stay places with a kitchenette, so we bought some groceries and cooked. The weather was crappy so we didn’t really feel like going out for anything else, anyway. But that was enough.
The sex was great. Friday afternoon (as soon as we got to the hotel) it was urgent and hurried – that’s what we get for waiting four months between visits. Then we got dressed, went out to buy groceries, came back to fix supper, and fucked some more. By Saturday morning D was telling me she was already sore, and there were stains on the bed that could have looked like a period if that weren’t a thing of the past for her. So we slowed down and went a bit more gingerly. But didn’t stop.
Sunday night was a little remarkable. We had spent all afternoon eating chips and drinking wine; after finishing two bottles we needed another to go with dinner. I offered to go out to get it. D said that was fine, she would get the food ready while I was gone … only could we lie down first? Maybe cuddle and kiss for a couple of minutes? Maybe feel each other’s skin?
So we lay down on the bed … and suddenly we locked together. Clothes fell negligently here and there. I never did get hard this time at all, but for two hours D rolled in ecstasy. She was exhausted, she was sore, she’d have to urge “Be gentle there” … and then it was “More. More. MORE. Oh my God!!” When we talked about it later, D was pretty embarrassed; but the language she used to describe it made her rapture sound almost like a religious experience. She didn’t want to discuss it a lot; maybe later. On the other hand, when I say that she is designed for sex like a Ferrari is designed for speed – this is part of what I mean.
Monday morning we talked for a while. D told me about the people she has known in all the places she’s lived around the world, and I began to slide into a brown study. I think it was the descriptions of how the executives live in her husband’s company, at various locations around the globe. It’s not that I envy them, although I’ll never live half so grandly. It’s rather that I realize how uncomfortable and out of place I would feel there. Somehow I think I would feel more comfortable dining at the table of Sister Failure, and this probably says something important about me. (If nothing else, it is probably a good indicator of what I should expect in my professional future, sad to say.)
D saw me suddenly fall quiet, and it disturbed her. She began to feel like she had stepped on some kind of landmine she hadn’t known was there, and so she backed away clear to the other side of the room – exactly what I had asked her on a previous occasion never to do when I get depressed. She began to say she should have left the evening before, rather than have said something to depress me so. (What?? And miss last night’s glorious sex?) So I found myself a little bit in the ironic position of having to console her for my depression! Specifically, I reminded her that she is not responsible for my moods. It is not her job to prevent me from getting depressed. All I ask – all I ask – is that, when it happens, she stay with me. Hold my hand. Let me hold her. Keep the direct human contact open. That’s what I need above all to make it better.
She frowned for a while, staring at the floor and thinking about this. But then she came back over to the bed where I was sitting, and stretched out. She said, “You are asking me something hard. I fear I will never know where all the potholes are. You are asking me to be willing to fail a lot in our relationship. But I can do that. I won’t run away.” Then she sat up, slid into my lap, and smiled. And it was better.
Finally we checked out, drove to the airport, and flew back to our respective homes. We both faced huge piles of work left undone for the sake of this trip. But it was worth it. The next morning, I e-mailed D that I had gotten home safely and chit-chatted about little things. And then I added, “The weekend keeps coming back to me in reveries unbidden, and I have to shake my head to get back to work. You have talked many times about the lifelong task of ‘becoming a woman,’ but I can only reflect that your womanhood is an instrument on which you can already play music of subtlety and complexity befitting an entire orchestra.
In my mind I hear your voice like violins, in thoughtful, nuanced discussions drawing on perceptions and insights that would be clean out of the reach of anyone with less than a half century of experience and of careful meditation on that experience. Cutting across that subtle richness like horns or trumpets is a kind of sharpness and clarity -- equally well as idealism for the future and as indignation at injustice -- that one might imagine from a young woman in her twenties. Skipping gaily across the top is the flute section, the playfulness of a little girl who jokes and banters with me, who sneaks up to hug me from behind, and who scoots into my lap with her arms around my neck smiling winsomely. And then there is the passion, ... the divine passion before which my words fall helplessly to the ground and I pull my shoes from off my feet in reverence ... the sublime passion that only the Muses can sing of rightly, and for which mortals like me can feel only awe, and gratitude, ... and overmastering desire ....
Dear heavens I love you, deeply and passionately, now and ever,
Hosea”
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