Told Debbie about the blog

I’ve had breakfast with Debbie a couple mornings this week, leaving the house early and heading over to her place.  (This morning also included some very energetic sex before breakfast. Afterwards Debbie told me she really hadn’t thought she was in the mood … she had just woken up and was feeling kind of crummy … but, well, that was before I got there and we started kissing. For my part, I couldn’t help reflecting that in many ways a woman is at her most beautiful when she lies sprawled with abandon, tousled, sweaty, and flushed. Priceless. Sorry, I digress.)

Anyway, over breakfast I asked her about a story she had alluded to some days before, which turned out to be about one of her former lovers.  I’ve heard about several of these men by now – along with her two ex-husbands – and it has made me feel the discussion is a little one-sided since my own count of lovers is so much smaller.  I don’t want to give her lurid details unless she asks for them; but after listing Wife, D, and her – oh, and one girlfriend in college – I’m pretty much at the end.  So I have encouraged her to ask me for my stories if she ever wants to.

And this morning after she finished her own story (and briefly alluded to the next one, like Scheherazade) she asked, “So tell me about this woman you write to out on the Internet.”

She meant Janeway.  Some time last week Debbie had been giving me some advice about the divorce process and I said yes, I had heard that somewhere else too.  Where?  Oh, … umm … someone I e-mail back and forth occasionally.  But we don’t know each other in real life.  We met on the Internet.  At the time, Debbie let it drop.  But this morning she asked.

I tried to think how much to say, but then reflected how much she has told me about her life and figured it would be only fair to give her the whole story.  So I told her about the blog, and a little bit about the (now largely quiet) infidelity blog community we had for a while.  I didn’t give her the name Hosea, nor the URL, nor did I volunteer an invite.  And while I didn’t explicitly say that I am still writing, I spoke in the present tense and never said I had stopped.  She may come back and ask more later.  But in the process I explained that one of the people I had met this way has given me a certain amount of very good advice about the divorce process, even though I have been kind of sluggish about implementing it.  That seemed to satisfy her.

But now she knows that there is a blog, at any rate.  I wonder if she will ask more later ….

Scared of moving out?

Last night I had a long conversation with Debbie -- after the two of us had a couple of her oldest friends over for dinner at her place, a delightful evening -- in which she re-iterated the importance of my moving out of the house.  Janeway, bless her heart, has been tirelessly making the same point.  So what's the hold-up?

On the surface, the hold-up is financial: I won't go into all the details, but moving out is going to be expensive.  But there are ways to be creative around that.  Debbie helped me brainstorm some of these.  And you'd think I could have figured some of them out on my own, honestly.

At a deeper level, I realize that the prospect scares me.  It will mean a huge change ... my first change of address in almost twenty years.  It will mean ... hell, I don't even know what it will mean.  But it is big and scary.

But what flitted across my mind this morning was one of my more interesting variations of the theme of self-doubt: Can I trust any major decision in the context of a new romance?  You may remember this is an idea that has occurred to me before, when I played with the hypothesis, "Hosea is ruled by his dick." 

• When I was newly in love with Wife, it seemed totally reasonable when she suggested we get married. Didn't work out so well in the long run.
• When I was newly in love with D, it seemed only rational that we should clean up the house and throw away all of Wife's old junk. Well a lot of it needed to be thrown away, that part is clear. But you can't cure hoarding that way, and in the long term I don't think it helped Wife anything like the way I rationalized it to myself at the time. It was just destructive for her, even if it did open some breathing space for the rest of us.

So now that I am newly in love with Debbie, can I trust that the suggestion to move out is a good one?  Or will it end up being destructive?

Well of course it will end up being destructive, you moron!  That's the whole point.  But "destructive" of a marriage that you've already decided to quit.  Geez, ... get a grip.

And this is how I frame it to myself rationally.  Yes, it will be big and scary.  And yes, for Wife it will mean something like the end of the world as she knows it.  Yes, in some sense of the word it will be "destructive".

But I decided to leave the marriage long ago.  My attorney will be serving Wife with the separation papers some time this week.  Things are in motion, and they are moving because I set them in motion.  Because I wanted this.  Moving out is one of the logical steps in this process.  And everyone -- everyone -- tells me that it is a necessary step in the sense that it changes everything.  Even my attorney (who has left the timetable entirely up to me) has assured me that everything changes when I move out.

Doesn't stop it from being scary.  But yes, rationally I know that I need to get a grip and just do it.

Sorry, this has been obvious to all of you for a long time, and it must be getting pretty dull watching me dither for so long.  But I'm getting there ....

Another link from Frederica

While I'm at it (compare my immediately previous post), here is another early essay that I early expected to write about or comment on, again from the same Frederica Mathewes-Green that I referenced just a minute ago.  Its subject is similar to the question I was taking up in my three-part essay back in ... gosh, I think it was summer of 2008 ... on "Why is adultery a betrayal?"

I'm no longer sure that I think adultery is a betrayal, or not always, but I don't think I can back off from my basic thoughts in that essay about the meaning of sex (see the middle essay in particular).  And while Frederica seems to occupy a different place on the cultural map than anywhere I have set up camp, she says many of the same things too, if in a slightly different way.

I really don't understand any of this stuff.  Here's the link:

http://www.frederica.com/writings/the-real-meaning-of-sex.html

Marrying young?

Is there a case for marrying young?  Well hell, you can make a case for anything.  But just today I saw this on The Atlantic's online site:

http://www.theatlantic.com/sexes/archive/2013/03/the-case-for-getting-married-young/274293/

It reminded me of an article I saw years before, back before I started blogging, back when I was more whole-heartedly dedicated to marriage for better or worse until-death-do-us-part ... an article which, honestly, I expected to wite about in the early days of this blog and never got around to:

http://www.frederica.com/writings/lets-have-more-teen-pregnancy.html

I'm less committed to marriage these days, ... obviously.  I'm less sure it is the right thing.  I'm more willing to think in terms of "promiscuous but choosy".  (See, e.g., my posts about the book Sex at Dawn.)

But I can't dismiss these articles as illogical or stupid.  I think I understand marriage and love a lot less well than I used to think I did.

And so on ...

I won't be able to give a date-by-date account of my time with Debbie the way I did with D, because we live in the same town only a couple miles apart.  There is just too much opportunity to get together for me to write a new post every time we do.  I'll never keep up if I have to post something every day.  But maybe I can jot down a few notes to bring the story up to the present.

The next Thursday I went over after work.  We kissed, we held, we carressed ... and we fucked right properly.  Everything in working order, and orgasms all round.  It was very satisfactory.  Debbie again said afterwards that she hadn't been sure her body was still capable of responding.  But then she told me a story which should have reassured her that there was no problem.  You remember back a month ago (Dear God, was it only a month ago?) when we shared our first kiss?  Apparently in the minute or so that it took us to kiss she went from zero to fully aroused ... fast enough that it startled (and delighted) her.  A little later, when I remarked that she hadn't been at all vocal during sex, she added to this story: ... that she drove immediately from the restaurant's parking lot to her home to masturbate, and that it was ... ummm ... very vocal.  (So maybe she is still feeling a little shy in front of me.)

The next weekend was a replay of the weekend before in the sense that the sex was again inconclusive, although we are getting ever better acquainted with each other's bodies.  Then two nights ago Wife told me she wasn't coming home that night, so I took advantage of her not being available as a witness to spend the whole night at Debbie's.  (And, like the previous Thursday, the sex was very satisfactory, both that night and the next morning.)  I'm not quite sure what to make of how inconsistent my erections have been.  But I think I want to wait a little longer before resigning myself to Old-Guy-dom and asking for Viagra.  Maybe it will sort itself out, like it did with D.  (Of course I was only in my forties then.)

The fucking has been delightful, of course, but there has been more to it as well.  Of course we have talked.  Debbie in particular has told me a lot of stories about things she's done and people she's known, and I have been fairly straightforward about asking: not in an inquisitorial sense, but just to understand (when she mentions something in passing) "What was that about?" and "Who was he (or she)?" and "How did that feel?"

But I have also started meditating.  This isn't anything Debbie pushed on me; I asked her.  I explained that I had always been kind of interested to know what meditation was about, but had never gotten it together enough to find out.  And so she offered me some things to read on how to start a meditation practice (including the book I mentioned here and a reference to this website here).  Plus we have been attending a group meditation in town on Tuesday evenings.  I can't claim any remarkable results in only a few weeks, but I like taking a few minutes each morning when I'm not thinking about the day ahead, ... just to rest and not be accountable for anything really.  That part is nice.

I have been trying to pick up some Russian terms of endearment to use with Debbie.  She's not Russian herself, but she studied the language for years and worked there for quite a while before coming back to the States and moving into a whole new line of work.  (This was back before I met her the first time.)  So it matters to her.  And so I've been trying to remember and pronounce moya milaya, moya nyezhnaya, ....

And Wife has finally concluded that I'm seeing somebody.  What amuses me no end is that she produces a long list of "proofs" triumphantly to show that I must be dating, ... and every single one of the "proofs" is wrong.  Every single one of them is something where she has her facts wrong, or where she doesn't understand what she is saying, or ... or ... or ....  If it were worth it to me, I could take the whole list apart piece by piece.  But I don't bother, because of course her conclusion is absolutely right.  I am seeing someone!  I don't especially feel like discussing it with her (though I remain unconvinced that there is any reason behind my reticence other than that it is none of her damned business) so I pretty much just tune her out when she starts in on it.

I'll add in highlights when there's something to write.  But this is how things look today.

“What were we thinking?”

Meanwhile -- I mean, at the same time we were finally getting naked together -- Debbie had a throat infection which turned into strep.  Monday she texted me about it.  I called her and we talked for a bit.  She pointed out that she should have known better because she already knew she had a sore throat when we lay down together; and that yes, strep can indeed be transmitted by oral sex.  (Ooops.)  She added that maybe we should have talked about STDs too, just to be cautious, although she was sure that she was clean on her side.  (The things I had told her about Wife made her less sure about me.)  And she added, amused but a bit ruefully, “What were we thinking? We were just like a couple of teenagers.”

Well yes, that we were.  And it was fun, too.  But I liked the phrase, and started mulling it.  And two days later, on Wednesday, I sent her this:

"What were we thinking, falling into bed,

"Like teenagers who have no better sense?

"We know infections oft' like that are spread,

"With age and caution sure our best defense.

"Besides we'd made ourselves a pact to wait

"Till I my ring and baggage should remove

"Into a cleanly separated state –

"So no-one in the world could disapprove!"

So squeaks the voice of prudence, high and thin.

But how can I be prudent, loving you?

My fingers thrill to touch your tender skin,

And feel your kindness radiating through.

That passion’s folly, no-one will deny,

For prudent love’s akin to freezing fire.

Yet even godly Plato praised most high

This lunacy divine that draws us higher.

Against this passion gods defenseless strove.

Love’s spell ensorcells me no less than Jove.

The next time we talked she expressed amazement at getting more poetry, and said she liked this one even better than the last one … but that it is so very personal she couldn’t imagine letting anybody else see it.  I replied that, after all, viewed from one angle the whole point of poetry is to court beautiful women.

And she said just, “It’s working.”

And so to bed

It’s hard to believe it has been only a week and a half since Debbie and I got naked together.  So much has changed, so fast.  There must be something magical about sex.

It was Saturday.  I was over at her place, reading her Dorothy Bryant’s Miss Giardino, a book I really enjoy.  We were sitting on her sofa side by side, taking time out every few paragraphs to kiss. 

After a while the kissing got more heated and more intense.  When we stopped for breath, Debbie said, “Maybe we had better go for a walk” … but neither of us made the slightest move to get up.  I asked her when she would feel comfortable about going farther – about fucking, except I didn’t put it that way to her.  After all, I don’t expect to be legally divorced.  And I have no idea when Wife and I will live under separate roofs.  As a practising lay Buddhist, Debbie is bound by rules prohibiting sexual immorality; but she understands those rules to mean "Do no harm," and it's not like she could possibly be responsible for breaking up Wife and me.  Debbie said that if it’s going to be only a little while till I moved out, she’d rather wait; but if it will be a long while, then no.

At this point I got a text from Son 1 telling me he had just finished taking the SAT.  Debbie suggested I call him.  I didn’t really want to let go of her, so I said he could wait a minute.

She thought some more.

Then finally, slowly, she said, “I think … I think I’d like us to move into the bedroom. But first I’d like you to call Son 1.”

Hallelujah.

I called Son 1.  He hadn’t really expected me to call, but we chit-chatted for a minute before he wanted to go off and do something else anyway.  So Debbie and I moved into her bedroom.

Is it just my experience, or is there always something a little awkward about that moment when the two of you have first decided that you are going to fuck, but you haven’t yet and you face each other alone and fully dressed?  Admittedly my experience isn’t very wide (you can cross-reference here), but it seems that way.  So we stood there for what was probably half a second (but felt like a couple of minutes) figuring out, What now?

Debbie asked, “Shall we undress each other?”  Yes.  Let’s do that.  And let me add that Debbie has a lovely body.

Yes, she’s fifty-eight; and yes, you can see it in her face and hands.  Age wrinkles all of us there.  Even D, you will recall, had deep wrinkles in her face.

But the skin beneath her clothing is smooth and soft and creamy; her breasts are surprisingly firm (much firmer than D’s); her nipples are small, light pink, and seem always at attention; her pubic hair is light golden brown with not a streak of grey.  Could it be this way with all women in their late fifties – I mean, that they look older on the outside but have the bodies of women twenty years younger?  Or have I just been incredibly lucky with D and Debbie?  Either way, I’m not going to analyze it too much.  Nor complain.

But I couldn’t get hard.  Not at all.  Not that day, and not the next when I came back and we spent a few more hours in bed.  Oh, I think I got a little hard at one point but it lasted only a few minutes.  But other than that, … nothing.  I tried not to be embarrassed.  I told Debbie it was probably just shyness … that I had reason to think this was normal when I was with someone new for the first time.  (I wasn’t sure how much to tell her about my time with D, although as the days have passed we have both shared stories about prior lovers so it turned out to be OK.)  Debbie worried that she was doing something wrong, that she was not giving me the cues I needed somehow.  (Apparently this was a big problem with her second husband: that he consistently misread her sexual cues and gave her none of his own.)  But no, it wasn’t that.  My dick just refused to engage.

For her part, I’m not sure that Debbie ever came, either.  She breathed heavily but there was none of the volcanic convulsion that I learned to expect from D’s orgasms.  Debbie told me she was already pleased she could respond as far as she did – that she had feared she wouldn’t respond at all because it had been so long since she had fucked anyone.  (I still don’t know how long “so long” is, but apparently her sex life with her second husband came to an end not long after their daughter was born. And the daughter is now in graduate school.)  And she was full of praise for how skilled she thought I was.  I can’t think of anything I did that exhibited any great skill; just used my tongue and fingers in ways I learned from my time with D.  But Debbie was very happy.  And after a couple of hours, she told me she had memorized a poem for me, and recited it:

One day you finally knew
what you had to do, and began,
though the voices around you
kept shouting
their bad advice --
though the whole house
began to tremble
and you felt the old tug
at your ankles.
"Mend my life!"
each voice cried.
But you didn't stop.
You knew what you had to do,
though the wind pried
with its stiff fingers
at the very foundations,
though their melancholy
was terrible.
It was already late
enough, and a wild night,
and the road full of fallen
branches and stones.
But little by little,
as you left their voices behind,
the stars began to burn
through the sheets of clouds,
and there was a new voice
which you slowly
recognized as your own,
that kept you company
as you strode deeper and deeper
into the world,
determined to do
the only thing you could do --
determined to save
the only life you could save.

If you measure sex by an orgasm count, the weekend wasn’t much.  But it was our first time lying together, skin to skin, and starting to explore each other’s bodies.  And by that measure it was perfect heaven.

Waiting is ended

I won't have time to write this up properly for maybe a couple of days yet, so consider this a placeholder just to keep you current.

You know -- because I've mentioned it several times -- that Debbie and I had agreed to wait for fucking until I had sorted out my separation from Wife, or at any rate until I had moved out of the house.

But impatience is a marvelous thing, especially when it is shared.  Waiting ended over last weekend.  It's a new country now ....

Story to follow.

When can you tell people you are dating?

I don't have much time, so I'll keep this very brief.  When you are in the process of divorcing (or separating, in my case), when is it OK to let people know you are also dating?

I'm thinking of Debbie and me.  And I'm thinking that I haven't moved out of the house yet (or Wife hasn't ... the delay is exactly because we haven't figured out yet who's moving).  And my lawyer is working on the papers for separation but hasn't filed them yet.  On the other hand, Wife and I have had no real marriage for ... well, a long time, as you know.  And God knows Wife hasn't been terribly subtle about seeing her own friends.

It's an issue because Debbie and I live in the same town.  There's more of a risk that we might be seen doing things together than there ever was with D.  But also I'm farther along with the whole divorce thing.  My family knows.  The boys know. 

Are there reasons I still need to keep Debbie a secret?  Advice is welcome ....