The text message was simple, direct.
“I don’t know why you are acting weird. sometimes I think instead of a friend, you need a Greek chorus…I was still going to have lunch with you but you are being kind of “freaky” Wed, Mar 9 10:09AM
“Freaky.” “Freaky, Freaky…Freaky?” Was the worst day of my life, the worst day of this century, the worst day I could ever imagine, to her just “freaky.” Was that day, the day I realized I might lose the most precious gift that had ever been given, or that I had already lost it, best described as freaky?
You may have heard about those days when a revelation overpowers you, like in a cartoon when a light bulb appears over the head of a befuddled character and suddenly, poof! It illuminates, it gets bright: it burns with a comic truth. The character’s face glows, the answer seems apparent, the story moves on. Well, so will I.
An epiphany on Ash Wednesday. Lent begins and something must be given up. How about true love; if I give up true love for Lent will that make amends for all the false love, the guile and deception, the wining and dining, the clever phrase, the cheap romance, the stolen virtue my of so many women. Will I be forgiven by all those stolen hearts of the past, by all the women I saw as objects of my vainglory, my corporeal satisfaction? Or even should I be forgiven?
My last chance for absolution began four years ago in a remodeled room at the Acworth Holiday Inn Express . Before me lay the most beautiful of all flowers, a southern narcissus, the rarest of all of blooms. Not to wax poetically, but in the fading afternoon sun that stole past the drawn curtains, that tinged her curled brunette locks with red-gold fire, she could as well have been Shulammite laying on Solomon’s couch:
“My dove, my perfect one, is only one, the darling of her mother, flawless to her that bore her”
The woman-child I speak had been a friend of just a few months. A courtship of mutual admiration had evolved, a kiss stolen among the inventory stacks, another given in return, a grasping at once thought lost tendrils of emotion, an emerging awareness of the softness of affection, the ripeness of desire long ignored. And as this blossom had brought color to my garden, it seemed I had rekindled innocence in the damaged soul of this woman-child, that peculiarly southern phenomena of flesh and bone: the body of a woman, the naivete of a girl scout, a heart of gold, a spine of steel. Such women embody the spirit of Scarlett O’Hara and the mindset of Machiavelli. They are at once as tender as a spring shoot, as tough as sunburned skin. Our southern women are always experienced, but in the way of seeking the “right” experience. They are, above all women in America, profane, but never promiscuous. To me, this woman-child was a gift from God, Eve sent to save Adam, sent to breath life into Lazarus. They bring a proffered moment of truce between God and man, and damned is the man who spits in the eye of the almighty!I am such a man.
Before me was a virtuous woman who had made love with men since age fourteen, profane yes; yet always she was virtue and intelligence seeking fulfillment, she was woman ever seeking harmony. In a scene lifted from a really bad Off Broadway play, I entered the lobby alone, and registered as a book salesman from Birmingham. She quietly slipped in a side door, and together we walked up the stairs to the second floor, where we rode the elevator to the fifth floor, and found the room. We entered without embracing. She was undressed and nude in a moment, and sliding into bed she drew the sheet up over her, covering her nakedness: she was nervous, bashful, hesitant and awkward. As I slowly and purposefully undressed before her, she looked toward me and away, gazing and averting eye to eye contact, and managed nervous laughter . I made small talk, moved slowly, and neatly hanging my clothes on the wooden hangers that hooked to the chrome closet rod, I would turn to her frequently with a smile, but a smile with an jaded edge. After all, hadn’t I done this a hundred times, seduced the eager, quieted the fearful, satisfied the insatiable. The fact that I was much older, thirty years older, only made me more certain of the pleasure I would enjoy, and more certain that I teach her unforgettable lessons of lovemaking. I joined her in bed, peeled the sheet off her flawless skin and in a moment forgot all pretense of reserve. How incredibly beautiful she was! Every feature of her countenance was radiant, how perfectly had God created every curve and flat and mound of her body.
To be honest, it had been ten years since I had felt anything resembling true passion, since another young narcissus and I had parted ways, and in that passing decade making love to older women had merely gratified the senses, merely served to relieve both the boredom of the day and the tension of hunt. In that decade, I had become a more mordant and moribund soul. A death grip had choked most life from me years before, the grip of my own hand punishing me for my sins. Strangely, and this is all I will say about that: I never learned yesterday’s lessons, I never sought to change.
This woman-child, this exquisite creature before me, had in weeks snatched me back from my inexorable dissolution, from my impending doom, from the well deserved ill-ending of life earned by the conceit of intelligence, the arrogance of power, and the exploitation of weaker men. Women were always the salve of my darkened soul, enjoyed, abused, used, the meat of my table, the meal of my soul. Deceived, blinded, tricked into enjoying their own abuse, their next morning’s epiphany exclaimed to an empty bed. So many women, hunted, trapped, raped of respect, denied dignity even as they writhed and moaned in pleasure; even as their tender flesh tore; the pretense of evolution and enlightenment snuffed out by the gushing fountains of carnal seizures. Why was this fragrant rose any different? I had planned to enjoy the feast, to drink of her saliva and sweat, to rasp my tongue across her engorged buds, to kneed her rounded mound, and to lick the honey from her petaled lips until her sweetness turned to salt spray. And then mounting with ferocious thrusts, leave her satisfied in a very empty, sad way.
What, you don’t recognize the brute, you don’t recognize the bitch? Oh gentle women, oh men of great sensitivity, do you not see the shadows of the cave? Have you, you civilized consorts, in but a few thousand years forgotten the million years of our journey from walking on all fours, to dragging knuckles, to those upright strides up your beloved’s paving stones? Those shadows in the cave show victorious men mounting the women of the defeated; women bent on knees, arms akimbo, faces in pressed the clay, living only if the men sought them to carry their spawn. Can you not hear the cracking sound of club to skull as your paternal ancestors, chose who to bred and who to discard.
Not so now, you say, but isn’t that you losing yourself, losing control? Aren’t you both in the throes of, not real passion, but base primal excitation? Do you really love that woman laying beside you each night? Would you die for her, or better yet, would you die for her children, if they were not yours? Excitement is not passion, possession is not love! Passion is the boundary between life and death, each evenly weighed. Passion is the balance between two evenly matched mirror images of the same soul; passion is the tension that tugs them together. Love is the simple offering of self to another. Self is unqualified, self acting in the other’s best interest. Love between two selves is the melding of interest, the bond that binds, the joy of each other’s nature, the glory of shared interests, be they life, children, aging, wisdom or death. Passion and love are inseparable.
What do we call love without passion, what do we call sex without love? Is seduction different than rape, complicity in subjugation different than compulsion? Sex without passion and love should be criminal. Consent only makes legal what should be a crime of the heart.
There, in that tawdry but not cheap Holiday Inn Express, I knew at that moment, laying next to the most perfectly conformed woman I had ever beheld, a woman who had given birth to three children, a flawless woman, that I was in the presence of God. No, not the woman, she was not god; she was an ark, the perfect vessel meant to contain the most sacred gift of our Creator, the passion and love of a man and woman.
I knew at that moment that she was sacred. I drew back from her exposed body and laid up on the pillow and cradled her in my arms. Had she expected sex? She was after all, as married as I was, which is to say merely legally. I asked her if she was okay with our illicit intentions, as we were both married, and the usual token sentiments and casual chatter that precede lust gave way to amusement, understanding and an inchoate trust. Words fell from her lips breaking the seal of hidden intimacy, revealing the profound secrets of her life. She talked of her marriage to a man she loved but who had become a drug addict, and abusive husband, and apathetic father. She told me of his abuse. Then, amazingly, she poured out the detail, dates, even the names of every man with whom she had ever slept. I reached for the bedside pad and pen and we wrote down the names of them in order, even counting those that she left and later returned to. With bravado, she shared her conquests, with innocence she giggled like a school girl, with honesty she withheld no secret. These secrets were the first of many gifts she gave me which I misunderstood. I wish now I had rose from the bed. I wish now that I had treasured the trust she shared with me. I wish now that I had for once done the right thing. If I had, we would have found a way to be married now, and this story would be unwritten. I did not do the right thing, I had long ago forgotten what that would have been.
Making love to this woman was divine.
“Oh, may your breasts be like clusters of the vine, and the scent of your breath like apples, and your kisses like the best wine”
How did I let that most perfect moment of my life, that most intimate moment of both our lives, lead to “Freaky?”
That, of course, is how I remember that afternoon. But what of her thoughts, her feelings? Who knows what silent prayer rose from her lips, who knows if she even prayed. And why would anyone pray today?. The chorus of prayer of the heartfelt and the heartsick; the entreaties of millions of prayer partners; the invocation of the power of prayer from pulpits near and far; who needs to mouth words and hope those small, silent whispered words are heard in the cacophony of begged blessings rising from the school rooms, board rooms, ready rooms and rest rooms of our conflated solipsism.
If not a prayer, was there a dialectic between her trust and her fear, did she weigh the present moment, juggling between past and future? Was the moment just another day at the office, another scheme? In the four months since I had known her, I found her to be intelligent, clever, controlling, easy in her manipulation of others. Was I just another guest at her dinner table, another phrase of her riddle? Was she in any way, the mirror of me? That couldn’t be. I had spent a life time in deliberate anguished self examination, in brutal comparison to others, playing out the game of truth or consequences, patterning each possible outcome, collating events in a calender of numberless days until the distilled truth of human behavior was mine. This was real, this was an offering to share living, to become each other’s lover. This woman-child was cautiously giving me keys, asking my help to unlock her life.
Am I the only sentient being that understands that ambition, achievement, success are the children of fear? Infants fear no nipple, children fear no limits, adults fear no love and once gained, fear its loss. You and I, we are fearful creatures, we have survived eons of harrowing days, driven only by fear. She feared intimacy, she was still corded to her life, to her children, to her family, even to her husband. What did I fear? Elation, joy, happiness, love, passion, and most of all, myself. Which really was fearing nothing.
We rose from the bed, my eyes still following her. She had to shower to wash my scent off, to wash her scent off, and she had to dress so that her clothes were worn now as she had dressed that morning. Their had been no time for cuddling or napping or pleasantries, she had to be home, she lived on another’s clock, and seemed needy of keeping to it’s time.
We repeated our cautious path, leaving the elevator on the second floor, existing by the stairwell and side door. I do not recall that we kissed at her car, I do not recall that I felt anything but awe and fear, fear for her.
To be continued…
She came home from the hospital. Can you believe she fell of of a bicycle, and bruised her pelvis? Can you believe she paid $170 for a bike at Walmart? Can you believe she bought a bicycle? She remains amazing. She bought it so she could go biking with her children. She remains amazing, transforming her life, becoming something different than what she was.
I missed her text messages:
“I had an accident on my bike. my son screwed with the gears and I hit my privates on the bar. Wanna go to the er but momma doesn’t wanna take me…” Sat, Mar 12 6:36PM
“TT said she would meet me there but meleze is gone to the legion and momma won’t watch the kids” Sat, Mar 12 6:48PM
“It feels like needles are stabbing me down there.” Sat, Mar 12 6:49PM
Three times she reached out to me, three times I failed to answer. I read the messages two hours later. I called her. she was at the hospital with her mother. Her sister was taking care of the kids, although that didn’t seem clear. I told her I’d come now, but she said she didn’t need me. I could tell she was in pain. I helped my mother to bed at 9PM and left for Cartersville.
“I’m on the way to the ER…”
“No, it’s ok.”
“We are back here now and it shouldn’t take long.”
“Hey, I want to come. If he is there, I’ll turn back. if not, see you soon. Love you”
“He’s not here. I haven’t even told him.”
I arrived at the hospital. She had been taken back, she was in Room 3, “Third on the left down the hall” Her mom was with her. Her mom is the one constant in her life, the one certain loving generous…well, she’s a great mom. She quickly told me her sister had left the children at her cousins. She asked me if I would go pick them up, and of course, I went.
I got the boy and girl home, and ready for bed. The boy, he’s in kindergarten, he asked me to fix him a bowl of vanilla ice cream. I did. He then started vacuuming. The girl, she’s in first grade, she began by asking me if I loved her mother, I said I did. She said that her mother didn’t love me anymore, that I was too old, and that I wouldn’t be coming back. Her conversation referred to the events of a previous week-end. I told her I was happy to help her mommy, that she was well, and would be home soon. The boy played himself out; he’s such a boy, never still, always afoot, climbed into the top bunk, and fell asleep. The girl, she and I sat on the couch and talked for a while, about the earlier subject and about school, her boyfriend, church, and reading. She is the animated image of her mother, what a wonderful little girl she is. I hadn’t put a little girl to bed for 35 years. I sang her the same little song, and “petted”her back, and she fell fast asleep.
To be continued…