‘All right, but you have to tell me how much you love me. You should tear off my clothes and ravish me right here, on the floor, can you do that?’
‘Dana, don’t get excited. We should concentrate on your physical wellbeing because I don’t want to see you crying again. You know I love you both. Do you want me to make you a cup of tea?’ This was a good excuse and a way out of the predicament. Saying that I loved both of them somehow eased the pain of knowing that I was not being true to myself, that I was being unfaithful to Her, to our love. It was really silly, bearing in mind everything that I had done, but it worked well for me for the time being.
It was like Dana was reborn when she heard these long-cherished words. She was visibly calmer. She came up to me and hugged me with the strength of a desperate drowning man. It was suffocating. Clinging.
‘I’m sorry! It must be the hormones and the fact that I miss you so much. I’m so terribly lonely. And confused. I’m sorry! Truly sorry! Tell me again that you love me.’
‘I love you both! You know it well.’
All that we had before was gone. I knew it. I was sure Dana knew it too. One could sense these things. Things between us had changed. I felt it every moment we were together in a room and wondered how to build walls between us. And every time we were not together, I felt relieved, at peace and liberated. Indeed, these were not the emotions of a person in love. Dana was an intelligent woman, very intuitive. I was certain that she could sense perfectly well how I felt, she could read through me. But she had chosen not to. Now she preferred to deceive herself and to leave the truth unsaid instead of hearing something she did not want to hear. That was the reason why she did not ask questions. She had tried thousands of different ways to get her hands on me, to cling to me, to provoke me, instead of just asking. Obviously, we were at a critical point if she had decided to risk it all and ask me a direct question. And how easy it was to reassure her again. It took only one lie to curb her awakened worries so that she could continue to live in her illusion that everything was well.
How could we be so stupid? So naive? Why do we prefer to live in lies, illusions, in mockery, instead of confronting the truth and facing it, however scary it is? I did not have the courage to tell her how I felt, I did not have the courage to be truthful. And I preferred to live in misbelief that it was for the best for all of us. Regardless of the cost. And she…she did not dare to trust her intuition that the man she was promised to had nothing to give her and did not love her or at least did not love her the way he used to. Why did she endure this? Perhaps it was from fear of being rejected, from fear of being alone or from fear of the unknown. Or maybe from fear itself. We both preferred to live in the delusions we had created ourselves, even after seeing how this affected our temperaments, our behavior, our lives. Was this the way I would spend the rest of my life? Or would it become even worse? Or maybe I would become so numb from the unhappiness that it would not matter anymore. I was sick from questions and preferred to avoid them. I preferred not to think at all. Somehow, I would find a solution. I would find something that would give me pleasure. Give me meaning. Maybe my job? Some new venture. A new hotel. Or a whole new business. And of course, the baby. The baby would fix things.
Chapter 25
The baby. So far, we had not talked about names. In fact, so far, we had not talked about anything. The baby. It turned my world upside down. For a moment snatched from eternity, I thought I was the happiest man alive. For a moment snatched from eternity, I thought I had found my meaning in life. I believed in that meaning I had found. The meaning of family, when I was a little boy seeing how my father’s hand was always looking for the touch of my mother’s hand, the look of desire, love, respect and support in my mother’s eyes. I still remembered the way my parents behaved around each other, although I was very young when I lost them and did not understand much of the world of grown-ups. At the time, I did not ask questions about how things should be, what the meaning of one thing or another was, but the fact was that I grew up in such a loving home and breathed in the atmosphere of love. This was the home of love. True love. Strong love. Unconditional love. Indeed, I did not understand many of the actions and words, but I felt them, and they were deeply imbedded in my mind.
Later, in America my grandmother’s mission was to educate me about the meaning of life. This meaning was in unconditional love. She often repeated that life provided us with strange circumstances. She kept on telling me about the love my parents had for each other and the kind of love she had rejected throughout her entire life. She had rejected it to such an extent as to prefer the long years of loneliness instead of communicating with her only daughter and accepting her decision.
But this was exactly how life mocked us. Sometimes, we were faced with circumstances that taught us lessons and pointed out our mistakes. My mother did not receive the approval of my grandmother for her choice of a spouse while she was alive. But when she died, my grandma understood the mistake she had made and managed to forgive her and to forgive herself. For all her stupidity. Her ego. Her pride.
This was also the reason why she dedicated so much time to telling me about my mother, my father and their love. She had admitted her mistake many times to me. I respected her for this valor. I had grown up with this temperament – the valor to admit one’s mistakes and to try to amend them. I had lived my entire life believing in this. And I was surprised to find out that now things were upside down and I was hiding and running away from the truth and was afraid to say openly what I wanted and did not want in life. I was doing everything possible to evade these questions. I was doing everything possible to bury my feelings deep down.
For a moment snatched from eternity, I had found what I was looking for. I had experienced many things during my not so long a life. I had quite a number of love affairs. Many and different women. I did not commit and often jumped from one relationship to the next. And each time I saw one and the same thing: I saw that my girlfriend could not give me the one thing that my mother gave to my father. Often, I asked myself whether or not I did not idealize my parents’ love and relations. Whether or not my memories of them were not a childish fantasy complemented by the guilty conscience of my grandmother – a woman who had suffered the loss of her only child, trying to redeem her guilt in front of her grandson. But every time I started to doubt it, I took out a photo of my parents and saw the proof of their love. I saw their postures, their bodies trying to be one. I saw their eyes, emanating warmth, trust and serenity. I could sense even by looking at the photo their desire to make each other happy. They lived one life in two separate bodies. But their spirits were one.
Sometimes I had doubts and concerns that what my parents shared was something unique and impossible to achieve. But Grandma was the person who supported me unreservedly. The years passed and I came to know different types of girls. Each one had her chance only to find out that what they offered me was not what I was looking for. The thing I could receive from them was only superficial and unfulfilling. And honestly, I did not linger on much and the moment I comprehended it, I quickly took my decision to move on without wasting anyone’s time.
I might have seemed like a womanizer in people’s eyes. I seemed fickle, unsure of my desires, jumping from one woman to the next. I received many labels over the years. And the more I tried to escape from unwanted relationships, the more interesting I became for the media and for women. Evermore, while my bank account swelled with each passing year. These days, this was the main criterion for eligibility in society. At a certain point, I felt the zeal of all the women around me. To win me over. To keep me for more than a month. To go out with me more than once, as were the statistics presented in the magazines about me. There were also comments regarding my sexual orientation. So many unthinkable things. But this did not matter to me, because I knew what I wanted and I was determined to get it.
It was the time when I met Dana. Maybe I was tired of all those other women, who lost their worth in m
y eyes over the years. Those women who were infatuated by me and were willing to do anything just to have me. There was something real between us at the very beginning. Something much more meaningful than now. Because the moment I met her, I felt something new… Something completely different.
She was a few years older than me and was a creature of heavenly beauty. But this was not what captivated me. I had realized long ago that looks can be deceiving. Her eyes made me fall in love with her. They were beautiful, deep and slightly sad. She was always smiling. She had a lovely smile. She was the typical well-behaved American woman, uncertain of her feelings because she was always hiding behind that well-trained smile. Smiling when she was happy, sad, when she was enjoying herself and when she was bored. Yes, Dana was always smiling but I could see sadness in her eyes. Initially, I did not feel it but later I could see that she wanted to be saved.
We met at a charity cocktail of which she was the hostess. I immediately went into attack when I saw her. I remember how embarrassed she was and how she blushed. This was very sexy, I thought. I had never seen such a beautiful girl blush. Nowadays, beautiful women understand that they have an advantage and it is almost impossible to see them embarrassed or blushing and not accepting men’s interest as something totally natural and ordinary. Some men would even find distasteful women with that much ego and this kind of behavior. But Dana blushed and was embarrassed by my candid compliments and this evoked my interest even more.
It was not possible to communicate with her in private the evening we met. She was very busy at the charity event and I could see that she was in her element. She was smiling in all directions, paying attention to all the guests so that they felt important and cherished for their contribution to the cause. She was an expert in this. The entire evening, I could not take my eyes off her. I did not want to leave although my initial plan was to just say hello and depart. It was a real pleasure watching her. I did not make a move that evening.
The very next day I learned all about her from several different sources. She had awakened the hunter instinct in me. I wanted to learn everything and no secret could be kept from me. She gained more and more of my attention after I learned all the details about her, because in fact, she was out of reach. She was married. The moment I found out, I was heartbroken. Now, looking back from the present point of view, when I had her and when my feelings towards her were so much changed, I wondered whether I did not create this image. Perhaps, I myself was becoming a stalker, just as most of those crazy women were with me. Or was there a stronger attraction between us after all? But there was no point in going back and wondering. Now things were so different than before. There were so many factors that were the reasons for my falling out of love, but that was not so important.
I remembered how I felt then. I was like an addict. I tried to find out more and more about her. I learned that she was an orphan and that she was adopted. This fact brought us even closer. I felt as if I had found my soulmate. The image I had made was based on the media information.
Her husband was much older than her. They had been married for a number of years. She was just a child when they met. And, despite the long marriage, they did not have any children. All the facts that I learned about her gave me the convenient excuse of thinking that she was forced into this marriage and that I had the right to get to know her better.
I was one of those men who respect the institution of marriage in general, and I had never knowingly been involved with a married woman before. I had been in such relationships but very briefly and always the initiative came from the woman. I was never the one who made the first move, knowing that she was spoken for, because I did not want to be the reason for broken families. I strongly believed that there must be thousands of other reasons if a spouse decided to go astray. But usually, the third person in the love triangle took the blame, and that was irrational and unfair. People did not have the strength to face each other and express their opinions when they found themselves in a similar situation. It was much easier to blame someone else for their problems. So, there I was in a similar situation, and I had always thought that it would not come to this.
It was true, I had never been the one to make the first move with married women. But something pulled me towards Dana like a magnet and I wanted to find out what it was. I did not want to oppose my desires and simply followed my instincts. I made plans in order to meet her. She was involved in a number of charities and I immediately found a way to be included in her initiatives. We met again, I helped her with her projects. She could not refuse when I invited her to lunch to celebrate her success. This was how everything started. It started very slowly, in fact. Slower than I had anticipated. She was not that kind of woman to embark on an extramarital affair easily. She had never cheated on her husband before. This was why it took such a long time to seduce her, to ease her concerns and her fears. But, in the end, we had an affair. Naturally, in secrecy. The more she opposed me, the more I felt attracted to her.
Dana was unhappy in her marriage. In her life. She had married very young. She had said “I do” only to escape from her foster parents. Not that she did not respect them; she was thankful for everything they had done for her. But she had never felt close to them and had never truly loved them. She had hoped that the man who had asked for her hand would help her discover true love. This did not happen, of course. Her husband was affluent and showered her with gifts and possessions, but she was just a trophy wife for him. Very beautiful and appropriate for his social gatherings. But their relationship was far from true love.
They did not have children. She could not get pregnant and could not get over this idea. Knowing that she would not receive the love she wanted from her husband, she had hoped to receive the love she had yearned for all her life from the baby. How stupid and naïve! But that was Dana – a sweet, silly, naïve child. I wanted so much to protect her, to take care of her, to give her the love she deserved. But she would not let me. They had made several attempts to have a child and she had undergone all the medical check-ups and there were no grounds for concern. But she had not been able to convince her husband to see a doctor. I imagined that in fact her husband did not want children and accepted the fact that she could not conceive as something normal. And for a long time now he was no longer interested in her desires and wishes and what would make her happy.
When I met Dana, she had already given up hope of having a child of her own or of finding happiness in marriage. Even in life. She had come to terms with this. She held onto the only thing that gave her pleasure somewhat – to help socially disadvantaged children without parents and other charities she could find.
Right then I appeared in her life and turned it upside down, along with all her values. For a long time she tried to oppose my fierce attacks but, finally, she surrendered. Long before that happened I could see the desire in her eyes. I knew she enjoyed my company; she was looking forward to our meetings but, nonetheless, she remained alert. There were even times when she avoided me intentionally and built barriers between us. She tried to sever all contacts with me. She tried to escape, to hide. But she could not keep it up for long and called me up with fabricated and unjustified reasons.
This was how our love affair started behind her husband’s back. I was afraid that I would find out one day that she was just like the rest of them, unable to give me what I wanted. And then I would end it all, leaving an enormous emptiness in her life. But I preferred not to think about these matters, which were so far ahead. After all, I was responsible for my wellbeing and she had to take responsibility for her own actions.
Yes, I did have such doubts and concerns, but they did not materialize. What happened next was that for the first time in my life, a woman broke my heart.
Chapter 26
It was still snowing outside, and time seemed to have stopped. I was immersed in old memories. My life had been so messed up lately that all these memories seemed to me like a film about someone else. Yes, everythi
ng Dana and I had together was wonderful and, at the same time, terrible, and so distant.
I fell in love with her more strongly than I could imagine. I wanted to be with her every single moment. I was ready to spend the rest of my life with her. But she had a different opinion on the subject.
We started seeing each other secretly. At first this arrangement suited me perfectly – I did not want to be the reason for breaking up a family, just to find out a few months later that it would not work out between us. But the more we saw each other, the more we could not get enough of each other and wanted to spend more and more time together. I wanted to send her letters, give her presents, surprise her, and to adore her every single moment, but it was not possible. I wanted to introduce her to my friends, and to my grandmother, but I could not. I wanted to go out with her, to take her with me to all the events I had to attend, but I could not. I wanted to spend my holidays and vacations with her, but I could not. Not only that, but I had to keep up with the windows in her agenda and be available every time she had an opportunity to meet me. I had to take into account her husband’s business trips and evenings out. He was not interested in Dana at all, after so many years of marriage. But, nonetheless, we could not chat over the phone late at night, we could not see each other too often, we could not go on trips together, we could hardly do anything.
At first, I was reconciled with the situation. But when I realized I was in love, I started to ask for more. Over time, this situation began to make me irritable. I knew she was in love with me too. At times, she took significant risks. And I did not make it easy for her. On the contrary! I provoked her even more. I wanted her to prove her love to me or even worse – I thought I could make her choose me instead of her husband.
Once, when it was getting late and her husband had called her a dozen times, I realized that I wanted her to leave him, that I wanted so much more from this woman, that I wanted to have a family with her. I was convinced that I had to save her from this unhappy marriage and that I could give her the love she had been looking for all her life. I felt it was time she took this important decision to leave her husband.
I Choose You, Love Page 18