I choke on his words. I think of Orlando with its wholesome family façade.
He waits for me to speak. I have no comment.
“I was curious because I had gotten some magazines. I went to one place called the Packinghouse. It’s in an industrial park. It’s amazing. That was one of the most interesting sexual experiences I’ve had. I actually interacted with a fifty-five year old woman. She prompted the whole thing. She was there with her husband.”
“Wait a minute,” I say, “how can you be safe in a place like that?”
He sighs. I’m trying his patience. “They have rules, couples and invited singles, groups and so on. Some of the places don’t allow single men.”
“And?” I’m still not seeing safe.
“Get this picture,” he instructs as if it’s a golf swing. “I’m sitting in the open area with this couple. They invited me into the couples and invited singles room with them. The room is full of people fornicating and making love. It’s very natural, very primal. People in caves fornicated in front of each other.”
I’m dumbfounded and show it. I heard about things like this in big cities, but ... “In Orlando?” The words slip out of my mouth.
“That city is all about false fronts and backdoor activities.” He laughs as he tips back in his chair. I’m reminded of a boy imitating his father.
Greg raises the tone of his voice, excited by the memory. “Next thing I know there’s this grandmother type performing oral sex on me. A grandmother being every bit as intimate as any woman I’ve ever been involved with and it feels every bit as good.”
I can feel my eyebrows lifting uncontrollably.
“How do you define intimacy?” I ask.
He looks startled as if he had no idea he would be talking to the most naïve woman on earth. “Well ... it’s the things you do to each other.”
“Ah, yes ...” I mumble. “Of course.”
I am horrified and intrigued. It’s like watching a lobotomized rattlesnake bite its own tail.
Greg continues, mindful to speak to me gently. There are no four letter words, just references to fornication and love making.
He is so calm, so removed. I guess him to be patiently waiting for death.
I have to pee, but don’t want to break the spell he has woven.
“I was very uncomfortable with the situation,” he continues. “I was not attracted to her and I didn’t particularly like her husband.”
I think I may throw up in lieu of peeing. I’m slammed with nausea.
He’s speaking in a slow easy way. “There we are going at it when all of a sudden it hit me.”
Her husband?
“It occurred to me that I did not know what this woman had growing on her body.”
“Ugh.” About time.
“Because of the tension of the situation, I was through in about forty-five seconds. I went up and stood in the shower for about half an hour like a rape victim.”
He just said what the grandmother was doing to him felt good and in the next minute he felt like a rape victim. One word comes sliding out of my mouth before I can catch it.
“Why?”
He shrugs. “Why do I do it? Intimacy.”
This guy is definitely dying for love.
What would make a man so self-destructive?
“Have you ever felt loved just for yourself?”
“Loved...” he repeats in a zombie-like voice. “Maybe my mother. No. She left me when I was two. No. She couldn’t have loved me. Do you believe in love?”
“I do,” I answer as I wonder how much of his story is true. My instincts tell me he isn’t lying. There’s too much detail, too much pain just below the surface. Why would someone try to lay this much ugliness on someone they weren’t ever going to see again? He couldn’t have had an agenda. I avoid shaking his hand as we part. Who knows where’s it’s been? Greg should come with a bio-hazard warning stamped on his forehead. Maybe he does have one under that mop of blondish hair.
Once back at my hotel I crumble and cry. I’m finding it harder and harder to like people.
This was a dumb idea that ran away with me. The plan was to take a year to interview one thousand men. It’s been over five years and I can’t stop. There’s been too much time invested. It would all be for nothing if I quit now. There’s a lesson here. Plus, I can’t accept quitting. I’ve never given up on anything. I make wedding gowns, I leap from airplanes, I am the love investigator. And I am very tired.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
“What’s that annoying noise? Oh... you’re breathing.”
~ Barbara Silkstone, Love Investigator
It’s time for a cleansing experience, a new adventure, perhaps something more vertical? I shut down my laptop, throw an extra pair of jeans and a black turtleneck into my briefcase and take off with no destination in mind.
The next morning, shaking like a scared kitten up a tree, I step into a forty inch square of wicker basket. It creaks and drags along the ground, trying to scare me. I’m tough. I’ve been wading in raw testosterone. I hug the roll of leather with sweaty palms, the burner blasts and the giant balloon elevates slowly. I slide through the sky, courtesy of the wind and the only other occupant of the basket, Roger – the Silent.
I look out at a sky of other brilliant bubbles. Everyone is smiling, sharing a secret. It’s easy to feel god-like and moral when you’re above it all. The forced perspective is clarifying. I can see that we have no more control over balloon flight than we do a love affair, but at least when a balloon crashes, you can almost always walk away.
As we drift along, I recall reading that some guys in France once built a hot air balloon in the shape of a giant condom. In someone’s mind that made sense.
I get that low growl thing going on in my chest. I can’t do this anymore. I’ve over-dosed on men. “You can and you must,” I mutter.
“Are you okay?” Roger asks.
“Just having a personal argument.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
“So Many Men ... So Little Time.”
~ Barbara Silkstone, Love Investigator
I journey back to Los Angeles. My list of men wanting to be interviewed has grown while my enthusiasm for the project is now the size of a wart on a bee’s butt.
“Babe, you sounded bad on the phone, but you’re looking worse,” Sal says by way of a greeting.
I haven’t felt like tinkering with my Clairol natural red-blonde hair, I could use a facial, my eyes are vampire red, and worst of all my feet hurt from these boots. I want to be innocent and trusting once more. I’m tired of investigating. I ache to ditch the jeans and wear sissy dresses again.
We sit in the bricked courtyard of a pleasant little restaurant that doesn’t seem to have a name. The menu is a chalk board neatly lettered ‘Meal Deals’.
“Pork fried rice or pizza?” he asks.
“Err. I think I’ll have apple pie and coffee. That’s a safe bet.”
Sal flags a waitress. She leaves a small silver pot on our table and runs away with our order.
I start in on him as if he’s the cause of my misery. “How can all those men take love so casually?”
“Ready to concede?” He asks.
“No. I know real love exists. It’s just harder to find than I thought.”
“For instance?” He clicks his lighter and disappears behind a cloud of smoke.
“Well, the guys seem to be scared of love and want it at the same time. It’s like little boys throwing rocks at a little girl because they like her.”
Sal laughs. “What’s wrong with that?”
I say the words that have been noodling through my head for weeks. “It seems the purest loves are our first loves. Naked and uncomplicated – the love that happens before we’ve been hurt. What I’m discovering is that once guys have possessions, once a career owns them, once they’ve known a broken heart, fear takes control. They weigh the risk of the loss of their possessions against any love they might feel. Th
ey’re terrified of being hurt again. The whole process becomes tainted.”
Sal is silent. He carries two days’ beard, and his dark eyes are bleary. His black tee shirt promotes some edgy rock group with an off-the-wall name I don’t recognize.
I rub my eyes, tired from the long flight. “Guys bring out the scales and take measure where there should be no measure. What does she own? What does she do for a living? How much can I leverage in this relationship? What does she want from me? Is she going to break my heart?”
“Women do the same thing,” he says.
“I’m too tired to debate.”
Sal gives me the key to his apartment and we part. He’s doing a grocery run. I’m crashing. During my last visit we carbon dated his pantry and determined there was nothing safe to eat.
Exactly one hour later, he pops in the door. I’ve showered and rehydrated. I’m padding around in the bottom half of my Daffy Duck pajamas and a blue sweat shirt.
“Cute.” He laughs.
“It’s a reflection of who I am right now,” I fling my arms and do a weak little spin.
“Cheer up. I’ve got a happy marriage poster-child for you,” he announces as he drops the food bags on the kitchen counter.
We quickly stash the groceries, and settle in for coffee and more second hand smoke.
“Who’s the happily married guy?”
“Chris my lawyer.”
“A Hollywood lawyer? How long has he been married?”
“Like forever. Well ... eleven years.”
I can tell Sal expected a more enthusiastic response from me. He fiddles with his mug, hesitant to speak. “Why don’t ‘cha quit?”
“Like hell,. I’m not letting go now.”
Sal studies his hands, finger tip to finger tip. I feel something peculiar hanging in the air between us. I wait to see what surfaces.
“How come we never got together?” He asks.
“You and I... in a relationship?”
“Is it that hard to conceive? It was just a question.”
“I know you too well.” It’s all I can think to say. It isn’t enough. “Lovers I can always get.” I touch his arm. “Good friends are ... good friends.”
He studies his coffee and then turns to me. “I think when you’re born you’re issued this magnetic strip like on a credit card. It depends of course on the time and place you were born as to how you ‘scan’ with others.”
I laugh. It’s a forced sound. I find nothing funny anymore.
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
“The key to marriage is to remember that you’re entitled to your equal or better.”
~ Chris, 56, married
Case 484 / Chris
“How’s the interviewing going?” Lawyer Chris smiles and beckons me to a chair. His office is plushy in a leather-bound way. His law books are an irritating sight – all those rules on how to treat other people. Does anyone really believe in them? It’s so bogus.
I settle down, ferreting out my equipment.
“I’m almost at the halfway mark – five hundred men.”
“That’s a lot of emotions to handle. I imagine it’s getting rough.” His concern appears genuine. Chris has orange hair and freckles. He wears the red suspenders that I suspect are issued to all law school grads.
“I’m cool with it.”
He laughs. “Cool huh? By the time you finish all your interviews, your internal body temperature will be fifty-one degrees.”
I study him, assessing all the things I’ve heard he is – a good husband, a terrific father, a successful attorney and a man with a few bittersweet longings.
“Ready?” I ask.
He nods. I click on the recorder.
“Chris, explain to me how you came to create a happy marriage. Give me something profound for me and my readers.”
“I guess the key to marriage is to remember that you’re entitled to your equal or better. If you settle for somebody a little less than you, you take some of the threat out of the relationship, but what do you really have?”
“What about love?” I ask.
“There are OTHER emotions. People are either givers or takers, they don’t straddle the fence.” He looks at me to see if I get it.
“I don’t mean that in a financial way. A psychologist told me have to realize it’s okay to be taken care of.”
“So you’re saying that sometimes you have to relax and learn to take?”
He nods.
It’s an alien concept for me. I shake it off. “Chris, let’s play pretend.”
He raises his eyebrows.
“I know you’ve been married for eleven years, but pretend you’ve been married for thirty years. What does it feel like physically and emotionally ... you know ... the other emotions, besides love?”
He sits back, placing his hands behind his head.
“It would have to be extremely comfortable for me. I’ve been around people, who are married for thirty years, and who are vicious with one another.”
He grins. It is a devilish grin. “After you’re married for a while people develop new, more intimate ways to fight.”
I feel a chill. I see hurt in the eyes of this man who was touted as being happy. Oh Pooh. Perhaps no married person is really happy.
Chris considers a moment. “Marriages don’t last anymore because people are more and more self-indulgent. It’s the same thing that’s happening across society – lack of personal accountability.” He spins in his over-sized lawyer chair and gazes out the window at the almost empty parking lot.
“I see a lot of men and a lot of women, not excluding me, taking a lot of things for granted and not treating the other person with the dignity they should be treated with. I think it’s a tough relationship. It’s hard.”
Chris looks at the photos on his credenza. He slides his finger over the picture of his twin sons, all freckles and sunbeams. “The close proximity of marriage makes it tough. And kids ... kids can wreck a marriage if you let it happen.”
He touches the photo of his wife, a pretty blond lady with huge blue eyes. “Can’t let the kids see you get upset. Wrong. They have to know what relationships are all about.”
“Tell me about a friend’s lasting marriage and the woman in it.” I figure this could be an interesting angle.
“She’s very strong-willed without inflicting it on anybody. She lives her life intellectually, spiritually and emotionally strong, but very loving.”
“Would that be your ideal, if you weren’t already happily married?”
“I would be very attracted to her. It was very important to me to marry someone who didn’t depend on me.”
“Really?” So independence trumps love?
He nods. “Some years before I was married, I overheard a woman say, ‘I got mine’ – meaning her husband. She’s got her prince of a husband. It was just so evil, the way she said it.”
He shudders. “I thought, ‘Boy is that cold.’ She could have had whatever she wanted because she’s very talented in her own right but that’s the way she defined herself, I got mine.”
When I ask him if he would die for his wife, he avoids eye contact.
“I have a lot of clients relying on me,” he says by way of an answer.
As I totter from his office disillusioned one more time, Chris says, “I’ve told you things I’ve never told anyone not even my wife.”
“They all say that.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
“I don’t want to be a stepping stone for some gorgeous broad.”
~ Len, 49, married
Case / The Anti-Trophy Wife
I begin to notice a peculiar pattern as I travel the country giving men the gift of listening. Fifty-percent of the financially well-off married guys chose to wed women who were the antithesis of trophy wives. These guys appeared to run in the opposite direction of their contemporaries. These were men who had the trappings of wealth if not the bucks. And yet half the time, they chose anti-trophy wives as a way
of positioning themselves outside the pack. It was an unconscious effort not to compete because their work lives were all about competition. They didn’t want to have to worry about their mates. Like Pete they destroyed the understanding of commitment by applying fear to their decisions as to whom they chose to marry.
I contact Len after reading about him in a national publication. He was billed as a mogul. Was that like a troll? We meet in his office after I pass through his security which amounts to a one-eyed armed guard who is a former government agent. I’m thinking Post Office. It made me nervous to know this guard was packing a gun while visually impaired. The situations I get myself into.
About six feet four and slightly portly, Len has dark hair and angry eyes. He could easily pass for an actor in The Godfather. He’s wearing a three-piece suit despite the south Texas heat. Len travels from his limo to his office never stepping outside. We sit on either end of a cushy leather sofa. I’m recording and he’s pouring out his tale. “My marriage was my only failure. She was a really good looking woman. We had two kids. I wasn’t getting anything out of the relationship and then I found out she was cheating with my ex partner. I divorced her so fast she never knew what hit her. The courtroom drama wasn’t pretty, but I know my way around the legal system. My assets disappeared overnight. Amazing how that happened. Right after the divorce she took up with a kid who gave sailing lessons. She could have anyone, but she chose this young dude. I hated to see the alimony being spent on him. So I bought him.”
“What does that mean?”
“I financed his little boat business. Now he keeps me up to speed on my ex’s plans and I keep him funded. Someday I’ll pull the money-carpet out from under him and he’ll dump her. I like to keep my hand in the game.”
“I understand you just got married again.” I did a little checking before our interview and was told the woman he married is all rump and grump. She has the disposition of a cornered rattlesnake.
Now as I carefully peel away the outside layer of his brain, his gray matter spills out.
The Adventures of a Love Investigator, 527 Naked Men & One Woman Page 11