Pretty soon two years had passed, and then the pain was less, and in four years it was just a place to kick myself.
Now, Michael called. All I can remember are his broad shoulders, chiseled profile, nut brown hair, and other bodily things. I tell myself – in the interest of my love investigation – I must see him. Michael is nine years younger than me. I study my image in the mirror, up and down and sideways. Have the years been good to me? Yeah. I’m okay.
Very soon, he’s at my side. We hold each other and cry softly. I realize he is at once a stranger and a part of me. It’s good to feel him again. It’s like coming home after a long journey.
I notice the time-changes in Michael. When we parted he had looked like a young Kurt Russell, now he resembles Orson Wells. He pads around my house wearing baggy golf shorts over his pregnant-like belly. His hair is gone except for two tuffs that sit like goat horns on his noggin. I cried over this? I simultaneously curse and congratulate myself.
But old habits and old passions bubble to the surface. Michael and I spend two days together in wordless sex. What once fit so comfortably is now all angles and edges. He smells of mushrooms, a musty smell. Too late, I remember our relationship had been about the physical and nothing more.
Why did I not recall that he was a selfish lover? I remember the delight, but not the direction in which it flowed. We are here today ... to make Michael happy. Damn, I still have a lot to learn – mostly about myself.
On the third day I try to tell Michael about my odyssey. I’m entranced with guy-communication and demand it from him. Hundreds of strange men have allowed me to slip into their heads, I tell him. Open up Michael, I plead.
He stares blankly at me as if I were disconnected cable television. I am white-sound.
“You will have to do more than grunt your feelings to me,” I say.
Michael is flummoxed. His bartender-quick wit is untrained in deep conversation. There is nothing he can share. He has no words for his feelings.
Another day slips by and I catch myself reading meaning into every little thing he does. I assume that the touch of his hand in mine means he loves me, his blank look a demonstration of his awe of me.
I try again, “You hurt me when you don’t talk. That’s what broke us up before.”
Michael looks at me, “No. I cheated on you.”
I have been corrected. “Thank you,” I tell him.
He hides behind concurrent six-packs until the fourth day is over.
We both know there is nothing here to work with. I am beginning to acknowledge the woman I used to be. Michael came to me at a time when I was hungry for light-hearted romance and bedroom Olympics. I set the stage and Michael happily bounced upon it.
This time when Michael and I say goodbye, we mean it. I can’t feel good right now. It interferes with my pain. My exploration of love continues. I hope I haven’t ruined myself for Mark. Now more than ever I feel that he’s on his way to me. I may have to head out to meet him halfway, however. I decide to hire a professional to find my first love and perhaps only real love.
CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
“When will I stop learning lessons?”
~ Dana, 34, separated
Dana
The following morning my cell rang as I was sorting through boxes of mini tapes pulling out the total duds. It was my friend, Dana. “Are you in town? Can I please come see you? I’m falling apart.” I plunked the tapes back into boxes and pulled out a chilled bottle of white wine. Somewhere in the world it was wine time and Dana sounded as if she needed it.
At thirty-four Dana is a very pretty lady. She reminds me of the actress Diane Lane with a beautiful figure and a lovely face. Her husband Bill is a big time contractor whose specialty is luxury beachfront condos. I took her under my wing when Bill dumped her with no advance notice. A younger woman had caught his eye. It was a childless marriage and he felt free to walk.
At his request Dana moved out of their house and into one of Bill’s furnished condos on the beach. It was an amazing place with panoramic views of the ocean, expensive furniture, and full security. A temporary fix, it was a way of placating Dana until the legal dance was over.
When I opened my door, she stood there a sobbing mess. I led her to the sofa and slid a box of tissues her way. This beautiful lady crumpled into a heap of tears and snot. I waited.
“I want Bill back. I’m so scared to be alone. I’ve been such a fool.”
Comforting words came out my mouth but I didn’t mean them. Aside from his extravagant lifestyle, Bill was no prize. He looked and acted like a bad version of Henry VIII. The guy was a pig of a man. But he was hers and she had lost him. So I listened and tried to be sympathetic. After chugging a glass of wine, Dana shared her most recent pain. “Remember my friends Joe and Jenn? They left for a safari thing last month. Jenn said they’d be out of communication for at least six weeks.”
I wait while she blots her eyes and blows her nose. Another glass of wine will do it.
She continues as she fights to take full breaths, “Right after they left for Africa, I got a call from a woman who said she was a friend of Jenn’s. Her name was Elise. She said Jenn suggested we communicate as Elise was going through a divorce also. We were at the same stages in our court cases. Maybe we could share our experiences and give each other moral support.”
Time to refill our glasses. I can’t imagine where this is going. I only know Dana looks like a little girl who’s been deeply hurt. She needs what I can give – a good listen.
“Elise came over a few times and we had bunches of conversations on the phone. Each time I told her what my lawyer was planning to use against Bill thinking it might help her. She shared a few things her lawyer was doing in her divorce ... I’m too embarrassed to tell you.”
I reach out and pat her soggy hand. “You can tell me anything. I make no judgments.”
“This morning Bill called. He wanted to come over and hand-deliver some papers from his lawyer. He sat in the living room. I went into the bedroom and came out nude. No clothes on at all. I sat in his lap and tried to kiss him. He stood up and shoved me away. I fell on the floor. He told me the papers were on the kitchen counter and then walked out.”
I cringe for her in her pain and humiliation at being rejected as she stood before her husband literally naked.
“I called Elise to cry on her shoulder. As she answered the phone I heard Bill laughing in the background.” She looks at me with shell-shocked eyes. “I was such a jerk. My lawyer kept wondering how Bill’s lawyer knew what we were doing before we did it. Elise is not Jenn’s friend, she’s Bill’s girlfriend. They knew I couldn’t reach Jenn to check on Elise. They counted on me sharing my thoughts, my plans, and heartache. And they laughed at me.”
What do you say to a friend who’s been gutted like a fish?
I sit next to her and hug her, stroking her head. “Karma...” I whisper – hoping it exists.
What organ in the human body holds our honor and why do some men have an abundance while others a great deficit? Right before I filed for divorce from Sleazy Steve, twin tragedies were occurring in the lives of two of my good friends. Josh, a good buddy, was losing his fiancé to colon cancer. During her long year of suffering, he was there for her. It was hell, but he marched through it, coming out on the other side as the executor of her will and guardian of her daughter.
As Tammie lay dying in Atlanta, my friend Donna was losing her battle with breast cancer in Miami. She was given three months to live, but she fought the good fight and lasted for seven. Her female friends would take daily shifts sitting with her as the life left her thirty-seven year old body. Her medical insurance had been cancelled and hospice stepped into place.
Jim had been Donna’s fiancé for seven years. As Donna slipped into her final weeks, Jim was inexplicably called to Texas to visit his daughter. He never returned. As I sat at her bedside one afternoon, Donna handed me her bank statement. Her lips were parched and her hand trembled. She w
as too weary to shed a single tear. She had given Jim signature rights on her account when she was first diagnosed as terminal – so he could handle her business. The account was empty. He’d wiped her out. “Never trust a man with your money,” she whispered.
That night I repeat Donna’s story to Sleazy Steve. I blot my tears with a paper napkin. “How could anybody do that?” It’s a rhetorical question.
He fixes his dark rodent eyes on me. “She’s dying. She doesn’t need the money.”
One more clue that our marriage was doomed.
CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE
“We are like sculptors, constantly carving out of others the image we long for, need, love or desire, often against reality, against their benefit, and always, in the end, a disappointment, because it does not fit them.”
~ Anais Nin (1903 -1977)
US (French-born) author & diarist
Seeking the pause button for the ache in my psyche, I cuddle up with a clutter of “nice guy” tapes. Maybe the answer to true love is in here and I just missed it during the interviews. Auditory history ... I hear each voice and immediately remember the guy.
Herbal tea calms my nerves as I re-live the interviews, safe and alone on my sofa. Some of the quotes are fluff, but I scribble them down anyway, they make me feel better. The sun sets, turning my patio into a blend of sherbet colors, orange, pinks and soft yellows. I sip my drink and pop in another tape.
The phone rings. I dive and catch it on the second jingle. “Hey.” I can smell the smoke in Sal’s voice.
“How’d it go with Michael?”
I hadn’t put my emotions into solid thoughts yet. “Err ...” is all I can manage.
“Don’t back down from your feelings,” Sal cautions. “This is part of your research. Tell me. Use your words.”
I laugh at his parent-like prodding. “It was awful. We jumped back into our old routine. I realized that there was never any us. There was just great sex, which may not have been that great after all.”
I lean over and put in a blank tape to record myself. Why not?
“So it was always just a sex thing?”
“I didn’t exactly remember it that way. I guess I couldn’t tell the difference at the time. I was panting too hard.”
Dead air.
I speak first, “You and I have never been physically intimate and yet you’ve always been more intimate with me than almost anyone I know. I like that.” I lean against my refrigerator.
“But that’s not normal.” His words break into my funk. “I would never be this intimate with a woman I dated ... if I dated, which I don’t.”
I laugh. “If you came out of that ashtray of an apartment once in awhile maybe you would meet someone.”
“Right.”
“I still don’t understand what makes Michael tick. And that’s a big turn-off.”
I shift my weight, leaning harder against the refrigerator. The bulky metal box is a comfort with its gentle vibrating. I am guilty of Appliance Affection.
Sal clears his throat. “You’ve got to remember, you’ve been running on forensic overload. You have more guy-info in you than most women get in a life time.”
“I know ...”
“Life really isn’t that intimate. It should be. But it’s not,” he says.
“Michael is just a beer-blob,” I grumble.
“Did you try to draw him out?”
“Yep. But all he wanted to do was watch reality TV. He actually enjoyed watching cars being repossessed.”
Sal snort-chuckles. “Babe, that guy was never for you.”
“I guess. I just remembered it so differently.”
“So what’s on the agenda for tonight?”
“I’m cuddled up listening to some of what I hope will be nice-guy tapes.”
“You have such a sweet way of phrasing things. Are there a lot of them?”
“Compared to what?”
“Well, letcha go. When you coming back out here?”
“End of the month.”
“That’s good. I’ll see if I can set up some more interviews for you.”
I pop in more tapes and listen to what sounds like the entire male audience of the super bowl: hunks and alkies, Rotarians and punks, alimony-ers, rappers, preppies, spazzes, gun-rack bubbas, family-value Bobs, jocks, and adolescents. Men who are emotionally accessible and men who have no emotional doors at all. I’m in a virtual sweat lodge of wheezing, vulnerable men with secrets. The best a man can say for himself is that he’s harmless.
Two hours of listening and I’m considering enrolling in a convent, one with a vow of silence.
CHAPTER FORTY-SIX
“I like to think that at thirty-four I have finally learned my lesson.”
~ Jake, 34, single
Case 495 / Jake
A short road trip into the world of literary agents. Jake’s offices are on Brickell Avenue, a swank area of Miami. It’s after hours and the doorman buzzes me into an art deco lobby, a world of pastels and glass. Jake’s office is two floors below the penthouse. I expect he does well for himself.
Jake contacted me on the recommendation of one of his close friends. After a short game of phone tag, we had our appointment. This cheerful, slightly chubby agent is the last interview of the day and I find myself drifting. The soft lighting and the easy clutter of his office are sedating.
We begin our talk of men and women and how and why.
“I’ve slept with my share.” Jake smiles. His work office is a quiet disaster of a room. We sit facing each other on a soft leather couch. Jake, like the hundreds of men before him, quickly warms to the interview process. He pours his soul out to me as he munches on cashews and drinks Diet Coke.
“I’ve been lucky enough to be in three relationships where the physical went into that magic area, where just the touching of skin, fingers, and arms is electrifying.” He holds the drink in his mouth, cheeks puffing out chipmunk-like, then swallows.
“When you connect, when you know you are important to that woman, it makes you feel stronger than you are, sexier than you are, wittier than you are, you feel more competent than you are, you feel charismatic, you feel warm and you have a wet nose. You feel complete.” He takes another swig of his drink. “It’s rare.”
I sense my energy coming back as I laugh at his clever lines.
Jake continues, “There was a woman once who made me feel that way, she was my first love.” He smiles and his eyes grow distant. “I saw her again, many years later. There was a bittersweet moment when her son came toddling onto the porch. For a moment I looked at him and thought, you could have been mine.”
I feel sad for him.
“She and I remain friends, but it could have gone in a different direction. I regret that loss.”
We sit quietly in a shared haze of might-have-beens.
Jake is the first to break our silence. “Now I’m involved in a very special sexual relationship.” He finishes the last of the nuts and follows it with the rest of the soda.
I wait, having learned the magic of keeping quiet.
“There’s something almost spiritual about waking up next to the same person, about knowing another person’s body as intimately as you know your own.”
A little moan escapes my lips. I grab my water bottle and take a swig to cover the sound.
Jake continues, “Boring ... maybe sometimes, but that’s where if you have a grain of imagination, you use it. Sexual satisfaction and imagination stem from the same organ, the brain. They were meant to be used together.”
“I think you’ve got it right.”
Jake blushes. “I do, don’t I?” He stretches his arms over his head, light reflecting off his trendy eye-wear.
“Sure, there’s a high to one night stands – the ‘look at me, I’m such a wild guy routine’. But after a few of those if you’re really into sex, you’re going to want to explore it on all levels with someone who will share the adventure with you. I cut the exploration short with a few wo
men in my life out of fear. This time I plan on going the whole way. It feels a hell of a lot better.”
He walks around his desk and sits next to me on the sofa, trying to draw me in to his words. “I get so fired up, knowing what will and won’t excite her,” he says. “It’s great not to have to tell my partner what turns me on. When someone gets to know the rhythm of your body intimately, then they can play you ... like a violin. Violin music is a lot better than just being plucked.”
I laugh-spit my water. It comes out my nose. Classy.
“It’ll be easy for a woman to keep me monogamous. She just has to love and enjoy me as much as I love and enjoy her. As long as she shows me that I’m what she wants and that she doesn’t want anyone else, I’ll always be there for her. If someone is truly into me, she won’t have to tell me. It’s just something I’ll know. If she isn’t, then don’t waste my time in bed.”
Jake has thinning hair and a chunky body, but he’s a sexy man. I hope some nice lady discovers him. How’s does someone deserve his kind of love? I realize Mark wasn’t truly there for me. He put his mother’s tears first.
The office grows dark, lit only by the glow from Jake’s computer screen. He speaks softly, “It’s up to the man, too, not just the woman. You have to know this is what you want, more than anything else, and you’ll lose it if you don’t honor it.”
I fold up my equipment and step into the Miami night. A cool breeze plays with my hair and pulls at my notebook. There is a growing hunger in me. It’s hot and it wants. What do I do? Whatever it is – knowing me – it will be done on impulse.
CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN
“Love is an infatuation that you decide to turn into a lifestyle. Marriage cures that infatuation.”
~ Rob, 45, divorced
Case 497 / Rob
Rob is a forty-five year old architect who calls Chicago home. He bears the look of the love-hungry, his sunken blue eyes search for any positive response from me.
We sit in Adirondack chairs on a deck at the back of his girlfriend’s house, a rambling ranch on the edge of a nature preserve. Rob met Ginger and entered into an affair with her while he was married to Cynthia. He phoned me four times to confirm his interview. I assume he’s eager to prove his divorce wounds have healed.
The Adventures of a Love Investigator, 527 Naked Men & One Woman Page 13