I couldn’t help but wonder if this reluctance to let go of a relationship when it became detrimental rather than nourishing was because of our perception of death. Whether it’s the death of relationship or the death of anything else, I always perceived it as an awful thing I had to resist, fight, or oppress. But death is intrinsic to life. Maybe I’d clung to the idea of marriage not just out of love, but out of fear. By vowing to stay together “till death do us part,” I believe I felt a little less vulnerable in the face of the unknowable future. Safety in numbers, comfort in my husband and our children.
But my feelings evolved. I now understood that death was a period of transformation, not annihilation. That within the ashes of death lay the seeds of new growth, new learning, new opportunities for the self. I no longer could reduce it to black and white—that life was “good” and death was “bad.”
And I needed to apply this insight now.
So I asked myself again: What do I really want? Not what my fear said I should want, or what society said I should want, but what this soul named Delaine wanted. On one side of the teeter-totter sat a single mother of three, facing an unknown future all alone. She was terrified! Across from her sat an emotionally exhausted mom/wife fighting to save a dying marriage riddled with wounds.
I tried to imagine what it would be like to sit across from Robert again as his wife. And all I saw was a man heavily chained, a prisoner of his upbringing, his closed-down emotions, his take on what it meant to be a man. I saw myself looking at him, trying to break down his walls, knowing that within that steely shell lay an abundant, feeling, beautiful soul. I knew that it was there: I’d caught glimmers of it in his eyes, and sometimes it spread to his voice and his actions and we connected in a higher way.
But inevitably, without cause or word of warning, his walls would seal back up. He was gone. Once again, I found myself powerless—my hopes, needs, dreams were sucked into that chasm, too. I wanted to grab him by the shoulders and scream: Open up your soul for God’s sake! Can’t you see that’s the most beautiful part of who you are! But I didn’t. Instead, I turned my pain and frustration within . . . and then I’d turned to Graham. How could I back step so far and find happiness? I couldn’t. I would simply blend again in his presence.
My mind overloaded, I exhaled away my thoughts and brought my awareness inside my body. There was just one more question to ask, the one I ultimately returned to navigate my course of action: Could I ever enjoy sex again with Robert?
The answer was fast and visceral: my stomach clenched, my body tensed, and my inner thighs moved to close. The answer was an indisputable “No.”
And so I threw my hands up in surrender. My head and heart just couldn’t figure things out. I had to trust that my body knew things that the rest of me still didn’t.
CHAPTER 18
THEY JUST WEREN’T THAT INTO US
I FINALLY MADE A DECISION about what I really wanted in a relationship right now: a “friend with benefits.” I knew I wasn’t ready for the demands of a fully committed love relationship—I was still getting over old pains, after all—but I did want ongoing sex with one open-minded, decent man. Yes, one.
Football Coach Chad was someone I could have seen in this role: we laughed a lot, we grew up in the same era, and, topping it off like hot chocolate sauce, he was a deliciously fine lover.
The problem was, he hadn’t called. In over five weeks. This time I wasn’t making any excuses for him. Even if he called me tomorrow, there was no way I’d see him again. I didn’t want an arrangement that happened but once a month and on someone else’s terms.
My only consolation was knowing that Hali was as confused about the concept as I was. A couple of weekends ago, she’d met a prime candidate for the position: Payton, the wavy-haired computer techie I’d left squirming in the parking lot. Yup, I’d played matchmaker again.
When Hali had first spoken with Payton by phone, she’d been in one of those moods: ravenous for sex and too impatient to pretend otherwise. “No, I don’t want to go out to a movie,” she’d said, when he suggested one. “No, I don’t want you to rent a movie either. I want you to come to my house tonight so we can see what our chemistry is like. I only have one thing on my mind.” Payton had been startled by her directness but had eagerly played along.
But boundaries got skewed when their initial night of partying between the sheets turned into a weekend-long bacchanal of sex, friendship, and romance. They spent every waking and sleeping minute together, shopping, cooking, and even running errands.
But ten days had now passed, and he hadn’t phoned or tried to see her again. He had avoided her online and only sometimes responded to her text messages.
“I just don’t get it,” Hali said angrily. We were commiserating over the phone while I watched my kids through the window as they played on my front lawn. I sipped my cup of tea as she spoke. “I know I was bold with him the first night. But we spent the whole weekend together—he saw other sides of me, the real me, and he really liked me! I even apologized for being so direct with him that first night and explained that I don’t normally act that way. He’d said it turned him on to have a woman assert herself like that.”
Together, Hali and I wracked our brains trying to figure out our situations: hers with Computer-Techie Payton, mine with Football Coach Chad. We dug deeper: What weren’t we understanding? We wondered aloud if the old-school rules still strongly applied when it came to dating and sex. Should we wait for a man to call us after our first liaison, even if all we wanted was sex and a little company? Maybe this friends with benefits concept was a myth or, at best, a rarity? We were discouraged, to say the least.
“Maybe guys just can’t handle it when they know a woman primarily wants sex from them,” Hali offered. “I think they like the idea superficially, but it ends up challenging their masculinity, you know?”
“Yeah,” I agreed. “But I also wonder if you and I intimidate men, Hali. I mean, we’re not only attractive, intelligent, and classy—excuse me, but we are—” I added, chuckling, “we’re also confident enough to express our needs and call the shots sexually. I’m not sure guys know what to do with us or make of us. Maybe they’d be more comfortable if we were as naïve and needy as we were when we were younger.”
“Maybe,” said Hali. “That, or they think we’re slutty or desperate. It would be easier for them to fall back on judging us instead of facing their own glaring insecurities.”
I sighed. “You know, I really thought the rules had changed and women were so much more empowered these days,” I said. “But I think the old double standard is still in effect.”
“Totally,” Hali agreed.
I paused for a moment. “Maybe deep down men simply need to be the ‘hunters,’” I continued. “And when they become the hunted, their manhood is rattled. All I know for sure is that at my age, I think I should be entitled to express my sexual wants. And instead, I’m sitting here feeling like a teenager, wondering, ‘What is he thinking? Why hasn’t he called?’ It makes me think there’s something wrong with me and I really resent that.”
“It’s rejection, right?” she said. “And rejection sucks no matter what. But we can’t take it out on ourselves. I chose to be daring with Payton because that’s what I wanted, and it felt right at the time. Maybe another man would have reacted differently. Whatever.” Hali paused. “The bottom line is that we don’t know where these guys are coming from, so we shouldn’t take it personally.” She was right.
Suddenly my call waiting bleeped. I looked at the number, “Hali, Tory’s on the other line. She’s trying to book tickets for a show in Vegas next week so I better go.”
“Man, I sure wish I was going with you all,” Hali said longingly. Then: “Pfft—at least in Vegas you’ll know exactly what the rules are: There are none!”
I smiled as I clicked through to Tory. I was counting on it.
THE NEXT DAY Hali phoned me again, this time much more upbeat. “I picked up a book a
t Chapters last night called He’s Just Not That into You. It gives all sorts of clues into the male psyche. Listen to this:
“Wake-up call Number 41: ‘Men don’t forget how much they like you. So put down the phone.’”
Hali laughed. I heard her flipping pages through the book. She continued: “Number 59: ‘If he’s not calling you, it’s because you are not on his mind.’”
Hmmmm, I thought to myself. It makes sense. But is it really that simple?
As if hearing my question, Hali then read: “‘Number 10: Men are not complicated, although we’d like you to think we are.’ That’s true, eh? They really are simple creatures. We’re way deeper and more complex than them. Smarter, too,” she laughed.
“Hold on, here’s another one: ‘If the guy you’re dating doesn’t seem to be completely into you, or you feel the need to start ‘figuring him out,’ please consider the glorious thought that he might just not be that into you. And then free yourself to go find someone that is.”
I listened attentively. Though amusing, these points were very poignant.
“Oh, and I love this one, Delaine. ‘Number 116: Cheaters are people who have a lot of stuff to work out, and they’re working it out on your time and with your heart.’ Man, that’s so true, isn’t it?”
“Absolutely,” I replied wryly, thinking of both Graham and Robert. Suddenly, I looked at the time: “Hali, I have to bring the kids to swimming lessons. I’ll call you back tonight.”
A half-hour later, I sat among parents in the swimming pool bleachers, thinking about the insights from Hali’s book. Essentially, they clearly spelled out what I already knew: When a man is interested in you, not even a herd of elephants will stop him from pursuing you. I know this is true because I’m the same way when I’m into someone. Time to stop making excuses for any man; and call it for what it is, I thought. “That he’s just not into me.”
When I looked back on my history with men, including before marriage, one thing was blatantly clear: I’d wasted a hell of a lot of time and energy trying to figure men out: What were they thinking? How could I help them, understand them, fix them? It had been my personal quest to make them healthy, whole, and happy. Heck, when I was married, I’d made Robert’s happiness my responsibility. Somewhere along the way, I’d decided that my wife job included not only being his best friend, but also his twenty-four-hour therapist, his spiritual counselor, and of course, his perpetually available pussy. Soul, mind, body—whatever his needs were—even the ones he wasn’t aware of, my job was to be the supreme caretaker.
And all the while, my fingers were anxiously crossed behind my back, hoping, wishing, begging for him to see what a wonderful woman I was. I was a disaster waiting to happen; a doormat being weaved. Because as soon as Robert—or any other man I dated—brushed me off or disrespected me, guess what I did? I immediately blamed myself, of course, as if somehow I was the one lacking something: compassion, intuition, guts, desirability, sexiness, spiritual insight . . . I took it personally, straight to the heart, as if I was at fault for not measuring up. Never did it cross my mind that maybe we just didn’t fit, that the problem was theirs alone, that I was amazing as I was, or that maybe, just maybe, I damn well deserved better.
But I was finally realizing that now. I also realized that now was the perfect time for me to stop being such a shape shifter and be more solid in who I was. Any man who dated me was one heck of a lucky guy, and if he couldn’t be bothered to woo me, respect me, and for God’s sake, call me when he said he would, then he could take the express route to Jerk-Off Land. I’d settled for less for way too long. That road would end here.
CHAPTER 19
ADVENTURES IN WONDERLAND
APPARENTLY, SHANE ENROLLED ANOTHER “student’” in his online alpha-training classroom: a twenty-seven year old master’s student at UCLA named Lynn. According to Shane, not only was she a “much better listener” than me, her success outside the classroom had earned her major gold stars: Not only did she have one guy scrubbing her toilet and doing her laundry, she’d manipulated some rich trust-fund boy into paying her to be his “faux-girlfriend” at public events.
I admit I was somewhat fascinated with my classmate’s arrangements—in a wow, I can’t-believe-people-actually-did-that kind of way. But they simply didn’t jive with me: my morals, my principles, or my stay-at-home mom lifestyle. My home—my kids’ home—would never be that kind of playground. Thus, I sent him an email to put my foot down and close the conversation:Listen, I’m NOT going to continue arguing with you about whether it’s right or wrong to “devour” dik-dik men. The bottom line is that that’s not how I see submissive men. To me, they’re more like yipitty lapdogs that I’d prefer to have go away. I don’t need anyone to wash my car or hang around begging for ways to service me. So let’s simply agree to disagree.
I’ve decided I’m going to try and find a “friends with benefits” relationship to satisfy my sexual appetite. At the same time, I’m keeping my eyes open for a dominant alpha male—a man more my equal who could hold my interest. (I know of one in New York, but he won’t even send me a photo.) Who knows . . . maybe I could even dominate HIM.
The countdown to my Vegas trip is on! Me and the girls are leaving in three days. It’ll be my first time there. Wonder if I’ll get up to any mischief...
His reply arrived just before I signed off for bed.
Delaine:
I will expect a full slut report when you get back from Vegas.
Once you’re home we can discuss your coming here, assuming you are still wet . . .
Underneath Shane’s email was a photo of him, from the waist up. Hmmm. I sat back in my chair and stared at his picture: “Finally,” I said aloud. “Hello there, Shane.”
He certainly didn’t look like anyone I’d pick out in a bar. He’d lost most of his grayish-brown hair (Dr. Phil-style), he had a trimmed moustache, and he even had a belly. But somehow that neither surprised nor bothered me.
I leaned forward in my chair and stared into the dark eyes looking out from the screen. “Who are you?” I whispered aloud. I examined his eyes closely, looking for clues, insights into the man behind them. I closed my eyes for a moment, imagining his hefty, six-foot-three frame towering over me. I felt him grab me by the back of my hair and how I would look up at him (my eyes flew open) into those dark eyes.
Excitement rippled through my body. What wicked things might he have me do? What power would he unleash over me and unto me? The answers lay hidden behind those eyes. I could feel his dominance, the intensity of his size and energy, his voice in my ear as his hands claimed me as his own. I would submit to his every wish and desire.
Yes. I sat up tall in my chair. There was no doubt in my mind. I was attracted to this man.
Then: Holy shit. He wants me to go meet him in New York!
WHAT A SIGHT we were: seven sexy, late-thirty-something women going to Sin City. United States’ Customs was a ghost town as we passed through it, strutting, laughing, pulling our carryons side by side and row by row. We were so abuzz with excitement, we were like a tiny swarm of honeybees as we made our way to the already packed gate. And like every other person destined for Las Vegas, we’d paid special attention to how we looked—as if the moment we stepped off the plane, we’d step immediately into party central. I couldn’t believe I had once thought our age bracket was old; we made it look so good! I looked around at the glowing faces of my girlfriends and I knew, I just knew, this would be an unforgettable trip. Because we weren’t just fresh-faced innocents with few responsibilities walking that tarmac to an adult playground, we were women with families, careers, love and loss, and even wisdom. We were responsible. Abandon didn’t come easy, but that’s what we were hoping to do for this small pocket of days. Live with abandon.
So who were we? Tory, my former roommate was here, as well as Patty, my stunning, “older” girlfriend who had kindly “connected me” with Yummy Stranger during my time of “need.” Also joining us was
our close friend Selena, a married mom who somehow always breathed of style and sophistication, even when her kids were first born and she was covered in spit up. And a handful of others who were just as dear and important to me. We’d come to know each other over a decade ago through dinners and birthday celebrations (ours, not our kids), and somehow, almost magically, strong and special friendships had formed, both individually, and collectively. We’d seen each other through major milestones: some of us had become mothers, some had excelled along career paths, a few had seen a marriage or relationship come apart. We’d drifted apart periodically, sometimes for a year at a time, but somehow we’d always returned to one another, to our group, where there was a sense of freedom and love that was as grand and unique as our summed personalities.
Prior to leaving on our trip, Tory had expressed that she was a little nervous about all of us vacationing together. After all, we’d never done this before—nowadays, longer trips had only transpired with husbands, partners, and/or kids. What if we got on each other’s nerves? What if, because we were older, we’d become more anal and less tolerant in ways we didn’t realize? Would our personalities clash when we were mashed together in the same hotel room? My mind flashed to girl vacations from my early twenties; there had definitely been times of friction. But surely, we had grown up.
By eleven o’clock the night we arrived, we’d finished beautifying en masse in our suites and were ready to hit the town. First up on the agenda was a club called Pure, where tables were reputed to cost upward of eight-hundred dollars a night. Tory, the minx, had scored us free entrance tickets. And as we stood in line at the VIP entrance, gambling machines bleeping and singing around us, I took in the vibrant action around me. It was like landing on another planet. Half-dressed showgirls with epic breasts and glittery attire sauntered through the casino halls, grabbing everyone’s attention, including my own. I couldn’t help but feel a little plain in comparison. But I was happy with how I looked: my brown and gold dress hung elegantly just past my knees and showed off my slim figure and tear-drop bustline. My hair was down and full of soft, loose curls. I felt sexy, but classy, which aligned with the kind of man I hoped to meet that night: a handsome, successful, refined man—no boys allowed on this trip!
The Secret Sex Life of a Single Mom Page 18