Dylan slowly slipped his hands under his waistband to show me the line of dark hair disappearing under his boxers. He unzipped his pants and slowly pulled the boxers toward the floor. And let’s just say, I got over my embarrassment.
* * *
Later, I lay naked in Dylan’s arms on the titanic hotel bed, which spread like an ocean around us. At some point he had turned off the lights. The hotel room was now filled with bluish gloaming twilight. My body sank into the soft mattress as if I’d spent an hour in a eucalyptus-scented sauna. I felt delirious with sex, sore in all the right places, smelling salty like Dylan’s saliva and sweat and more. Although here’s a secret: the sex itself was awkward and fumbling, and I didn’t even get close to coming. I was so anxious I couldn’t get wet. Dylan didn’t know how to get me wet. We were as tense as you’d expect two strangers in a hotel room would be. None of that mattered. I was overjoyed to be having sex again, even mediocre sex. And apparently, Dylan didn’t know the difference.
His responsiveness and enthusiasm made up for his inexperience. At one point, prior to the actual, much-anticipated consummation, as we were kissing and I was in general marveling at how tanned and smooth his torso was, I noticed a whitish scar on his right shoulder. Without thinking, I leaned down and kissed it. I flushed for a second. Was that the kind of thing I’d do to my kids if they had a boo-boo? To my relief, Dylan lay still as if he enjoyed it, closing his eyes to absorb the sensation more fully. So I let my lips travel down to his right nipple. I kept them there and sucked gently, all wet and warm the way I liked it, using the tip of my tongue for emphasis. This made Dylan shudder and moan. Which was unexpected and very nice. What came next was even nicer.
“Ahh,” he said. “No one has ever done that to me before.”
And I thought: really? Wow. He was actually more the virgin than I was.
We lay there, nude under the cool sheets in the shadows, his muscular arms wrapped around me, for what felt like hours. I wanted the night to last forever. I pressed my butt and the backs of my thighs against his smooth abs, soft penis, and scratchy pubic hair like I was trying to use my skin to memorize the contours and unfamiliar sensations. I’d forgotten how good it felt to be in a man’s arms, and the indescribable feeling of having a cock inside me again.
“You haven’t missed a beat, babe,” Dylan said in a husky voice from behind me, hugging me tighter, burying his face in the hair at the nape of my neck. “I’ve never been with a woman who enjoyed sex as much as you just did. Have you always been like this?”
The answer was so complicated, I didn’t even give it a try. I had no desire to darken the moment with tales of Marty’s twisted attempts to shame me sexually. Instead, I rolled over and pressed my naked body against his naked body and kissed him.
Dylan kissed me back. Then he whispered, laughing a little, “You’re pretty pleased with yourself, aren’t you?”
I closed my eyes and buried my face in his neck. I couldn’t stop smiling.
Because I was.
* * *
At about ten the next morning, Alice’s mom dropped off Bella. I sat on the living room couch, in a daze, drinking black coffee. My lips felt like ripe raspberries, bruised and swollen. I was still wearing my new bra and thong under my pajamas. Every few minutes, I caught a delectable whiff of Dylan. He was like perfume on my hands and skin. Every inhale was like taking the last toke of a joint before entering rehab. I was not planning to shower until I saw Dylan again. I hoped that would be soon. However, it had felt too awkward to bring it up at midnight when we’d said good-bye at his hotel room door, so I’d said nothing.
Seeing Bella, I remembered that mothers usually greeted their daughters after sleepovers.
“Did you have a nice time, honey?” I forced out the correct words. Bella didn’t notice how stiff they sounded.
“Yeah, Mom. It was great.” Her words echoed like they were reverberating through that voice distortion machine the kids’ favorite radio station used to disguise a caller’s identity. “How was your night, Mother?”
Bella was looking at herself in the mirror, twisting a strand of hair, not paying attention to me. Which was good, because I could feel myself blush pink and freeze.
I managed to squeak out, “Um . . . I went to bed early!”
All through that day, I felt as if the barista had slipped an extra espresso shot into my latte. The sky was a shade bluer; I could make out individual blades of grass on the neighbor’s front lawn.
After lunch, Bella and I drove to Coopers Beach. I pulled the car headfirst into a space overlooking the sand so, as the kids and I joked, the car could have an ocean view, too. I got out to sniff the salty air. Bella grabbed her beach bag, adjusted her Ray-Ban aviators, and went off to find Alice.
It was a sunny, breezy weekday in June, and Coopers Beach was packed. The adults on the beach were almost all moms, with a few grandparents, babysitters, and nannies sprinkled about. Kids of all ages were spread out on towels and splashing in the surf. At first, the most noticeable men were the skinny teenaged employees trolling the parking lot for cars without the coveted “Southampton Village Resident” decal assiduously displayed on the rear window.
And then I noticed . . .
The lifeguards.
Now, the Town of Southampton usually staffs three to four lifeguards at each twenty-foot-tall white lifeguard chair. This means that I probably saw over a thousand Southampton lifeguards wearing their signature red swim trunks over the course of twenty years of marriage. The waves here are rough. There are frequent riptides. Lifeguards are a necessity. Part of the scenery, so to speak.
Not today.
Apparently, in my married state, I had failed to notice that lifeguards are tanned young men who work without their shirts on. I did now. Despite Dylan, I was not yet looking for men. I was looking at men. I was not ready to fall in love again. I wasn’t entirely sure if I was ready for any kind of lasting intimacy with a man. But I was definitely ready to fantasize about it.
Instead of heading home to write, I decided to stay at the beach. I stumbled to an open square of sand and spread out my towel. I felt the tiniest bit drunk. Hanging out at Coopers as a spanking new divorcée who’d had sex again for the first time in three years felt like watching a soft-core porn movie. I had the bizarre sensation of seeing the world in color for the first time.
There was one dark-haired, tanned lifeguard who kept turning my head. I casually moved my towel a few feet (okay, several yards) closer. I couldn’t tell if he was eighteen or thirty-eight, but he was dazzling. Tousled dark hair, a deep tan, ripped calf muscles. Bisecting his washboard abs was a narrow, vertical strip of dark hair leading into his red bathing suit. I hoped my sunglasses hid how much I was staring.
The lifeguards were not the only men on the beach with their shirts off. There were dozens of them! I did not stop smiling for four hours. Although I’d spent decades of my younger life as a feminist railing against male objectification of women, and two wrongs definitely don’t make a right, objectifying those lifeguards felt as refreshing and innocent as a glass of lemonade. There is no way to prove this, but I think a few of those shirtless men were looking back at me in my pink and black bikini. I wanted them to objectify me; I hoped they were objectifying me.
Then, as I walked back to the car in a daze, a twentysomething jogger with washboard abs (did every man under thirty have them today?) ran toward me. Our eyes met briefly. He whispered “Hi” as he passed, leaving a trace of twentysomething sweat wafting after him.
Where had all these men been for the past two decades? And me. Where the hell had I been?
But even more entertaining than spying on lifeguards and joggers was imagining seeing Dylan again. With his shirt off. He had worked a form of magic on me. It was like being given a bite of a sandwich, and realizing I’d been starving. Ravenous to be held, to be loved, to let a man inside me. To my surprise, the first reward of a starvation diet is that when you’re famished, everything
tastes amazing.
* * *
Dylan didn’t call me for several days. This struck me as strange, since we’d been talking nearly every day for weeks, and I felt closer to him now that we’d had sex. But since I was out of touch with modern hooking-up protocol, I didn’t reach out to him. Then he sent me a text that read Leslie, I’m dying to see you again, can you meet me in Baltimore? We set a date via text, I booked my flight, and he sent me the address of an Inner Harbor hotel. I picked out a white eyelet minidress and bought a new set of white lace Victoria’s Secret lingerie.
I was even more excited to see him again, because I wasn’t as frazzled or disbelieving as the first time. My body hummed with the sensation of being on the verge of having sex, craving every kiss and touch. I kept finding myself at my desk, or washing dishes, daydreaming about what we were going to do this time around. I had dozens of questions to ask him, things I wanted to talk to him about, and a list in my head of small sex acts, like kissing his nipples, that I guessed he’d never experienced before, that I would introduce him to. I could not believe how lucky I’d gotten, to meet, and then track down, this exquisite, smart, open younger man who wanted my body, but didn’t seem to want anything more.
Then, twenty-four hours before my flight, he sent me a text:
I need to talk to you today. I’m sorry. This will probably be the last time.
What? Why? I had been counting the minutes until I could see him again. My brain couldn’t grasp that the first time with Dylan might turn out to be the last time. But my heart, rocking behind my ribs, got the news loud and clear.
This time, I didn’t force myself to wait to call him. I drove all the way to East Hampton, to Georgica, my favorite beach, to cushion whatever news he had for me. I parked in the public lot squeezed between two hotel-sized beach houses. Then, once again, I dialed Dylan Smyth’s number from a sweltering car overlooking the ocean.
“Dylan, hey, it’s me. Can you talk?”
“Yes. Thank God you called.”
I heard him get up to shut his office door.
“Leslie, I’m dying inside. This weekend I took my daughter camping. I kept looking at her playing in the creek, and I couldn’t stop thinking about you, and it all felt wrong because I’m still technically married and my wife would destroy me if she found out. I felt so damn guilty about seeing you, wanting you, and worrying about my wife, it was hell.”
He sighed and then inhaled deeply.
“If I didn’t like you, it’d be easier. If it weren’t for my situation, I’d come see you every week at the beach. But . . . my daughter is so little. And I like you. It’d be easier if I didn’t. You’re not the one doing anything wrong, but I kind of am. I don’t think it’s going to work with my wife, but I have to stop seeing you now, or I’ll be in trouble because she’ll catch me one way or the other. I’ll call you again if I figure this out. But now—I can’t do this right now.”
I sat in my car, windows rolled up, as my heart crumpled in on itself. The summer humidity made the sweat pool in the crook of my collarbone. Despite the heat, I felt cold with dismay. In one measly night, Dylan had made me feel sensual and feminine again, like the blissed-out model with her eyes half-closed in perfume ads. I wanted more more more of Dylan Smyth, not none.
“Hold on, Dylan, give me a minute to take this in.”
Maybe I should have seen it coming. Perhaps he was simply jettisoning me now that he’d gotten a tryst with an older woman on his conquest belt. Many people believe that’s all men want from women, anyway, and maybe they’re right. What I thought likelier: Dylan Smyth couldn’t trust that I wanted only sex (and respect) from him. He probably worried that over time, I’d want things he couldn’t give, wheedling blow jobs and pussy for money and security. And, if spurned, I’d retaliate by blowing his cover and calling his wife, like stereotypically angry, vindictive women allegedly always do.
I wasn’t the kind of woman who would ever want to hurt Dylan or reveal what we’d done to his wife; I’d been on the other side, and I didn’t want to make the situation any messier than it already was. But also, the idea of Dylan divorcing his wife for me made me dry heave. I wanted to be held, and yes, to be fucked, by a sexy, younger, unthreatening, uncomplicated man. But anything vaguely resembling a commitment jolted me like hitting a pothole on the highway.
Damn it. How many older men, fresh off divorce, sought shallow sexual relationships with pretty, pliable, twentysomething women with impunity, with approbation, with a nod of understanding from our culture? Why couldn’t I do the same? Was our culture really that hypocritical, that sexist, that traditional? Once in my life, I wanted to act like a man and get away with it without society’s criticism or ostracism.
I pushed the button on the driver’s-side door to roll down my windows to catch a gust of ocean air. I felt like a kid watching her ice cream cone fall onto the sidewalk after one lick. No more Dylan. No more cute crooked front tooth. No more stolen late-afternoon phone calls from his truck on the side of the road. No more sex. It was too much to lose all at once.
“Dylan, okay, you have to do what you feel is right. But tell me one good thing. Something I can remember when I’m missing you. A memento of how you woke me up after so many years of being asleep, of being dead to men. I don’t ever want to forget how you made me feel.”
There was silence on the other end of the line, and I could hear the waves crashing. He sighed like an hourly employee about to head to an assembly line shift at a job he despised. Then Dylan made a husky sound under his breath, the same rueful noise he made when I first knocked over his coffee in the airport a month before.
“Oh, Leslie, there are so many things about you that any man would go crazy for. I love your body—your shoulders, your stomach, your blue eyes, your blonde hair. You have the softest skin. Your lips . . .” He blew out a big puff of air, as if gathering strength to cram ten bullet points into one paragraph.
Then he laughed, a chip of joy mixed with the regret in his voice as he began again.
“You have the most spectacular ass. Don’t you ever let anyone tell you it’s too big—it’s perfect. I loved being your first after so long. I can’t believe what it’s like to be with a woman who lets me know what she likes. I’ll never forget you.
“But I guess the best thing I can say is that . . . Oh, Leslie, it’s that you remind me of my wife. In all the best ways.”
I was so appalled by this, I couldn’t respond. Dylan meant it as a bittersweet compliment, the biggest one he could think to give me. But to me, being compared to his wife was almost an insult, the most confusing accolade any man could have offered me at that moment. After a long silence, I said, “Okay, Dylan. Take good care of yourself.” I hung up the phone and threw it on the passenger seat. I drove home, alone, his words echoing in my head.
* * *
In a raw twist of timing, forty-eight hours later, I returned to Philadelphia for my and Marty’s final divorce hearing, to officially become an un-wife.
The date had been set for months (getting legally divorced in Pennsylvania takes forever). According to my lawyer, it was not the kind of appointment you reschedule. So instead of coming back to Philly blissed out by a Baltimore sex-fest with Dylan, I flew home alone and cried in the Odyssey in the airport parking lot before heading to family court. I wasn’t sure if I was crying over Marty or Dylan or both and it didn’t matter; I felt filled with endings, sad about the past, while also excited about the future, a tumultuous emotional combination.
This was the official, legal end of my and Marty’s union. I’d walk into the courthouse married, and walk out a divorcée. I had the sensation of being weightless at the prospect of getting our divorce finalized, because for years I had thought I was handcuffed to Marty and his condescension. I also felt dirty, ashamed of our marital failure. I dreaded dissolving my marriage in front of a judge, a stranger who’d never met us, who didn’t care what our children’s names were, and whom we’d never see again.
>
Everything about the day felt peculiar. It was like the black-and-white beginning of The Wizard of Oz right before the twister comes. The barometric pressure drops, the farmhands look at Dorothy quizzically, and she knows something’s off with Toto and the horses and the wind, but she’s not sure what, exactly, is about to happen, or whether it’s going to be pleasant, painful, or both.
My lawyer texted me directions to a seldom-used underground court entrance to avoid the long lines filled with people called for jury duty.
An impressively large security guard by the metal detector remarked to us, “Y’all here to get married?”
“To each other?” I quizzed him.
“Yep. You both look so happy. Like you’re gonna live happily ever after.”
My lawyer and I locked eyes and burst out laughing. On the day I was getting divorced, how could anyone mistake me for a bride? My wedding date and divorce date were like that old joke about boats, that the two best days are the day you buy your boat, and the day you sell it. The guard had it backward. I was happy to be getting unmarried, not married.
We took the elevator down a floor, emerging into a narrow, semidark hallway outside a half dozen subterranean courtrooms. My lawyer left to locate Marty’s lawyer. Marty himself, wearing a gray suit, pressed white shirt, and blue tie as if he were heading to a job interview, stood in silhouette at the end of the hallway, checking his phone. I felt nauseated at the idea of exchanging pleasantries with him.
My attorney believed that given Marty’s fury and the months of petty motions his lawyer had already filed, even after today’s proceedings it could take months to settle custody, divide our assets, and resolve several complicated issues related to Marty’s partnership. Marty didn’t want me anymore, but he also didn’t want to let go of any of our married life without a fight. I couldn’t figure out why a man who hadn’t been in love with me for years would still want to punish me for not wanting to be with him any longer. It felt like another layer of betrayal, as excruciating as his laughter when I found the red lingerie. Instead of approaching our divorce with Hey, we had a good run, thanks for bearing and raising two awesome kids with me, have a nice life, Marty’s stance seemed to be You fucking bitch, you deserve nothing from me and if I get my way, the kids will hate you and you’ll be eating cat food at seventy-five.
The Naked Truth Page 6