“Wait,” she interrupted. “One more thing. Do you tell the five about the others?”
“Oh, God, KC, I don’t know.”
Those were the only issues that stumped us both. We decided neither mattered.
Then I told her Dylan’s parting compliment, about how I reminded him of his wife, which I hadn’t been able to bear confessing before. She laughed so hysterically, I thought she might fall off her bar stool.
“Stop, KC.” I felt like bending back her pinkies the way my brother did when I was eight. “Why did he have to ruin it all by saying I was like her? That’s the last thing I want any man to think about me.”
“Oh, come on, girl. Forget it. He made your year. Fixed up everything Marty tried to destroy.”
She took a draw of her cold brew.
“Marty tore you apart, tried to annihilate every bit of self-confidence you had about yourself as a mom and a woman and a wife. He didn’t hit you, but what he did—the way he neglected you emotionally, neutered you sexually—no decent man does that to a woman. You need repair, honey. Hot sex with a twenty-nine-year-old was precisely the medicine the doctor ordered. Even if he was using you, even if you never see him again. And trust me, there’s a Ram truck full of men like him watching you every day. Waiting. You’re such a MILF.”
“Dylan told me in the hotel room that I was one of those MILKs. I was too embarrassed to ask what it meant. What is it?”
“It’s a thing, Leslie. Men—boys, really—who like older women, especially moms. You’ve had your married-blinders on for too long. Those young’uns have probably always checked you out. Isn’t it fun?”
“Um . . . I guess. Yeah, sure. But what does MILK stand for?”
KC tittered. Two stools away, a girl in her twenties with a silver cross stud in her nose looked at us suspiciously.
“MILF. Not MILK. With an F. For Vitamin F. Mom-I’d-Like-to . . .”
“Wait. Are you serious?”
“That’s what they call it. Google it. There’s even MILF pornography.”
She raised her carefully threaded Charleston eyebrows.
“And . . . you’ve done it, too?”
“Yes, ma’am. Probably half of the guys I met on Match were babies. Every one of them was hot, ambitious, and superconfident. That’s the only type bold enough to go after an older woman.”
“Why? What do they see in us?” I lowered my voice to a whisper. “Don’t they want to be with other twenty-nine-year-olds?”
“Far as I can tell, an older mom—an attractive, confident older babe—is erotic and captivating. A dare to them, maybe? Plus, no pressure. We don’t want to marry them or have babies or vet how much money they make. Do you remember being twenty-nine? We were bounty hunters, trolling for a mate who’d give us a diamond ring and a house with a picket fence and a bunch of babies. Women like that are too intense for men who aren’t ready to settle down.”
Miss Nose Stud gave a splutter of disgust.
“Also.” KC paused. “One of my young guys told me that older women are much better in bed. Experienced, confident, eager in ways that younger women aren’t.” She gave our audience of one a wink. All of a sudden I imagined Whole Foods, Starbucks, the airport, the sidewalk as hunting grounds for a wrinkled wannabe sex goddess.
“But KC—was twenty-nine too young? How young can I go?”
“Twenty-one. Keep it legal so the sheriff doesn’t come after you with his shotgun. Don’t ask questions. After what you’ve been through, you deserve it.”
She was right. I did.
* * *
Hey Leslie. Thanks SO much for all the Facebook love, much appreciated.
The afternoon following my coffee with KC, an email popped up from one of my high school boyfriends, Jake Bryant.
In high school, we all dressed the same, the boys in polo shirts, we girls in gauzy white sundresses and Guess jeans. (It was the eighties.) We all went to the same three bars and drank the same liquor, always St. Pauli Girl or Cold Duck or anything we could decant from our parents’ liquor cabinets without getting caught. All the girls dated the same boys. I’d break up with one boyfriend, and he’d ask out my chem lab partner the next day. Winnie and I lost our virginity to the same older guy, Lyon Nash, a few months apart. Without killing him or each other, although a few times we came close.
All our boyfriends grew up to be the kind of men I think women are lucky to marry. Nice guys, still wearing Polo shirts, more contentedly mated than I had been. At least that’s how it looked on Facebook and in person every few years when I saw them at high school reunions or at a random classmate’s Fourth of July barbecue.
Except Jake Bryant. Jake never went out with Winnie or my other friends. He never got married. He never had kids. And I had never slept with him.
Jake was a year younger than I was. When we’d dated my senior year of high school, I’d been reluctant to be his first lover, for reasons I can’t fathom now. He was a tall, rangy basketball player who wore his black hair short and spiky, known around school for awing our English teachers with his creative writing. Plus he was the only junior brave enough to sneak into Philly’s punk rock music clubs. What struck me most vividly about Jake from the beginning were his eyes, gray-blue in striking contrast to his black hair, and with a naked shine to them like a newborn’s drinking in the first moments of life.
Basically, all Jake and I had done back then, physically, was kiss. Okay, plus a little of what my middle school health teacher liked to call “heavy petting.” We’d gone off on many other adventures, including a crazy last-minute ski trip on a school snow day. I spent a weekend teaching him how to drive my stick shift Chevy Chevette, and shortly afterward witnessed his first car accident, on his sixteenth birthday, his maiden voyage driving his parents’ station wagon. Mostly, we talked, shared our dreams to be writers, and listened to his edgy mix tapes in my Chevette, holding hands with our eyes shut. After Princeton, he became a writer, too, which led to documentary film production, which gave us an excuse to keep in touch on a semiregular basis. His black hair now had streaks of silver, but he still wore it short, looking like Joe Strummer, the front man for the Clash, that great mix of tough and sweet that I’d always found irresistible.
Apparently, other women shared my taste. Jake lived in New York and dated mostly models and actresses. A few years back he’d been on six or seven dates with Katie Couric, one of New York’s most notorious cougars. Rumors had it that a celebrity rag had run a picture of the two of them that read “Joe Strummer still alive and dating Katie!”
These days, Jake lived in Greenwich Village and had a writer’s cabin in the Connecticut woods. I’d met his latest girlfriend a few times. Like most former models I knew, she was paradoxically haughty and insecure. At a reunion two years ago, she stood under the basketball hoop in our high school gym, looking elegant but unapproachable with her arms crossed over her chest, giving us looks like we were all waiting to stick our tongues down Jake’s pants as soon as she went to the bathroom.
“What the hell is he doing with her?” Winnie asked after they left.
Jake’s latest film had recently come out, a droll exploration about the ways men face (and avoid) growing older. It was nominated for a Sundance Film Festival award. Jake and I had Facebooked a few times recently about the movie.
So when I got an email from him that June afternoon, I wasn’t surprised. At first. Jake’s email read:
Your re-post of the award nomination seems to have worked. For a brief, shining moment, I was #4 on Amazon’s Best Documentary! I credit you, naturally. I’m speaking at the Philadelphia Film Academy this fall, followed by a screening party near Rittenhouse Square. Invite attached. Anyway, would love to see you at either or both events. Or if not, I’ll be around that whole week so maybe we could have lunch or a drink. One way or another, you’re going to be forced to watch the movie . . .
Hope all’s well,
Jake
Well, well, well. This was a little frien
dlier than normal. Three separate invitations in one email, two months in advance? Did Jake still have that same girlfriend? Every time I’d seen him since graduation, he’d been with a woman guarding him like a German shepherd, and so I had no inkling whether Jake still had feelings for me. Probably not, especially since thirty years had passed since the last time we made out. But you did hear about old flames connecting via Facebook all the time. Maybe Jake had heard through the high school grapevine that Marty had moved out. Perhaps he’d finally had enough of his girlfriend’s jealousy. Maybe, pushing fifty, Jake Bryant and I would get another chance to try all the crazy things we’d missed out on in high school.
Naked this time, of course.
* * *
“I’m your therapist for life,” Sara had said, almost two decades before, the last time I’d seen her in person before she moved to California. “Call whenever you need me.”
Sara was the therapist I found in the wake of my physically abusive first marriage. I saw her twice a week for six months of intensive sessions that felt more like cheerleading than analysis. Go Leslie! You can overcome this! You’re a rock star! She didn’t literally make up chants for me, but our sessions felt that upbeat and confidence inspiring. She’d forbidden me from too much introspection, instead spouting wisdom that still echoes in my head today: Your ex-husband is the one who needs psychoanalysis for trying to destroy you; all you did was fall in love with a troubled man. She was like my fairy godmother, sprinkling advice that served as mental magic spells. Promise yourself you’ll never accept abuse again Instead of a broken boy you think you can fix, look for a man who shows you kindness, respect, and love. For the first several years with Marty, I thought I’d found one.
I decided to start working with Sara again long-distance. I had few regrets about divorcing Marty, but before embarking on something as audacious as acquiring five lovers at forty-nine, I needed a professional opinion from a woman I respected. What did I require from a man to be happy over time? Did I even need one to be happy? All I knew for certain was that I never wanted to get trapped in an unfulfilling relationship again.
At the start of each session, Sara searched for a single adjective to describe that day’s precise shade of blue coloring the Pacific Ocean outside the living room window of the high-rise condo she shared with her husband of thirty years. She did this to remind both of us of how blissful life could be. She also always popped open a Diet Coke can to kick things off.
“Cerulean blue today.” Click, went the Diet Coke tab. She took a sip. “Ahh, that’s good.”
She’d laughed out loud in our first session when I told her about my five-boyfriend plan. Today she had feedback.
“So, I’ve been pondering your idea. I see two areas for improvement.”
Sara never said I had problems; they were always opportunities.
“One, you’ve never had any difficulty connecting with men.” She paused. “You need to focus on picking better ones, men who can meet your needs in the long run. That’s the mistake I see so far in your love life.”
“I’m with you, Sara. Tell me more.”
“You grew up in an alcoholic home. Fundamentally, this means that the people who loved you, who were supposed to take care of you, didn’t protect you. It is why you’re so independent, and yet paradoxically susceptible to abuse and manipulation by those closest to you. In close relationships, we all look for what feels like ‘family’ to us. In your case, that’s problematic. Even though it’s great progress that Marty wasn’t physically abusive, he was emotionally abusive. In some ways, equally as destructively as your parents and your first husband.”
She paused in that wise therapist way, to let her words sink in.
“But Sara, how do I love any man again, and not let him hurt me? I feel so vulnerable right now, given what I went through with Marty and in life in general. I cannot survive another abusive relationship. I’d be better off alone, for the rest of my life.”
“Perfect segue to my second point. You wouldn’t be better off alone. There’s great value in trying, and failing, and trying again. Most people think the biggest emotional risk in relationships is loving someone. It’s not. Especially for you. You’re great at loving with abandon, opening your heart and soul to your mother, your kids, your friends, and both husbands. For you, the biggest risk is letting yourself be loved by a man. That’s your next giant step. You need to allow a good man, or five good ones, to love you back.”
I hesitated to say anything. She was right. I tried to absorb it all. Sara understood me like no one else. She’d uncovered the rationale behind my crazy dating plan.
“Sara, what if all I want now is to fuck a lot of hot younger men who adore me? Is there anything twisted about wanting that?”
“Leslie,” she replied with a hint of admonishment. “You are a grown-up. You don’t need my or anyone else’s permission. It’s your body, so you make the rules. Trust your instincts. They may lead you into unexpected situations and relationships, but they’ll never let you down.”
I let out a full-body sigh of relief. “Okay. That’s what I thought. Just checking.”
“There’s a Spanish proverb that goes like this.” Sara paused. “ ‘God says, take what you want. Then pay for it.’ There’s gonna be some pain, Leslie. In love, there always is. But still, take what you want. If that’s five ‘boyfriends’ or however many”—she paused to let out a chuckle—“go for it. Know that you are strong enough to take risks and pay the price, because that’s how a good life is lived.”
* * *
Could I handle naked hotel yoga? I’d flown to Ohio for a speaking engagement, and now I was alone in a beige hotel room in Cleveland. I had a free hour before getting dressed for a luncheon keynote in the elegant ballroom downstairs, raising money for Ohio’s oldest domestic violence shelter by telling my Crazy Love story.
I needed to unwind before baring my soul to eight hundred strangers. I plugged my phone into the hotel TV and flicked on a yoga travel podcast. Which was exactly when, rustling through my suitcase, I realized I had no yoga clothes to change into; I’d forgotten to pack them.
Standing nude and alone in front of the burled wood hotel mirror in the middle of Ohio, I suddenly felt a wash of tension, an inner voice so loud it sounded like a loudspeaker had been miked into my brain, telling me to put on a robe to cover myself up. Why? A twenty-year-old memory spliced through me. It was from my early days with Marty. One night as we crawled into bed in his apartment, he’d left a love note under my pillow that proposed a new tradition.
Every year, let’s have a Naked Week. Seven days. No clothes. Madly in love with you.
The next morning, as Marty brushed his teeth, I lay naked on his black-and-white zebra pattern carpet, holding the soles of my feet like a bug on its back, stretched into Happy Laughing Baby, studying my toenails. I felt like a happy laughing baby myself, in love with Marty and how free I felt with him.
I heard Marty open the bathroom door. For a second I thought, Close your legs. Happy Laughing Baby Pose invites exposure, even when you’re fully clothed. But I thought his note meant Marty actually liked my nakedness. He loves you and your body, he wants a whole week of you naked, a whole lifetime of you nude, don’t zip up the cleft. So I didn’t.
I felt a ripple of air as Marty walked by, wrapped in a navy blue towel. He stopped moving. He looked at me, and my vagina, on his rug. He uttered one word, five letters that I can still hear today.
“Gross.”
I curled up into a ball instinctively. I was too shocked to respond.
If Marty had laughed, I would have joined in; we would have been laughing together. Some yoga poses do make the human body look inherently awkward. Maybe the vagina is funny-looking, too, at least to some people. Before that moment, I had never thought of my most special body part as anything but fascinating. A bizarre, incredible trick of nature, the maker of orgasms and babies. Miraculous and beautiful in its own way, like the pearled inside of a con
ch shell.
I never did naked yoga in front of Marty again. I packed the memory of those five letters in a mental suitcase, ignoring his dismissive crudeness, trying to balance his rejection of my body against how thoughtful he seemed to be in other ways, how steady and stable and uncomplicated he appeared on the surface. After we married, I gradually began covering up my body whenever I was around him. Instead of our getting closer, invisible walls grew between us. We never practiced Naked Week. Starting that day, bit by bit, the part of me that loved my body and all the fabulous things it could do—make a baby, feed a baby, master Wheel Pose in yoga, have a mind-blowing orgasm—shut down. Marty hadn’t prized any of that female magic. Sure, he valued me as a woman who produced babies, a wife with Ivy League credentials and social skills who assisted his career, a woman who took care of the home and the kids and used the correct salad fork at his firm holiday party. Marriage to Marty had shut down the parts of me that made me me. You become what you don’t leave, my mom told me once. That’s exactly what happened.
So the question now, twenty years later, was: how did I find my body and myself again?
At first, I was afraid to look in the mirror, which took up most of the wall. It felt like twenty years since I’d seen myself completely nude. I told myself, as kindly as I could, Reality is your friend. So while stretched in an inverted V shape for Downward-Facing Dog, I snuck a peek.
Wait a minute! I was nearsighted. I had to see myself as others saw me, or it’d be cheating, fooling myself. I found my glasses on the TV console and slipped them on.
Oof. Stretch marks. Cellulite on my legs. Flapping skin on my upper arms. And belly. Ugh. My nipples, which had pointed skyward before I nursed my kids for a year apiece, now pointed down as if reaching for my toes.
Wait. See yourself through Dylan’s eyes. Maybe if I tried, I could see myself the way he had in that other hotel room, during our never-to-be-repeated night together.
I looked again and saw pretty parts in the mirror. Golden shoulders. The clavicle, and the ribs around my breasts protecting my heart, were strong and attractively bony, at least to me. Upside down, the spiky blonde hair on my head looked surprisingly good.
The Naked Truth Page 8