My Fantasy Girl Ch 06

Joan and I continued to see the psychiatrist for about six months. We had individual counseling for several weeks followed by group therapy. Joan was in a woman's group and I was in a man's group, then ultimately we were put together in a couple's group.

Early on, I came up with an analogy which I thought explained my situation very well. Dr. Rogers had me repeat it as I entered each group. I was embarrassed to say it in front of Joan because it was insulting to her, but it was how I felt.

I've always liked analogies. A good one enables you to see a complex situation in simple terms. My analogy went like this: "I love steak. It's my absolutely favorite food. I also like chicken very much, almost as much as steak. Now if you tell me I can have steak every day, but that's all I get, no baked potato with sour cream, no salad, no wine with my steak; but on the other hand I can have chicken every day and with it I get potatoes and a vegetable, a salad if I want it, a nice wine with my meal, and even dessert if I so desire, then I would have to go for the chicken."

And that's what I did; I went for the chicken! When I told this analogy I got lambasted. Of course the therapist said nothing when I first told him, but the group members (both groups) thought it was terrible. For Joan it confirmed that if it had been a one-on-one contest I would have chosen Melissa. But I think she already sensed that. Isn't this reluctance to give up one's life style a primary reason why a spouse who has an affair (not just cheating, but a true affair like I felt I'd had) usually stays married?

Dr. Rogers had a profound effect on Joan. At our first meeting he asked each of us, separately, to describe a negative characteristic of our spouse in a single word. I said Joan was stoic, i.e.-very stiff, inflexible. Of course I don't know what word Joan used, but I suspect it was self-centered, since she felt every consultant in our company was conceited. She used to say that she could pick out the consultants in a group after a five minute conversation.

Under Dr. Rogers' guidance, she made a sincere effort to change. She bought the book, "The Joys of Sex" and later "More Joys of Sex". We went through them, trying many of the ideas. As for me, I did not enjoy eating messy food off her body but I did enjoy titty-fucking, especially since she would kiss and lick the head of my penis on each upstroke. We tried ass-fucking but neither one of us enjoyed it. We also tried a variety of positions but we could not do anything that required more that a minute or two of physical effort by Joan.

We also started going to a movie theater that showed soft core porn one night each week (there was no hard core theater anywhere near us and the VCR was not available yet). Joan would dress sexy, short skirts, though not minis, and fitted sweaters with no bra. We would sit there and play with one another. We never went any further in the theater, but one night we were so excited as we left we had sex in the parking lot in my Fiat, no small feat.

I bought her some sexy clothes too, and I took some pictures of her with our Polaroid camera for my eyes only. My favorite of the clothes I bought was an ankle length, body-hugging, bright red halter dress. It was bare to the waist in the back, so she couldn't wear a bra with it, and it was so fitted that any underwear she tried on made it look bad because you would see lines. It wasn't obscene, just classy-sexy. So she wore it with nothing underneath, something she had never done in her life. The first time she wore it, we went to a dinner theater which had a buffet meal before the play began. We had never attracted much attention on our previous times there but tonight everyone enjoyed looking at Joan. I was very proud of her, and during the play I couldn't keep my hands off her. Even the cast members complimented her as we went through their receiving line at the end of the night.

We also had some bad experiences. Some times, I felt so wracked with guilt I could not get an erection, the only times in my life I ever had that problem (Even today, at 74, I can will an erection any time I wish to).

I do not believe therapy had as much effect on me as on Joan. However, I did become a little more considerate and I took Joan out frequently, especially on weekends after I'd been out of town all week. Of course part of this was due to how attractive she looked. We even got into disco-dancing when it became popular. I was still a poor dancer but I enjoyed all the turns and spins I put Joan through, and the admiring glances she got as we danced.

I reached three conclusions about my life in the future. For one, Joan and I really would be together "until death do us part". Since I hadn't left her for Melissa, whom I truly loved, I could not imagine leaving under any circumstances. And I knew she would not leave me, no matter what I did, within reason. Secondly, I knew I would not remain faithful to her, but from now on I would be careful to not fall in love. Finally, I knew that if Joan died before I did, I would seek out Melissa and attempt to reconnect. This last one did not happen; we both are still in very good health.

Even before I started dating Melissa I decided to get in shape. There was a 10K race in Atlanta on July 4th each year known as the Peachtree Road Race. In 1974 there were over 6000 participants, several of whom were in my company (they now have over 25,000 runners each year). I decided that when the weather broke in late February or early March I would start jogging with the goal of running in the 1975 race. I also started doing some sit-ups and push-ups.

I had no doubt that I would be successful as I had the utmost confidence that I could accomplish anything that was totally within my control.

A specific event that occurred between my junior and senior years of high school caused me to stop using foul language immediately. Since then, I've used an occasional hell or damn for emphasis but nothing worse. Even writing some of the words in this story has been very uncomfortable for me but I felt they were necessary for the story.

I also gave up smoking, cold turkey, from a two and a half pack a day habit when I was 27 years old.

So I saw reaching my goals of improving my health and enabling me to eat as much as I wanted without getting fat as an easy task. I soon gave up on push-ups (I had two broken wrists when I was young), but I worked my way up to 300 sit-ups per night. By the time of the Peachtree Road Race I was down to 140, the proper weight for my size, and I had no flab around my middle. I participated in many 10K runs over the next fifteen years before I quit jogging in 1990 when my knees and ankles started bothering me. By that time my metabolism was permanently higher and I'm still 140 pounds today, albeit with an extra two inches on my waistline.

Unfortunately, Joan did not keep her great figure. Once things settled down between us and she stopped worrying about our relationship she started gaining weight again. The pounds went on slowly but surely. I could not get her to exercise no matter how I approached the subject. I finally gave up trying and our sex life slowed, then eventually stopped completely.

Within a year or so after the end of my affair with Melissa, while Joan still had a great figure, I knew I had made the wrong decision, but I felt there was no going back. If there's any lesson to be learned from my experience, it's that the brain should not always be the main organ for making decisions. In matters of the heart, the heart should be primary. I now knew I should have taken the ala carte steak over the full course chicken dinner.

As I turned 40 I looked better than ever with my trim shape and good clothes that fit well. I did not suddenly become a Lothario or a Don Juan but I noticed that some women did actually look me over. Usually the ones who were pretty open about it did not appeal to me, and the attractive ones at the clubs continued to ignore me, but I did have a few short-lived affairs over the next six years.

MY FANTASY GIRL

I never thought of Melissa as my fantasy girl. She was a living doll as many others described her and I liked to address her as Melissa melove when we were together. As I've stated previously, she was the physical embodiment of the image I carried in my head, but the expression, fantasy girl, just never came to my mind -- until the early eighties.

I left the consulting company in 1978 and by 1980 I was working for a manufacturing company as a division controller. My office was a hundred miles from the corporate computer center which necessitated frequent trips back and forth. Sometimes I returned home the same day but usually I had to be there two or three days in a row so I stayed overnight.

The receptionist there was a very flirtatious woman in her mid-thirties. I never gave her a second thought because half the guys in the building were literally drooling over her. She was about five foot two, had an attractive face, and a body to kill for. I had been with the company about two years when, as I entered the building one morning, she asked where I had eaten dinner the night before.

"A few of us went into Charlotte to a Mexican restaurant that was really good."

"Oh, I love Mexican food, and I love Margaritas too. Will you take me sometime?" With that comment and the way she smiled and batted her eyes at me, I was a goner.

Our affair lasted over two and a half years, and only ended because I lost my job when the company was absorbed into another corporation. It was the first sexually-fulfilling experience I ever had. She was not into anything very kinky, but she enjoyed variety, in positions and in activities. She was also the first woman I went with who truly turned heads wherever she went, not just because she was attractive but because she exuded sensuality from every pore. It was not unusual for everyone in a restaurant, male and female, to quit eating and watch her as we were seated. I'm sure many of these people thought I must be rich to be with a babe like her.

Joan (yes, her name was the same as my wife's) said she was 34B-22-35, but I knew her breasts were larger than that, a full C cup at least. She played them down because she knew I liked petite women, and that I was a leg and butt man.

You can't see someone for a couple of years and not love her. Joan and I definitely loved each other, but in a very convenient fashion. We were both married and had no intention of leaving our spouses, so we had the ideal affair, with enjoying each other as our only goal.

She was also the first truly emotional woman I was ever involved with. She suffered from PMS so at certain times of the month she was almost unbearable. It was during one of these times that she said, "I'm not at all jealous of your wife. She has her part of your life and I have mine, and I'm very happy with my part, thank you, but I am jealous of the girl in Pennsylvania because I can't compete with her. Everyone but you says I'm petite, but I'm not petite enough for you. I've got a great figure but I can never be slim enough or short enough to compete with her, but that's because she's not real, she's a fantasy! No one can compete with a fantasy! She's your fantasy girl!"

That was it! Joan was right! Melissa is my fantasy girl!!!

AN AFFAIR TO REMEMBER

With a nod to Cary Grant and Deborah Kerr, I think their movie title from the fifties is most appropriate to describe my situation.

When I was out of work in 1984, my age and salary level worked against me. After many frustrating months searching for a job I went into business for myself. Although it survived, my business was never truly successful.

In 1988 it was on the edge of bankruptcy. Unlike a large corporation, a small business owner must personally guarantee virtually all the credit given to the business, even when the business is structured as a corporation, as mine was. I was under tremendous pressure. The company's debts might take everything we owned.

Only once before in my life had I felt a great deal of pressure. On that occasion in 1972 I had the hiccups for twenty-eight consecutive days. Even in bed at night I hiccuped continuously, often shaking the bed to the point Joan had to go somewhere else to sleep. When I finally would fall asleep at three or four in the morning I was still hiccuping in my sleep. Eventually I overcame the problem and the hiccups stopped immediately.

I did not hiccup in 1988 but I couldn't sleep. I would go for days with no more than an hour or two each night. Again, I often drove Joan from the bed with my tossing and turning.

I tried lots of things, unsuccessfully, including trying to concentrate on something else to block out my thoughts of the business. Then, one night, quite accidentally, I thought of Melissa. I thought of the pleasure of our first date and of her smile the next morning, and I fell asleep. After that, I started thinking of her every night when I went to bed. Naturally, I had to avoid thinking about how we broke up as that would only upset me and I wouldn't be able to sleep. And I seldom thought for long about the sex as it just wasn't that good. But visualizing her sitting across from me in a restaurant or of holding her and kissing her, with or without clothes on, always made me feel good no matter what business pressure I was under. Most nights I would eventually go back to the view of her fantastic smile as she sat at her desk looking out her window at me the morning after our first date. That was the image that best enabled me to fall asleep.

By the time the pressure had eased up, thinking of Melissa when I went to bed had become a habit, quickly turning into an obsession. I've done it for practically every night since then, for the last twenty-two years. Now that's an affair that's been remembered!

Melissa married again three years after our affair, and she had a second daughter. This shocked me because she had told me she couldn't have children. Apparently, she simply meant she was on the pill.

I hope Melissa reads this story as I doubt that we'll ever meet again so I will never get the chance to tell it to her in person.

If you do read this Melissa, look at the words of Whitney Houston's extremely sentimental song, "I will always love you", which she sang in the movie, The Bodyguard. It says exactly what my feelings for you have been since the day our affair ended.

With love to my fantasy girl, Bob.