I've written about my wife, Ellen, twice before (The Five Sketches, Fountains of Aphrodite), and though we are by no means "swingers," those two events in our lives were so intense and unusual that by writing about them I found that I could assimilate them and understand them better in the context of my marriage. I'm admittedly not a "writer" in the practiced sense of the word, but I have reported these incidents as honestly as I could.
Ellen is now in her early 50s, and she is as trim as she was when I married her. She works hard at looking her best, dresses expensively but not ostentatiously, and still turns heads wherever we go. She says she doesn't want other men and I believe her. We are, but for the two incidents I have reported, as monogamous and boring as most happy couples can be.
But she has this thing about her that, every few years, reminds me that her erotic sense is volcanic, and she cannot be predicted. I thought that I had lain my pen aside on these matters as we have matured, but it happened again and I feel the need again to put it into words and sort it out.
I have a friend whom I will call Nick, who has been my friend since I was a boy. We are very close, as close as friends can be who now live 800 miles away from one another. Nick moved before I began to court Ellen and she doesn't know him well, only meeting him on the few occasions of our vacations to Nick's part of the country.
Nick was involved in a car wreck recently and sustained a closed-head injury. This ended happily, but at the time no one knew if or when Nick would regain consciousness. It was a scary time for me, and I realized that, if Nick came through this, I would never let a year go by without seeing him. It shook me.
Ellen sensed this, and that very day that we got news of Nick's accident she suggested that we fly as closely as we could get to his northern Minnesota town, rent a car, and visit Nick in hospital. I made the arrangements and off we went. We were on the ground within 24 hours of his hospitalization.
The hospital was a shabby affair, at least compared to the megalopolis of the U-M hospital in Ann Arbor, where we live. But his care was good, the place was squeaky clean, and he was closely monitored. It was late evening and the place was pretty quiet. Nick looked, oddly enough, perfectly fine, as if he were only asleep. His head was bandaged, he had an IV tube, but was not catheterized because of his body did not tolerate the tube in his penis. The doctor told us that he had no other injuries, and though they were optimistic about his return to consciousness, they would not guarantee it. The swelling, he said, was receding, but there was just no way to tell when Nick would come back to us.
We sat beside him on two straightback chairs on the uncluttered side of his bed, me quietly watching Nick breathe, and Ellen quietly watching me with a sympathetic smile. The door to his room opened and in walked a mutual friend of Nick and mine, a fellow I'll call Sean that hides his real name but not his larger than life Irish manner.
"John!" he almost shouted in surprise when he saw me, holding out his arms for an embrace. I hugged him.
"Sean, I can't believe you're here, but, well, what the hell, it's good to see you." I backed up and reached an arm toward my wife. "You remember Ellen, don't you?" He hugged her, too, as if they had been long-lost buddies but in fact I had found out later that they had never met.
"It's a pleasure to see you, Ellen," he said, adding, "My god you're a lovely girl."
Ellen blushed and waved it away appreciatively. "We need another chair!" she observed.
Sean declined to sit and I remained standing. We talked of Nick, regretting his luck and hoping for the best, Ellen sitting demurely with ankles crossed on her chair.
She wore a dress that was Indian style, brown suede with blue tassels, for we were in Indian country and she enjoyed dressing the part. She even had her long black hair braided in the tribal style. Sean's enthusiasm was easy to understand. After a few minutes of increasingly sober talk, Sean left the room to buy a candy bar and I resumed my seat next to Ellen. We stared fondly and sadly at poor Nick.
He was a handsome guy, about our age and in good shape. He had his own cabin out here and liked to hunt, chop wood, and garden for what few crops the cold earth would give up in this clime. His most distinguishing feature, I suppose, was his long hair, since his hippy days, clean and blond and now shot with some grey. I leaned over the bed and put my face near to his.
"Nick, it's John." I had a catch in my throat and coughed. Ellen looked at me sadly. "Can you hear me? We're here with you. Me and Ellen. Sean, too." I took his hand in mine but there was nary a squeeze in return, no response at all. I sat back down and Ellen leaned over and kissed my cheek. I turned to her. "I wish there was something I could do to bring him around."
"I know honey," she whispered. "He'll come back. He's just hard to reach right now."
We sat and watched over our friend, and of a sudden I got panicky. "I don't want him to slip away," I said. "I have a feeling he's just drifting away..."
She took my hand in hers. I looked at her. "He needs to stay earthbound," I whispered.
A nurse came in and asked us to step outside while she washed him up, took his vital signs and all that. It took but a few minutes and there was no sign of Sean back from his candy run. We returned to our seats next to freshly-scrubbed Nick, and I sank myself in thinking about how to keep him with us, how to make him want to come back. I had a thought, but it was crazy and there were complications. I turned to Ellen.
"What?" she asked.
"Nothing."
"Come on," she took my hand again. "Tell me." I turned my face away and shook my head. She sensed my thoughts.
"O my god," she whispered. "Are you thinking what I think your thinking?"
"Maybe," I said. "What do you think I'm thinking?"
"That you want me to, I don't know, use sex to... how did you say it? Keep him earthbound?" She sounded exasperated in a lighthearted sort of way.
"I just thought of it... I don't know... What do you think?" I asked.
She was quiet for the longest time, alternately looking at poor Nick and out the hospital window. I figured I went somewhere I should have not with my suggestion. It was not a good time for Sean to return, but he bounded through the door with a handful of sugary treats.
"Hershey bars? Snickers? Anybody?"
We both declined. Sean put the candy on the food tray on the other side of Nick's bed.
"I had lunch in the diner downstairs," he said. "Not bad food."
"Sean?" Ellen spoke.
"What's up?" Sean answered, unwrapping a Snickers. Ellen stood and shuffled over to face him.
"Would you do us a little favor? And not ask any questions?"
Sean looked puzzled. "Ummm... of course? What do you need?"
Ellen looked over at me and giggled. Actually giggled, then turned back to Sean. "Would you please go out, close the door, and..." she looked over at me questioningly, "stand guard for us? Like, alert us if someone tries to come in?" She giggled again. There was a pause while Sean considered.
"How come?" he asked warily. "What's going on?"
"Just trust us on this," I said. "Really. Just for a few minutes."
Sean shook his head. "Yeah. Sure. Why not? Just stand out in the hall with the door closed and tell you if someone's coming. Right?"
"Right," we said in unison.
