It's now 8:30 a.m. Most people are counting their bus tokens; my wife, Vanessa, is packing condoms in her purse. For the rest of us, it's a trip up the elevator into just another day. For Vanessa, every sunrise promises a new adventure through the mystery of the male sexual psyche. When we're kibitzing around the water cooler, Vanessa is engaging a man in an intimate conversation about his genitals. And while we're hunkering down at our desks, Vanessa is on her back in her "office," making love to one of her clients.
Don't jump to conclusions, Vanessa is a sexual surrogate. She prefers the term "surrogate partner." It's her job to help men with their sexual problems. And we're talking hands-on assistance here.
Today, Vanessa's first client is Stan, a 38-year-old assistant actuary. It's Stan's third session. He and Vanessa spent the first one merely talking in Vanessa's office-slash-living room. She shares part of an old house that has been converted to offices for a non-profit organization. This space is cozy, with mood music oozing over the couches, and Stan allowed himself to get comfortable as Vanessa's practiced tones eased revealing information out of him.
Next session, the touching began. An appointment is generally two hours, providing Vanessa with plenty of time to teach Stan some tricks—including how to touch faster, slower; firmer, softer.
Stan, like all of Vanessa's clients, is a sensitive soul and hasn't had much contact with women. Vanessa concentrates her touching sessions on the hands and face so as not to frighten him off.
I struggle to get a mental image. The best I can come up with is a Les Nessman-type weighted down with pocket protectors and thick-framed spectacles trembling on a corner of the couch while my outspoken Vanessa encroaches like an overcast afternoon, flipping feminine wiles, inspiring fear with every eyelash flutter.
I'm not that far off. Vanessa sees men who have problems ranging from premature ejaculation and erectile difficulties to guys like Stan, who is utterly unable to approach women. But she's made headway with Stan. On to session three.
The third session is almost always reserved for the feet. (My wife explains: "The feet get very little attention from most people. But they have a lot of nerve endings. They're incredibly sensual.)
Vanessa and Stan strip off their socks and shoes and sink their shamelessly naked extremities in a tub of warm water. Vanessa starts.
"I usually have to show them how to do it," she explains happily.
When she has finished bathing the last of Stan's toes, he's invited to return the favor. Next, Vanessa reveals a trove of massage oil and baby powder. She takes Stan's taintless tootsies into her lap and proceeds to administer "foot caress."
When she's done, as a professional therapist, she plunks her feet up onto Stan's lap, and Stan is expected to demonstrate all he's mastered. So passes two hours of this working day for Vanessa. It's time for coffee.
The year is 1983. Vanessa and I are happily married and have been for three remarkable years. But this story begins five years earlier, in the spring of 1978, when I meet Vanessa in a history course at the tail end of a semester at UMass. The exact moment still feels like yesterday.
My heart stands still as I am approached by the most beautiful woman I have ever seen. She moves with the same confidence and grace as her long and voluminous brunette hair. I will never forget the way we lock eyes with each other. In that instant, I know only two things for sure; this is the best moment of my life, and it will be over as fast as two trains passing in opposite directions.
"You're the spitting image of Sally Field," are my first words to my future wife.
I immediately apologize for drawing a comparison. Vanessa is far more beautiful than the actress. Fortunately, she smiles, taking it as a compliment.
"No worries, I'm not offended, Sally Field is very attractive," she replies, "
Smokey and the Bandit
isn't my cup of tea, but I simply adored her in that movie."
Vanessa hands me my textbook, which I had forgotten in the lecture hall. On the inside cover, she writes, "Your secret admirer," next to her phone number.
The rest, as they say, is history.
Before I get a chance to call, I run into Vanessa at a pizza joint near campus. We sit together and, within minutes, recognize that we have a lot in common. Besides agreeing our prof is a pompous ass, we both scored above 130 on I.Q. tests in elementary school, isolating us from our peers. As a result, she'd skipped a grade. Even though Vanessa is two years ahead of me, she is only a year older. The reason we're in the same course is complicated — Vanessa received special permission to complete a dual degree over five years.
As we talk, I notice Vanessa has a Southern accent, which she tries to hide. I am mesmerized by her gorgeous green eyes. I feel an immediate connection with her.
The first thing I learn about Vanessa's personality is that she is incredibly idealistic. Our first date is to a demonstration against a nuclear power plant. The second date I'm proofreading her impassioned article on the war in Rhodesia for the student newspaper.
Vanessa asks, "Are you sure you don't just want to get into my pants?"
"No, that's not the reason I'm here," I protest, "I knew you had a beautiful face; now that I've read this, I know you have a beautiful heart."
Vanessa rushes over from her typewriter, gives me the biggest hug and, biting her lip, whispers, "It's all right if you just want to get into my pants."
I'm pulling off her Nordic-look sweater, platform mules, and skin-tight jeans between kisses; we make love in the offices of the student newspaper. We start in a squeaky office chair, then move to a sofa, and finally end up naked on the floor.
It's a revelatory experience. I've had my fair share of lovers (you know... mid-seventies... still the era of "free love"), but none compare to Vanessa. Though I'd been with a wide variety of chicks, practically every shape and size, most fell into a surprisingly narrow range in terms of sexual skill. My last girlfriend, Katie, proudly declared she was a fully liberated feminist only to find her disappointingly passive and shy in bed.
Despite her "girl next door" looks, Vanessa's a real tiger cat between the sheets. She confidently straddles me, lustily rocks her hips, clenches her pussy, and leaves me completely spellbound. I never really knew what great sex was until I met Vanessa.
After, as Vanessa clips her bra back on, I visually inhale her slim figure and perfectly-proportioned breasts. She's wearing these cute cotton panties with little flowers on them. We put the rest of our clothes back on and walk to her residence hall, holding hands for the first time.
The next thing I learn about Vanessa is that she cares deeply about other people. Her driving desire is to help those in need. It is no surprise that she is studying to become a nurse.
While I finish my last year of college, Vanessa is hired for her first nursing job at the hospital. The problem I begin to discern is that she cares too much and is way too emotionally invested.
Vanessa commonly cries with and for her patients. She gives her patients her home phone number, even though there is a rule against that. Vanessa takes terrible shifts, does whatever the supervisor asks, and gives far too unselfishly of herself. She is devastated whenever a patient dies.
After a particularly strenuous and challenging operation, she walks into a stairwell and bursts into tears. Vanessa knows her dream of being a nurse is over.
It's a good thing we have each other. Vanessa and I are falling in love. I write love poems and hide them in her apartment for her to discover later. Between classes, we sneak back to my dorm room for some "afternoon delight."
This is the best of times — and the worst of times.
I graduate. There are no jobs, economists call it, "stagflation."
Vanessa no longer wants to be a nurse. I have no idea what I want to do with my life. I'm afraid I will end up living in a cardboard box. I consider going back to school for my M.B.A. Instead, I work as a repo man for a short time.
Then a doctor in the psychiatric wing gives Vanessa the book, "Human Sexual Inadequacy," by Masters and Johnson.
This seminal work reports on the treatment of a series of patients with this affliction. It demonstrates how people can learn about sexual intimacy only by experiencing it. They show an amazingly good five-year therapeutic result, with an overall cure rate of 80%. Such a success rate is phenomenal in the treatment of inadequate sexual functioning, which is notoriously resistant to correction using traditional psychoanalysis.
Since most of their subjects are unmarried, to aid in a series of exercises designed to overcome sexual dysfunction, the researchers pair them with "surrogates." Initially, these are female volunteers from the student body. Now that their methodologies of sexual therapy are spreading across the country, there is a growing need for professional sex surrogates. Nursing schools are a significant source of recruitment.
Vanessa becomes obsessed; this is the answer. She has now found her calling.
"I no longer have to do a job which makes me feel miserable about people dying," she tells me excitedly, "I'm helping people who are living to experience all of life's joys."
I'm supportive, even enthusiastic, from the start. Most of all, I want Vanessa to be happy. Then, as I learn more about sexual surrogacy, and her decision to be a surrogate becomes more and more real by the day, I'm increasingly sick with worry.
I ask Vanessa to marry me. She says, "Yes," without hesitation.
Our engagement doesn't help entirely numb the pain of her imminent departure. Never before have I felt such anguish as when Vanessa boards the jet to St. Louis.
She begins her training at the controversial Masters and Johnson Institute.
We are too broke to talk on the phone. The first minute is the most expensive. Long-distance rates are so steep that you can fill up your tank with gas for the price of talking on the phone for an hour. We make our calls super quick and write each other long letters.
