I have to confess that I was surprised when I heard the doorbell ring about mid-morning Sunday.
Who would come to visit me that early and especially on a Sunday? I thought that maybe, just maybe, it was my brother and his wife on their way back from church. We lived pretty close to each other, so if he needed to borrow a tool or something he might stop by.
I didn't want to scandalize my sister-in-law (I smiled to myself at the thought — actually scandalizing my sister-in-law was always kind of amusing), so I threw on my sweat pants and a tee shirt before I came downstairs from the bedroom, just to be decent in case he had the wife with him.
I ran my hand through my hair — thinner and grayer than it had been in my youth, but still a scandalous and unruly mop — to try and force it to behave. Alas, a lost cause.
My real surprise of the morning was when I looked through one of the beveled glass panels on the front door. Standing there was a ghost from my past — my first true love from about 40 years earlier, Allison or Ali, as I used to call her.
Once upon a time in a galaxy far, far away, Ali and I had been married for one year, two months and eleven days — but who's counting?
Ali was a woman of Latin heritage whose hair had been such a dark brown as to look black. (She had confessed to me years before that she had gone completely gray by her mid-thirties, and had been dyeing it ever since.) Her skin was a café au lait color where it was exposed to the sun, although a much lighter shade in those areas that were normally covered. I suspect you will know where I mean.
When she and I were both in our early twenties, she looked like another 'Ali' — 'Ali McGraw', Steve McQueen's wife and one time starlet in the movies 'Love Story' and 'The Getaway.' Not a raving beauty, understand that from the get-go, but she had a certain kind of charm.
In short, she was a skinny kid with big boobs. Well, to be more accurate, she had large breasts, a thin waist, and when you saw her naked, she actually had a butt that was on the larger size (not Kim Kardashian big, but getting there) and a set of thunder thighs in their early development phases.
Even then, while still a callow youth, I knew better than to point out those particular features to her. She lived with her mother at the time we met, so, aware of the mother/daughter nexus, I knew what to expect Ali to look like in the derriere/thighs department later in life. Like they sell you at Starbucks — a Grande... And looking at the woman outside my door my prognosis had been vindicated once again. Como madre, como hija!
Hey, I didn't complain — I was never one to sweat the details.
Plus, she liked sex. When she orgasmed it was a bit like riding a bucking bronco. That was exciting. On the other hand, she was a pretty plain vanilla gal in her tastes.
Missionary position was the norm to the exclusion of anything else — riding cowboy was too much effort for her (really strange, since she did a lot of English style horseback riding with its up-and-down movement —'posting') and doggy style was, well I honestly can't remember her complaint about it, but she didn't like that either.
Oral sex was great — when I performed it on her. It was too dirty for her to reciprocate. And anal? Well, another thing 'too dirty' to even consider. But to a 20-year-old, any sex with a hot woman is better than with your own hand.
As I opened the door, Ali more or less pushed herself in.
"Morning, Brad," she said as she squeezed by me. At least she was smiling. That was a relief.
Oh yeah. I'm Brad. And it's not short for 'Bradley', I was christened 'Bradford' by my parents — an old family name. If Ali had called me 'Bradford' as she came through I would have been really worried. The only time she called me Bradford was...well, let's leave it at 'it wasn't pleasant.'
Another thing about her: she confused my politeness and civility with weakness. I wasn't a 20-something-year old anymore and I was even less inclined now to put up with shit from a woman. But, as I said earlier, until really pressed I'm a pretty laid-back guy, so I didn't point out to her that I hadn't really invited her in.
No matter. She wasn't going to be here for long.
I had a fairly good idea of why she was here. From the notorious, ubiquitous Book of the Face app, I was aware that she was no longer living with the man with whom she had been co-habituating for the past ten years or so. He was in the neighborhood of 15 years older than her for heaven's sake, so I wasn't terrible sure of exactly why she had been living with him in the first place.
I casually wondered why they had suddenly split, but hadn't been interested enough to search out the reasons. Honestly, in light of my own long-past history with her, I figured it could go either way — he (or more likely, his kids) had tired of having her around sniffing around his estate, or alternately she may have decided that she didn't want to spend her remaining active years as a nursemaid to a man who was increasingly feeble. Flip a coin.
So there she was, walking into my living room, ready to reappear in my life, with the hope that I had forgotten just how badly our own time together had concluded.
A shame, because my memories regarding her behavior were still quite sharp. Embedded, you might say. Like sharks teeth left in the flesh after an attack. They hadn't hurt for over 37 years, but they were still there just under the skin like old shrapnel as a reminder.
"Ali," I said as I followed her into the living room, "How are you doing? Can I get you a cup of coffee?"
I remembered Ali telling me how she would have coffee and sweet rolls for breakfast when she was in grade school! Her teachers, many of whom I'm sure started THEIR days with a similar breakfast, were horrified at the thought of a first grader sitting at the table in the morning quaffing a shot of thick, black, sweet Cuban coffee. I was fairly sure she was still one to enjoy a cup por la mañana.
"I'm doing great, Brad," she replied almost sitting in one of the overstuffed chairs before she realized I was headed for the kitchen and not settling in the living room. "Some coffee would be wonderful," she called after me, now also heading for the kitchen in my wake.
Thanks to my late wife, who presented me with a Keurig machine for Christmas — a couple of minutes and a cup of pretty decent coffee would magically appear. I selected one of the smaller sized cups for Ali than I normally drink myself. No point in using the coffee to make our upcoming conversation longer than need be.
But perhaps, I thought, I am being unfair. She may just be passing by and felt the urge of one old friend to see another. If she had stopped because she needed help of some kind, then she had selected well. Even if we had parted on a sour note I would still do what I could to get her out of a jamb, if it was within my reach to do so.
I know the word 'sucker' comes to mind, but for me it is a 'bread on the waters' sort of thing. You understand — a karma concept in which you do good deeds for people and some day when you need help someone will arrive like the cavalry at your doorstep.
She sat at one of the bar stools at the end of the large island that made up the middle section of the kitchen.
"So what's up, young lady?"
A quick note to all of you older men: call the women in your life who are approaching or over 60-years old, 'young.' They know it's not true, but they love you for it anyway.
"Well, we hadn't seen each other face-to-face since that time when I came down and you, your wife and I went out to dinner together. So it was long past time. And I wanted to give you my sympathy in person for your wife's passing. I only met her that one time, and she seemed like a really nice person."
There was a tale in itself: she had only met my wife once because that was the one time I allowed them to meet.
I divorced Ali all of those years ago when she decided that she wanted to go forth and explore the world of men's cocks whereas I felt that my cock should be the singular hotdog in her bun, the only sugar in her bowl (as the old blues singer, Bessie Smith, expressed it.)
It could have been worse, I guess. Ali was always brutally honest, and she told me at the time right up front that she hadn't actually carried out her plan for enriching her sex life at my expense yet, but that she was moving forward with it ASAP.
Only married a little over a year and she wanted out. Good god! We married too young; we were in lust, not love, and that old standby, "I love you, but I'm not IN love with you anymore." Was there a cliché that she couldn't throw out in her effort to 'let me down gently.' Hell, we even had a half-decent goodbye fuck that night.
While at the time I was heartbroken, I didn't adopt the attitude 'I can never trust a woman again.' I figured that even if I had rolled the dice badly the first time, one never knew — the next woman who I met might turn out to be my soul mate. And although my second wife was not precisely the next woman I dated, I met her within a year and had spent the next 37 years in bliss. She was indeed my soul mate and I had been blessed.
Oddly, it was the disaster that was 'Alison' that really confirmed in my mind how wonderful my new wife and marriage were. I've heard it said that you have to have a completely disastrous relationship before you can truly appreciate just how good a great relationship can be.
But my second wife, June, had been a very different woman than Ali. Where Ali was a 'country girl,' June was a Phi Beta Kappa honors grad from a top rated university. Ali wanted to raise cattle and horses; my wife was a high-powered executive running the finance department of a manufacturing company
Nevertheless, Ali was in fact bright and I really respected her for her fearless nature — nothing either emotional or physical seemed to frighten her — but at the time that I met my wife-to-be, I was too embarrassed to have them meet. I expected June would have turned to me after talking with Ali for a couple of minutes and asked, "You were really married to this bimbo?"
That would never have actually happened because my wife was the kindest, gentlest and most understanding woman in the world. When she did finally meet Ali they got on well together and never a nasty word came from her lips about my former paramour. The same couldn't be said for me. Sigh. My wife was a better person than I am, hands down.
