Another crazy day almost past us, I was more than ready to see the dark of nighttime. Before I went to bed that evening, I resolved again that this had to stop. I knew I sounded like a broken record, but I desired peace more than anything else in my entire life, more than the arrival of Christmas in my childhood, more than any hard-won career achievement, more than any accolades that came my way for any reason.
Time to shut it down, destroy the temptations, and resume our previous life together. I'd had enough. Every couple endures some amount of fighting and bickering, but not like this. Our relationship was taking body blows, even with the immense sexual pleasure that the nearly constant score-evening had produced. I wasn't sure we could survive a steady diet of this kind of behavior for much longer.
Sleep came with great difficulty. For some reason, I kept thinking about the way we'd started out. Many of those memories felt like ancient history as I began thinking back.
Every couple weaves a kind of personal mythology. The story line, the narrative arc nominally tells how two people ended up together. But eventually this account turns strict fact to complete folklore.
Thirty and some odd years together felt like eternity and yesterday simultaneously. An active player in my life, we shared more than history, and it seemed incomprehensible to me that she might somehow no longer be in my life. I couldn't cast us aside, no matter how much hurt and pain I felt.
As the story goes, we ended up in bed shortly after our second date. If I had it to go over again, I might have chosen to pace myself, to wait a few weeks before indulging. It happened probably too soon, more so for her than for me. One might think the event was more memorable than it was. The amount of emphasis we placed upon it seemed to indicate its importance in our relationship. It meant everything and, as time passed, it meant nothing.
Our first time together surely wasn't inconsequential, but my memories of that event, that moment in time, are not that copious. Instead, I recall insignificant, superfluous details more than the larger broad outlines and themes one might expect.
For example, I remember noting her blonde and copious pubic hair. I remember how the sweat of our bodies commingled within a few minutes of activity. And I remember lying there after the finish, glassy-eyed, weak in the knees, but thankful. Her bedroom prominently featured several hundred books stacked up high on every shelf. I remember reading the titles as I slowly drifted back to reality.
Almost immediately after we'd had sex, she started backing up. She'd been a warm and tender lover, but became maddeningly evasive and stand-offish not long afterwards. Seated across from me at a restaurant, the place we'd agreed to meet to talk through an important matter, she couldn't even make eye contact. Eventually she got to the point.
"You don't get it. I don't want to like you that way."
That statement put me on the defensive. I surely hadn't forgotten that part of our lovemaking, as it flattered my ego and confirmed my sexual prowess. True or not, I know it was a subjective statement, but I think any man would want to hear those remarks directed at him.
"You told me that no one had ever made you as wet as I did. Were you lying to me?"
"No, I wasn't lying." She looked away, guiltily, uneasily.
No explanation was forthcoming. As far as I understood it, everything had turned out fine. For a time following that meeting, we had to pretend to be friends only, but the real truth always made its way to the surface eventually. We got each other. We desired each other strongly. Mutual friends and close family members reminded us of how frequently we were the topic of each other's conversation.
