The Deal
Amanandwomantalk Theymakea deal. Theadventurebegins.
One day, while sitting in the living room with a girl I vaguely knew, the subject of sex came up. Perhaps I mentioned it first. Occasionally it slipped out in conversation. For one so lavish in his erotic imaginings, I am also adept at skirting the subject in polite company. When should one talk about sex anyway? To talk about it was to admit that sex could be intellectualized, that it was as pedestrian a subject as the national elections or the latest murder on CNN.
Her name was Lisa. We had a common friend, Danny. She was somebody's ex, or something like that. Once upon a time she had had a love life, but now she enjoyed the uncomfortable freedom of being single. She didn't exactly say she wanted another boyfriend, but couldn't help updating
me about the latest guy she'd met. e way she talked was not wistful, but detached and analytical. No doubt she yearned for the companionship of a kiss even if she no longer believed in its magic. For her, passion was a mistake everyone made and recovered from. She wasn't sad, just too ready to accept the hollowness of being unattached.
And as for me? I was Mr. Nice Guy, but no Casanova. I'd forgotten how it feels or even what it means to "fall in love." I had lots of woman friends, and around them there was always a hint of sexual tension – I wouldn't call it attraction – but an acknowledgement that the possibility of romance and even marriage had to be investigated. With women you have to be careful. Both of us had to maintain civil relations while stealthily exploring emotions and physiological reactions. Was the pursuit likely to result in something? Would I be able to stand living with her 24 hours a day? At the moment, I was sitting on Lisa's bed, a thought which would have thrilled me five years ago, but now seemed as ordinary and meaningless as going to the dentist or finding a dollar under the sofa.
"If I were Irene," Lisa said, "I wouldn't put up with Alexander's crap. I don't know what she sees in him. She's such a smart and independent person, but she needs to stop letting him boss her around." Irene was a tall slender woman with a lovely figure – a recurring sexual fantasy for me. As for Alexander, well, he wasn't perfect, but he wasn't the asshole Lisa made him out to be. Maybe I could have defended him, but could I have ever changed her mind?
"Was Irene going to meet us here or at the restaurant?" I asked. e phone rang, and Lisa stood up. "No, Alexander will meet us over at Mark's house. Hello?"
While Lisa talked on the telephone, she seemed oblivious to the fact that I was a few feet away. She was talking to Bobbie, Mark's wife. Bobbie was nice and funny, but unattractive. I'm sorry to summarize a person in terms of her looks, but that's the way it is. I watched Lisa go over the plans, nodding periodically and twisting her necklace in a carefree, almost childlike manner. A strap from her blouse slid o f her shoulder, exposing a small bit of skin underneath. Moments later, she straightened the strap over that shoulder, and that bare bit of skin would never be seen by me again.
When Lisa hung up, she said, "Are you ready?"
" ere's nothing to say," the man said. "It was love at first sight. Yeah, maybe I did something wrong by inviting her to MacDonald's. But if I didn't do it, that woman would be gone forever, and we wouldn't be married and sitting on your show right now."
" is is too much," Lisa said to me.
"Maria," the interviewer asked, "if Richard were not a policeman but met you on the street just as an ordinary guy, would you still fall in love with him?"
"Well, no –"
"No?" the husband exclaimed with genuine surprise.
"I mean, yes, sure, I would have fallen in love with him. Of course. But it wouldn't have been the same. Maybe I wouldn't have been attracted to him from the beginning. When he was a policeman, I was really afraid of him, but when we talked I realized he was the right man for me, the man I'd always dreamed about. But if I just met him on the street, I wouldn't be afraid of him. I'd just think he was some typical guy. Oh, sure, a ter I talked to him for a while, I probably would have fallen in love with him, but it wouldn't happen as suddenly as it actually did."
"Was it the uniform?"
"Sure," she said.
"Well, Maria, we have a special treat for you," the interviewer announced. "When your husband told us that you liked men in uniform, we prepared a little show for you. I am proud to introduce you to the NBC police squad."
Suddenly, amidst loud dance music, ten handsome men in police uniforms strutted onstage and danced in front of her. Maria stood there clapping while one of the male models dressed as a policeman gyrated his hips and teasingly removed his shirt. e rest of the audience clapped their hands to the beat, and in a lash, the scene changed to a commercial, a child crunching a potato chip, producing a noise so loud that the rest of the students in class went "Shhhh!"
" at's enough, isn't it?" Lisa said, turning the TV o f.
"For today anyway," I said, walking out with her.
We drove to Mark's house in Lisa's car. ough the radio station was blaring, both of our minds were thinking about the television show.
I looked at Lisa for a response. " e real question," I continued, "is not my right to have fantasies and share them. e real question is whether you or another person would find them worth hearing or reading."
"Well, if I had to read your kinky sexual fantasies, I suppose I should have the right to criticize them. How would you like that?"
Silence. I didn't know what to make of that statement of hers. Suddenly in a lash I understood. She was making a challenge. Should I take her up? Was it worth it? "Okay," I announced, "you have a deal."
Both of us laughed, and Lisa turned the radio louder.
Reminder: Turn the page to read the next story. Below is an Interlude with a short dialogue or commentary about the story you have just finished. Clicking this link is optional. (If you wish to skip it and read the next story, just turn the page.) If you read the interlude, look for another link at the end which will bring you back to your current position in the ebook.
Interlude: Lisa has second thoughts about the deal. The narrator reassures her Or does he? (Read more)
spent. In my mind, the porn star and the choir boy keep joining together, each finding the other irresistible.
Lisa asks, "Why write erotica when people are dying in Middle East?" The narrator tries to answer but stumbles. (Read more)
Germs
AgirlstudiesabroadinHeidelberg andtwocollegestudentsdiscover passionatthewrongtime.
"Ladies and gentlemen, we just got a weird request. But we’re going to do it anyway." (Final line from the film Baby It's You)
My friend Milena studied abroad in Germany for her junior year of college.
During that year, many things would happen. I would break my collar bone, fall in love with Natalie Portman and take a cross-country bus trip. I also decided to skip graduate school – for a few years anyway. I never heard from Milena until April, when she announced (via email) that she had fallen
in love. at girl! Of course, the same would happen to me several years later (or so I thought). A ter studying abroad, Milena would return from Germany as a changed woman. She became more vocal and outgoing, less interested in creativity, more committed to changing the world. She developed a love for environmental politics. She talked about Jonathan (that was his name). Both of them had a master plan. A ter graduating, she would go to London to be with him (obtaining a master's degree in the process). While I spent senior year goofing o f, Milena was hunting down recommendation letters, working on a political campaign and planning her trip to UK. She lived o f campus in senior year, so I rarely saw her –sometimes in the class hallways, once even at the campus co fee shop. at year was so busy – not just for her but both of us. A ter graduation Milena reunited with Jonathan in England. I returned to Chicago. A few years later I heard Milena was in Colorado again (minus her English boyfriend), running around with an ecotourism group. I suppose by now she is happily married, working for next to nothing on some futile campaign to save the world.
at was the future, before I even cared about the past. But when I was 20, all I cared about was the present. Milena had called to say she would be spending a night in Chicago (where I lived) before her big trip to Germany. I met her at the airport, glad to see her before she le t. We went to Rice University in Houston. We agreed it was a crappy school, but she had a scholarship, and I foolishly thought I would study mechanical engineering. By the end of sophomore year, we realized the futility of transferring schools. We already made friends and completed two years of prerequisites. We even enjoyed the football games. Besides, when Milena learned that overseas courses counted towards her major, she resolved to make the best of a bad decision. As she explained, "there's no point in dwelling on what we should have done two years ago."
When I tried to hug her at the airport, she brushed me away. "Don't. I have a cold." Yes, she was sni ling. But she didn't look awful; she never did. Did I mention she was beautiful? She had slender arms and a quiet delicate grace. In large groups she was quiet and perfectly content with herself. But all alone she was an entirely di ferent person – unafraid to say bizarre, unexpected things and laugh scurrilously at anything that mocked convention. She was still a girl, still a little girl. Or maybe not, but she liked
" ose weirdos!" she said dismissively. " ey were just guys from history class. Our group went out for drinks a ter the weekly study group. I'd hardly call them friends."
I feigned a lippant attitude. "Darn, if I had known that, I would have tried to spend more time with you."
Our eyes met for a moment, and then Milena's dri ted away. "It's too bad," she said with a sni le, or maybe a whi f of sadness.
e conversation quickly reverted to something silly – a new movie or song, but all this time I was absorbing what she had said. "It's too bad we never had the opportunity to see more of each other." What did she mean? It's too bad we never had the opportunity. We? Had she wanted something more? is all came out of the blue. Was it possible that even a small portion of the attraction I had felt for her had been requited? A voiceless shudder passed through me. Had I been misreading her for the past two years? Hardly call them friends? at meant she regarded me as a friend. Just a friend? It's too bad. ose were her words. What was too bad? at we were friends? Was that bad? Why did she say it was too bad? More importantly, why hadn't I noticed her interest before?
Back in freshman year, she became romantically involved with Ian only two weeks a ter school began, and that continued for more than a year. Actually, I hung around the two of them quite a bit (and even stayed friends with Ian a ter the breakup). at's irony. A year ago, she and Ian were madly in love and planning to live together. And now neither person wanted to see the other while I remained friends with both, and was the last person Milena would see before leaving the USA. Yes, this was the dreaded "friendship zone." But tonight was di ferent. She was smiling at me di ferently. Or was I just now noticing it?
As we meandered on some other banal topic, I suddenly blurted out, "do you want to know a secret?"
"What?"
"I've always had a crush on you."
She looked at me with amazement. "Whoa," she said, laughing a little, then leaving an uncomfortable pause. "Tony, you're really full of surprises tonight."
"Yes," I said so tly, as it dawned on me that Milena wasn't suddenly going to admit to some grand overwhelming passion.
"Well, gosh, Tony," she said, nodding her head. "Your timing is remarkable." She paused and gave a sad, cynical laugh. She seemed about to say something, but then changed her mind and kept it to herself. "I guess it's futile to talk about such things now."
"I guess I had always been crazy about you," I continued, knowing that once I started I wouldn't be able to stop. is might be my last and only time to talk like this. "When I saw you for the first time reading a book underneath a tree, I wondered how great it would be to know you better. en you showed up at the newspaper o fice, and we saw each other almost every day. But you were seeing Ian and a ter Ian, that other guy –"
" ere was NOT another guy."
"Whatever. I viewed you as one of those out-of-reach girls that a person could dream about. I thought you liked me only as a friend. Tell me, was I wrong?"
Milena sighed. Although she paid close attention to my words, she seemed on the verge of a sneeze and closed her eyes. When nothing came, she said, "excuse me."
"No, go ahead."
She sat with her eyes closed, waiting unsuccessfully for a sneeze to come out. When nothing did, she opened her eyes again, and took out a kleenex. "Excuse me."
"Do you need medicine?"
"No, I'm already doped up."
"I guess it's not a good time to be making confessions."
"Don't worry about it," she said in a low voice. "You've been very sweet."
"Was this something you thought about?" Knowing she'd be on that plane tomorrow made it easier to be honest. And easier to face a letdown. Milena hesitated, so I went on nervously. "I had always thought … that I was in love with you."
Milena touched my arm with her hand while trying to avoid contact with any exposed area of skin that might infect me. "You are very sweet," she repeated.
"How did you feel? Could we ever have become more than just friends?"
"Nothing is impossible," she said. "You make it sound as if 'just being friends' is slightly awful."
"No, I didn't mean that." I suddenly realized I had nothing more to say. Milena sat next to me quietly, holding her head back and closing her eyes.
"Are you all right?"
Milena opened her eyes again. "I'm fine. My nose is a faucet, and my throat is pretty sore. But I'll be fine." Milena paused, took a deep breath and continued talking. "It's like this. ere was a time when I would have – yes, at the football game – do you remember when the group went to the opening game, and we were talking about kindergarten teachers? And you told the joke about the man with the cellphone? Remember? On that day, I was thinking about how wonderful you were, and how nice it would be to spend the rest of the night talking with you. Do you remember?"
Of course I did. It was a breezy night, and we had walked back to the dorms together a ter the game. It wasn't a romantic time at all; both of us were just saying silly things. I guess I could have spent all night talking to her, but the game was over, it was getting late, and you didn't have time for drinks. Something about a school assignment you had to finish. e time you were most attracted to me was the time I thought you were trying to get rid of me.
"It's funny how things worked out," she said.
"I'm sorry," I said. "I'm really sorry. If I had known, maybe I would have –"
"Would have what?"
"Kissed you."
We looked at each other for a few moments, then Milena gave me a happy-go-lucky "c'est la vie" kind of expression. "Oh well," she said. What a fucking idiot I had been. During freshman and even part of sophomore year I had thought a few times about calling her out of the blue and inviting her to a concert or something. But whenever I imagined the conversation, I would always sound awkwardly desperate, and she would have always have a ready excuse for declining. I never had the courage to hope. And yes, now everything was too late. e airplane would take her away tomorrow, and I would even be the one to escort her.
But that was a pessimist's view of the situation. ere was time still. She was with me, and we were together in the restaurant eating pie and drinking co fee, uncertain what to do. ere was time. I held her hand in almost a panic, "Let's get out of here," I said, and she agreed.
As we walked to the nearby El stop for the train to the hotel, I suddenly became aware of the night, the fact that we were alone and I was the only one she knew in this gargantuan city. I took her hand and held it while Milena looked at me, slightly alarmed, but never saying a word. "Please," I said, moving closer and kissing her on the lips. It was a little sudden, and she consented without any visible sign of cooperation. Suddenly, she broke away and said, "No, please. I have a cold. You don't know what you're doing. Let me go."
We arrived at the Damen El stop and started waiting.
"I'm sorry," she said. I said nothing. "Listen," she said, "don't take it personally. I'm leaving tomorrow. I can't think about the past or what might have been. I'm sorry. Tony, are you mad at me? I didn't mean to o fend you. It's just... I have a cold! If you get it too, I'll feel guilty when I'm on the plane. You're a great friend. Call it love or whatever you want. I like your company and am enjoying this evening quite a bit. "
"I'm not mad, " I said, watching the tracks for the next train. Her eyes were reddened with nasal congestion, and I half-wondered if they might have been tears. It was 10:30. She looked sick as a dog. I felt bad about having told her all this when her physical state made her so miserable. Maybe letting these things come out was a mistake. I put my arms around her and held her, noticing that neither of us was willing to let go. e embrace was not romantic or sexual, just calming; and when she finally let go, she looked at me with a tender smile, as though she saw in my eyes a new possibility, a new hope, a new source of warmth. As the train approached, she said, "On second thought, I don't feel that bad. I probably look worse than I actually feel."
"You look beautiful to me now."
"Liar!" she laughed. "Let's go somewhere. Do you dance?"
"It's your last day in America. We can do anything you want."
She looked out at the city and smiled. "Let's walk around. I'm feeling better."
I didn't know much about Bucktown and or what kind of dance clubs were around. But we walked towards the lights and music, lingering momentarily at shop windows full of vintage clothes and curious jewelry, stopping at the entrance of a club. From the outside we couldn't tell what it would be like, but inside, we realized that it was a techno/industrial place
Milena sat in the taxi and began rummaging through her purse while the taxi sped away.
"Is there a problem?" I said.
"No, where's your cellphone?"
"Here," I said, handing it to her. Last night we had talked about her using it for last minute goodbyes.
9:19. While the taxi driver darted through tra fic, she talked to her parents about Chicago, the Baden Baden accommodations and when she would call next. Apparently her mother mentioned a blouse she had forgotten. Milena cursed and pleaded with her mom to ship it to Heidelberg. "You can? Excellent!" She smiled and gave me the "thumbs up" sign. "Okay, Mom, I will, okay, yes, not today, yes, I know, probably not, okay, I love you, okay, Mom! I have to go!" She hung up. "What time is it?"
"9.24."
"God!" she said. "I can't believe we're this late. ey said to be there 90 minutes early for international lights. Wait!"
"What?"
"She could give my blouse to Diane." She redialed and asked her mom to drop o f the blouse at Diane's house. Diane, I guessed, was another student leaving for Heidelberg next week. Milena repeated the instructions and hung up like a changed person, no longer panic-stricken but confident that from now on, everything would go her way. "What time is it?"
"9.26."
"Relax," the driver said, while they sat at a tra fic light. e man was used to transporting people frantically trying to make up lost time.
I held her hand tightly and kissed her. "How much time?" I asked.
"Five to seven minutes. No problem at all. A ter the next turn, I'll have you at International Departures." e taxi lunged past a red light and veered right, pushing Milena against me for an instance.
" is cabdriver is awesome," she whispered. She dialed another number, her brother in New York. He wasn't home, so she le t a voice mail. "Hey, it's me, just wanted to say I'm at the airport and about to get on the plane. I promise to tell you about every beer I drink. I love you and by the way, I ended up not taking dad's suitcase a ter all. Say hello to Emmett, and don't get mad at him for ruining the carpet. Bye!"
"I should call Janice," she said. Janice was her roommate. Milena found the number in the address book and laughed loudly when she answered. Apparently Janice was still in bed. ey gabbed rapidly about last night's pasta primavera and how she had overslept and how I had given her the "grand tour." "By the way," she said to me, "Janice says hello."
"Hello, Janice," I called out to the phone.
9.33. e taxi pulled in, and we stormed through the airport terminal, weaving through youth groups and luggage carts and pilots to find light information on the wall of monitors. Lines were everywhere, and whole families were snaking around the cordoned maze of lines. Irrelevant announcements on the loudspeaker called attention to the fact that –depending on your circumstances – time was either standing still or rushing by. When we stopped at Milena's airline, at least 80 people stood in line ahead of us.
9.37. I walked past the people in line to a nearby ticket counter, explaining Milena's situation. e woman waved me forward, and I called out to Milena, who immediately hung up the phone and hurried over. A ter the clerk took the bags, checked her ID and handed her a boarding pass, Milena breathed a sigh of relief and told the woman, " ank you for saving my butt!"
9.44. We ran unencumbered to the security checkpoint. When we stopped at the line (actually a series of 6 di ferent lines), I said, "wait!"
"What?"
I grabbed her, held her and kissed her in full public view, oblivious to the people and the rush of everything, the fact we were out of breath and the world was waiting for us to say goodbye. Time was running through us and past us, and yet this single kiss kept our hearts momentarily in the present. I couldn't bring myself to let go. "I don't want you to leave. "
Milena sighed and laughed a fectionately. "So a ter all this running around, you tell me not to leave." She planted a quick kiss so tly on my lips. I noticed that we stood underneath a digital clock that read 9:49. " ank you for your help," she said, handing my cellphone back to me. "You've been fantastic."
" ank you," I said in a low voice, still holding her. "I'm glad we could be totally open about everything."
"Yes. What a surprise!"
Je frey looked at the scorecard. "As of the ninth hole," he said, "you have 21. I have 26."
John knew he was winning. He was always winning. But he kept having to remind himself that the highest score was the lowest score, that the one with the fewest points was the winner.
"At utterly mindless game," John muttered to himself. Je frey ignored him, concentrating on the next hole. "You get the ball in the hole. en what?" He put the ball down and studied the path to the next hole. "Where's the challenge? Look. e hole's straight ahead. No obstacles, no slopes, no hidden traps. I should complain. We should have gone to the other course. You should see it. It has a castle, a moat, even artificial alligators. You gotta see it. eir jaws open and shut every few seconds. It's wild. My turn? Good, let the professional demonstrate. ere, you see? A hole-in-one. I wasn't even concentrating. Maybe I should close my eyes for the rest of the game. What's the score?"
John and Je frey liked to talk philosophy. At high school age, philosophy meant using words you knew the other person wouldn't know. Besides philosophy, John and Je frey talked about sex. And girls. Sex, girls, the same thing.
John and Je frey had never seen or touched a real grown-up female tit. For John, this was one of life's tragedies.
Nights at Vinnie's Fantasy Golf were less than wild. e mosquitoes feasted on the blood of unprotected arms and legs. Speakers blasted Top 40 songs into the evening. Artificial lights gave the place an otherworldly glow. e bathrooms smelled like PortoCans and constant mopping. e Coke machine had a "No Refunds" sign and a gra fiti note in pencil. It said, " is machine is a monster. It eats money!"
But the place had girls. Gobs of them, all ages, everywhere. At holes ahead of them, behind them, keeping scores with miniature pencils (everything was miniature here). Girls on dates. Girls from the public high school, a place where girls and guys actually sat next to one another in class, brushing elbows as they twiddled their secret locker combinations.
John and Je frey liked the word fuck. ey added it dutifully to conversations. ey said it as nonchalantly as the words "nonconformist," "raison d'etre" or "Nietzsche."
" is is so pathetic," John said, stepping to the next hole. "It's Saturday evening, and what are we doing? Playing miniature golf. What losers! Why are we here? e world awaits with sexual opportunities. Look at the guys with the babes at the seventh hole. It's all so unfair. For now we have an excuse for inexperience. For now we can blame the all-boys high school for every fucking thing wrong with us. But who's going to buy that excuse in college? You know what they say in Penthouse magazines, the stories about the sorority fuck fests, the strip poker parties, the nymphos who'll fuck anybody, even nerds, like us. Je frey, I ask you, what can we do to prepare ourselves? So what if our SAT scores are astronomical! So what if our high school required four years of science instead of three! So what if we took enough Latin to translate our fucking diploma! What di ference will it make when a hot juicy pussy is waiting on your dorm bed, and you haven't the foggiest idea what to do?
" is city is loaded with thousands of fuckable girls. Open your eyes! ey are everywhere you look, driving the expensive cars, swimming at the pool, sitting ahead of you at the movies, so close you can see the smooth thighs and smell the gum they chew out of sexual nervousness. So many fuckable girls, so many single fuckable girls with not a boyfriend in sight, waiting to be asked out to dinner, waiting to be brought to a miniature golf course, waiting for your hands to spread their legs in the back seat of your car. One Czech guy said 95% of girls would strip if you asked them nicely. Ninety-five percent! And he was talking about the repressed Czech girls; the ones here must be fucking nymphomaniacs! is city is a breeding ground for lovely fuckable girls. Out of two million people in Houston, a million are female; about three hundred thousand are of fuckable age. At least! So there's three hundred thousand fuckable females out there, and at least a third of these fuckable females are girls we wouldn't mind fucking. at's a total of one hundred thousand fuckable girls, take your pick. And out of those one hundred thousand, you could bet at least thirty thousand would love to fuck us. irty thousand fuckable fuckworthy girls who would love to fuck us! at's just a conservative estimate! It could be forty thousand, fi ty thousand, who knows! Out of that thirty thousand fuckable beautiful women who'd want to fuck us, at least five thousand would even be willing to pay cold hard cash for the chance. Can you believe that? Five thousand eager naked women. We're talking about a whole fucking
e woman I love is not the woman in my arms. My fiance is thousands of miles away, doing whatever entomologists do to write their PhD's. I'm not worried; Mary stays in touch; her handwritten letters are full of longing and anticipation. ey give me strength and confidence about our future together. Mary was supposed to return from Brazil next month, but her last letter mentioned a three month delay. I remain patient; I've waited seven months; surely I can wait another three. Mary, as long as your heart stays with me, time and distance become meaningless. ese past few months have been bearable but empty; whenever the apartment becomes silent, my mind dri ts to thoughts of your voice, your laughter, your touch. I dream about your body and your lovely funny desire, the intimate details of our lovemaking, the feel of your hands inside my own. I spend every night fantasizing; I foster a secret fear that when you return, our passionate enthusiasm will have changed into something less remarkable. No, that cannot happen. I know you. But every time an unsteady palpitation of doubt seizes my heart, I wonder.
Mary, you are with me in my heart, even as I embrace Tanya. e two of us are sprawled on the loor with friends. It is a weekend party with the gang. We are laughing, telling jokes, drinking. Someone suggested group backrubs, and we broke o f into male-female pairs, switching for a while, then settling into semi-permanent partners. e whole thing was innocent enough; we were just relaxing, not trying to initiate some orgiastic ritual. But a kind of promiscuity was in the air. We were just out of college, unattached though not eager to fall in love. We enjoyed pleasures directly and without complications. We lived life as though it were some simple script with simple emotions; we played the game with enthusiastic agreement.
I eventually settled with Tanya, and we took turns kneading one another's backs. You remember Tanya; she was Julie's roommate: the tall thin girl who liked rollerblading. She had long dark hair, a relaxed, smartalecky smile and nimble hands that pressed firmly against the curves of my back. Before this, we had only exchanged a few words, but now we had time to talk and knead simultaneously. We talked about the usual things: movies, friends, the city. We really had little in common; she liked the outdoors and complained about her accounting job. I liked her though; we were comfortable together. And yes, she looked desirable in her shorts
and T-shirt. I could hear and even feel her breath behind my neck and occasionally, her naked thighs brushed against my knees. As I put my arms around her to massage her back, I imagined having complete freedom to caress her any way and anywhere; she was already close, and I had only to reach down a few inches to give the situation an erotic meaning. As we talked, Tanya smiled and nodded her head, closing her eyes and going o f into a trance. When she opened them again, she laughed and o fered to switch places. She kneaded my shoulder blades slowly. Again I felt her breath against the cotton of my shirt and even the outline of her curvy bosom against my back. Someone at the party passed around a bowl of chips. I took some and handed the bowl to her. As we switched places again, someone made a joke about what Mary would think about this hanky-panky? Everybody laughed. Tanya asked about your bug research. Surely she knows about our engagement. But that didn't change how she treated me; I represented the safety and stability of the unthreatening male. She allowed me so close to her beautiful body because she knew I'd never dare to make a pass. Still, she must have sensed what e fect her presence had on me, the nervousness and excitement of disguised desire. She lirted with danger without consciously willing anything unseemly to happen. Perhaps she secretly wished for me to act out some desire. Perhaps she wanted a relationship, or merely the gratification of rejecting a man who'd give up his fiance for her.
at's my professional analysis. Mary, do I sound like a therapist yet? Hopefully by next year I will. Only four weeks of clinical training remains, and then I can take my licensing exam. When you see me next, I'll be teaching people to overcome unhealthy patterns in personal relationships. Tanya will be the first of many dysfunctional women I'll run into. She seems drawn to people who give her sexual attention but who won't (or can't) reciprocate. It's sad. But terribly alluring. Don't worry, Mary, I'm not falling under her spell. But I can't help be aware of the erotic possibility this woman was presenting. Holding Tanya in my arms, I realize that the girl I loved was not always the girl I desired, that the inner desires for another could in fact be an obstacle to love. Mary, the first time we embraced was a holy moment for me; something had changed; something new and hopeful and magical had come into being when our lips first touched; I found peace
