So Much Love

So much love.  So much love lost.  Where did it all go?

I’m driving home alone after a long summer weekend with friends.  I draw up beside a pair of young rebels flying down the pavement on a motorcycle in the lane next to mine, defying the law that requires that they wear helmets.  Her girlish arms wrap around his waist, her mouth presses against his ear.  His head tilts back toward her, his mouth opens in laughter.  Her sun-streaked hair flies out behind her.

I know them.

I know them well.

Georgia and Joe; they are the ghosts of my young love and me the summer after my sophmore year at college.

We streak past tall pines crowded thickly together along the side of the highway.  My windows are rolled down.  The scent of balsam fills my nostrils.

We slow down as we drive through the towns with French and Native American names; names that caress as they slip through my lips, names that translate as, “The Lake That Speaks,” “Translucent Waters,” and “The Breathing Hole of the Gods.”

 

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Your Naked Body

Memories

By Spector & Cohen
From the album, Death Of A Ladies Man

Frankie Lane, he was singing Jezebel
I pinned an Iron Cross to my lapel
I walked up to the tallest
and the blondest girl
I said, Look, you don’t know me now
but very soon you will
So won’t you let me see
Won’t you let me see
Won’t you let me see
Your naked body?

Listen to Leonard Cohen sing this, with all that boy anguish, desire, impatience pouring from his raspy voice.  I’m sitting on my bedroom floor, eyes closed, listening to the CD and seeing the 16-year-old boy cross the gym floor, struggling to control his body, his throat tight with a thousand inchoate needs and thoughts.  I see the girl, controlling the moment.

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Adventures Happen

“Adventures happen when you’re around, don’t they? Bennett asked.  “Some people, nothing ever happens when you’re with them.  With you, things happen.”

This scene played out over dinner on our second date.  Something amusing did just happen.  Little did either of us know this would be the theme of our relationship.

A beautiful Sunday in early spring.  We headed out in his vintage Jaguar sportster for a drive in the country, ending up at a charming old hotel for dinner.

Jaguar sportster

Great fun driving down country roads in this. Must say, I liked the attention we drew.

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The Poetry of Seduction Redux

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3qBWvoUzWtw

This was produced with a little help from my friends.  One of them has a website of vaudiotexts.  If you’re interested in hearing more, or making one yourself, go to www.vaudiotext.com.

Would I or Wouldn’t I?

Naked under the trench coat

You’ve asked if I would have done what Mick’s date did in When the Rain Stopped.

I could understand if, after reading Toying and I’ve Been Addled Before, you think of me as a sexual adventuress.

One freezing, snowy Friday night  15 years ago I headed out to the airport to pick up Alan, who was still my husband and the object of my fantasies, and  who had been gone on business for the last two weeks.   I was insulated from the elements by thick leather boots, a heavy wool coat and a long wool scarf.

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When the Rain Stopped

Time for another male voice in The Diary of the Vixen Divorcee, don’t you think? My divorced friend, Mick, is here to provide it for us, with his tale of online dating. The brave man has gone where I haven’t dared to tread, yet.

After two years I’d moved on. I’d survived a public divorce, in which I had played a costarring role, the person who didn’t want it in the first place. I’d been the cuckolded husband, the last one in town to know, apparently the very last one. But that had been two years ago, and from what I’d eventually learned the extracurricular activities had maybe gone on two or three years before that.

I made a conscious decision not to date within my existing social network. That decision, and the intervening twenty-four months, had taught me bars and clubs weren’t the place to meet women, at least not for me. Maybe it was the sort of bars or clubs I went to, maybe it was the type of woman I was attracted to. I really don’t know, I only knew it wasn’t working.

Enter unsolicited advice from my friend, Wendy. “Give the online dating thingy a shot. You get to see what they look like, they get to check you out. You can explore mutual interests, see if you’d actually enjoy each other’s company beyond a glass of wine. Besides, if she thinks you’re a creep, she can just block your emails and move on. Look on the bright side, you can save whatever money you were spending trying to get women drunk on dollar shots.”

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The Meaning of Love

Fifty-six percent of men say the words, “I love you,” for the first time by accident.  According to a study published in March in Britain’s Daily Mail, for over half of men the words just slip out of their mouths.

Twenty-three percent of those surveyed blamed alcohol.  Thirteen percent said it because of sex.  Eight percent reported saying these three words, “Because she was crying.”

Like Joan Baez sang, this makes love sound like just another four-letter word.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zqVGjS6o2R8

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Sweet, Sexy and Chaste

That’s what she is.  No better words to describe her.  She’s all sweetness and sexiness.  When we walk together along the river all eyes go right to her.  They take in her tight rear twitching from side to side, the jaunty angle of her head, her amiable expression, her elegant carriage, her carefully brushed raven hair gleaming softly in the sun.

No one can resist her.  Old ladies, young girls, they all look at her.  But, above all, she’s a guy magnet.  Marlys warned me of this the first time she sent us off for a walk together.

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Kisses in the Kitchen

You’ve read about how I met my husband in Some Enchanted EveningI invite you to share the inevitable next step of our courtship.

How about a little fun?  How about a story about a first kiss, that led to a second kiss, that led to years and years of kisses.

This is where Alan kissed me the first time, in my kitchen, with his body pressing mine into the edge of the counter.

A midsummer’s eve, with us racing up the back stairs to my apartment so I could grab something and we could rush out the front door to his car and the next place we had to be, the next party of friends who were waiting for us.

 

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