Notebook

He argued the Moleskines notebooks were not white enough. "The pages were too gray, not enough white. Hard to take notes." 

He bought the last batch of Dutch journals by Henzo. Then he moved onto Leuchtturm. It was OK he said, it was decent but still, the paper were not as white. 

He wrote meticulous notes, some were for his projects, some were for his trips. He got out one book, a Henzo journal that was written from January 2001 to March 2002. He dated three women during that period. A naughty nurse, an actress and a young woman who was pretty but volatile. He inserted their photos in his notebook, alongside of his designs and trip journals.

I had requested to be no photos of me, of any sort to ever appear in his notebooks. I insisted on it - it was important that I remained anonymous in his world.  I existed as a friend, not a lover, not anything more.

I needed not the attention nor misconception of our relationship.

Earlier that evening, we went to the Avenues for food. It had become a tradition of a sort. He called them "our dates".

"It's our date thing. Our own thing." He would grab my hand and say to me, as if I were someone he dated. He did not date me. I did not consider him my date.

"It was just a thing." I said.

He was like a little dog, ready to ride in a car with the window down. I did so because I knew he would enjoy the ride, and the Avenues, also known as the Sunset, was foreign to us and unoccupied by yupmeisters, it was still stuck in the 90s. I liked that anonymity where my social life was concerned. We often ended up at Taraval, or Noriega, sometimes Vicente.

"I took on my projects, to try to find meaning. I am obsessed with it because then I won't get so depressed." He confessed over chicken and rice, sipping a Hong Kong milk tea.

"Did you ever get depressed? I did not know that." I asked as if it was the first time I met this version of him.

"Yes. I do. Often." He admitted it while looking at me. From an angle, he was not a bad looking man. Certainly a lot younger than his true age, younger than most people who were ten years younger, even. He was fit and lean. He had dark unruly hair and extremely tall nose. He had that northeastern side of him that he could not shake off, even though he's been living in the West Coast since the 90s. I half expected his Bostonian accent to slip out sometimes, but there were none.

"Hmmm... I did not know that about you." I should have but I did not.

He advised me to find someone, to be physically intimate with.

"I thought that I found that person." I argued.

"But then.. it just did not happen that way." I sighed.

"There must be thousands of people who would want to have sex with you. Have you looked?" He asked genuinely.

"No,  I have not. I thought that I wanted that. Just some fun. But I did not. I couldn't. It is the best to be alone. I had no idea how I went from who I was to who I am."

Reading his notebooks gave me a slice of his inner works.

We read together lying on the couch. Friday night, we read. He shined flashlight over his notebook, I tried to decipher his neat, small handwriting. He did not write cursive notes. They looked like neat prints. He wrote left handedly, like my father, like my grandmother, like all my ex boyfriends.

I knew he wandered into Ground zero. According to a notebook from 2001. I knew that he vacationed in northeast. He met up with one of his girlfriends in New York City and they took trips to Brooklyn. There was an old subway map, before the re-routing of A, C, 1 and 2 train happened. His uncle lived in the Upper West side, they visited him often when he was a kid. Boston to New York. I used to take that train, first regular Amtrak, then came Acela Express. I thought I would live my life, Boston to New York, train ride every other weekend, but I ended up in San Francisco, two children, two houses, one of which a white picked fence Victorian. Now I just wound up running into people who escaped their Northeastern life to be here, voluntarily and happily. Like him.

I knew the comings and goings of his women. He described them emotionlessly like his projects, like things, like hard cold metal objects lying on the work bench. Women were objects that he occasionally stuck his penis into. They were not friends. He bonded with them superficially. He pretended to listen to them so that he could get into their pants. He wanted to control them, to feel the intellectual supremacy over these ordinary women with decent, but not intellectual jobs, with limited exposure to the world, but dreamed of settling down with an intelligent man like him and raise smart babies with, they dreamed with such a strong determination that one day they could change his heart so that they, not the women before them, would be the one he would marry. 

I wish that I could tell them that they were sadly mistaken. He had never ever felt that bond with women. He used them until he got tired of them. He treated them as his projects, he was passionate about them until he finished building them, then he would be onto other things, other inventions, other women with nicer boobs, blonder hair and wider smiles.

I wish that I could tell them, but then they might just say to me, "He did not want you. You were just jealous." I wish then I could contradict their theory, "No, that's actually not true. He liked me. But he liked me liked a friend. Someone he respected and someone he cared. That scared him. So he could only be a friend to me. As for me, I never loved him. I loved someone once, but he was not that person."

I read his stories, his emotionless count of journey back to Providence, and back to New York, and then I looked at those pictures of his women in scaly clad clothing, like a porn inserts back in the day.

I wanted to go home. I was becoming bored. But he wanted me to stay. So I read some more of his notes and stories.

I was in pain and I needed to head home. I had been sick from a non cancerous growth. Inside of me an alien was forming and it was going to eat me alive. I needed to see a surgeon, not an inventor.

He wanted me to read more stories. He wanted my company, I could tell. Platonic company that kept his mind off depression. A woman he actually liked, respected, and perhaps secretively attracted to.

I wanted to go home and cry. I missed my intimate relationship that I had once with someone.

I did not know how to handle an intimate relationship. I did not know how to love someone half way and not all the way through. I did not know how not to be a drama queen and how not to freak out when he started to ignore me. I did not know how to be turned on and then off. I could only stay on or stay off. I figured that I'd need to stay off, this time, for my own sake, for good this time.

My heart belonged to someone else. And when that someone left the scene, it did not matter who was in my life. So I cleaned house. First people then thoughts. I had cut out every thought that led to my yearnings for that physical and emotional intimacy. I had to stop thinking. Processing. Craving. My mental capacity was extremely limited, as it turned out. It was easier to shut it off then to keep it half open, open for lunch but not dinner; open for coffee but not for happy hour.

In that gap of lack of possibilities, I met him. Since then, he and I had formed this really strange relationship. More than a friend but not quite a lover, some sort of platonic relationship yet not exactly without sexual tension on rare occasions. When he was drunk, for instance. At which point, I would simply get up and take off.

I liked reading his notes and stories. I liked discussions we had. I believed that he liked me like a friend. A rare, platonic friendship that we had struck some months ago, had grown like wild mushrooms in the dark forest where Snow White was last seen hiding, after a storm. You did not know if it was poison or not until you took a bite at it. And if you did decide to venture out, it was almost certain that your fate was sealed at that moment. 

I wanted to see him again. Maybe in a few weeks and we'd get drunk and then I could ask him to hold me so that I could cry. Cry for all the lost hope and faith, cry for the lost love, cry because I wanted to fall in love again and be loved again. And it would be impossible.

He would refuse to hold me, instead he would stand far away from me, behind the kitchen counter, and he'd shake his head and say to me, "You won't listen, will you? You can't fall in love. You have to let it go. Grow up." Then I would walk up to him and wipe my snot off by running my nose over his velvety shirt, to piss him off. 

I would tell him, "Shut the fuck off and leave me alone". 

He would look at that pathetic version of me, and start to laugh, and then say something stupid like, "Why does the cow cross the street?" 

And I'd be like, "What the fuck are you talking about?

And he'd say, "To see a moooovie. Get it?"

I would start to laugh. That was the exact joke my son told me the other day.

Then he would say, "I should get a cat."

I would disagree. "But you don't like responsibilities. You fear commitment."

He agreed with me but then said, "But cats are cute. I like cats."

I would then say,"But you are allergic to cats. just like me. Unless, you get one of those ugly hairless cat. Yuck!"

I would have stopped crying. 

And I would have forgotten why I was crying to begin with.

It has always been there

In that living room, not lived in, but just a room, with a sofa, a chair and a book shelf, there was a bulls horn hung on the ceiling, books, neatly piled, stored and sorted, on the bookshelf, some photos, old, family photos, of him, his family, his parents, and his siblings. There was a black and white photo, of his diseased father, he was smiling in the photo, looking back. “He had his father’s smile.” I remembered thinking.

There was an enclosed cabinet to the side. I don’t know if there was a TV inside, or some junk, maybe junk he did not want others to see. 

"You are very neat." I used to tell him. He would smile and say, "You knew that about me already."

"Did I?" I didn’t recall ever sharing that information with him.

"Is that new?" I’d often point something on that bookshelf, discovering something that I thought to be an addition.

"No, it has already been there." He would always give the same line.

That back and forth came about every time I saw him.

Once he was going through the shelf, looking for a book for me, just before my trip, and he couldn’t find it, so he handed something else to me, for me to read.

A few books lying on the clothes bureau in the bedroom. Never been touched, but stacked just so, as if they were part of the staging. He had a rarely used bedroom, The same towels, soft, egg york colored towels. I was handed one when I got out of the shower. The same towel, presumably, used by his girlfriend, wife, or other female visitors. 

I was always a visitor. I played a role, a role that sometimes had the name of “sweetie”, “baby”, or “hon”. 

When the days were getting shorter and nights were getting longer, I wondered if and when I would become a past tense. I would be told as a story by him to other women after me, and he’d say “I used to date this Asian woman.” And to make the conversation slightly more suggestive, he might add additional details like “She had unusually large rack for her race.” He would omit the fundamental truth. #1. We never dated, we fucked only; #2. the past tense was false, because those statements were meant for the next woman, a present tense would deter the wild eyed new victim. 

I once asked him to tell me stories about a few relationships before me. He gave me a few broad stroke descriptives: married, divorcing, single but needed a relationship he could not offer. “They wanted more than I could offer. They were not independent, they did not have a full life like you.” He concluded while drinking his wine. 

I began to imagine living independent lives together, but apart, with him.

That imagination became so vivid that I thought it would be doable.

Then one day he vanished. He did not say why, but he was gone.

The next time we saw each other, we were barely friends. 

"So you moved back." He asked.

"Yes I did." Recently.

"How’s your job? Your family?" He tried to find words.

"Both are well." Really.

"Did you remember the first time?" He asked.

"Which one?" I was not pretending to forget. I had already forgotten.

"It was exactly seven years ago." He added.

"I have a child now." He thought to drop that bomb on me.

"Really? Fantastic." I had mine, they were grown.

"I liked you very much. I always did." His conclusion.

"You used to tell me that you loved me." I smiled. I remembered that much.

"Well then." His hair was gray. He had not shaven. He looked small, weak, and tiresome.

The leaves were brown, the air was crisp, the seven years made everything so washed out. 

"What now?" He leaned over to kiss me. 

His lips were cold, colorless and foreign.

"I had left a facial cleanser tube in your place. The last time I was there. It was French." I missed my French facial cleaner. It came from Douglas store, in Beaune.

"Yes, it’s still there." He remembered. It was seven years ago.

"I’d like to have it back sometime." I wanted what’s mine back.

"The next time when you come over." He promised to keep it for me.

There was a black and red backpack by his foot.

I wanted to ask, “Is that new?”

But I already knew the answer.

He would say, “It has always been there.” 

Then what? 

This is a story that I was told

A story that was told to me over lunch

I have known him for many many moons. We started out very quickly as lovers, then we became friends. It was a natural transition. We never fought, never had any problems. Never ever. Sometimes I saw him and sometimes I did not. We tried to have lunch or dinners sometimes when we could not physically get together. He was a lot younger than I. He is a professor's son. He's married. But no children.

I sometimes saw him more frequently than others. He was always busy, with lives and with work. Sometimes he traveled. When we couldn't get together for pleasure, we had lunches or dinners, we tried to see each other once a week if we could, but it was not mandated. He was no longer a lover or someone I feel lust over, but I adored him and I liked the way he interacted with me. He was calm, and not finicky. I had gone to hotels with him, his house when his wife was not around. I even hosted at my place when my husband was not around. When I broke up with my boyfriend, I told him just enough details so that he knew that he was not the only man I was sleeping with, but I never told him the details. He knew that I was active and he knew that I did not want too much of him in my life.

I liked the way he treated me. We were like partners. I would be just happy if I had married him and I think he'd feel the same.

He was my second-husband.

I think one day I would be gone and he would be gone, but it would not be anytime soon.

Perhaps that's what love really was. I had never intended to love him. But I knew that he was an important part of my life.

I would be there for him always.

I am his friend.

It's the fall, and I miss the Midwest

Leaves are falling. I dropped my kid at girlscout.

It's the fall and I miss the Midwest.

Specifically, Wisconsin, Chicago and St. Luis.

Heart was broken one year. Heart was not mended for years to come.

I had a short lived love affair with a man who wanted to marry me.

It was epic, we had covered so many grounds, so many cities, so many states.

I cannot return to Boston and D.C., without my physical being experiencing death.

I found men after him, all from the East Coast.

I could never forget that night in downtown Chicago, the evening when he returned, when I had just let another man leave, in my fancy hotel room, he knew but he said nothing. He loved me like no other.

I had never been loved like that again. I knew at that moment when we were in Hedonism II, Jamaica, that he was going to be my only chance to eternal sexual happiness. And then it ended. The man who ignited and loved me, who made me feel beautiful and grown up, who showed me the world, who spoke beautifully, six languages fluently, who had curly, short, blond hair, who wore those glasses, with the impossibly blue eyes, who was seven years older than me, who loved me. That was going to be my one and only chance.

And then it ended.

Fall gave me special meaning to life. Death, and life after love.

My love affair with him started in the fall and ended in the fall.

When it finally ended, he moved from the east coast to be closer to me, I refused to see him. I did not want to talk about him, see him, or be reminded of him.

It then dawned on me perhaps that was what true love and betrayal was like. You can't begin the thought process of thinking, because thinking will break your heart all over again.

I hope that he's dead. I spent 18 years not thinking about him, writing about him, and now 18 years later, all I could think about was him.

Would I still be the same? Would I be loved just the same? Could we truly have a life together? Could I live with his secrets? Could I be OK with his colored past, his women, his wandering eyes? Would all of it be OK because he was the only person who was so deeply in love with me and who thought that I was his only? Have I missed the one opportunity to be sexually desirable to a man whom I was devastatingly attracted to?

Or would any of it be of any importance if he was dead?

What if he was dead, and not just dead to me?

The coast of Massachusetts was exceptionally beautiful in the fall. He took me to the best deep dish pizza in Chicago. He was the reason I learned to SCUBA diving. He sent me beautiful seashells from the Bahamas, he wrote to me wherever he went and wished that I was there. I caught the travel bug from him. We covered the west, the east and the midwest.

He spoke softly, I nearly whispered when I spoke to him. But I could see his passion under his lens.

Then one day it just ended. I ended it.

We stayed at the South Beach Miami. The sand was white and the women were beautiful.

In Mexico, he ordered street tacos for me. In the winter of Philly, he walked into a Korean run corner store and spoke fluent Korean to the clerk. I wanted a fresh mango, there was none.

I never had to tell him that I loved him. He knew. And he told me so.

I was 22. I did not know how to live in one place after that. He moved. A lot. Mostly out of the country, stationed abroad, he was my Bourne Identity.

I had no other stories like that to tell after that.

I had never figured out how to love like that again.

Whenever I felt something I immediately reverted to the 22 year old me. I wanted to know when the next trip would be. Would he leave me? Which state would he be in? Which country?

It's the fall.

I don't know where he is. He just turned 48 in September if he's still alive. Is his hair gray? Does he still wear glasses?

Does he still remember me?

Does he still love me?

Would he still remember me if he ran into me on the street?

Is he dead?

Can I still meet him in Chicago, this time without another man in the picture? Would he forgive me?

The answer is in the leaves. The dried, fallen leaves.

On Finding Common Ground

I have this friend who is older and odd. I have become increasingly pissed at him over the drastically different views we have regarding the Middle East crisis and Africa issues. On top of that he is a fan of Noam Chomsky, which of course, in my world, gets him, automatically, categorically, thrown into the crazy ward in a psych hospital. While he does not fancy private college education (because he didn't get much out of his), he is fan of Stanford and MIT, but not so much of Harvard, and he thinks David Brooks, one of my favorite columnists and writers, is a nut job. I must admit, in more than one occasions, I had imagined him getting run over by a car or bus in the city, because he's against the car culture and he's an avid cyclist. In my horrid imagination, I'd be invited to his funeral and I'd say something like this to his friends, "Yes, I knew him once, and yes, we had some political differences."

Then, just like that, we found some common ground. The breakthrough came in today after we discussed the drone attack in Somalia, and then I found out that we all had the same stands on the welfare policy, military budget, and yes, we think that the Scandinavians are onto something about their long term foreign policy.

OK, I no longer secretively wish he's dead. I will let him live for another day, as a dear friend to me. My eulogy, for this imaginary funeral of his, will need to be re-crafted anyway.

The Cat Food

John took the dog. That’s what got April pissed off. John  had been going on “business trips” to Seattle for years. All those years, he was in fact seeing his mistress, this woman who was fifteen years junior, a school teacher, and together they bought and renovated a house, and now John lived there permanently, with April’s dog. Technically it was his dog, but April fed and walked the dog day in and day out. John left the cat Olive, which was technically speaking, hers as well. The big, lazy, black and white cat that often wandered to the neighbor’s yard and ate neighbor’s cat food. The same brand of cat food she put out for Olive. April hated the cat. The cat that ate out of other people’s bowls and slept in her house. April did not understand why the cat liked the neighbor’s food, it was the same brand, and of same taste. Sometimes April would come home late and she’d secretively wish that Olive would vanish, but no, instead, Olive was always yawning, sitting on the porch, waiting for her to pull into the garage when she returned. Olive was always well fed, and well rested. 

April was going to be pulling a late night again. Jack had been taking April to the same spa. It was called “Ocean Breeze Spa and Sauna”, but it’s located nowhere near ocean. Instead it was tucked in a side street in a sleepy residential inland town in Castroville. It was really more like a one hour quick hook up. Each room came with a hot tub, a skylight or a sauna, and a bed with no blankets or pillows. It charged on an hourly basis. Though the sign listed "child rate, $7 / hour", April doubted any child had ever set foot into this place. It cost $39 for two people for an hour. The sign said, "Cash only. We prefer single dollar bills." The rooms had numbers. The casher behind a bullet proof window asked which room they preferred, having guessed they had been there a few times. Then after the cash was paid, and a deposit of $20 or a valid driver's license was left, they were given two white towels and a key.

April had gone to hotels with Jack, or his house, when his wife was out of town; Jack had gone to her house, when her then husband was out of town. He had once left a condom, an open condom on her dresser, which was stupid, because her husband came home the next day and she forgot to remove it. By the time she saw and removed it, she noticed that he had set his car key next to the opened condom pack, but he said nothing. She imagined he saw it but did not nothing. 

Jack was significantly younger, and taller. He was 32. He was a math major in college, but like many college students, he went into software engineering and now worked a start up that focused on food write-up down the street from her. April was a petite and busty, under the right lighting, she could still pass to be a mid thirties woman. The two of them did not exactly started to date at first. They met at a networking event, she ran a non profit organization, and he did coding for a living, and the networking event was to bring people who were working in startups together over wine tasting. She spilled her red wine on his foot, his giant, size 14 and half foot, and they started talking. 

After a few lunches, they went on to have dinners. Eventually dinner became a pretense for getting together so that they could find a place to fuck.

In this spa they did two things: soaking and fucking. He liked to fuck her in the water, and outside of the water, on the bed or in the sauna. She loved anal sex and he would prep for it by licking her ass until she would come, and then he entered her forcefully, and when she cried with joy and pain he would come inside of her. It was their thing. They fucked and kissed and when they parted ways, they acted not like lovers but as friends. 

One year Jack took off for six months to travel the world with his wife. She did not hear from him during the six months, but when he returned, he called her and they were back together again for these meetings.

They never talked about the future. There was none. No one knew that she was seeing a younger man. She thought that it was not kosher among her conservative but caring girlfriends. 

When Jack was traveling the world, April did meet and fall in love with a man named Charlie. Charlie was more age appropriate. April was 45 and Charlie was 48 at the time. He had never been married and was childless. By then John was often gone for weeks at a time, and Jack was half way around the globe, meeting Charlie was a big deal.  Charlie was charismatic and energetic. Within four months of dating, Charlie claimed that he loved her. They had boring vaginal sex, he came in ten minutes, and if he smoked pot, he'd come in twenty minutes. She never orgasmed, but this man got to her heart. They were quite similar. He ran a company like she did, though his was for-profit. They both moved here from Michigan in their early twenties, and they had the same middle class, middle of America childhood. Charlie was into kinky sex, he sailed, and had access to those white nautical ropes. He often tied her up in them as he fucked her. Charlie liked to meet her in fancy hotels. Upon arrival, she was ordered to take off her clothes and he'd put her on a dog collar and leash, she was on her high heels and stockings, and on her knees. She would service him until he was about to come, and at that point she was ushered to the bathtub and he would piss on her until he was drained. Then they'd proceed to have regular missionary sex like the two most normal persons in the world. He would kiss her piss-covered face and tell her that he loved her. She would cry and tell him that she loved him too. Then when it was all over, sometimes they slept in the same bed in the hotels, other times they would go to their respective homes. Charlie had visited her once in her house, when John was away, and she felt uncomfortable about running into neighbors. Since then she stopped inviting Charlie over.

By the time Jack returned from his worldwide trip, her relationship with Charlie was dying down. At first she thought it was just a fluke, a mix-up of scheduling, but it became a pattern.  One day Charlie went on a business trip and said that he'd call, like he always did when he landed at his destination. He never did that time. She called him and he did not call her back. She called again. She tried to text him. She left messages at the hotel. She wrote emails. At first angry but then worrisome emails. She then declared love. And told him that she would do anything to be with him. And nothing. Nothing at all from Charlie.

She finally stopped contacting him. Six months later she got a note from Charlie, he said he had missed her and wanted to see her. Out of curiosity she went to meet him at their usual hotel meet up. She saw him under the broad day light, which was highly unusual - previously they only met up during evenings. Charlie offered no explanation for his absence or his disappearing act. He acted as if they still dated. She wanted to ask him if he got hit by a bus and consequently forgot about the last six months of absolute silence, but instead she just sat there, sipped her cocktail and watched his mouth move.

Charlie looked surprisingly his age: his hair was gray, he had severe bags under his eyes, his faced looked disproportionate wide, his nose appeared to be too large for his otherwise, once upon a time, delicate face, and when he went to the bar to fetch another drink, she noticed that his pants were a little too loose and his butt looked sagging, like all old men’s butts did. She realized that at that moment she no longer loved him. She still wanted to have sex with him, despite all that. She wanted to know if their sex was still appealing to her. So they went from the hotel lobby to his room.

That meeting turned out to be the last time they saw each other. It was also the first time he fucked her in the ass.  Charlie had been wanting to have anal sex with her ever since they met. She did not want to, it felt too intimate physically and she felt that if she gave in, coupled with her emotional dependency on Charlie it would be proven too much for her to handle. She was strangely relieved that he finally got to have her in the most natural way, but at the same time she thought it was the end she was looking for - there was nothing left for her to give.

For a while she thought about writing to him, asking how he was, telling him about her non-profit's progress: they received another round of federal funding, their project won a prestigious San Francisco reward, and her husband John had finally left her: he moved in with his mistress, apparently all those allegedly business trips were in fact him heading to his other home. She was relieved that he had finally left her. The best thing ever happened was that she got to keep their California king size bed. It was a commissioned piece from this local artist in Marin. She loved it and bought a super firm mattress to outfit this gorgeous wooden bed. The one Charlie once slept in with her.

April wanted to tell Charlie, in this note, that John took the dog but she kept the cat. The lonely black and white cat who seemed to be always stealing neighbor's cat food all the time, even though she bought the same brand of cat food for the cat. She attended yoga and sewing classes here and there, and saw this younger man Jack for sex, once in a great while. 

“Oh yes. Have I mentioned to you that I have been seeing Jack for a number of years now? You see, Charlie, you were not the only one I dated.” 

She thought about writing to this man whom she thought she loved once, to shock him with the one last secret she withheld from their relationship, but then again, these were such trivial things. And it would not change a thing. It would not change the fact that she no longer found Charlie attractive, and she no longer loved him. And the note sat in Draft folder, staring at her back each night. For a while she revised the note, over a glass of wine, trying to make it witty or nonchalant, but she could never get just the right tone. So she tried again by writing a new one, but she failed again. Eventually she stopped her revisions, and one day she forgot about those draft notes. 

After Ocean Breeze, April often took Jack to a nearby Ethiopian restaurant for dinner. One year when she was working in Ethiopia, she ate nothing but wat and injera for two weeks straight, Then she missed cheese burgers. She missed it terribly, and French fries. You didn’t know what you had until you were deprived of it. Jack was an adventurous foodie, and it reminded her of how she once was when she was his age. As he stuffed his mouth with injera, scooped up with his hand, she would graciously sip her tea and tell him how much she enjoyed him licking her ass before he penetrated her. Then she'd move onto other course of business, like how her staff was being difficult and one gal had to leave every day at 5:15 to pick up her young daughter from the day care. What had the world become to? Why did they get to feel so entitled about child care when back in the day she did whatever she could for her job, and sacrificed her family life for her career? 

Jack would then tell her that he loved fingering her to orgasm and eating her out before sticking his equipment inside of her ass, and then he'd complain about his job, "Too mundane, lack of excitement and too predictable. When is our IPO anyway? I want to leave but I don’t want to lose my stock options.” He would say. Jack and his wife had been trying for a baby for a year. He wanted a kid but not that much. He concluded the conversation by complimenting her skin. She had the after glow. She smiled and wiped her lips with the edge of the white dinner napkin. 

Next week April would be traveling to Washington D.C. There was a very good Ethiopian restaurant near the DuPont Circle, she said. April wished that Jack could come with on one of her trips. She could show him D.C. and they could then take a train to Philly, where she often visited when she was still with that Charlie, the age-appropriate man. Charlie had an office on Arch street in downtown Philly. She would often meet up with him in his hotel when he traveled there. But she did not mention that to her young lover in the end.

Jack was born to a Scandinavia father and a German mother. His father grew up in Mariefred, just outside of Stockholm, while his mother grew up in Berlin. He had visited his mother and father's homelands but had never traveled to the east coast. It would be a fun trip if one day Jack could get away. April thought.

They parted ways via separate cars. He texted his wife to tell her that he was finally done with work, and she had to go home to see Olive. The black and white cat who often stole neighbor’s cat food, The lazy cat, who wandered in and out of the house, who always laid on the porch waiting for her return, no matter how late she would be.

When April arrived home she found invitation from Charlie’s office. It was a card that announced an upcoming funeral. Charlie had died. He died apparently due to a sudden brain aneurysm at work. He was survived, the card said, by his wife Lucy, and children Luke and Liam. 

That evening she opened her Draft folder of the emails. There were six edited versions of the unsent notes to Charlie. Olive had wandered into kitchen where she had been sitting, staring at the monitor. Olive took a few bite of the food in the bowl  and then she jumped onto April’s lap and rested her heavy head on April’s thighs. April scratched the bottom of Olive's furry chin as she read and reread the notes that intended for Charlie.

For the first time April felt a strange kinship with Olive. She finally understood why Olive ate the same kind of cat food from the neighbor’s bowl. It was not that the food was different, it was that it belonged to the neighbor.

Moratorium is officially over

I declare my path to goodness and wholesomeness is officially over. I don't need that path. I'm already on that path. My moratorium to not seeking fun, extra fun that is, is over. The whole concept of no sex is completely blown out of proportion. The idea that I should stop having sex, or being sexually active is an over reaction. Because I love sex and I need sex and I can't say no to sex.

I do not need those kinky events any more. I think those events are quite boring, actually, but I like good and old fashioned sex. Sex that brings joy, fun and excitement in life, but I have, for the first time in my recent life, realized that I do not need any other things, no commitment, no walking into the sunset, no death do us apart. I like sex, and I like uncomplicated fun. I like direct communication, I don't need to be swept off my feet, I don't need to be told that I'm beautiful. I don't need any words. Action would do.

The problem is that when I was in a sort of dating related relationship, it became super unnecessarily complicated. It became high maintenance. My intent was never more than just to have fun. I function the best when there are no commitment involved. I like regular fun, good sex. It does not need to be a relationship. It does not need to be wooing, love-struck paradise. It needs to be sexy, fun, and when I am with that person, it needs to energize me.

I had been a drama queen. I think my prior relationship was a little too heavy and a little too fantasy like, and I should have approached it as a fun, extracurricular activity, but the problem was that I was in love. Everything is amplified when one is in love. So much thoughts are given to the other person, so much planning is put in place. It really ought to be just that, fun. I would have liked more, but liking more and receiving more would mean one thing and one thing only, destruction of a balance, a life that is perfect in and of itself. It would turn my world upside down if I had given it more thoughts into it.

I would always love that version of me. She was good. She was pure. She was loving. She was intensely giving. But she was miserable, and more importantly, she was seeing men's attention to feel attractive and wanted. She did not need that. She should be happy on her own. That version of me was vulnerable and insecure, she only felt worthy when she was receiving the attention from men. She was a drama queen when it came to the person she loved. It was unhealthy and unattractive. And it was a waste of time. But I did love that version of me. She was on top of the world when she received attention, she was beautiful, fun, sexy and adventurous. She gave everything to the person she loved. She cared deeply. She was ultimately the best version of me. But she was also the worst version of me. She did not know who she was any more. She cried more than she ever did. I miss her, but I could not  be her any more. I have not been her for some time now. I'm at peace, finally.

A perfect situation would be one in which I am to have fun, once in a while, great sex, or good sex is to be had, and with no other attachment.

I have no idea how to get there. I don't want to be with anyone at the moment. At an emotional level or otherwise. I like me.

I don't need to pretend that I have nothing or I have everything. My sexless marriage exists for a reason. I will find my equal, my sexual equal. Someone who is competent, funny, works hard, is not into nagging, complicated relationship, and love sex. Someone whom I'm attracted to, someone whom I respect, someone who is at the same wave length. That person must exist somewhere. Because I'm worth it. And I am good and wholesome.

That's it. No more sadness, no more wondering why, my path to goodness to wholesomeness is complete. The moratorium is officially over. Every relationship dynamic changes. And for me, whatever the next chapter is going to bring, it's going to be one that is with purpose, and with me at the front and center of everything.

I don't want to make anyone proud of me. I want me to be proud of me. I don't want to chase those who do not respect me. I don't need any drama or conflict. I don't need to feel that I had to drop everything in my life to be with the person. To please that person. To give everything and receive nothing in return.

I don't know how to get there, but I will get there. I feel that I'm already there. A life with sense of purpose. A life with love, and hope. Perhaps one day I can have a sexually active life, with a person who is compatible, but I'm not looking. I am simply going to live my life, drama free. expectation free. I'm finally me again.

Life

He took her to this same spa, again. It's a spa because it's called one, but it's more like a one hour quick hook up. Each room came with a hot tub, a sky light or a sauna, and a bed with no blankets or pillow. It charged on an hourly basis. Though the sign listed "child rate, $7 / hour", she doubted any child had ever set foot into this place. It was the second or the third time for her. It costed $39 for two people per hour, and the sign said, "We prefer single dollar bills. Cash only." The rooms had numbers. The casher behind a bullet proof door asked which room he preferred, the guests were then given two white towels and a key, and a deposit of $20 or a valid driver's license. 

She had gone to hotels with him, or his house, when his wife was out of town; he had gone to her house, when her then husband was out of town. He had once left a condom, an open condom on her dresser, which was stupid, because her husband came home the next day and she forgot to remove it. By the time she saw and removed it, she noticed that he had set his car key next to the opened condom pack, but he said nothing. She imagined he saw it but did not nothing. They did not have a sexual relationship by then, it had been 20 years since they were married, their children were grown. She was a young 48 year old.

The man she was with was younger, significantly younger, and taller. He was 32. He was a math major in college, but he was doing engineering work, software engineer, at a start up that focused on food write-up down the street from her. She was a brunette who was petite yet busty, she could still pass to be a mid thirties woman. The two of them did not exactly started to date at first. They met at a networking event, she ran a non profit organization, and he did coding for a living, and the networking event was to bring people who were working in startups together over wine tasting. She spilled drink on his foot, his giant, size 14 foot, and they started talking. 

After a few lunches, they went on to have dinners. Eventually dinner became a pretense for getting together so that they could find a place to fuck.

In this spa they did two things: soaking and fucking. He liked to fuck her in the water, and outside of the water, on the bed or in the sauna. She loved anal sex and he would prep for it by licking her ass until she would come, and then he entered her forcefully, and when she cried with joy and pain he would come inside of her. This went on for a while until she began to like vaginal sex again. They fucked and kissed and they parted ways not like lovers but as friends. 

One year he took off for six months to travel the world with his wife. She did not hear from him during the six months, but when he returned, he called her and they were back together again for these hook ups.

They never talked about the future. There was none. No one knew that she was seeing a younger man. She thought that it was not kosher among her conservative but caring girlfriends. 

Three years ago she fell in love with a man who was more age appropriate. He was 48 at the time, single, childless, never been married, and she was 45. They dated for a year, while she continued to see this young man. Then, this age appropriate man got the cold feet and disappeared. She told her young lover about this man, but not so much so that he thought she was actually physically involved with this man, or as her young lover called, "the old dude". Her young lover thought she was being pursued but did not act on it. This age-appropriate man claimed that he loved her. They had boring vaginal sex, he came in ten minutes, and if he smoked pot, he'd come in twenty minutes. She never orgasmed, but this man got her, he ran a company like she did, though his was for-profit. They both moved here from Michigan and they had the same middle class, middle of America childhoods. He liked kinky sex, sex like tying her up in nautical ropes and putting her in dog collar and dog leash to walk her around. He liked to meet her in fancy hotels. Upon arrival, she was ordered to take off her close and he'd put her on a dog collar and leash, she was on her high heels and stockings, and on knees. She would service him until he was about to come, and at that point she was ushered to the bathtub and he would piss on her until he was drained. Then they'd proceed to have regular missionary sex like two most normal persons in the world. He would kiss her piss-covered face and tell her that he loved her. She would cry and tell him that she loved him too. 

One day he went on a business trip and said that he'd call, like he always did when he landed at his destination. He never did that time. She called him and he did not call her back. She called again. She tried to text him. She left messages at the hotel. She wrote emails. At first angry but then worrisome emails. She then declared love. And told him that she would do anything to be with him. And nothing. Nothing at all from him.

After two weeks of absence, she realized that perhaps he had moved on and he was with another person by then. She stopped contacting him. Six months later she got a note from this man, he said he had missed her and wanted to see her. Out of curiosity she went to meet him at their usual hotel meet up. She saw him under the broad day light, which was highly unusual - previously they only met up during evenings. He offered no explanation for his absence or his disappearing act. He told her that he missed her, and acted as if she still dated him. She wanted to ask him if he got hit by a bus and consequently forgot about the last six months of absolute silence, but instead she just sat there, sipped her cocktail and watched his mouth move.

He looked surprisingly his age: his hair was gray, he had severe bags under his eyes, his faced looked disproportionate wide, his nose appeared to be too large for his otherwise, once upon a time, delicate face, and when he went to the bar to fetch another drink, she noticed that his pants were loose and his butt looked sagging, like all old men were. She realized that at that moment she no longer loved him. She still wanted to have sex with him, despite all that. She wanted to know if their sex was still appealing to her. So they went from the hotel lobby to his room.

That meeting was the first time he fucked her in the ass and it was the last time they had sex.  She was strangely relieved that he finally got to have her in the most natural way, but at the same time she thought it was the end she was looking for - there was nothing left for her to give, and she no longer felt attracted to him. 

For a while she thought about writing to him, asking how he was, telling him about her non-profit's progress: they received another round of federal funding, their project won a prestigious San Francisco reward, and her husband of twenty years had finally left her: he moved in with his mistress, apparently he had already bought a house in Seattle, and all those allegedly business trips were in fact masking his true destination - he was flying to his other home to spend time with his mistress. She was relieved that he had finally left her. The best thing ever happened was that she got to keep their California king size bed. It was a commissioned piece from this local artist in Marin. She loved it and bought a super firm mattress to outfit this gorgeous wooden bed.

The ex husband took the dog but she kept the cat. The lonely black and white cat who seemed to be always stealing neighbor's cat food all the time, even though she bought the same brand of cat food. One time she swore that she caught the cat taking out a bird out of the corner of her eye. She secretively admired the cat's strength, she wished that she could kill something, someone, but she had no such hatred or passion. She just liked to go to her yoga class after work, attend a sewing class here and there, and see this younger man for sex, once in a great while. This young man whom she neglected to mention to her 48 year old lover about. She thought about writing to this man whom she thought she loved once, to tell him that he was never the one and only, outside of her marriage she had not just one but two lovers, but these were such trivial stories. And it would not change a thing. It would not change the fact that she no longer loved him. 

When the hot tub / fucking trip was over, she often took the young boy to a nearby Ethiopian restaurant for dinner. One year when she was working in Ethiopia, she ate nothing but wat and injera for two weeks straight, Then she missed cheese burgers. She missed it terribly, and french fries. This young lover was an adventurous foodie, and it reminded her of how she once was when she was his age. As he stuffed his mouth with injera, scooped up with his hand, she would graciously sip her tea and tell him how much she enjoyed him licking her ass before he penetrated her. Then she'd move onto other course of business, like how her staff was being difficult and one gal had to leave every day at 5:15 to pick up her young daughter from the day care. What had the world become to? Why did they get to feel so entitled about child care when back in the day she did whatever she could for her job, and sacrificed her family life for her career? 

The young man would then tell her that he loved fingering her to orgasm and eating her out before sticking his equipment inside of her ass, and then he'd complain about his job, "Too mundane, lack of excitement and too predictable. When is IPO anyway?" He would add. His wife and he had been trying for a baby casually for a year. He wanted a kid but not that much. He concluded the conversation by complimenting her skin. She had the after glow. She smiled and wiped her lips with the edge of the white dinner napkin. 

Next week she would be traveling to Washington D.C. There was a very good Ethiopian restaurant near the DuPont Circle, she said. She wished that he could come with on one of her trips. She could show him D.C. and they could then take a train to Philly, where she often visited when she was still with that age-appropriate man. The "older dude" had an office on Arch street in downtown. and she would often meet up with him in his hotel when he traveled there. But she did not mention it to her young lover in the end.

Her young lover grew up in Southern California but was of Scandinavia and German decent. His father grew up in Mariefred, just outside of Stockholm, while his mother grew up in Berlin. His parents met in UC Santa Barbara and he was born shortly after. He had visited his mother and father's homeland but had never traveled to the east coast. 

They parted ways via separate cars. He texted his wife to tell her that he was finally done with work, and she had to go home to see her cat.

When she arrived home she would find a piece of snail mail. It was a notice of an upcoming funeral. She would found out that her age-appropriate ex lover had died at age 51. He died, apparently due to a strange sudden brain aneurysm at work. He was survived, the note said, by his wife Lucy, and children Luke and Liam. 

That evening she hugged her cat. She felt somewhat a kindred spirit to her cat. She finally understood why the cat had to catch the bird. It was the nature. Just like her life.