Rebecca

I did not recycle relationship.

He was once upon a time someone I was close to. I had evolved beyond physical pleasure. The relationship turned into something else all together. Like I was the cat that he never had.

Sometimes I could tell that he missed me. When he went out with others and when he was hoping that something could potentially turn into something and that failed. He was like that and strange that way. He told me that the girl he had been involved with had been going on dates. On OK Cupid and JDate. She's Irish but she was looking to date a good Jewish man, maybe a Jewish doctor of a sort. She was 37 or 38, had a nice body but not pretty enough of a face to land a guy, never had a serious boyfriend, a nurse, never been able to stay with anyone seriously for long. They had an arrangement, and once a week they saw each other and they had sex. She had been gone for a while for her holiday, he missed her but he knew that it was just a matter of time she would find someone and perhaps leave him. She was a free agent, and he only had sex with her. But he would be willing to let her go. It was in his nature to let women go. He told me these things because I was the non jealous type, someone he trusted, someone he liked. He wanted to tell me these things because I think he wanted to someone to listen.

He adored me like a cat. He needed that connection with someone but a non sexual one. I liked him because I knew that I'd never have sex with him. We were there once before and I was not that turned on by him. He was more of an uncle or fatherly figure to me. He and I were in sync in many levels but we got on each other's nerves like family did.

I watched my favorite movie with him. Rebecca, 1940, by Hitchcock. My favorite movie of all time. I had watched it over twenty times. I could recite the lines. I started watching it when I was only 12. I always thought that I wanted to be the new Mrs. De Winter, beautiful, young, innocent, lovely and devoted to the famous, yet moody Mr. De Winter, but as I grew older, I realized that I was really more like Rebecca. The mysterious, beautiful, beloved, popular, bewitching Rebecca. Who loved like a free woman and who was in love with many different men, who bewitched even the most loyal servant of Mandeley, Frank, who was having a fling with her cousin, who took up a flat in London but grew careless and brought lovers to Mandeley, in a beach shack she set up to meet up with her lovers. She died but even after her death, people loved and adored her and no one could replace her. She was a force to be reckoned with.  I was bewitched by this character since I was a little girl. As an adult, I realized that perhaps I had much of Rebecca in me, and that was perhaps the reason I loved and identified the movie since the very beginning.

We went out to a local Chinese American restaurant for dinner. He ordered Kung Pao and I had hot and sour soup. I was getting sick so I wanted soup. It was our tradition. We caught up and we sometimes just hang out the couch and watched movie. He told me the date he had on Saturday evening, she was not that interesting and he was a bit bored. He told me many things. We liked to talk to each other when we were both in the right mood. We gossiped about his friends, my friends, our friends. We talked about contemporary Chinese history. We ate chocolates and drank wine. We fell in silence and watched black and white TV program. He touched my head like he would with a cat. I hid under a blanket curled up on the couch as he occasionally petted me.

If I were Rebecca, I'd seduce him. But I had more of the new Mrs. De Winter in me, because with that innocent, stubborn side of me, I was only in love with one person and my physical and mental loyalty remained with the one person. I adored this man as if he was the father I never had. But I would not and could not love him romantically.

In that regard, perhaps I wanted to be Rebecca, but really I failed because I did believe in love. And loyalty and faithfulness. I could only be one thing and one thing only. I could only be me.

Maybe I loved Rebecca because I knew that I could never be her. I simply wished that I could.

It was late and I had to return home. I told him that I couldn't make plans because I was heading into surgery. I didn't know what and how I would feel. He looked worried. He was worried about me like a father would daughter. "But you can check on me." I said. He nodded his head. His girlfriend should return soon. He was worried that she would not return. He was worried that she'd leave him. But not his daughter. Not me. I would not leave him because he was my family and I was his.

He took me to my car, He hugged me to say goodbye and he said, "Goodbye my little precious." He kissed me on my forehead as I entered my car. I did not make plans to see him. Somewhere between the dinners and movies, months had passed, and he had become my family.

Half of the age

Boy smiled at me. Wanted to ask about this or that. Boy kept on chasing me around, texting me, skyping me, telling me things, looking at me, wanting to be my FaceBook friend. . .

"Why? Don't think too much. Just don't." I gave him advice.

He was exactly half of the age of the man whom I loved.  A younger version of him, to be sure. Boy had the same thin lips and bright smile, the same piercing eyes, his were green, boy's were blue.

HALF of the age of the man whom I loved once.

I could be the boy's mother.

Boy met me on a public bus, heading into work, he was desperately trying to speak to me. Within hours he developed an immediate crush on me. I knew that type.

Since then he wanted to talk to me and see me. I could be his mother.

Boy had that typical boyish smile, boyish look, boyish attitude. He wanted to see me again. We did not make plans. He wanted to create opportunity to see me again. Wanted to be my errand boy, which I had said that he'd be qualified to do.

"I will impart wisdom on you, in return, I can use you as my errand boy." I said.

I was joking, well, maybe I was only half joking.

Boy wanted to know what an errand boy duty entailed.

Boy wanted to see me.

Boy reminded me so much of the younger version of him. He was the man I loved. Boy looked a bit like that man, that man whom I was once infatuated with when I was much younger.  He was a young looking 32 year old. I was only 25 at the time. Years later, he would tell me that we met at a canoe trip. It was really a white water rafting trip. I never corrected him. He was my partner that weekend, and he wanted me then, and he wanted me still.

"You are very strong and powerful. I am attracted to you." Boy did not mince words.

"You tell me to do things and I just do." Boy added.

"I don't do that with others. But somehow you have the power." Boy told me.

Boy opened my side of car door. I liked that. I liked men who respected me and took care of me.

He did that. He always opened the car door for me to slide in. He did that every time we went out.

Boy thought that I was older. Boy was right. But boy did not realize how much he liked me. I didn't give him any ideas either.

It was not the first nor the last time a younger man came up to me and wanted to date me. I never invited them in, but they found me anyway. I had never ever in my life needed to proactively chase anyone. They often found me.

"You are very interesting." Boy said to me. Boy wanted to get to know me.

"I think you like men who are clingy but not too much. You like undivided attention. You liked men who are loyal. You liked that they pay attention to you and you only." Boy tried to figure me out.

I had never thought that boy was interested in me. I thought he wanted career advice and I had a few to give out. Boy knew that I was much older than he was but wanted to see me.

He wanted to give me a kiss so I let him to kiss my cheeks. I had never kissed a boy that young before. It would feel wrong. I did not care for him that way.

Ever since I had gone straight, I had given up on the thought of being a loose cannon. I wanted to be good, I wanted to be loved by one person and one person only. I can't love someone completely while being engaged in sexual conduct with others. I would feel guilty.

But... temptation was everywhere, like this boy, who decided that he wanted to meet me, to get to know me, to be with me, out of blue. He was out of his league, from the start. But he did not know that himself. He was young and full of optimism.

I saw the boy, and I was reminded of him.

Boy is half as old the man I loved. In his early twenties, boy was ready to explore the world. Just like how he found me at that white water rafting trip nearly sixteen years ago, this boy found me.

What is love?

I think about this often, but not so often that I'd share with him. For over two years I  have written about my experiences, with him and others, but mostly with him, or about him. I want to put together a journal, a paper version of it, and send it to him as a Christmas present.

In the middle of the night, I lay awake and think about him.

It's not just some made up shit that I have concocted in my head, it feels real. The tenderness I feel about him, the overwhelming feeling of love and joy when I am with him, the sense of peace, the way how things ought to be... it is always how I felt about this relationship. I had to teach myself, restrain myself to feel, because I don't know what good could come out of it, if I just dwelled on it. I don't know because I need a sign.

Always waiting for a sign.

I have always loved him. But when he drops off from the face of earth, for extended period of time, I feel that he does not love me or want me any more. I don't believe that's true. I believe that his love for me exists and he is there for me. But I'm a married woman. He lives with his son and his son's mother. He does not plan to change anything. I don't know what is there that we can do but some stolen moments of passion.

But how could you be with someone for so long and still feel though it is just yesterday that you met; how could you feel so strongly about someone and do not know what to do without them in their lives, yet you do not expect anything to change, or anticipate a joint future, or a sign of progress, and your decisions are just some resignations.

Always waiting for a sign.

In the interim, you just continue onwards as if he does not exist in your life most of the time and not make plans even when you cannot bear of the thought of not seeing him for another day, for another week, for another month.

I don't know the answer. I can't know the answer. I am afraid of the answer.

I simply know that the thought of him not being in my life will take the fire out of me. Forever. He's the reason of my being. And I've gone around the world twice to find me, him, me and him, to know that I need him, to feel anything at all in my life. At this age, I've only just discover this feeling.  It sounds strange, ridiculous and unreal, but it's true.

Everything is real. He's living and breathing. I am feeling alive because of him

If that's not love, I don't know what love is, then.

Not so pristine past and such a simple life now

An old fling calls. Have not spoken to him for some time. He's a weird guy who is involved with someone, I think he loves her but she does not, as she has never introduced him to her friends. She went away on a vacation and when she returns she'll call on him, have sex and leave. They don't do anything together, and he feels that he is used. But, I don't think he wants anything more, or he couldn't handle anything more. He likes to talk to me. I on occasion enjoy talking to him but it is not a life and death thing if I didn't hear from him for weeks or months. He tends to keep in touch with me and he thinks that I'm funny, hot and smart. But I don't respect him. I don't care for him. I sort of pity him because I find him mildly annoying. I also find him to be non accomplished - he's smart but he does not apply himself.

I like men who are accomplished, who can figure things out, who works hard and makes something out of nothing, who creates a niche market, who is an expert of something. I like very successful men because I am successful. I don't want to support others. I can afford a life without having to work hard. But I love working. I need to respect that person. I liked this man who is an old fling, but his only contribution to my life was that he was good in bed, many many moons ago, and smart in his own ways, but I don't care for his weirdness, and I don't care for how he was so hung up on seeing me as a lover and not as a friend and vise versa. At some point it got too old and I didn't want to create any false expectations. On top of it all, I don't love him. I sort of find him tiring and boring. I can only take him in small dosages.

I saw another friend for dinner. It was an innocent dinner. He was interviewing at a competitor's place, and I was giving him some tips about this space that is fairly new and cutting edge. Then we walked back home. He and I have become friends over the course of me removing them out of my life as lovers. I had no intention to pursue anything any more.

Betrayal is a bitter pill to swallow. I couldn't face myself in the end, as it turned out, open relationship, even if it's a side one, even if he and I are not married or living together, is a bad thing for me. It does not work because I was constantly conflicted, and I can only love one person and one person only, those fringe relationships made it difficult to handle my relationship with him because I started to doubt his intent with me - how could I be sure that he loved me if I could not love him and him alone?

The boy I saw for dinner is nordic and good looking by default. He's very tall and very young, a very attractive man who gets women wanting to flirt with him all the time. To think that I had him once and then just let him go is very gratifying. He clearly has no idea that women just find him extremely attractive. His nordic feature is very prominent. He is super smart and has a great family. To top it off, he and I get along well and we never got on each other's nerves.  We've always been very transparent with one another. He's a smart, confident man, and he's married, which of course in my book, a good thing. He tells me about his spouse and how they are trying for a baby. I just do not see him ever not be faithful to his wife, but it seems though for the time being, he has been, and that's a good thing.

When we dated, it was a regular once a week or once a month thing, but when we were not meeting up to fuck, we had lunches or dinners or drinks. We never counted dates, and we just talked to each other regularly. He cares about me and knows the inside and outside of me. He knows what to order for me. The longer I had been with him, the more comfortable it became. He took charge. He ordered and we split the bill. He knows me more than most men did. But I did not want him to fall for me. He always remembered when we saw each other last. I told him things that no one else knew. I told him about the man I am in love with and why I have to stop seeing him that way. He understands. At the end of the day. I just want to be loved and adored. I just want to love the person who loved me.

I know one day he'd be gone and I'd be OK. It's good to have a friend who knows so much about me. Someone who I was intimate with once, and knows why I need to store whoring around. I want to give this an earnest go. If the man I loves does not seem to get with the program, and know why I'm doing what I'm doing and knows what to do next, then it is what it is, at least I've tried.

We passed the condo where he owned a loft. That was when he all of sudden called out his wife's name. She had gotten out of class and was heading home and there we crossed path An inevitable introduction was needed. She's a pretty girl, white, blondish, with short hair and beautiful smile, but she had lots of wrinkles around her forehead and her face. She's short like me. It was dark and I was feeling redness coming onto my cheek bones, not because I had anything to do with her husband now but I knew A LOT of things about her, her likes and dislikes in bed, her mood swings and what she did last weekend. Her husband told me everything. How does it work? It feels like that I was the ex wife and he's now married to her but he's still close to me because I know too much about his past.

I recovered well in the darkness. I told her that I was helping her husband prepping for his interview and that I had shared with him the revenue model of my business. She then said "OK, and it was great to meet you." She said that he had told her about his upcoming interviews and that he had told me about me, she seemed so nice and innocent, it made me worried that it was a show, but perhaps not.

It's not the first nor the last time I made a wife jealous of my relationship with their spouse. Crap.

I hope no shit storm of any sort.

I missed him as I lay awake late at night.

My one and only. I know that he's busy with work. I think he does not necessarily feel the same way about me always. I think he makes contact when he needs me sexually. But I miss him and I do love him. I don't need anything or anyone else in my life to keep me distracted. Sexually I am fine being alone and if I were to see him, it's the only time I would ever have sex. I made a promise. I am finally clean. And committed.

I have completed my transformation. For the time being.

Now I wait.

A new kind of ending

Hurried foot steps. Late.
Typical fall autumn evening.
Hot.
Top down.

Third. Kearny. Columbus. City Lights Bookstore. Stinky Rose.
Green. Union. Filbert. Greewich. Lombard.
Turn Left.
Taylor. Jones.

A man was coming down from the steep stairs.
Greetings.
Embraces.
Woman walked up the stairs.
With a slounchy worn Roots shoulder bag.

Man had not shaven.
He approached the woman and started to kiss.
He smiled warmly and she kissed him back.
He tasted like mouth wash.

He led her into his bedroom.
"Let's fuck" he said.
She felt his hard cock pressed against her.
It was time.
There she was undressed.
Her wrapped around dress.
She had recently discovered something ironic.

Had she been in his shoes, he been hers.
Had the situation been reversed.
She would be told by others to leave him.

"He's no good. He's married. With kids. He'd never leave his wife. You are waiting for something that would never happen. You must move on. You must leave him. You can do better. Find someone who's available and love you and can be with you, always. He's no good for you."

That would be the response she'd get from her friends.
That would be a common response to a woman who was waiting for a man to leave his family, his wife, so that they could live happily ever after.

Except the situation was the near exact opposite.
That realization hit her like a ton of bricks.
What if all along it was not she who was hurt but he? What if he had to endure and wait for her to feel some level of commitment and wanted to have a go at this? What if all along it was she who was being insensitive and demanding and unrealistic and all that?

You can't change the past.
That's what you couldn't do.
Nothing else mattered except for the sudden shift of a different type of thinking.

What if he was always there, what if he always loved her and what if he was waiting for her to see?

"I no longer needed antidepressant drugs. My midlife crisis is over." She laid her head on his chest after.

"You are too young to have a midlife crisis." He said.

"When will you have yours? When you are fifty?" She asked.

He did not answer.


That evening was short lived. He had to leave. She had to leave. Their worlds were calling for their return. That evening they embraced and she felt at home again in his arms, with him inside of her, and with him becoming one with her. That evening she was happy that he made a little of bit of him available to her. That evening she realized that not every story with a man and a woman, one married one not, would end up the same.

That was no one set of story, there was no one set of ending. In a world that people left one another, when people gave into lust but could not be more coward when it came to commitment, she knew she was neither. This world she created for herself took a different shape and path than the ordinary. This world believed in one thing and one thing only. And as cliche and as unappetizing it may be to others, this world was not a complicated one. A woman. A man.

Woman loved a man. He loved her back. She could not live without him. She needed him to nourish her soul. She wanted to be the one who would take care of him at his old age.

She took a break for two months. A break without him, without anyone else. She missed no one but she was empty inside without him in her life. She couldn't breath and she cried at the thought of losing him forever.

She realized that she never really needed to seek out things or make new friends.

The world was without meaning or purpose without him. Nothing else mattered.

So a new ending emerged.

She would tell him how she really felt about him. She would finally admit to him, and to herself, that none of this was an imaginary make believe fairy tale.  She wanted to be with him, and take care of him. She wanted to be his. She was his. Now and forever.

In seeking consistency

When he said that it's been two years since we started dating, I was getting defensive because he had no clue the agony, disappointment and sadness he put me through. I think in his mind, we had been together for two years and life had always been wonderful since we started seeing one another. It's not a traditional dating arrangement, it's constant separation with a few intense encounters.

I had never gone back in time to read stories or to read emails that we had exchanged. Then I did. Then I realized something I did not realize before. His level of affection for me, via his late night emails, had never decreased. Every note he sent was a love note. He had never changed the way he felt about me, it was always passionate and loving. He always felt the same way about me, it was I who had changed, who had suspected that he did not love me, or he did not want me, it was I who thought he did not want to be with me any longer, It was always me. Reading the notes he sent me from two years ago to now, it sounded just the same - it could only mean that he still felt the same about me, he had loved me and would always love me. 

Realizing that was huge. For two years I cried more than I laughed when it came to dealing with my relationship with him. It was the long extended period of his absence that made me angry and upset, and frankly doubtful. But he was always consistent. He adored and loved me just the same. If that did not mean anything, then I would not know what would.

I had become a rational, calmer person. At the end of the day it's not the destination but the journey that mattered.

I had never been loved liked this. I had never loved another like this.

I couldn't live without him.

I had gone completely straight and clean. No other distractions. Work, family and he. 

It really was just that simple.

I should be more consistent, and I should be loving. I want to take care of him. To love him the way I knew how to love. To love him the way he deserve to be loved. To be a more complete person.

I must give it a try, for consistency purpose.

Safe return

For a long while, I was manic, lost, and impulsive. I had taken drugs to suppress my impulses, I had given myself excuses, I had lost touch with reality.

What is reality anyway? What is truth? Is reality the way we think we are living in or is reality the way others see the world?  Is truth what we have convinced ourselves to believe in or is truth the dead hard concrete evidence of absolute irrefutable fact?

I had gone around the world twice trying to find what was that I knew, what was that I felt, what was that I could tolerate and live with, and could not live without.

It was actually quite clear. 

I was not a polyamorous person. I was not someone who needed to constantly be stimulated by things and people. I was not someone who needed to have multiple lovers, and constant adoration from men.

I needed only one and one person only. Just like I was for twelve years, I had never ever contemplated with having any affairs with any man. But once I believed in something, and once I had convinced myself what was good for me, I went on that route and I did not look back.

I made many mistakes in my past two years of my life. I searched love in vain. I searched for meaning, inspiration, and feeling in wrong places. I kept on running the other way the moment I started to feel. I was worried that he would betray me, hurt me, and leave me. I wanted to shut my emotions off so that I could focus on pleasure. But how could you control your emotions? How could you hide the fact that you had loved someone passionately, completely and the world would be an empty place without him in it? 

I found adoring men in wrong places. I found wrong men to adore me. I found no sense of stimulation or inspiration. I found guilt. Weighing on me was the guilt that I developed the moment I let myself be made available to others, other men who I could care less whether they existed or not. I could careless because the only person I ever cared for, the only person I ever loved for, perhaps for years before and years after, was you, had always been you.

I didn't want other men. I didn't care about how or what they thought of me, I wanted them out of my life, vanish, disappear, so that I could be pure and simple again. At the risk of losing you, at the risk of being left with nothing, no one at all, I had to let them go so that I could feel clean again. It was an experiment at best, in the end.

I thought perhaps we humans could not be monogamous, we would still have urges to mate with others, we would be tempted by others, we would want to venture out when opportunity presented itself, I thought all those reading made me smart, made me want to be more receptive to the idea of open relationship, to share the person I love with others, to love one but still fucked another...

In the end, I realized that the most powerful thing in this world was simply love. Love someone and you would not want to be with another person again.

If this two years had taught me anything, it was that I could only feel complete when I loved one person and be with that one person, that one person alone. And that person was you.

Thankfully this experiment reconfirmed my own original theory, that was when I make a commitment I had adhere to it. I had always been a rather faithful, deeply committed person who would do anything on my end to make something work. For twelve years, no matter how bad things went, how I felt deep inside of heart, how hollow I was, I never once strayed. What finally took me out of that mode was the final draw. Once that was over it was over.

Now I was in this rather bizarre limbo, waiting for something to happen, or not happen.

While my heart was with someone, my physical being had to be just as committed as my heart. It's really just that simple. It was not easy, because there was no promise made, but I knew what I knew, that was I must give this a try. I had to be monogamous, I had to be devoted, and I had to love him back with everything I ever had. I must give him the opportunity to prove to me, that my wait is worth it. 

Until then, I must live my life. Be graceful, be grateful and be faithful. 

This was the person I had always known. She had returned. Finally.