A Change of Needs (13 page)

He was like a drug dealer in a sense. Trying to eliminate the competition to monopolize the supply of what she sought, all the while simultaneously and surreptitiously telling her what she sought …
him
. And to accomplish that he came up with an idea he thought would put a hitch in her giddy-up, the “fear of God” in her horny ass, and it went something like this:

The summer before he moved to Raleigh, he had slept with a friend’s ex-girlfriend, who just happened to be his ex-girlfriend’s best friend …even at the time it seemed incestuous and a very perverted killing of two birds with one stone. Blame it on Rio, or in this case chalk it up to Myrtle Beach, and as Mark Twain said “Of all the things I’ve lost, I miss my mind the most.” There must be one helluva cerebral
Lost and Found
in Horry County South Carolina…

In the aftermath of the encounter, in typical hypochondriac fashion or perhaps simply erroneously guilt ridden, he convinced himself he had contracted an STD. Obsessed and fixated on the possibility, he went to the county health clinic and got checked. The test came back negative, but he had persistent
symptoms
so the physician gave him a prescription for an antibiotic just in case he had a dose of chlamydia which isn’t easily diagnosed …and much more likely because he recognized it was probably the only cure for the young man’s very
diagnosable
case of anxiety regarding it.

It had slowed his roll to be sure, and Jake wasn’t above using the reincarnation of such an experience as a deterrent where Rae was concerned. He knew that despite whatever precautions the woman had taken, she couldn’t help but be alarmed at the suggestion she had contracted something in her excursion and given it to him, or worse yet …her breadwinner.

He waited a painfully long and difficult period of time for an impatient man before responding, which
roughly
translated to about a week. His intention being to take the intensity level down a bit, give her time to think about things, and then follow up with another novella, putting her mind at ease and taking a step toward coaxing her into coming out to play so the story had some logic and bite to it. It’s hard to catch a Sexually Transmitted Disease
without
the Sex. It was wrong on any number of levels, but fear can be a great means of discouraging
undesirable
behavior, at least in the
short-term
, and in his harried state of mind, the “
end”
justified the “
means.”
It read:

Rae,

If you reread some of the emails I have sent you over the course of our correspondence you will find pieces of the sort of man I am… If I can’t have what I want, I’ll do without …sex is great, sex with emotions is amplified …a little bit of meaningful sex is better than a lot of meaningless. Don’t feel anything other than happy that I feel the way I do, it doesn’t mean I will do without anything. It is as I told you before, I have the right to do what I want …and the right not to do what I don’t want to do. As for me, I continue to explore every option available to me, though I did cease looking for a time. And I don’t feel compelled to tell you everything that I do. I realized early on that sometimes its serves no good purpose to invite others into a relationship, for example that Wednesday that you came to see me after you had the big argument, and we were on the floor and I blurted out at an inopportune moment that I’d had sex with another woman that weekend, I noticed something wash across your face. It seemed as if your “feel good” had essentially left the room, and consequently I have refrained from telling you about any sexual encounters I’ve had since, because as you once said, we will be friends for as long as we care about each other’s wellbeing.

I haven’t decided whether or not I want to know about everyone you have sex with, is that a requirement implicit of me, does it make me less attractive, or is it not enough that I don’t care what you do? I don’t know how I feel about it. In reality that could become a bed so crowded it doesn’t have room for real intimacy because of all the “ghosts.” Most men will either offer you freedom, or their love, the two of them are mutually exclusive for the majority of people. I have tried to offer you both, perhaps unsuccessfully …only you know for certain. In any respect, questions of pain and hurt have no place here, they are two-way streets that are inherent in any relationship, and we passed that exit. But I appreciate your concern in that regard.

In truth, if our friendship has any enduring aspects or longevity, as we both once said we believe it to, it will be because of how we have cared about each other, and little else. My only intention in writing that last letter was to correct any misconceptions you may have had regarding where my head/heart were at, and to eradicate any awkwardness. With that in mind why would a healthy red-blooded man like myself want to close the door on having an occasional tryst with a woman I have always found attractive?

For whatever reason, a number of very desirable women are making themselves available to me. Some have theirs claws visible, others …their intentions remain unclear. A couple of months ago, I might have been scrambling and clamoring to bed them all, but now I stand back, satiated from my experience with you rather like a fat man at a buffet, carefully choosing which dessert I will take, if any, rather than needing them all. Even though I may eventually choose them all ;))

You were telling me of all the offers that were on your table (from other men) and I know I might not have reacted as you might have wished with the news of your adventure. But that’s where I’m at with it, and I reserve the right to be honest. I’m apparently a little jealous, I’m not proud of it, the emotion is foreign to me, but its there. I think if I weren’t it would mean I didn’t care. The measure of my strength as a man, …and
yes
, “love,” for you won’t be measured by my jealousy or absence of it, but rather the fact that I own and endure it, allowing you to have the freedom you need and never placing it upon you in some encumbering, hindering way.

I don’t think you are entirely immune from a bit of jealousy yourself with regard to me and other women, even if not physically, jealous of the possibility of me sharing some of the emotional connection that we do. I think that is the key to a successful relationship like we have discussed, that if you should ever find that person with whom you can be “significant” in each “other’s” lives, that you reserve a portion of each other, the best portion, for only that one other person. To do otherwise, to spread everything you have so thin, to give it to everyone, takes what is rare and special and makes it commonplace. What is rare is of value because it is
rare
, and should be treated as such, what is common, what is available to everyone is of a much lesser value. I was saddened the other day, when you said that you were afraid to feel that powerful love again, afraid of being hurt. There are no guarantees, but I hope someday you will find the courage to surrender yourself to it, and in the surrendering, in that moment of “losing” yourself you in actuality “find” yourself. It is what life is truly all about.

When I told you I love you I put my heart and love on the line, where they belong, and not tucked away inside of me. Don’t ever shrink back from it please, it is meant as that “blanket” to wrap yourself in, and never to slow, or restrain you. To be fearful or cautious of it is to sacrifice the gift. You don’t arrive at this place in life where I am right now all at once. It happens gradually, you rise and fall and get up again, paying attention to the mistakes you have made and trying not to repeat them. For whatever reason, beyond either of our understandings of it, I have taken some path, some loop that has brought me onto this road at the same time as you …synchronicity if you will. I am a little older, and if you listen carefully, I will try to share some of my perspectives and experience with you, not as a mentor …but a fellow traveler.

Once in a great while in one’s life, you stand in a moment, in a place in time, and you recognize the beauty and potential of something while it is in front of you, and not regrettably some time much later when it has passed. That is how I feel about our friendship, and I will treat it with the respect, dignity and care that it deserves. I look forward to walking this crooked path with you, as long as you will let me, whether from near someday, or quite realistically, from afar as we do now. I apologize for getting off on such a tear, but then again….once I got started it just came pouring out of me… HELP, I’ve sprung a leak :)) I hope it was not too deep, and I hope you will always afford me the right to say what I feel, and not ask me to temper my words, as I hope you will never do either.

In either case I am still interested in seeing you, unless, the time should come when the thought of NOT having me in your life as a friend/lover produces a greater sense of relief, than of sadness …and that will be your call. Otherwise, I’ll see you when I can …and you can buy lunch :) Hope you have had a great day. As always…

Love,

-Jake

The boy was inside the girl’s head like he had popped her eye out and was mind-fucking her, and just busted a big nut of confusion. It had worked, he had touched that spot in her again with his words, fucking
Cyrano
-dude, one of the pieces of the puzzle he provided so to speak. Reminding her of what she loved
about
him, how he made her feel, and in a sense telling her what she wanted. And in the process he had cleared a second hurdle, one neither of them had prepared for that would include his ability to
play well with others
…or at least give the
appearance
of it.

For a time at least, he was nestled closer, and tossing verbal pebbles at her window once again, prompting her to come out and play …with
him
,
…and then came “that” call, Glen was out of town for the evening…

Her kids’ playhouse provided fittingly appropriate cramped quarters for their constrained relationship, an incubator as it were. He would deposit his
seeds
of doubt with great enthusiasm as she bent uncomfortably over a child’s picnic table, biting her knuckle to keep from making her usual
Ummm’s,
and
Ohhh’s.
As coarse and unsettling as it sounds, it’s the truth, and the “
truth
” is seldom delicate or tasteful …there’s just no sugarcoating some things.

And when it was over he quickly stole away into the night, to his truck parked at the shopping center half a mile away, and she back to her house and the sleeping children, her cheeks as red as a cherub’s. While the encounter was brief, after all, they’re called
quickies,
it would have long lasting effects… And just like that it was done, the faux seeds of a nonexistent dilemma, of a realistic concern planted. And it would spread like emotional kudzu…

He waited an appropriate amount of time for the fictitious “incubation” period before he dropped the “news” and explained he had some “discomfort” and wondered if she had any as well, he would tell her he had been to the doctor to get checked for an STD, and they were treating him for
chlamydia
, the test inconclusive. He had been routinely careful and used protection with everyone but her, which was true, and she should get herself checked. He hoped it would scare her into limiting her activities at least for a while and it worked. She was initially frightened as to be expected, how could she avoid the
remote
possibility
that her husband might want to have sex? It had the desired effect Jake sought, and would eliminate the competition for a while, …not forever, but a while.

Her test naturally came back negative, but the doctor gave her some antibiotics
just
in
case
“because chlamydia isn’t easily diagnosed,”
and she would tell her husband if the occasion arose that she had a yeast infection and was advised to avoid any intercourse. He had accomplished what he sought which was to cast an unseemly and disparaging light on the competition, and though she wouldn’t be having sex with him for a while either, he had added another thread to the ties that were secretly binding them.

In the process however, she became all too aware of his increasingly larger presence in her secret life. Cautiously aware of it, and it concerned her more than a little. He had knowledge that could upset things. She knew that he loved her, she
loved
that he did, but who would’ve thought that “love” might be a bad thing, and what had she potentially gotten herself into? Any notions that he was or would be manipulating her situation were unthinkable, she trusted him, and she
needed
to at this point. But she recognized it presented a threat of sorts if she angered him and would require a delicate balancing act to avoid it, not to mention …a degree of censorship in what she divulged in the future as well.

He had an advantage to be sure, secretly able to read her emails he now knew things she didn’t know he did. While he might have created an impediment to her pursuing her plans, he hadn’t eliminated her desire to explore them, and she was a resourceful gal. In the meantime he would begin to look into who some of these guys were, he was a part-time investigator after all, and beyond the curiosity he had a genuine desire to protect her. She in turn only had some wariness. It didn’t make it right, but it made perfect sense to him. He wanted to be the man she called when she had the time, but he had gone from being the guy she was thinking of while having sex with her husband, to being the guy she was telling about having sex with another man.

His inadvertent
slap
of the tongue regarding Olivia had been a wake up call for her. As if in some illicit courtroom he had volunteered his commission of a “
Miss
-demeanor” and set a precedent for her subsequent “
Miss-
behavior.” Having opened the door to that line of questioning, he would now have to endure
her
testimony regarding it. This was not part of the deal he thought. But he couldn’t stay mad at her, even though he
felt
he had reason to, and before long it once again became that pursuit of the unattainable, challenging that competitive nature in the man. The hound in him had picked up that
scent
again, chasing her hot ass like she was a bitch in heat …and there were other dogs coming around.