A Change of Needs (27 page)

For a time they had been like a lock and key, she the place where he fit, where his heart felt at home; he the key that too perfectly filled a “loving” void in her life, but she had exiled him, and in the emptiness his departure had left, in the darkness of the underground she’d been forced deeper in to, perversion and deviancy flooded the space he had occupied. She’d had more intimacy with Jake than her husband since they’d met, more orgasms by the man than all others combined, important only in the level of comfort and trust it required. She had come to think of herself as the prize, he had done that for her, given her that
gift
at a time she felt inconspicuous, and she had been that rare love interest in his life, that top-shelf in his
library
.

Perhaps it had happened by accident, but it was of her design. Of course she would miss the man, she just couldn’t admit it …doing so would have resembled remorse and she couldn’t shoulder that on top of everything else. So she pushed in the other direction, as people in denial are apt. But deviancy and perversion are not entirely the property or province of deviants and perverts. Just as we all have the physiological potential for addiction, we similarly have psychological proclivities for a departure from the norm, and she had been deprived of exploring hers. Sexual appetites, much like our appetites for food, evolve as we grow older. When we are young our taste-buds are incredibly sensitive, our appetite easily satisfied and our menu small, simple, bland and predictable, but as we age, those
taste-buds
dull, and we hunger for things not always on the menu, things we once thought unpalatable. Just as when we are young, the slightest of things
excite
us, as we grow older,
some
people require more stimulation to arouse, and more importantly, satiate that instinctual craving and appetite, and
variety is the spice of life
. The girl had an unmistakable
kink
to her no doubt.

Her opportunities had always been limited, but with Glen’s mother now living with them the cage that was her life had grown smaller. Like a driver at a red light who has waited for what seems like an eternity for it to change, and grown weary of waiting decides to run it, she would have to make her own opportunities, and unknown to Jake, taking incredible risks, exploring her limits and pushing the envelope. The establishments she found herself in not unsavory, but the patrons less appreciative and while she was often a trophy, she was never the prize.

Perhaps the Preacher’s daughter had wanted to be punished, not because the “good” girl had been “bad,” had been disloyal to a man she didn’t love and should have divorced. She had done wrong to be sure, but been no more “good” or “bad” than Jake had. But she had turned her back to the most loving man in her life at a time when he needed some particular kindness, and she the sole possessor of it, knowing full well he would have stolen it for her if the circumstances were reversed. He had silently pardoned her for that, but the truth of the matter is, there are those sins others can forgive us for, which we can’t forgive ourselves. And so we continue, as this was never a typical man/woman love story, but a love story nonetheless, and in the love, the betrayal, the pain, …boo-coo sex, at the end of the day, in its essence …a very human story.

Still insanely in tune with her, on an accurately forecasted unromantic Valentine’s Day, like an assassin who had lain in wait for months disguised as Cupid, he sent her a pointed text, and in a moment of weakness, or want, she would steal away and call. He had succeeded in worming his way back into her life, into her confidence, that endearing fuck of a man. Not in the name of love so much as some sign that he had not been entirely wrong in his assessment of her feelings for him, to retake the trust in his instincts and intuition, and the accompanying self-respect he had
shat
on her porch. The dawg had succeeded in treeing the cat.

No longer a rescue mission, but salvage and recovery. And though he’d insinuated that it was no longer about the sex, that’s a half-truth, it was about all of the things you know and imagine, but the sex was the manifestation of their feelings, the stage where it was acted out. It was and always had been first and foremost, a sexual relationship that had bled into other areas. The year they were involved had been a good year for the man, there had been much sex, but he’d only
made
love with the one woman. And he couldn’t move on without picking up some necessities he had left behind.

When he met her it was as if his heart had eclipsed his mind, the two were in agreement for the first time in years, if not ever. But that moment on her doorstep, another eclipse had occurred, only this time his head eclipsed his heart, and the emotion that had colored the affair would fade into stark realization. She looked the same but he now saw her very differently, no longer full of vitality and sensuality, but sadness and exhaustion, still beautiful but unattractive, her sultry simply reduced to imperfection. They would meet at the place where it had all begun, Leon’s.

He searched his inventory for the appetite he’d once had for her and it wasn’t there, the desire and adoration gone, replaced with that
redrum
/\murder moment of seeing the true reflection in the mirror, and that what he thought he had seen didn’t exist. Had it always been his projection of her significance in his life, and his perception of significance in hers? Probably not, but if we’re
attracted to people who see us as we
want
to be seen, as we see ourselves,
then perhaps conversely by some sad irony and awareness, not so much to the people who’ve come to see us for who
we
really are… And they’d
both
lost their appeal.

We are an imperfect species. It is said people like us for our perfections and love us for our flaws. If you find someone who loves you in spite of them, it’s a testament to its strength and legitimacy, and by that measure accurate to say that he loved her and always would, but he had come not to like her in the learning process. He wished it to be different, he wanted it to be,
but the heart has its reasons
…

She was no longer that quintessential M.I.L.F. he remembered her to be, but instead a W.I.F.E., a Woman I’ve Fucked Every-which-way, or just a wife… And someone else’s at that, a fact that no longer sat well with him. The expiration date of it felt familiar. Perhaps she had felt it as well, and this was her way of giving him back what she had taken, her way of letting him let go of her. Who knows? For a time he wished he’d never met her, but only for a time. He’d loved her in a way he’d forgotten how, and nothing worth having comes without a price. It’s impossible to be that intimate with another human and not leave part of yourself behind. They had conducted business of the most personal variety, made “intimate” transactions, trafficked in emotions, exchanged deeds to parcels of each other’s emotional, spiritual, and sexual properties. She had made quite an impression on the man …and he would
long
feel the bruise. It’s always the scars unseen that hurt the most.

Now that the moment was finally at hand, it was surreal, like an inmate serving a life-sentence who finds himself outside the prison walls at long last. The plan that had been the underlying theme of his life for over a year, the revenge-like element that had given his emotional OCD a bone to gnaw on, had worked. Now what? He had imagined it a hundred different ways. Fantasized he’d whip that shit until his
bone
collapsed, then paint a sticky portrait on her face… But he’d already rendered that masterpiece when she’d volunteered the canvas, and like a “
Smiley Face
” it could only have the one
interpretation
for him, reminiscent of a happier
period
.

Instead, what he wanted to do, what he
needed
to do was get to that moment and then as she lay begging for his attention and naked in
every
sense of the word, tell her he couldn’t do it. Tell her that he wasn’t attracted to her anymore, get dressed and leave her lying there in a lonely hotel room after he had spent months weakening her defenses, regaining her trust, and forcing her into an uncomfortable acknowledgement that she cared about him and loved him as well. That would be the closest he could come to what she had done to him, an act of cruelty only
he
could bestow upon her.

It would have killed her in a sense, or at least left her lifeless, taken that last bastion of
confirmed
desire and affection from her that she had privately clung to in her darkest moments during their year apart. He had worked so hard to get there and it had taken so long, when all was said and done he couldn’t deny himself the satisfaction of getting a nut …nor be as unkind. His goal and agenda had always been to get something of
his
back, not take something of
hers
in return. No matter how it had fueled the pursuit, even in the fantasy, he couldn’t do it. Love will take a bullet for you, hate will throw one at you, and he couldn’t pull that trigger. I guess that says it all.

The occasion itself wasn’t particularly memorable. It had too much baggage and associated expectation for it to have been, but like a psychological bloodletting, it was cathartic and it would give him the closure he sought, in that “
you can’t move forward until you let go of the past
,” way. A sad but necessary formality, like signing divorce papers …absent the marriage. It would allow him to unburden himself, and perhaps for the first time in his life, say “
tag, you’re it.
” The
dawg
had his day.

Whether you wish to call it “destiny,” “fate,” or mere “chance,” the truth is that at the end of our days, perhaps some of the most significant occurrences, moments, and relationships in our lives are nothing more than just a matter of timing, a consequence of being in a certain place at a certain time …synchronicity, as it were, or “meaningful coincidence” as the case may be,
whatever it was, it was indelible. Not a watermark, not a stain, but a
tattoo
on his heart.

In that collection of phrases he kept he had one that he had reserved for her, “
Some people come into our lives for a reason, some for a season, some for a lifetime …and some for a day
,” and she was all of the above.

Let’s face it, affairs are messy, they never end well. We make decisions in life that we have to live with, and he had no regrets only a bit of rumination, not a change of heart, but
a change of needs
. She would remain his favorite mistake, in the best “worst” year of his life, the third woman he would always love. But he wouldn’t need to see her again, as if he had gotten that last necessary credit required for his
graduation
.

Amidst all the things he had felt was the desire to love again …
unrestrained
and uncomplicated. She had planted that
seed
in him and it’d taken root. He knew that some of the most interesting and beautiful items in the landscape bloom late, and it was that season in his life. And in the continuing education of the man, she had given him a remedial course in what it would feel like when he found it. That was her
gift
to him.

He would write a last letter afterwards, it was an epilogue to their play, or perhaps an epitaph to the relationship, who knows for certain? He had never actually said goodbye to a woman.

It read:

Rae Anne,

Thanks for the opportunity to spend some
quality
time with you. It was “warm and pleasing,” but I’ll always miss the “
hot and bothered
.” I am glad that I have served to make you feel better about yourself, but I must confess over the course of time I have come away from seeing you, or “not” seeing you as the case has often been, not feeling so positive about myself, beginning to realize the role I have been relegated to is one for which I am unsuited.

I am a different person for having known you, and I’m convinced overall that is a good thing. This “friendship” has however reached a point for me where it no longer serves a purpose, and you told me once “I shouldn’t do anything I don’t want to” and this is that intersection where I must take a different path. While it has been sparse in terms of the time we have actually seen each other, I want you to know you have occupied much of my thoughts since that moment we first met.

I told you that “always” and “never” are big words, and I use them with caution, but I can say with some certainty that I will always love you, and I will never forget our moments together, only time will tell how we truly remember each other. Perhaps, if it is meant to be, we will see each other somewhere down the road. Life isn’t linear, but cyclical …rolling along, and sometimes we find ourselves in a familiar place with a familiar face.

I hope your journey takes you someplace agreeable. I am exiting stage left as they say …Bogie and Bacall we’re not …but we will always have New Orleans …and a couple of tattoos ;) Travel well…

Love,

-Jake

But he couldn’t send it, no real surprise there “right?” It would just sit in his “
mail waiting to be sent
” folder indefinitely,
evidence
of his weakness where she would always be concerned …the poor bastard. Apparently “goodbye” was another word he used with caution.

Instead he would simply put her where she rightfully belonged, “
R
” for Rae Anne, and he wouldn’t think of her for a time, not like he had anyway. That was of course until he heard her name mentioned on the local evening News a couple of months later. The station’s onetime weathergirl with the aptly exploited childhood nickname, the revered Preacher’s daughter, the respected Professor’s wife, the beloved Sportscaster’s ex-wife, mother of three …who just happened to be the woman he had secretly had a two year relationship with, was part of the broadcast again …only this time as a
story
. Believe me when I tell you
everyone
was talking about it …except for our boy Jake. The quietly confident man was just concerned and quiet, and you and I know he had reason to be. The affair that had begun with the brilliance and perfection of a diamond had turned into a romantic kidney stone …and he had
passed
it, but it was far from
behind
him. Some secrets are indeed, begging to be told, silently screaming in need of a voice, seeking permission, clemency, or immunity from what they may reveal about us.