Three Sides of the Coin (Catherine I) (29 page)

             
I have often marveled at women, the great diversity of them, yet there is so much similarity.   In my mind, there is the woman's form, and then it is stretched lengthwise or width wise to give us all these various and endless combinations.   The emaciated model is stretched lengthwise and not at all in width.   I have seen perfectly balanced short women and tall women.  I have seen women who were stretched in height, except for their poor little arms or legs.   I have seen stout women who got stretched across but none very much in height.  I have seen some unfortunate women with the tiny wasp waist and teeny tits and then a butt and thighs stretched wide for a woman three times her size.  For each of these women there is a man to love that perfect form.  So none of them are weird if that is to be true.

             
That is all just the DNA aspect of these women.   Once the overeating kicks in, the sad globs of fat get layered in and hide the all the beauty beneath, like rolls of duct tape disguising the true form of the stick it wraps around.  Then, and only then, the beautiful form, the beautiful diverse form of a woman starts to be less.  So I can appreciate that any moderate weighted woman has a sexually appealing value.    We men know we are not perfect and we do not expect women to be so.

   In fact, I read somewhere that for a person to want to be truly in a relationship, they have to feel the other person is just a little bit better than them.   My father told me that I never would have a job, only a job offer.  So each and every day, I need to go out and earn my job again.  It helped me keep my focus.   I think the same thing is true for a relationship.  We need to go out and be deserving of their love every day.   We can never take them for granted.   It seems to be true that most women try to be more each and every
day that they are never content with who they are.   This seeming low self esteem drives them to try to be more attractive, more beautiful each day.   And this makes the men like them more, if they would just pay attention. 

             
Sadly, a lot of men try to get a different sampling of all these possible women, hair color, eye color, length, width, and all the possible combinations.  They mistake diversity for depth.   It is not true that if you date a movie star's eye with one woman, her lips with another, her tits with another that you have dated the whole movie star, but so it seems to be the effort.   I'd rather have one woman in depth, than a slice of a thousand.  But I just might be a little weird.

             
I've seen the very popular type of big butt, long legs and short waist, but it was not for me.   For me, I want a moderately tall woman with a nice symmetry of chest and hips.  And that was Catherine.   So she wasn't weird there.  But that was not her question.

             
She asked this a bit after she had a few dates with Captain Jack and found her inner submissive, and developed a deeper commitment to her dominant side with Steven.  So is a person who is both a bit more submissive than normal, and a bit more dominant than is normal, on the average the same as normal?  Or, more than normal because she has more breadth of the bell curve, or less normal because she does not spend as much time in the middle than a 'perfect' normal?   Is she less normal than a person a little submissive but mostly normal?  So is it the average, or the standard deviation that dictates normality?  Is a person, who never changes from the middle, weird just in that lack of diversity?

             
"Do you feel weird?"  I asked her.  We were sitting at dinner after a long week in Chicago, with a client that was slow to make a decision, making me feel like a dentist pulling teeth.  Every decision seemed to hurt and we almost felt guilty about making him feel the pain of the decision.   I kept thinking, “If you don't want the root canal, don't eat the sweets and forget to floss."  But when all of the choices were made, like all successful oral surgeries, a relief was felt by all.  Eventually, the final decisions in hand, we left the building and had a celebratory dinner at a nice restaurant.

             
We read through the menu and she ordered her favorite, red meat.  Okay, it was a medium rare filet, and I had the lobster.   We had them bring us their pride and joy, what they called their 'signature' dish, some sort of potato hay.   The menu did not do it justice.  Catherine looked at it and said they would have trouble signing it as it was so very tiny.   The potato had to be put through some sort of shredder that made each long strand thinner than broom straws, but long enough to wad up nicely when it was deep fat fried.   What emerged was dark brown, tasteless and full of empty calories.   As an appetizer it missed its mark.   But with good cheer we slide it aside after a taste and hoped for a good dinner, which we got.

             
"No," she replied after a thoughtful moment.  "I don't feel weird at all.   I am curious and excited at the same time.  I feel like an explorer come unto a new world.  And," she added with a laugh, "The new world is my own mind.   But I wonder if I appear weird to other people."

             
"I am afraid I am not a good judge." I said.  "I have a lot of latitude about people.  I don't think much is weird, just different.  So weird is a value judgment that I shouldn't be making.  Me or anyone."

             
"But people do!" She exclaimed.  "I know they shouldn't.  I suspect that they know they shouldn't.  But people like to judge.  It seems to make them feel better about themselves.   Why is that?"

             
"I think you make the point yourself.  They do it to make themselves feel better.  It isn't about you.  It is about them."

             
"But sometimes those people are mean and will tear down those they judge to be weird."

             
"I suppose they think they are making the world a better place, a little less corrupted for all the people who cannot choose well for themselves.  If all there is in the freezer is vanilla, there will be no chocolate ice cream drips on the shirt."  I said with a shrug.

             
"So I have to eat vanilla my whole life, so people won't have to fear seeing chocolate stains?    Meanwhile people are throwing tomatoes at each other one booth over.  Like that won't stain."  She said a bit testily.

             
"Let me see if I have kept track of our allegories," I said.   "You don't like people judging you on sex because there are many other things of greater concern than your sex habits?"

             
"Exactly," she said with emphasis.   "With over drinking and driving, swearing in public, pants that make people with perfectly long legs look and waddle like penguins, people wearing plaids and stripes in broad daylight, why would anyone care what I did in private?"

             
"You asked."  I said quietly.  "It seems like it might be you who is concerned about it being normal, not them."

             
She looked intently at me for a moment, then a broad smile lit up her face.  I love it when she does that.  "And I don't care if I am weird.  I will enjoy it for as long as I like." And then after a pause, "And then maybe a little bit longer."

Chapter 21:   End

             
The two men strolled along the walk, looking out to the Pacific Ocean.   Rusted pylons and burnt out piers thrust out to the mild ocean waves as gulls and pelicans swirled and plunged into the surf.   Young children made sand castles, old women read books and teenagers sprawled out to return volleyballs.  "How about an ice cream?"  The taller man asked.   The shorter one nodded absently. No one would mistake the two for father and son, not because the difference in age.  No, that was there.  It was because they were so different physically.  The older man was taller, with a dark salt and pepper beard and dark eyes.  The younger man was much more fair haired, slighter with blue eyes.

             
The taller, darker man suffering a slight limp, retrieved two ice cream cones and handed one to the other man with sandy brown hair, with tinges of red-blonde from the sun. "Thanks."  And the two of them wandered down the beach past displays of homemade jewelry, cartoony portraits, and photos. It was at one of these last that the two stopped and looked at a sequence of photos, depicting the last night of the burnt out pier that they were walking by.  "What's the story about that?" One of them asked the grey-bearded sun-soaked man, who sat in a lawn chair amidst the photo displays.  Startled, the man smiled as he looked at the photos.  

             
"It's a great story.   I got a call from my friend Ernie one Saturday night, saying to come down here quick.  I got here and I was the only one to get the photos for some reason.  It was in all the papers."

             
"Arson?"

             
"Nobody could prove it, but someone said they saw a boat down near the end of the pier earlier that night; and the owner of the restaurant was said to have a healthy fire insurance policy, despite the fact that it was bleeding money out there. Too pricey for this area.  But no one ever proved anything and no one went to trial or went to jail."

             
"Anyone hurt?"

             
"No.  That's probably why the law wasn't too excited about prosecuting."

             
"What happened to the restaurant owner?"

             
"He skedaddled as soon as the insurance money came through.  I heard the Bahamas.  But no one really knows."

             
"We'll take this one."  The taller man said, taking his wallet out and paying.

             
"Do you think the story is true, Jack?" The shorter man asked as they walked away.

             
He laughed, "It doesn't really matter, does it?  It's a great story.  The truth is just a bonus."

             
The other nodded and they kept walking down the beach, the wind coming cool off the ocean surf, a dull roar.   People pedaled by on beach cruisers, laughing.   Eventually, the two men found an empty bench and they sat quietly looking out to sea, finishing their cones and occasionally turning to watch a bikinied young girl sway by.

   "I suppose you called this meeting to talk about our
precious Catherine, Mike." said Jack.

             
"You went over the line in Scottsdale, Jack.   It pushed her too hard.   I have a very slow progression scheduled and you have thrown everything off.  I am worried she is going to pull out entirely."

             
"I know.  I'm sorry, Mike.  I thought she was ready for the next step."

             
"This is my gig, my story, my money."  Mike said firmly, and just a bit angrily.

             
"I would have done it with my own money.   It would have been worth it."  Jack argued.

             
"You don't get her.  She is way too complex for you. The only way you have been getting away with your stuff is because I fed you the right strategy.  She is not like your other wounded little birds.  There is a lot more going on with her."

             
"You're right, Mike."  The darker man shrugged, "She's a complex one. Have you given any thought about the end game?  How does this end with her? It can't last forever."

             
"Nothing lasts forever."

             
"That's exactly my point.  You'll crush her if she ever finds out.  You're the Psych expert here, but even I know that.  How are you going to ease her out of this?"

             
"I know," Mike nodded as he watched a dog chase a Frisbee across the sand.  "You almost made the end game kick in early with your stunt in Arizona.  But to tell you the truth, this has been such a ride I had lost track of the plan.  She's pretty tough, so there are a lot of options."

             
"Have you thought about stealing her from Steven?"

             
"Isn't going to happen.  She loves the guy like no one's business.  Let me give you an example.  When he fell off the ladder and they were getting ready to wheel him in the operating room, he said something to her, that she says he doesn't even remember saying." 

             
"That happens," Shrugged the taller man.

             
The other man continued, "He said:  'If something happens to me, I want you to know that I forgive anything you've ever done or ever will do, except one thing.'  "

             
"I'm assuming she asked what it was.   And don't tell me he passed out before he could tell her!"

             
"No, he didn't.  But wouldn't that just drive her crazy, especially if he couldn't remember what he was thinking?”

             
"No," Mike continued. "He said, ' I won't forgive you if you are sad.  Stay happy, no matter what.' "

             
"The bastard!"  Laughed Jack.

             
"You know, a lot of guys would like her for being happy, but it takes someone like Steven to verbalize it like that.  That's why I don't stand a chance of stealing her away.  Besides, I couldn't handle her.   I know I am not enough for her.  I'd go crazy worrying about someone stealing a piece of her from me.   I am content to steal a piece of her from Steven, the piece he doesn't even know about."