Two Sides of Terri (5 page)

I was sure I’d score on that second date. But I didn’t. All I got was a hug and a kiss on the cheek. Third date was surely the magic number, but even when I made it clear that my interests were more than platonic, she deftly deflected my efforts to get more intimate.

She was definitely interested, though. Sharing more, acting flirty enough to make it clear she had a romantic interest as well, texting me promptly, but still keeping me at arms length.

I realized I’d been wrong about her. She was a good girl. And not just that, but she was genuinely fun to be with. I’m not going to say she was my
soul mate
, or that I knew I was falling in love. But I was.

It went on for a couple of months. We were kissing now. Holding hands in public. Cuddling. But still no sex. She didn’t seem particularly sheltered or prudish or frigid or religious. There didn’t seem to be any particular trauma in her past. She wasn’t dark or moody, not afraid of our growing attachment, she just wasn’t putting out.

I remember telling a buddy,
I think she might be a virgin
. He’d just rolled his eyes,
Damn, that’d be a waste, that body was made for fucking
. Terri and I had grown close enough that I bridled at his comment. He grinned and chuckled knowingly. I was smitten.

I took her to a Sarah McLachlan concert in the park. We sat huddled together against the night chill and shared a bottle of wine, and then a second. We kissed, slowly, tenderly, endlessly, the music just a background, the crowd around us fading into nothingness.

We packed up our things, folding my old blanket into my knapsack, chucking out the empty bottles. We walked back toward my place, a little unsteadily, giggly, pressed up against each other. I didn’t even think to invite her up, just assumed she would come. We were there—past there—past any possible reason not to spend the night together. I released her to unlock the door to my building, and as I did, she slid back, away from me on the sidewalk, hand on her hip, an enigmatic grin on her face.

I remember standing there, suddenly adrift. I didn’t know what to say. She leaned in and gave me a kiss on the cheek.
Soon
, she whispered in my ear. Then she turned and walked away, a playful skip in her step.

I was shocked, then disappointed, then pissed. I didn’t call or text for a couple of days. And she didn’t either. And then, just as my resolve was breaking down, just as I was about to make a fool of myself with some sort of maudlin declaration, she let me off the hook.

She invited herself over and pulled me into the bedroom. We made love. Well, not really. The first time was awkward, and quick, just an act of copulation to break the ice. But she didn’t seem disappointed or surprised. And when we did it again, it was tender, loving. She was no virgin, certainly. She was too self-assured and generous for that.

We’ve been together ever since. We moved in together in a matter of months. We were engaged soon thereafter. She was a ravishing bride, later a glowing expectant mother, a companion, a life mate, a woman I could not imagine existing without.

And yet, there had never been that moment of crazy passion. We’d never just, for lack of a better word, fucked. No instance of crazy, sweaty, reckless, hungry sex. She was right, I was never a whips and chains kind of guy, but even still, I’d always been restrained—felt constrained by my view of her as a good girl, not a prude necessarily, but surely conservative.

I had dreamed of things early on. Dirty thoughts. Titty fucking. Coming in her mouth, on her face. Spanking her ass. But out of respect—respect for her as a
good girl
—I’d never mentioned it, never explored it.

And over time, those fantasies shifted to other women: actresses, waitresses, interns, random women on the street, porn stars. I still had dirty, demeaning thoughts about women sometimes—what man doesn’t? But never about Terri. And anyway, they were just thoughts. Just silly immature fantasies, right?

And now suddenly I was confronted with the reality that my wife, the mother of my children, was not just the object of other men’s fantasies, but that she had, in real life, been that kind of girl. She’d had hook ups, sex with strangers. She’d fucked men in bathrooms, blew men in cars, swallowed their come. She’d had sex in public. She’d been tag-teamed. She’d been a dirty whore. Just never with me.

It never occurred to me to leave her. I wasn’t mad. This wasn’t some “issue” to overcome. That wasn’t what this was all about. It’s just that after all these years, we were in a routine. It was comfortable, enjoyable. Her stories about Chucky were an invitation to explore our relationship, push the envelope, but the reality was, I wasn’t sure I wanted that.

The thought of my wife being “taken,” “spit roasted,” “ragdolled,” bent over a bathroom sink, fingered at a bar, all of it was insanely hot—hot the moreso for being something that she enjoyed. But it wasn’t anything I could do to her, not to my wife, not to the mother of my children, not after so many years. It wasn’t that we were in a rut. It was just that we’d taken a different path.

--------

The problem was that the neat boxes that I tried to establish in my mind between fantasy and reality were frustratingly permeable. There were just too many triggers.

A scene from a movie, a sexy woman walking across my office lobby, or even just distracted daydreaming, and before I knew it I was thinking of Terri in some sort of sexual situation. Every time I saw a man who could have passed for her description of either Chucky or Jason, I’d suddenly picture her with them. Whenever we were apart, I couldn’t help but wonder if she was doing something sexual. Was she banging her boss? Her personal trainer?

The good news was that we were having more sex, nightly in fact, which was a big change from our previous, happily married, once or twice a week routine. After putting the kids down, as if by mutual agreement, we’d rush through evening chores and climb into bed naked.

Terri didn’t mention Chucky or the stories. She didn’t need to. She knew what was going on in my mind, or at least part of it. Her amused grin as she watched me hurriedly folding laundry before bed spoke volumes. As did her little asides, her comments about how
amorous
I was recently, or her observation that I seemed to be going to bed earlier and earlier.

I tried to avoid the subject. I didn’t want to confront the shame of being helplessly turned on by my wife’s past. Well, no, that’s not true. I was confronting it daily, hourly, each time we made love, each time I pictured Terri with another man. What I wasn’t ready to do was admit it to Terri.

And yet, the pressure was building. I had to know what she was thinking. Was she also thinking of Chucky... and her past... all the time? Now that we’d broken the seal on revisiting that part of her life, did she crave it again? Did she think of them, of other men, when we had sex? Was she as obsessed as I was?

In some ways I hoped she was. It would make my reaction somehow more “normal.” But the thought of it made me desperately jealous. Could I live with her admission that she was thinking about another man in our most intimate moments?

--------

It’s funny, but Terri and I never had “the talk.” We never talked about our past loves. When Terri mentioned that she could count her lovers on her fingers and have fingers left over, that was news to me. Until recently, I’d barely heard Chucky mentioned, and I knew nothing from before then. I didn’t even know when she’d lost her virginity.

It seems absurd now, but as we started dating, I consciously avoided the talk. She was so wholesome that I didn’t want to freak her out. After all, I’d been with five (count ‘em five!) women before Terri, including a couple of drunken one night stands, and I was worried about what such a revelation would do to such a delicate creature.

But it seemed as if now was a good time to broach it.

Terri was sitting in bed finishing up some office work. She’s a health care consultant, working with families to develop appropriate plans to deal with difficult situations: a special needs kid, an elderly parent with Alzheimer’s, that kind of stuff. The pay isn’t great, but Terri loves the satisfaction of working with and helping families so much that she often brings work home. Finally, she finished up and put away her laptop.

“Terri, we need to talk.”

She laughed. “Oh God, Chucky again? Even he’d be embarrassed by how much we talk about him, and he’s a narcissist.”

“No, not Chucky. I want to talk about your other lovers.”

“Bill, baby, I love you, but you’re getting obsessed. It’s fun. But, are we sure this is healthy?”

“Yes,” I replied firmly. I’d already practiced my response. “It’s just about getting everything out on the table. You know, we never actually talked about this when we were first dating.”

“Oh, so this is about mutual revelations? I’ll finally get to hear about Melanie?”

“What? Oh sure...”

My Mom, bless her soul, had a glass of wine too many one Thanksgiving early on and spent a good five minutes rhapsodizing about one of my exes, Melanie, and in particular Melanie’s skill at a making fruit pies. I think that Terri and I had just moved in together. It was a silly little thing, but I can still remember Terri quietly fuming at the table and then giving me the cold shoulder for the rest of the meal.

“Wow, you have a good memory,” I laughed.

“Well, your mom did spend like half an hour basically grieving over having missed out on her as a daughter-in-law and getting stuck with me instead.”

“You’re exaggerating.”

“Am not. Your mom had a picture up of you and her at some prom or something until Braden was born. I guess she realized she wasn’t getting rid of me then and took it down.”

“My mom doesn’t hate you.”

“No, she just liked Melanie better.”

I sighed. “I think we’re getting off track.”

“Yes,” Terri replied, “that can happen when you revisit the past.”

“Touché...but I don’t have any deep dark secrets, and anyway, it’s the past we’re talking about. And since we’ve been talking about it anyway, we might as well have some, I dunno, context.”

She began to answer, but then paused thoughtfully. “Okay, you first.”

“Um, okay.”

“Wait,” she said holding up her hand. “So this is just relationships with sex?”

“Well, yeah...but oral counts.”

“Okay. How about handjobs? Dry-humping, or frottage, as you may know it?” she asked in a high-toned, Park Avenue accent.

I sighed. “You’re mocking me.”

She laughed. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry. I just wanted to make sure we were on the same page. Okay,” she continued, barely suppressing her mirth, “you show me yours and I’ll show you mine.”

I groaned. Not a one of these conversations had turned out like I’d expected. Part of it was Terri, who seemed perpetually amused at my earnestness. Part of it was that it was easier to imagine the conversation in the abstract than to actually say the words. This problem struck me particularly as I tried to think about how to begin my revelations.

Terri seemed to recognize my problem. “Maybe this would be easier over a glass of wine? I’ll go get us a couple.”

She got up and scooted out the door and down the stairs and a few minutes later returned with two glasses and an uncorked bottle of Chardonnay. She poured a couple of glasses and handed one to me. Then she sat back and gave me an expectant look.

I took a sip, well more of a gulp, and cleared my throat.

“Okay, well, my first girlfriend...”

“Lover, you mean,” Terri interjected. “If we’re going to do this, we might as well dispense with the euphemisms.”

“Okay. Fine. The first woman with whom I had sexual intercourse was April.”

Terri giggled, “Please God, tell me the second was named May.”

“And the third June? Sorry, no such luck. Anyway, I was 18. Then the second...”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa. Slow down cowboy. I need details. What did she look like? How did it happen?”

“I...okay,” I replied, both put out and a little grateful. I knew I’d want details from her, so had to provide them myself, but somehow discussing ex-girlfriends, lovers, was more difficult than I’d imagined.

“So, I went to an all boys school. Not much of a chance to date or whatever. April was this girl I met the summer after senior year. I was working in a bike shop, she was working at the Limited across the street. She looked a little like Janet, now that I think about it. Well, same red hair anyway. We’d have lunch together, then went to a couple of parties. We messed around a little, but didn’t have sex over the summer. Timing never quite worked out right, and anyway, college was coming down the pike and I was sure that would be a veritable orgy, so I didn’t want to get tied down.”

I chuckled ruefully. “Anyway, college wasn’t an orgy. And I’d been keeping in touch with April, emailing and such, and she’d sort of become my
out of town
girlfriend to the guys at school and I was sort of believing it myself. Back before school started, we’d talked about visiting each other, and now I started working it, sort of inviting myself for a visit. So I drove up to visit, and well, I sort of wheedled sex out of her.”

Terri raised an eyebrow. “Wheedled?”

I shuddered a little. “Yeah, not my proudest moment. She’d been a virgin when we met, and that was one reason why we didn’t have sex over the summer. But by the time I came to visit she had cashed in her v-chit, so I basically guilted her into having sex with me. Told her I’d been saving myself for her, that kind of stuff.”

“Meanwhile, you’d have banged any willing girl yourself,” Terri said with a laugh.

“I was 18. Anyway, my first time was basically pity sex or something.”

“So you never saw her again?”

I shook my head. “Nope. Drove up, badgered her for three hours, gave her 90 seconds of bliss and then left.”

Terri laughed. “I always knew you were a true romantic.”

“Okay, you,” I replied.

“Ugh. Okay. I was sixteen,” she said with an embarrassed pout.

“That’s not so bad,” I replied.

“No, I guess not. Anyway, there was this guy, Alex. Lived in my neighborhood. I dunno, he might have been one of my brother’s friends at one point. He was older. Nineteen. Had a beat up junker and a band. Just the right combination to peak the interests of a sixteen-year-old girl. The fact that his band never left his garage and the fact that the garage was his folks’ because he still lived at home never factored in.”