Life has a way of taking wrong turns when you least expect it. We all face it, sometimes fear it, usually deal with it, and hopefully learn from it. Our lives are intertwined with so many others we barely know where to draw lines anymore. And after a particularly large turn, we find ourselves faced with new variables to maneuver, new obstacles to overcome.
Divorce is one of those turns. After many years of marriage, when I found myself single again, I didn’t know what to do with myself. I only knew that anything I wanted to do, I did with myself. Okay, a little lotion and a lot of imagination and life goes on.
But on occasion, since I’m old enough, I gave myself permission to go out on dates. With no marital ties to consider, I felt like a free spirit, hardly taking time to consider the complications still in my life. When a date turned into dating, I would occasionally bring home a date. As with most non-celibate adults, this often turned into a sexual encounter.
Whoopie!
The evening would start off slow as I manipulated my younger children to bed with carefully worded excuses about what ‘that woman’ was doing here. The older kids could figure out whatever they wanted, although I didn’t want to appear as a rampant dog, I’m still alive and have needs.
Then the bedroom door would close and the festivities would begin. As with all first times, we would begin tentatively, exploring, discovering, enjoying each new part or smell or taste. Some moaning would ensue—not only to be expected but often quite gratifying to the male ego. Many times, my ego did just fine.
But, in my many years of marriage, I’d become something I never expected. Inexperienced. I didn’t know about some things that single people were experimenting with. How could I? I also didn’t know about many women since I’d been with the same one for more than twenty years.
As the night air became hotter, I discovered what I’ll call a peculiar quirk. The woman underneath me liked to scream. Her high-pitched squeal pierced the still night air. Now I have no physical attributes that would make a woman scream—except my pierced tongue. The woman might be inclined to laugh, but screaming surprised me—as well as some of my children.
Now I believe in discretion, but I think it’s okay for kids to know adults do things they don’t understand and it’s okay. That way, when they grow up, they’ll know it’s okay for them. But several moments during this animal sexcapade, the woman sounded like I’d killed her.
Of course, being in the same room with her, I knew better. However, my kids, on the other side of the door, grew concerned.
Needless to say, I had the wildest time of my life and needed to do some pretty fancy explaining in the morning. Bleary-eyed, barely able to stand, let alone walk, my kids all had enough mental alertness to ask what all that noise was about last night.
Not being so quick on my feet before several cups of coffee, I responded with: “I was tickling her and she begged me to stop. Want me to show you how I did it?” Then I would raise my hands, claw-like, and grasp at their ribs. The ribs are directly connected to the short term memory part of the brain. Fortunately.
As if there weren’t enough things to worry about before undertaking intimacy with someone new, I guess from now on I’ll also have to screen for screams.
This article appears in Sep 2-8, 2009.