The Rainbow’s End

Last night, Her and I talked. I feel she and I are both at a crossroads in our lives. We are traveling blindly, following our hearts. Both of us free to seek new companions, and after all, we are both very sensual people, we’ve both had ‘meaningless’ sex before. We both agreed that sex is never meaningless, but it can feel so empty when the other person you are having it with doesn’t connect with you; you don’t know what they are feeling, in the moment and sometimes even later on. Free of my wife I should be out picking up girls on a nightly basis. But, here I am alone again tonight. In some ways I’m frustrated with myself.

I left work late today after a long video chat with Her. We keep coming down to it, both of us baffled by our feelings for each other, how they can be so strong when we haven’t met.
“I love you baby.”
“Love you,” she smiled a sweet smile that melts my heart every time, I feel so connected to Her when I look into her eyes, even if it is only through a pixelated screen.
“Talk to you later.”
“Ok.”
I started the car and put my playlist on shuffle. This playlist is kind of the playlist of my life, I try not to play it too often, but it is my go-to when I’m not sure what to listen to. I don’t necessarily put songs that I’m entirely in love with on it, just songs with meaning for whatever reason. If my life was the film, these were the soundtracks that were played to punctuate the major events. There’s a bit of my childhood, and high school, and my friends, good times, bad times. I just keep adding to it, there are songs that my wife and I shared, ‘our songs’, songs of love, romance, and plenty of old Swing standards. For example, Polka Dots and Moonbeams is on there.

I pulled out of the parking garage.
“Think I can fly, think I can fly when I’m with you, my arms are wide, catching fire as the wind blows,” came the song over the stereo from my phone, accompanied by a cascading synth melody.
Yes, Sierra is in the playlist too, how could she not be? This was a song that twenty-year-old girl played for me on a particular late night drive, befitting her youthful exuberance. It isn’t a great song per se, Galantis is somewhat too gaudy and overproduced for my tastes, but one particular lyric always sticks with me,
“Even if we’re strangers til we die…”
Sometimes I wonder if Sierra thought about that lyric as I did when we were together. That our relationship was never meant to last, and we would share an intimate physical relationship for a time, and then return to being strangers until we die. Seemed like that was the plan. I have trouble regretting it; it had its time and place.

As I drove, I thought about Sierra for a time, picturing her smiling there beside me. Thinking about her betrayal and how it all ended. Another song came on.
“Can you find the time to let your lover love you? He only wants to show you…” Christina Perri sang.
This was one of Her’s favorites, and it meant a lot to me since she’d sung it to me herself. The song’s infectious idealism of the love of soulmates (and seabirds that mate for life) is almost bordering on the sappy side, but, somehow it works so well, but only if sung with such genuine heart as Christina and Her sing it with. I felt so warm inside hearing it on the drive home, hearing Her’s lovely voice in my head.
“Baby we’re fate, baby it’s fate… not luck.”

After dinner, I walked with my sister and her dog to the liquor store to get her cigarettes and a bottle so we could make some cocktails. I was texting some more with Her, she was watching Breakfast at Tiffany’s, one of my favorite movies, I was a bit sad I was missing it. It made me think of a post I’d made a long time ago now. Her and I talked some more. It was a continuing theme with us, we both never wanted to be trapped again, we wanted to be free, yet we kept coming back to how empty the idea of sex with other people seemed to the both of us at this time, we had become… monogamous, yet we’d never met one another nor were we tied together by any vow or expectation. We admitted our love freely enough to one another, but we were both very much aware it likely wouldn’t be forever.
“‘People don’t belong to people. I won’t be put in a cage…'” She quotes Holly to me in a text.
That final scene in that film, it all comes together so beautifully. Holly has a point, after a manner she is right, no person should ‘own’ another and put them in a cage. She is terrified of commitment, of falling in love, of losing. She won’t even name her own cat and call it hers. In some ways, that’s how Her and I were being, and perhaps it is some wise caution for two people thousands of miles away who’ve never met. But, Paul’s monologue, as he stands out in the rain leaning into the cab, perfectly delivering Capote’s immortal words that cut to the heart:

You know what’s wrong with you, Miss Whoever-you-are? You’re chicken, you’ve got no guts. You’re afraid to stick out your chin and say, ‘Okay, life’s a fact, people do fall in love, people do belong to each other, because that’s the only chance anybody’s got for real happiness.’ You call yourself a free spirit, a ‘wild thing,’ and you’re terrified somebody’s gonna stick you in a cage. Well baby, you’re already in that cage. You built it yourself. And it’s not bounded in the west by Tulip, Texas, or in the east by Somali-land. It’s wherever you go. Because no matter where you run, you just end up running into yourself.

You have to have courage to belong to someone else because that’s life, people do it, they fall in love and sometimes they fall out of love, or they hurt and cheat each other as Her and I have done to others and had done to us. It’s all a risk, it’s scary, and people get hurt, but good still comes of it, we pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off, and the memories and music and meaning remain. We’re after the same rainbow’s end, Her and I, why not seek it together?

The Thrill

Once, when I was younger, I thought I could be someone else. I’d move to Casablanca, open a bar, and I’d meet Ingrid Bergman. Or more realistically – whether actually more realistic or not – I’d tune in on a better life, something more suited to my true self. Toward that end, I had to undergo training. I read The Greening of America, and I saw Easy Rider three times. But like a boat with a twisted rudder, I kept coming back to the same place. I wasn’t anywhere. I was myself, waiting on the shore for me to return.

The afternoon was warm, I crossed the asphalt parking lot that shimmered in the heat, coat under my arm, loosened my tie, rolled back my shirt sleeves, wiping sweat from my brow. Slumping into the driver’s seat, I fired up the ol’ girl’s venerable 6 cylinders, they rumbled to life without protest besides the fan belt squeaking a bit before settling, thank God for German engineering, at least when it comes to motors and leather seats; the rest of her was falling apart. Tuned the radio, slapped the dash lovingly to un-stick the tachometer’s needle.

Everything was bathed in a dull orange haze, the shadows of the palm trees lining the boulevard growing as the sun lazily sank across the sky to the west. Oldies on the radio, AC is hardly functional, so it is all the windows down, that’s ok, I like to feel the breeze. Pulling to a stop at the red light, right to home, or left? I could make it to the beach before sunset, park, leave my leather shoes in the sand and feel the cool sea water between my toes, smell the salt in the air. Look out at the golden waves next to the pier as I’d done many times before, ask them for answers, but the answer would always the same: “the tide tarrieth for no man.” Maybe I’d get back in the car, continue South, as far as the old girl would take me, I bet she could make it to Mexico, Panama, maybe beyond. I used to dream like that when I was in high school, that I’d just keep driving, and when the car broke down I’d pull a gas can and match from the trunk, douse the car and torch it by the side of the road and watch it burn before continuing on foot, I’d make a new life at the next town, starting over with nothing but the shirt on my back and shoes on my feet. But no, not today, I’d go right, away to home. Passing Sierra’s apartment as I go; I always avert my eyes from the parking lot there, stop myself from searching for her car, just press the gas and keep driving.

The sun sinks behind the mountains casting a long shadow across the valley. The hills are a vibrant green with the recent rains, clouds were dark and full in the distance towards home. When I was a kid, I remember imagining what this valley looked like millions of years ago. Many of the mountains are the ruins of old volcanoes, little more than hardened magma chambers remained, ancient overlooks keeping their silent watch as the eons march on. My young mind would imagine dark, towering spires billowing smoke and belching fire, pyroclastic flows streaming down the sides, glassy obsidian scars across the scorched black land, pretty much the land of Mordor where the shadows are. Of course, that was silly, it was probably all under water at that time, a verdant archipelago formed as the plates shifted thrusting the volcanic range upward above the primordial sea. I remember resting my head against the window as my parents drove back from the city at night, I’d doze in and out, looking up at the star filled sky above the cold mountains, it certainly looked like a scene from Middle Earth. I remember a night sky like that one as Saul and I drove down the road at 2 am. We’d spent all summer under the hood of that beast of a car, I put the hammer down as I dropped her into 2nd, torque spinning the rear wheels throwing me back into the seat, I’ll never forget the growl of the intake and roar from the exhaust as the fuel dumped into those insatiable cylinders, like some awakened beast. I hadn’t expected it to terrify me as it did, freezing the blood in my veins, my skin tingled, but I shifted upwards through the gears whenever the roar of the motor reached an unbearable scream, the scenery flashed past in the headlights. I didn’t dare take my eyes off the road for even a second even though I knew every undulating curve like the back of my hand, Saul watched the speedometer for me, “150… 155, what have we created?!” In contrast, there were no stars the night I drove that road with Sierra next to me in the passenger seat, the fog hung low as a shroud beneath the sky as we spoke in muted voices as if in a dream (now it was a dream of a dream I suppose), her hand resting on my knee, face lit by the glow of her phone’s screen. We knew what we were doing, we’d made our choice, the sexual tension and anticipation between us was palpable, you could cut it with a knife, tingly sweet, chill warmth of the first day of spring, a calm before the storm, a volcano waiting to erupt. The feeling at that moment made everything that would follow worth it all, or so I tell myself. As I lay in bed at night, I can still see us, play back the moments, I have it mapped out on the bed exactly, like a diagram of some perverse dance steps. On my side of the bed she was laying with her head at the foot as I pulled off her pants, her tanned body lit by the dull glow from the lamp on my nightstand as she pulled me close, kissing my lips, her breath quickening, moaning desperately, and hungrily thrusting her hips against me. We rotated around the bed as we went, counter-clockwise, until we were spooning where my wife’s sleeping form is right now, that was where we climaxed together. As I lay here squinting in the darkness, I remember, but it doesn’t seem like my memory, it wasn’t me, it was someone else, in another time, and another age. I keep coming back to it though, maybe it changed me somehow, or perhaps it was just confirmation of a change that had already happened. But, now I’m wondering what the future may hold. Where does this story go? What is this new-found muse which stirs my imagination? Why am I still doing this? Seeking what I hope not to find. Is it just the thrill?

Perfection

A certain type of perfection can only be realized through a limitless accumulation of the imperfect.

I’ve had a bit of a Sierra relapse lately, and I’ve hesitated to write about it, hoping it would pass, but as each moment goes by and it still remains. For some reason, I dreamed about a memory.

“Well, isn’t that a picture, how perfect,” Sierra said.
She was leaning forward on the open passenger car door. I walked around the back of the vehicle and put my arms around her delicate waist.
“What?” I asked, but then I saw as I followed her gaze: a green grassy hill, at the top a tree, on an outstretched branch, a little rope swing, and two children, a boy and a girl playing on it, and the blue sky  beyond.
An unreachable picture of innocence, but here we stood, next to the railroad tracks, nothing but dirt and gravel, dry brush and weeds, muddy pits filled with standing water, trash, disused steel barrels, broken concrete structures with graffiti. If goodness and purity were a spectrum, we stood at opposite ends, the hill and those children, and me there with my arms around another woman, and all I could do was stare blankly.
“We should try to find a way up there sometime. Must be quite the view.” I said.
But, between us and the hill was a railroad track, and fences on either side, then rows of buildings and houses. I could no more reach out and touch the scene and envelope myself in it any more than I could restore pure innocence to my life.
“That would be nice,” she smiled, she reached around and caressed my rough cheek and chin with her soft hand.
I leaned over and kissed her lips.

I know from Sierra’s Instagram that she is back in town, not graduated at she said she was, but I know better than to contact her. I just miss her, that’s all. I hear her voice in my head, the way she’d enunciate certain words, like my name, with deliberate exaggeration. I see her face form that mischievous grin that she’d make whenever she saw me. I miss the way her brow furrowed expressively during her faux-innocent sarcastic commentary. I wonder if it will ever be that perfect accumulation of the imperfect again.

Time Travel

The tide abides for, tarrieth for no man, stays no man, tide nor time tarrieth no man

I ground the beans, the fresh aroma of fragrant dark roasted arabicas filling my nostrils. I heard no sound from the bedroom whose silent occupant must still be sleeping soundly. The sky was beginning to brighten outside, ever so slightly. My phone vibrated, I looked at the message “Hey sorry, got alittle tipsy and my phone died.” I felt a tinge of sadness at what could have been, she was a beautiful girl and I’d been talking to her the better part of six months off and on. Still, it was hard to feel sadness at the events of last night and the morning up to that moment. I left the coffee maker to its work as it started to growl and steam, walking to the bedroom, I stood in the doorway for a moment, taking in the scene: a beautiful girl wrapped in sheets and blankets, just one arm and a perfect leg dangling out, breathing silently. After having met Sierra that one day in town, I had never fathomed that she would be there in my bed at that moment.

Life comes in bunches for me. No idea why. One day, or one week, no contacts, the next my inbox overflows. Like that one time when my wife was out of town, nothing until the last two days, then it was both Anne and Sierra. Pure insanity. Why can’t these events form an orderly queue instead of coming at me all at once? So, I never mentioned the third girl while my wife was out that one time. She was kind of an older version of Elle, we’ll call her ‘Ry’, early twenties, Anne’s age. She was very pretty, strawberry blonde, cute round face, thin with nice curves, captivating blue eyes. We talked a lot, she had a boyfriend, we agreed to meet a few times, but she stood me up. While my wife was gone, I messaged her a couple times to see how she was. The night I was to meet Anne, my phone lit up with this message from Ry:
“Hi Jason”
“Hi Ry, how have you been?”
“Good thanks, what have you been up to?”
“Not much, been enjoying some downtime with wife out of town. How about you?”
“Nothing much just enjoying some time off from work. I see from your messages you still think about me? 😊”
“Yes, from time to time 😉. Seems the feeling is mutual?”
“I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t 😊”
“Glad to hear it, up to anything tonight?”
“Out with friends at the moment. How long is the wife gone for?”
“She’s back tomorrow 😞 I’m at home frantically trying to get the house out of bachelor mode. How about later tonight?”
But, she went silent after that. It was alright since I had plans with Anne that night, and they ended up coming to fruition. And then Sierra happened. I got that text from her the next morning as I was making coffee. I wonder what would have happened if Ry’s phone hadn’t died, if she had texted me later in the evening after Anne had left. Would it have been her instead of Sierra? Or perhaps both? Of course, after having had an amazing time with Sierra, I was determined to see her again before my wife came home the next day. I had to let Ry go, it was either her or Sierra, and I didn’t even know if Ry would stand me up or actually meet.

I said life comes in bunches for me, right? Today and yesterday are the days of what could have been. Yesterday, a girl I was interested in told me she found someone else (I was too late, I wasn’t ready the last time we had talked). And today I messaged Ry in the morning, she got back to me, she’s found someone new as well as of a little over a week and a half ago. I can’t blame either of them, I would have done the same in their place. I have no right to feel any jealousy, but I have to say that I do, it is quite consuming. But, how could one as faithless as I, complain? Best not to think about what could have been, but look forward to what could be. I needed to get this off my chest, let it out, quench the fire of envy and regret in my belly before it eats through my lower intestine. I wonder if space-time is really curved as they say. Perhaps if it intersects itself at any point then I could be with other girls I’ve desired but it just “wasn’t in the cards” at the time previously. Even better, if only I could time travel, walk between the curves of the snaking fourth dimension at will. Of course, if time works this way, then I might end up in a situation like my day dream the other day, where I’m brushing my teeth in the bathroom and I hear the shower come on and peak in to see myself with my arms around a naked Sierra, “psst, can you guys keep it down in there” I try to get myself’s attention as my wife walks in and asks why I have the shower on as Sierra lets out a soft moan from behind the curtain. I guess we should just appreciate linear time for what it is.

Hey, speaking of space-time, remember the 80’s? Yeah, me neither.

Elephant

Got a weird message yesterday. It rocked me so bad I didn’t want to talk about it, and decided to write about something else. I haven’t heard from Sierra in a good while and didn’t expect to ever again. Out of the blue she texts me unprompted:

I will not play god, I am walking away from your chaos for good. Do not contact me, do not confirm you received this, otherwise I will contact the police. Have a nice life 🐘

Is she crazier than I thought? In any case, I have no intention of replying. Bizarre though, I’m not sure what she means by playing god (guess a nice way of saying that she isn’t going to get me in trouble if I leave her alone) or walking away from my chaos (that is the pot calling the kettle black if I ever heard it)? And why bring the police into it? I haven’t even tried to contact her, so it isn’t like I’m harassing her, besides, she’s the one who committed a crime. And what the hell is it with her and elephants? Perhaps I caused some sort of internal struggle within her? I’m probably over analyzing, she probably just wanted to make it 100% clear that there was no future no matter what (maybe she plans to return to town at some point, I suspect she may still really be in school and not graduated as she claims). I didn’t think we had any future, but I now know for certain we are on the same page.

The whole thing really shook me up. I’m as over Sierra as I’m ever going to be I believe. But, she still has the power to rip open the old wound whenever she wishes, and I don’t know how to stop her. When someone you cared about makes it clear they never want anything to do with you ever again, I think it will hurt inevitably. I do miss Sierra considerably, even long for her, but I’ve accepted that I’d never see her again. This message is just insult to injury as far as I’m concerned. The fact that she threatens to call the police really gives me pause, it makes me wonder about our relationship from her perspective. Is she afraid of me for some reason? I can’t imagine what I would have done that made her feel threatened or uncomfortable. Maybe I am just as bad a guy as they say (I get told daily on hook-up sites). Makes me wonder what is wrong with me. As you can see, I had a little freak out yesterday, I’m glad it seems to be over though. I’ve recentered, even though Sierra’s words managed to cut deeply. I’m just far too sensitive I realize.

In other news, I got a slim twenty year old student with big eyebrows and a mid twenties BBW to both unmatch me on Tinder, so there’s that. I chatted with both of them most of the afternoon, but it just wasn’t in the cards I’m afraid. Shame, they were both very pretty. I had another promising contact on CL, pretty sure she is a pic collector though. She kept saying she wanted to meet, it wouldn’t work out, and she’d ask for more pics to turn her on. After two rounds of that I gave it up. She was a quite a looker too (if the pics she sent were really her, they seemed legit). Predictably, Elle ghosted me. Last night I made ‘Mommy’ (the tranny who has been begging me to come over and pound her ass) cry. I felt bad, but I had to tell her straight up that I wasn’t interested and he/she should find someone else that would better appreciate the little extra she has to offer. So, not surprisingly, I’ve struck out this inning. Still, I’m surprised at the good quality of responses I’ve been getting (even if they don’t end up working out), this does bode well.

Serializable

That is part of the beauty of all literature. You discover that your longings are universal longings, that you’re not lonely and isolated from anyone. You belong.

“Is this the first time you’ve done this?”
“What?”
“Cheated on your wife, of course.”
“No.”
“I guess that makes you a serial adulterer huh?” Sierra smiled.
“I guess.”
“How many before me?”
“One,” there had only been Anne, guys didn’t count as far as I was concerned, those hadn’t even felt like sexual experiences.
We were lying naked in the bed I share with my wife, it was 5 am and we’d just had sex for the first time. I wasn’t about to tell her that Anne had been in that very bed about 9 or so hours ago, I wasn’t sure if I believed it myself. She was lying back, her head nestled in a nest of her hair on the mattress looking up, her breasts rising and falling with each breath, her legs in the air. I felt her soft, smooth light bronze legs with my hands, kissing the arches of her feet, calves, knees, and thighs. She had a faint scar, she tried to hide it. It was from an accident she’d suffered some years ago during one of her wild escapades. It didn’t bother me, I kissed it gently. I already knew she was a vain girl, I thought I might have detected pain or perhaps discomfort in her eyes when she saw me looking at it.
“How about you, how many partners have you had?” I asked looking into her eyes.
She looked at me thoughtfully, her brown eyes bright beneath her furrowed, sweat coated brow. She held up one, then two, then three fingers.
“Really? Pretty girl like you?”
“Really.”
She bit her lower lip as I bent down and kissed her.

I’m not sure why certain memories of Sierra keep bubbling to the surface. This whole scene replayed, every sight, smell, sound, and touch as I was lying in bed falling asleep last night. Gosh her smell in that moment, sometimes it is so vivid, so musky, sweaty, sweet, delicious; it intoxicates my mind, the phantom fragrance will come to me as I’m lying there and I can’t escape the journey it takes me on. Sometimes I wonder if she had been real at all. I can feel her being leeched out of my bloodstream, filtered away by my immune system like a foreign substance.

My wife and I are back to sexlessness, trying to seduce her is like pulling teeth. At some point I’ll probably give up trying like before. I can only take so much constant rejection from her. But, she did say she’d like to get away, have a little vacation, just me, her, and the baby. There’s something we can agree on at least. I’m keeping my eye out for deals; a mid-week holiday would be nice and maybe it will be a chance to reconnect, or to grow further apart.

The hookup search continues on autopilot. Had a pleasant chat about writing and literature with a nice pretty girl on OKC. But, I’m realizing perhaps I’m not ready for another fling yet after all. I realize I’m still just really looking for Sierra out there, a replacement for her. But, that isn’t right or fair to whoever I find, and I know logically that that isn’t what I want. But, it is hard to get motivated for anything else. I’m still keeping my options open, but I’m not making much effort. I know I want someone new, not another Sierra, but my emotional desires aren’t listening yet.

For The Record

I went to the free clinic today to get STD testing done. Figured I should probably make absolute certain that I’m fresh for the new year after my unprotected romp with a promiscuous college student. The place has a hip name and fancy sign, and is near the campus where Sierra went to school. In spite of winter break, the parking lot and waiting room were packed with teens and twenty somethings, chatting and filling out forms on clipboards while pop music played over the sound system. I went to the front desk, and told them I needed STD testing, the “nurse” or, whatever she was, sitting there in her scrubs betrayed no surprise and handed me a white board marker and a small reusable form they use to get basic information for making an appointment. I made it for 2 pm, thanked them and ducked out.

Someone(s) are playing morality police and keep flagging my ads on CL for deletion. Can’t blame them I suppose. Particularly the ones looking for married women get taken down shortly after going up. If I’m a little more clever with my titles sometimes they are missed. Tinder seems to be a dead end. I’ve had 6 matches total, and only 3 have been real women, and all of those are unresponsive at this time. I decided to give OkCupid (OKC) a go. Took much longer to setup the profile which has multiple sections and lacks the strict character limits of Tinder. I just reused my faceless pics from Tinder, I have gotten some positive comments on them at least. My profile came off perhaps a bit too lighthearted and playful, but that seems to be the overall vibe of the site, so I’m satisfied with it for now. Already had a two ‘likes’ on it. My first match is a late 30’s gal from a couple of towns over. Not quite my type, but I may send her a message later, who knows after talking with her, perhaps we’ll mesh better than I think. One person already pounced on me and told me I should get a divorce. In any case, the selection seems to be good of attractive local women. I flipped through and liked probably three dozen of ’em. The only trend I could see is there are a ton of vegetarians and vegans on the site, and most of them seem to want to talk about how to make the world a better place. I suppose that is admirable, most bright eyed young people are idealists, after all, but many of these were older women from mid-twenties to late-forties. I generally get along well with liberals and conservatives (and anyone in between), so I figured this wouldn’t be a problem. I wanted to leave myself as open as possible, so I only answered profile questions about sex and left the lifestyle, religion, and politics sections empty for now.

As the morning wore on, I answered a w4m ad, turned out to be a transsexual. ‘She’ calls herself ‘Mommy’ and me, ‘Daddy’, and was begging me to come pound ‘her’ ass. Of course, I she had asked for a dick pic right away before I knew her real gender, so I sent one (Sierra had been the same way, big fan of the dick pics, but not Anne).  Mommy was very insistent that she needed my huge cock to destroy her tight hole. And she sent me these very interesting pics to say the least. Mid-twenties, surprisingly feminine, really a piece of work to make a male look like that. Dressed in lingerie, long black hair, big round ass, thin. The arms though, definitely man arms, ugh. I have been getting pretty pent up lately, I did give it some thought. Never topped a man before, and I do kind of have a policy of try anything once, but I wasn’t very excited by this prospect even if it was the most feminine looking tranny I’d ever seen. All the same, I chatted with Mommy for a bit, for kicks. When she found out I was married she started to demand that I divorce the ‘bitch’ and launched into a tirade about her own parents that had stayed together when they were in a crappy marriage and totally screwed over her mind. I told Mommy I was sorry for her crappy home life, but to not assume everyone’s situation is the same as hers. That seemed to set her off, she seemed to think I was talking down to her and only thinking of her as some ‘dumb tranny slut’. I cut off contact, but she kept at it, I’m thinking it is part of some humiliation mind game she gets off on. In any case, definitely not for me. Of course, Mommy did get me thinking about divorce again. I certainly don’t want my son to have a bad home life. But divorce can have devastating consequences as well. It is hard to know what to do. I don’t want him twenty years from now ending up like Mommy. I mean, if he makes the conscious decision to switch his gender (or just become a cross dresser) and gets into humiliation mind games, more power to him I suppose, but in Mommy’s case it doesn’t seem very healthy. But, who am I to judge.

At 2 pm, I returned to the free clinic. This time, the place was nearly empty, they handed me form after form. Each one with more and more personal questions mining my medical, sexual, and financial information. It was like a ray of sunlight had broken through my shroud of secrecy, I felt naked, exposed as I filled out the forms. I wanted to lie, to scatter like a cockroach from the light, but I filled out the forms honestly. Me, my wife, my son, all our full names and ages. Full income information, employer, job title. Number of sexual partners over the past year: __ Male __ Female, and there I put it in record, jotting down a ‘3’ in each box, the butcher’s bill for the year. Percentage of time using condoms, I put 25. I was breathing a sigh of relief that each area had a confidentiality section, I checked off all the boxes that they couldn’t contact me at home, or by phone, only by email, and to keep all information confidential from my spouse. I smiled calmly as I turned in each form, I sensed slightly knowing looks from the staff. Finally, they told me to wait. I did some swiping on Tinder. A girl had stopped in and sat in the corner waiting, a young guy who’d been waiting got called up and went back. They called me back up the counter.
“It looks like you’d have to pay out of pocket for all services. Are you sure about your income?”
“I should have brought in a pay stub, pretty sure.”
“You are really close to having all services covered by the county, what is your net income instead of gross? And you have a family of three, right?”
“Right, $– a month.”
“Thanks, I’ll just put that down, we don’t check anyways.”
Well that was nice, though I’m sure it helps if they don’t have to deal with payments from the customer. After that, they got me an official county health services card and had me pee in a cup, then off to the room in back for my counseling session. Pretty short, just asked me if I need any additional health and family planning information before asking me if I had any symptoms (no) and then telling me about the STD tests and how soon I’d have results. They stuck my finger for HIV and hepatitis B (I think) and I sat and waited 20 minutes for the results, both negative. The other tests would all be done from my urine sample in two weeks. They’d only call if anything was positive. But I figured I’d call and check just to be sure. Apparently, I can also use my health card now to get free condoms, what a deal.

“Well, at least you don’t have HIV or hep-B,” I said as I sat down in the driver’s seat.
“Of course… I’m not a slut,” Sierra said from the passenger seat, I could feel her smile.
I started the motor and drove back to work alone leaving her phantom behind, hopefully for good. It has been the longest year in memory.

Nymph

Her tanned skin was heavenly smooth, the water made it shimmer, her large soft ass pressed tight against my pelvis. I was a head taller than her, I leaned over, kissing her neck, my arms wrapped around her young lithe body, lathering her slim stomach and naked breasts and between her thighs with the loofah. She held her hair with one hand.
“Gosh, now I’m going to have to wash my hair since it is getting soaked. What kind of body wash is this? Smells nice.”
“Nice huh, lavender scented.”
Sierra turned around and took the loofah and started scrubbing my chest with it.
“How do you explain being shaved to your wife?” She asked, gently but firmly caressing my shaved genitals with her hand before lathering them up.
“I tell her I do it for comfort and hygiene.”
She licked my nipple and sucked on it gently, then bit it.
“Ow!”
She smiled seductively looking at me with her brown eyes, and I pulled her close and bent down to nibble playfully on her lip while giving her generous butt cheek a slap and squeezing it firmly, I could feel her lips curl in a smile.
I pushed her up against the tile wall kissing her and feeling her tongue in my mouth, feeling myself between her legs, my breath quickening in the steamy mist.
Every morning when I get in the shower while my wife sleeps soundly in the next room, she’s there now, this water nymph. More than a phantom: a memory caught in an endless loop of those fleeting moments we spent together, but I can see her vividly, remember the feeling of her skin against mine whenever I close my eyes and feel the warm water cascading down my back and breath in the steam.

I’ve had a few people I was really close to die in my life. I’ve become somewhat used to the grief and mourning process, and I know there are no shortcuts. At some point in the process, I always see these phantoms. Sometimes it is so bad I’m not sure what is real or not. Sometimes they are like waking dreams, but they are at their most powerful when associated with a physical sensation (smell, touch, etc), like feeling the water on my body in the shower, or when I sleep. Sometimes I have a vivid dream of them, talk to them, spend time with them, and when I wake I am certain they are still alive and that I had only dreamed their death. That is such a nice momentary relief, but eventually I come back to the reality in which they are dead and gone. Sierra’s as good as dead to me now, and I know I’ve been mourning her loss. But she is there when I close my eyes to sleep, I’ll dream of her, mostly I’ll dream of texting back and forth with her and her telling me that she was joking about the whole blackmail thing. It is always that way, like my psyche is trying to stitch closed the wound by imagining the dead person telling me something, resolving some unfinished business, creating closure.

I finished up in the shower, and dressed, grabbed my keys. I closed the car door and started the engine.
“You know, it wouldn’t take much effort to save your marriage,” she said idly, reclining in the passenger seat in her sweatshirt, swiping her thumb across her phone’s screen.
When I turned to look, the seat was empty. That wasn’t a memory, just a construct of my imagination. She seems to be an ever present passenger now, but she only exists in the periphery of my vision, sitting there, playing music over my stereo from her phone, talking nonsense, making fun of me, excitedly telling me about her favorite thing to eat at a particular restaurant as we drive past. At the office, I know I’ll find her buck naked spinning in my office chair, or writing silly notes or drawing pictures on various pieces of paper scattered around my desk. It is kind of nice to have the company, even if she is only an illusion.

Sometimes, I have to go onto her Instagram to remind myself she is still alive and gallivanting about back home. She deleted the post of my text message (but the line in her bio remains). Not sure if that means anything, if anything, she probably just realized it was unwise and vain of her, or maybe got an odd question about it. Things are going well for me though, I’ve gotten replies on my CL ads and a few new matches on Tinder. Surprisingly, I’ve finally gotten a couple of bites from married gals on CL, we’ve chatted a bit. One seems very skittish though, she thinks I’m attractive, but she is afraid the feeling won’t be mutual. The other has never cheated, but she is tired of the mundane, sexless life with her decade older husband. I’m roughly the same age as both of these women, but I’m not getting the vibe that they will go anywhere.
“Don’t be so negative, you’re such a grandpa…” Sierra’s voice calls playfully from over my shoulder.

Thetis

From the day he was born. He was the happiest
And richest man on earth, king of the Myrmidons,
And although he was a mortal, the gods gave him
An immortal goddess to be his wife.

My wife came home and exploded like a low yield thermonuclear weapon, I’m sure you could all see the mushroom cloud. Despite my efforts to have the place spotless, she managed to find about a dozen items to ream me over. I cuddled and tickled my son while she walked around the house pointing out issues. Things finally calmed down and we put the baby to bed and sat on the couch grumpily together. I built a fire in the fireplace and we drank our hot cocoa in silence. I mostly sat and thought about Sierra. Once again, I realized that the girl was a complete and total enigma to me. I was 99.99% certain at this point that she was not going to destroy me with her evidence of our affair. It had either been a really elaborate joke, very well acted on her part, or she really had casually and lazily blackmailed me and when it didn’t work out right away gave it up. I saw both as equally likely alternatives. She was a mystery to say the least, but I realized now how much I missed her. I thought for sure that I had no fondness for her left, but I realized my love for her would never stop. Maybe Sierra was just an idea in my head, a symbol of what I wanted: to turn the world back in its course and make myself twenty again, to do it all over, and Sierra was that girl, the one I wanted to be with right at the beginning, my girlfriend and college romance that would one day end when we both graduated, broke up, and went on with our lives. I suppose I’d had that, far more briefly, and not in the way I wanted, but I suppose I was lucky to have had it at all after having squandered my youth. The memories of us together were more pervasive than ever, even just thinking about her, I got up to go to the rest room and realized I had been sitting with a warm semi-hard on, but I’m sure my wife wouldn’t have noticed since she was just sitting there on her phone paying me no mind.

I went back to the couch and sat, the fire still going strong and crackling while the rain poured down outside, streaking down the windows, the storm obscuring the surrounding scenery. The distance between my wife and I was palpable. Sierra had been my release from all this. As long as I had some semblance of a relationship with her, I could endure anything at home. My wife could hurl any abuse my way and I could take it, knowing it was far less than I deserved for what I was doing. Part of me wished Sierra would show up this weekend and talk to my wife, tell her everything, then this would be over. I knew she wouldn’t, she was probably on her way home for Christmas by now.

Finally, I thought to myself, “well, this is my life, better make the best of it.” And then, “Fuck this bullshit.” I got up and sat right next to my wife, she gave me a quizzical look and asked what I was doing.
“I’m making up with you.”
“Yeah? After having sex with other girls while I was gone?”
“You know it.” Her accusing me of having sex with other women was nothing new really, I don’t think she really believed it. If only she knew that I’d tried and failed.
I put my arm around her, brushed my hand across her chin then gently turned her face from her phone to look at me, before kissing her. We ended up having sex right there, I took her in the bedroom and fucked her hard and deep, I think I’m finding the secret to vaginal with her: as deep as possible. She loved it, moaning  constantly right up to her orgasm. She would hardly look at me during it, but she only talked about non-sex related stuff a couple of times which was a good change, if she started to get off on things I’d just pound her harder till she couldn’t help but moan. It was nice, and ironic that I’d tried to hook up the last few days and then ended up with my wife the first few hours of her being back. We cuddled, watched an old movie, and had a generally good evening.

Still, Sierra’s phantom is everywhere. When I made coffee this morning, I could see her lying in the bedroom, with her perfect little naked body wrapped in my sheets, and I walk in, sit down next to her and gently wake her with a kiss. When I looked at the fridge, I saw her standing there in her sweatshirt holding a mug of coffee, picking through and eating my leftovers. When I showered, well you know, still can’t get the images of the best shower of my life out of my head. Each of these things only happened once, but somehow they still persist. Even sex with my wife is tainted now (not that it wasn’t before). Even though the sex has both existed and improved the last couple times, my wife and I have never had amazing mountaintop sexual experiences. Never fucked all night, or all morning, or anything like that, it is a 10-30 minute experience typically. But I’d had two of those mountaintop experiences with Sierra, and now they were forever etched in my mind, those incredible moments of being with her. I missed her, I almost wanted to text her, but I knew it was over, she was gone for good, besides, she wanted it to be over, I had thought I wanted it to be over (but now I realized I didn’t despite all that had happened). But, it ended as best it could. I wondered how different things would have been if I found that I could have sex in a car and on a conference room table, and could have continued to drive her wild but I now know that I’m uncomfortable doing those things for some reason and my dick won’t work. One thing that I appreciated about Sierra was she won’t be with you if she doesn’t want to. She is selfish and vain, and has no loyalty. Sex with her was primal, you earned the right to mate with her. For all her lies, there was an honesty about sex with her. She didn’t do it out of love or anything like that. If she thought you’d meet her needs and desires, only then would she fuck you. I realized how appealing that was to me. I didn’t want someone having sex with me because they have some duty or loyalty to me, or even that they are emotionally invested and love me, or worse that they pitied me or believed they couldn’t do much better for themselves so they settled. No, I wanted them to want me, to be attracted to me, to pick me above the other options.  For sex to be a victory in a struggle. That is why I wanted Sierra so much, but that is why we were also not together anymore. She no longer desired me and had moved on. I had to accept that what made our sexual relationship wonderful also brought about its own demise. It was carrying the seed of its own destruction all along. I’m glad I had that experience for as brief as it was. I wanted love and intimacy, and perhaps even some loyalty, but thinking back, I wouldn’t have had it any other way with Sierra, except for when things started to fall apart of course.

I got to work today, still trying to accept that my life was this way. I found myself still going back to Tinder, hitting up CL. I just wasn’t satisfied. It was the same thing, I wanted to see what was out there, what my opportunities would be. I was ready for another whirlwind romance. I knew I wasn’t going to get over Sierra anymore than I already had. I knew I should just call it quits, throw myself into working on my marriage, but I knew it could never be what I had had with Sierra and I wanted to top that. Even now, I’m trying to persuade myself to stop this madness and give the marriage another spin. It had gotten better, maybe it could get better still. It isn’t helping that, in spite of our make up last night, my wife had called and texted several times an hour to rage against some thing or another, related to what I’d failed to do while she was away. I was in the midst of a raging internal battle, but the void Sierra had left behind made it sound deathly silent.

I finally decided to go onto her Instagram. It had been over a week since I’d seen it, I figured after the whole blackmail thing she would have removed me from her followers, in which case I’d see nothing more of her private profile. I was surprised she hadn’t, and I was even more surprised at what I saw. Her Instagram bio had only been one line last time I checked (just some silly cute misspelled sentence, it suited her perfectly). When I went on there this time, there was a second line, it read:

“and have a lovely life, my heartbreaking friend”

They were my final words to her. And her only new post to her nearly 1,000 followers, a screenshot of my recent text message:

Maybe her heart isn’t as black as I had thought. She knows my love for literature and quotes; I’ve never seen her make one herself. I’ll choose to believe that our relationship meant something to her, affected her in some way, even if I’m certain it meant more to me. I was surprised she quoted Homer. So, from her perspective I’m apparently Peleus, father of Achilles, and the husband of Thetis the sea-nymph (how fitting considering their rocky relationship). I wonder what that makes her, no doubt an Amazon. Only fitting, men were not permitted among the Amazons, but Peleus joined an expedition and entered their forbidden country. Much like a married 30 year old doesn’t belong in the promiscuous college scene. But now, that is a very self-centered interpretation on my part. Maybe it isn’t a perfect metaphor, but has a simpler, more vain explanation: she’s the goddess and I’m just the mortal man. In either case, maybe this is her sagely advice to “count my blessings”. If it is, she’s not wrong. Then I realized, the interpretation of that verse from her perspective probably had nothing to do with me. Perhaps my words had done nothing but fuel her conceit. Maybe I wasn’t Peleus, but he was her future husband and she was Thetis the goddess. Makes sense with how she’s portraying this message, she has just finished school and is probably passing it off as a farewell from one of her school friends. She probably doesn’t view this as a poignant ending as I do. But, that girl will never cease to surprise me I’m sure. All the same, I’m glad to have known her. I left her a comment, “Well, Thetis, I hope you find your King Peleus one day when you are ready.” I resisted adding “and hopefully he is a true Trojan hero because he’s going to have to wrap it up tight,” ba-dum ching, thank you folks, you’ve been great, I’ll be here all week.

This one’s for you, little hearbreaker:

Don’t Stop

I’m feeling a bit better this afternoon. Headache as been almost all day despite energy drinks, acetaminophen and ibuprofen dosing. I tried texting Sierra a few times, just to say I still need to give her back her knife and I was going to give her the extra hard cider I hadn’t drank since I didn’t feel like drinking 5 bottles of hard cider that evening and didn’t want to explain them to my wife (I don’t usually buy that stuff, the fewer questions the better I figure). She didn’t respond to that, so I figured I’d offer one more time:

You should come over so we can have dinner, smoke, and chill. Or you can wingman for me while I try to pick up wenches downtown, your call.

She seemed to really like the later option. We talked about our favorite bars and made plans for me to pick her up at 10 pm. I wasn’t sold on going to a bar to pickup a one night stand, but looks like that is this evening’s diversion. This could be a disaster. Well, better than sitting home and doing nothing. With Sierra in tow, anything could happen. I tried to steer her to bars with a younger crowd so we could avoid my friends and coworkers who might be out (unlikely, but still).

With the exception of my marriage, this has to be the worst idea I’ve ever had. I’m just begging Sierra to plunge her fist into my chest, rip out my still beating heart, chop it up with a santoku knife, roll it in sea-weed and rice and force feed it to me (with no deference to the fact that I hate sushi). Chances of me going home with someone are on the lower end (being married means extra caution, hell, I don’t think I could lie to someone, I’d probably tell them they are very nice but I can’t do anything with them and leave it at that) while the chances of her going home with someone are very high indeed, and the chances of me being incredibly jealous and imagining them in the throes of passion for the rest of the evening (and my life to come) are even higher. I’m scared to death of the possibility, but now I’m committed and I want to see this through. Perhaps it is foolish to think of facing this fear as a growth experience, perhaps this is me headed for unnecessary pain and suffering, but I’m tired of hiding at home in the shadows, I’m going down swinging if I must. I could use a little adventure to end this monotonous chapter. Some might say I’m playing into her hands, being a dancing monkey, I don’t think so. By all logic, I should want to go, a night out drinking and bar-hopping should be a fun experience, and I enjoy being with Sierra, this should be a fitting end to my wife being gone. I’m not going to let my insecurity stand in my way any longer, fuck it, if I get hurt, that’s on me. If Sierra just wants to fuck with me, fine, at least I’ll have beer at the ready and other girls to talk to even if I don’t go home with anyone. I’m not even going to mention the possibility that I could run into someone I know and give the game away. The way the week has been going, wouldn’t surprise me if she flakes out on me and we don’t go out. No punctuation mark to end things while my wife was gone, that would be just lovely.

It’s pathetic, but I honestly want to go home with Sierra tonight, but I don’t think that’ll happen. Seems we are hardly even friends anymore, but, sex or no, perhaps this will be one last fond memory together before she is gone for good.

If I somehow survive, you probably won’t hear anything from me today.

Darn it Freddie, why’d you have to go and leave us, I need you now.