HUMPTY DUMPTY

Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall.
Humpty Dumpty had a great fall.
All the king’s horses and all the king’s men,
couldn’t put Humpty together again.

 

Sandra picked Joe up in a bar—that was the long and the short of it—although this simple truth bothered her. She didn’t like the clichéd implications it brought upon her as a woman, or the idea of her and Joe beginning their life together on such a note. It bothered her so much, in fact, that she found herself modifying the event in the retelling of it, by changing a small detail here, or adding an extra feature there. These revisions seemed harmless enough; for what did it matter if people thought she met Joe in, say, a grocery store instead of a bar, or if it happened in the middle of the day instead of closing time in the middle of the night? It harmed no one, and made Sandra feel considerably better, to put aside the negative and focus on the positive, even if that positive did have to be manually incorporated into the event.

The end result of these machinations was charmingly romantic, with even Providence lending her a hand in the event, which had evolved into an in-depth encounter that began when Sandra’s shopping cart collided with Joe’s as they both came around the same blind corner in a crowded market, startling other shoppers and causing food to fly off a nearby shelf and roll onto the floor in all directions. Sandra’s friends were as intrigued as the purported shoppers who lingered all around the incident to watch while she and Joe struggled to gather up the scattered items in the disoriented state that was brought on by the immediate attraction they felt for each other, and the palpable electric charge that sent sparks flying when their fingers touched as they both reached for the same can of peas, etc., etc. Throughout Sandra and Joe’s relationship, this version of their meeting would only gain strength in the telling, in spite of the glaring reality that Joe almost never ventured into anything larger than a convenience store and that, even when he did, he never committed to the amount of items that would necessitate the use of a shopping cart. In fact, in all their time together the two would never be inside a grocery store at the same time.

Not only was it in a bar where Sandra first met Joe, but it was under circumstances where electrical charges and Providence were conspicuously absent. Joe was terribly drunk—so drunk that he had difficulty managing the most rudimentary of bodily functions, such as holding up his head without it wobbling disturbingly atop his neck, or keeping his comments along one single line of thought. He gazed at Sandra in confusion, slurring his words incoherently while babbling on about random topics. He was what her father would have called a “sloppy drunk” and had, at one point, even started to sob. Fortunately, this disturbing display of despair didn’t last more than a second or two, and in almost the same breath he began laughing uncontrollably.

Sandra was captivated. Her sympathies were fully won over. To see such an attractive man—with seemingly so much to offer—brought to such a low filled her with compassion. She had been able to deduce in a matter of minutes that Joe was not only good looking and in excellent physical shape, but also gainfully employed. She had even caught the mention of a woman called Elaine, who she immediately presumed to be the cause of Joe’s distress. The fact that such a man could be so affected by a woman told Sandra that sensitivity was yet another attribute she could attach to his character. All of this Sandra had concluded before she had time to finish her first White Russian.

Notwithstanding these qualities that Sandra was admiring in Joe, there was one thing in particular that captivated her heart. Joe, for all he appeared to have to offer a woman, was deeply wounded. Looking into his eyes, Sandra clearly identified a genuine pain and vulnerability. She immediately recognized a deep-rooted and urgent need in Joe, and her own need to be of use was alerted. She was certain she could help him. She already felt she understood him. He had obviously been hurt, most likely by this woman Elaine. No doubt he was afraid to get close to anyone else for fear of being hurt yet again. Sandra felt he must be terribly lonely. She knew that she could soothe the hurt and provide the loving care that would let Joe trust again. Her own past injuries had prepared her for this, giving her the ability to empathize. A strange sense of authority and control came over her at the thought of bringing all the wonderful things she had to offer to Joe. She knew she was capable of overwhelming him with her capacity to love. This was her forte. She was caring and considerate to a fault. What was more, she possessed a keen talent for doing things well above average when she put her mind to it. Where in other aspects of her life she could easily become bored and lose interest, in pleasing the right man she would be inexhaustible. And she knew every trick in the book for making a man happy—having read every issue of Cosmo since she was twelve—so she was more than up to the task of capturing this man’s heart while expertly healing his wounds.

Sandra brought Joe home with her that very night. And really, what else could she have done? She could hardly have just stood aside and allowed a man of such potential drive home drunk. In the instant when she first decided this, she assured herself in all earnestness that she would not let herself be intimate with him. She would simply get him safely settled into the warm and cozy bed of her guest room. He would awaken the following morning alone but comfortable, nestled lavishly in the softness of her mildly scented blankets, lulled out of his sleep by the richer, more urgent smell of gourmet coffee brewing downstairs in the kitchen. There, he would be greeted with the cheerful sight of Sandra, perfectly groomed and wholesomely feminine, cooking him a hot breakfast and showing genuine concern for his welfare.

Upon arriving at her house several hours later, however, Joe seemed to sober considerably, and for the first time that night he was suddenly fully aware of Sandra. He reached for her eagerly—almost desperately—and murmured earnest little observations about how beautiful she was. She was too flattered and delighted to rebuff him, and besides, having witnessed his pain in the bar over what she presumed was Elaine’s rejection of him, she could not bring herself to further diminish his ego by turning him down now. But more than that, inside Sandra there was awakened the strong yearning to be wanted and needed and admired by a man like Joe. She rested limply against the wall and gave herself over to the wondrous feeling of him taking her face in his hands and breathing warm, ragged breaths over her skin as he spread passionate kisses everywhere. She moved her arms up around his neck and clung to him and his kisses became more demanding.

In spite of herself Sandra was aroused. Often, she would be so caught up in pleasing her partner—particularly on a first encounter—that she wouldn’t have time to think about her own pleasure. But Joe surprised her with the intensity of his desire, and she found herself losing control under the influence of it. He was suddenly everywhere at once; with his one hand groping for a breast beneath her sweater while his other hand cupped one round buttock and squeezed it gently. All the while his lips burned a hypnotic trail along her jawline from one ear to the other. Once he had established her willingness to be more intimate with him, his passion quickly escalated. He seemed to be attempting to touch every part of her at once with his hands while his tongue devoured the inside of her mouth. Then quite unexpectedly, in a sudden impulsive burst of energetic decisiveness, Joe picked her up in his arms and held her cradled there, glancing all around them for the bedroom. Not seeing a clear path in that direction he looked questioningly into her face.

“It’s upstairs, I’m afraid,” she said with a nervous laugh. She bit her lip in expectation of the awkwardness when he put her back down—for she hardly expected him to attempt carrying her up the stairs in his condition—but Joe caught and held her eyes in that instant, really looking at her for the first time that night, and a slow smile crept over his features. It was a real smile, filled with genuine amusement that reached his eyes. She saw that he had nice teeth and noticed the dark shadow of thick stubble on his unshaven face. She was struck by the full force of his masculinity in that moment and it filled her with a kind of longing that went far deeper than her basic desires of the moment.

Without further hesitation Joe moved toward the stairs and effortlessly carried her up to the second floor. Sandra was impressed and delighted by his fortitude, and when he placed her gently on the bed she impulsively pulled him down on top of her. With this small gesture from her, the last of Joe’s reserve melted away and he began eagerly pulling off her clothes, virtually tearing them from her body. His breathing was heavy and ragged but he was clearly determined. She let him undress her completely, and then lay sprawled out and shivering on the bed while he stopped unexpectedly to simply stare at her. His passion was suddenly subdued while he looked her over with extreme deliberation and keen fascination, drinking in the sight of her and then leisurely moving his hands over her flesh as if to confirm that what he was seeing was real.

“You’re beautiful,” he murmured. He seemed surprised by this. She instinctively sucked in her waist a bit more, but aside from that, she really did believe, at that moment, that she was beautiful. She had no doubt that Joe found her to be so. There was no denying his desire. She wanted the moment to last forever. And it seemed as if it might as Joe merely continued to gaze at her body, moving his hand lightly down the length of it and then back up again as he stared, lingering over the sight of her nakedness much longer than any other man had ever done before him.

But in due time Joe’s desire, which had been silently welling up inside him like the calm before a storm, became too urgent to delay. Without letting his gaze stray from where she lay, he quickly began removing his clothes. Sandra watched eagerly, noticing with delight how his hardness popped up conspicuously when he lowered his pants. Once his clothes were discarded Joe wasted no time in joining Sandra on the bed, immediately and possessively taking her into his strong arms, anxiously pressing his lips against hers, and forcing his tongue into her mouth. The sharp stubble on his face assaulted her skin, leaving it tender and vulnerable to even the feathery caresses of his breaths as they rushed out over her face in warm, irregular gusts. His excitement kindled Sandra’s, filling her with intense eagerness as she clung to him, pressing her body vehemently against his. She tilted her head back, succumbing more fully to the never-ending flow of kisses he kept showering over her face and neck. She let her hands roam over his body, exploring his muscular back and shoulders with exquisite pleasure, delighting in the hard feel of him as much as he was relishing the delicate softness of her. She impetuously thrust her hips up to meet his hand as it meandered down the length of her stomach and ventured lower. She could not wait for his fingers to reach her; the entire area between her legs was alive with yearning, engorged and saturated and aching for his touch. When Joe felt her velvety wetness, he instantly stilled, pausing momentarily to look down and gaze contemplatively at the lustrous fluid that clung to his fingers. He seemed almost mystified by it. He gently spread her legs wider apart and once again worked his fingers in between the swollen folds, almost absorbing the silky moisture into his being as he probed and prodded her body with discomfiting persistence and deliberation. She waited, trembling, as he single-mindedly occupied himself in this way for what felt like an eternity.

But now again Joe’s sense of urgency returned with renewed force, and without warning he flung Sandra’s legs up high, pressing them as far as he could up over her shoulders, and plunged himself into her so vigorously that his testicles slapped against her buttocks in that first single thrust. She cried out in surprise just as his mouth came down over her parted lips to capture the cry in his kiss. She shuddered in response to being so utterly subdued by him.

Joe began vigorously moving in and out of Sandra’s body with rhythmic force. He kept up a steady tempo of intense, arduous strides for several long minutes without hesitation. All the while, between gentle kisses, he commented with delightful insolence about how good her body felt, how soft her skin was, how large her breasts were, how wet she was and, most of all, how much he was enjoying what he was doing to her. Sandra received his inexorable thrusts and licentious remarks in a kind of stupor, shrouded behind a filmy haze of ecstasy that was tinged with a strange and painful yearning she knew would never quite be satisfied. She feasted on the pleasure she could easily grasp, constraining her limbs to become even more open and yielding to Joe, who seemed to be pummeling new bursts of sensation into her body with each and every thrust.

Eventually Joe stopped, once again curiously serene in the midst of his intense passion as he lingered, motionless but still joined with Sandra, for a long intermission where he simply held her, stirring almost imperceptibly every now and then to pull her closer to him, or to press his lips to hers. After a restful period of perhaps four of five minutes, during which he appeared to be gathering strength, Joe ravished Sandra all over again.

For more than an hour it continued in this way, with Joe, in turns, going from being violently passionate to tranquilly savoring the event, so that one minute Sandra found herself caught up in the heat of his passion and the next she was melting under his overwhelming tenderness. It was actually the effects of the alcohol that brought about the sudden bursts of energetic arousal in between slow, languorous periods of reverie, but for Sandra, it made for one of the most passionate and sensual evenings of her life. Joe’s fiery outbursts made her feel desirable and enhanced her own excitement, while his contemplative tenderness in between caused her to feel, perhaps mistakenly, that he genuinely cared for her.

Eventually, in one of these bursts of feverish excitement, Joe climaxed violently and then collapsed almost immediately into sleep. Although she had not climaxed herself, Sandra felt triumphant. She knew she had given Joe incredible pleasure and was surprised that she had derived as much pleasure from the event as she had. For a first intimacy with a new partner it was more than she expected. Her self-consciousness and preoccupation would not allow for more. Throughout the encounter she had been secretly—almost unconsciously—evaluating Joe. The little things he did, the way in which he did them, the person he seemed to be; all of these appeared to be what she had been searching for her entire life. For the moment, it was crucial that she put her best foot forward to ensure that Joe realized how invaluable she could be to him.

Joe began to snore the loud, obnoxious breaths that alcohol induces, and Sandra listened to his snores with a strange mixture of anticipation and fear. She felt as though something significant was at stake. She tried to shake the anxiety that came over her by reviewing the details of their lovemaking. She trembled with pleasure when she recalled how Joe looked at her when her clothes had first come off.

But here now was another piece of her and Joe’s history that would require some fine-tuning, although later, upon further reflection, Sandra realized it needed surprisingly little. The only thing she could find fault with, in fact, was that their first intimacy took place on their very first night together. This was easily modified to the more acceptable third date. As for the event itself, she realized with a thrill of satisfaction that she couldn’t have come up with anything quite so exciting if she tried. In fact, some of it already seemed embellished just as it happened. It really was terribly exciting when she looked back over the details in her mind, which she found herself doing, again and again. Oftenest, she would call to mind the smile that came over Joe’s beautiful features just before he carried her up the stairs. That was a moment so romantic that she would never have dared to make it up, fearing that no one would believe or even fully appreciate it.

The morning after their first night together Joe seemed somewhat flustered. He lingered over the gourmet coffee Sandra brewed in a sort of daze that bordered on incredulity. Sandra took this as a compliment, certain that he was undoubtedly taken back by her kindness and desirability. And as a matter of fact he was.

But after Joe left her she felt let down and empty. She wandered around numbly tidying the kitchen, but nearly all of her energy had been spent. She thought about Joe throughout the rest of that day, and wondered if he was thinking of her as well. That afternoon she tried to distract herself by flipping absently through the articles of her latest copy of Cosmo, but this just brought Joe closer to the forefront of her mind. She summarily scanned the key points from an article entitled “Sex Tips from Guys: Their All-Time Favorite Mattress Moves Revealed,” but none of the tips offered any real hope for enlightenment. In fact, none of the men in the article had come up with anything she hadn’t already tried—most of which had yielded little or no success at all. She couldn’t help noticing, in fact, that the so-called tips hadn’t been terribly successful for the women who had inspired them either, for although the sexual behavior had remained in the men’s minds, the women had not. This was quite obvious from their comments as they enthusiastically described the sexual act itself, while offhandedly reducing the woman who provided the pleasure to “this chick,” or “one ex I had.” Sandra wondered that the editors didn’t cut those parts out. It belied the idea that the sex tips held much value or promise.

And suddenly it seemed to Sandra that it was all a big lie anyway. All the articles in her favorite magazines seemed to constantly promise better results in life if only a woman tried harder to give men pleasure along with, of course, purchasing the products that would help her look better and younger and thinner. Sandra couldn’t help but notice that the harder she tried the more elusive the love she sought became. Meanwhile, it truly appeared that the women who didn’t try half as hard were just as able—or even more so perhaps—to capture and hold a man’s attention. Sandra absently wondered if that was the case with Joe’s ex-girlfriend, Elaine.

Sandra was momentarily distracted from this train of thought by a sentence that caught her eye in another article in the same issue of Cosmo, entitled, “Nine Erotic Tips to Rock Your World and His,” which read, “As a rule, women take longer to get sexually aroused, so start by yourself before you get into bed. Spend thirty minutes taking a bath with candles and fondling yourself.” For some reason this piece of advice angered Sandra so much that she hurled the magazine violently across the room, knocking over a lamp in the process. Jesus, she thought with indignation, now we have to provide our own foreplay, too? Ironically, this was already something that she often did with a partner beforehand—and sometimes even afterward, too, as a matter of fact—but it always seemed unfair that she had to do it, and seeing it served back to her in an advice column filled her with rage. Getting a man to love you seemed all at once as unachievable as winning the lottery. After all the years of searching, she was beginning to wonder if it was really worth it.

But then her mind drifted back to Joe and once again her heart was filled with that strange, powerful longing. Was she doing the right thing, repeatedly putting her best foot forward in each new relationship in the hopes that Mr. Right would recognize her value and appreciate her? Maybe this time she should try something different. Perhaps if she played “hard to get,” Joe would find her more desirable. But that could also backfire, especially if he just came out of a relationship where the woman played games. It seemed to Sandra that she was always on tenterhooks with men, wondering which was the correct action to take, and suffering consequences for behaviors other women had exhibited before her. She shook her head, trying futilely to discard these thoughts from her mind even as she laughed at herself. She and Joe had shared one night together! She may never hear from him again. Yet something in the way Joe had carefully punched her phone number into his cell phone assured Sandra that he would call her.

But as several days passed without a single word from Joe, it was beginning to seem as if he might not call after all. By midafternoon of the third day Sandra was contemplating whether or not she should seek him out. She recalled an article in Cosmo advising women in her predicament that it was preferable to “run into” the man of her dreams rather than to call him outright. But the only place she knew Joe from was the bar where they met. She felt a sudden urgency to see him as soon as possible. She wondered what the chances were of him being in that same bar in the middle of the week. She didn’t want to wait until the weekend to see him again, but on the other hand, if she went to the bar on a night he wasn’t there she would be obliged to return again another night, and possibly even another. What if someone mentioned to him that she was in there every night?

As it turned out, planning an “accidental” meeting was not necessary. Joe finally called her that very afternoon. And even after three days to think about it, he still seemed nervous and uncertain.

“Would you like to get together tonight?” he asked after a few attempts at stilted conversation.

Sandra was so happy he called that she forgot to be upset over the short notice. She agreed to see him before she even knew what she was agreeing to. It wasn’t until she hung up the phone that she realized she had no idea where they were going or if she was supposed to meet him somewhere or be picked up. She also knew from bitter experience that there was a chance that by “get together” Joe intended nothing more than a replay of their first night together. But for the moment, having gotten “the call” and knowing that she would soon be seeing Joe again was enough to make Sandra calm and self-possessed. She simply prepared herself for the evening to come, waiting for the next cue from Joe and, around six o’clock that evening, he knocked on her door.

Joe looked tired and a bit disheveled, but she caught the light of surprise in his eyes when he saw her. She could tell that her appearance pleased him and she was delighted. She would keep surprising and pleasing him and hope for the best.

To Sandra’s surprise Joe actually took her on a “real” date, to an elegant and expensive restaurant. She wasn’t sure what she had been expecting, but this threw her off kilter just a bit and she was momentarily uncertain. Joe seemed nervous as well, following the hostess several steps toward their table before catching himself and stopping abruptly to allow Sandra to walk in front of him. She moved by him awkwardly, feeling a sudden thrill when his hand lightly touched her back as she passed him. She glanced at his face and was delighted to find him watching her. She responded to each and every small overture from Joe with the same excessive appreciation and pleasure, again feeling the strange longing welling up within her. Her awkwardness was slowly leaving her and being replaced with a kind of euphoria.

At the table she sipped her water for something to do until the waitress arrived. She was feeling slightly giddy and found herself stealing glimpses of Joe as he examined his menu.

“Do you know what you’re having?” he asked her, looking up from his menu to find her staring at him. She picked up her menu and scanned it briefly, hardly noticing the entrées.

“The veal looks good,” she murmured absently for something to say.

“It is very good here,” he told her confidently. “Their veal with linguine is the best around.”

“Done!” she said agreeably, setting the menu back down on the table.

The waitress came over and Joe ordered the veal for Sandra and then ordered an entrée for himself. Sandra was inordinately flattered that he had ordered for her. In fact, that single gesture set the tone for the rest of the night, so that Joe could do no wrong. Everything he said had merit, and even his table manners appeared correct or, if not exactly correct, then at least terribly masculine. Even when Joe ordered his fourth martini Sandra found herself admiring how well he handled his liquor. He had pleased her early on, and that small pleasure would take her a long way. She could subsist on small pleasures, provided they came in a fairly steady flow that was at least regular enough to undermine any evidences of neglect, and prevent the bitterness of famine from setting in.

Sandra drove them both back to her house in his car. Upon arriving, she remained in the driver’s seat, uncertain about how to proceed. He, too, seemed timid and unsure, so they sat side by side in silence for a few minutes. She interpreted his hesitancy as reverence for her, so she worked up her nerve to shyly lean over the seat in an attempt to make it easier for him to initiate a kiss. Only then did his passion from their previous night return, and Joe grasped her eagerly and kissed her. She immediately responded, filled now to overflowing with the strange longing for him. But as the kiss wound down Joe pulled away from her and hesitated yet again. He appeared to be struggling for control. Sandra was petrified that the date would end and so, even though she knew it was the wrong thing to do, she found herself impulsively asking him, “Would you like to come in?”

After that Sandra and Joe began seeing each other three or four times a week. Sometimes Sandra would cook dinner and sometimes they would go out to eat, but Joe always spent the night with Sandra afterward, and each and every time they made love. The sex was wonderful, although Sandra still was unable achieve an orgasm with Joe. Sometimes afterward, once he drifted off to sleep, she would masturbate right there in the bed beside him. It took strange fantasies for her to reach a climax, with bizarre encounters that often startled her, usually involving Joe in some way, but disturbing nevertheless, and always leaving her feeling empty and alone, and filled with an even stronger sense of longing than before.

Without their having discussed it, Sandra was fairly certain that she and Joe were exclusive, but even so it was difficult for her to achieve any real sense of security in their relationship. She wasn’t fully certain that they were in a relationship. Aside from their habitual dinners followed by intimacy, there was little else. Both had their jobs and their lives, which she supposed was normal, but their time spent together never strayed from evenings into days, or from eating and sleeping together to venturing deeper into the other’s existence. As time went by it was becoming more and more difficult for Sandra to imagine them ever doing so. She could not help but feel they were settling into a pattern that prevented a real relationship from forming.

After several months of this, Sandra suddenly came to the alarming realization that she had never even been to Joe’s house. She asked him about this one day and was stunned to learn that Joe had no house. He had left his home when he left Elaine, taking up temporary residence in a local hotel. Sandra was more upset by the realization that she hadn’t known Joe was virtually homeless than she was by the fact itself. It spoke volumes to her that she hadn’t known; it seemed to her like a dreadfully obvious symptom pointing to a terminal disease. Yet she had known all along that Joe was not forthcoming with her. And each and every time she questioned him about his past, especially as it related to Elaine, he became even more withdrawn. It was the same when she tried to discuss her future with him. She could actually perceive him drawing away from her at those moments, cringing inwardly, without any discernible movement per se, but glaringly evident to her nevertheless. Seeing him retreat into himself in that way rattled her, but she knew if she pressed him too far he would become angry or, even worse, he was more likely to become antagonistic, expertly plucking at the strings that stirred up her own demons. The more attached she became to Joe, the more afraid she was to confront his past or their future.

Learning that Joe was living in a hotel, however, was so shocking to Sandra that she forgot to be cautious and diplomatic, and she let loose with all of the anger that had been secretly building within her in a sudden fury. Joe was taken aback by this side of Sandra, and for once he was the one to make the effort to appease her. She was almost immediately afterward contrite, afraid that she might have humiliated him.

“You should just stay here,” she blurted out in the end. And suddenly she was calm and self-assured once again. “That’s it!” she announced, genuinely pleased. “You’ll move in here with me.” She took his silence for embarrassment and rushed on in an effort to make him feel better. “It’ll be fun,” she assured him. “And it will only be until you settle things with Elaine and are ready to buy another house.”

Later, she wished she hadn’t added that last part. It made her offer sound more casual than she meant it. But overall she was happy Joe was moving in. And she was even more convinced that it was the right thing to do when he insisted on contributing to their new household by giving her money every week, further impressing her with the generosity and cheerfulness with which he gave. She could hardly believe the joy she felt to have Joe living in the same house with her, effectively wiping away the loneliness of her former existence and enhancing the quality of her life in one fell swoop. She found herself wanting to please Joe more than ever, and now, having the means to enhance her efforts, she lavished extravagant details at him from all directions, spending every extra cent that she gained from his moving in on making his stay more comfortable. She was certain that if she could make Joe see how wonderful life with her could be he would stay forever.

But here again was a part of Joe and Sandra’s history that would need a bit of tweaking. So Sandra transformed Joe’s need for a place to live into a need for Sandra herself, and she expanded upon his generosity so that it truly appeared that Joe was extravagant and indulgent with Sandra, rather than that he was merely paying his own way.

Sandra never thought to explain—or even mention—these little alterations she sometimes made to their history to Joe. There wasn’t any reason to do so. There was little to no chance that either Joe or her friends would discover any of the discrepancies these alterations created, because there was little to no chance that the parties involved would have the opportunity to compare notes. Sandra couldn’t imagine Joe even meeting her friends, let alone his having a conversation about their life together with them. As their relationship progressed it became hard enough to squeeze out any significant amount of Joe’s time for herself; Sandra never considered sharing any of that time with her friends. But even more to the point, Sandra recognized that Joe had no interest in spending time with her friends. It was one of the growing number of things that she instinctively knew not to ask for. And even if these circumstances changed—she supposed it was inevitable that Joe would eventually meet her friends if they were to stay together—it was so unlikely at the present time, and appeared to be so far off into the future, that there seemed ample time for her embellishments to have been softened significantly, or even perhaps, to have been forgotten altogether.

The new housing arrangement was working out splendidly. Many of the issues that bothered Sandra before she and Joe moved in together suddenly seemed to dissolve into nothingness. Their lack of time spent doing things together, for example, now seemed irrelevant because, after all, their living together brought about a dramatic increase in the amount of time they were actually together. Around the house, they ended up doing innumerable things together, if only to save time and make things easier. It now seemed logical to do outside activities apart, if only to have the opportunity to miss one another. Inevitably though, they began doing more and more things outside their home together, too, for it was often more convenient to do so. And Sandra loved every moment spent with Joe. She was convinced that she was slowly winning him over. Her own happiness gave her a sense of security and confidence that she could not fail. Besides, thanks to Elaine taking possession of the home he once lived in, Joe was now on Sandra’s turf, and she felt she most certainly had the home-court advantage. In addition, she gained strength with each and every kindness she offered Joe, and it never failed to satisfy her to impress him with the depths of her devotion. Each little acknowledgment from Joe—whether it appeared as a mere light of surprise in his eyes or in one of his beautiful smiles of genuine delight—was for Sandra like a golden coin of affirmation that she could add to her store of self-worth, offering her the assurance that she was, in fact, in control, and that her efforts could earn her love and help her achieve a true sense of belonging.

With each little advance that she achieved in her relationship with Joe, Sandra always felt gratitude and joy, but these sentiments eventually faded into the same strange longing she felt on the first night she met him. It took several months after Joe moved in, but ultimately Sandra once again found herself wondering where she stood with Joe, why they never made plans for the future, and what exactly had happened with Elaine.

One night she cautiously broached the subject with him as they sat side by side, amicably watching television together on the couch. She took the practical approach.

“What is happening with your house?” she asked him casually.

Joe looked at her in surprise, but then gave her one of his playful smiles. “Are you tired of me already?” he teased.

“No!” She tried to match his teasing tone. “I was just wondering. Jeez! You’d think you were in the witness protection program or something.”

He laughed. “Come on now. It hasn’t been as bad as that.” She realized suddenly that Joe had mellowed dramatically in the three or four months that he had been living with her. He was considerably less defensive and much more cheerful.

“Hasn’t it, Joe?” she continued, but still in the same teasing tone. “Is Joe even your real name?” They were both laughing now. But behind her humor she was determined. “Are you?” she asked him, and to his questioning look she elaborated, “In the witness protection program?”

“Come on, Sandra,” he said, still amused but now withdrawing from her a little.

“And yet,” she continued, “for some reason you can’t talk about your past life.”

“What do you want to know about it?” he asked. His tone was agreeable, but he was still steadily withdrawing. Sandra knew that it was only a matter of time before he closed up completely. It caused her to become rash.

“Why is Elaine living in your house?” she asked him point-blank.

“Because it’s her house, too,” he replied. “We bought it together and both our names are on the mortgage and the deed.”

“Do you still make mortgage payments?” she wondered.

“Yep.”

“Oh.” This stumped her for a moment. “So how long were you with her?”

“Six years.”

“You never got married?”

“Nope.”

“Why not?”

“She didn’t want to.”

Sandra could feel that she was running out of time and that at any moment Joe would tire of her questions, but ironically, now that he was submitting to her inquiries, she couldn’t think of what it was she most wanted to ask.

“Why did you two break up?” she ventured.

But her time was up. Joe had remained sitting next to her on the couch throughout this brief discussion, and suddenly he got up. Sandra impulsively grabbed his arm. “Look, Sandra,” he said. “That is all water under the bridge.”

“Then what can it hurt to tell me about it?” she asked him.

“Why do you want to know about it?”

Sandra sighed. It was just like him to turn this around on her.

“Because I do.”

“This is about you being insecure,” he said.

“No,” she disagreed. “This is about me wanting to know more about the man I’m living with.”

“I don’t ask you all kinds of questions about your past,” he reminded her.

“Yeah, I noticed that, Joe,” she said sarcastically, succumbing to another sore spot for her. “And why is that?”

“Because it has nothing to do with us,” he told her.

“And what about our future, Joe?” she asked him. “Huh? That’s another thing you can’t talk about. Does that have nothing to do with us either?”

“Why can’t we just take this one day at a time?” he wondered. “Why do I have to go through the third degree about things I don’t even have any control over?” He looked at Sandra pleadingly. “I had very little say in what happened in my past as it turned out, and I have no idea what’s going to happen in the future. I don’t have a crystal ball.”

“That’s just an excuse!” she said, giving in to her anger. “Men know when they want to spend their life with a woman.”

Joe was silent.

“If you can’t bring yourself to talk about the future you could at least give me some idea of what happened in the past. Give me something!”

“It. Has. Nothing. To. Do. With. You!” he yelled, pausing significantly between each and every word for added emphasis. Then he turned and walked away from Sandra, retreating to the bedroom.

Against her better judgment Sandra followed him. She felt the urge to cry but the tears wouldn’t come. She realized then that she was crying already, and she had been for a long time, on the inside. She wondered what she should say. How did a person get in? Why didn’t Cosmo ever give advice for moments like these?

“If you cared about me at all you would communicate with me about yourself,” she said. This sounded desperate, even to her ears, but she couldn’t seem to stop herself now, and so she continued in the same vein. “I’m not asking you for a kidney here. I hardly ever ask you for anything, as a matter of fact.”

“Let’s not do this now,” he said in a tired tone, continuing his retreat from her. He began to undress for bed.

“When then?” she asked in a shrill voice. “When would be a good time to bring this up, Joe, because I seem to be hitting all the bad times? Can I make an appointment for a better time so I’ll know when that is?”

Joe moved around the room as he changed, still trying to get away from Sandra. His attempts to evade her enraged her even more, and before she knew it she had followed him into the bathroom. She stared at him, determined to force some kind of response out of him. He pretended not to see her. When he finished in the bathroom, he returned to the bedroom and pulled down the covers of the bed. But when he reached for the remote, Sandra, who had been trailing him and watching his every move, snatched it up before he could get his hands on it. Now Joe was forced to deal with her. She smiled in bitter satisfaction when he turned tiredly to face her. He seemed incapable of finding the right words and merely sighed as he looked at her.

“Are you still in love with her?” she asked him miserably. When he only just kept stubbornly staring at her she continued, with every word adding fuel to her anger and egging her on, so that she kept going on and on for much longer than she intended. “Is that it, Joe? Is that why you can’t talk about her? Is it so painful that you can’t even stand to hear the mention of her name? Because if you were really over her you would be able to talk about it. And what am I supposed to do in the meantime?” As she continued to talk, it began to seem as if she was really talking to herself, letting off steam and in the process drawing conclusions that were the culminations of all of her fears. “I suppose I’m expected to just sit here in limbo while you pine away after her. I’m probably just the rebound. I’m just supposed to fix all the problems, right? Even if you do get over Elaine it will be the next woman you meet who gets a shot at your heart.” As she voiced these fears she waited for him to contradict her. She desperately wanted him to convince her that all her conclusions were wrong.

“You’re pathetic,” he murmured, turning his back on her. But she caught the hint of a self-satisfied smile curving his lips just as he was turning away from her and in the next instant she saw red. The sight of that smug little smirk on Joe’s handsome features unleashed all the fury that had been building up in her throughout their relationship, a fury that came out of months of hard work performed on credit—credit extended on the flimsiest promises of payment, it’s true—but even so it was extremely disappointing to discover that payment would not be forthcoming. And even worse was the realization that she had only herself to blame for granting the credit in the first place. Sandra was livid.

Joe slipped into bed as if nothing was amiss, just as Sandra suddenly flew at him, snatching the covers from his grasp and hurling them off the bed and onto the floor. Then, before Joe had time to register what was happening, she yanked the pillow from under his head and began to pummel him with it, not in the least seeing the absurdity of the situation as she did so, and only vaguely aware that if she had grabbed anything more solid than the pillow she might have actually bludgeoned him to death. Joe, on the other hand, was suddenly struck by the hilarity of the situation and he burst out in loud laughter, trying to dodge her blows during the first debilitating round of hilarity, but then grasping her arms with the pillow still in her hands and flipping her onto the bed on her back in one smooth maneuver. He quickly and easily positioned himself over her so that she was completely immobilized beneath him. She fought with all her might but her efforts brought almost no effect. His physical strength gradually subdued her. He was still laughing as he effortlessly plucked the pillow from her fingers like he was dealing with nothing more formidable than an amusing child.

Much of Sandra’s steam had left her by this time, and the actual source of her anger—which was her fear and pain—now surfaced. Large tears formed in her eyes as she stared up at Joe in stunned surprise. When Joe saw the tears his smile faded.

“Hey there,” he said softly, dropping the pillow and taking her face in his hands. “What’s this?”

To her horror she started to cry in earnest. Her sobs sounded contrived to her ears and she hated herself even as she reveled in the comfort Joe was offering. He kissed her lips and cheeks and eyelids as he gently shushed her. As always, she acquiesced, pushing her hurt aside and recklessly grasping the gratification of the moment instead of following through with what she had started. She suddenly felt too tired to care where their relationship was heading. It suddenly seemed inopportune to worry about tomorrow when today held such pleasure. Without even realizing it, she was earnestly kissing Joe back. And why not? she asked herself. Why not just focus on how much she loved him?

And then it was like their first time together all over again, with Joe tearing at Sandra’s clothing in a sudden frenzy to have her. Both gave in completely to the heady feeling of succumbing to an exquisite pleasure in spite of the pitfalls surrounding it. The pleasure was made all the more intense by the pitfalls in fact. Neither thought about, or even fully realized this. Sandra didn’t consider that she was simply relieved to have been temporarily distracted from the terrible pain and worry that Joe didn’t love her, any more than Joe was aware that much of his pleasure was derived from the simple fact that he had subdued her for the moment.

What Joe couldn’t seem to say in words he had no difficulty expressing through his lovemaking. He went far beyond his ordinary efforts to give Sandra pleasure in every way that he could think of. He knew that she loved to be touched and so he put his warm hands all over her, taking his time and, for the moment, getting more satisfaction from the pleasure he was giving her than what he was feeling himself.

Sandra let herself believe that Joe’s attentions during their lovemaking proved that he valued her, and she would not allow her mind to wander into the more pragmatic passages that questioned the validity of any real value to be gleaned from this kind of intimacy with a man. For now, she decided to steer clear of all forms of reasoning that required more evidence than her feelings in that moment, which in and of themselves created a very compelling argument indeed.

To her astonishment Joe suddenly confirmed those feelings, whispering dreamily as he gazed down at her, “I love you.”

Sandra’s heart overflowed when she heard Joe’s words, and the benevolence she felt for him in that instant surpassed everything else, even her previous anger. She couldn’t even respond, she was so utterly overwhelmed.

Joe became even more affectionate with Sandra after his declaration, as if to give it emphasis. He slipped his arms all the way around her, spreading his hands over her skin and holding her very close to him in the most intimate manner while he gradually and leisurely worked his way into her body. She was soft and pliant beneath him, almost melding into him as she accepted him into her. His arms tightened around her even more when he felt her liquid softness as he penetrated her, lifting her up off the bed in an embrace so encompassing that virtually every part of her flesh was touching his. He continued to hold her in this way as he slowly moved himself in and out of her, cradling her in his arms while lightly rocking her with the gentle force of his thrusts. She turned her face toward his and he dipped his tongue in between her lips, devouring her mouth hungrily. She clung to him feverishly as he gently ravished her, trembling and murmuring incoherently that she loved him, too. Joe shushed her gently, whispering tenderly and repeatedly, “I know, sweetheart…I know.” His words, combined with the heartfelt kindness with which they were spoken, seemed to pick Sandra up and transport her into a tempestuous sea that thrashed her about amid violent waves of euphoria, contentment and disbelief; all washing over her and threatening to pull her down into the dark, murky depths. But Joe kept bringing her back up to the surface, cradling her in a warm, comforting shield of well-being.

Joe’s movements as he made love to Sandra became so restrained as to be nearly imperceptible. He drew himself out of her slowly—so slowly and stealthily that it was almost as if he wasn’t moving at all—and then in the same unhurried manner he gradually inched his way back into her again. He, too, was genuinely affected by the unexpected intimacy of the moment. His senses were heightened by his awareness of it, and his deliberate movements were designed to enchance and extend it. Neither wanted the moment to end.

With this in mind, Joe continued to stretch out every single stroke and caress to almost maddening lengths. It was as if he were experiencing a part of lovemaking that he had never experienced before. He noticed things he had not noticed before, from the arch of her back to the feel of her legs as they clung to his body. Everything seemed different and new. He observed nuances in every aspect of her being. He almost believed he could feel the very pores on her smooth skin as it brushed up against him. His heightened awareness had sharpened his senses to the point that it seemed as if he were absorbing her very essence while making love to her body.

Sandra felt it, too, and she clung to Joe helplessly, unable to do more than simply bask in the warmth of the surreal moment that enveloped them both. Somewhere in her conciousness there lingered visions of home, and comfort and children—her and Joe’s children—and happiness without limitations.

All of this was contained in that one single moment, like a dream that exists for mere seconds but seems to encompass unlimited spaces of time. Like a dream, the moment was almost over before it had fully been achieved.

Yet it was the tenderest lovemaking they had shared. The goodwill between them was palpable, and the bad feelings they had both pushed aside seemed to make it even stronger. Sandra felt so blissful that she forgot all about appearance, or performance, or even to respond. She just held on to Joe as she slowly let down her guard, allowing herself to trust him completely. And although she vaguely realized that she would not climax—she was far too preoccupied to even try—she was as content as if she had. But even so, when Joe’s thrusts came harder and thicker, indicating his own impending release, Sandra heard a distant cry within her, calling out from the depths of her very soul it seemed, and she thrilled to it even as she pushed it aside. Next time, she assured herself.

It was as if a part of her was being severed when Joe ultimately disengaged himself from Sandra and rolled away from her. She remained still and quiet, except for a slight trembling that continued to rock her. She struggled to console herself from the disproportionate amount of loss she felt. She waited for the soothing sound of his snores and was surprised when he spoke.

“I’m not in love with Elaine,” he said slowly. “I can’t say for certain that I ever was.”

Sandra was too surprised to speak. She held her breath and waited.

Joe rolled onto his side and leaned up on one elbow, looking down at her. This new intimacy overwhelmed her, and she had to bite her lip to keep the tears at bay. His voice was almost a whisper, husky and low. They gazed into each other’s eyes as he spoke and she listened.

“I was involved with her. That’s the best way I know to describe it. Then one day I came home to find police officers with restraining orders telling me I couldn’t come back. So I left, and shortly after that another guy moved in.”

There were numerous questions running through Sandra’s mind, but she couldn’t seem to find her voice, so the two just looked at each other in silence for a few minutes.

“And in case you’re wondering, I never laid a hand on her,” he said as an afterthought.

She had been wondering about that but replied automatically, “I knew that.” And in that instant she realized that she had. Still, she found herself torn between the desires to both condemn the other woman and defend her. “But if you didn’t really love her—I mean, that still doesn’t justify what she did—but…didn’t you realize that it might end somehow?”

“At the time I couldn’t have been more surprised,” he told her, but after a moment he conceded, “I suppose now, looking back, I can see that we did have problems.”

“What were they?” she dared to venture.

“I was happy so I assumed she must be, too…” He seemed to be considering it as he spoke. He continued slowly, measuring his words as he went on. “Maybe ‘happy’ is too positive a word,” he said upon reconsideration. “It’s really more that I was content. I thought I was doing everything that needed to be done. I figured if I fucked up too badly she’d definitely let me know, because she didn’t seem to have any trouble telling me about it when things bothered her. I sure didn’t know she was so unhappy, or that she was out looking for my replacement.”

“She should have been honest with you,” Sandra said, even as she silently wondered, was she, herself, being honest with Joe? There were always so many little acquired injuries to her heart that she nursed in private. With Joe—or was it the same with all her lovers?—she felt the need to tread lightly, carefully picking her battles, for fear of losing him altogether. But where did that leave them?

“Yeah, well,” he said softly, and Sandra knew that he had shared as much as he was able to. She put her arms up around his neck and pulled him toward her. She felt all at once safe and secure in the warmth of his embrace and she sighed happily. She felt more certain than ever that she was the right woman for Joe.

Joe’s breakthrough, as Sandra came to think of it, marked another change in their relationship. Joe became noticeably happier, laughing more and drinking less. This, in turn, made Sandra more secure within their relationship, giving her the confidence to pour even more of herself into it. These positive aftereffects lasted several months, during which Joe appeared to get stronger even as Sandra seemed to get softer.

But after those months had passed, it once again appeared to Sandra that she and Joe were settling into a pattern of being together that, although comfortable and pleasant, offered no real commitment or permanence. He still refused to discuss their future together. He seemed to think that saying “I love you” was the end-all to relationships. Sandra yet again found herself feeling dissatisfied with her relationship. As was also a pattern for them, Sandra allowed these feelings to build up until she could hold them in no longer.

“Why do we never make plans for the future?” she asked him one day.

Joe looked at her. Did she imagine it, or did he actually cower away from her? On his face was a look of genuine frustration. His body language seemed to be saying, “God, not this again.” At least that’s the way Sandra perceived it, and she suddenly felt the buildup of resentment within her begin to bubble.

“It’s a pretty simple question, Joe,” she said, her tone full of condescension. The constant struggle to achieve even the tiniest advance in their relationship left her feeling utterly disillusioned and cynical. But these feelings actually seemed to empower her now, and she was struck with a strange sense of irony as she moved right up under Joe’s nose and stood her ground with her back held rigidly straight and an expression of utter disgust on her face. When she spoke, her voice was dripping with sarcasm. “I mean, it’s not like I just asked you to come up with a brand-new theory for solving integral equations, is it, Joe? No, no, I’m not forcing you define the elements of an isosceles triangle either, am I?” Sandra was practically out of breath when she completed this tirade, but somehow it had made her feel better. She realized vaguely that she had no idea what she had been talking about, especially in regards to the isosceles triangle, although, in the back of her mind it dimly occurred to her that an isosceles triangle had only one element she herself could identify, and that was that it possessed two sides of precisely the same length. What struck her most was that she had thought of the isosceles triangle at all, let alone the way it had smoothly glided off her lips as if she spoke of it every single day. What was she—in fifth grade—when she last thought about an isosceles triangle?

All this was a tiny and fleeting undercurrent of thought scurrying along the edges of Sandra’s mind, but at the forefront there remained the source of her anger, and she would let nothing distract her from it.

Joe, meanwhile, looked bewildered. Perhaps he, too, was momentarily stumbled by the unexpected reappearance of the isosceles triangle.

“All I asked for,” Sandra went on, “was a little information—no—a little hint about where I stand.” Her sarcasm quickly metamorphosed into sarcastic martyrdom. “Not that I have the right to know anything about my own future, I guess,” she said in a long-suffering tone of voice. “Why should I? How dare I ask the all-wonderful, all-desirable Joe to explain his intentions? No, I guess I’m just supposed to keep sucking his cock until something pops off in his big head instead of in his little head.”

In spite of himself Joe laughed. He knew when her sarcasm became funny she was close to the end of her outburst and then he would be able to reason with her.

“Yeah, it’s funny, isn’t it?” she said. “A big joke.” Her outburst was winding down as Joe predicted it would, but something was different about this time. She looked at him with tired eyes. “Why don’t you want to be with me in the future?” she asked him.

“I never said that I didn’t,” he told her.

“Yeah, but you never say you do, either. And we never make any plans. Your refusal to talk about it is clear evidence that you don’t want it.”

“You don’t know that,” he said.

“Then tell me now. Do you or do you not want to be with me in the future and…like…someday…marry me?”

“I can’t answer that.”

“So the answer is no!”

“I didn’t say that.”

“You don’t say shit. What is the answer now, at this moment? If you had to make the decision today, would you marry me?”

“No,” he said. She looked at him, shocked, and he felt compelled to continue, to explain. “At this moment, I would not. But if things were to change…”

“Change!” she suddenly screamed. “Change? Is that what you’ve been waiting for? Change? You are waiting for things to change?” She laughed hysterically at this. She continued to laugh even after the tears came. “I bet you are waiting for change,” she ground out between her teeth. “Why the hell not, when I’m the one doing all the work? I guess I’ll have to try harder, right? Yeah, that’s it. I’ll try harder and you can continue to evaluate how well I’m doing.” She had moved away from him while saying all this, wandering around the room, picking up random items and throwing them in the middle of the floor.

“What are you doing?” he asked her, noticing that all the items on the floor were his.

“Things aren’t going to get better, Joe. Sorry to have to be the one to tell you that.” She continued to rummage around and collect more of his belongings to add to the growing pile on the floor.

“Look, Sandra, there’s no need to…”

Sandra stopped in front of him and flipped open her cell phone. “Don’t make me call 911, Joe.”

“What? Sandra, come on!”

“Get your shit and get out, Joe, now, this minute, before I dial the numbers.” She held one finger poised over the number nine on the dial pad.

“What just happened?” he asked.

“I just figured out that the payoff is never going to come, Joe,” Sandra said with a smile. “Would you believe it took me this long—what’s it been? Eight or nine months? To figure it out.”

“What are you talking about?”

“I’m talking about the things that I want out of life. To be with a man who is certain that he wants to be with me. To be married. To have security. You keep dangling these things over my head like a carrot, but come to think of it now, why would you ever give me these things? You are getting all the things you care about right now. Yeah. You want a girl who won’t cheat…you got that. You want good sex…you got that. And you want someone you can talk to who cares about you…you got that.” She laughed again. “Waiting for things to change, my ass. The only one who wants change around here is me.”

Joe seemed genuinely stumped and it suddenly occurred to her that he might not have led her on. It probably never even occurred to him that she was expecting a payoff for all her hard work, or that the desired payoff was a loving relationship that developed into a trusted partnership. He seemed to really be thinking they were simply having a good time.

Joe bagged up his possessions in silence. He seemed genuinely surprised by Sandra’s attitude and behavior. He didn’t feel that he had misled her. What made her think he would be staying forever anyway? It was her who said he would only be staying until he settled things with his other house.

Later that night, after Joe had dumped all of his belongings in the same hotel he had taken up residence in after his split up with Elaine—in the same room, too, as it turned out—he found himself back on the same bar stool he had occupied the night Elaine dumped him, too. He ordered the usual round of drinks, back to back, for the first hour or so until the pain was numbed enough so that he was able to ignore it. Only then did he bother to lift his head to glance around the room and take in his surroundings. There was a woman at the end of the bar who was watching him with interest. He tried to smile at her but his neck failed him in that instant by suddenly giving out, causing his head to flop idiotically onto his chest. He felt dizzy, but after much struggling he managed to haul his head back up straight and hold it steady so that he could look at the woman in the corner again. This time his head remained upright as he flashed her his most attractive smile. But he needn’t have exerted himself quite so much, for she was already on her way over.