| Wicked Game |
Candace looked up when Alan said hello. She nodded slightly,
muttering, "Hey." He brushed past her to get behind the desk.
"What's up?" he asked.
"Mm, nothing," she said, still not really looking at him.
"You're too serious," he complained. She glanced over at him then,
and he was sticking his tongue out at her, a merry glint in his eyes.
She smiled wanly and looked back down at her filing. It wasn't worth
the trouble to tell him that she hated seeing other people's tongues.
"You're too serious," he said again the next day. "You need to be
more goofy."
"Like you?" she replied, wondering as she said it whether he would
take offense. Whether he would notice that he should take offense.
"Yeah," he said, answering both her questions with an innocent grin.
She smiled back at him a little more naturally, but she still didn't feel
the smile touch her eyes. Later that evening, she explained to him,
unprovoked, that she was separated from her husband and needed to
spend some time alone, that her therapist and all her friends said that
was what she needed. Talking to him was so natural it felt
mechanical. She found herself sharing with him her deepest
conviction, that she thought relationships were a waste of time
anyway, that she knew what everyone knew but was afraid to admit,
that romance is merely a cloaking device for sexual attraction.
"I can see that," he answered, though she could see he didn't quite.
It started another week later, when she was a full month distant from
her marriage. She had lunch with George, and he held her hand and
tears welled in his eyes, and he asked why wouldn’t she come home
already, what did she need, what could he do. She bore it patiently,
but she felt as if he was holding her hand through steel mesh gloves,
through prison glass. She told him, “I still just need to spend more
time with myself. This whole job thing seems to be a positive step. I
need to have a life outside of our marriage.”
“No,” she answered, hearing how dull and unconvincing her voice
sounded, “I’m not having an affair.” And the answer was true, but it
depressed her, so she went back to work after lunch and asked Alan if
he would like to give her a ride home that evening.
They stopped for drinks, though neither had said suddenly Oh, there’
s a bar; would you like to stop for a drink? Neither of them had any
interest in pretending Candace needed a ride home. She sat across
from Alan in a dark bar, staring alternately at his cheek and over his
shoulder. She had learned that paying too much attention to a man is
the fastest way to kill his hard-on. She told him about her experience
of the dating world. “Every time I dump a guy, I say that’s it, I’m
never going to do it again. Relationships are too much trouble. Men
grab hold of you, and finally when the sex gets boring, you try to
chisel them off, and it's like they honestly think they love you. You
have to deal with tears and bribery and pathetic attempts at
reconciliation. Save me from men who say they love me.”
"I can see that," Alan said, and though she didn't believe him, she
gave it a try.
"What went wrong in all your other relationships?" he asked.
She turned her head to look at him thoughtfully. She considered his
question. It was one that could be asked of her everyday for a year
and receive a different response each time. They loved me too much,
they didn't love me enough, they didn't love me the right way, or for
the right reasons, they weren't good enough in bed, they were too
good and made me feel like a Penthouse letter, they cheated, they
were too devoted.
"I get sick of men early," she said. "We go out for a couple of weeks,
and everything's okay, because it's all new, so they haven't annoyed
me yet. Then the veneer wears off, and I notice all the little
imperfections, and I just can't wait to be away from them."
In other words, she thought, Don't expect me to fall in love with you.
Let's just have tonight.
"It's probably because you've never dated anyone who was as smart
as you," Alan said.
He got points for that, she thought. On her list of necessary
attributes in a man, #3 on the list was: The good sense and taste to
admire, appreciate and worship Me.
"Of course guys your own age can't keep up with you."
“If you think the fact that you’re of advancing years is a point in your
favor,” she teased, “I’ll direct your attention to the myriad studies
that have indicated that men hit their sexual peak in their teens. What
could you have to offer me?”
“Experience,” he said, and the fact that he then kissed her was no
shock. The shock was that she felt the kiss.
His lips, his tongue, his hands on the small of her back and then
traveling up her body, aggressively exploring her as if he were blind
and virginal, the sensations were intoxicating, and she couldn’t stop
her body from reacting. So many men had touched and kissed her,
so few had made her feel that it was truly her they were touching and
kissing.
As he led her into the bedroom, as he entered her, as he told her that
making love to her was everything he had dreamed it would be, it
was on the tip of her tongue to say, Don't say making love. We're not
making love. She'd done it before, corrected people who used that
term with her. This time, she didn't. She said to herself, let him call
it what he wants. Let him feel whatever it occurs to him to feel. As
long as I never say I love him, I have nothing to worry about.
It was the best. The greatest sex of her life. "Stay with me," he said
after, when she stood to get dressed.
She laughed somewhat forcefully. "Sweetie, that's not what this is
about."
"I know," she said between kisses, "this has been a really long day
for me too."
"I couldn't wait to be alone with you."
"Me either."
"I thought about you non-stop."
She tensed a little. She'd thought about him too, but she wasn't
about to say it. She understood, even if he didn't, that the inability to
concentrate on anything else was merely related to sexual energy.
She wanted to see him again, but just because she wanted him. He
wasn't supposed to say things like that.
"Am I allowed to say that?" he asked, picking up on her mood.
"Say whatever you want," she said with a measure of harshness.
Just understand that I won't care.
"So am I allowed to say I missed you?" he went on, nuzzling her
throat.
She pulled away to look him in the eyes. It was time to do this, she
decided. "Just don't ever fall in love with me," she told him.
He blinked. "Don't fall in love with me either," he said almost
petulantly.
"I won't," she said. It hung in the air between them like a challenge,
and they met it by making love with as much passion as before, as if
to say, I can walk away from this as easily as you can. Just watch me.
He was a smoker, and as they lay on the bed, she thought, Good. I'll
know exactly when I get sick of him. There'll be no mistaking it.
When the smell of the smoke becomes too much for me to bear, that
means he's not worth it anymore.
"I still can't believe you're here," he said. "You're so gorgeous, and
sexy, and smart, and young.... I just keep wondering what you would
want with me."
"Don't say stuff like that," she answered. "For one thing, if you mean
it, modesty isn't sexy. And if you don't mean it, neither false
admiration nor fishing for compliments is sexy."
"You're amazing," he said.
"I know."
"And you expect me not to fall in love with you?"
"It was a warning, that's all," she said with a manufactured coldness.
"It's like the serving suggestion on the front of the soup can; I don't
actually come with parsley and saltines."
"You do care about me a little, though, right? This isn't just about
sex?"
He looked so puppyish, so used to being kicked. She pulled a steel-
toed boot back inside her head, preparing to kick again, but instead,
she said through her teeth , "All right. All right. I like you."
He seemed so happy. He held her closer. She turned that mental
boot on herself. As long as I never say, "I love you," I can walk away.
She was beginning to feel like a bitch, but she told herself he had fair
warning, and if he chose to ignore it, that was his problem.
A jury might convict her for this, but no judge would uphold it. In
any emotional battle, the uninitiated were likely to side with the one
who had been hurt, the one who had felt more. But the evidence in
this case was truly on her side. She wasn't making any promises.
She could never be held accountable for his misplaced emotions.
George left three messages at Jo’s place the first night Candace
stayed over at Alan’s. Jo gave the messages to Candace with a
resentful glare. “I don’t need this. If you’re gonna have an affair, can
I say that again, an affair!, why do you have to do it while you’re
staying here? If George goes all psycho and shows up with a gun—“
“Don’t be ridiculous. George wouldn’t attack anyone with anything
more lethal than a flashlight. He’s a kitten.”
“That’s not the point, Candace. You said you needed time alone, and
while I think therapy is kind of 80’s yuppie shit, I have to admit if
anyone needs time alone, it’s you. And time alone isn’t usually spent
fucking.”
“Jo, if you want me to go, I’ll go.”
“Go where? Will you live with Alan?”
“Of course not. He’s just a distraction. I need something, Jo. You
don’t know what it’s been like. George loves me, but I never feel it.
Alan’s passion is tangible, it makes sense. But if you want me to go,
I’ll go. I could call Robin, or maybe stay at a motel, or—“
Jo let up. “I didn’t mean to tell you what you do or don’t need, or
certainly what you can and can’t have. I really do just want to be a
friend, and sometimes it’s so hard to know what my job is as your
friend, Candace.”
“Right now, I don’t have any answers. I don’t know what I want, what
I’m doing, what I am. But sometimes with Alan, I think I get an idea.”
“Then this is me shutting up.”
Candace caught the final worried glance Jo gave as she headed to her
bedroom. Shutting up, except for all the damn reproachful looks.
Shutting up in only the most literal sense, so I would be the most
petty and Freudian-slippy mess of a woman to ever call you on it!
Damn it, Jo–
Just getting wound up on her internal rant, Candace realized her
temperature had risen, her breathing was shallow and fast, and she
had already taken a step or two that seemed to imply her intent to
storm after Jo and…what?
“Give her a piece of my mind? Wouldn’t be much left.” She fell back
against the wall and closed her eyes, waiting for her heartbeat to
slow.
He quit smoking. Now she would have to come up with a new means
by which to identify her feelings. She looked back at old
relationships. When a man smoked, she knew she wanted to break
up because she started to hate the smell and taste of cigarettes. The
rest of the time, it was something more subtle. She would suddenly
find herself turning her head when he kissed her, thinking to herself,
God, his mouth is so disgusting. She would start closing her eyes
during sex, wishing he had darker hair or a less hairy chest or a
smaller stomach. She would shrink away when he touched her,
thinking, God, why is he always grabbing me!
This usually happened around the second or third week of any
relationship. Certainly by the end of the first month. But she and
Alan had been seeing each other for weeks, and she was not at all
sick of him. She still went to kiss him with the same desire she'd felt
all along. If anything, it had increased as she'd discovered how
fantastic he was. Her attraction to him was growing rather than
waning. She thought about him more rather than less. It was
beginning to worry her.
She made lists of things which made him imperfect. She made Jo
spend an evening with the two of them to get a second opinion.
Jo said, "It's like if we went to the stable to go riding, and I climbed
on a horse, and you picked an ostrich. Not that there's anything
wrong with ostriches, it's just not what I'd expect to see you on."
She went on to list all the aspects of Alan which made him an ostrich
rather than a thoroughbred. Candace realized as she listened that
she really didn't find any of these qualities a problem.
"He has no college degree, he's older, he says things like 'You know I
gotta do this now.'" She imitated his voice for this last, and Candace
laughed. It was funny. And yet, when she was with him, his speech
didn't seem all that out of place. Maybe it was because when they
talked, he made so much sense.
"I want to have kids someday," he told her, "but-"
"But not today," she offered.
"Right. And my ex didn't understand that. She wanted to be a
mother so badly that she didn't know you have to feel a certain
way...."
"Like you're with the one specific person you want to combine with
completely, and you can't stand not to."
"Right," he said, his eyes reaching into hers.
"Have you ever asked anyone why when they said they loved you?"
"Yes," he said, so simply that she knew he was telling the truth. She
had thought she was the only one who did that.
"I haven't gotten a satisfactory answer yet," she said. "It's always
either, 'I don't know, I just do,' or 'You make me feel good.' And those
are such bullshit answers. I mean, a lot of things make me feel good.
If that's all we do for each other, I may as well go read a book or eat
Chinese food or watch Sex and the City.
"My mother thinks love is sex, you know? That if you're great in bed
together, that's all you need. My brother thinks it's more to do with
practical matters like money and child-rearing."
"Maybe that's all we are," he said. "Good at sex for each other, but
nothing else."
I don't care, she thought suddenly. If so, it's more than I've ever had
with anyone.
George came by the office. Candace was alone at her desk, and her
throat filled with lead at the sight of him. “Hi,” she said finally.
Ignoring the chilly reception, George came around to her side of the
desk and kissed her hello. Her lips felt stiff and unresponsive, but
she suddenly wondered if that would even seem odd to him.
“I just wanted to see where you spent your days,” he said.
“This is it.”
“Can I take you to lunch?”
“Oh, uh, I don’t know, it’s, I’m busy—“
George slammed his open hand against the edge of her desk. It was
so out of character for him to show that strong an emotion Candace
leapt back in sudden fear.
“You haven’t seen me in weeks,” George said through clenched teeth.
“Well, I guess time hasn’t seemed the same being apart from you,”
she said slowly. “I didn’t think of it as so long. But it has been. So
let’s go to lunch.”
George looked up at her then with a smile so innocent she
immediately discounted the flash of fear she’d felt at his outburst. It
was, perhaps, a good sign that he’d reacted so strongly to her. It was
passion.
She just kept reminding herself she had made Alan no promises. She
had in fact warned him it wouldn't last, from the very beginning. She
had told him not to fall in love with her. Because the fact was, she
didn't care. She didn't even care what she felt, so why would it
matter any more what he did? Feelings aren't to be trusted. They
always last just long enough to get you to commit yourself to
something, and then once you're stuck, they fade. She still wasn’t
sure of anything, but she’d had sex with George that afternoon, and it
had been good, and she’d agreed to come home soon, not right away
but soon. And she knew she couldn’t go back to Alan after that.
She didn't want to end it. But eventually, he would want that final
commitment. And she had already made that, however uncertainly,
to George.
She had once tried to break up with a guy four times before it finally
took. She kept saying, "This isn't working anymore," and he kept
crying for another chance, and she kept miserably relenting. Finally
she just had to stop calling him until he understood. Another guy
she had sent a letter, because he lived in another state, and he wasn't
worth her driving up there to break up with him, and it seemed cruel
to ask him to make the drive, just so she could pronounce him
Dumped On Arrival.
She was awful at break-ups, she knew that. It was the hardest part of
the relationship process – that moment in between dating and dating
someone else. One thing she knew, though; she had to do this one
right, honestly. She had been honest with him from the beginning.
She couldn’t sneak away from this.
"Alan, we have to stop."
"You're sick of me?" he asked. He'd been teasing her about the
inevitability of this moment all along, that eventually she would get
sick of him and drop him.
Hearing him say it ripped a hole inside her. She wasn't sick of him,
wasn't anywhere near sick of him, wanted to stay forever, but that
was an even more unfair thought to voice, so she went on.
"Alan, I’m married. We knew this wasn’t going anywhere. It was an
affair, and it was fun, and it helped me. But it’s better to end now,
because it’s a relationship that never went sour. A Grecian Urn type
of affair. End it while it's still good, and you have a perfect memory."
"I think you're scared," he said.
And then, perhaps because he was ruining her perfect memory
moment, or perhaps because she was afraid he would convince her if
he went on, she cut him off. She left.
muttering, "Hey." He brushed past her to get behind the desk.
"What's up?" he asked.
"Mm, nothing," she said, still not really looking at him.
"You're too serious," he complained. She glanced over at him then,
and he was sticking his tongue out at her, a merry glint in his eyes.
She smiled wanly and looked back down at her filing. It wasn't worth
the trouble to tell him that she hated seeing other people's tongues.
"You're too serious," he said again the next day. "You need to be
more goofy."
"Like you?" she replied, wondering as she said it whether he would
take offense. Whether he would notice that he should take offense.
"Yeah," he said, answering both her questions with an innocent grin.
She smiled back at him a little more naturally, but she still didn't feel
the smile touch her eyes. Later that evening, she explained to him,
unprovoked, that she was separated from her husband and needed to
spend some time alone, that her therapist and all her friends said that
was what she needed. Talking to him was so natural it felt
mechanical. She found herself sharing with him her deepest
conviction, that she thought relationships were a waste of time
anyway, that she knew what everyone knew but was afraid to admit,
that romance is merely a cloaking device for sexual attraction.
"I can see that," he answered, though she could see he didn't quite.
It started another week later, when she was a full month distant from
her marriage. She had lunch with George, and he held her hand and
tears welled in his eyes, and he asked why wouldn’t she come home
already, what did she need, what could he do. She bore it patiently,
but she felt as if he was holding her hand through steel mesh gloves,
through prison glass. She told him, “I still just need to spend more
time with myself. This whole job thing seems to be a positive step. I
need to have a life outside of our marriage.”
“No,” she answered, hearing how dull and unconvincing her voice
sounded, “I’m not having an affair.” And the answer was true, but it
depressed her, so she went back to work after lunch and asked Alan if
he would like to give her a ride home that evening.
They stopped for drinks, though neither had said suddenly Oh, there’
s a bar; would you like to stop for a drink? Neither of them had any
interest in pretending Candace needed a ride home. She sat across
from Alan in a dark bar, staring alternately at his cheek and over his
shoulder. She had learned that paying too much attention to a man is
the fastest way to kill his hard-on. She told him about her experience
of the dating world. “Every time I dump a guy, I say that’s it, I’m
never going to do it again. Relationships are too much trouble. Men
grab hold of you, and finally when the sex gets boring, you try to
chisel them off, and it's like they honestly think they love you. You
have to deal with tears and bribery and pathetic attempts at
reconciliation. Save me from men who say they love me.”
"I can see that," Alan said, and though she didn't believe him, she
gave it a try.
"What went wrong in all your other relationships?" he asked.
She turned her head to look at him thoughtfully. She considered his
question. It was one that could be asked of her everyday for a year
and receive a different response each time. They loved me too much,
they didn't love me enough, they didn't love me the right way, or for
the right reasons, they weren't good enough in bed, they were too
good and made me feel like a Penthouse letter, they cheated, they
were too devoted.
"I get sick of men early," she said. "We go out for a couple of weeks,
and everything's okay, because it's all new, so they haven't annoyed
me yet. Then the veneer wears off, and I notice all the little
imperfections, and I just can't wait to be away from them."
In other words, she thought, Don't expect me to fall in love with you.
Let's just have tonight.
"It's probably because you've never dated anyone who was as smart
as you," Alan said.
He got points for that, she thought. On her list of necessary
attributes in a man, #3 on the list was: The good sense and taste to
admire, appreciate and worship Me.
"Of course guys your own age can't keep up with you."
“If you think the fact that you’re of advancing years is a point in your
favor,” she teased, “I’ll direct your attention to the myriad studies
that have indicated that men hit their sexual peak in their teens. What
could you have to offer me?”
“Experience,” he said, and the fact that he then kissed her was no
shock. The shock was that she felt the kiss.
His lips, his tongue, his hands on the small of her back and then
traveling up her body, aggressively exploring her as if he were blind
and virginal, the sensations were intoxicating, and she couldn’t stop
her body from reacting. So many men had touched and kissed her,
so few had made her feel that it was truly her they were touching and
kissing.
As he led her into the bedroom, as he entered her, as he told her that
making love to her was everything he had dreamed it would be, it
was on the tip of her tongue to say, Don't say making love. We're not
making love. She'd done it before, corrected people who used that
term with her. This time, she didn't. She said to herself, let him call
it what he wants. Let him feel whatever it occurs to him to feel. As
long as I never say I love him, I have nothing to worry about.
It was the best. The greatest sex of her life. "Stay with me," he said
after, when she stood to get dressed.
She laughed somewhat forcefully. "Sweetie, that's not what this is
about."
"I know," she said between kisses, "this has been a really long day
for me too."
"I couldn't wait to be alone with you."
"Me either."
"I thought about you non-stop."
She tensed a little. She'd thought about him too, but she wasn't
about to say it. She understood, even if he didn't, that the inability to
concentrate on anything else was merely related to sexual energy.
She wanted to see him again, but just because she wanted him. He
wasn't supposed to say things like that.
"Am I allowed to say that?" he asked, picking up on her mood.
"Say whatever you want," she said with a measure of harshness.
Just understand that I won't care.
"So am I allowed to say I missed you?" he went on, nuzzling her
throat.
She pulled away to look him in the eyes. It was time to do this, she
decided. "Just don't ever fall in love with me," she told him.
He blinked. "Don't fall in love with me either," he said almost
petulantly.
"I won't," she said. It hung in the air between them like a challenge,
and they met it by making love with as much passion as before, as if
to say, I can walk away from this as easily as you can. Just watch me.
He was a smoker, and as they lay on the bed, she thought, Good. I'll
know exactly when I get sick of him. There'll be no mistaking it.
When the smell of the smoke becomes too much for me to bear, that
means he's not worth it anymore.
"I still can't believe you're here," he said. "You're so gorgeous, and
sexy, and smart, and young.... I just keep wondering what you would
want with me."
"Don't say stuff like that," she answered. "For one thing, if you mean
it, modesty isn't sexy. And if you don't mean it, neither false
admiration nor fishing for compliments is sexy."
"You're amazing," he said.
"I know."
"And you expect me not to fall in love with you?"
"It was a warning, that's all," she said with a manufactured coldness.
"It's like the serving suggestion on the front of the soup can; I don't
actually come with parsley and saltines."
"You do care about me a little, though, right? This isn't just about
sex?"
He looked so puppyish, so used to being kicked. She pulled a steel-
toed boot back inside her head, preparing to kick again, but instead,
she said through her teeth , "All right. All right. I like you."
He seemed so happy. He held her closer. She turned that mental
boot on herself. As long as I never say, "I love you," I can walk away.
She was beginning to feel like a bitch, but she told herself he had fair
warning, and if he chose to ignore it, that was his problem.
A jury might convict her for this, but no judge would uphold it. In
any emotional battle, the uninitiated were likely to side with the one
who had been hurt, the one who had felt more. But the evidence in
this case was truly on her side. She wasn't making any promises.
She could never be held accountable for his misplaced emotions.
George left three messages at Jo’s place the first night Candace
stayed over at Alan’s. Jo gave the messages to Candace with a
resentful glare. “I don’t need this. If you’re gonna have an affair, can
I say that again, an affair!, why do you have to do it while you’re
staying here? If George goes all psycho and shows up with a gun—“
“Don’t be ridiculous. George wouldn’t attack anyone with anything
more lethal than a flashlight. He’s a kitten.”
“That’s not the point, Candace. You said you needed time alone, and
while I think therapy is kind of 80’s yuppie shit, I have to admit if
anyone needs time alone, it’s you. And time alone isn’t usually spent
fucking.”
“Jo, if you want me to go, I’ll go.”
“Go where? Will you live with Alan?”
“Of course not. He’s just a distraction. I need something, Jo. You
don’t know what it’s been like. George loves me, but I never feel it.
Alan’s passion is tangible, it makes sense. But if you want me to go,
I’ll go. I could call Robin, or maybe stay at a motel, or—“
Jo let up. “I didn’t mean to tell you what you do or don’t need, or
certainly what you can and can’t have. I really do just want to be a
friend, and sometimes it’s so hard to know what my job is as your
friend, Candace.”
“Right now, I don’t have any answers. I don’t know what I want, what
I’m doing, what I am. But sometimes with Alan, I think I get an idea.”
“Then this is me shutting up.”
Candace caught the final worried glance Jo gave as she headed to her
bedroom. Shutting up, except for all the damn reproachful looks.
Shutting up in only the most literal sense, so I would be the most
petty and Freudian-slippy mess of a woman to ever call you on it!
Damn it, Jo–
Just getting wound up on her internal rant, Candace realized her
temperature had risen, her breathing was shallow and fast, and she
had already taken a step or two that seemed to imply her intent to
storm after Jo and…what?
“Give her a piece of my mind? Wouldn’t be much left.” She fell back
against the wall and closed her eyes, waiting for her heartbeat to
slow.
He quit smoking. Now she would have to come up with a new means
by which to identify her feelings. She looked back at old
relationships. When a man smoked, she knew she wanted to break
up because she started to hate the smell and taste of cigarettes. The
rest of the time, it was something more subtle. She would suddenly
find herself turning her head when he kissed her, thinking to herself,
God, his mouth is so disgusting. She would start closing her eyes
during sex, wishing he had darker hair or a less hairy chest or a
smaller stomach. She would shrink away when he touched her,
thinking, God, why is he always grabbing me!
This usually happened around the second or third week of any
relationship. Certainly by the end of the first month. But she and
Alan had been seeing each other for weeks, and she was not at all
sick of him. She still went to kiss him with the same desire she'd felt
all along. If anything, it had increased as she'd discovered how
fantastic he was. Her attraction to him was growing rather than
waning. She thought about him more rather than less. It was
beginning to worry her.
She made lists of things which made him imperfect. She made Jo
spend an evening with the two of them to get a second opinion.
Jo said, "It's like if we went to the stable to go riding, and I climbed
on a horse, and you picked an ostrich. Not that there's anything
wrong with ostriches, it's just not what I'd expect to see you on."
She went on to list all the aspects of Alan which made him an ostrich
rather than a thoroughbred. Candace realized as she listened that
she really didn't find any of these qualities a problem.
"He has no college degree, he's older, he says things like 'You know I
gotta do this now.'" She imitated his voice for this last, and Candace
laughed. It was funny. And yet, when she was with him, his speech
didn't seem all that out of place. Maybe it was because when they
talked, he made so much sense.
"I want to have kids someday," he told her, "but-"
"But not today," she offered.
"Right. And my ex didn't understand that. She wanted to be a
mother so badly that she didn't know you have to feel a certain
way...."
"Like you're with the one specific person you want to combine with
completely, and you can't stand not to."
"Right," he said, his eyes reaching into hers.
"Have you ever asked anyone why when they said they loved you?"
"Yes," he said, so simply that she knew he was telling the truth. She
had thought she was the only one who did that.
"I haven't gotten a satisfactory answer yet," she said. "It's always
either, 'I don't know, I just do,' or 'You make me feel good.' And those
are such bullshit answers. I mean, a lot of things make me feel good.
If that's all we do for each other, I may as well go read a book or eat
Chinese food or watch Sex and the City.
"My mother thinks love is sex, you know? That if you're great in bed
together, that's all you need. My brother thinks it's more to do with
practical matters like money and child-rearing."
"Maybe that's all we are," he said. "Good at sex for each other, but
nothing else."
I don't care, she thought suddenly. If so, it's more than I've ever had
with anyone.
George came by the office. Candace was alone at her desk, and her
throat filled with lead at the sight of him. “Hi,” she said finally.
Ignoring the chilly reception, George came around to her side of the
desk and kissed her hello. Her lips felt stiff and unresponsive, but
she suddenly wondered if that would even seem odd to him.
“I just wanted to see where you spent your days,” he said.
“This is it.”
“Can I take you to lunch?”
“Oh, uh, I don’t know, it’s, I’m busy—“
George slammed his open hand against the edge of her desk. It was
so out of character for him to show that strong an emotion Candace
leapt back in sudden fear.
“You haven’t seen me in weeks,” George said through clenched teeth.
“Well, I guess time hasn’t seemed the same being apart from you,”
she said slowly. “I didn’t think of it as so long. But it has been. So
let’s go to lunch.”
George looked up at her then with a smile so innocent she
immediately discounted the flash of fear she’d felt at his outburst. It
was, perhaps, a good sign that he’d reacted so strongly to her. It was
passion.
She just kept reminding herself she had made Alan no promises. She
had in fact warned him it wouldn't last, from the very beginning. She
had told him not to fall in love with her. Because the fact was, she
didn't care. She didn't even care what she felt, so why would it
matter any more what he did? Feelings aren't to be trusted. They
always last just long enough to get you to commit yourself to
something, and then once you're stuck, they fade. She still wasn’t
sure of anything, but she’d had sex with George that afternoon, and it
had been good, and she’d agreed to come home soon, not right away
but soon. And she knew she couldn’t go back to Alan after that.
She didn't want to end it. But eventually, he would want that final
commitment. And she had already made that, however uncertainly,
to George.
She had once tried to break up with a guy four times before it finally
took. She kept saying, "This isn't working anymore," and he kept
crying for another chance, and she kept miserably relenting. Finally
she just had to stop calling him until he understood. Another guy
she had sent a letter, because he lived in another state, and he wasn't
worth her driving up there to break up with him, and it seemed cruel
to ask him to make the drive, just so she could pronounce him
Dumped On Arrival.
She was awful at break-ups, she knew that. It was the hardest part of
the relationship process – that moment in between dating and dating
someone else. One thing she knew, though; she had to do this one
right, honestly. She had been honest with him from the beginning.
She couldn’t sneak away from this.
"Alan, we have to stop."
"You're sick of me?" he asked. He'd been teasing her about the
inevitability of this moment all along, that eventually she would get
sick of him and drop him.
Hearing him say it ripped a hole inside her. She wasn't sick of him,
wasn't anywhere near sick of him, wanted to stay forever, but that
was an even more unfair thought to voice, so she went on.
"Alan, I’m married. We knew this wasn’t going anywhere. It was an
affair, and it was fun, and it helped me. But it’s better to end now,
because it’s a relationship that never went sour. A Grecian Urn type
of affair. End it while it's still good, and you have a perfect memory."
"I think you're scared," he said.
And then, perhaps because he was ruining her perfect memory
moment, or perhaps because she was afraid he would convince her if
he went on, she cut him off. She left.
Or so she said it had gone. When she calmed down enough to tell me
the story. When Candace had arrived back at my apartment that
afternoon, she wouldn’t come out of my bathroom for over an hour,
finally reappearing pruney, red, shriven, as if she’d tried to boil
herself.
I’d gone out to do the only thing I knew to do for a girlfriend in
crisis. Ice cream. Chocolate and vanilla swirl, oreo cookie, mint
chocolate chip. Candace's spoon hovered over the three open pints
before dipping into the mint. "It’s better I have George to tear me
away from it. Honestly. I couldn't have kept it up, you know?
Pretending it lasts forever, when we all know it doesn’t?"
I swallowed a mouthful of chocolate before saying somewhat
guardedly, "Aren’t you going back into your marriage pretending it
lasts forever?"
"Christ. Love, you know? Everybody says it, but it's a complete
fucking mystery to me. I couldn't even pick it out in a line-up."
"I could. Big pasty-faced guy, wings and a diaper, pointing a bow
and arrow. Ugh, now that I think of it, love sounds like a serial killer.
Probably not a very successful one, ‘cause who’d let a big guy in a
diaper close enough to kill ‘em? Though if he’s a good enough
marksman, I guess he wouldn’t have to get all that close–"
"I'm being serious, Jo. I wouldn't know love if it walked up and
slapped me in the face."
"All right, so then be serious. Pluck thy metaphorical head from out
of thy metaphorical ass and start speaking in complete thoughts."
"I don't know," Candace said. "How can I take part in something
which is thoroughly unexplained, and, if you trust anyone who does
claim to be in it, totally unexplainable?"
"So the question again is, what are you going home to?"
“Well, I don’t want to be divorced at age 25. I don’t want to be alone.
I’ve got this great, successful, good-looking, good-hearted guy,
begging me to come with him, and what’s Alan? He’s a couple of
weeks of my life, and it wouldn’t last. And I’d be maybe a 26-year-old
divorcee with a second failed relationship in a row and no hope.”
“Were you ever in love before? I mean, this thing with Alan, I never
saw you like that with anyone else. And I guess I always just thought
love looked different on you than on the rest of my friends, but I
assumed it was there. Now I don’t know if I believe that.”
“No. I was never in love. With George, I liked him. And I thought he
was weak enough that I could make him love me and give me
whatever I wanted. And I was right.”
If she’d sounded proud of it, or calculating, I don’t know what I might
have said or done. Thrown her out of my apartment, maybe even my
life. Maybe just given her one of those looks she’s always giving me,
to let me know how little she thinks of me sometimes. Except I know
those looks are reserved for my moments of naivete, and I know that
in those moments, her resentment is just jealousy of any little
innocence having survived our lives.
But I didn’t punish her. I couldn’t. She had made confession to me,
and I held her and felt her penance soak into my sleeve.
the story. When Candace had arrived back at my apartment that
afternoon, she wouldn’t come out of my bathroom for over an hour,
finally reappearing pruney, red, shriven, as if she’d tried to boil
herself.
I’d gone out to do the only thing I knew to do for a girlfriend in
crisis. Ice cream. Chocolate and vanilla swirl, oreo cookie, mint
chocolate chip. Candace's spoon hovered over the three open pints
before dipping into the mint. "It’s better I have George to tear me
away from it. Honestly. I couldn't have kept it up, you know?
Pretending it lasts forever, when we all know it doesn’t?"
I swallowed a mouthful of chocolate before saying somewhat
guardedly, "Aren’t you going back into your marriage pretending it
lasts forever?"
"Christ. Love, you know? Everybody says it, but it's a complete
fucking mystery to me. I couldn't even pick it out in a line-up."
"I could. Big pasty-faced guy, wings and a diaper, pointing a bow
and arrow. Ugh, now that I think of it, love sounds like a serial killer.
Probably not a very successful one, ‘cause who’d let a big guy in a
diaper close enough to kill ‘em? Though if he’s a good enough
marksman, I guess he wouldn’t have to get all that close–"
"I'm being serious, Jo. I wouldn't know love if it walked up and
slapped me in the face."
"All right, so then be serious. Pluck thy metaphorical head from out
of thy metaphorical ass and start speaking in complete thoughts."
"I don't know," Candace said. "How can I take part in something
which is thoroughly unexplained, and, if you trust anyone who does
claim to be in it, totally unexplainable?"
"So the question again is, what are you going home to?"
“Well, I don’t want to be divorced at age 25. I don’t want to be alone.
I’ve got this great, successful, good-looking, good-hearted guy,
begging me to come with him, and what’s Alan? He’s a couple of
weeks of my life, and it wouldn’t last. And I’d be maybe a 26-year-old
divorcee with a second failed relationship in a row and no hope.”
“Were you ever in love before? I mean, this thing with Alan, I never
saw you like that with anyone else. And I guess I always just thought
love looked different on you than on the rest of my friends, but I
assumed it was there. Now I don’t know if I believe that.”
“No. I was never in love. With George, I liked him. And I thought he
was weak enough that I could make him love me and give me
whatever I wanted. And I was right.”
If she’d sounded proud of it, or calculating, I don’t know what I might
have said or done. Thrown her out of my apartment, maybe even my
life. Maybe just given her one of those looks she’s always giving me,
to let me know how little she thinks of me sometimes. Except I know
those looks are reserved for my moments of naivete, and I know that
in those moments, her resentment is just jealousy of any little
innocence having survived our lives.
But I didn’t punish her. I couldn’t. She had made confession to me,
and I held her and felt her penance soak into my sleeve.
