Sputterpub's Blog

They both had Johns. Jeanie’s had been such a close friend in college that he stood up with her, her man of honor, when she married Keith. They’d been what is now called “friends with benefits” then, and they saw no reason not to continue after she and then he married others, until kids and other dependents crowded each out of the other’s life, and they quietly tapered off to never.

It was different with Meg. She met her John through after-work drinks with me. She was drinking with me because home evenings had become stale for her; Meg said she loved Bill but she was bored with the same routines, meals, conversations. A little transition time with friends and vodka became a better routine, and the conversations, usually with males who looked at her with obvious admiration, were much more stimulating than what she experienced in the comfort of her home. But I know she talked to Bill about it. He knew where she was and even that she was flirting. They didn’t have an open marriage exactly, but it got to where they both understood that it would be okay, if it happened, not great but acceptable, provided it was no one he knew and she didn’t bring it home.

John was just one of the guys Meg met, but something clicked immediately. It was strange; their relationship was utterly selfish and sexual, but she reported that they conversed first and often about their kids! But they had some good times, cold drinks, humorous stories, rampant rolls. They each made the other feel sexy and it sounds like they shared active senses of humor coupled with digestive and dermatological ailments. They were a successful extramarital pair for a year.

And she had to tell. Meg never seriously considered spending her life with John, but the relationship with him changed her. She started to amass his memories. She collected his stories and refined on him her own. They developed private jokes. Of course. Her husband Bill was supposed to be her best friend, yet Meg realized she couldn’t let him in on any of the expressions that came out of her hours with John. She was like the priest who sneaked off to golf on a Sunday and then couldn’t tell anyone about his hole-in-one.

Maybe that was the rub. Hidden intimacy with John frayed her future with her spouse. It took awhile but she ended up with neither.

Jeanie stayed with Keith. Keith never learned about her John. Keith never learned about her secrets. Keith never learned about her.

It’s obvious now that Jeanie was faking it. Not just her marriage: she didn’t express any of her disagreements, and she let the world take her silence as acquiescence. She was like an embezzler of mainstream approval, and the more she did it the deeper she went and so the more she did it the deeper she went…

The fact is, an embezzler almost always stays too long at the job.

Jeanie and Meg have digressed. In 1975 they stood alike in marriage and early parenthood and much attitude. We three spent a lot of time together then and agreed about many things, even though I was single and childless. Since then Meg has dispersed her spouse and launched her kids, and learned to love living single. We’ve stayed close. My perspective has widened like I’m a lone climber on top of a mountain, gazing all around at the choreography of connection, taking it in and mostly loving it. As happy a spinster as I’ve been, I’m now maybe receptive to the idea of marriage, although I suspect that boat has sailed. But Jeanie has held all close, and now she’s like one of those robot vacuums, motoring blindly about until she bumps into something and then randomly changing direction, except it’s as if she gets burned whenever she bumps, flinching deeper every time, twisting more inward, ever slowing like she’s turning into a hump-backed pillar of carbon.

I sometimes think Jeanie hasn’t really had a life. And even if she has, she faced it backwards.

Jeanie raised her kids ass-backwards. She managed to produce a hesitant mousy male and a daughter who’s always spoiling for a confrontation.

She’d like to blame it on Keith’s genes but it’s environmental. And even though Keith was around more than most fathers, everyone knows it was Jeanie.

She was like a woman on a mission not to let her kids mature. She did and did and did for them, to the point of encouraging the telephone calls from them even in their 20s, about sibling spats, shopping she could do, or whether their sandwiches needed mayo on both slices of bread.

Jeanie acts passive and Keith is a bully, and Jeanie built a home life so isolated that the kids really didn’t know any other personalities. It was no surprise that they each chose the opposite-sex parent as a model.

But this isn’t about those kids; Peter and Stephanie will have to find their own ways even though they’re sadly ill-equipped. Peter at 25 hasn’t finished college and is on his second year of disability for an upper back injury that has always sounded suspicious. Stephanie is three years older, with a bachelor’s degree in sociology, obese, employed as a retail clerk, daily sore in foot and mind. They appear to be close to each other but they are seldom in the same room. Although they grew up in the one house and regularly participated in school and church activities, neither has any friends.

No: this is about Jeanie.

She is now 62 years old. She’s a petite woman who always had bad posture and table manners, so now she has a dowager’s hump and often a bit of food stuck between her teeth or smeared across her tongue. Her once-cute features seem smushed together in a visage rapidly wrinkling. She deformed her small feet by wearing three-inch heels the first decade of her career; it looked great then but was not worth the sight now of bent toes and bunions in fully adjustable sandals.

Didn’t she used to have style? Maybe never. Maybe she was just cute. Thirty years ago there was an eagerness about her, a little obnoxious with bird-like perkiness but bounding forward, meeting her future. There was an aura about her of self-determination; she seemed to be on a path. Thirty years ago we thought she spoke for herself.

If so, she changed. Somewhere along that line she surrendered her soul to her marriage, and for her that meant supporting her husband no matter what. She was long lost five years ago, when she went away for three days to meditate on goals for the rest of her life, and her only conclusion was she wanted Keith to be happy.

She spoke for herself back in 1975. She was a completely submissive spouse by 2000. That’s a quarter century to review. Something happened in there, and if we can find it and defeat it, maybe we can rescue the child-raisers from soul-icide, and thereby redeem our future.

Because let’s face it. There’s more than just theory here. If Jeanie’s decisions had only affected her and maybe Keith, we wouldn’t be considering them. But here are Stephanie and Peter, loose on the world. True: Jeanie made them so dysfunctional they’re less likely to reproduce. But they’re both in prime reproductive years, probably fertile, Peter does booze and coke, and Steph is so lonely she’ll do anyone who reaches for her, so there is a chance Jeanie’s offspring will have the opportunity to damage babies of their own.

Keith doesn’t work and doesn’t come from wealth, so it sure can’t be money. In fact, both their families were blue collar, but Jeanie’s parents had property which she now owns.

Keith was besotted by his daughter and still adores Steph so much that no man she meets will ever match up. He was just as lopsidedly demanding of Peter. He was physically present more than many fathers, but that didn’t make him a good one. Jeanie was consistently critical of him to us, but she never disagreed with him in front of the kids. I can’t believe she kept him for being a good dad.

She always said Keith was intelligent but I never saw any spark in him. Then again, Jeanie often reported having a great time at some social function where I witnessed her standing silently hunched near a wall, diluted highball in her small hand, conversing with no one. Could she really find Keith intelligent? Interesting? I think not. No one is, after years of cohabitation. And Keith would have to be less than most.

That leaves sex. I’ll go there. We all used to talk about it, especially during the years we worked together, and she acted like it was frequent enough (twice a week) and good enough (no toys but lots of positions, just about everything but anal, sometimes a good movie…). But that was when we were in our 30s, still young enough to be libidinous and yet old enough to say enough that we never took our pants off without getting an orgasm for it. In fact, back then neither Meg nor Jeanie was completely faithful to her spouse, a characteristic that may have ultimately led to Meg’s divorce and to Jeanie’s continuation.

Lily and I caught up at lunch, so we discussed our now-big boys. But she has a daughter too, and Gen has provided her with three grandsons. Like my boys, Gen’s sons are technically Jewish (through their mother), culturally yiddische, and uncircumcised.

Makes no difference to me. I didn’t argue with Barbara the First when she decided she wouldn’t have the procedure done on our sons. She was into being as natural as possible. She said either boy could have his foreskin removed if he wished, but she wasn’t going to make the decision for them. After all, she told me then, there’s no way to put it back.

Lily says that was Gen’s reasoning too. And she didn’t argue with Gen about it; they’re Gen’s kids and Lily knew she wouldn’t convince her daughter. But she presented her arguments to me. “Let’s be real,” she said. “Circumcising a week-old baby is a quick and almost painless procedure. I couldn’t stand to be in the room when they did Adam, but I believed them when they told me his crying was more about being strapped in an uncurled position than about any physical pain. I know of some men who had their foreskins removed as adults. It hurt like hell and incapacitated them for much longer than a vasectomy. It’s just not the same procedure on a full-grown male, and it’s a bad argument to talk like it is.”

That wasn’t all she said on the subject. She asserted that hygiene is easier. She said she’s been with both types of men, and as far as she could tell, the sexual enjoyment derived by the uncut penis did not exceed that of the tailored variety. But she saved her best argument for last.

“There’s such a thing as sexual selection, you know,” she stated. “It operates faster than natural selection. It’s the reason men have bigger penises than gorillas and women have much bigger breasts than necessary to feed their babies. The obvious truth is that women prefer bigger dicks and men prefer bigger boobs. Well, guess what? Women also prefer the appearance of a circumcised penis.”

I never thought of it as a simple cosmetic enhancement, best done early. Now that makes sense.

Lily usually makes sense. She’s a very controlled individual. Used to be, I called her controlling. That infuriated her almost out of control! She kept harping on the difference between controlled and controlling, but I wasn’t paying attention then. I was just trying to get what I want.

Like I said, I like to be around people. When Lily and I were together I wanted to be together. I wanted to see her every day and sleep with her every night.

That’s not what she wanted, though. I can remember calling her after work and suggesting dinner, or company after dinner. Often she’d voice a gentle “no.” I’d beseech. She’d get firmer: say something about having to work. I’d assure her that I wouldn’t bother her; I’d just read or play video games – I’d be quiet – I just wanted to be with her. She’d give a firmer “no.” And I’d then accuse her of being controlling. “You ass!” I remember her yelling at me once. “I’m just trying to control the limits of my environment. I don’t give a shit what you do, as long as it’s not here!”

Harsh words. She tried to modulate them later, but I guess my feelings were hurt or something. I didn’t listen.

I get it now.

So I’ve seen Lily a few times in these couple of months, but I haven’t pushed it. We’re had some nice walks and good meals, and we’ve been discussing Noetic Science. I remember putting my arm around her the night I first met her, but this time I haven’t touched her yet.

I want her. I’ve taken the (for me) unnatural step of asking her out on a date, for her upcoming birthday. She accepted. Now I have ten days to plan our evening. I can’t believe I’m doing this, for the first time or at all, at 65.

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Well that didn’t work, on a couple of levels. I brought Lily flowers but I forgot that she doesn’t like them. She says that when a man brings her flowers it feels like a cat bringing her a decapitated bird. It’s a sign of some sort of prowess in the giver, but the recipient is left holding death.

We got past that. I did well enough with the restaurant selection and the meal. We shared such good wine and food and conversation that I was invited in when I took her home, we were not interrupted by any distress call from either of my sons, and I made it to her bed. Kissing went well. Fondling was successful. And then I lost it.

That’s never happened to me before. Lily was understanding. I’m not.

So now what? Did my attempts to please her un-man me? Shall I look for another cult and pluck a fellow traveler out of it? That would be a sham; I never joined a group before for anything less than enlightenment.

I won’t take Viagra. I know nothing about the culture except I don’t want to join it. And Lily, damn understanding Lily, has invited me out for a meal. I have accepted. I hope for and dread another attempt.

I’ve never been into self-love that way, but I guess I’ll have to practice. I want it to work. What’s it? The penis or the relationship? Both I guess. But if I had to choose just one…?

I’ve had loss but it was more natural than this one. My parents are both dead, but they lived to their eighties. A few of my friends have died (climbing accidents, drug overdoses, AIDS) but those tragedies were decades ago and, face it, I wasn’t as close to them as I am to family. I almost lost Jonah when he was 13, and that accident was more life-changing for me than any other, but it didn’t make me still. In fact, when I look back on those events now – his near drowning, near-OD, and institutionalization led directly to my involvement with Landmark and Barbara and marriage and move – I’m blown away at the changes they produced. But I don’t think I’ve ever been slowly thoughtful till now.

I met my second Barbara and I married her. I like to be married. I like to be alone in a big house full of people (I’m always alone in my head). We meshed her three kids with my part-time one to two (Jonah was released to me when his term was up, because Barbara the First wouldn’t have him back again unless he promised to attend school, while I understood how toxic school can be). I moved into her house in Concord. I was pretty happy, I think. I thought.

Now my partner is dead. Now I’m 65. I’m about to see Lily again. All of this makes ideas surface like Magic 8 Ball answers floating into the little window on the bottom of the ball. What do I want to do now?

The kids are grown. My younger son is almost finished with college. Barbara’s three are on their own. Not flourishing, true, and often back for food and money, but adult, sexually active, making their own decisions. Her daughter Mary is single now and has four babies. One of Barbara’s sons is a recovering addict employed as a sales rep for copiers and the other will be okay once he figures out what’s important. My stepdaughter Norah is now married and living in the middle of the country. My first wife visits her at least once a year but I haven’t been to see her yet. Jonah is still a challenge but he’s currently in LA.

I’m not happy. I don’t like living alone in 3,000 square feet. I don’t like living alone. I’m not dead yet sexually; I want to establish another relationship. And I’m seeing Lily for lunch tomorrow; I cannot get her out of my head.

She called me after Barbara died. Back when we were together she introduced me to a financial counselor, and I continued the business relationship with Anna after Lily and I broke up. Anna and Lily are still friends and clients of one another; Anna told Lily the bad news and Lily called me. She expressed condolences. She invited me to lunch. I understand the first part. I wonder if the lunch invite is more than just sympathy. I mean, I don’t need a meal. And why feed me just once? What does she want?

What do I want?

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I wrote those words two months ago. While everyone else was advising me to sit tight and make no big decisions, my sister recommended that I start a journal. I wrote the first entry, which took much more paper and much less time than I thought it would, and then I didn’t add to it. Much like Lily’s Adam, apparently. She tells me he started a blog on the Internet, but he only produced one post.

It turns out Lily wanted some sort of reconnection. Not romantic or sexual, at least not yet, but she’s very into clarity and true memories, and she says we spent enough time and had enough significant moments that she wants my help recalling them.

Her attitude about male/female relationships is totally different than mine. It isn’t just that she started early and experimented widely – funny how adventurous I’ve been in just about every endeavor except sex – she’s a bottom-up relator.

That’s not a physical description. I’ve read about political and cultural phenomena, and I’ve learned that they’re either “top-down,” meaning promulgated from on high like law and regulation, or they’re the grass-roots type of “bottom-up” movement. Most people get into relationships by making some level of commitment and then trying to keep it.

Lily doesn’t do it that way. She’s a word person but doesn’t use words for that. She allows relationships to develop and after awhile, she recognizes them for the developed thing they are. So when she or the other person changes, she just rides with it and accepts the consequently altered relationship. She would never break up with a person just because she or the other changed. She’d exhibit some confusion at first, and then accept the changed relationship as it became apparent to her.

I don’t think it’s that she’s not jealous. In fact, I think Lily is the most passionate person I know. But she controls herself, like a proofreader/editor. She seems to feel the heat, wait for awhile, and then exhale cool steam. She used to have some anger issues, but she was 44 when I met her, and she said she’d outgrown the problem by then. Actually, she said she’d learned better. From her son.

Seems like we always talk about sons. Or about what it takes to be a man anyway. Back when we were together my Jonah nearly died. He was a troubled kid and I was too stubborn to recognize it. I guess I saw him as a mini-me. And I’d been a difficult kid too, but my problem came from a bad school coupled with my own ADD (now called ADHD). I never had low self-esteem. And after my parents put me in the private school I did pretty well.

So when Jonah acted up I figured it was bad school. I even supported him when he got caught cutting classes. At 13. I saw the similarities but I was blind to the differences. He was trying to be a grownup: smoking and picking up an STD and doing the Goth bit to the point of mascara and black fingernails. At 13. Geez: at 13 I was like a 9 year old…

I guess I’ve always been oriented toward females. I mean, I was a normal active boy, totally uninterested until puberty kicked in, but ever since then yes, I’ve wanted to be with a girl. Sure I’ve had a few fantasies about girls in the plural, but I’m a practical person and I know my limitations. It’s enough of a challenge for me to please one woman. Emotionally.

The most interesting girlfriend I ever had was the one who got away. Maybe that’s what made her interesting. No: she was inherently so. She may have even been smarter than me in some ways. Her name was Lily.

I married my other girlfriends. I was 25 when I met Christy, and fell in fuck with her, and so proposed. She was an experienced 18 at the time. We stayed together for a year and a half, although she insisted that we open the marriage up after five months. That’s how we got the clap, and visited the free clinic, and read the flyer about the commune, and joined.

My other marriages were serious. I met my second wife Barbara at the commune. She was a single mother of six-year old Norah when Christy left. We married in the cult and had our two sons over the next ten years. Then we migrated to Oakland to recruit.

I began to move away from (which really means beyond) some of the cult philosophy. As anyone knows who’s been there, it is extremely difficult to maintain an intimate relationship when one member begins to doubt and differ.

So Barbara and I separated. I had the boys half time and maintained a relationship with Norah too. And then I met Lily. I was living in a small apartment then, just getting into big wall climbing. Lily has a fear of heights, so she didn’t join me in that (though she did learn how to belay). What we had in common, besides walking and dining and drinking good coffee and considering existential questions, was the rearing of our sons. She only had one but he was my Jonah’s age: 12 years old and a budding man.

Here’s what she told me her first husband said about the basic male perspective (i.e., libido): “When I encounter a new woman, I wonder what it would be like to fuck her; when I encounter a new man, I wonder if I can beat him up.”

That seemed primitive to me, but she insisted that her second husband felt the same way.

I don’t. I’ve never wanted to beat up anyone except my younger brother (my parents forbade it so I became an ace baiter/teaser instead).

As far as I’m concerned, I’m living half-erect most days. I’m ready any time. It’s like I prance around nagging the ambient women with “Now? Now? Can I now? Huh?” and most of the time they give me a disparaging look and as much as send me to my room. Every once in a while I get lucky. It’s like I nagged her till I wore her down. “All right,” she almost sighs. “Come here.”

At least, that’s how it is when I’m not married. At the end of my Lily relationship I joined another group. I met another Barbara. I married again. When I’m married I prance and ask permission, too, but the nature of the conversation is different.

I’m a good lay but I’m not fancy. Maybe it’s because I got into it so late, but what I do is kiss and fuck, and I do those well. I never ventured into oral sex, or anal, or bondage, or porn. It’s a little awkward when a new woman goes down on me. I don’t stop her, and sure I can enjoy it, but I don’t fully relax, because I assume she expects reciprocation, and I don’t want to, so I’m not going there. And she probably won’t say anything about that, thank whomever, but it’s a moment to get beyond, you know?

I have a long body. I have a mobile mouth. I have a good cock. I never fuck a woman without making love to her. I hug her fully. I penetrate her deeply and for as long as she indicates she wants. I don’t put my mouth on her anywhere below her neck, but I’ll pull her thighs together beneath me, to increase the genital embrace, and if she’ll rock and roll with me she won’t regret the sensation.

And I’m not one of those guys who stops the affection after ejaculation. I’m into cuddling. I’ll gladly spoon around her. I’ve always lived with people and I like a sleepover. I’m good for whispering in the night or raiding the kitchen and smuggling food back to bed.

I’m no less of a man because I lack violent tendencies. I’m competitive. I show off for the ladies. I’d happily wrestle and rough-house with my sons (if they would). When I encounter a stranger I do pay attention to gender, but I think that’s less about sex than about safety. If the person approaching is male, he may be dangerous. I check him out to see if he’s a threat. If it’s a female I check her out cause I’m male. Shit: maybe I am saying what Lily’s husband said.

I guess I should re-assess. That’s part of what this year is about anyway.

I’m a widower now. I lost my second Barbara to fast-moving cancer a month ago. Everyone advises me to sit tight for a year, make no changes, adjust to my loss and to my new circumstances. I’ve had loss before but I never sat still. The family nicknamed me “Sudden” for a reason.