Fifty-Boy
11
It Ain't
 |
| I Encouraged Her To Be A Tease |
She's not interested - I fell undesired
She cant take it or leave it - I escalate
She gets annoyed - I resort to outlandish shit
She thinks I'm a perve - I guess, now, I am, I must be
She feels negligent and tries to placate me - Who wants forced reciprocity?
I say why dont you want me like I want you?
She clams up - I get out my journal
"And here I am... Alone... Again." I said out loud. "It's al ass backwards."
I scrawled another line:
If I ain't pursuing it - It ain't
I put the journal down - You know, if I let it go, after a while, she will notice we're sexually inactive. And for some reason that has nothing to do with wanting it, I mean, for her, it's more about retaining control at that point, making sure she still has me under her spell, cause she rarely feels horny... Come to think of it, she's only used the word horny in regards to herself twice, that I can think of, in the twenty-seven years we've been married.
"Wow, having all those guys watch me makes me horny," or "Wine in the chat room with the Ripper gang... that gets me horny."
Then she feels guilty and feels the need to perform some bizarre obligatory, functionary role.
"Who wants that?" I whispered. "Who wants to be made a sex-beggar?"
I got up and started talking to the furniture. "I'd prefer it if she just left me alone."
I was talking out loud so I wouldn't cry.
"I'm tired of being turned on and off.
I know I got some part in all this, I admit it.
Maybe I encouraged her to be a sexpot,
but that was only to counter the slub she was becoming,
because she was letting her own sexuality rot.
"Okay, maybe she's right.
Maybe I asked for it.
But what else could I do when she lost interest?
Cheat on her?
That's for cowards like that mother fucking Dale Outlay.
I refuse to sneak around behind her back, hurt my kids...
The only other options is to leave, if you're gonna' be honest...
Or just bury your sex drive altogether.
But I'll be damned if I signed on to be some married eunuch.
And I'm not willing to just let it go, to let our sex life vaporize like she did,
to let her turn into a sweet gray-haired wife, knitting, sipping tea,
mystery reading, sitting by the fire...
Okay, so I encouraged her to be a tease,
so i created a monster, so what?
I'd rather have that...
I'm not ready for just snuggling and bunny hugs
and neck high floor length flannel nighties...
But I don't want this either...
Fuck! If this is being fifty...
If this is middle-age I hate this fucking being fifty."
"Talking to ourselves again, are we, Sigmund?"
I took off my glasses and watched her coming down the stairs.
"Is that true, you didn't like what we were doing sexually?
You weren't into it?
It was just my thing?
You did it for my benefit? You could've fooled me..."
The way she looked at my journal made me feel like Sigmund-The-Self-Analyzing-Sex-Nerd.
She walked by to the kitchen to fill her water bottle. She would't answer me.
I followed.
"Molly, I can't believe you're content to allow our relationship to stop being
affectionate and demonstrataive.
How can you let it become so asexual and nonverbal,
taking it for granted, letting it become so functional and routine?
Why am I the only one watering the plant?
Time is doing this to us, to one toward the other, and you're letting it.
You're not even putting up a fight."
I was pleading with her to say something... To call me an asshole, to fight back, something... She insisted on her right to remain silent, insisted I figure it out on my own, and walked by me again back to the living room.
Finally she said, "Where's my towel, Mister Journal Man?"
The quilted floral journal was lying open on the hassock.
"I think you love that fucking journal better than you love me."
She hated the journal, kind of like I felt about the chat-room.
"But that's okay," she said. "I have Mister Do, you have your journal. There are no victims, only volunteers." And she walked toward the stairs.''
"What the hell does that mean? You know I love you. I loved you first. And I still love you, but what am I doing wrong? Tell me. What's my crime? What have I done? How come Dale Outlay gets your interest and I don't?"
She didn't like me mentioning his name. I could tell.
She blew past me to the stairs and headed back up to the linen closet.
I followed to the bottom of the stairs, dropped my glasses and accidentally stepped on them. "Shit, my foot." I hopped toward my bathroom, rubbing my foot.
"How long is romance supposed to stay fresh if you don't work on it?" I yelled up the stairs. "You know I'm still crazy where you're concerned."
"You need to take a break from your script." She shouted down the stairs. "You're writing you own comedy. You push too much... All the time, you never give it a break."
I could't believe her indifference. I was so frustrated. I said from my bathroom, "I hope things reverse themselves, I really do. I'm so tired of prompting you, orchestrating our sex life. I'm so tired of being the only one watering the plant."
"Yeah, that's you." She shouted. "Herr Director. Orchestrating everything, telling everybody what to do and when to do it. You're good at that."
"Then you'll feel this lonliness and undesirable-ness... You'll feel unwanted, Molly... Molly, why don't you help me? I'm trying to find some way out of this."
She was in no mood to play.
"I think I gotta' get some distance from you, Moll... What if I have to go away for a while, for a few week? To Florida, for work?" I hopped out to see her reaction and stood by the door.
She sauntered down the steps.
Her breasts had such an engaging bouncisness.
She knew I was thinking how edible she looked in her little gym outfit.
"I'm leaving now."
She said, brushed tight against me and ran her nails down my arm.
I fell back on the hassock, intoxicated by her breath.
"I can't help it. It's just the way I am." She opend the door and went out.
I shouted, "And don't go meeting anybody else at any rest-stops."
She simply closed the door.
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