Dear Erica

NOTE: I wrote this within 24 hours of reading Patricia51's "Torn." This represents my own feelings as to what I would write in a situation like this one. The rambling sentence structure is deliberate. I wrote down whatever I thought as I glanced at the document, hoping "I" could get the response to Erica ASAP and not leave her hanging about my feelings.

I sent this to Patricia immediately (I do that with all my writings) to get her input. She asked me to hold up because she was thinking about some revisions to "Torn" itself. I don't know why it would need revising, but Patricia and I always have tremendous respect for one another and I was happy to wait. She told me to go ahead and publish when revisions went more slowly than planned.

Before you read the story itself, I can't resist tossing in a comment Patricia made in her letter to me. There seems to be a fellow out there who really, really dislikes lesbianism and decries all the stories about it. Patricia's response reads:

You'll probably

get the

shouter (the guy who types in all caps) yelling at you for not having

him

kick her nose first on the street, but heck, to me it would be a

compliment.

*Giggle*

*************************************************

My Dearest Erica,

I have been sitting at a computer terminal in the library writing and rewriting this letter. I didn’t want to write it at home for one obvious reason (the kids might see it) and for other reasons which I think you understand. My allotted time is almost up and I’m just going to write this all in one sitting, so please, please excuse any mistakes I make in typing it.

I can’t tell you what I felt on reading what you gave me, but I can try.

In one way, I was strangely relieved. For the last year, I thought I had “lost my touch.” That sounds terribly crude, but you know how much I wanted to give you pleasure when we made love. You kept reacting differently from the way you used to. But you’ve changed over a long time, not just a year. I really, honestly felt I had gotten into a rut and was doing everything mechanically, assuming it would turn you on. You may not have known it, but when you weren’t turned on, neither was I. Men can fake orgasms, especially since we’ve been using condoms lately. So I would go through the motions and only be happy if you were truly happy, and I think you know what I mean.

So I thought I had failed you. I really thought about going down on you (I still do), and doing other things to make our sex life what it once was. But I know now I was thinking the wrong things. I didn’t know you were gay, because you didn’t know it yourself.

You are right on at least one point. I won’t tell you to get a female lover. I don’t think you know why, though. I think you feel you would have to break all ties with me and totally commit yourself to her, whoever she is. You don’t know who she is. You wouldn’t feel right living with me and searching for just the right mate, so you’d probably move out, take a tiny place somewhere on your salary (no help from me, you wouldn’t ask for it) and trying to find the right woman.

I didn’t know about you making the move on Dee Archer. I’m half glad and half sorry she turned you down. I’m sorry because she is a genuinely nice woman, a caring woman, a loving woman. A lesser woman would have let you sleep with her and then wouldn’t have been sympathetic when you got worried about “cheating” on me, whatever that means. I’m glad because I would have lost one good friend – and also my dearest friend.

That’s what it all means, Erica. You don’t love me just for the sex, or for the money, or even the children. That’s not why I love you. I love you because you are my best friend. I’ve been able to tell you everything. I’ve been able to go to sleep feeling your touch, holding you close and caring for me. I have watched you through your career, through having and raising the children, and through these difficult times.

You don’t know how much it raised my spirits to hear that you still enjoy my touch. I always thought I’d lose my sex appeal and we’d be an old married couple, keeping our distance from each other, fighting all the time, yet unable to let go for reasons unknown to us. You taught me that I still have something to give you.

A lot of the time, people read that women turn to other women because their men don’t provide them with the gentleness and comfort they need so much. I used to think that was horseshit, but now I’m not so sure. After feeling your gentleness and comfort, I can see why you need it so much.

I love to give you what I can because you have given it to me. I wasn’t really surprised about what you felt during sex. The way you go down on me is really a gentle, tender kiss, treating him like he is a little me without the face or the features like the pot belly or the male pattern baldness or whatever. I wish I could go down on you, feel your softest parts, touch them gently, and caress them like your face, back, bottom and everything else.

I didn’t know what to think about you pretending I was a woman with a strap-on. The feeling of being penetrated by someone else’s hard-on is something I can never bring myself to enjoy. I guess I associate it with being raped in prison or something like that. I don’t know the difference between him and whatever women use as strap-ons, but maybe that’s the point. You’re not being fucked by me, you’re being fucked by someone you desperately love and need and for whom you don’t have a name and a face. You can stand it being me because I am someone real. I don’t think you could take it from someone who didn’t truly love you and care for you.

I hope I am not assuming things. But I’ve known all our lives that you are a romantic at heart. You believe in giving your heart to everything you do, and everyone you care for. You wanted to make it with Faith Hill for the same reason I did. Not because of that body, it was because she has the beautiful voice and the beautiful children and the loving home life, and she got Tim and Tug McGraw back together before Tug died. Tug wasn’t a very good guy, fathering Tim and leaving him behind for someone else to raise, but I think he loved his granddaughters and he had Faith to thank for that. She is a loving, caring woman. She reminded me of you.

Time’s nearly up. I want to talk to you about what we can do together. I don’t want us to stay together “for the sake of the children.” That really IS horseshit. They’d figure out in a New York minute that Mommy and Daddy didn’t love one another. I don’t want you to leave me for another woman, and that IS for the sake of the children. I don’t want them to be taunted with cruel words about “your mommy’s a dyke,” “didn’t your dad give your mom enough,” “you have two mommies and no daddy, does that mean you’re a fag/dyke yourself?” Or worse than that. I read about some books that addressed gay parenting, and one of them was called “Heather Has Two Mommies.” Did I show you the cover of that book? It showed this little girl fleeing in the worst terror from some hideous monster. I never bought the book and I don’t want to – I think it’s out of print now anyway -- but I couldn’t stop thinking how bad it looked. Maybe it was symbolic of what little Heather was feeling from the taunts at school or something.

But I can’t stop you if you find the RIGHT woman. Dee is really good, from what I know. Whether she’d truly love you is a question I can’t answer, you can’t answer, and I don’t think she can answer. I don’t know how you go around finding someone to love again. I still don’t know how I found you after losing my first girlfriend. It would tear me up to lose you, but it would tear me up even worse to alienate you like I did her. I looked her up on the Internet and wrote her a couple of times, to see if she had found the man she loved. She had. I thanked her and felt a huge weight lift from my heart. It will lift again if you find true love, but not any other time.

I will say we need counseling. Both of us. I think you need to address your needs and desires and try to accept them, and so do I. If we have to divorce, I want us to still share whatever we can – the children, what we’ve made together, our friends, our interests. I hope that is possible. What I want the most is for us to remain the best friends we’ve ever had.

This may not be what you expected. I didn’t know how this letter would come out when I started it. I thought I might be angry, sad, worried, and I guess I’m all three. But I still want to love you for who you are. Your sexuality has nothing to do with that.

All through this letter, I’ve seen cute college coeds writing and talking about their boyfriends and troubles with them. There were a few guys too, but I didn’t listen in on them. I think that I was truly interested in what they wanted and needed, and whether or not they really had it, or if they knew what they had. Sometimes I forget, too. Sometimes I worry too much about pleasing you and not enough about what I should do for myself. I know I have to love you all my life, but I have to let you be your own woman and tell you to make your own decisions.

I’ll ask you to continue to enjoy my touch, to go into the kids’ bedrooms at night and stand over them holding hands and admiring the people we created with God’s help, to have some sexual fun when you can stand it, and above all to talk. I guess I can live with it if you say no, but I don’t want you to say no to this. When we married, we gave our hearts to one another and I don’t think we can take them back. I can let you fall in love again if you can do it, but I won’t tell you to do anything until you are absolutely sure you have found the right person – me or someone else – to pass the torch to.

And I hope you will always be my best friend. I hope I’ll always be yours.

To the best woman I have ever known, I sign this and await your response.

Jim