Finding Himself

Maybe it was because I was fairly picky. Since I was pretty well off financially, there were women who saw me as a meal ticket — not to say that they weren't nice enough people, but their primary motivation was wrong. There were a lot of divorcees, many of whom had real emotional issues hiding just under the top layer of skin. A not insignificant number of women out there were plain and simply bat-shit crazy (as are a lot of single men as well — crazy is an equal opportunity employer!) And finally, most of the women who I encountered were looking for a long-term relationship, something that I could sympathize with, but I was not ready or looking for that kind of commitment myself.

~~~ 2 ~~~

The Wednesday following my little talk with Joe the week before, I called Susan at her office. I dialed her direct number to avoid going through the receptionist. No point in causing unnecessary gossip.

"Susan White speaking," came her voice after a couple of rings.

"Susan, it's me, Ted."

"Oh Ted, it's great to hear your voice. What's going on?"

"That is what I was going to ask you. I spoke to Joe over a cup of coffee last week. Did he mention that to you?"

"Ted, he moved out over the weekend. And no, he didn't tell me that you and he had spoken." Her voice was rather flat and emotionless as she said that.

"Ah! Susan, do you have a couple of minute for some coffee?"

"Absolutely. Where are you and where should we meet."

I laughed, "I'm sitting in my car in front of your office. So if you walk out, I'll be standing there."

"OK! See you in a minute," and she hung up.

I had been wondering what to expect from Susan emotionally. Would she be weeping and fragile, or bravely keeping a 'stiff upper lip' or what.

What she was, was really pissed off.

She saw me and walked up to my Mercedes, where I held open the passenger door and without a word she got in.

We didn't talk about anything serious until we were seated with our coffees in hand while our lunches were prepared.

"So," Susan started, "My lame-brain husband told you about his little mid-life crisis I take it?"

"Yeah. I tried to talk him out of it. If he is feeling so depressed or emotionally distraught, I told him he should go see a counselor or a psychologist. I take it he didn't buy into that plan."

"No he didn't. He came home on Friday night and told me; then he moved out over the weekend. He must have been planning this for a while. You don't find and rent a condo or apartment overnight."

"Ouch! He didn't tell me that he'd been already been preparing when we spoke. I would have called you earlier to let you know." There was a moment of silence as we sipped from our cups.

I gave Susan a summary of the things I'd told Joe, how I'd warned him.

"In short, so far as I'm concerned, whether Joe knows it or believes it, there is no up side for him doing this. Only down side. And I'm sorry that he is hurting you by doing it."

Susan kind of shrugged her shoulders.

"Believe me, it isn't great for my ego.

"I'm going to share some really private things with you. I assume that you'll keep them to yourself?" she asked me.

"You know me, Suze. Anything you say is strictly between us."

"I know, I've always been able to trust you, Ted.

"When Joe said that we had been talking about this off and on for the past four years, what he meant was, that HE has been pushing his agenda for the past four years. He's talked about me going out and finding men to have sex with. He's talked about having threesomes or foursomes. Maybe some soft-swing.

"Ted, you know me. First, I was so naïve that I had to look up some of the things he was talking about on the 'net because I'd never even heard of them before! And truthfully, I think it was always about him wanting to try out other women without feeling guilty. I think that he felt that if I did it first, then he could point to that to excuse his own philandering.

"I mean, I have a certain amount of sympathy for his feelings — neither one of us was very experienced before we got married. God, you'd probably laugh at how inexperienced we were. And I grant you, we have never 'pushed the boundaries' during our marriage. But if there are new experiences he wanted to try, why couldn't it just be with me?

"You want to know how much he cared about MY feelings when he left? He told me that I was old and fat, and that my vagina was so loose that he couldn't feel the sides of it when he put his dick in me! Can you imagine? What does that son-of-a-bitch expect? I gave the man four children! Does he have any idea of how THAT stretches a woman, giving birth?

"Oh and another thing that is wrong with me: I used to have big tits that stood right out there, only now after the kids and because I've gotten older, they sag a little and aren't as perky like they were when I was 19 years old! So they aren't attractive to him anymore.

"Does he think that I haven't noticed the 30 pounds that he's gained over the years or the way that as he's gotten older his so-called 'six-pack' (as if) turned into a keg? But I didn't try to hurt him and damage HIS delicate ego. Don't even get me started on his other 'shortcomings', " at that last remark she got a little smirk on her face.

Susan was both angry but also feeling very hurt. I made an ostentatious show of slowly looking her over, up and down and gave a little wolf whistle. Then I reached over and put my hand on hers.

"Susan, I can tell you this: you are not old and you are not fat. You are very pretty and desirable. And, by the way, your tits still look pretty good to me. So there! I think Joe is making a big mistake even risking you and his marriage this way."

Susan, through the tears, managed a smile at me and with her free hand, reached up and touched my cheek.

"Ted, even as kids, you always made me feel so much better." She dabbed at her eyes with a tissue.

"You know, Ted, when I told Joe that if anything was going to happen between us it would have happened forty-years ago, he always thought that I was telling him that I wasn't attracted to you, so we didn't get together. But it was really the other way. You weren't interested in me was the problem.

"Oh damn," she continued, "I wish I could just run away somewhere and forget about my life."

I looked at her and smiled, thinking that running away, at least for a little while, might be a great idea.

"Susan? How are you fixed for vacation hours? It sounded to me like you hadn't taken many trips recently."

"I'm loaded. I think I have close to eight weeks. In fact, if I don't take some soon, I'll start to lose them."

"Why don't you take Friday off, and you and I can go up the coast and spend the weekend in Cambria? We could catch some of the wineries over in Paso Robles; see Hearst's Castle run up the Coast Highway, things like that?"

A smile lit up Susan's face.

"Really? Are you serious, Ted?" I smiled again.

"I'd LOVE to! Cambria is one of my all time favorite places."

Then she looked at me with a suspicious look in her eyes.

"Wait a minute. Are you thinking that you are going to take me out to a bunch of wineries, get me to drink all day in the hot sun and then take me back to the room and have your way with me?"

"That is the plan," I confirmed.

"Oh goody. I just wanted to be sure," she told me with a very pleased look on her face.

Honestly, I was forty-years late getting together with Susan. My wife always said I was a little slow on the uptake. I guess she was right.

And so the die was cast and I expected that Susan might be getting a little strange before Joe would find any.

~~~ 3 ~~~

Speaking of Joe, he had been planning on having a big first weekend since he moved out of the house to 'find himself.' Instead he was a little peeved and in a bad mood.

"Damn women," he mumbled to himself.

The attractive single mother about ten-years younger than Joe, Amber, who had been flirting with him when she delivered parts to his shop had just shot him down.

"Go out on a date this weekend?" Joe heard the pause on the phone, "I'm sorry Joe, but my boyfriend would really object to that!" She laughed a little, "And Joe, he's 6' 3" tall and weighs around 240 pounds!

"But Joe, I want you to know that if I weren't already tied up in a relationship, I would have been happy to go out with you. I'm so sorry! Maybe I should have been clearer about my status, but I've always enjoyed talking with you. You're such a nice man."

Then she thought about it for a second.

"But aren't you married?" she asked.

"Yeah, but we're separated," he replied.

"Ah," was her reply. What she was thinking was: married guy out to get a little strange.

They said their goodbyes and ended the call with an embarrassed Amber wondering if she could get her boss to take Joe's shop off her route and an embarrassed and humiliated Joe on the other end.

"What was that 'my boyfriend is 6' 3" and 240 pounds' about! Was the bitch implying that I'm not enough 'man' for her." With that the now angry Joe began to wonder if he should call her boss and tell him to take her off deliveries to Joe's shop. Or even better, not say anything, just switch his business to another supplier. Hell, there are a lot of places that will sell me after-market auto parts.

He went back to work and calmed down after a while. He even decided not to change suppliers, since the company Amber worked for did give the best terms and they always seemed to have the parts he needed in stock. That was why he'd switched to them in the first place. The hell with her.

As lunchtime was approaching, Joe thought that maybe he should touch base with Susan. Maybe he could see her this weekend and try mending some fences. He thought about some of his parting remarks and truly regretted making them. She wasn't really 'old' as in 'old' old and if she was a little plumper than she had been in her twenties, she wasn't really 'fat' fat. In fact, her tits were pretty damn good for a broad her age.

But when he called her office the receptionist told him that Susan was out for lunch and no she didn't know when she would be back. Sorry...

When he tried to call Susan on her mobile it went to voice mail and Joe decided against leaving a message.

Then Joe got a brilliant idea! He'd call Ted and get him to go out on the weekend and show him where mature guys could hang out to pick up members of the fairer sex. He selected Ted's name from his contact list.

"Ted? It's me Joe. Hey, I was wondering if you were up to anything this weekend. I was thinking that we could go out someplace you might know to hang out. I haven't been out on my own for, now that I think of it, since Susan and I got married.

"What? Oh, you are going out of town on business this weekend? That's too bad. I mean on the weekends? I know, I know — you're not a nine-to-five guy. Well, don't work too hard. Yeah, see ya."

So getting Ted to show him the ropes about being single again didn't work out either. Too bad, Ted was a pretty classy guy, but Joe knew some other fellows who were always out on the make that he could tag along with. Just a couple of calls and he'd find someone...

~~~ 4 ~~~

Susan looked at her cell phone.

"Just Joe trying to call. Wonder what he wants now?"

I just shrugged.

She just let the phone ring until it stopped. Joe didn't leave a voicemail.

Then a minute later when my mobile rang, I mouthed to Susan, "Joe."

I picked up the call.

"Hi Joe. What's up?"

"You want to go out and do a little bar hopping this weekend?" I repeated aloud for Susan's benefit.

"I'm sure that would be a lot of fun, but I've got a business trip out of town this weekend," I winked at Susan who was rolling her eyes at me.

"Yeah I know, but when you are servicing a demanding customer, if they want you on the weekend, you go on the weekend... No it's pretty rare for my consulting business but it happens from time to time...I'm sorry too, it would be great. Maybe another time. Talk to you soon. Bye."

Susan looked at me.

"A business trip?"

Now I grinned at her, "Sure. Haven't you ever heard of 'monkey business'?"

"Har, har, har — you are just SO funny Ted," she said with more than a touch of sarcasm, but with a smile on her face nonetheless. "And 'servicing a difficult customer'?"

"Be fair. It took me more than forty years to get your account. If that isn't difficult, then what is? Anyway, did you want me telling your husband that you were 'easy'?"

By then Susan was laughing out loud.

"OK Mr. Monkey Business, what time on Friday?"

"Let's leave at about 10:00, that way we can stop for lunch in Santa Barbara and still make it to Cambria by early afternoon."

"Sounds like this could be the most exciting weekend I've had in years."

~~~ 5 ~~~

I confess that the whole concept of spending the weekend with Susan had put me on the horns of a dilemma. First, I regard myself as a relatively moral man — I'm sure that there are certain issues where my self-interest or my aesthetic inclinations mislead me into conflating my own desires into moral imperatives — but this was skating the edges of morality versus rationalization, even for me.

First, I wasn't particularly looking for a long-term relationship with Susan, so if I lead her to believe that was what I wanted, or even that I was open to one, it would be unfair to her. Would I be able to have a 'stolen weekend' with her and still remain just a close friend? Or worse, could I end up destroying our long-time friendship by introducing sex into the equation?

As for Joe: even if technically Joe had given me permission to take Susan out for a test drive, was it fair to take him at his word when he gave it 'knowing' full well that it would never happen? A little hubris there, since Joe had never quite understood the truth of Susan's and my mixed feelings about each other. On the other hand, Joe was so insulting and insensitive that he deserved a little payback for his entirely selfish view of the situation and dismissive attitude towards his wife.

If Pam were still alive there would be no question of anything like this happening. I was never tempted to stray regardless of the circumstances. I would never done anything to hurt her feelings or insult Pam the way Joe had hurt Susan.

In the end the situation was too full of imponderables and issues over which I was neither the cause nor could I control the outcomes. So I was going to do my best to salve Susan's battered ego this weekend without my becoming deeply involved or hurting her feelings. Lots of luck eh.

And that, my friends, is an example of sophistry at its self-serving best. Maybe I should have been a lawyer.

~~~ 6 ~~~

I arrived to pick up Susan just a minute or two before 10:00 AM that Friday, as we'd agreed. As I pulled up into the driveway of the house that she and Joe owned, she was out the door with a couple of small pieces of luggage even before I could park. As soon as I stopped, I popped the trunk lid and took her cases from her and put them in the small trunk alongside mine. I suspected that like Pam she always needed one case for clothes and a second one for her cosmetic 'stuff.' Then I opened the door for her. She gave me a peck on the cheek as she sat herself in the passenger seat.

"Oh, Ted! Always the gentleman — and it is appreciated!"

I had brought my silver gray Mercedes SL400 since this was a short trip, just a couple of days up the coast. For longer treks or if there were more people or more luggage, I would drive my wife's SUV. But this was a fun trip to help out Susan's ego, so the little 2-seater Mercedes was perfect.

We chatted while we drove north to Santa Barbara where instead of finding a restaurant close to the pier, we drove up State Street to a place a friend of mine had recommended for its 'noveau' something 'fusion' something, yada, yada, food. It really was as good as he and his wife told me, so Susan and I were in a tremendously good mood as we got back on the 101 traveling north.

I've always loved the drive up the central California coast. This time it actually reminded me of my travels on the east coast wine country of New Zealand with Pam. Our last big foreign trip.

Susan and I drove past Solvang and Los Olivos with the wineries made famous in the movie 'Sideways', past Santa Maria with its vineyards and fields still full of unpicked crops. Past the Madonna Inn, the famous pink motel with its unique rooms and, in season, a great fresh strawberry cream pie for dessert in the restaurant. A few more miles and we were in San Luis Obispo.

While our conversation had been light most of the trip but as we turned from SLO to Morro Bay out on the coast, Susan turned to me and asked me in a curious voice,

"You know Ted, all joking aside, why didn't you ask me out when we were young? Wasn't I pretty enough? Weren't my boobs big enough for you?" As she asked me about her boobs, she put her hands underneath them and lifted them and bounced them around a bit while looking at me.

I started laughing so hard that I almost had to stop driving and pull over.

"Susan, believe me I HAD noticed how pretty you were and no hyper-hormonal teenage guy could have missed the girls!" referring to her big tits. We were both laughing at that.

"In fact I have pondered my stupidity regarding women on more than one occasion." That got a smile and a look from Susan that told me she agreed with my self-assessment.

"I realized as an adult that I messed up, not just on you but on a number of the girls in the neighborhood, as a teenager. You all grew up into wonderful, beautiful, intelligent women and as a teenage guy, I completely missed what was happening.

"It's no doubt one of the reasons that they talk about men 'maturing' later than women, because at that age we are so oblivious to the changes taking place in front of our faces. You were becoming a desirable woman, but in my eyes you were, well, to be honest, one of the guys!

"You and the other girls who grew up with us had played football and baseball with us for years. You went riding with us on our bikes and hiking in the mountains. And you don't go around dating one of the guys. Yes, I know — pretty stupid.

"By the time I started noticing that the girls had become young women, most of you were already dating other guys who hadn't known you when you scrapped your knees climbing up a tree or when we fell into the creek and almost drown!

"Plus you were a friend. Even then I understood the potential risk to a friendship of a romantic relationship gone bad and I couldn't take that chance. Although maybe if I had taken a chance with Jenny I would have learned about sex a LOT earlier..."

Susan playfully slugged me in the arm for that.

"I'm glad you managed to keep away from THAT slut. The 'village bike' is what my English Granny called women like her."

I pondered Susan's Granny's wisdom; "Most of the guys in town learned how to 'ride the bike' with her. I admit I was never into sharing — even serial sharing, so I passed on my 'turn.' I think Jenny was shocked that I wouldn't have sex with her. After all — all the other guys did!" I said with a little laugh.

"The other factor that kept me from getting very serious about the girls in High School was that I thought it would be unfair to any girl to get into a serious relationship when I knew I was going to go away for college for at least four years. Of course, by the time I returned to town I had met Pam and we were a couple."

Susan smiled, "And let me tell you, there were women weeping and wailing when you showed up back in town with 'that woman.' The big problem we had was that as soon as anyone met Pam they immediately fell in love with her too, so we could hardly blame you for grabbing her when you had the chance. She was such a sweetheart."