The Long Frost

This is a story of two attempts at sexual healing. One failed, but the other succeeded. And in the end, it was the healer who was healed.

In 1975, my wife Gloria told me she wanted a divorce after two years of a childless marriage. An old high-school flame of hers had returned from a stint in the Army and come back to town the previous year. It didn't take long before she told me that she'd fallen in love with him again, that she had begun an affair, and that she wanted to marry him.

When Gloria asked for the separation, I was devastated. As fate would have it, I'd lost my job as an electronics salesman about two months before, so the blow hit doubly hard. I no longer had a family or a job in New Haven, only bitter memories. Wishing to make a new start in my life, I moved to North Granby, a smaller town to the north, where I got a room in a big old farmhouse out in the countryside that some hippie-types were renovating. The rent was cheap, which was good because I was supporting myself on minimum-wage jobs at the time.

It was there that I received a letter from a woman I had known ten years before. Lynette had heard about my separation, and told me that if there was anything she could do, all I had to do was ask.

I'd been known Lynette since she was a teenager, but she'd really shown no romantic interest in me, despite a friendship that was warm and deep. So we kept our relationship light. She was one of those girls with a twenty-five-year-old mind in a fifteen-year-old body, with an intellect and range of interests that she did not share with any of the girls in her age group. So she had gone through high school always feeling left out, ostracized by her classmates. She confessed this loneliness to me, and I remember many evenings when I would hold her in my arms as she wept in anger and frustration.

I finally got to see her sensual side when we went to a science-fiction convention together, the summer after she graduated from high school. She was staying in a hotel room she was sharing with some girlfriends, and I was the houseguest of a high-school classmate who was attending college in that city. Despite our separate sleeping arrangements, the freewheeling nature of sci-fi conventions allowed us to get some serious necking in, at one of the hotel's lobbies. It wasn't able to go much farther than my opening the front of her blouse and sliding her bra up to expose her beautiful little titties, and gently fondling and kissing them. Given the public nature of our trysting, even this activity proved to be too far outside her comfort zone, so we broke it off, buttoned up, and re-joined the party.

That was as far as we'd ever gotten at that point, but I wondered afterward what might have developed had we had more privacy. I was convinced that she had deeper feelings for me than she was able to admit, and lacked only the proper circumstances to make them known. Certainly, I meant a lot to her, because she wrote me a long letter plainly expressing the emotional storms of her teenage years and praising the safe harbor she'd found in my arms. She'd taken considerable trouble, not only in the writing but in the calligraphy she inscribed it with. She used an intricate, spidery style with long extenders, giving it the sort of elegance you see in eighteenth-century documents. The border consisted of flowers hand-drawn with a fine-tipped pen. I saved that letter, and have it to this day.

She had a quality that I'd seen in very few other women, then or afterward. She seemed extraordinarily graceful to me. Every move she made seemed like a dance. She seemed to flow from place to place; I could swear she trailed fire behind her, radiating warmth everywhere she went. She was petite in every way. Even at twenty, she could have passed for a thirteen-year-old. She had dark brown hair that went down to the small of her back. An inch or two over five feet tall, she was a full head shorter than I was, and I loved to rest my chin on her head as we stood and hugged each other. She wore glasses, but they couldn't hide the beauty of her eyes, a light hazel framed by long dark lashes that needed no mascara. I thought she was the perfect woman. Even after we'd parted ways and I eventually married Gloria (who, it turned out, bore a striking physical similarity to Lynette), she was always in the back of my mind, and we had kept in touch. So, now that my marriage was crumbling, it seemed natural that I would turn to her for help.

She was a graduate student at a divinity school in the Boston area, and she invited me up the following Saturday. It would be a good time, because her roommate would be gone that evening, and we'd have the place to ourselves. I drove to Boston and was at her door by three o'clock. We hugged and she invited me up to her dorm room, where we chatted and "caught up" on each other's lives. When we got hungry, we went out to a local restaurant for dinner.

After we returned, the conversation naturally turned to the reasons for my visit. I described the problems with the marriage, the reasons why it might have failed, and my loneliness since the break-up. At some point, I began to cry, and she got up, sat on my lap, and hugged me. It was a curious reversal of the way our relationship started. Now it was I who was doing the weeping, and she the consoling.

At this point, it must have entered her mind that the best thing she could do for my bruised masculinity was to reassure me that I was still desirable to women. Perhaps she had also wondered what it would be like to bed me, after the many years of unrequited love. At any rate, I found myself being disrobed and led to her bed.

She stripped naked herself, and I could at last see the full beauty of the body I'd dreamed of for years. Her small breasts, with light pink areolas the size of nickels and nubbins of nipples, were at that moment the most beautiful things I'd seen, and I could not keep my lips off them. Her arms and legs were slender, her hips narrow, and her skin as soft as satin. I kissed her breasts, and then her belly, and then her pussy with its wisps of fine dark hair. She stroked my cock to hardness, and invited me in. I remember her reassuring me that it wouldn't hurt, since she was no longer a virgin, and that she was on the pill, so that I needn't worry about her getting pregnant. She also said that she was having trouble lubricating, and found some Vaseline to cover my cock with. Then she let me enter her, and all my virility seemed to come flooding back to me. I wept again, this time for joy, and she held me as I wept.

I cannot say that I was much of a lover that night. I was half out of my mind with grief and loneliness, and it was she who was guiding me, and not I guiding her. I can only remember cumming with alarming speed, without taking much cognizance of what her state of arousal was. I was not making love as a sane man should, but as a man drowning in turbulent waters, desperate for a helping hand. She didn't climax, but she said that it was all right, that it was my state of mind that was important that night, not hers.

The next morning, we made love again, a little more relaxed this time, and then went out for some breakfast. At a nearby variety store, she bought me a pair of thick knee-length socks, saying that she'd found them comfortable. "Your feet were cold last night," she said. "Think of these as me, keeping you warm." I kissed her and then drove home, happier than I'd been in months.

But any fantasies I'd had about continuing the relationship were destroyed when we next met. It was at her parents' house, where she would be staying over the Christmas holidays. I would drive over just after New Year's Day, stay overnight there, and drive her back to Boston. When I got there, I found out that she'd just had a huge argument with her parents, who were dead set against her decision to become a minister. Her nerves still on edge, she took me aside and explained that what had happened the last time we met was something that was never going to be repeated. It had all been a big mistake, she said. She saw no future in our becoming lovers. Yes, I could remain a friend, but it would never go further than that. We had reached the point where our lives would diverge forever, because our destinies were not the same.

I was heartbroken. With these few words, Lynette had taken me back to that awful night when Gloria asked me for a divorce, and the blackness had descended for the first time.

I didn't tell her how shocked I was, since I wasn't at that point even ready to admit it to myself, and I didn't want to add to her level of stress. I mumbled something to the effect that it was all right, that I understood, that I was perfectly happy to let it happen the way she wanted. I stayed the night in the guest bedroom, and then drove her back to Boston the next day. I dropped her off at her dorm, drove back to North Granby, and had a nervous breakdown.

I went to bed, and didn't get up for two days. The phone would ring, but it seemed to have no importance to me, so I did not answer it. I watched the morning sun come through the shades of my bedroom, turn into afternoon sun, then fade to dark, while I lay there motionless. For the first time in my life, I felt absolutely alone.

After a while, though, I came around. I started eating again. I answered the phone. On my days off, I would go down to a small river that ran by the farmhouse, where I read Saint Augustine and Teilhard de Chardin and George Gurdjieff on the sunny riverbank as the waters burbled and the bees buzzed around me. In time, and in the peace I found sitting by the river, I found myself able to forgive Lynette for the trauma to which she, in all innocence and with the very best of intentions, had inflicted on me. I still could not bring myself to see her again; I couldn't assure myself that her presence wouldn't send me once more spiraling downward.

We kept in touch, mostly through mutual friends, and it was from one of them that I learned that she'd begun a serious relationship with a minister. Later on, I heard she'd gotten married, whether to that person or another I never learned. Many, many years later, I heard that she'd gotten a divorce and was now single again, an ordained minister leading her own congregation in Richmond and active in inter-faith organizations.

My own path led me to Europe, and then to the Midwest, where I married again. My wife gave me thirty wonderful years and three beautiful children before pancreatic cancer took her from me. In the months following her funeral, my thoughts turned again to Lynette, and I fantasized now of going back to the East Coast and tracking down the church where she worked, just to sit in the pews and observe her, without letting her know that I was there. I wanted to see if she was happy. But I was still reluctant to meet her again in the flesh, because I didn't know if, even after thirty-five years, I was strong enough to handle the emotions I knew would storm through me. And above all, if she was happy now, how would my presence do anything but threaten that happiness?

I was soon to find the answers to all these questions. It happened like this:

Not long ago, I was reading the newspaper when my eye happened to catch a story about an upcoming religious convention in Chicago, not far from where I lived. I had just retired from a civil service job and had a lot of time free, so I thought about attending it. It was to be a large-interfaith production, featuring speakers from all over the United States, representing all the mainstream faiths. As somebody who had always been active in my own church's interfaith program, I decided that this might be worth looking into, so I continued to read.

If I hadn't kept reading the story, I would never have come across her name, but there it was: Lynette. She would be representing her church and speaking on the interfaith coalitions in her town and the work they were doing.

My mind was in a swirl. All the memories of our relationship came back to me, all the joy, all the pain, all the disappointment. Most of all, it was the feeling that something had been left undone and unresolved. I had so much to say to her, yet no way to say it.

I attended the conference. Sitting in the back, I listened to Lynette's speech. She hadn't changed much, except that the additional years had put about twenty pounds onto her body and some gray into her hair. Her glasses frames had changed, too, from the "Granny glasses" so popular in the seventies to a contemporary European style that somehow made her look more scholarly. But she still obviously had the fierce intelligence and the grace in her movements that had endeared her to me. The eloquence of her speech left the audience spellbound, and when she finished, the applause was thunderous.

I made some inquiries about meeting her, with an aim to perhaps taking her out to dinner. But when I asked the conference staff, they told me that it was impossible. Schedules had been worked out long in advance, arrangements had been made. "Well, then," I asked. "Is it possible for me to at least get a message to her?"

A man whose name tag identified him as "Mr. Beckner" said that he would try, but that there would be no guarantees. If I could provide a letter of introduction, he said, that might smooth the path a bit. It was obvious that they were trying to protect the conference participants from undue exposure to people like the ones picketing the conference center outside, with placards denouncing the presence of Muslim and Sikh delegations at the conference. It was amazing how an event focusing on religious tolerance could provoke so much intolerance, but there it was.

I went to the conference center's office and bummed a large plain manila envelope from one of the office aides. I had brought with me the letter that Lynette had written for me, which she'd personally calligraphed with a careful and graceful hand on heavy paper. I took it out of my briefcase and slipped it into the envelope. I sealed it and wrote Lynette's name on it, along with the number of my cell phone and a note: "Text me if you can." Then I sought out Mr. Beckner and gave him the envelope. "Here's that letter of introduction you asked for. I'd be very grateful if you could get it to her."

"Very good, sir," he replied. I'll do what I can." With that, he took the envelope and disappeared down the corridor.

Well, that's that, I thought. If she wants to contact me, she has the information. If, on the other hand, she wants nothing more to do with me, then she can keep the letter, and I can close that part of my life forever. Everything was now up to her.

I attended a few more lectures and seminars, and when the day's events had concluded at about eight, I checked my phone. No messages. I went to a nearby restaurant I knew, and had dinner.

I gave my phone one more check. And there it was, a single message, which read: "10 PM Rm 1207 Hyatt Pls come"

I stared at the display and blinked. She'd gotten the envelope. Now it was up to me. I'd made the first move, and she'd responded. Did I have the courage to follow up on it? Was I ready for what I would find?

There was only one way to find out. So I made my way to the Hyatt, which was only a few blocks from the restaurant. I entered the lobby and rode the elevator to the twelfth floor. Room 1207, down and to the left. I arrived at the door and knocked.

It opened, and there she was. She was wearing a loose wool sweater and knee-length skirt, exposing a lower leg covered in black nylons. She wore no shoes. She stared at me for a moment, taking me in, recording the changes that thirty-five years had wrought in me. We hugged, carefully. I could not read the message it conveyed. It wasn't passion. It might not even have been warmth. It suddenly occurred to me: she's as nervous about this reunion as I was.

"I got your envelope at eight, right after the last seminar. I ended up chairing it, and they didn't want to interrupt me. I opened it, and there was the letter, and I didn't know what to think. I thought, where did this come from? How did you get it? And then I realized that you were the one I gave it to ... what, forty years ago?"

"About that. It's good to see you again, Lynette. Thank you for the invitation."

"How could I not? It's been ... thirty-five years? ... since I last saw you. Come in, have a seat. I have this bottle of wine. Room service. You can't believe what they charge for it, and the Church isn't paying for it. But I figured that this was a special occasion."

There was a sofa and an easy chair in the room. I took my place on the sofa and watched her as she, with the grace I'd known so well, eased the cork out of the bottle and poured us each a glass. Then she sat down on the easy chair, and we chatted. She asked me to fill her in on my life. Eventually, we got around to that day at her parents' house, when we said goodbye to each other.

"You know," she said, "I don't think I ended that well. I'm sorry."

"No need to apologize. You did the best you could. I don't think you knew how fragile my state of mind was. I didn't want to let you know."

"Fragile in what way?" she asked.

So I told her about the nervous breakdown, and how she had precipitated it. I told her about the long days of reading theology on the banks of the river, of my gradual re-conquest of my soul. I said that I was there not only to renew our friendship, but to test myself, to see how much I had really healed from the pain she'd caused me.

She didn't say a word. She sat on the chair, legs pressed together, hands clasped on her lap, leaning forward. She stared into my eyes as I spoke, never looking away or down, as if she wanted to catch every nuance of my facial expressions. When I paused, she nodded, as if to ask me to go on. When the whole story was finished, I sat back and we regarded each other in silence.

"I didn't know," she said finally. "You told me about how you recovered from your divorce through prayer and reading and meditation, but I had no idea that it was really me you were recovering from. I'm so sorry. I really didn't know."

"Of course you didn't. I didn't tell you. Would it have made a difference if I did?"

"Maybe. It was so long ago. I don't know. I remember telling you that I didn't want to be your lover. I do remember that. I remember your reaction. I recall that you didn't seem too upset over it. I thought it was acceptance, just the usual disappointment of a man who realized that he wasn't going to get into my pants after all. Now I realize that it was shock that made you so quiet about it. Believe me, I didn't know how hard the blow was to you."

"I wanted to protect you, Lynette. Remember those times you sat in my lap, in that very room, and cried about how lonely you were? I felt your pain, more deeply maybe than you knew. I didn't want to bring you more."

She was quiet for a moment, and then spoke again. "In retrospect, I remember how mature I seemed to be at that stage of my life ... how mature I thought I was. But in many ways, I was still a very young, very silly girl. If I'd been more experienced, I might have caught the signs. It's odd ... I've done many, many sessions of counseling for my congregation, and I've learned so much over the years about relationships and how they go wrong. If only I'd known then what I know now!"

"I gather that your history of relationships wasn't that smooth. You got married, had a divorce..."

"Oh, that. Yes, I did. Talk about being young and foolish! I fell for a minister in the first church I worked at after my graduation. We had a wonderful courtship, and we got married, and were expecting a baby when I found out that he'd been having affairs. Not just when we were married, but when we were courting, too.