Trojan Horse

Marriage is more than a contract. It's because you're not just a possession that loyalty, trust, and purity matter. Love involves respect, and respect requires trust, or at least some kind of consistency. That in turn requires a goal other than the "maximizing my happiness in the moment right now" that he had seen with Gwen. Love is sacrifice, and the sacrifice is made gladly because something greater is created, a union of people which involves honest trust and belief in the goodness of the other, and therefore that they should thrive alongside oneself.

As he started into the water, Randall realized the final lesson of this debacle, which was that the mistake was all his. He trusted language, specifically language uttered by a parasitic sociopath with a pathology of self-pity, instead of trusting his heart, which had doubts that he did not yet know how to recognize. The Gwens of the world try to configure their lives so that external events and objects force them to do the right thing, but the only way to really get right is to have discipline and love in the heart, neither of which Gwen possessed.

"Fish biting?"

"Not really, but they're keeping me entertained."

"You have a good one, buddy."

He stared into the water again. His life had taken a much different path after he burned everything down. He destroyed his home, his possessions, his business, and his standing in the community, but in the end Gwen sent over the divorce papers according to the post-nup that she was afraid not to sign. She started out thinking she could force him to want out, but by becoming the beast, he forced her to want out, and then he took full advantage of her confusion and escaped the suffocating, toxic marriage.

Randall recalled a statistic that only 6% of arranged marriages fail, while over half of all marriages -- many on their second, third, or fourth try -- failed. He should have always asked his grandmother for advice. When he hung up on that phone call, he couldn't stop himself, and he hugged Tricia. It felt good, but his penis stayed flaccid. At that point, he found himself in a different world, so to speak, than the one in which movies, music, books, friends, and even parents told him love was found.

"Why don't you two young people go get a cup of coffee? Heloise and I need to talk strategy," his grandmother said, pushing a couple dollar bills on him. He raised his eyebrows to Tricia. They took the work truck, both having been completely stone sober for their acting debut. Tricia pushed his hand open and checked the two slightly musty dollar bills there. "She's from a different time when this would have bought a night of coffee," Randall explained.

"She really loves you," said Tricia.

"My grandma? She's wonderful. Survived a world war, Great Depression, and loss of the husband she hoped to see every day of her life. Watched her kids and now grandkids make mistakes. She's always trying to just nudge us back on course. I don't know what I'd do without her."

"It's an odd name, Randall."

"Just go ahead and say whatever's on your mind. Just kidding. It is an odd name. My Mom picked it out of a book, and when I didn't grow up to be like the character in it, I think she lost some interest in me. I couldn't measure up to the image. But you don't look like a Tricia."

"It's short for Patricia, my middle name. My first name is -- oh heck, I'm not telling you," she said.

"That bad, eh?" said Randall. "We're at my favorite caffeine bar here. Does this work for you?"

"I've never had someone ask that before. I think it's great. If you like it, it can't be all bad."

She thinks I'm a man of taste, chuckled Randall to himself. They both took their coffee black and dumped milk in it. "No sugar?" he asked her.

"If this were a book, it would mean that my character isn't sweet," she said.

"Or that you're sweet enough as is," said Randall. "Wait -- forget I said that, or you'll never respect me again."

The chuckle burst out of her without warning, without command. It was what it was, and had no other meaning. The spontaneous response even surprised Tricia.

"Your friends never call you 'Pat'?"

"No, 'Pat' sounds like an ambisexual or something. I want a girl's name, but not a girly name. I settled for 'Tricia,' but once I get my master's done, I may simply chuck all of these names and start over."

They talked for a few hours before he took her back home, but he found himself appreciating the wisdom of grandma again. Tricia did not seem like his "type," since he consciously believed that he should date blonde girls. Instead, she had honey-colored hair, evenly between brown and gold, with little highlights of red. She was tall, and he always liked women with high portability, and had a smaller bust and hips that he expected. Most might see her as mousy, but after she told him the topic of her dissertation, he saw no mouse therein.

"You seriously compared the Vietnam war to the Mongol conquest? Who were we, the Mongols?"

"No, the Chinese were. They wanted to make Vietnam a vassal state and rule it through a despotic but highly-efficient bureaucracy. Too bad for them that they did not realize that the Vietnamese Communists were first in favor of Vietnamese independence, and only secondarily Communists. They did as little of their homework as the CIA did."

"I can find no fault with it. In fact, it would make an interesting book."

She nodded. He continued, "But you didn't come out with me because you knew I was an English major."

"No, I went along because I trust your grandma," she said. "Well, that and..."

"And...?"

"And one of my friends works in California, and she saw the house you restored down on the island. The inlaid wood and intricate moulding, the built-in shelves, and all of those leaded windows. I know a lot of English majors, but very few who could also work with their hands, and stay in the right historical period."

"History was my minor. My longest paper compared America after the Civil War with Athens during the wars with the Persians. I think I got a 'B+,' mainly because I drew some negative conclusions about our future here. I figured I'd do better restoring old houses. That is a form of living history, staying with us today."

He drove her back to Heloise's house, a stately two-story with colonial columns. Uncertain, he simply said he would call her soon. She handed him a napkin on which, two hours prior, she had written her number.

("That's not a bad sign at all," said Langsal. "She knew you would want it after just a few minutes talking. There's more to this girl than meets the eye.")

Randall found himself conflicted because he felt no sexual spark. With Gwen, he wanted to tear off her panties and ravish her from the first time he saw her. With Tricia, he felt no sexual stimulus, but a weird confused feeling which said that if he did not call her back, he would feel like life lost some of its light. She interested him. Luckily for him, he was re-assessing what he knew of love at the time. Before his days on the boat, he thought love was like an obsession or rush, tied closely to sex. Now he felt the two were separate but perhaps converged.

He went back to the boat, an old Catalina sailboat he was in the process of restoring, on which he slept like a rock as the years of tension drained out of him. If you want to know what love is, he thought, love is giving up this life to live with some woman somewhere and make sure she has everything she wants. Shortly before he drifted off to sleep, he realized that he would need to get another phone, since Apple products were part of the fancy world of BMWs and Keurigs that he had gratefully left behind, and he wanted no link whatsoever to his past life and his failed love.

The next day, as he sanded wood and then rubbed it with a series of fragrant oils, he recalled his lovers.

• Violet, a little sex maniac who had inducted him into the ways of lust during his last year of high school, when they were both 18 and "technically" adults but still children in terms of self-discipline, thinking, and experience. He wanted to love her, but she made it clear that she was going to marry an artist and live in New York someday, so he let the relationship die painfully during his first semester at college.
• Anne, less of a sexual dynamo and more of a good friend, to the point where eventually they parted because the relationship would never really be exciting. They got along like a married couple who had already given up. He missed her sometimes.
• Natasha, or "Tash," who was the most sexually adventuresome, having had three-ways, gang-bangs, one night stands, and even BDSM experience. Sex with her was like homework, although exciting homework, but when the semester ended, she expected him to move on, so he did.
• Aubrey, seemingly a good match for his mind, but was reticent about sex, having had too many men (boys, really, at college) "dine and dash," so she was looking for something long-term. As a result she first was clingy, then dismissive, and seeing that as a lack of interest, he wandered on.

Gwen both impressed him as someone who could stay on top of the current trends in intellectual life, and a sexual dynamo that he hoped to enjoy for the next fifty years of his life. He saw their compatibility as if it were in a photo: his light brown hair and blue eyes matched with her curly blonde ringlets and light brown eyes, her advanced degree and aspirations in the medical field corresponding to his desire to be a professor someday, and their similar social groups, social status, and intellectual ambitions also lining up. In theory, she was The One.

He had no idea what to make of Tricia. She was about as sexual as a turtle and cared nothing for intellectual trends or high-profile careers. In fact, she stunned him on their second coffee excursion -- he hesitated to call it a "date" -- by saying that she didn't trust books much. "Learning is something that you do in your mind, just thinking about things," she said. "Books can tell you facts and opinions, but you can't make a life out of them. In fact, most seem to simply confuse me, leading me away from my own path, since I cannot follow the path of anyone else."

The sexual spark he felt with Gwen, Violet, and Natasha was missing; Tricia simply did not excite him sexually or socially. He found her ideas interesting, and liked spending time with her. On the other hand, he sure thought about her a great deal, and he felt like anything he said was an offering, hoping that she would think well of him for it. This in turn roiled his mind and stomach, since here he was again, using symbols and gestures to manipulate others. She didn't wear blue jeans, listen to NPR, or watch television. Her phone was five years old and cracked. She thought most academic theory was the ravings of ego-inflated idiots.

However, little about his new life excited him. He enjoyed working on old houses, hanging out on his boat, catching up with literature from a generation ago, running through the park, or hiking the many trails on the island. For the first time in his life, he felt self-sufficient. He laughed at the stereotype of the "strong independent woman who didn't need no man," but as he reflected on it, he was the male version, the autonomous male who didn't need no woman. Tricia felt it, too, and didn't push.

"So," she said, stretching out her hands to grasp his fingers. "We've been doing this for awhile."

"Coffee?" he asked.

She gave him a look that said to knock it off. "OK. I was never sure if these were date dates, or just... dates. You know, friendly."

Tricia flipped a lock of hair from behind her ear, looked to the ground, and then fixed him with a serious gaze. "Why do you sand the old wood on those homes?"

"Well, for many reasons," said Randall, glad for a topic that the male mind could identify. "I want to take off the old paint, prep the wood, see how bad the rot is, get ready for oiling --"

"Right," said Tricia, speaking from the realm where women -- being more intuitive, and less forward-looking -- reign supreme. "Multiple reasons. You're doing several things at the same time. So are we: we are out on friendly dates, but we're looking to see if there's something more there, and I'm asking you how it's going."

Randall paused. "Tricia, I --" he lost his ability to form a topic sentence.

"Well, it's okay if it goes nowhere," she said brightly.

"Tricia, I -- well. It's not going nowhere. I don't know where it's going. I'm a bit confused, but that's not unusual, since very few things are really clear and very few of those are worth spending time on. I can say that... I would be really sad if these stopped. I don't understand it, but I look forward to talking to you. It's weird, we've never even kissed, and, hunh, well, I, uh, really like seeing you. Whether it's a friend or not is up to you."

She envied men, Tricia realized. To live in such a world of ambiguities, and yet be at home there. "We're always going to be friends," she said. "Let me continue with the house metaphor. It's like having a good home, and adding on a wing, or adding central air or something. We can be friends, but maybe something else."

Randall looked at her uncertainly. "Like... dating?"

"No," said Tricia, and his heart fell. She cleared her throat. "Like seeing if you care enough to decide to love me, and then getting married. We can 'date' after that."

"Isn't that backward?" he said.

"No, it's dating that's backward. You get that little signal in your reptilian brain from orgasm, get washed in oxytocin and dopamine, and then you decide that you love her because she just made you ejaculate repeatedly. So you start going out, and any time you run into problems, she just spreads 'em and you go into la-la land."

"Oh," said Randall. "Like my first wife."

"Or my first husband," sighed Tricia, "but in reverse. I thought he was just the most amazing man, such an intellect and so physically strong, and so I thought I could snare him. I spread 'em, and as we were lying there in the afterglow, I thought we had an agreement. We were going to love each other. But to him, the deal was just for the sex. I had to sweeten the pot and urge him along. He did it, and we got married, but then after awhile, we just... fell out of love. Because we were never in love, just in love with an image."

Where men are slow at assembling details for implication, they are lightning quick at taking that knowledge to a conclusion. "Right, so you want to do it the other way: fall in love first, then worry about sex stuff."

Tricia nodded. "I could easily love you," she said. "It's a matter of letting myself do it, and exerting myself to understand you and appreciate you. Already I think you're one of the few men I have met who seems to have a solid head on his shoulders, and actually enjoys life enough to not see me as a mere trophy, tool, toy, or slave. But, you're not alone. I'm having coffee with six men, currently, and they are all exceptional, in their own way."

Randall found himself surprised at how much that disturbed him. "Six?"

"I've kissed none, and obviously gone no further. I have learned from my first disaster marriage, the years I wasted in dating. We're adults now. Adults get married, and have families. That requires stability, and love. My grandma Heloise always said that you should marry someone like you. Same religion, race, social class, ethnic group, politics, and from the same neighborhood if you could. You know, Heloise and your grandmother have been in love for years."

"Like lesbians?" Randall asked, shocked.

"No, like friends. They love each other as strongly as a married couple, and they depend on each other as much. There's nothing sexual about it. Sex is something you do when you are in love because it brings you closer and leads to family. You could do the same with knitting, like they do. They get together, talk, and they appreciate each other. Heloise would trust your grandmother with her life. How many people can you say that about in your life?"

"But sex is important," he said. "It's how you know you are important to someone."

"That didn't work for me," she said. "Sex is a symbol of how important you are to someone, but it's not the same as the real deal, which is enjoying spending time with that person when you're not awash in hormones and neurotransmitters. Your ex, did you like her? Were you friends? The sex took up all your time, and then you never got to know her. Trust me, I did the same with my ex. I too paid too much attention to the television, the radio, and what my friends said. I thought that all masculine men were hyper-sexual beings. Then I went back to what I know, history. Marcus Aurelius, Daniel Boone, Leonidas, George Washington, Arminius, Davy Crockett, Steven Austin... do you think they spent a lot of time in bed? No, they were out there doing things, putting their stamp on the world and looking at it and thinking, 'Darn, I did something really good today,' just like you do when you restore these houses or even play bad Led Zeppelin covers on that butt-ugly acoustic you truck around."

"You heard me singing, and you still came to meet me tonight?"

"Yeah, I went down to the boat, trying to get up my nerve to talk to you, but I couldn't," she said. "I needed more time. Time to recover, and time to organize my thoughts."

Randall nodded. "I accept your terms," he said. "I am going to assume that everything you say is correct, and act on that assumption, simply because I don't want to stop having coffee with you. Or talking with you. I don't want you to go away, and since it's not legal to kill those other five guys, I'm going to beat them."

Time rambled on as it always does. He liked living on the boat because he could pull up roots and move if the neighborhood went bad. Langsal told him the same thing. After loss of his wife, first career, and a child in the crossfire of a gang fight, he had no desire to be tethered to the land. Little men controlled the land, spreading their power through fear, he said. A real man takes to the sea, or finds another planet to adventure on, because whenever things get settled, the merchants and bureaucrats take over, dividing up nature and putting price tags on everything, then impoverishing everyone with taxes and insurance until soon the whole society radiates fear.

"You can feel it, out on the ocean," he said. "There's no fear. The background hum is gone. It's just you and eternity, big skies and empty nights, and you have to figure out your own shit by your lonesome, because no one is going to come along and give you entertainment, pussy, money, or legal papers to distract from the void within. You have to make peace with the void, because it's probably not really a void, and we're all going there someday and have to know how to navigate that stygian sea as well as the cerulean one we sail here on Earth."

Taking charge of the situation, Randall upgraded their coffee dates to a French bakery that served excellent rich coffee with real cream. It was quieter, with no collegiate-level indie-rock and trip-hop gyrating through the speakers, and people wore "real clothes," not tshirts and jeans. At some point, they talked it out and the decision was made to become exclusive with the idea of spending a year together to see if they were marriage-worthy.

Tricia surprised Randall by showing up at his boat on a Saturday morning wearing khakis and a light cotton shirt with a floral print. He could see hints of a sensible but stripped down bra under it.

"Let's go shopping," she said. She drove them to a grocery store. "Now imagine that I'm going to be having dinner with you all week," she said. "What do you need?"