The Awakening

The Awakening
Most boys go through a phase of hating girls, but I never did. Even in kindergarten I had a girlfriend. And throughout my youth, I watched in exasperation as girls on whom I had a crush would reject me as “too nice” or “You're like my brother” then turn to a boy who ignored them except for sex or as trophies. As a teen, I would hear conversations between these boys describing all girls as “bitches” who were beneath consideration, useful only for sexual release. I was tempted to emulate them just to get a date, but that behavior was as alien to me as armed robbery; I couldn't do it. In college, I finally got some attention, perhaps because I was on the track team, but even then I felt they were more interested in my status than my personality. It was long time before I gained confidence to just be myself, something I couldn't help being anyway.

In my early thirties, I was sure I'd found my soul mate, and asked her to marry me. We seemed very happy, had a fantastic and romantic sex life, and enjoyed each other's company. But after a week of consideration she turned me down. In retrospect, it was the right thing for her to do; we'd have wound up divorced and unhappy, but at the time my heart was shattered to dust. Instead of getting married, I veered toward the uncharted world of being unattached. After getting over the shock of rejection, I was determined to see if by just being me I was desirable to women, but refused to consider monogamy again. Instead, my objective became to date as often as I wanted, whomever I wanted.

As a single man, I became an enthusiastic practitioner of polyamory. Getting dates with beautiful women was surprisingly easy; about 3 out of 4 women I asked out would say yes. And even before we first held hands, I would tell them openly: “I am not looking to settle down, get married or even fall in love. I'm not dating anyone exclusively, either. I just want to hang out, have a great time, and if you're cool with that then let's go!” Surprisingly how well honesty worked; the vast majority would acquiesce. I could be having a meal at a restaurant with one woman and another could walk in, but there was never a problem. Occasionally a woman decided that she didn't want to do it anymore, but it was no problem. I might miss her, but there were always more women around to take up the slack. And since nearly all of them were available at my beck and call, I assumed they weren't seeing anyone else.

At my apogee, I was dating up to seven women at once. Not in the same evening, naturally, but it wasn't unheard of for me to leave one woman's arms and head to another's. One time, just to see if I could do it, I made love to four women in a 24-hour period. After leaving the last woman's house, rather then feeling drained or exhausted I felt exhilarated and energized. These women weren't whores or floozies by any means: one ran an antique store, one was a grade school teacher, another was a podiatrist, and so on. All of them were bright, intelligent, articulate, loved sex, and were bored by the other men in their lives. That's where I came in, again and again. I got what I wanted: variety in conversation, plenty of great (and safe) sex, the panacea of new relationship energy on a regular basis, romance, and a plethora of wonderful dates. And they got what they wanted: an honest and respectful gentleman who would wine and dine them, whisk them away for jazzy weekends, hold their hand when they were sad, laugh with them when they were happy, and of course all that great sex.

Then came one day when I was having lunch with my roommate, a man who like me also spread himself thin among women. As a sportswriter for a wire service and a former sports star in college, he picked up plenty of slack after the pro games. As we sat at the table, he described this woman and that woman, anguishing over the faults of each. He was on the search of perfect woman, “The One”, and it took little for him to push each woman away after a few nights with her. She had to be perfect in every way, his ideal woman. As he told tale of this rejection and that, it occurred to me that this man, 10 years my senior, was still living the polyamorous lifestyle, but was using it as a method to find his One True Love. It was then I realized that I didn't want to be in my forties, continuously chasing women and still dressing and acting like I was a teenager. My turning point came one Friday night in bed making love with one of my girlfriends; for a few moments I honestly couldn't tell which one she was! This was when settling down became a viable probability.

One by one, I let the women go, each one as gently as possible. My subsequent relationship became monogamous, and it lasted a volatile ten months. The lovemaking was breathtakingly superb, but our weekly arguments could last for hours. Among other things, I made the huge mistake of telling her of my polyamorous past before discovering her jealous streak. As a result, she felt threatened by nearly all my female friends and acquaintances, regardless of if we had been lovers. After the sixth or seventh breakup, we decided that assuaging our loneliness with fantastic sex wasn't a definition of happiness for either of us, and it wasn't basis for a serious future together. So I returned to the search. The very next woman I dated became my wife.

Our sex life as a married couple was fantastic for about 3 years, but then the lovemaking slacked off from thrice a week, to twice a month, then even less. I tried talking to her about it, saying I felt deprived and anxious, but my protestations fell on deaf ears. The most response I could elicit was, “I'm too tired for that,” or “You just have a higher sex drive than me.” The latter response was especially discouraging, since any lovemaking that occurred happened from my own advances. Once I went for a whole month without once mentioning sex; neither did she. She dealt with the issue by simply refusing to discuss it. If I brought it up, I was met with silence. I began to feel unattractive, undesirable, even a bad lover, and a life of celibacy becoming a probability. Since she wasn't getting any sex or even conversation around the topic, she considered the problem solved.

This unhealthy pattern continued for years. We even tried counseling, but that tanked when the counselor took my wife's side and began shooting me disapproving looks and tones. A good counselor never judges her clients; we must have picked a bad one, but we never returned for another session and I lost confidence in the process. My wife was never enthusiastic about discussing our intimate problems with another party anyway, so we returned to being dead in the waters of sexual fulfillment.

Throughout all this time I stayed studiously and determinedly faithful to my wife. I did get hit on occasionally by other women, but would always just flash my wedding ring. I felt a sort of smugness at being approached by the very same kind of woman who rejected me years ago; now it was them yearning for me. Perhaps it was the appeal of forbidden fruit. After a while, though, it became increasingly difficult to maintain fidelity to my otherwise considerate but now all-but-unresponsive wife, especially since I was receiving all this unsolicited attention from appealing females. What was I saving myself for? It wasn't as if I was getting attention at home.

The whole situation became untenable one day when I took my wife to one of the smaller Hawaiian Islands for a week's holiday. It was intended as a romantic getaway from the trials and stresses of home, no distractions, just the two of us. We never walked on the beaches or visited a garden, never joined a luau or went to hear music. And we never once made love. As the end of our vacation drew near, I expressed my concerns that our love life was dwindling away to nothing and her lack of desire was sentencing me to a life of de facto celibacy. Her response was denial, then defense, and finally resignation—as usual. So that evening at sunset I took a long walk down to the sea and strolled barefooted down the powdery sand, considering my three alternatives. One option was resignation to celibacy. The second option was to seek a divorce for irreconcilable differences. The third, and the one I chose to pursue, was to find a girlfriend. My frustration at no longer being permitted to express my sexual side was at the boiling point, but I wanted neither a divorce nor did I want celibacy. And besides not being able to make love, I was frustrated in not having a partner with whom I could just have fun. Having a girlfriend could change all that.

While contemplating the sunset over the pounding surf, I saw a jeep drive up to the parking lot next to the sand, and a bare-chested, barefoot man hopped out. Without a moment's hesitation he jogged toward the waves and dove in. Using powerful strokes, this man swam out about fifty yards, then turned and headed toward the point. In my mind, he was carrying the burden of my frustrations with him, to dump on the sea floor far away. And with that I decided: sometime in the near future I would find a lover for myself. A curious side effect of my resolution was a lessening of tension at home: since I no longer sought sexual solace with my wife, the entire subject was dropped from our interactions. Our home life became affable again.

Over the course of time I considered how to conduct an affair. What sort of woman would be the right girlfriend for me? I knew I wanted someone who was attractive, honest, even-tempered and intelligent, sought my company, and enjoyed making love at least as much as I did. Offers arose once in a while, but something told me not to move on them—either they carried too much baggage or were otherwise high-maintenance. No matter how beautiful a woman was, if she seemed too edgy or emotionally unstable I wouldn't go for her. Also, I held out on the notion that I could still get my own marriage back on track. This pattern of yearning and inaction continued for 3 years.

Then late one night after work, I was at a party (my wife was at home, as usual) with some new friends, a group of actors on tour with a traveling Broadway show. It was the last stop on their tour and we were all relaxing at the home of one of the local stagehands, with whom I struck up a conversation. This attractive, athletic, and soft-spoken woman seemed attentive and kept touching me to make a point as she looked into my eyes. I took a chance and assumed she was interested. We chatted quite a bit and discovered we shared many of the same tastes in music, art, politics, etc. During our tête-à-tête, I invited her out on a coffee date for that week to get to know each other better, which she accepted. Then I mentioned my marital status. She seemed surprised, and then a wave of sad resignation crossed her face. She insisted that she didn't want to get involved with a married man, and I told her I respected that. But we kept chatting, alone in her kitchen while the others partied into the night.

As the party broke up and everyone retrieved their coats and hats, I hung back a bit, pretending to leave with the others. At the door I made sure I was the last person at the door, then remembered my hat I'd purposely left behind. She ran upstairs to get my hat, met me in the hallway and we conversed a bit more.

I stood on the hallway stairs, one step below hers, as she handed me my hat while smiling into my eyes saying she needed to get to bed. The second time she said it, I bid her good night, thanked her for a lovely evening, and held out my arms to hug. Our embrace seemed to last a long time; she was in no hurry to let go. Even when I loosened my hold a couple of times she kept her arms snugly behind my neck. Then I gave her a quick peck on the cheek, and that's all the encouragement she needed. She leaned her head back and met my lips with hers in a long, slow, and lingering kiss. We must have necked standing up in that silent, dark hallway for at least 30 minutes. My hat fell to the floor, but neither of us noticed.

A flood of emotions charged through my mind while we were making out. The main feeling was: what am I thinking; I'm kissing another woman! I'd been 100% faithful to my wife since we'd been dating, and now here I was kissing another woman, passionately. According to my upbringing and acceptance of societal mores, I should have felt guilty or at least empty inside; instead I sensed delight and a simmering passion raising my temperature. What a wonderful feeling, being held with ardor and clutched with a sensuous eagerness, by a woman who wanted me! It had been so long since feeling a woman caress and kiss me like this. We finally broke our embrace and, with much reluctance, said goodnight with a promise to see each other soon.

Driving home at five in the morning, I saw an aurora of violet on the eastern horizon—dawn was approaching. The city was beginning to awaken. I wasn't in trouble with my wife; I was often out that late and had called her earlier to check in. But I kept thinking back to the woman's kiss and why I kissed her back. It was reassuring to know that even after all this time a woman could find me attractive and still want to be with me sexually. Again, I tried to find some guilt in my mind, but instead found a relaxing calm and contentment. I didn't feel like a cheater; if there were any cheating going on it would have been over all those years of being deprived of lovemaking. Curiously, I still felt no negative emotions at all; rather I felt great. The passion and enthusiasm of years gone past was returning to me, awakened from its long sleep. As I pulled into the driveway and parked, I was surprised to be feeling no nervousness at all. Instead, a warm rush of affection and tenderness toward washed through my mind. My sexuality, hard and dusty from years of slumber, was softening into its vitality of years past. Along with the city, I was awakening too!

That one make-out session with the stagehand was the only encounter we had; unlike me she woke up with a serious case of the guilties and declined to see me anymore. Rejection was distressing, but not for long. I knew now I could find satisfaction without guilt outside of my marriage. And I decided that now was the time to indulge my passion with the energy that had been rejected for so many years. The next time I touched and kissed a woman, it was with the wordless bliss of my youth, no longer scared or nervous.

Over time, the subject of EMRs cropped up in the course of conversations between my wife and me. I've been careful to be agreeable and humorous in my opinions without getting personal, and we now discuss the subject freely if not frequently. I'll never tell her, though, of the night of my awakening.   ©