Cyber-love Affair (cont'd)
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We awake together in a tangle late the next morning with the sound of water dripping from the dense bushes onto the heavy, wet ground. We stay in bed until mid-day, telling each other our stories of failed love and listening to the rain come and go. We keep exploring each other by the day's light, getting acquainted with our new smells, finding more hidden place to kiss and touch. We finally get out of bed and she takes a bath while I read the paper naked in her kitchen. Clinton embroiled in scandal. Iraq to be attacked. I don't care. When she finishes, I shower and change. Coming into the living room, I put my arms around her waist from the back, my hands covering her breasts, and kiss her neck. She turns her head in profile and a great wave of sadness suddenly rolls over me and I feel my heart plunge as if from a great height. I am taken by surprise but the sensation is completely clear. My reaction is to say nothing. What was that? What good could come to speak of it? Then I realize that all through my marriage I had been reluctant to tell my wife how I felt, especially when I was sad, for fear of hurting her. Now I speak up: "Marci. Marci, listen. I don't know why, but suddenly I am feeling very, very sad." She turns quickly toward me, pulling away at the same time. "What's going on?" she asks. "What's the matter?" "I don't know," I say, feeling that perhaps I'd rather not know. It's like seeing a long tail disappear down a deep hole. I don't want to chase it into the darkness. "I just felt it come over me, I don't know why." She kisses me then moves away to sit on the couch. She sits there without speaking. I look at her and ask, "What are you thinking?" "Nothing," she replies. But I can tell that isn't so. Her mouth is different and I can tell she is troubled. "Tell me," I say. "There is something there." "Damn," she says. "A man who can read me. You must have known that by telling me this, that it would change something," she continues. "I love that you were able to tell me how you felt but I was so happy and then you pop this on me, right out of the blue. Didn't you know how it would make me feel?" I tell her that I have decided that I am going to try never to lie in a relationship again, and that includes not saying something I felt, even if it might seem hurtful. We would both have to live with it. "Don't you have any idea what it is?" she asks. "The only thing I can think of is what you told me on the way from the airport," I say after a moment. "That you were actually older than you had written in your profile. I think it bothers me that you didn't tell me the truth before I came here." On the ride to her house, she had turned to me while we were stopped at a light and said, "I have to tell you something. I'm older than what I wrote in my profile. A lot older." She had put herself in the 51-55 age category. "How old are you?" I had asked. "I'm actually 61," she told me. A pang went through me. I hadn't expect everything to be perfect, but I hadn't expect this either. We drove on in silence. "Let me explain," she said. "If I had put my real age down then only men in their 70s would have called me, and they're all so, so set in their ways. You can't talk to them about anything and they won't try anything new. And I feel so young! It's just not fair." She began to cry. I understood why I hadn't recognized her at the terminal. The woman in the photo looked as if she was in her 30s or 40s, but this woman who smiled at me was older, much older. The photo was high contrast; all the gradations, all the wrinkles, all the age had been washed out. "I'm sorry," she had said, after a while. "I should have told you before." Now all I could think was that it just felt so sad to be there in that little room, sitting on that same couch. After a night and a morning of touching and kisses, of caressing and sharing of stories, of sleeping the night in each others arms we felt apart, almost like strangers who had wandered into the same room by mistake. "Damn! Damn! Damn!" she hollers. "I can't believe this is happening to me! It's always been so important to me to be absolutely truthful in everything. Integrity is the most important thing in my life." She begins to cry again. Her cats look at her, bothered and skittish. "I've put a lot of hard, hard work into myself over the years, committed to self-discovery, wherever it led," she cries. "I know myself extremely well and I swear this is an anomaly. This is not what I am like. This is the only thing I've ever done like this." She is really sobbing now. I hold her until she stops shaking. She pulls away. "OK, OK," she says, slowing down. "Listen, I'm sorry, so really sorry I didn't tell you sooner. Let's go take on the day." We have some coffee and something to eat and gradually the melancholy mood leaves us. Even though it is still a little foggy, the sun seems to be trying to break through and we decide to go for a ride in the Los Angeles Hills.
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