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I've been married over half my life. Jerry and I are...contented. No stress at work; sex every Saturday night; I'm within three pounds of my desired weight; my youngest is on the honor roll and my oldest is captain of his football team. All is proper in my world, nothing unexpected, runs like a well-rehearsed play.
I lie in the darkness of my contented world and he eases into my waking dreams, like a ghost sitting in my closet waiting for lights out. He glides onto my pillow and offers himself to me a little at a time. I hear his words, his laughter.
"Hey, you've got a heart on." He laughs as he touches the plastic red heart pin I wear above my left breast, always wear with my white angora sweater.
"Yeah?" I don't get the joke.
"A hardon." He runs the two words together and laughs more at my innocence than his joke.
My memory of the sound of his laughter is clear like my memory of the sound of his Harley outside my dorm room window.
We bump along dirt cow paths at the foot of Humphrey's Peak and when we finally stop and the motor shuts off, we listen to the sound of nothing. He leans on the bike and I lean on him.
"Oh my God, look at the cows!" I jump at the sight of giant brown creatures in the scrub brush between two tall pine trees.
"Relax. It's just cows."
"Will they charge?" I bury my face in his chest. He laughs and I feel the laughter down the whole of my body.
"Will they charge?" He mimics. "Will they charge?"
I can hear his laughter, but I can't see his mouth anymore, haven't seen it for at least ten years. He had good teeth, a great smile. But when I try to recall that smile, I come up with my husband Jerry's teeth and Kevin Costner's lips.
As Steppenwolf weaves Magic Carpet Ride lyrics around us, I wish for a slow song and another kind of magic. When the stereo in the Student Union switches from psychedelic to the soft sounds of the Association singing Never My Love, he draws me in and kisses me.
I can't see his mouth but I can taste him.
"You wonder if this heart of mine will lose its desire for you. Never my love"...the Association's words fill my head. I am lost in his mouth. He tastes better than all the things I love: oranges, cinnamon, and apple butter. The sweet warm wet of his tongue tingles my taste buds.
The scent from the candle beside my bed floats in the darkness of my bedroom and I stop breathing so as not to disturb the faint aroma of patchouli.
Pine needles scrunch against my jeans as I sit cross-legged on the forest floor. I hold two sticks of patchouli incense while he touches the match to them. They flare and burn for a moment and I blow out the flame reducing it to a glow. A thin wisp of smoke curls up and feathers into the crisp autumn air above our heads. I rise and dance around him, encircling him with incense smoke. I dance until he reaches for me.
He must have been tall. His arms must have been strong and muscular but I don't know. I can't remember his arms, only his muscular thighs.
When we walk back to my dorm from the college library, we always stop in the dark alleyway between the science lab building and the Student Union. As we kiss his hips move rhythmically against me, his jean-clad thighs clasp around my leg. I don't know why he whispers "I'm sorry" as we finally break our embrace.
He slips from my pillow and lies beside me. I try to force an image. Blue eyes, blond hair, reddish lashes and now it's Robert Redford with Kevin Costner's smile, and damn there are Jerry's teeth again.
"This is... dedicated... to the one I... I lo-o-ove." The Mama's and Papa's sing to us. The month before Christmas break, too cold for the alleyway between the science lab building and the Student Union, we fog the windows of his friend's VW Bug.
"I can't." I play tug of war with my jeans. "I can't." I am almost a virgin. It seems like I should hang on to that.
"Then make me feel good." He pushes my hand to the bulge in his pants.
I turn my head on my pillow and tell him he was stupid to say that. What if he had said he wanted to make me feel good?
So...if I am still awake...if I still feel his presence beside me...knowing then what I know now, I rewrite the past. He says all the right things and I feel his Kevin Costner lips on my neck. I run my hand through his Robert Redford hair and I let him slip into my white cotton panties as I slip comfortably into contented sleep.
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