Category Archives: Romance

Kissed by Hundreds of Men

Posted on by

The night hundreds of men kissed me was also the night I slept in the bed of one of the wealthiest men in the world.

Both adventures descended upon me as a college student from the American heartland.  Far from home for the first time, my long legs, barely covered by tiny skirts and black tights, carried me confidently through the streets and into the lecture halls of Cambridge University.  For my short life, my family’s love and the courtesy of Midwesterners protected me.  Now, while my open gaze, wide gestures and long strides may have bemused the residents of this university town, their sense of class consciousness and button-downed reserve protected me just as effectively.

Continue reading →

The Subject Was Tattoos

Posted on by

That’s what we were talking about, sitting at the bar, sipping our beer, Ben, my suitor of the moment, and me.   But, as conversations often do, it veered unexpectedly.

The bartender was the catalyst.  Of course, he was tattooed.  Aren’t they all?  Our waitresses, waiters, bartenders, don’t they all sport permanent body art?

This bartender’s right arm was branded with a single word spreading down its length.  Surrounding it in random patterns were cross hatches, as if he were keeping score; sets of four vertical parallel lines,

 

each set with one diagonal line crossing over it.

Continue reading →

Time to Take Your Own Advice, Georgia

Posted on by

“Time to take your own advice, Georgia”.  That’s what Brenda said when she showed up at my door one recent Sunday morning.

Eons ago – well, make that six years ago – I showed up at her door with the latest issue of The Atlantic Monthly clutched in my hot little hand. )  A foolish, weak man had tromped on her aorta big time.  That wound needed major suturing.

Why did I think The Atlantic Monthly held the cure?  Because the cover article was one of their  thoroughly researched delvings into a topic, this one being the science and psychology behind the matchmaking processes of Match.com  and EHarmony.

I handed the magazine to her and said, “ I’ve read this article.  If I were single, this is what I’d do.  How about giving it a try?”

Continue reading →

Fog Thick With Song

Posted on by

We were so happy, the three of us, perched on our rock outcropping.  The simplest of elements scattered around us added up to our happiness; a few empty bottles of Harp, crumbs from a package of Dubliner cheese, the last few slices from a loaf of fresh cottage bread, a couple of apple cores, blooming yellow gorse and fog.

The thick fog obscured any view of the Irish fishing town of Kinsale below us, or any glimpse of the sea spread out to the south.  It enclosed us in our companionship.  Just the three of us, we sturdy hikers, had reached this point.  No one existed but us: Alan, my husband; Reggie, our long-time friend; and me who still, in 2005, occupied that sweet spot of treasured wife and valued friend.

Continue reading →

Close Encounter at the State Fair

Posted on by

Only when I’m with Bennett.  I swear these things only happen when Bennett and I are together.  First, we stumbled on a John Philip Sousa concert in small town America.  That’s when he decided things happen around me (see Adventures Happen).  He also decided he wanted to stick close.  To experience more, I guess.

Now it’s the State Fair.  Our State Fair is the best state fair in our state.

State Fair movie

No, this is not Bennett and me. He’s not quite this good looking. This is Ann Margaret and Pat Boone in the 1962 movie, State Fair.

Continue reading →

Walking His Dog

Posted on by

His dog greets me first, one of those leaping, tail wagging, friendly animals, golden retriever, I think.  Oscar is his name.  Happy as can be, wants everyone to like him.  What is it they say about dogs and their owners, they’re a lot alike?  Couldn’t be truer in this case.

His owner stands at some distance, by the river bank, phone to his ear.  Doesn’t smile, doesn’t wave, doesn’t acknowledge me at all.  “This isn’t a good start.  Not like him at all,” I think as Oscar and I while away an uncomfortably long time

The phone finally goes into his pocket as he heads in my direction.  He stops further away from me than normal social convention dictates.  No welcoming hug or kiss on the cheek or even a hand shake.  Totally out of keeping with the way I’ve seen him greet other women, the safe ones; the beaming smile, the warm embrace.  But this has been the unspoken rule between us, no physical contact.  (Read Toying and In the Circle of His Arms.)

Continue reading →

So Much Love

Posted on by

So much love.  So much love lost.  Where did it all go?

I’m driving home alone after a long summer weekend with friends.  I draw up beside a pair of young rebels flying down the pavement on a motorcycle in the lane next to mine, defying the law that requires that they wear helmets.  Her girlish arms wrap around his waist, her mouth presses against his ear.  His head tilts back toward her, his mouth opens in laughter.  Her sun-streaked hair flies out behind her.

I know them.

I know them well.

Georgia and Joe; they are the ghosts of my young love and me the summer after my sophmore year at college.

We streak past tall pines crowded thickly together along the side of the highway.  My windows are rolled down.  The scent of balsam fills my nostrils.

We slow down as we drive through the towns with French and Native American names; names that caress as they slip through my lips, names that translate as, “The Lake That Speaks,” “Translucent Waters,” and “The Breathing Hole of the Gods.”

 

Continue reading →

Kidnapping Men

Posted on by

Okay, I’ve done it.  I’ve bent them to my will; taken what they had and used it to meet my needs.  I’ve kidnapped them

Twice.

The first time was on a rainy night in New York City.  Have you ever tried to find a cab on a night like this?  Impossible.

Alan (my former husband) and I were newlyweds, bar hopping in the Big Apple with Marius (see Valentine’s Day Two) and his current squeeze, Pamela.  We were trapped in Soho, miles from our final destination.    Drops of rain fell on our shoulders, on our hair and dripped off our noses as we watched full taxis pass us by.

Drastic action was called for.  I took it.

Like Claudette Colbert in the movie It Happened One Night, I edged away from my companions, slid one foot off the curb and manufactured some wardrobe malfunction that required sliding my skirt high up my thigh to fix.

Clark Gable is looking at Claudette Colbert just as Alan looked at me as I fixed my own manufactured wardrobe malfumction.

Continue reading →

In the Circle of His Arms

Posted on by

The door opens into an almost empty room.  Wednesday night at the Rec Room (remember this spot from The Cougar Pack?), and only a few drinkers are seated under the fluorescent light of the bar.  The dance floor is empty; truly empty with  bare board walls, scratched and dented tables pulled together in the center of the room and a lonely deejay lost behind  his equipment, spinning his discs out into the void.

We head toward the deejay, and my companion asks, “Do you have any swing music?”

“Swing?  What’s that?” the deejay asks.

“Oh, you know, you must know, ‘50’s and 60’s rock and roll.”

“Like Elvis Presley?”

I say, “Yep, you got it, Elvis Presley.”

My companion looks at me, scrunches his face up and says, “I hate Elvis Presley.”

“I don’t like him, either, but if it gets us danceable music, who cares if it’s that silly old Jailhouse Rock.”

“I’ll look,” says the master of the music, while he puts on a tune by The Byrds.

It’s a cheek-to-cheek number, so I head for a table and pull out a chair.  After all, the rule with this companion is that we never touch each other (You met him in Toying).  He’s married, so this is the deal.  No swaying slowly to the music, no cheeks or anything else pressed together.  Not with this guy.  Not about to happen.

Continue reading →

Yes and No

Posted on by

On a perfect Sunday afternoon in June I bike across the city to the park.  Life is good.  The world is full of happy people holding hands, pushing kids in strollers, soaking themselves in the spray from fountains, amusing themselves with the fanciful art.

I have everything to make me content; a comfortable bench to sprawl on, a cold lemonade to sip and popcorn to munch.

My bubble of contentment bursts when I spot him striding across the plaza, headed right in my direction.  Chet, the guy I broke up with months before (Breaking Up is Hard to Do).  Chet, holding hands with a woman, both of them beaming.

Continue reading →