I touched his knee, that’s all. It happened accidentally, quite innocently. I leaned forward toward the driver, Trevor, to make a suggestion, he spun the steering wheel, the tiny Fiat swerved and I reached out to get my balance.
My hand landed on the knee of the tall, blonde, handsome executive crammed in the back seat next to me. That’s how it started.
By Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres
What did I write for Alan that wasn’t meant for anyone else’s eyes? What am I willing to share with you, now that he and I are divorced?
The other side of me, the side you don’t know. The erotic side.
Before the birth of The Diary (and of the Vixen Divorcee), I wrote stories intended for Alan’s eyes only. Stories of sexually explicit fantasies based on places he and I visited during our days of marital bliss. Stories the likes of which will never appear in the pages of The Diary. Stories I’m willing to share with you privately, now that he and I are divorced.
Yours could be the first eyes other than his to read one of these elegant fantasies.
One sunny morning in Paris, as my ex-husband Alan waited on the landing outside our apartment for the elevator, our neighbor, Mariele, joined him. He was dressed in a t-shirt, running shorts and running shoes, so she said the obvious. “You’re going running, aren’t you?”
He said, “Yes.” That was that.
A week later, they shared the elevator as he headed upstairs after his run, all
sweaty and stinky.
“You run a lot, don’t you?” she said.
“Almost every day,” he answered.
This was in the late 1980’s and we were spending 4 years living in the French
capitol, thanks to Alan’s employer.
The next week, out on the landing, she said, “My husband Gérard runs, too. Almost daily.”
The following week she said, “You and Gérard should run together. He doesn’t get as sweaty as you do. Maybe you could get him to work harder.”
Alan running the streets of our quartier of Paris.
You’re on the brink of a nervous breakdown. Your long marriage and settled life lie in broken bits at your feet. No amount of glue is going to fit that mess neatly back together.
What do you do?
Join the Y.
Seriously.
Or a gym. Or a yoga studio. Or a dance class.
Put down that glass of wine. Turn off the TV. Get up off the couch. Move. Get those endorphins going.
The first time in my life I ever joined a gym was a couple months after I initiated divorce
proceedings. It’s one of the steps that saved my sanity.
Can you pick me out in my Zumba class? I love this class.