The first girl I slept with, Jasmine, was introduced to me by my friend Rob. She was a friend of his girlfriend. Rob lived with his mother and grandmother, and they were pretty loose with the rules around there. The four of us had a sleepover, Rob, his girlfriend April, Jasmine and I. We were given a pullout sofa downstairs to share, and when things started to get a little steamy she put the brakes on. I just don't know you well enough yet, she said. I respected that, so we spent the next couple hours laying there talking. As the horn-dog of a sixteen year old that I was, I then asked if she felt she knew me well enough and she said yes.
The experience was underwhelming, as were my experiences with the next two girls I slept with. I really questioned what the big deal was, why everyone was so obsessed with sex. Jamie #1 removed the mystery for me. Our relationship went through many iterations, some amorous, others not, but all of them touched us both deeply. When things between my father, his second wife and myself had deteriorated almost completely and the family courts ruled that I needed to find an adult to take me in or I would become a ward of the State, it was her father who stepped up and opened his door to me. After more than two years of being in each other's lives, long after I was out on my own, with others in between for both of us, we finally slept together. Despite the small sample size, I was convinced that being in love was what made sex worth pursuing.
I may not have understood what that meant, but I was sure that I'd know it when I felt it. After Jamie #1 and I broke up there was dating, there was fooling around. There were girls who wanted me and girls whom I wanted, though often they were not the same ones. There was no sex though, penetrative coitus. The whole idea took on a deeper meaning for me as I hit the road, my rucksack filled with religious and philosophical texts. After seeing my country, I wanted to see more. My father bought me a one way ticket to Paris and I landed in Europe with high hopes. Instead of the monasticism I sought, I found a home among a hardened and historically oppressed people. This was a twist that put my idealism in touch with reality in a way I had not anticipated. So when I left Europe for Alaska and met Natalie at the local coffee shop, I was ready to let go. She was tall and lean and soft and hungry for more than what her small town had offered her. Through her I learned that there are grades of depth of connection through sex. I didn't know what to make of it though, this grey area between everything and nothing. I was barely twenty-one. We stopped seeing each other and I hit the road again.
When I returned home, I met Jamie #2. She worked at a bookstore with both my mother and my friend W. She once described us as two puzzles missing the same pieces, and maybe it was almost narcissistic to love this female version of myself the way that I did. It was brief and intense and the shockwaves of its implosion reverberated for both of us for years. In the wake of that loss I slept with any young lady who'd say yes, but I kept the deeper parts of me to myself.
I had watched my parents' marriage fail, my father's second marriage fail, and I had lived through both Jamies. It all planted the seed that not only was Love unnecessary, but that it was a detriment. The emotions that came with that kind of love were temporary, they couldn't be what made a thing last. So I married someone who I loved in the sense that she was human, but not in the sense that I craved being with her. We said it was for insurance, and we tried to make it real, but with no children and no property the divorce was easy.
Then came Maureen. Rather, Maureen came back. We dated briefly in the wake of Jamie #2, but she wanted more than I could offer at the time. When we reconnected, it felt like it was what everything had built up to. An easy pragmatism with depth and intensity. However, her mother felt I wasn't good enough, and I didn't quite understand what was going on inside my head in the wake of that second motorcycle accident. Star crossed, or right place wrong time, I don't know how you'd want to describe it. I don't know how I'd want to describe it either, other than to say that a real thing of beauty was lost and destroyed. More than either of the Jamies or either of the ex-wives, this one lingers in my heart.
What came next was rampage, a small dose of insanity. I left my job, moved back into the city, and chased after every desire I had. I can't possibly begin to remember everything that happened those few years. Some of it I look back fondly on, some of it still produces a sense of arousal in me. I'm grateful that most of it was fleeting. It was an amazing time, with the third wave of feminism at its peak. It was so easy to meet each other as individuals and allow sex to be a vessel for connection. It could come, it could go, it could be.
The chaos of it all, not just the women, grew beyond my capacity to manage. I had dug myself a few holes and it wasn't worth the work to dig myself out. I quit while I was ahead and went back into the wilderness. After some months of floating around, I was given a mission. I didn't know what I'd do after that mission, but I believed it would become clear by the end of it. Sure enough, that's when I met my second wife. There's more to this part. There will always be more to this part, but no one has changed the shape of my life so severely.
Of the half dozen or so women I've slept with since, there was only one that I had any real connection with, and she was the first of them. She was waiting tables and I was giving myself the rare treat of a dinner out. I was sitting at the bar reading The Road. I was dreaming of a post-apocalyptic life with my daughter, dreaming of death. There was a spark, and I made the choice to follow it. We were wrestling with a lot of the same questions, deteriorated marriages, children who hung in the balance, very little in the way of support networks. We shared the cold darkness of a Minnesota winter. I think we helped each other find our ways back into the light. I know we at least gave each other some pleasure along the way.
My desires now are like embers. The occasional breeze heats them up, but there are no real flames. Like any good bed of coals though, a little fuel and a little care is all it'll take to bring the fire back to life.