R2

WOMEN 68
(a continuation of WOMEN 19 - http://nakedmeadow.blogspot.com/2009/06/r.html)

Working and living in New York was wonderful. I lived across the Hudson, in Jersey City. As i explored my new life, i often thought about the possibility of randomly meeting someone from my past. Three months after i arrived, i came out of the Port Authority Bus Terminal one night and began walking up 8th. I noticed something familiar about a person ahead of me. She entered a pharmacy, and i followed. She reminded me of R, whom i hadn’t seen in eight or nine years. I followed her to the back, in no hurry as it probably wasn't her, and there was no other way out. She finally turned her face. Her look when i quietly said something and gave her a huge hug, was classic. She was thirty now, pursuing her theater/dance dreams. Her relationship with the fiance of her youth had run its codependent course. We discovered we lived within a mile of each other - i had to take a bus to one of the biggest cities in the world, to discover my neighbor. An even bizarrer connection was soon revealed. After our first evening together, i walked her home. All that night she had made reference to her boyfriend, Johnny, describing him as an amazingly brilliant actor and hard drinker, a bit older than i, who had gotten a theater degree in Pennsylvania. His last name finally slipped out. Biehle. I stopped in my tracks. I spelled his last name. She nodded, surprised i had gotten it. I told her i was pretty sure she was dating one of my college theater buddies. When we got back to her place, she found a pic, and there he was. Bald, but him. It was the only time in my life (that i knew of) that two people from entirely separate pieces of my past had met, and become close. I hadn't been especially close to John (perhaps no one ever had), but i had a goodly amount of affection for him, and it was wonderful to see him again. R and i hung out together over the next year. She spent much time relating her misery over her almost masochistic, doomed-to-dysfunction romance. She worked as a personal trainer and was oft achy, so i gave her massages. These became an experience that was at once exquisite and nearly paralyzing. The sculpted body she had developed in the intervening years was thunder-strikingly beautiful. I had never been close to a female so like my ideal, a mirror of my own physique. Sometime during these months an attraction grew, which exposed any previous attraction i'd had for her as unworthy of consideration as such. The first time i worked on her naked back, the image seared my consciousness. The first time i worked on her gluteus, i wanted to live in that moment forever. And she had trouble seeing this beauty in herself! Remembering the cosmetic surgery she'd had as a teen, and knowing the state of mind that must accompany such a process (i was always apparently much more bothered by it than she), i had a bit of a mental block in finding beauty in her face. But i remember one night when her hair was just startlingly soft, and her eyes possessed a deep beauty that made me wonder whether i'd ever seen them before. Through all this, she continued loving Johnny with a completeness that he was constitutionally incapable of returning. So i kept my attraction to myself, until it became so pronounced that i felt dishonest not telling her. I did so, in a non-solicitous way. Somewhere in the mix of attraction and memories of my stupid, ill-motivated behavior of our earlier life, i came to a place where i was hers for the taking. I knew of course we had significant incompatibilities. She indulged in social drinking and makeup (i quickly found out that if i didn't want to be attracted, i just had to catch her when she was painted). Plus she had a huge hang-up with nudity. Bizarre thoughts came to me from time to time, such as horror at the thought of her offering a nose job to our teenage daughter, a rite of passage in her family. Not that i was rationally considering children, but...it was amazing to me that my desire was so overwhelming, particularly with the knowledge that she had been Charlie's lover a decade earlier, and now (disquietingly, though less so) John. I wanted to attribute my new attraction to maturity on my part, but that’s probably self-deluded bullshit, as dealing with a lover’s past can be an irrationally rocky shoal to navigate for most, apparently me included. One aspect of my feeling for her that filled me with happiness was that she was the first New York woman i was attracted to, over whom Vanessa’s shadow was gone. R acknowledged that she still felt desire for me on some level. I suggested that we share physical closeness without sex, as we had on that seminal night fifteen years prior. But she doubted her ability to stay in control. And she decided that her lifetime of romantic misses had brought her to a place where she never wanted to get in a relationship that didn’t have a foreseeable long-term future. A part of me felt i might soon be rationally happy that she'd been able to resist me, but but but…i wasn’t convinced we couldn't be good together. Anyway, she and John finally split, and she went to Missouri for a six-month show. A month or two later, she wrote that she was sexually and emotionally lonely. One unforgettable night, she sent two audaciously naked photos of herself (remember the nudity hang-up?), and asked me to come to Branson for a weekend, to be her lover. I said yes. The “vacation” aspect allowed her to rationalize it. Our sexual express jumped track when her tour ended prematurely. Once home, she was again reluctant to become sexually involved. But she was still raw from her Johnny experience, and probably would be for a good while. In that light, i thought my love and sexual healing (with no-pressure expectations) were just what she needed. She didn’t agree, and began aggressively putting herself out there, notably on dating sites. My massages became regular again. Her desire for me manifested again. She became fully naked with me for the first time (ever!). I began to give her the sexuality she wanted, but held back because she refused to be exclusive, and hadn’t been finished with John for a six-month period, which concerned me from an STD standpoint. There may have also been a tiny echo of our past in my holding back. But for three or four months, we shared some very intense and beautiful sexuality. I gave her marathon body-kisses, and discovered that the desire i'd had for Vanessa’s derriere was not an anomaly. In kissing R’s gluteal region one night, i was taken with the urge to explore her anal-lingually. It was a good thing i held back, though…doing so would have flipped her out (she loved my tushy-kisses, but cringed at the thought of anything anal). Her thighs were stunningly beautiful, though she thought they were too large. She had one of the most aesthetically-pleasing vulvas i'd ever beheld…crowning those amazing thighs, the most adorable little bush, and perfect lips. I discovered a mind-blowing sensation…after liberally spreading wet kisses all over her tush, i laid my penis in the moistened crack. A-ma-zing. We shared a goodly amount of genital contact, and one morning i came startlingly close to penetrating her from behind. She said she loved that position (particularly as a wake-up call), and told me she'd been desperate for me to penetrate her at that moment. Another time, i stimulated her to orgasm with my hand, and she was amazed, as other men hadn't been able to do so (too much direct stimulation turned her off). I told her it wasn't my skill, i was just along for her beautiful ride, but she wouldn't agree. Because of blood sugar issues, she sometimes became unpleasant, almost nasty, but i didn’t let it bother me. I discovered more incompatibilities…she needed a white noise machine to sleep, wasn't fond of receiving oral, and i had never known a woman so particular about when she did and didn’t want sex. She told me she didn’t fancy long sessions, she liked to come fairly quickly after penetration and be done. Which might have thrilled most men...but sadly not me. She said she could never see herself with a man who didn’t drink. But through all that, she inflamed me with desire…and sweet happiness when i held her. She imagined what it might be like to have a lover for a year, and find out whether her sexual satisfaction diminished. I wanted to be that guy. When we were together, being the person she could always count on filled me with a happiness it's hard to describe. One day she called to tell me she'd been injured at work, and couldn't get home alone. Coming into the city and getting her back safely, is one of my most precious NY memories. One rainy night, she had a blind date to go to, but before she left she lay down with me and told me a part of her was afraid that if she gave herself to me fully, i would ultimately go away. I’m not one for recriminations or second-guessing...but that’s one of the few moments of my life that i know i'd live differently if given a second chance. I would never, ever let her out the door that night. I would hold her, and not stop. And yet i can’t say that her fear was wrong...in too-close quarters, our incompatibilities might have gotten the best of us, and i'm pretty sure that loving R wouldn't have kept me from offering equal time to my dream woman, if she ever came along. R never understood why i seemed willing to settle for less than my dream woman, in being with her. My answer was that finding a sense of mindless peace and happiness with anyone in this broken world, is so, so very rare. It was easy for me, less trapped in the future than she, to perceive the amazing beauty we could live, were we able to just let go of ourselves. That said, i readily admit she might have been the “wise” one. It's not insane to say that desire was kicking wisdom’s ass, inside me. Then finally, she got her wish. One of her date sites produced a fellow named Eric. He was a drinker, and she wasn't afraid he would leave, and within four months they were married. He seemed a decent fellow. I was happy for her (with reservations, admittedly...i knew she wanted the fairy tale so badly she would hold on to the relationship like a bull mastiff, no matter what). Deep inside, i was a little ashamed at how i wasn’t able to let go of my desire…in fleeting thoughts i imagined him dying, so that i could hold her again. Because of that shame, i was content to disappear from her life when she revealed that he wasn't comfortable with me. I even "nobly" deleted those two amazing photos she had sent, as i returned to my lonely world. I never imagined that anything would keep us from being close always, no matter which way romance went...