The Sex Education of M.E.

by L. B. Dunbar

  “Don’t go,” he whispered behind me.

  “Merek, there’s clearly an issue here.”

  “I’ll get her to leave. Just give me a few minutes.” His lips brushed my neck, sucking lightly. “We need to talk. You and me.” I nodded in agreement. “But let me talk to her first.”

  I twisted in his arms and hugged him for assurance, uncertain if the need for comfort was from me or needed for me. I wanted to be understanding. We were adults. These things were going to happen. Even though I marveled at the youth around the fire pit, life had tolled forward, and we weren’t young any more. Kids. Homes. Exes. This was messy. These were going to be the norm of any man I met after Nate. I had to be compassionate. He kissed my cheek and led me back to the bonfire. Embarrassed at my attempt to leave, I avoided looking at my girls. Only Mitzi’s eyes were on me. Bree had disappeared, most likely to follow Jake. Merek’s voice was the sharpest I’ve ever heard as he called out his ex-wife’s name and nodded toward the house. For the briefest second, I almost felt sorry for her. The seconds passed quickly, but time seemed to stand still.

  The minutes rolled over slowly while I waited for Merek’s return. At the twenty-minute mark, I stood to excuse myself again. It was obvious that Merek and Janice needed more time, and waiting made me edgy. After I passed the side door, I heard it open. I shouldn’t have looked.

  Turning I saw Janice exit the house followed immediately by Merek. He buttoned up his shirt. She smoothed a hand through her hair.

  “As always Merek, it’s a pleasure to see you.” Her voice rolled over the -ure and my stomach roiled. She placed her hands beneath her breasts and pushed them upward as if adjusting them.

  “Janice.” His chin dipped dismissively as he completed buttoning his dress shirt. I stood still, unable to draw my eyes away.

  Janice leaned forward and kissed his cheek, then intentionally turned in my direction. Her sharp blue eyes set my feet in motion and I yanked the gate free of the latch. I didn’t stop as I raced for the sanctuary of Gia’s home. Gia followed me, as I cursed myself internally. I’m too old for this shit. Why am I running to Gia’s? The truth was I couldn’t have made it home fast enough. Gia’s was a safe haven and she wouldn’t let Merek step one foot into her house with her children nearby. Unfortunately, her children ran wild in the streets.

  “Just don’t say anything to me,” I blurted as I slammed her bathroom door. I’d trapped myself. I was a rational, educated woman and I’d locked myself in my best friend’s bathroom, hoping that the night would just end. Sliding down to the floor, my back braced against the door, my head fell forward and I slipped my hands into my hair. I closed my eyes but instantly opened them after picturing Merek in compromising positions with his ex-wife. I’d read about this — relationships that continued despite divorce. The chemistry was still present. Their history built a familiarity. Shared hatred for one another actually flamed the passion.

  My head thudded back and the door rattled.

  “Emme, let me in.”

  My head shook back and forth, regardless of the fact he couldn’t see me.

  “Emme, I can explain.”

  Are there any worse words?

  Emme, I can explain, Nate’s voice drifted into my thoughts. Oh, Nate. I shook my head again. Even the apologetic tone of Merek was similar. Merek could explain. Men can always explain, my mother would say sarcastically.

  Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. This was my own undoing. I couldn’t keep my legs clamped shut. You wanted this, the words of Gia rang in my ears. Not this. Not this rollercoaster of a ride. Not this feeling of unworthiness. Not this sense of being pathetic.

  I didn’t move. I would ride out the night on the floor of Gia’s powder room if I had to, but I wasn’t opening the door.

  “Emme, I gotta pee.” Gia’s son Sam’s little voice whined through the wood. Thud, thud, thud went my head against the door.

  “Go upstairs, Sammy,” I muttered.

  “I can’t. Mommy says Sarah’s up there.”

  Damn, Gia. She’d stop at nothing, using her kids to pry me out of her bathroom.

  “I really gotta go, Emme.” His voice whimpered. Standing slowly, I opened the door to see Merek hand Sammy a dollar. He was quick. Ready to slam the door again, he pushed it open and entered the small space with me.

  “We need to talk.”

  The lipstick on his collar said it all to me.

  Women. Damn it, they were impossible to figure out. This is why I didn’t date. This is why I didn’t do relationships. Women were complicated.

  I wanted to break Janice’s neck regardless of her being the mother of my children. Then I was going to wring Emme’s for jumping to conclusions. With a shaky hand dragging over my face, I took a deep breath. It was a mistake. In the tight confines of the bathroom, all I inhaled was Emme. Summer and bonfire. She filled my head.

  “Look, just let me explain.”

  “That’s never a good start.”

  The comparison to her dead husband was present between us. A history that didn’t involve me. The avoidance of her eyes let me know I was correct.

  “I’m not him,” I stated and her head snapped in my direction.

  “No, you aren’t.” Her eyes roamed over me, and what should have made me feel dirty, only turned me on. I wanted to take her on top of the pedestal sink. I wanted to bury myself inside her until she saw reason. She was for me.

  “Janice is not Janice Whittington.”

  “Oh my God,” Emme sucked in a breath. “This just gets worse.”

  “Yeah, well, welcome to my life. Janice is Cassie and Jake’s mother but we never married.” I had her attention suddenly.

  “When I was twenty-one, and stupid, I came home from college, got drunk, and fucked a girl from the neighborhood. A one-night stand produced a baby, and I didn’t want to run from my responsibilities. She was only eighteen. A high school graduate fresh out of school. I was fucking stupid.”

  Rubbing a hand over my head, I took another breath. Emme’s eyes were aimed at the floor but she listened.

  “My dad got me in the department before you had to have a degree as a requirement. At twenty-one, I was a newbie and a father with a woman who didn’t love me. I tried to make it work. I was willing to marry her. She refused, but she lived with me. It was a nightmare, not a dream come true. We fought constantly. She drank. She ran around. I was nothing but faithful to her, for the sake of our baby. One night we had a huge fight. I threatened to leave, and take Cassie with me. She begged me to stay. She promised to change. When she got pregnant with Jake, God forgive me, I wasn’t even certain he was mine. Then I saw those eyes. My eyes peered back at me, and I knew I couldn’t continue the way we were. She left me before Jacob was one.”

  Emme sighed, her eyebrows pinching in that curious way.

  “Twenty-two years that woman has tormented me. She fooled around. Got drunk. Had a nervous breakdown. And I tried to take her back, but I reached a breaking point myself. The women started when I was twenty-six. It was easiest to have one-night stands and walk away. I couldn’t risk the kids getting close to another woman. I didn’t want to risk myself either. Fucking MatchMe.”

  “Random women were getting old. MatchMe was organized but women were looking for the love of their life. That was their tag line: We’ll match you for life. I didn’t need that. I decided I’d find my own way. Everything was fine. Fine,” I spat.

  “But you came along, all bright-eyed and I-just-want-to-have-sex, and I didn’t want you to be doing that miserable random hook-up shit and wading through all the creeps on MatchMe who care nothing about a life match.” I reached out for her, resting my hand on her neck. “You wanted the ride and I wanted to be the driver.”

  “So it’s my fault?” she questioned softly.

  “Yeah, it’s your fault,” I laughed. “No whips. No chains. Jesus, Emme, I just wanted to tie you up right then and have my way with you, and then you let me. You came to me,
willingly, and I reacted to you like none other. Once wasn’t enough. It wasn’t going to be enough.”

  “What about tonight?” she interrupted.

  “Nothing happened. She wrapped around me, kissed my neck and started unbuttoning my shirt. She does this shit when she’s drunk. She’ll disappear and the kids will be a wreck. I thought I’d be done with this crap when we moved. Damn Cassie, for calling her.” My hand came down on the pedestal sink behind Emme and she flinched. Our bodies were close, my arm trapping her, but we were a million miles apart. I could see in her eyes that she wanted to trust me, but she couldn’t. And while it hadn’t been my fault that she didn’t trust, I couldn’t change her mind. Some wounds go deep. I knew. I wanted to love Janice. It’s what I thought I should do. The honorable thing to do, considering I’d knocked her up. Janice threw that in my face. As if it was my fault alone. She didn’t even try to work at a marriage. She fooled around. She carved out my heart and crushed it. It took years of random hook-ups before I came across the first person to revive me.

  “That’s a lot of baggage,” she commented.

  “Well, I just unpacked everything for you.”

  She remained silent, and it was the exact reason I didn’t share all this shit with women. It was too much. Single father jilted by woman he never loved, but tried to. Man with two kids who he’d throw his life in front of the L for, if their mother tried to take them. Only one more year before Jacob was legal and I could finally rest easy. As adults, they could make up their own minds. Jacob already had, but Cassie, she still struggled. She couldn’t come to terms any more than I could with the fact her mother didn’t want to be her mother. It was always best to just keep all this private.

  With other women, I could pretend I wasn’t who I was. They were never going to get close enough to know me. I didn’t date. I hooked up. Maybe a few crossed the line into fuck buddy status, but none went further. No one became a friend with benefits. It only complicated things. Life complicated things. With Emme remaining silent, I’d reached the end of my fuse.

  “This is why I don’t get involved. It’s too messy.”

  “Earlier you said you wanted to get messy with me,” she said, finally looking up at me.

  “I do. But…but maybe it’s not worth it. I told you everything. There’s nothing between us now. You need to listen to your heart for a while, not your body.” I pushed off the sink. Her brows pinched with hurt.

  “Because inside that amazing body is a heart that’s beating for more than just sex. I know it, and you know it. My heart,” I pounded my chest. “It’s finally beating again. And I’m ready for more, but not like this. Not with hesitation and speculation and distrust. I’ve already been there, and so have you.”

  Her head whipped back and she blinked.

  “Listen to the pulse of your heart.” My finger tip-tapped her chest over her left breast. “Before you listen to any other part of your body.”

  Too often I’d listened to the wrong part of mine, and her silence proved, I’d done it again.

  Merek’s words stung, but they were true. My heart could not close off what my body yearned for it to. Whether the emotion was unadulterated lust or just magnetic attraction, the fact was, my body wanted Merek’s. But so did my heart. He left me standing alone, uncertain of everything. When I finally had the courage to leave the powder room, I found Gia and excused myself. The walk home was only a few blocks and I needed the solitude.

  There’s a certain peace at night, sort-of like grocery shopping after ten PM. The world is quieter. The streets emptier. My thoughts were rabid, though. All I had wanted was sex, a thing you can’t do alone. The concept of masturbation doesn’t qualify. It isn’t the connection you get when you are physically intimate with another person. Gia would say some women prefer to get off alone. I didn’t understand that belief. It wasn’t that I couldn’t be alone. It was that I didn’t want to be. I wanted to feel the thrill of a man entering me. I longed for the touch of another’s fingers, the discovery of what I liked. I enjoyed the sensation of a warm tongue opening me. I couldn’t do any of those things on my own.

  Then there was the deeper connection. Not the idea of being joined as one, but the simple things. Holding hands. Tender touches. Hugging. You can’t do any of those things alone, either. It’s a natural need for contact with another person. It wasn’t in my nature to not be affectionate, but for too long my affection had gone to my children. I embraced them. I held their hands. I tickled their necks. But that was never the same, never, as the link between a man and a woman.

  Merek was correct. As much as I denied wanting deeper intimacy, I lied to myself. I craved it. It was easier to brush off the need, because my husband was dead. What other man was going to give me those things? Who would want to hold my hand? Who would touch me tenderly? Who would hug me late at night? My own husband hardly did those things. Why would another man? My self-pity did not run deep, but my self-deprecation did. It had been conditioned over years of not receiving such kindnesses.

  Any person can have sex with another person. I wasn’t fool enough to dismiss that idea. A primal need for that satisfaction could be fulfilled with any man and an imaginative mind. Fantasy is a great escape. But those baser needs were not fictional. They were a reality unreceived, and while I felt ancient, damn it, I was still young enough that I deserved such attention. I’d put in my time. Twenty years. I was ready to take back the person I truly was, for no other reason than that I deserved it.

  The next morning, I woke up completely renewed. As a professor, years don’t run cyclical, but by school calendar. August was my January and I determined to begin this year anew. The first step was exercise. While I didn’t faithfully follow it — who was I kidding, I didn’t follow it at all — I decided I would walk at least three days a week. I could do this. Preferring the outside, I’d do it as long as I could before I was forced to use the indoor track at the university.

  Donning my gym shoes, a work-out skort and a t-shirt, I hit the forest preserve trail by my home, and turned up the tunes on my iPhone. The brisk pace refreshed me and I was in a good groove under the cover of fully-leafed trees when I saw a man running in the opposite direction. I knew how I’d respond. I’d smile politely, say good morning and continue on with my day. But as the man drew closer, there was a familiarity about him that I couldn’t ignore.

  Merek.

  My pace slowed. There was no way to avoid him. We were the only two on the trail and he’d spotted me. I could run for the trees, but that would silly, not to mention, my shirt was hot pink and I’d stand out wherever I tried to hide. Merek stopped abruptly and walked the few steps that separated us. He had sweat rolling off his body. It should have been disgusting, but it was strangely hot. Jealous of a bead that caressed down the side of his face, I swallowed back the ache inside me.

  “Good morning.”

  “Hey,” he replied. We stood for a moment in silence, awkward, and unfamiliar, as if we were strangers.

  “I didn’t know you ran. I mean, of course, you run. Look at you. I mean, I’ve looked at you, but…” Closing my eyes, I inhaled. Could the verbal vomit not start? I was nervous, when I shouldn’t be. I’d seen this man naked, but that’s what made me nervous. We’d hardly spend time together clothed.

  “Do you walk here often?”

  I laughed. “That sounds like a pick-up line.”

  “I wasn’t trying to pick you up,” he deadpanned, and my heart fell to my feet.

  “Oh … I …” I brushed a piece of hair behind my ear.

  “Where are you headed?” he asked

  “Just to the end of the trail and back,” I offered, my finger working harder on that wayward piece of hair.

  “Mind if I walk with you?”

  “Weren’t you going the other way?” I paused. “You’re clearly trying to get in a work-out and I’m not a runner.”

  “Emme, if you don’t want me to walk with you, just say no.” He dropped his tone. His hands
came to his hips as he looked away.

  “I …” Yes. No. Maybe so. “I’d like that.”

  He lifted the edge of his shirt and wiped away the heavy sweat on his forehead. He twisted to face my direction and we fell into step next to one another.

  Is it strange that I’m okay with silence? I typically am, but the need to speak gnawed at me.

  “What are you listening to?” His head inclined to the phone.

  “Oh, Sam Hunt. My kids are trying to convert me to country artists.”

  “Ever been line dancing?” he laughed.

  “Merek, you know I don’t dance,” I stated. My breath caught after the comment.

  “Maybe we need to change that,” he said quietly. His eyes forward and his jaw clenched; my heart leapt with hope. As we neared the end of the trail, Merek noted that a coffee shop was up the street.

  “I don’t drink coffee.”

  “What?” He nearly shrieked like a teenage girl. “That is sacrilegious. I can never see you again, if you don’t like coffee, woman.”

  “I didn’t realize you were going to see me again,” I offered, teasingly.

  “One can only hope.” We fell silent waiting for the crosswalk. Cross the street or stop. A metaphor flashed in my mind.

  “I could still walk with you, if you want to grab a cup.” I nodded in the direction of the coffee shop, and Merek held out his hand to lead the way.

  He sipped the black brew slowly as we retraced our steps back through the forest preserve. We chatted minimally, ignoring topics like his ex-wife and my deceased husband. He mentioned Cassie enrolling at NEU for the next semester. I mentioned Mitzi would be starting her senior year, and we’d begin the college decision-making process.

  “Ah, to be young again,” he sighed. I smiled in return.

  “If only I’d met you sooner,” he shrugged. We neared the end of the path, and I ached at the thought of walking away. Our time together seemed rather final.