FEAST OF MEN

by Ayn Dillard

  “Of course, I didn’t. I was putting my clothes on just a moment ago and you called to me to come out of the bathroom. You interrupted me from getting dressed twice by asking that I come out. Okay, what would you tell your daughter to do in this situation?”

  “I’d tell my daughter, when the man comes over to see you before he goes away for six months have your damn clothes on. Then I’d tell her to wait and live her life, but that the man will be back.”

  Hearing him say this in his stressed and angry tone of voice, I begin to cry as I can’t control my emotions any longer. Boyd’s lying on the bed looking up at me and I’m sitting beside him crying. I ask, “Am I making a fool out of myself Boyd, because I feel very uncomfortable?”

  In a loving tone, “No, you aren’t making a fool out of yourself. Only Natalie, you’re scaring me.”

  “Scaring you? Why?” as I reflect—what does he think all this is doing to me? Talk about scared.

  “Because I’ve got to get out of this marriage with no problems and when you called me this morning it scared me. You’ve got to promise that you’ll never call me again.”

  Hearing this makes me burst into tears even more—as it seems as if he’s trying to erase our love and our week together. Logically, I know he’s trying to erase all signs of us in order to get out of his marriage clean and easy. Only logic’s not where I am just now, as emotion has taken over my brain. “Then are you going to call me?”

  “No. I’m not going to call you. I can’t call you. We’re going to have to be totally apart for six months.” He responds firmly.

  “No?” I’m crying uncontrollably now and Boyd’s staring up at me with a hurt and terribly stressed expression.

  He responds loudly, “I can’t call you because I’ve got to get out of my marriage as easily as possible.”

  “Then I’ll not wait for you!” I shout, then cry hysterically.

  “What? You won’t wait for me, Natalie?”

  “I won’t. I will. I don’t—don’t want us to be apart. Why should I wait, if you won’t call me? This is breaking my heart, Boyd.”

  “I know, Natalie. Believe me, I know. It’s breaking my heart, too. We’ll see each other again on April 21st, six months to the day we met, but not before. We’ll not even talk on the phone. It’d be too difficult for us. I couldn’t handle it and I want you to promise me, you’ll not call me—no matter what. You can’t call me. This past weekend, thinking about all of this was horrible. I can’t have you on my mind all the time, function and get through what I’ve got to get through in these next six months. I’ll go to flight training in March and they’ll be firing questions and I can’t have you on my mind. I can’t get done what I’ve got to get done and have you on my mind. I can’t run the risk of your name turning up on the caller ID and have my wife suspicious, then accuse me of having an affair. I’ve got to get out of this marriage as easily as I can. At my age, I have to think about my job, my pension and my investments. I’ll be retiring in six years and need to plan this out perfectly to keep what I have intact. She’ll come after everything. Do you understand, Natalie? You can’t call me under any condition, no matter what. Promise me Natalie! I can’t have anything go wrong in this divorce, financially or otherwise. My children are the most important things to me. You’ll not be as important to me as my children. Nothing will ever be as important as my children. Nothing will come before my children ever!” His voice becomes louder and more stressed with each word.

  I can’t believe what I’m hearing. After the way he pursued me, now all this talk about his job, pension and children. I state, “What? I won’t be as important to you as your children?!”

  “No, nothing ever will. You women come and go.” He makes a disgusted face. “My children will be with me forever.”

  “Boyd that’s twisted because you don’t love a woman the same way you love your children. If you do it’s a distortion for the children. Your children are important, but I’m just as important. One’s not more or less than the other. The love is different. You don’t make comparisons this way because it’s warped for everyone involved if you do.”

  “No Natalie, if you have to have open heart surgery, there better not be an ‘Indian Princess’ weekend, or too bad for you!” He laughs as he teases to lighten things up.

  “That’s so sick. I am sure I will love your kids, but I’ll not come after anything or anyone.”

  “My kids are just very important to me. Also remember, I have two more sons in Seattle.”

  “I remember everything you’ve told me and I want to meet your children to look at them and see you in their faces.”

  “My youngest son looks just like me but my daughter looks more like her mom. My sons in Seattle want me to come up to see them. I don’t even know when I’m going to get the time to do so with all I’ve got going on.”

  I feel a disturbing kind of torment enter me. He looks so worried, but I am not taking second place to anyone’s kids and what did he mean by—you women just go away? I continue to cry. Unable to stop my tears, both our hearts are breaking and all I can do is cry. I feel like such an idiot while Boyd’s laying on the bed looking up at me. And I’m sitting beside him looking down at him, while I cry.

  “Promise me. Natalie, promise me. You’ve not promised me that you’ll not call. It’s worrying me that you’ve not promised me this.”

  “I promise! I do promise. I wouldn’t do or want to do anything that could or would hurt you in your divorce. You know that, don’t you? You do know that?” Talking through tears, “I’d never do anything to hurt you, Boyd. I love you.”

  “I love you, too. Yes, I know you wouldn’t intentionally hurt me, but you’re scaring me. You scared me this morning when you called.” Chuckles, “Okay, was anything crossed when you promised? Show me your hands. Were your fingers crossed?”

  I show him my hands as if I were a child as I laugh through my tears then we laugh together through our stress. Boyd looks at my hands. “Good! Nothing was crossed.” As I think, it’s pretty darn evident this man has children. Give me a break—were your fingers crossed? Only he succeeded in breaking the tension forcing me to laugh which is what I love about him. He says something ridiculous and I laugh.

  I state, “I’m not going to boil your bunny. I’m the ‘wifey’ one, not the Glenn Close type. You know, in that ‘Fatal Attraction’ movie. I’d be Anne Archer not the other one. This whole situation’s distasteful to me. You were the one that came onto me, I didn’t come onto you. So, what’s going on here? I’m feeling uncomfortably dirty.”

  He looks at me full of adoration, I bend down and kiss him and he kisses me back.

  I say, “I understand by what we’re doing today and by what we’ve decided that you know me and understand. It would not have worked to do this any other way.”

  Boyd replies, “Yes, I know you Natalie. We’ll give up six months of our life to have the rest of it together. Okay, let’s pretend that I’ve gone off to war and there’s no way for you to get in touch with me. No better yet, I’ve gone to the moon on a mission. Yes, that’s it—to the moon. You can’t see or hear from me for six months. I’ve gone on a special mission to the moon and taking Stallone and Schwarzenegger along because I’m not all that strong. They’ll be running interference and helping me survive. I’m smaller and they’re in better shape, all those muscles—you know? So always know, I’m in good hands.”

  His stupid story is releasing my tension. “Is it really difficult for you to leave me?”

  “Natalie, the only thing more difficult than this was when I left for Korea.”

  We begin to hug and kiss, he pulls me down beside him. Then it’s all over. We begin kissing passionately. Our energy together is electric as we kiss and explore each other’s bodies. It feels utterly incredible, kissing and touching then we pull away and talk, but then begin kissing again.

  He inquires, “Baby, should we be doing this? Is this wise? Won’t this just make things more difficult
?”

  I reply, “Perhaps, but I want to be close to you and feel you close to me. Remember, they made love in the movie, ‘Love Affair’ before they separated. She took his hand then the movie camera panned to the boat which means they made love in movie language.”

  “Okay yeah, they did. You’re right.” As if it happened in the movie, the movie that we’re using to plan our strategy, then it’s okay—giving us the go ahead to make love. Stressed and hurting, we need to be close. This week has been torture. We’re looking for any reason to justify us going ahead and being closer, wanting—needing—looking for anything outside ourselves to give us permission to express our love through each other’s bodies.

  A blur of loving electric energy surrounds us. Our energy together is magic. As if we’re merging together as one, not only our bodies, but on all levels that could ever exist in the universe. Involuntarily, overwhelmed I scream out. “I love you!”

  “God, I love you, too.”

  It’s as if we’re making love into our very souls—physical sensations intensely incredible and as if time stops and we’re out in the cosmos somewhere with our magic connection that compelled us together so quickly and feels like always was and forever.

  I look up at Boyd as he’s looking down intensely at me and mumble. “Why aren’t your eyes closed?”

  “I love looking at you. Looking at you gives me a great amount of pleasure.”

  “Oh.” I mumble feeling his adoration.

  I soon realize my Captain Prince doesn’t have an erection. He’s certainly giving it his best airline captain try, but no thumbs up. He’s so stressed my poor darling. I behave as if everything’s fine, while there’s another part of me worried and even laughing a bit at the irony. After all his romance, it’s a no go. Is it stress or is it broken? I’m reminded of Richard with all his romancing and professing of love for me then his periodic erection difficulties.

  “I’m sorry, darlin’. All this must be too much for me.”

  Kissing me all over my body, he pleases me orally. We hold onto each other tightly as our electric energy encases us in a cocoon of intense pleasurable love. If I die now, I’ll know what it feels like to be fully loved and connected to a man. Even not having an erection, he’s certainly good enough at everything else, but surely this isn’t indicative of a continuing problem. If we’re this connected after what we just did, full intercourse will be out of this world. Our circuits might explode.

  Eventually, I get up and go into the bathroom to freshen up. I want to look half decent when we say our final farewell, as I reflect, ‘Um—that was wonderful but a bit weird at the same time’. Boyd comes into the bathroom behind me. Turning towards him, I sit up on the bathroom counter and my robe falls open. We begin kissing passionately. It feels so warm and right to be in his arms.

  We begin our love making again while I’m sitting on the counter, practically in my bathroom sink. We turn to see our reflection in the surrounding bathroom mirrors. We look great together—my long dark hair and his silver, white and gray. He’s tall and I’m small with my legs wrapped around his waist and with my white robe falling open around my shoulders. We look like the cover of a romance novel. My bathroom is wall to wall mirrors and it’s exciting to see our reflection in every way we turn as we kiss. Boyd’s also watching our reflection—we laugh in excitement. We’re certainly vain people, but who cares! We complement each other physically and the reflection is quite beautiful and erotic.

  “Wow, you have beautiful legs Natalie. Let’s go back to the bed darlin’.”

  I feel as if I could stay in this man’s arms forever. Except even with all these romance happenings, things still aren’t coming together like ‘God damn magic’ for the Captain. I feel his frustration and embarrassment as he tries to become ‘manly’ for me. I chalk it up to his stress level and am certain to behave in a manner to save his face. Men are so sensitively vulnerable when this occurs—I remember back to Richard as I worry, oh not again. These men have many similarities.

  Then the inevitable arrives, it’s time for Boyd to pick up his daughter at school.

  “Baby, I’ve got to be going. I must be there when my daughter gets out of school.”

  Boyd dresses quickly while I put on my robe. We go into my bathroom to brush our hair and straighten up. I am aware again of our vanity as we look at ourselves in the mirror. We look at ourselves then at one another. It’s obvious we think we’re attractive singularly and together. “Boyd, we’re both certainly vain. We’re both romantic, full of adventure and oh, so vain.”

  He laughs, “Yeah, we are but if ya got it—flaunt it.”

  I add, “We’ll fight for mirror time.”

  “Probably.”

  Into the entry hall, arm in arm, I suddenly remember the things I have for him and walk back into the bedroom. Turning around, I can feel Boyd’s eyes burning into my back as he follows me. I grab my writing then quickly turn almost smacking into him because he’s so close behind. “Here’re some things for you. One of them is the ending of my book. It’s rough, but I wanted you to see it. Then some of my articles, they’re kind of spiritual.”

  “Okay, but you’re way too involved in all this spiritual stuff.”

  “Really?”

  “Yeah, really.”

  I smile to myself and say nothing as we walk back to the front door, I begin to cry through my tears, I confess. “I’m a very emotional person.”

  He laughs softly and smiles warmly at me, “Yeah, I can see that.”

  Standing by the front door, we’re locked into each other’s eyes as if it’s impossible for us to break eye contact.

  Boyd leans over then whispers in my ear. “April love, Natalie. It could be great.” Looking up at him, I ask myself, ‘God, will I ever see this wonderful man again? April, will it really happen?’

  I am overly emotional, unable to talk for a moment then finally ask. “What would you tell your daughter, Boyd? What would you tell Natasha to do if she was in this situation?”

  In a soft voice with a warm smile, “Natalie, darlin’, I’d tell my daughter, write, date, live as if I’m not coming back then I’ll be back on April 21st at high noon. I’ll call you at high noon on April 21st exactly six months to the hour of when we met.” He smiles. “Of course, we were up in an airplane, so the time may be off a bit.”

  I understand that he’s trying to get me to laugh or to crack a smile, but I’m so overcome with emotion, I can’t.

  He continues, “What was the funniest thing, I said today? Do you remember, Natalie? What was it?”

  Through tears, “Um, don’t know, can’t think of anything funny just right now.”

  He bends over and kisses me on the cheek. “I asked, did you come after we made love?”

  I smile a bit, laugh then blush. “Since, I screamed—guess, you could tell.” Noticing my smile, he relaxes a bit.

  “I do love you so, Natalie. April 21st, baby. It could be great.” He steps outside the door then says softly, but firmly, “I’ve got to be going now or I’ll be late.”

  I notice the sun’s come out and it’s become a pretty day.

  He continues as our eyes are frozen together. “Natalie, you know? You’re standing there crying and I’m feeling just as bad. I’m leaving half my heart with you, darlin’. I’ll be back April 21st at high noon. I’ll call you then.

  “What if I move? My house is for sale—you know?”

  “Yes, I know your house is for sale. Natalie, I’ll find you, no matter, where you are. I’ll find you, darlin’. Don’t worry, I’ll find you, no matter where you are.”

  “What would you tell me if I was your daughter about the odds of you coming back?”

  “I’d say the odds are fifty-fifty that I’ll be back, Natalie.” Hearing these odds, I feel as if I’m going to be sick to my stomach—fifty-fifty? He must be kidding? With a pained look on his face, he looks down at the ground then back up at me. “Natalie, I have the feeling, I’ll come back and you�
�ll be gone. You’ll be with someone else. Another man will come along and take you away from me.”

  He looks straight into my eyes as both his voice and eyes are full of pain. I can say nothing but stare back. My eyes are glued to his and my emotions are blocking my voice. The air filling the space between my front door and the walkway where Boyd’s standing is thick with our emotions.

  I ask, “If you don’t come back, what should I think?”

  He takes a deep heavy breath then lets it out. “That I’m dead. Just think, I died.” His face is ashen with sadness and the devastated and alone look on it is frightening. I feel sick to my stomach. I silently murmur, ‘dead’? He continues talking looking directly into my eyes as he walks backwards, “If this is true forever love, we’ll know for sure because, it will not go away, it’ll still be here when I return. We’ll know for sure then.”

  My emotions thaw enough to ask, “Will you think of me often?”

  “Each and every time I see a 727—every day—all the time—every minute—I am in the air or on the ground.” A cool breeze picks up and blows between us, into his face fanning his hair back and whipping around my hair and robe. We continue smiling with our eyes locked as he takes slow steps backing further down the walkway. Our gaze along with our eyes are locked together in the intensity of the moment.

  “You don’t like guys who drive trucks, do ya?” he asks as he continues his slow backwards walk out of my life and looks steadfastly into my eyes.

  I ponder, why would he ask that now? You could drive a bus and it wouldn’t matter, but I am unable to answer—frozen in the heartbreak of our parting.

  “Natalie if I never see you again, always know you’ve given me the happiest day of my life. He looks directly into my eyes and says passionately, “Natalie, you are the love of my life. I may lose you by doing this, but it’s the only way it could work. So, we’d have a chance to be together forever. I must do this darlin’. It’s the only way.” He backs further down the walkway as he says softly while looking directly into my eyes, “I love you and always will.”