by Ayn Dillard
“No, the whore got nothing!” laughs full of pride.
“How does she survive? Does she work? You brought her over from Russia. Don’t you feel any responsibility for her at all?”
“No! I don’t know what she does and I don’t care. She probably lives in poverty, can’t work because she doesn’t even have a green card. It serves her right—the whore!”
He seems so pleased about the possibility that she’s in such dire straits. So, this ‘kind’ man brought a girl over from Russia whom he professed to love dearly, then when it didn’t work out—he doesn’t care if she starves. After all, he was the one who brought her over here. This man is scary. He cares only about it not working, instead of caring about her. He didn’t love her any more than she loved him. She was a possession. It was all about control. Had he really loved her, he’d want to make sure she’s all right, no matter what happened. Instead, he feels gloriously happy that she might be living in poverty. Hearing Art talk like this gives me the chills. So, wrapped up in his ego of being embarrassed by what happened that he can’t see past it and may never be able to. If he treated her that way, he’d do the same to some other woman or God forbid me. When you love someone, you care about how they feel, not how much you can control them.
He continues, “She spent all of her time in bars—the whore! If she’d behaved right, we’d still be married. Why would I care if she starves or what happens to her? Don’t know if I’ll ever get married again.”
He carries so much hate and has given her so much power over him. This is probably going to sabotage any chance we might’ve had to be together. Driving out of the area, I notice several lots have ‘sold’ signs on them, but Art’s doesn’t. Um, I wonder if he’s even really purchased the lot?
Continuing the drive to his office, he again goes over his plans for his farm, his new house and the cars he’s going to purchase. He certainly has lots of plans for the future. Does he ever live in the present? I’m here with him now. Does Art even know how to ‘seize the moment’? He even cleans for the future purifying for the next time before the present one is over.
I state, “Art, I’m glad that I got to spend time with you and see your farm.”
“Yowsa Natalie, me too!”
I add, “We always have fun together and have you noticed the weather’s always clear and sunny when we’re together?”
“Yes, I have noticed, Natalie.” With a big countrified grin on his face, “I just don’t know if I’m ready for a relationship yet? I might be later on, we’re just on different time tables which isn’t necessarily a bad thing because we want the same things eventually. Just be patient, Natalie.”
“Do you think I’m a woman you could fall in love with?” I ask as I recall what he’d said last night when I was telling him my story. ‘The man loves Natalie’ which was telling me in around-about way that he’s falling in love with me, but doesn’t have the guts to come right out and say it.
“Yes, of all the women I’ve met, you’re a woman I could fall in love with. You’re mysterious. I find you both interesting and intriguing. You’re gorgeous and I love your long dark hair. To me you look like a younger version of the actress Suzanne Pleshette. I always thought she was great looking. You have a great body and sure know how to use it and then you’re a complete lady. Except, there’s another friend of mine—well, she has a child and we aren’t making love or anything—but.” He quickly adds. “I don’t want any children now, but in the future, I might.”
He talks as if I’d be winning a great prize, if he should choose me instead of the other way around. This man would be an awful father because he has no tolerance for anything or anybody. Interesting that most men really like my hair and my own mother doesn’t.
He continues, “It’s like we’re a fit, Natalie. We’re good together and fun. God, we have loads of fun. What else could I possibly want? I’d be crazy not to love you.” He looks over and smiles with his blue eyes twinkling. Immediately his mood changes, “Only protect yourself, Natalie. I might change. I could change because I’m having trouble with trust and am so closed off right now. I’m closed off from my feelings and I met you too soon. We’re at different places, but ultimately, we want the same things. That’s not bad. Just protect yourself.”
“Well, you need to get over it, Art. Just get over your problem with trust. I’ve had lots go wrong in my life, but am still open to trusting again. Scary sometimes, but life would be full of fear if I couldn’t get past—my past.” He says something nice then takes it away all in one breath—just like my father. Being with Art, I feel the same sort of stress as I do with my parents—off base, unsure and out of balance because of the mixed messages. Like any minute my teeth will get knocked out, while I think all is well. Why’d he advertise, he is looking for a relationship and now say—it’s too soon? Last night, he tells me he loves me and now all this crap. This man gives mixed messages, while being so full of fear and ego.
“I’m trying, Natalie. Just protect yourself honeee.”
“This other woman you mentioned, do you date her?”
“I’ve taken her to a movie and from the way she acts, she’d like to date me. I met her at church. I’m not really interested because it’s like she’s looking for a daddy for her child.”
“Was she the one who called you this morning—the one you called sweetieee?”
“Oh no, that was Suki—just a friend.”
“Ah, so you call someone who is just a friend, sweetieeee?”
“Sure, but I’m not involved with anyone else, but you, Natalie. If that’s what you’re asking?”
“Of course, it’s what I’m asking because I don’t want to be this close to you, if you’re doing the ‘flavor of the month’ routine. What flavor am I anyway?” I’m feeling irritated as hell, but continue to question.
“You’re every flavor and you must know that you’re the only one I’m involved with.”
I need to stop this conversation because I don’t know my true feelings for Art either. Am I just lonely for Boyd, or only want to be in a safe relationship with a man? Safe and man—talk about a contradiction. I am looking forward to seeing if Boyd will return and Art is a cheap, compulsive cleaner, arrogant, cynical, and full of bullshit. So why am I even interested? Chuckling, plus I have guilt about not telling Art about Boyd, but really why should I? Boyd may not return. Why tell Art about something that may never happen?
At Art’s office building, we transfer my luggage from his car to mine then go inside. We begin to kiss and make love on the sofa. It feels natural being in Art’s arms because we do have a certain sexual chemistry. Today Art wants me to pretend to be ‘call girl’. I do and it’s kind of fun. His reactions to my acting make me laugh inside at his neediness for sexual fantasy. Art’s obsession with this particular fantasy has become a drag.
After we’re together for a while and it’s time to separate, he begins shutting down by pulling emotionally away, almost like my stepdaughter used to do when she was being transferred between homes because of joint custody. He’s trying to dodge any hurt that he might experience. I can see it coming and that’s part of the reason, I feel so ‘left’ after we part because he pulls his energy away and leaves nothing behind.
We hug and kiss goodbye. “Be sure to wear your seat belt, Natalie. Drive real careful now—wouldn’t want anything to happen to that pretty face.”
“I will, Art and I had a good time.”
“Me too, a great one—talk to you later, honeee.”
I follow him out to the turnpike and observe that he looks like a little dork in his gold ‘whatever’ kind of car and I can’t imagine why I feel any sexual attraction or anything for him at all. Chuckling, I wave as we take our different routes. I’m happeee to be leaving!
It’s a sunny glorious day—cold, but with the sun beating through the windshield, I’m warm in my old 1983 white Mercedes Sedan traveling on my way back home. The topography of Oklahoma looks beautiful and I’m enjoy
ing the drive and the time to mull everything over in my mind.
Interesting to see Art in his environment and it could be that I’m falling into ‘something’ with him. I enjoy his intelligence and crazy bizarre sense of humor—at times. Could I love him out of his obsessive-compulsive pattern? I quickly catch myself. Geez, what am I doing here? We’re just having fun for the time being. Already, I’m becoming bored with his sexual tastes and physically I find him kind of goofy looking.
We were just two crazy people on a farm. I’m trying to feel love from a man who’s more concerned with a spot on a kitchen floor than he is with me standing right in front of him. He’s doing everything to avoid feeling his emotions. Yep, we’re just two crazies.
I guess, time will tell. Why does this keep happening to me—a man telling me that he’s met me too soon? I want to meet a man and have him say—I met you at just the right time.
How can I be feeling love for two men? This is all so stupid and entirely unlike me. I still love Boyd, except how do I really know anymore? He’s become a memory of a wonderful magical dream or was it ‘God damn fucking magic’? I smile in my heart as I remember the time spent with my wonderful romantic Captain.
Passing the exit to Turner Falls, I remark it’s almost been six months now since I was here with Boyd. It was raining so hard and we kissed for the first time looking at that dumb waterfall. I’ll know in a couple of weeks, if he’s coming back. It’s interesting that today, there’s not as much sadness when I think about him, only a pleasurable peace. Are my feelings changing? What will happen if I see Boyd again? Will the magic still be there? I might drop Art like a hot potato if I have the choice—I am pretty sure it’d be Boyd.
Geez, I may never see Art again. Surely, I couldn’t be so intimate with him, if I wasn’t feeling some love energy coming from his direction. Why do I keep getting these men that I need to heal? I’m so tired of it. I want a man who has healed himself. One—I don’t have to wait for and is ready for me.
Getting further into Texas, I become full of anticipation about April the 21st.
And then, I revisit in my mind, the time spent with my parents and I cry. The horrible words my father says combined with the emotional blankness of my mother feels like I really don’t have parents. And this fills me with the fear that I don’t really belong anywhere. I guess, for right now, I don’t.
A parent’s job is to nurture and I don’t have parents who can even be kind. Does my father think his words motivate or inspire? That is—if he even thinks. He must live by the motto, ‘spare the verbal abuse and spoil the child’. It takes me weeks to get over one of his tirades because it feels as if I’ve been emotionally annihilated and I need to build myself up again. Except fortunately, this time I was able to see quickly how ludicrous his words were. The hate he displayed was coming from somewhere deep inside himself and was about him—not me. But still, I find my mind-talk full of his negativity erasing my inner peace and breaking my heart. I’ve got to stop internalizing the venom he spews. So okay God, let me release his evil words quickly because I’ve lots to do when I get home.
If our relationship with our parents sets the pattern for every other relationship we have with a male or female for the rest of our lives, while determining our relationship with male and female components within our self. I chuckle, then I’m really screwed. Will I ever get past the issues of my mother and father that I carry within?
What a strong little girl, I must’ve been to get out of that toxic place with the ability to even laugh, love, experience joy and to hope. Damn, I’ve done so much work on myself. How much more could there be? I laugh in painful frustration. Perhaps, I need an exorcism—it might be easier than walking through all this pain.
It’s one thing to deal with negative feelings about my parents and quite another to deal with negative feelings about myself. Being unsuccessful in relating to my parents, I feel equally unsuccessful relating to life and success itself. Why would I be put in this family? Was it, betrayal, abandonment and rejection imprinted on me from other lifetimes that needed to be experienced and released in this one? Or is even thinking this way too bizarre for words?
My desire for their love and validation is certainly more than theirs of mine which gives them all the power. I need to get on my feet, so I won’t ever have to rely on my parents for anything. I better not need them because what I need, they don’t have. All they have is money to give and they don’t like to give that, even as they are ‘wealthy, not rich’.
In my humiliation of needing their financial assistance, my father seizes the opportunity to degrade me further. Please God, assist me in being emotionally courageous.
Saturday evening, April nineteenth, while talking with Tracy—a girlfriend, on the phone. Tracy is a beautiful married woman with a new baby and part of my girlfriend group—while half watching TV, the ‘Bridges of Madison County’ comes on. Call waiting clicks in and it’s Sondra in Colorado. I let Tracy go to chat with Sondra.
Sondra asks, “Hey girlfriend, how’s it going?”
“I’m surviving, but ‘Madison County’ is on.”
“Don’t watch it! You know what it did to you the last time.”
“No, really, I’m okay. I just want Monday to come and go, then it’ll be over and I’ll know. I have the cramps and zits all over my face. Isn’t it strange—I feel the same way that I did the day Boyd and I met six months ago? Then the feelings I have for Art are staring me in the face. Actually, I might be in love with two men—a first for me. No wonder, I’m having such a hormonal reaction. I was just talking with Tracy about it.”
Sondra states, “Well may the best man win.”
“I think it’s Art then switch to Boyd. If Boyd returns, we’ll still have lots to go through and learn about one another. How are you doing?”
“I feel a lot better being on vacation with my parents. Thinking about going through this lawsuit scares me. Have you heard from Tanner?”
“No, but I am taking more information to my attorney on Monday and then need to call Tanner next week to see if he’s finished the book. To hear what comes out of his own mouth about what his intentions are before we file. Also, my attorney wants to meet with yours.”
“Okay, we’ll set that up because my attorney wants to meet with yours, too.”
I state, “It will all workout. Can you believe the stress and change going on in our lives? I’m in love with two men. My house is on the market, am writing books, then a lawsuit with that creep. Oh yes, someone looked at my house today and they really liked it. He’ll bring his wife to see it tomorrow.”
She says sarcastically, “Then we won’t even have a place for Tanner to have both of us live in.”
“Something has got to work out eventually.”
Sondra states, “I’ll be back in Dallas tomorrow. Hang in there.”
All my girlfriends are freaking as Monday’s fast approaching. My period has begun and I’m having severe cramps with not one, but two hormonal pimples. According to our pact, Boyd is scheduled to call me at high noon on Monday. I wanted to look and feel so pretty, but I feel so out of balance and at my worst.
I watch ‘Madison County’ and wonder will Boyd and I end up like the couple in the movie. Ending, but still feeling a connection that we’ll both remember for the rest of our lives. Or will we reconnect with each other on Monday to see what we’re about—then possibly be together for the rest of our lives. Then there’s Art—is he only a diversion to help me deal with my feelings for Boyd? Why can’t anything ever be simple and easy? Only what an adventure.
God, I do so hope to see Boyd again. I want to hold him and look into his deep beautiful brown eyes—hear him laugh and talk with him. I want to hear all about what he’s been doing in the six months we’ve been apart. He’s learned to fly a different kind of aircraft. So now, he’ll be flying to Europe. Will we ever go to Europe together?
Who knows? But for the rest of my life, whenever I glance up to notice an airpla
ne, I’ll remember the love I have for my Captain. Like Clint Eastwood said to Meryl Streep, ‘this kind of a certainty comes but once in a lifetime.’ I don’t understand how the characters in that movie could give up their love. How could she do it? After watching the movie several times, I realize more each time that I’d have gone with Clint Eastwood in a heartbeat. Of course, I don’t have children to be concerned about and Boyd does. Boyd even drives a truck like Eastwood does in the movie—except a new one. I hope that seeing this movie tonight isn’t a message warning me that Boyd has decided to stay with his wife and children. Only somehow and for some reason, I feel that it might be.
Or is he thinking about me now and anxiously looking forward to Monday? Will he call or will he be on a flight somewhere or will he be in town and come right over? Will we hold each other again and feel the same way? One moment, I feel we will and the next that we won’t. I want to fall into his arms and stay there for a week, but will we feel the same or will it be different? Except why’d Boyd and I meet the way we did and why’d it happen, all so magically as if the universe provided the circumstances for us to be together, if we weren’t meant to be together always?
All I know is that for that one week in October, I felt a connection to a man like I’ve never felt before. He’s in my soul. I thank God and the universe for our meeting and the feelings that we have or had for each other because they sustain me to know that there is love in the world for me.
Okay, one more day and it’s here, Monday, April 21st.—then I’ll know. I’ll hear the phone ringing and pick it up to hear his voice saying, ‘Hi! darlin’. Or the phone won’t ring and I’ll never see my Captain again. There’ll be no more expectation, no more wondering and no more waiting. Only the memory will remain.
Talk about stressing. My mind’s going wild. This stress of not knowing what the outcome will be is deadly.
On Sunday, April 20th, the day before, ‘D day’ it looks as if I’m going to have two offers on my house tomorrow. This is all too much. Where will I move, what going to happen, and will I be with Boyd or not?
