I'm George, mwm, 52

by George Everyman

  Back to the point. The paradox. How can it be that human beings, genetically designed for pleasure to survive and procreate by either evolution or god or goddess or the big bang or whatever, cause their own misery by acting on the very impulses that are coded in their DNA? That, to me, is the Buddhist paradox.

  If these Buddhist guys are as smart as I think they are, then they must be right in that seeking pleasure is the root cause of suffering. But then god or whomever or whatever must have fucked up by giving us pleasure receptors in the first place.

  So I carried that seeming conflict with me for over twenty years and then one day, I had the answer. It was just there.

  Afuckingmazing, I thought.

  At the same time that I got the answer, and it was one simple answer I assure you, I got an announcement of the super brain's existence. Just like that. I swear to you.

  Do you remember when you were in school and they said in science class something to the effect that scientists can only find a function for 5% of the human brain? All the things that we do regarding moving, eating, digesting, fucking, and so on can be traced to just a small portion of the brain. And all of the biochemical reactions that keep us going are done on a cellular or organ level.

  So what the fuck does the other 95% of the brain do? Well, let me clear up that mystery that has eluded science since the dawn of time.

  That part of the brain is the super brain. We all have one. Everybody. Even really seemingly stupid people. Even really bad people. Hitler had one. Too bad the motherfucker didn't listen to his super brain.

  Think of the super brain as a really, really, really smart friend. I mean so smart that he/she amazes you with what comes out of his/her mouth. And also realize that the super brain is totally compassionate and enlightened. Now for the kicker. The super brain is hard wired to YOU. It knows everything you know. All those dark little secrets that you thought were hidden from the world. Wrong. But, don't worry, the super brain is not judgmental. It's there to help you work through those issues, not to condemn you for them.

  One more attribute to the super brain. It works 24/7, so every minute of every day it's working on solving problems you give it.

  There are three main keys to tapping into this largess.

  One, knowing of its existence. That's done. I just told you about it. You're one third of the way there.

  Two, knowing how to program it. This is incredibly easy. All you've got to do is think of something you want it to work on. You can actually think it, or if you are like me and talk to yourself, just go ahead and say it out loud, remembering, of course, that anyone actually hearing you might report you to someone that they think might be able to help you fit better into society.

  Three, hearing the results. This is the tricky one and takes some practice. Most people, I think, pretty much disregard random thoughts that pop into their heads. Say for example, you are walking down the street and suddenly you get a notion, for lack of a better word, to take the road to the left. How many people do that? Very few I think because we usually have a plan when we are walking and random turns are not part of that plan.

  But maybe the super brain, knowing you and knowing, perhaps, what lies ahead down that path, or least knowing that something different lies down that path, and knowing that you need to become more random, and thus more creative, in your approach to life, is telling you that you should turn left. It doesn't insist and give you a crushing headache or some other affliction if you don't, which it could by the way if it wanted to, but it doesn't work that way. It merely suggests. And that suggestion is the super brain in action.

  In the case of the Buddhist paradox, it was not just some suggestion. It was a very clear answer to the problem. Not a word by word sentence. It was non verbal. It just basically planted the solution in my conscious brain. That wonderful aha moment. The epiphany. It was just fucking there and it was so fucking obvious. And it took the super brain twenty plus years, working 24/7. But maybe not. Maybe it took a micro second and then it took me, George, being the simple minded person that I am, twenty plus years to hear it.

  Chapter 33: Using the Super Brain to Try and Nail Kim

  Ok back to the real world. The conscious world. The world of pleasure and sin and woe. Since I know of the super brain's existence and since I know that it is not judgmental, and since I know that my super brain has helped me to discard antiquated societal restrictions, cheating on your spouse for example, I decide that the super brain should be directed to figure out how to get inside Kim, literally. I know that sounds crass, and shallow, but fuck it. That's who and what I am. And besides, it's not as though only me would be having orgasms, if the super brain and I are successful.

  It's not as though I actually say to the super brain, "super brain, let's figure out the best strategy to get Kim out of her angry stage and gradually try and get her to embrace that cheating is an antiquated concept, and having different sexual partners, as long as both people in the marriage agree, can be a constructive and mutually pleasurable adventure."

  It's really more like I'm thinking all of that, including a lot more, like making sure Abby is on board for example, and then taking those thoughts and letting the super brain be aware of them, which is kind of moot anyway, because the super brain is already aware of all of that, and then this is the part that is hard to explain in words because all of this is a non verbal conversation with the super brain. It just kind of happens. I'm not sure if I'm directing the super brain, or maybe the super brain has taken control and it just lets me think that I'm in control. It doesn't really matter though who is in control, as long as the objective is attained, i.e. giving Kim the best licking of her life.

  Chapter 34: More on Me and Abby

  Abby and I are kind of back into the old routine with one major exception. I'm constantly curious about where she is. It's not like I follow her or check her email. Well, full disclosure here, I do check her email on occasion. Daily.

  Now before you get all bent out of shape, especially you members of the sisterhood, know this. She many times asks me to check her email. Maybe not many times, but once that I remember. I can't actually remember the circumstances, but I'm sure, pretty sure at least, that she asked me to check it. But more to the point, she checks it at home and leaves the computer on, so I can see it daily.

  Now when I say I check it, I mean that I just see who it is from, since it's sitting right there on the screen, on the table, in our condo, where she has left it on. I mean if she had something to hide, don't you think she would turn the damn thing off, or at least move to another program? I've learned that if I actually click on the email, it turns from black to gray, and that's a dead giveaway that I have read it, and she chastised me for that once, rather severely, so I never click on the actual email, just reading the header line and who it's from.

  Who's to say she doesn't have another email account that she is more careful with, closing it after reading and sending secret love and lust letters to Dewayne and god knows who else, and she uses the email program that she leaves open as a decoy to throw me off? That is possible, but I think not because she's just not that energetic, I think, regarding subterfuge. She doesn't need to be.

  I've pretty much convinced myself that her affair with Dewayne started out, as I mentioned, after a bike ride, and they probably just fucked and/or sucked/licked a few more times, without coming close to the torrid love affair that Lara and I had, which is a very good thing because Abby, with her black and white thing deeply ensconced in her psyche, might just have talked to some of the sisters and they might just have convinced her that Dewayne is a saint and I'm a piece of shit, and then she might have left me for him.

  But I think that problem is solved now with him married to Kim, and if I can just convince her not to go down the tired trail of the wounded spouse and all that it entails, we may be home free.

  I kind of got distracted by the email thing, but that's ok because there's really not a story there. Same with her cell p
hone which she leaves sitting around charging which gives me the opportunity to check on dialed and received and missed calls. Don't you think she'd not leave it around if she had something to hide?

  Don't give me too much shit about this. I'm not going around checking on her with the idea of collecting evidence for a divorce case for god's sake. Truth be known, I'm secretly hoping to find evidence that she is calling or emailing Dewayne, which means she is still fucking him which would mean that my pursuit of Kim is legitimate, and obviously necessary, for her and me.

  Just to take stock here and now, Abby and I are still together, nothing has really changed, Kim and Dewayne are still married, and I have no idea how it's going between them, I'm still working with the super brain, or it's working with me to try and come up with the best plan to move Kim in the appropriate direction given her situation.

  I just had a thought. I wonder if I should engage Dewayne in some sort of dialogue. You know, man to man. It's obvious that Abby is not going to talk to me about it, as she has no sense that she really did anything wrong, which is good on many levels, actually very damn good on all levels because it moves her toward becoming polyamorous, if she can just get beyond the nun and society induced bullshit mindset that says you can't love two people at once. Good luck on that one, the little man says to me. Also, I'm not sure how to proceed with Kim, because it just doesn't feel like I've made much progress even though I'm probably not giving myself enough credit for what I have already accomplished in my half hour meeting with her.

  So man to man with Dewayne? It just doesn't feel right. I mean, how are these things supposed to go. Me demanding that he stop fucking Abby, when in fact, I want him to resume, assuming of course that he has stopped. Do you just go to the man who is fucking your wife and lay the cards on the table, straight, as in "I know you and Abby are fucking because Kim told us all so, and that's perfectly ok with me, in fact I love the idea, and I hope you continue, or resume if you have discontinued, and I hope you can convince Abby, or maybe help me convince her if you think that might be more effective, that I really like the idea, even though that might sound strange, at first at least, and that I'd like to hear all the details of your sexual encounters, if that's ok with you of course, and finally I'd like to start fucking and/or licking your beautiful wife Kim, keeping in mind that you and her might want to set some limits, which is why I threw in the licking option if that's, perhaps, how you personally might want to have a say in the process."

  I know that was a long sentence, but I just couldn't find a way to break it and it was rolling along quite nicely, I think.

  Wonder what Dewayne would make of that sentence beyond the obvious of probably being annoyed at the length of it. If he's a man's man, and I have no way to know that or not given my limited time with him, he might, no he would, think I'm some fucking crazy man, and he would, no doubt, be having an aha moment that Abby was right when she told him I was a fruitcake and that was part of the reason she was fucking him instead of me. That and his much larger dick, obviously.

  Chapter 35: I Call Dewayne

  Sometimes you just have to wing it. When you have no earthly idea how to move forward, you just have to get in there and mix things up and hope that when the dust settles, you're still in one piece and the gods are still smiling on you.

  Count them. Tired phrases. There are six tired phrases in the paragraph above. Six. I bet you didn't see them until I pointed it out. In fact I didn't catch them until number four, and then I just added numbers five and six for effect.

  The point is that I'm just at a loss as to how to approach Dewayne, mainly because I do think he's a man's man and he won't react well to anything I say. If it were Frank, my fag friend, and if he wasn't a fag, or maybe if he was bisexual, and if he was doing Abby, we would have no problem at all because he knows what I think about sex and sexuality, and he's basically on the same page sexually as I am, keeping in mind the significant difference that he does men and I do Abby. On occasion. Rare occasion. Me doing Abby, that is.

  I called Dewayne. But I hung up before the connection was even made. Well, I really hung up before I dialed the last digit lest I fuck up and do the whole number and then didn't disconnect it fast enough and he sees with caller ID that it's coming from our house.

  I know. I shouldn't have even entertained the idea of calling him because there is almost no possibility that we are on the same page about the matter of him having intercourse with my wife. And I know the script that I've been programmed to play and we all know that I'm not going to play that script, and Dewayne, no doubt, expects me to play it, and if I don't, he is not going to know how to react, and when people are blindsided with something totally unexpected, they tend to react badly, and reacting badly is not what I want, especially from a man's man.

  Chapter 36: More on Home Life with a Major Digression

  I'm sorry that these chapters just keep getting shorter and shorter and I swear it's not an attempt to just squeeze more pages out of this story, it's just how the information is flowing at this point, which is very fast, and I'm thinking it's almost like automatic writing. I just had a flash. Maybe it's akin to Abby and her brain to mouth switch which I like in the off position, i.e. no censorship interfering with what's really on her mind. So maybe it's good that emotions and ideas are just flowing from my psyche onto the computer screen with no thought about cleaning things up or trying to look good to anyone, which has never been my strong suit anyway.

  This is going to be a significant digression because it's important to me. It involves saving the planet and I really want at least one human being to understand what's behind my actions.

  To set the scene, Abby used to do my wash. Washing and ironing that is. Then one day, out of the blue, when the kids were growing up, and she thought they were old enough to do their own wash, she just kind of flipped out and told us all to do our own laundry. That was pretty awesome and I respected her for that, basically telling us all that she was doing too much, which she was, and telling the kids they needed to be more responsible.

  I truly don't think I was miffed at all. I guess I never really thought much about the great equation that all couples face regarding duties and who does what. I was working under the old model of the man who breaks his ass to bring home the bacon, for me, and broccoli for Abby, and the housework and kid raising was her realm. I know what you are thinking and please don't go there because Abby has already, thousands of times, and I'm as well educated, now, as any American male about the necessity of making sure that a stay at home mom, which she was at that time, is appreciated and spared the full burden of housework, which by the way, I truly believe is every bit as important as bringing home the groceries.

  So, I settled into a routine in which I did my laundry on Saturday mornings and then ironed my pants and shirts on Saturday afternoon or Sunday morning. The only thing I minded about the whole process was the fact that it took about an hour to iron, and Abby, without fail, would criticize my ironing. No, I never said "if you don't like the way I do it, do it yourself." Well, maybe a few times I said that.

  She never did iron my clothes again, and she continued to criticize my efforts. Thinking back just now, maybe that was the beginning of our problems. Maybe I should have drawn a line in the sand. Maybe her lack of respect for me, which she vehemently denies, and I find myself seeing signs of everywhere I look, stems from the fact that I was such a pussy about giving in to the laundry deal.

  Ok, fast forward about three or four years from the ironing capitulation. My outlook on life had changed. First I started wearing shorts year round. Every day. Even in the winter, which created some stares from random strangers on very cold days when I'm out walking at four am, which I do every day for two hours, but that's not the point here, and I'm not even sure why I mentioned it, except for the fact that the automatic writing has taken control and who am I to question that?

  Wearing shorts kind of changed me from a 'I don't really concern myself about my
clothes' mode to a 'I don't give a rat's ass what anyone thinks about what I wear because it's clean and besides, it's what is in your heart and soul that counts and not how you look'. You can guess what's coming, for sure. Now I don't iron my clothes. I put on a clean, unironed shirt daily, and I feel good that I'm doing my part to save the world by lightening up on the electricity use. Which brings me to nuclear energy, but let's save that for later.

  That's a pretty fucking significant digression and I'm sorry for that. But it was important. To me at least.

  Oops, I forgot about the party and the un-ironed shirt, which should be added here because it's important and doesn't really belong anywhere else.

  Abby and I went to a party thrown by two of the prominent people in the community. This isn't a very prominent community, so being prominent in an un-prominent community is really no big deal, but to one of the ladies throwing the party, it was a big deal. She always wears fancy clothes and a big hat at Easter and she is some big wig in the local Catholic Church.

  When I was growing up and we went to the Presbyterian Church, there was a preacher and a choir and that was it. Now when Abby and I go to the Catholic Church, twice each year, on Easter and Christmas Eve, there seems to be more and more people up there every year and the priest does less and less, or so it seems to me. Abby tells me those are lay people and I really don't know what lay means, but it's really not my business so I just observe it all. So anyway, this lady is one of the most prominent lay people in this church in this not very prominent town, but she takes her job seriously.