by Zoey Kinsman
“Don’t think too much about it, Paul. You are probably right with your assumptions. But then again, I wouldn’t even know what sex was anymore anyways…” Oh, God, did I just say that? I could feel my face turn triple shades of red. I used my napkin to try and hide most of my shame.
“Anne, please look at me. Why are you turning red? I’ve had many droughts where I thought I would never sleep with another woman. Life happens. Then when it does come back it is so much better.”
“Tell me one time that you’ve gone without sex. I find that so hard to believe. You’re a beautiful man who can command many a woman by your side and in your bed.”
“Well, thank you for the compliment, but beauty, as you know, is only skin deep. I don’t see myself that way. The looks have helped with the career, yes, but they have also been a downfall. No one takes me seriously because of them. They think because I am good looking and blond that I have no brains, that I’m unable to form educated opinions. However, I am indeed well-educated and do have many thoughts on various subjects. It would be nice now and again to be taken seriously. This business is brutal that way. Yet, I am still appreciative. It puts food on my table and a roof over my head, and lets me take a beautiful woman like you to dinner and hopefully to bed.”
“I take you very seriously, Paul. Know that. And I really have enjoyed our conversations. So tell me, where did you go to college?”
“You’re changing the subject,” he said, grinning at me. “If you tell me why you haven’t had sex, I’ll tell you where I went to college. Deal?” The martinis came, and he sipped his first. “Ahh, this is good and dirty. Just the way I like it. Now, go on and make good on our deal.”
I took a swig of my drink, looking for bravery in a glass. “Well, as you probably know, I’m divorced. The experience turned me off intimacy. It turned me off trust. I think one should have trust to get naked and exposed with another.”
I looked for his reaction.
“You mean you haven’t had sex since your divorce? How long has it been…ten years or longer? I’m really shocked that such a beautiful and smart woman would close down that part of herself.” His face reflected his surprise.
He was right. I had closed down that part of me.
“What can I say? I need to be able to trust someone before I can have sex with them, because to me sex is about connection and a special feeling two people share. It’s not readily available. That’s why I’ve maintained that we should be friends. I don’t want to lead you on.”
“So, you’re going to let all that hurt from years ago inhibit your ability to feel, to enjoy, and to love now? Seriously…what a waste, Anne.”
That hurt. I wanted to tell him that he was being too blunt for my liking, but I couldn’t. He was right, after all.
I blinked back the tears that asked to well up from the incredible dose of reality he had just flung at me. Why was he being so heavy and emotionally prying on our first real evening together?
He could see the look of angst on my face and quickly changed his tone.
“I’m sorry if I misspoke. It was not my intention to cause you any grief tonight. It’s just that I see you so differently, obviously, than you see yourself. We’ll have to work on rectifying that.”
“We don’t need to rectify anything here. I’m good with who I am. I like to play it safe. Safe feels good for me. It’s where I live.”
“Stop it. You’re making me take pity on you, and it should be you taking pity on my poor, lovesick heart that only wants to get you in bed and show you how wonderful it is to be emotionally and physically risky.”
“You’re so funny, Paul. That’s what I love about you. You always know how to make me laugh.”
“I’m not trying to make you laugh, silly.” But he did indeed laugh out loud. “I’m trying to get you to open yourself up a bit to me, and the possibility that we might be really good together.”
Now I was the one laughing. I thought of my control top girdle and how he would feel having to peel that sucker off me. Would he find that very sexy? I highly doubted it. Or how about when he saw my flabby middle, or the lines around my eyes that were coming in, which time couldn’t nor shouldn’t hold back. All the things aging naturally had in store for him some ten to fifteen years from now, how would he like to see that right now and upfront?
“Why is that so unrealistic? Why don’t we order another round and some food and see if we really do have anything in common? How about that, and I’ll tell you about where I was educated?”
His voice sounded a bit agitated now, as if I was downing his older woman fantasy.
“Sure, that sounds like a great idea.”
After summoning the waiter back, I ordered the catch of the day and he ordered the steak.
“So college…tell me where and when and what?” My smirk at him was sly, as if to say it was time to pay up on that deal he made that brought forth a bunch of spilled guts on my part. “It’s your turn to spill it, Paul Wickham.”
“Let’s see, where do I start…well, I got into Tisch, but I really didn’t want to study in New York.”
“Why not New York? It’s one of the best.”
“Yes, it’s a great school, but from what I read and what some friends told me, it was not the place for me. It really wasn’t a good fit. I ended up at Guildhall in London.”
“Wow, I’m surprised that you would travel overseas to study. Didn’t you want to be closer to home? By the way, where is home?”
“Being close to home wasn’t a priority. I’m originally from Chicago…Northbrook to be exact. It’s a nice suburb of Chicago. I didn’t go without, to be honest. I had whatever I needed.” But he looked away when he said that.
“What was it like growing up in Northbrook?”
“Well, my parents put me in a good private school, where I met most of my friends that I still have today. Even though we went our separate ways for college, we all kept in touch. My best friend came over and spent some time with me in London one year. That was a lot of fun. We partied hard.”
“Did you like private school? I read online that you had a hard upbringing, and the rest of your history is gone. Why, Paul?” My tone was more loving and concerned, like one of a friend.
“Oh, you’re going to be my friend now and counsel me on my hard upbringing?” He gave me a wide grin with that statement.
“Why can’t I know you, too? You keep saying that you want to know me, yet you tell me so little about yourself. It goes two ways, you know.” I reached to touch his hand, because I did in fact know a bit about his background.
“Well then, you know my father was an alcoholic who used to beat my mother when the urge came over him. Many times I had to put him to bed after a bender.” With a twisted face that looked pained, he took several sips of his second martini.
“If it’s too hard we can change the subject. There’s lots of time to discover our pains. I have several I can share with you if you allow me.” I tried to add a touch of wit to the conversation to lighten his load.
“Yes, don’t they say the pain makes us all better actors? I guess that’s how I got so good.”
“Or maybe it was just an innate talent.” I smiled at him to acknowledge I knew how good he really was at his craft.
“Thank you, Anne.”
“So tell me about London and your time there.” The main course had come, and I hoped London would be a more enjoyable topic for him.
“London was great. I got to hone many of my skills there. I studied hard, and as I said, I partied hard. There was always somewhere to go and tons of people to do it with. And the Brits love to have a good time. Oh, yeah, if it wasn’t for my father I could easily have slipped with the booze, but I always kept a lid on it. I didn’t want to become him or emulate him in any way. So, I became a sexaholic instead.” That statement made him laugh heartily.
I laughed along and asked him if he was serious.
“No…not really, but there were women always willin
g. Some nights it was just to get off, and some nights…or days…it was to try and connect. I met a woman there my last year. We tried to make a go of it, but in the end, we were too different. She didn’t understand my need to be creative. She wanted someone more stable. Yeah, the sex was good though…” He drifted away again in thought. Maybe my questions were too probing.
I just kept eating my dinner so as not to interrupt him while he was deep in thought.
“Those were interesting times. I wondered if I could even make a relationship work.”
“But you were married, so obviously you could, on some level, make it work. Maybe not sustain it, but make it work nonetheless.”
“I looked at that as another failed relationship, too. Susie’s daughter was very special to me at the outset. At the end it was quite different. She’s an actor, too, so I thought that boded well for us having similar tastes. But she wanted success for both of us fast. She didn’t understand why it wasn’t coming quicker. It’s interesting because we were together about five years and the year we parted, I made it big. Go figure! When she came to my door one night asking for another chance, I was astonished. I wasn’t good enough then, but now that I had made it, she wanted me back.”
“What did you do?”
“I told her to shove it and that she still had to pay me alimony. Well, she took me to court on that one, but it was worth it. I lost, of course, but I really just wanted to stick it to her and her mom. They were always too good for the rest of the population, those two peas in a pod.”
“I understand.” I looked at him with mirth in my eyes.
“Yes, they are good at shafting people. Look Anne, I’m a straight shooter. I don’t like bullshit from anyone. I’ve had it hard and I don’t want any crap in my private life. I’m going to pursue you hard, but if you don’t eventually give me a chance, I’ll take my broken heart and go home. Do you get me?”
“Are you giving me an ultimatum on our blooming friendship?”
“You’re blooming exhausting! This will never solely be a friendship. I want you too much. Elements of friendship like love, trust, respect, and laughter will exist for us, but it’s not enough for me. I want you in my bed next to me.”
“Well then, can we just let it happen naturally? Maybe after you get to know me, you won’t want me at all. I have deep scars, physically and emotionally. I know what it is like to be beat up both ways, too. I need to trust first, Paul. That takes time and experience.”
The truth escaped me. He led me to believe I was safe. Damn him, if I was wrong. Damn him to hell!
Suddenly, he got up and came around to me, and lifted me out of the chair to press his body onto my own. He wrapped his arms around me tightly, and I held on to him.” He was going to make me cry again. He really cared to some degree. That was obvious. But why?
Standing together with him, with me trying not to shake, he pressed his face next to mine as if to snuggle us closer. I felt the stubble that was starting to form on his face, raspy on my own. I liked it. I closed my eyes and moaned slightly. I felt myself grab hold of him tightly. He did the same.
“Let’s promise not to hurt each other,” he said in his own emotional cadence.
“Yes, please, let’s do that,” I replied, still holding on to him.
His hands, seeking, went through my hair as he called out to me, “Anne, my beauty…please, I just want to be by your side and make you happy.”
We held on a bit more, then he broke us free. He led the way and I followed him. He wanted me to sit next to him on the bench side of the table. There we finished our meal together in silence, pressed up against each other. Time and age didn’t matter in that moment.
After the waiter cleared the table, readying for dessert, Paul took my hand in his once more. “You probably wonder why I have this fascination with you.”
“I think you’ve explained it a bit. We both have a background of suffering. You think you’ve found a kindred spirit in me.”
“Again, you underestimate the connection. Yes, the pain is a commonality, but where we are twin flames is in the fact that the love of the creative and the original burns brightly in both of us. We understand and see life through a different lens. I saw that in you the first time I laid eyes on you at the launch. We laughed at the same absurdities and smirked at the same satirical comedy we saw before us being played out. In other words, you saw the same shallowness as me. Like me, you didn’t want to be there. We were the only two who felt the same way that day. It stayed with me.”
“How do you know that to be true?”
“Like I’ve said, I watched you when you didn’t even know I was watching. Your hips swayed almost in defiance of the crowd there that day. I thought you so confident in your convictions.”
“It’s true that I do have my convictions and that I do stick to them, but I’m not sure about confidence.” Pressing my finger to his lips, I said, “But promise not to tell anyone that,” and laughed from the martini induced giggles.
He kissed my lips, then licked them proper for good measure. “I think you are very confident yet stuck on labels. Now shush while I kiss you some more.”
Right there in the back room of The Fountain, we kissed passionately for what seemed like hours. I lifted my legs onto his and crawled in closer to him so our lips were joined endlessly. Feelings of happiness washed over me.
Out of the corner of my eye I saw the waiter walk in, take one look, and quickly exit. I giggled and that broke our connection.
“Why are you laughing?”
“The waiter caught us and ran away.” I continued to laugh at what seemed the absurdity of it all. “I wonder what your best friend would think of you with me. Would he be shocked or more concerned that you’d lost your mind?” Repositioning myself on him but not letting go, I turned slightly so I could see his reaction. He didn’t let go either, but rather stroked my face and looked right at me.
“My best friend is my best friend for a reason. He understands my tastes. He knows I have good taste in women.”
“Ah, so he doesn’t know that you’re a bit delusional?” And then I kissed him passionately, as if to say, I don’t care how delusional you are, don’t go.
When we came up for air, he said, “He knows about all my delusions and all my passions, and you fall into the latter category.”
Our mouths met again, with our bodies pushed up against each other so tightly that I could hardly breathe. It was good. My hands roamed his finely ripped back. They went down, down to where his shirt met his jeans, and I thought of whether to go there and then moved back up. I didn’t want to compound his boner issue just yet. He was toned everywhere I touched.
“Anne,” he asked breathlessly, “do you like my body?”
Breathing heavily myself, I responded, “Yes, it’s okay, but it’s your soul that speaks to me.”
With that, he lifted me full onto his lap and wove his arms around me to encompass us together in a safe cocoon. His own hands were travelling up and down my back vigorously now, his kisses expressing earnest desire.
“We can’t do it here. Let’s go.”
“No…no, Paul! I can’t. I’m not ready.”
I broke away from him quickly, feeling immensely guilty that I had stirred him to such heights with no end in sight.
Moving off his lap and back to my original seat on the chair, I thought that if he never wanted to see me again, he would be justified in doing so. My kisses spoke of a woman totally possessed with desire and ready to make love, but my psyche just wasn’t there yet. I couldn’t change that even if I wanted to.
I watched him run his hands through his hair and try to reposition himself one more time. His heavy breaths turned into sighs.
“I’m so sorry, Paul. I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to lead you on, honestly. It’s those blasted scars…anyways, you wouldn’t understand, so please, please, let’s just focus on being friends. That is, if you still will be my friend. This is so hard…” I was rambling f
rom the panic that he might toss in the towel.
“You want to talk about hard? You should feel what you left behind.” He half laughed to lighten both our loads.
“I’m so sorry. It’s just that when we get near each other something combustible happens. I hope you will be my friend and I haven’t blown it.” I meant that sincerely.
“No, you haven’t blown it, Anne. I understand how pain can cripple and paralyze, and you’ve asked me several times to go slow. But you’re right that something special happens between us when we get close. So let’s not get too close for a bit, okay? My balls are killing me!”
“Yes, very okay. Thank you, Paul, and I really mean that. I think you’re special, and I’m glad you found me after all these years. Maybe there is a reason for it all. Maybe we were always meant to be something to each other.”
Seeing the right moment for a dessert order, the waiter came back in. We both just ordered coffees. As we waited for them, I asked him how he liked living in L.A.
“When I first came out here, it was awful. I shared so many shitty, smelly, and dirty apartments with so many different people until I had made enough money modeling to get my own place. From there, I started taking some acting classes to keep my skills honed. Audition after audition, I went on. I got some work here and there, and just kept adding it to my resume. One day, I went on an audition for a role on Viceroy, just actually looking for any role, and the producer saw something in me that he thought would work as the lead. Can you imagine my surprise and delight when I got it? I thought that night, alone in my apartment, back to the day I saw you but you didn’t see me. I thought ‘what would the great Anne Sullivan think of me now?’ Hmmm…”
“I would think basically what I think now. I would think what an incredibly bright and interesting person this Paul Wickham is, and how nice it would be to know him better.”
