Eric, to say good bye to the passion I couldn’t quell with Eric.
My actions were telling at the time, but I didn’t see it as ripples flowing across still water. I didn’t see it for what it was; I didn’t know I couldn’t expose myself to David like I did to Eric, or that it would take me more than a decade to know I needed to learn how.
David and I spent another tortured year playing push me pull you, and I’d periodically update Eric with our progress or lack thereof. He remained unimpressed with my romance with David, and seemed always to be saying the same things. “He’s never going to make you happy. This will never change.”
I left my corporate job, spent all my savings and followed David around the world. Once I came home, when it was over with David yet again, I cried on Eric’s shoulder for probably the tenth, twentieth or thirtieth time.
He was always magnanimous, always my friend first. But shortly after I’d abandon hope that David and I would ever clean up our mess and when the occasion inevitably arose, I’d welcome Eric back into my bed with unadulterated glee and he seemed equally happy to be there.
In March some two years now after we first met and after my second December break up with David, Eric came to visit me, comfort me, and make love to me.
Before he could rest I was all over him again, very happy to see him, to have him comfort me, and build me up. I sensed he felt a little overwhelmed by my enthusiasm.
That weekend, we made love in the afternoon, the light streaming through gauzy windows. It had been so long, I missed him. In the bath I teased him again and again and then we hurried back into my bedroom, I felt wonderful with him.
Excited, he leaned me over at the edge of the bed and aggressively entered into me fully and moaned out, “Oh my God, that is some sweeeeeet pussy……” What he said shocked me and thrilled me in its unadulterated passion and desire all at the same time. Shivers ran up and down my spine and my toes literally curled, and he felt divinely perfect inside of me. I always felt like his body was custom made to fit within my own and I was filled with passion and desire, and flooded with the pleasure of him. Less than a thirty second passage through time seared into my brain with such intensity, the ripple across the pond was more like a tsunami across my heart and the passion exploded within me and rushed through me.
It must have represented sheer contentment and pleasure to me because I thought of that instant, what he said, and how I felt those few seconds almost every time I had a discontented moment within the ten years of my marriage. Every time I longed for passion, for a sense of unbroken connection, a sense of completion his voice echoed like waves within my very soul.
Eventually that recollection was the only thing that could summon physical pleasure in my marital bed, and I felt horribly guilty at the betrayal of my husband and his “rightful place” with the blessed memory of Eric filling my heart, my soul and my body that late winter afternoon.
After a few months of hoping Eric would reveal his feelings for me were growing the way my feelings for him had grown, I took a Judaism class that talked about the significance of marriage from a Judaic perspective.
Why we marry, what we are supposed to get out of it, the purpose of a spouse and how we are to aspire to be our best possible selves through the mirror we provide to one another. Here, I already had this perfect mirror naturally instilled in my relationship with Eric. Yet there were the things about Eric that left me uncertain. His ability to be faithful, I doubted, more than my own; his desire to be a father, and his readiness for both; how much he loved me as opposed to anyone else, how our mutual childhood experiences and addictions might cause us to falter…were all things I was uncertain about.
But most of all, his experiences as a child and with Gerald, his roommate in California left a dark shadow of uncertainty. I was afraid to ask him about its significance now several years later, I didn’t want to imply anything, but I knew he’d had adult experiences with other men. I didn’t know how our mutual experience of being sexually abused would play out as parents and I was too afraid to ask him that question. The sad truth too was that Eric was not pursuing me in any kind of a permanent way, and I didn’t think I should hold on to the hope, I didn’t think I should continue to suspend expectations of him, and I wanted and needed him to claim my heart for his very own….and he didn’t and wouldn’t.
I wrote him a long letter telling him what I learned and that turning 30, I really wanted to find a mate and have a family. I remember taking more than four hours to write that letter, editing it and rewriting it a number of times. It was very important to me, not just in what I was saying to him, but in the affirmation of the kind of marriage and growth experience I wanted to create. For that time, David was completely absent in my life and I didn’t write what I wanted in marriage specifically for Eric, or any other man. But I wanted Eric to know what I wanted clearly as an aspiration just for myself, before I walked away from him. Being a time long before email it took a while for my letter to reach him across thousands of miles.
As the phone rang I absent mindedly picked it up as I sat at my new computer writing something for a new customer. “Hello?”
“Marissa, it’s Eric, I just got your letter today. It’s beautiful, what you’ve said.” He was touched, and I knew he meant it from the sound of his voice. “I love you in many ways, and I value our friendship very much. But, I’m not prepared to commit to you or to anyone else. I’m not saying that I never will want that with you, but I’m not willing to give you that now.”
“Eric, I know this, that’s why I said that I thought we should not stay in touch anymore. As long as I have you in my life I can’t really let anyone else be significant to me.”
“Marissa, do you have to be so hasty about ending what we have between us?”
“Eric… aren’t I just prolonging the inevitable?”
“Look, I’ll be there in three short weeks. I have a business trip with a client to the Merchandise Mart. Wait for me to come and visit and we’ll talk through the whole thing, ok?”
I sat there for a moment considering everything he had to say. It was a perfectly reasonable request though I worried a little my strength might falter. I was very attracted to him after all, despite the futility of it. I wanted to see him again, even if it were just one last time.
“Ok Eric. You know I want to see you, you know I’m crazy for you. I’ll wait for you.”
I was working on Peachtree Street in a temporary position. I met him in Midtown as he easily strolled off the train. I was wearing an aqua dress with a slit up to my hip that was lightly concealed by a panel. The dress flashed long leg as I crossed Peachtree Street in Midtown from the Museum to the train station. He stepped out of the station from beneath a beautiful office building on to dark marble steps, with black glass gleaming behind his tall, lean and handsome frame. He stopped when he saw me, cocked his head and appraised me appreciatively.
I saw his attraction for me all over again, and it always made me think there was somehow a real chance he’d “get it” this time, that his resistance would finally melt and that he’d be mine once and for all.
I kept my pace across the street and let the flap of the dress reveal the flesh of my thigh freely, and sidled into his big strong arms and got the kiss I’d been dreaming of for the better part of a month.
Chapter 13
I saw him as if it were the first time. I never could control my passion for him and I’ve since then thought if I’d only been a little cooler towards him he probably would have come around, but I remained too eager.
When we got back to my place he sort of put me off, said something about “Give me a chance to get something to drink woman!” and laughed easily.
His remark hurt me in a way, but I didn’t say anything about it. He was distracted. He was stressed. He had a lot to do on this trip. These were things that should not matter when it came to me of course, and I was wounded at the echo of being denied what I wanted from him… I remembere
d Elaine. I remembered it all.
“What have you got in the kitchen?” he said as he swung through the door towards the antiquated refrigerator.
“Mmmmm, some juice, milk, maybe some Sprite?” I said trying to regroup in the living room, adjusting my dress and straightening up a bit.
“Hey.” He said as he came back into the dining area. “You know I think you’re sexy, I’m just a little tired from the trip, and I get a little grumpy when I’m too hungry. Let’s go get some dinner.”
“Sure.” I said as I stepped into the bath to touch up my lipstick and brush my hair.
Dinner wasn’t terribly eventful. He told me about his customer, Dana, who was high maintenance and difficult and very demanding, and frankly I don’t know that I even knew that she was going to be so much of a focus during the time he and I spent together on that visit.
Dana was more or less as cuddly as your standard triple blade razor. She’d developed a novelty gift sold in local Spencer stores as a wild and crazy aphrodisiac among the Yuppie crowd and they were at the Atlanta Merchandise Mart to promote her budding product in the Southeast.
Finally we went back to my place and as we opened the front door, I pushed him through the threshold, shut the door with my foot, and pushed him up against the wall.
“Come here, you, I’ve waited long enough. You know what I want.” I smiled into his eyes and he smiled back at me. He was so incredibly hot, and I just melted into him as my tongue traced his lips and then twirled around his tongue and my hands slid down his chest, his stomach and caressed him from outside of his pants. He moaned into my mouth and I kissed him hard, full on, and his hand ran across my body in a flurry.
“You. Here, you’re coming with me.” Eric said and took my hand and led me to my bedroom. We fell into the rumpled bed and he expertly unfastened the front of my dress to reveal nothing but a pair of lacy bikini panties, and slid his hand underneath the surface and into the heat of my passion. My hands shook as I embraced his face and kissed him passionately, desperately, and he climbed onto my body and slid inside of me as I threw my legs around him and arched my back in delight.
Moving, slowly, deliberately in and out of me, “Uh huh, mmmmm, uhhhh huhhhh.” He was staring into my eyes and the passion was intense as it always was.
Before long he threw his head back, yelled out and collapsed upon me, heaving. I held him, tears streaming down my face.
“Marissa, Marissa. Don’t cry. Don’t.”
But I cried anyway.
Chapter 14
I wasn’t very happy that Dana was monopolizing so much of Eric’s time. Every day was hectic and I was transporting him to and from downtown early in the morning and again late in the evening. They were consumed with meetings and dinners and lunches and floor shows, and none of it included the romantically inclined.
Eric was exhausted, and his attention for me was not completely there, and most of all we are decidedly not talking, not just about us, but much of anything at all.
I suppose I could, should, would have been more understanding, it was a business trip, and she was his client. By Thursday there was finally a break in their schedule and I thought Eric might broach the subject of why I’d delayed breaking it off with him in the first place.
Eric says, “Marissa, I am so worn out with Dana. She’s just been on my ass continually, totally a bitch on wheels. Can I ask you to do me a huge favor this afternoon?”
“Sure, what do you need?” I ask.
“Would you PLEASE take Dana shopping? She’s got some kind of cruise to go on next week and she’s got to have a bathing suit. I’ve had enough of her demanding ways, and the last thing I want to do is take her shopping. Would you mind terribly, taking her so I can have some down time?”
“Sure. There’s a really good shop up in Buckhead that lets you mix and match tops and bottoms according to size. It’s a little pricey though, can she swing it?”
“Sure. She can swing it. She’s loaded.” So, I take her shopping, disappointed that his down time isn’t our down time together.
She is not so tall, incredibly thin, long brown hair, a tan, nothing particularly distinctive about her face, but she is pretty in a generic rich girl way. She carried the “I’m a fucking bitch and so proud of it” demeanor that certain men just can’t seem to get enough of and that I never even attempted mastering. She’s calculating and her strategies are self serving, and while I see her as a sharp business woman and I admire her ambition and her success, I can’t say I was enjoying her company.
Dana and I were looking at bathing suits, rifling through racks of tops and bottoms and other various types of clothing.
“How long have you known Eric?” she casually asks me.
“Uhmmm, about two and half years now. We met when he was on a business trip here two years ago in March.” The air conditioning in the shop was on overdrive, the hangers drag screeching across the chrome stands and clink against one another over and over again in a steady rhythm.
“Are things serious between you?” She glances towards me and continues circling the round as she pulls one unacceptable suit past her gaze after another.
“Well we’ve seen each other on and off. I’ve seen him in Atlanta, California, Charlotte, and here again. Every time I think we’re through it just persists, and while I’m crazy about him, how realistic is it with the distance between us? I know he’s always had other women in his life so we aren’t exclusive. What’s a girl to do?” I shrugged and smiled at her, being casual about it all, and I keep sliding hangers as she turns and starts to depart.
“Oh yeah, I know what you mean.” She says coyly.
Something about the way she says it, the sly sideways glance she gives me, makes me think she knows what I mean in particular with Eric.
“Have you and Eric been together?” I cautiously ask her.
“Oh yeah, but it was a while ago, not recently.” She waved her hand away as though it meant nothing to her.
Now that I think of it, she never looked me in the face when she said it. She keeps shopping. “You know what an absolute jerk he can be. He’s so self absorbed, totally enamored with himself.”
“Well, he is a man.” I act as though it’s casual to me as well; never mind the letter and this visit, or my hopes and dreams. Inside I feel as though she’s just humiliated me to the core no matter what my external reaction. What could I have possibly said in his defense? Not much.
I remained silent, for a minute longer as we moved on to another rack and she was distracting herself so as not to appear overly interested in my response. “I think it’s all over but the fanfare, in a lot of ways. I want to get married, have a family; I don’t think Eric is ready to give me that.” We went on shopping, and we didn’t talk about Eric anymore.
I wasn’t very happy about what she said about having been Eric’s lover. There was an uncomfortable familiarity in this transaction. Elaine’s saunter towards
Eric on the field; Gerald’s intimation that he was allowed to have his intimacies that excluded all women, Eric’s asking for reprieve of my letting him go after the revelation of other lovers to me, and that had been going on for more than two years now. I wanted more than the casual comfort of each other, I wanted it all.
This incident really angered me in a way I had not been before. It was one thing to be with me, and have his customer here. But did he really have to ask ME to take HER shopping if he was screwing her?
For the first time I felt used by him and I’d had it. We finish the shopping trip with my being nonchalant about what she shared with me. I’d as much as ended it already hadn’t I? What difference did it make? I’d had other lovers too, and would again wouldn’t I? It really just confirmed what I thought I should do in the first place.
Finally Dana is getting out of my car to return to her hotel. I’d driven between my apartment and her hotel so many times that week I was practically on autopilot. She is gathering her many bags, as she comments, “It’s ju
st like him to think he can get away with having two lovers shop together without discovering it isn’t it?”
Sealing the fate she was bestowing, the end of my tolerance of the status quo, “Yeah, unfortunately, it seems like it is Dana. Good luck with the show, and your new product. I hope it goes just the way you want it to.”
“Thanks for taking me shopping Marissa; I’d never have found this great suit without you!”
Even as angry as I felt, I was not going to confront Eric about it. I was cool towards him the rest of our visit.
“How’d the shopping trip go?” he says distractedly as he’s starting to get his things together. He’s leaving the next day. He’s been here a whole week and not a word about “us”. Nothing. I do not want to be the one to bring it up all over again, and it sort of aches the whole idea of having put this out there and letting him come here. I felt like his free hotel and concierge.
“Oh she’s a real joy Eric, a real joy. I was never so happy to get someone out of my hair in all my life.”
There’s something about my tone, and I haven’t greeted him, kissed him, and flirted at all, obviously I’m irritated if not angry.
He looked at me surprised, paused, and chose not to take the bait. He regrouped. “She seems to have dampened your mood considerably.”
“Yes. She has that effect, doesn’t she?” He didn’t inquire as to why I might be inclined to be so bitchy towards him after the shopping trip with Dana. He never intuited any communication between us or a particular problem.
I went into the bathroom and shut the door. While I readied for dinner and I thought, ‘If he really wanted to talk about “us” he’d bring it up. If it is important to him to salvage or develop what we have between us, he’ll take care of it.’
Yet, he didn’t. I don’t know what he was or wasn’t aware of. I don’t know if he sensed a change, I don’t know if he cared, I don’t know if he was relieved I wasn’t pushing the relationship issue.
Tsunami Across My Heart Page 4
