A Change of Needs

by Nate Allen

  Relatively speaking, he was probably batting .250 at the Crooked Creek this season, and he returned, like the fisherman, the hunter, in hopes of landing one. He would meet someone who would challenge his relationship with Rae, a keeper, someone who was his equal in some ways, and exceeded him in others. Her name was Nicole. Dark hair, dark eyes, a full-blooded Seminole, she wasn’t just beautiful, she was mysterious and sexy. At forty years of age she was properly inflated, not a wrinkle on her. In many respects she was the female equivalent of Jake. If people were numbered so that we could readily identify members of the opposite sex we’re compatible with …they were a pair. He asked her if he could buy her another beer as she stood holding an empty longneck like a prop, but there was the implication he was looking to quench his own thirst, and she was a long cool drink. He wouldn’t bed her that first night, or the second. Not because she didn’t want him to, but because she did, but she wasn’t a one-night stand, and he was gonna have to prove his worth. The chemistry was evident. They went together like slow and steady.

  She lived in Archer Lodge, a small community in Johnston County. Divorced within the past two years, she had moved to North Carolina from Florida when her son had enrolled at an area university, she had a daughter who was a couple of years older than Jake’s boy. She was the kind of woman that the silence was never awkward or uncomfortable, and that alone made her unique. When she finally let him undress her, it was one of those events he’d remember. The Native American could ride like a reverse cowgirl, and when she came it was like a stone skipping across the water, the orgasms rolling one into the next, growing in intensity and closer together before the final sinking plunge. Like watching the sunset, you could see it disappearing on the horizon, and then it was gone, and beautifully so.

  “I’m gonna call you pebble,” he said grinning, “Because…?” she asked. Not wanting to tell her the real reason for fear it would inhibit her, “Because you’ve aged well,” he laughed. She thought to hit him, but then he followed the quip with a more acceptable explanation, “because you’re cool and smooth, and you haven’t allowed life to make you jagged.” “If I’m pebble, I guess that makes you rock,” she responded, tugging at his hardness. “Rolling stone might be more accurate,” he confessed. “How ’bout you just call me ‘again’?” he said. “How ’bout I just call you ‘often’?” was the reply.

  She liked the man, he was strong enough to be gentle. Beyond the literal implication that he was physically strong enough to be gentle in handling her, but in that sense he was secure enough in his manhood that he didn’t need to posture or pose as such, and it allowed him to be tender. She was right there, in his life, unencumbered, uncomplicated and available, but he wasn’t, not in the way she needed him to be. He had approached it from the very beginning like every other occasion where he had seen a woman more than once, telling her upfront that all he had to offer was friendship, he needed his freedom, and she of course was afforded hers. After all friendship was the firmest foundation of all, and out of it many things can grow, and things began too, but it wasn’t long before that emotional claustrophobia reared its ugly head.

  By early October they were spending most of their free time together. She could sense there was an obstacle, he hadn’t said as much, but he didn’t need to, but she was content and not in a hurry, and they would grow closer, or as close as they could. All he knew was that for the first time since the affair had begun he felt an outside draw, it was a confusing time for our man Jake. He’d desire, but perhaps not deserve her, but he wouldn’t play her either.

  He would search himself for reasons not to give in to the relationship, but all he really needed was the one reason …Rae. It was incredibly fucked up to be sure, but not unlike him. He’d heard the proverbial “click,” and felt that fateful sensation that accompanies stepping on a landmine, knowing it was going to go off, but not when or whom it would hurt. It was exactly the sort of situation he had purposely and desperately avoided, yet there he was, quietly stuck between a pebble and a hard place.

  He hadn’t seen Rae in the month since meeting Nicole. It was a busy time for both, children heading back to school, and Glen was around more than usual. Aside from that he had long since learned the proper balance in his communication with her, too much had the effect of creating that appearance of neediness and the resulting apprehension and distance would follow as a consequence. If he waited, she would initiate the contact, and since he had met Nicole he was finding himself …distracted? He was still hungry for time with Rae, would’ve made himself available anytime the opportunity arose, but he wasn’t starving like he had and she sensed it. Someone else, someone he wasn’t talking about had changed the tone of his voice, the stray dawg was being fed elsewhere, and it made her insecure. It would seem some women aren’t much different than men in the sense that she might not have wanted him for herself as much as she didn’t want someone else to have him, she damn sure didn’t want to lose him. He was her biggest fan…

  The flight from Raleigh to New Orleans went through Charlotte. The airport code on the ticket said MSY, it stood for Moisant Stock Yard, better known as Louis Armstrong International Airport. We all know it by a number of different nicknames, the “Big Easy,” “NOLA,” “Naw’leans,” home to “Fat Tuesday” and Bourbon Street where vice was not only welcomed but expected. It was an enchanting, exotic place, one of those few cities in the U. S. where you felt as though you were visiting another country all together. Or at least that’s how the boy from North Carolina who had never been further south than Charleston perceived it. The people, the culture, the language …all seductive.

  Rae had family there, her mother’s side, they weren’t native to the area, but longtime residents, and she had also gone as part of an outreach through her father’s church. The destruction of Katrina in 2005 had devastated the city, but part of what makes New Orleans special is its resiliency. Geographically it was always vulnerable, like a glass chin on a big-mouth little man daring someone to take a punch, the hurricane had, and the region had not entirely recovered from the blow.

  She had been there nearly a week, but before she left Raleigh had invited Jake to come and spend the last weekend with her. In retrospect she must’ve sensed him drifting and the invitation was an attempt to bring him close again …and he didn’t need much coaxing either. He wouldn’t tell Nicole anything other than he was going out of town for a long weekend. It was an asshole thing to do, but all the relationship required of him. He was a follow your heart kind of man and his took him to New Orleans.

  He would arrive early Thursday, take a cab to the Bed and Breakfast he had made reservations at, and they would spend the next three days as an ordinary couple, or as ordinary as their circumstances would allow. As difficult as it had been to be apart for those long periods, it can be more difficult to be in close proximity to someone you have such strong feelings for and to have to keep them on a leash, to not allow yourself to act on the affection that seemed so natural. They had the kind of chemistry that’s hard not to notice, and the weekend presented the first real opportunity to be uninhibited and not conceal it. He knew what she was in need of, what their relationship was in need of, some space beyond the confines the necessary secrecy of the affair demanded, some romance and intimacy beyond the sex, some semblance of what a normal healthy relationship between a man and a woman looked like. She’d never really had it in her life. It was what it was, and he was intent to make the most of it.

  New Orleans was indeed a naughty place. He had done his homework ahead of time and made an informal agenda, his hope to make the occasion special for her, Jazz club, Cajun cuisine, perhaps even a fortune-teller. Part of that agenda also included Scarlett. It had now been a year since that first encounter at Leon’s. In that time, among the many things she had confessed and confided to our man, she had expressed her desire to explore a sexual experience with a woman. Jake had noted in her emails a correspondence with an individual named Jamie, and he could neve
r accurately assess the gender but he suspected Jamie was a female simply by the tone, or maybe it was the pink font …but it seemed to have never come to fruition, in part because of the chaos he had created in sending her the text.

  She had explained in great detail how she wanted to experience such an encounter with Jake, but their activities were so unpremeditated it didn’t allow for the cultivation of a third party, so it had remained a fantasy, and she seemed to have abandoned the idea. But he had never forgotten, and wanted to provide her the opportunity. It was easy enough, escort services in New Orleans were abundant, and he arranged it in advance online.

  He knew the type of woman she was attracted to, he’d been a witness to it, Nicole would have been such a woman …but her river didn’t flow in that direction. He knew that for her to thoroughly enjoy herself it needed to be someone attractive, but not more attractive than her …and someone younger, but not too young, and someone who could carry on an intelligent conversation… He found that in Scarlett, a buxom redhead originally from Texas, a graduate student taking a rather extended break from school, now working part-time as an escort for an upscale service in New Orleans who was “open to couples.” He anticipated the evening could get a bit too lively for their quaint accommodations at the Inn so he rented a room for the evening at an upscale French Quarter Hotel in advance without her knowledge.

  They had hardly gotten out of the room the first day, making up for lost time. Friday, however, it was essential to his script that they get out and see the city. Following their dinner reservations, they proceeded to a Jazz club of some notoriety. It was there that they would meet Scarlett. He would receive a text confirming her arrival but she was hard to miss, he was undoubtedly the luckiest man in the room with the two beauties at his side, all the worlds a stage, and we are merely players …and the scenario that had been discussed played out perfectly.

  The whole thing would take place without Rae ever knowing Jake had paid for the woman’s company, and it was essential to her taking pleasure in it. He would never forget the wicked grin on her face as she took his hand while he completed the redheaded task on the agenda. Nor the look on hers as the woman devoured her, an involuntary pained expression of joy at the moment of climax, “I love you” she whimpered, her eyes fixed on the man she wished was someone else, still our man Jake, only that she wished he was someone more than who he was relegated to be in her life. It was erotic, loving …and tragically genuine.

  For an ordinary couple such an occasion might have represented a last ditch effort to rekindle something fading, an absence of intimacy or erosion of it, but for these two it was galvanizing. A thing of beauty, and well worth the $800 it cost the hardworking man and for him to have been the first man she would ever experience it with …priceless. The gift not being in the money it cost but the illusion that it had all happened by chance, and thus the true gift lay in the fact she would never know it was a gift.

  The following day couldn’t have been anything other than anti-climatic. We’ve all been there as the last day of our vacation winds down and we begin to think about our return to the real world. Every great exhale and sigh of relief in life followed by an equally expansive inhale, and the influx of awareness reminding us about the responsibilities and life we are returning to. And so it was for Jake and Rae, melancholic. She had that look about her, the tentativeness of a prisoner on work release who knows that the respite is temporary, the appearance of normalcy an illusion, and they’ll have to return to their “cell” shortly. He wanted to fix it for her, but it was beyond him.

  They had passed by the fortuneteller’s shop several times in the past couple of days, the last item on his agenda. They stood studying their reflection in the large window, Jake clutching her hand like a child clutching his mother’s on the first day of school, knowing he would have to let go. She gently squeezing his, aware she could not hold onto him indefinitely, neither wanting to step inside for a glimpse of the future, or seemingly already in possession of the knowledge.

  The affair would always be like that lima bean in a Dixie cup we all grew in 1st or 2nd grade, excited at the fact that it had emerged from the small amount of soil provided, but confined and constricted, it would never be more than just a lima bean in a Dixie cup. And it was apparent to them both, they didn’t need a crystal ball, the shop window would suffice. So in lieu of the pretense of some future other than what they both foresaw, they passed on the fortune telling and opted for tattoos instead. It would serve as a symbol of their connection, not the images, but the act, a branding ceremony of secret significance if you will.

  He got one he had long ago decided upon, only waited for the proper occasion. It was an ouroboros, the image of the snake eating itself. Plato had described such a creature as the first living thing in the universe, entirely self-sufficient and subsisting upon itself. A recurring theme found in some form or variation in nearly every religion and culture, symbolic of rebirth and renewal …the circle of life, and of life everlasting. But to Jake, it simply looked to him as though the snake was his own worst enemy, devouring himself, the epitome of his experience as he saw it. The tattoo represented an awareness of the fact, not a celebration of it, and that was what held meaning for the man. A souvenir of the weekend, a postcard of sorts forever inked on his being, draped over his left shoulder it was large and enigmatic like her place in his life.

  She was at an internal crossroads, a four-way stop sign in a sense. She didn’t want to get something common, and yet what she wanted it to represent, change, was especially so. Probably the most common tattoo women get at such a juncture in their lives is a tattoo of a butterfly, symbolizing the emergence and evolution of themselves, coming into their own, but Jake talked her into getting a caterpillar instead. It gave the implication of change, represented the same transformation, only it would leave the mystery of what that “change” would look like unanswered. She liked it, and the fact that he understood her so well. A fittingly incomplete circle, it found a home around her bellybutton, small and discreetly placed like their relationship, hidden in plain sight. Her children would love it. Glen, like most everything else about his wife, simply wouldn’t get it.

  The last evening in New Orleans was deliberately casual, like that of a more traditional couple. The next morning they would arrive at the airport early enough to get their seat assignments beside one another. But the plane rides home would be quiet and awkward. They had been to that elusive place again, their Nirvana …and reminded that they couldn’t stay. The voodoo-like spell of the weekend was already wearing off, and the pair would share what amounted to a mutual emotional hangover. It seems after the “Big Easy” there was to be an opposite and equally big uneasy.

  .

  CHAPTER 14

  THE EIGHTEEN PERCENT DILEMMA

  PLANCK’S LAW…Seeing heat: For increasing temperatures, the visible sequence of radiated colors is: black, red, orange, yellow-white, bluish-white.

  …And in a nonscientific, but personal observation, the flame typically burns hottest before it burns out. New Orleans had been bluish-white hot, and that meant …she was already mitigating the significance of the weekend.

  If we were to mark ourselves as to where we were on this trek, he had been the man characterized by temporary, disposable relationships, and she was seeking an ongoing no-strings attached sexual relationship. It had evolved to where he was now aspiring to keep their relationship ongoing for as long as possible, and she was facing the growing depression and constant disappointment of living with the reminder it presented of what was missing in her life. Hers was a long row to hoe, and he knew it would not be long before she would be seeking some variety and trying to recreate the sensation with someone other than himself, and it pained him.

  He too had seen the future in the reflection of the fortuneteller’s window, seen the look on her face… recognized their Dixie cup. So what do you do when destinies seem written and ill-fated?… Transplant the lima bean to a bigger
pot, fuel the flame, rewrite the ending and create your own destiny …or at least try. It was time to whip out that Longfellow of his and write her a letter. Just because things are the way they are doesn’t mean that’s the way they have to be…

  Rae… I’m touching myself thinking about you right now ;) I pity the girl I meet next… she’s got a tough act to follow. But then again, you might be the next act if I have anything to do with it …not getting moist are you? ;) …need any “meat” in your diet? I know you like it …and you know I want it ;) …nice things to know. But it’s more than that …whatever “that” is.

  Last weekend was significant …in many ways. I can’t help but think about it …can you? I know your head if full of questions I can’t answer, if I could, they would be meaningless, (or either my questions) and hence, the infinite dilemma of whether the answers were yours or someone else’s. I know enough not to go that road ;)) Questions of whether or not to do the “right thing” or listen to what your heart tells you to …and those rare and beautiful eclipses where the two are indistinguishable… ooooh …now I’m getting wet, …must be the feminine side of me, or the dog licking my hand ;) At some point you’ll get to a place where everything makes sense, and I’m going to be around. Enjoy the good moments and don’t be in such a hurry to raze them from your memory just to make sure that the source of the experience, the “feeling” lies anywhere but within yourself. Wholeness is not a place, it is, I believe, Newton’s 4th law of “e”motion …a physical impossibility, because what we are today, is not what we will be tomorrow… (Sorry, perhaps not what you wanted to hear) …we are but human snowballs accumulating and growing as we roll along. We don’t meet people who complete us, but if we are lucky, we meet people whom we are incomplete without, you are such a person for me. There are Places in our lives… places we pass by, …places we stop and visit, …places we feel safe, and places we call home. Perhaps the most we can hope for is a “place” where we are allowed to BE whole. The crux of the lesson is not to look for “wholeness,” but to learn how to “be.” To glance in the mirror and take stock of oneself, the good,… the bad,… the ugly… and still feel loved, understood… and accepted. I am such a place for you.