Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
many guys in proportion to the number of guys who came on to me. You know? But it was
mostly just pussy for them. Maybe not with Glenn. He was the pussy on that one. Ha!”
Glenn was the first husband who conquered the PhD and is renowned to this day for his
juxtaposition of late 19
th
Century syntax with post-modern meter and/or rhythm. But it was
mostly pussy with all the rest. They craved it, had to have it, wanted more of it and could not
get enough till they rolled over and snored. Pitiful fuckers. I listened to her woeful, loveless
tale, guilty as one more cockhound asleep on the lawn, till she said, “Except for you.”
“
Moi?
”
“It's been so miserable, trying to sort through things, and this shrink keeps pushing
my buttons. He asked me to reconsider the guys I'd been with to see if maybe someone or
something other than sex comes through. Like affection and intellectual bonding. I didn't
even need a minute. It was you. Only you.”
Gulp. “So . . . we're still in love?”
She laughed, a hardy, healthy laugh, what a young fellow must learn to encourage in wo-
men prone to anxiety depression. “Yes. When are you coming to see me?”
A man was never too beaten to ponder a Boop weekend. The tiger's tale had been released,
but dreams still imploded when the tiger lunged. She would be the antidote; next stop Texas.
Betty seemed emotionally and financially stable in the suburbs with a tiresome boyfriend
who was way too analytical—
What?
She'd invited me, an old beau of no income, to travel five thousand miles to visit her and
her boyfriend? No, silly. Interest in the boyfriend had died and so would the liaison, soon. It
was just . . . nothing. She would tell him that day, the day of my arrival. Don't worry—the boy-
friend would not be around, and her kids were young enough to fall asleep by eight.
We'd changed physically, grown out of self-conscious youth and beauty. My hair had
thinned. I had skin damage from the sun and a scar slanting across my forehead where God
whipped me with a running backstay in heavy weather to chastise my sins. She said it wasn't
noticeable in low light and hiked her shirt to show breasts of two different sizes. “What can I
say? They wanted the right side.” I assumed they were the children.
Most notable was the comfort we shared, the open affection and bonding she'd recalled in
her time of crisis. We snuggled on the sofa to share more. She said I should sleep in the base-
ment till she gave the boyfriend the news. We shouldn't hurt him.
Because he really was a great guy. She simply couldn't stand to be around him anymore; he
was so boring she could scream, and the sex was way off. “He eats me for forty-five minutes.
Where the fuck is that at? That's not foreplay. I got chapped lips—wait! You'll love this!” She
scooted to the edge of the couch and turned to me to better animate her point, her immer-
sion in the world of diapers, babies and domestic routine. “I was on the phone with my friend
Cookie, telling her how I have to get eaten for forty-five minutes. She was so envious, but I
