Thursday, June 11, 2009
Why I let her go
I was 25, she was 22. It was her first year out of college with a new job, her first real apartment that her parents didn't pay for, real bills. We met a year earlier at a coffee shop on campus. She talked to me because I was scribbling intently in my moleskin-style notepad.
We hit it off immediately. She read what I was writing and was flummoxed because it was a topic she had never even considered, a book I wanted to write (to this day it is ongoing). I shared a cup of coffee with her, got her phone number, and skedaddled.
We briefly dated over the next few weeks, but her work schedule was harried, and my writing had taken off, making me hard to see. We liked each other, a lot, but timing wasn't right. So we promised to stay in touch, hang out when possible, but not making anything serious.
We fucked a few months later, mostly due to each of us needing our pipes cleaned and a mutual attraction to the other. She was pretty, but she was also pretty green. She had one lover in high school, two in college, plus a lot of drunk blowjobs and clit-lickings shared with horrid frat boys who neither gave nor really received. I wined her, dined her, wooed her, teased her, made her want my body and my hands and my mouth on her. The first night we had sex was uncomfortable, because she didn't want to go back to the college days of hooking up. The sex was good for both, but it was obvious she was nervous. Looking back, I should've waited a few weeks.
Soon, though, the second late-night booty call came across my email, and I hopped over to her pad. She was already relatively naked, wet beyond belief. Foreplay was mostly her throwing herself at my cock, bouncing on it with glee and desire. That night was good sex, maybe great sex. She never came from penetration before, and that night she came twice in 3 hours. So did I.
Our relationship was mostly fucking, but a lot of talking afterwards. She was a true lady in this case, one of the rare ones that doesn't roll over and sleep. Note that I have no problem with someone passing out after good sex, but in her case I loved the talking and touching and admiring of each other's bodies and thoughts for hours after we connected physically.
I listened to her talk for hours, and she listened to me talk deeply about my real, secret job. Sometimes we'd fuck for an hour, talk for 3, then fuck again before passing out practically moments after we both came. It was really, really good sex, and really good intimacy.
But we didn't date. She had taken on a second job to pay her bills faster, and I was traveling a lot more and writing constantly. So we'd meet up three, four times a month at her place or at my place, or on occasions she'd fly out to meet me for rip-roaring sex in an odd city in the States. It went on for almost 7 months. She never said she loved me (she did, though), but she came close. She definitely loved what I had to give her, and she took it whenever I wanted it, as I gave it when she did.
And then it happened: she met someone else. The guy she met was completely her type: college-bred, goofy but still cute, into sports and into the same movies and books and bands that she was into. They hit it off, and she asked me when she should sleep with him. I told her: when you're comfortable with the idea. Sometimes it's the first date, sometimes the third, sometimes it's months.
We still fucked while she dated him, and after 2 months she finally felt comfortable falling into his arms and into his bed. She called me crying the next morning.
"I love this guy." That's great! It's a challenge to find someone you're so compatible with. "We have great sex." Awesome! "I mean, I don't want to hurt your feelings." It's better than with me, so what?
She admitted that she came more with me than with him, but with him it felt better. She wasn't as vulgar or whorish in bed as with me, but more intimate on the inside. He didn't make her feel as much like a lady as I did, but she loved spending time with him.
So what's the problem? "I feel bad that this is happening." Because of me? "Yes." Don't. This is what people have to do to find someone they're really compatible with. I'm more than just a lay, but if he can listen, if he can make you smile and make you want sex and make you feel like a woman, then I'm inconsequential. "I'll miss you." I'm not going anywhere. I'm still here, for coffee, for talking, for responding to late-night freak-outs about how your rent will get paid.
She hated herself for weeks, telling me that she doesn't understand why she's so into him and why she was only into me for sex and talking. I told her: it's because I was meeting SOME of your needs greatly, but not all of them or even a majority of them. He met more of her needs, but none of them perfectly. It's something you have to accept when you fall in love, there is no perfection.
We talked, in person. She wanted me, one last time, but I said no. I told her that our sex was ridiculously good. She liked that I made her beg, that I took her in ways that seemed against her will but completely what she wanted, what she needed, what she secretly desired from me. I understood her boundaries: mental and physical, and never breached both at once.
Eventually, her relationship with him really took off, with him moving in with her a year after they started sleeping together. Her finances were in order, her love for him deepened. They spoke of marriage down the line, of moving together to another city to try for new goals and opportunities. I still listened to her. Over time, her desire for me lessened as her sexual experiences with him grew. Still, she said she missed the sensual machine that I can be with the right woman. I told her that she had passed from girl to woman, and I was there during the transition. She smiled, knowing I was right.
To this day, we still talk, not regularly but often enough. She'll call or she'll handwrite me a letter or type out a long email. They're still in love, they're married, trying for a first child now that both of them are settled in work, in finances, in goals. She still asks me about my sex life, and tells me about hers. I forwarded her recently to a blog written by an anonymous mom who is reinvigorating her sex life. She follows the RSS feed and loves the ideas and openness, but she's afraid to comment or continue the discussion on her own blog.
She asks me how I gave her up so easily, and I told her the truth: it was obvious that her needs were getting met by another man significantly, rather than the few needs that I met of hers and her meeting mine. She understands, I know, but she doesn't get it completely. She's been aghast at some of my relationships with involved women, but said she would secretly like the idea of a lover if her husband didn't provide her sexual stimulus and soulful compliments about herself. He does, so she has no need for a lover like me anymore.
She asked me if I would have had a problem had she taken on many lovers outside of us, and I told her surely not. I don't sleep with whores or sluts, but I fully expect my part-time lovers to have other lovers so that they can dip into many soups, tasting many flavors, seeing what they like or dislike. Having many lovers in succession doesn't make you a slut if what you're looking for is added compatibility.
Sex is a key element in one's life. I'm reading so many blogs where the man or woman has re-opened their sex life and it's making a HUGE difference on their overall happiness, stability and confidence.
Should I take on a regular lover in my life, long-distance or otherwise, I fully expect them to taste many foods, smell many flowers, try many jobs, read many books, suck many cocks, touch many bodies and try many things. It's all part of life.
I never really let her go, I just let her follow her path. She wasn't mine, no one is mine and I am no ones. When our paths meet for a time period, it's because we're on the same journey. It's not forever, usually. Some day, I hope it is. But your path may include others, too. Other friends, other co-workers, other lovers, other penpals. It's life. There's nothing wrong with it.
I left her with something she needed, but I didn't fulfill the need entirely. I'm glad she's still my friend, and I'm glad she was honest about her feelings. It didn't hurt, much. I didn't harbor jealousy or anger. It didn't upset my self-confidence or make me feel like less of a man. I was aware of the possibility from day one, and I will never fear the day that someone's path takes them from my arms into the arms of another. Life is short, and we must always work at building better relationships, stronger ones, filling more of our needs.
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