Enchanted Again (27 page)

Joe began to snore the loud, obnoxious breaths that alcohol induces, and Sandra listened to his snores with a strange mixture of anticipation and fear. She felt as though something significant was at stake. She tried to shake the anxiety that came over her by reviewing the details of their lovemaking. She trembled with pleasure when she recalled how Joe looked at her when her clothes had first come off.

But here now was another piece of her and Joe’s history that would require some fine-tuning, although later, upon further reflection, Sandra realized it needed surprisingly little. The only thing she could find fault with, in fact, was that their first intimacy took place on their very first night together. This was easily modified to the more acceptable third date. As for the event itself, she realized with a thrill of satisfaction that she couldn’t have come up with anything quite so exciting if she tried. In fact, some of it already seemed embellished just as it happened. It really was terribly exciting when she looked back over the details in her mind, which she found herself doing, again and again. Oftenest, she would call to mind the smile that came over Joe’s beautiful features just before he carried her up the stairs. That was a moment so romantic that she would never have dared to make it up, fearing that no one would believe or even fully appreciate it.

The morning after their first night together Joe seemed somewhat flustered. He lingered over the gourmet coffee Sandra brewed in a sort of daze that bordered on incredulity. Sandra took this as a compliment, certain that he was undoubtedly taken back by her kindness and desirability. And as a matter of fact he was.

But after Joe left her she felt let down and empty. She wandered around numbly tidying the kitchen, but nearly all of her energy had been spent. She thought about Joe throughout the rest of that day, and wondered if he was thinking of her as well. That afternoon she tried to distract herself by flipping absently through the articles of her latest copy of
Cosmo,
but this just brought Joe closer to the forefront of her mind. She summarily scanned the key points from an article entitled “Sex Tips from Guys: Their All-Time Favorite Mattress Moves Revealed,” but none of the tips offered any real hope for enlightenment. In fact, none of the men in the article had come up with anything she hadn’t already tried—most of which had yielded little or no success at all. She couldn’t help noticing, in fact, that the so-called tips hadn’t been terribly successful for the women who had inspired them either, for although the sexual behavior had remained in the men’s minds, the women had not. This was quite obvious from their comments as they enthusiastically described the sexual act itself, while offhandedly reducing the woman who provided the pleasure to “this chick,” or “one ex I had.” Sandra wondered that the editors didn’t cut those parts out. It belied the idea that the sex tips held much value or promise.

And suddenly it seemed to Sandra that it was all a big lie anyway. All the articles in her favorite magazines seemed to constantly promise better results in life if only a woman tried harder to give men pleasure along with, of course, purchasing the products that would help her look better and younger and thinner. Sandra couldn’t help but notice that the harder she tried the more elusive the love she sought became. Meanwhile, it truly appeared that the women who didn’t try half as hard were just as able—or even more so perhaps—to capture and hold a man’s attention. Sandra absently wondered if that was the case with Joe’s ex-girlfriend, Elaine.

Sandra was momentarily distracted from this train of thought by a sentence that caught her eye in another article in the same issue of
Cosmo,
entitled, “Nine Erotic Tips to Rock Your World and His,” which read, “As a rule, women take longer to get sexually aroused, so start by yourself before you get into bed. Spend thirty minutes taking a bath with candles and fondling yourself.” For some reason this piece of advice angered Sandra so much that she hurled the magazine violently across the room, knocking over a lamp in the process.
Jesus,
she thought with indignation,
now we have to provide our own foreplay, too?
Ironically, this was already something that she often did with a partner beforehand—and sometimes even afterward, too, as a matter of fact—but it always seemed unfair that she had to do it, and seeing it served back to her in an advice column filled her with rage. Getting a man to love you seemed all at once as unachievable as winning the lottery. After all the years of searching, she was beginning to wonder if it was really worth it.

But then her mind drifted back to Joe and once again her heart was filled with that strange, powerful longing. Was she doing the right thing, repeatedly putting her best foot forward in each new relationship in the hopes that Mr. Right would recognize her value and appreciate her? Maybe this time she should try something different. Perhaps if she played “hard to get,” Joe would find her more desirable. But that could also backfire, especially if he just came out of a relationship where the woman played games. It seemed to Sandra that she was always on tenterhooks with men, wondering which was the correct action to take, and suffering consequences for behaviors other women had exhibited before her. She shook her head, trying futilely to discard these thoughts from her mind even as she laughed at herself. She and Joe had shared one night together! She may never hear from him again. Yet something in the way Joe had carefully punched her phone number into his cell phone assured Sandra that he would call her.

But as several days passed without a single word from Joe, it was beginning to seem as if he might not call after all. By midafternoon of the third day Sandra was contemplating whether or not she should seek him out. She recalled an article in
Cosmo
advising women in her predicament that it was preferable to “run into” the man of her dreams rather than to call him outright. But the only place she knew Joe from was the bar where they met. She felt a sudden urgency to see him as soon as possible. She wondered what the chances were of him being in that same bar in the middle of the week. She didn’t want to wait until the weekend to see him again, but on the other hand, if she went to the bar on a night he wasn’t there she would be obliged to return again another night, and possibly even another. What if someone mentioned to him that she was in there every night?

As it turned out, planning an “accidental” meeting was not necessary. Joe finally called her that very afternoon. And even after three days to think about it, he still seemed nervous and uncertain.

“Would you like to get together tonight?” he asked after a few attempts at stilted conversation.

Sandra was so happy he called that she forgot to be upset over the short notice. She agreed to see him before she even knew what she was agreeing to. It wasn’t until she hung up the phone that she realized she had no idea where they were going or if she was supposed to meet him somewhere or be picked up. She also knew from bitter experience that there was a chance that by “get together” Joe intended nothing more than a replay of their first night together. But for the moment, having gotten “the call” and knowing that she would soon be seeing Joe again was enough to make Sandra calm and self-possessed. She simply prepared herself for the evening to come, waiting for the next cue from Joe and, around six o’clock that evening, he knocked on her door.

Joe looked tired and a bit disheveled, but she caught the light of surprise in his eyes when he saw her. She could tell that her appearance pleased him and she was delighted. She would keep surprising and pleasing him and hope for the best.

To Sandra’s surprise Joe actually took her on a “real” date, to an elegant and expensive restaurant. She wasn’t sure what she had been expecting, but this threw her off kilter just a bit and she was momentarily uncertain. Joe seemed nervous as well, following the hostess several steps toward their table before catching himself and stopping abruptly to allow Sandra to walk in front of him. She moved by him awkwardly, feeling a sudden thrill when his hand lightly touched her back as she passed him. She glanced at his face and was delighted to find him watching her. She responded to each and every small overture from Joe with the same excessive appreciation and pleasure, again feeling the strange longing welling up within her. Her awkwardness was slowly leaving her and being replaced with a kind of euphoria.

At the table she sipped her water for something to do until the waitress arrived. She was feeling slightly giddy and found herself stealing glimpses of Joe as he examined his menu.

“Do you know what you’re having?” he asked her, looking up from his menu to find her staring at him. She picked up her menu and scanned it briefly, hardly noticing the entrées.

“The veal looks good,” she murmured absently for something to say.

“It is very good here,” he told her confidently. “Their veal with linguine is the best around.”

“Done!” she said agreeably, setting the menu back down on the table.

The waitress came over and Joe ordered the veal for Sandra and then ordered an entrée for himself. Sandra was inordinately flattered that he had ordered for her. In fact, that single gesture set the tone for the rest of the night, so that Joe could do no wrong. Everything he said had merit, and even his table manners appeared correct or, if not exactly correct, then at least terribly masculine. Even when Joe ordered his fourth martini Sandra found herself admiring how well he handled his liquor. He had pleased her early on, and that small pleasure would take her a long way. She could subsist on small pleasures, provided they came in a fairly steady flow that was at least regular enough to undermine any evidences of neglect, and prevent the bitterness of famine from setting in.

Sandra drove them both back to her house in his car. Upon arriving, she remained in the driver’s seat, uncertain about how to proceed. He, too, seemed timid and unsure, so they sat side by side in silence for a few minutes. She interpreted his hesitancy as reverence for her, so she worked up her nerve to shyly lean over the seat in an attempt to make it easier for him to initiate a kiss. Only then did his passion from their previous night return, and Joe grasped her eagerly and kissed her. She immediately responded, filled now to overflowing with the strange longing for him. But as the kiss wound down Joe pulled away from her and hesitated yet again. He appeared to be struggling for control. Sandra was petrified that the date would end and so, even though she knew it was the wrong thing to do, she found herself impulsively asking him, “Would you like to come in?”

After that Sandra and Joe began seeing each other three or four times a week. Sometimes Sandra would cook dinner and sometimes they would go out to eat, but Joe always spent the night with Sandra afterward, and each and every time they made love. The sex was wonderful, although Sandra still was unable achieve an orgasm with Joe. Sometimes afterward, once he drifted off to sleep, she would masturbate right there in the bed beside him. It took strange fantasies for her to reach a climax, with bizarre encounters that often startled her, usually involving Joe in some way, but disturbing nevertheless, and always leaving her feeling empty and alone, and filled with an even stronger sense of longing than before.

Without their having discussed it, Sandra was fairly certain that she and Joe were exclusive, but even so it was difficult for her to achieve any real sense of security in their relationship. She wasn’t fully certain that they were
in
a relationship. Aside from their habitual dinners followed by intimacy, there was little else. Both had their jobs and their lives, which she supposed was normal, but their time spent together never strayed from evenings into days, or from eating and sleeping together to venturing deeper into the other’s existence. As time went by it was becoming more and more difficult for Sandra to imagine them ever doing so. She could not help but feel they were settling into a pattern that prevented a real relationship from forming.

After several months of this, Sandra suddenly came to the alarming realization that she had never even been to Joe’s house. She asked him about this one day and was stunned to learn that Joe had no house. He had left his home when he left Elaine, taking up temporary residence in a local hotel. Sandra was more upset by the realization that she hadn’t known Joe was virtually homeless than she was by the fact itself. It spoke volumes to her that she hadn’t known; it seemed to her like a dreadfully obvious symptom pointing to a terminal disease. Yet she had known all along that Joe was not forthcoming with her. And each and every time she questioned him about his past, especially as it related to Elaine, he became even more withdrawn. It was the same when she tried to discuss her future with him. She could actually perceive him drawing away from her at those moments, cringing inwardly, without any discernible movement per se, but glaringly evident to her nevertheless. Seeing him retreat into himself in that way rattled her, but she knew if she pressed him too far he would become angry or, even worse, he was more likely to become antagonistic, expertly plucking at the strings that stirred up her own demons. The more attached she became to Joe, the more afraid she was to confront his past or their future.

Learning that Joe was living in a hotel, however, was so shocking to Sandra that she forgot to be cautious and diplomatic, and she let loose with all of the anger that had been secretly building within her in a sudden fury. Joe was taken aback by this side of Sandra, and for once he was the one to make the effort to appease her. She was almost immediately afterward contrite, afraid that she might have humiliated him.

“You should just stay here,” she blurted out in the end. And suddenly she was calm and self-assured once again. “That’s it!” she announced, genuinely pleased. “You’ll move in here with me.” She took his silence for embarrassment and rushed on in an effort to make him feel better. “It’ll be fun,” she assured him. “And it will only be until you settle things with Elaine and are ready to buy another house.”