Returning to Life
Story fragment by Clark Humphrey
July 18, 1999
It would be Caroline’s first sexual experience since her husband died. She chose the circumstances carefully.
She would not fall in love or pretend to fall in love. That would stir up too many of the painful memories she was trying to quell. Nor would she submit herself to the ridiculous, unbecoming rituals of dating. She’d seen too many of her divorced friends turn into obsessed, self-concsious neo-teenagers trying too hard to make that presumably all-important first impression to some bar patron or personal-ad respondant.
No, sex ought to be like it had been with her husband. You need; I need; we both understand that; let’s figure something out.
But when his 4-wheeler rolled over, on the first time he’d taken it off-road, a part of her seemed to have died with him–the part she’d entrusted to his care. Barely a week after the death, she’d known she’d need to bring that part back to life if she were ever going to completely recover.
So when she felt as ready as she was going to feel, she began a methodical search for just the healing she desired. It would be tender. It would be personal without ripping open the scars still on her heart.
And it would be discreet. Which meant it would be professional.
At first, she figured it would also mean out of the country. The only male prostitutes she’d ever heard about in her city all worked exclusively or primarily for men. That would not do. She needed a man who knew just how to properly touch a woman.
After she’d already booked her off-season trip to Holland, a local opportunity presented itself. After a regular meeting of her grief-support group at the hospital, she happened to overhear a particularly loud woman, about her age, in a before-meetiing coffeeklatch at the hospital cafeteria. She enjoyed the mixing of all the different members of all the different support groups that used the hospital’s meeting rooms at night. Her own grief-support group didn’t giver her half as much relief as she got just from the weekly in-your-face realization that a hell of a lot of other people were living through situations as miserable as, if not more miserable than, her own.
But this was a special case, the fiftyish woman who seemed to want the whole cafeteria to know how this handsome and just-so-charming young con artist came into her life, then came into her heart, then came in her, then (after coming in her many more times) persuaded her to trust him with a house key, allowing him access to her now-missing jewelry and discontinued Beanie Babies.
Caroline could tell the loud woman hated being cheated and robbed, but Caroline could also surmise from the depth of the loud woman’s histrionics that the sex would probably have been worth the price if the man had settled for stealing cheaper goods.
Caroline suddenly found it remarkably easy to come up and lie to the loud woman, to claim she herself may have been victimized by the same scam artist, and to thusly finagle the man’s current phone number from the loud woman.
While driving home, Caroline realized she’d preyed upon the loud woman’s heartstrings for her own selfish needs, just as the con man had done. But Caroline quickly justified her actions to herself. She’d taken no money or material possessions from the loud woman, and may have even left her more encouraged to retake control of her own life.
And now Caroline would retake control of HER own life. She would go back to the loud woman at the after-the-support-group group and learn more about how the con man operates, where he lives, where he hangs out.
Caroline would let the thief find her, alone and presumably lonely. Caroline would “hesitantly” allow the confidence artist to ease his way into her life.
She would laugh at his jokes, let him pay for drinks, fall for his relaxed manner and well-laundered clothes. Then, soon enough but not so soon that he might suspect he was in fact the one being scammed, she would allow him to take her. She would let him reassure her that everything was going to be all right, that it was time for her to re-acquaint herself with her own inner feelings.
She would respond first nervously, then receptively, as he ever-so-slowly undressed her, caressed and kissed every inch of her body. He would enter her meekly yet confidantly at first, then would steadily build the force and pace of the lovemaking until her mind and body separated in a strong tidal-like sequence of orgasms. She would scratch deep into his back with her fingernails as she came, then kiss each scratch mark sweetly before surrendering to a contented sleep, his large hands cupping her breasts.
Then, Caroline would awaken and leave before the beautiful man stirred. He would wander nude through her house, looking everywhere, only to find she’d left the house (indeed, had left the continent) with nothing of significant value remaining on the premises. How she’d snuck out the valuables he’d seen the previous evening (a TV, a VCR, a stereo, the better pieces of her wardrobe, a computer setup, a microwave, some decent living-room furniture, and a framed oil painting or two) in the middle of the night, without disrupting his slumber in the least, will probably take him a few days to figure out.
By that time, Caroline’s stuff will be snug in her newly-rented storage locker. And Caroline will be in Amsterdam, receiving orgasm after rolling orgasm from a cute young ex-member of one of those downsized eastern European armies, who’ll get paid for his intimate services thanks to the insurance Caroline thankfully signed up for just before her household was completely stripped of everything by that horrible sneak-thief who’d unconscionably preyed upon her at her time of emotional weakness.
