Jack stayed for breakfast and we had a nice long chat about his life and his loves, along with his heartbreaks. My pain over Jerry paled in comparison to the suffering he had endured in his lifetime. It seemed that the men in his life were always hurting him and he was always taking them back. He told me that his wife caught him with his boyfriend because his boyfriend called and told her what time they would be together. His wife didn't believe the guy but she went to check anyway and discovered the two of them in bed.
"Weren't you upset with him when you found out?" I asked as he tried to gloss over that part of the story.
"I was upset at first but I soon realized he did me a favor."
"He didn't do you a favor. He betrayed you."
"That's not how I see it."
"You seem like you can see the bright side of hell."
"If you look for the good, you'll find it. Every situation is a life lesson and every person who enters your life has a purpose."
"Don't quote fortune cookies to me."
"I'm not quoting anything. I really believe that. I guess you can call me an optimist."
"Well I wouldn't talk to some of the guys you still talk to. I don't take being hurt very well."
"So Jerry shouldn't talk to you?"
"Huh?"
"No one should have to go through the type of pain I'm sure he felt because of you, but you still want him to forgive you and love you as if nothing has changed."
"That's a different situation."
"Yeah, Jerry is playing my part." An awkward silence followed that comment. He was right and we both knew it. I treated Jerry like garbage and I expected him to bow at my feet and be grateful that I wanted him. He was better than that, and he deserved better.
"You're right."
"No, I'm not. I didn't mean it," he said.
"Yes you did, and you're right. Jerry deserves better so let's leave it at that."
"Well I should be getting on my way." He stood up at the table.
"I enjoyed your company," I told him as I looked in to my coffee.
"You did?" he asked with genuine surprise in his voice.
"I know we're not going to agree on everything, but that doesn't mean I never want to talk to you again."
"I'm free for dinner tomorrow," he told me.
"That would be nice." I stood and walked him to the door. "Wait, I don't have your phone number." I left him standing there as I went to get a pen and a piece of paper. I got back and he laughed.
He handed me his phone. "You can put the number in here."
I blushed from embarrassment as I sat the pen and paper on the table by the door. `I'm too old to blush,' I thought. I grabbed his phone and put my home number and my cell phone number in it. I passed him the phone back and said, "I still don't have your number." I picked up the paper and the pen and handed it to him. He sat the paper on the desk next to the door and wrote his number.
When he finished writing his number, he grabbed the paper and handed it to me. "See you tomorrow."
I opened the door and I watched him walk down the hallway. I was happy to have made a new friend. He seemed to expect nothing from me and I expected nothing from him, I liked that and I looked forward to seeing him again. His presence had lifted my spirits.
Jack and I went to dinner the next day and we talked like old friends. He told me I needed to work on my relationship with my children while they were still young. "If you don't try to fix the problem now, you may lose them forever."
His expression changed to one of sadness, "Do you have children?" I asked.
"I did. I do. My wife and I married young because I got her pregnant. I have a 27 year old son and a 23 year old daughter. I don't think the girl is mine, but that's a completely different story. Anyway, I never spent much time with them and I stopped talking to them when their mother left me. I should have forced the issue, but I was too busy dealing with my own shit to try to fix the mess I made with them. I know things have worked out for the best because my children are both happy and healthy, but sometimes I regret not being a part of their life. They don't invite me to anything. It's like I don't exist." He took a sip of his beer. "Don't make my mistakes."
"I thought you were an optimist."
"I am, that's why I know things will change one day and my children will forgive me. I'm just trying to save you the struggle of years without them, because it hurts like hell to know my children hate me. I don't think my son would give me a sip of water if I was dying of thirst."
"It can't be that bad."
"It is, but I'm okay with it because things can only get better."
"I guess that's one way to look at it."
"It's the only way." He drank some more of his beer. "Did Jerry call you yesterday?"
"No."
"He'll call soon."
"How can you be sure?" I asked.
"You seem like too good of a guy to let get away."
"Thank you, but I'm starting to realize that I'm not that wonderful."
"You've got your faults, but they're worth overlooking."
"Are you hitting on me?"
"No, I'm just giving you a compliment. You've already told me where your heart lies and I appreciate that. We're both in love with other people, that's why talking to you is easy. I know you don't want me, and I hope you realize that while you are very attractive, I don't want anything from you except friendship. Don't get me wrong, you seem like a great guy, and twenty years ago I would have said, `Screw love! Let's have a fling' but I am older and wiser and more capable of recognizing a friend when I meet one. If my compliments embarrass you or make you uncomfortable tell me and I'll stop."
"I'm not uncomfortable. Besides, who doesn't like getting compliments?"
I put my glass of wine to my lips and took a swallow. "I can't believe you've never had sex with a man," he whispered.
My eyes got wide and it took all of my concentration to swallow the wine without choking. "I can," I joked as I sat down my glass. "What made you think of that?"
"You emanate sex."
"Hahahaha." I looked up at him. "Oh, you're serious?"
"Yes."
"Well I can honestly say I've never heard that before."
"People are probably too afraid to tell you. You don't come off as the friendliest guy."
"I don't?"
"No, you come across like a very standoffish type of person. I almost didn't say anything to you at the bar, but you looked so lost that I had to say something because I was curious about what brought you out that night. You're not the barstool type. At least you don't seem like the type."
"So what do you think of me now?"
"You're a great guy. You just need to loosen up."
"All this in the short amount of time that you've known me?"
"I'm a good judge of character," he told me.
I laughed. "Not from what you've told me about your ex- boyfriends."
"I'm a fixer, I can't help it. If the person isn't screwed up, I don't want them. It's messed up and I wish I could find someone normal, but something in me is attracted to wounded dogs. I always think I can nurse them back to health, and they always turn around and bite me in the ass."
I laughed some more. "At least you know your problem. How long are you going to pine after this current guy?"
"Until he realizes we should be together and he leaves his wife." I rolled my eyes at him. "I know he's never going to leave her, so don't you dare open your mouth and say those words. Everyone I know keeps telling me, but I love him and nothing he does will change that until it's time for me to fall out of love with him."
"Well what made you fall in love with him?"
"The way he looked at me like I was the only person he saw. I believed the lies his eyes told me until I spotted him with his wife one day and saw that he looked at her the same way he looked at me. The bad part was he told me they were separating. Ha, yeah, guess the joke was on me. I'll never forget how my heart hurt when I saw them, but I just turned my head and walked away. I never confronted him about it and that was a year ago."
"When was the last time you saw him?"
"Last month. He doesn't think we should see each other too often."
"How can you put up with him?"
"Love makes you do some crazy things."
"Too many people say that. You romantic types need to give it up and realize that love is what you make it. I'd never lie down and be someone's whipping boy because I love them."
"That's not what it means. Love takes your mind and body to a whole new place and you're willing to do things and say things and put up with things just so you can keep that feeling."
"That still doesn't sound right. Think first, that's all I'm saying."
"You mean to tell me that you've never loved someone enough to put yourself out there and risk being hurt?"
"I'm not a masochist. I wouldn't put up with someone hurting me. We've had this discussion already."
"Okay, so if Jerry came in here right now and told you he would be with you forever if you told everyone in here that you loved him, what would you do?" I stopped to think about it. "Don't say anything," he said, "the fact that you had to think about it speaks volumes by itself."
"I wouldn't do it though."
"Maybe not today, but I'm sure you'd be willing to do it one day."
"I don't think so."
"I do. I think you love him more than even you realize and that's why you went to the bar the other night looking for a one night stand. It wasn't about you. It was about him. You wanted to hurt him and the best way you knew how to do that was to go out and sleep with another guy. If I hadn't been there, you undoubtedly would have found someone willing to take you up on that offer, and I'm sure you would have had sex with him and then called Jerry to tell him all the lurid details."
"Thanks for the psychoanalysis, but you couldn't be more wrong. I was lonely and I wanted to be with someone, it had nothing to do with Jerry."
"It had everything to do with him, but either you're too dumb to see it, or you're too stubborn to admit it."
"Where do you get off thinking you know me so well? You don't know me!"
"Everything I know about you came straight from your mouth, so if I don't know you, you're the one who led me astray." I grabbed my wine glass and drunk the rest. "The only reason you're getting so agitated is because somewhere inside you, you know that I'm telling you the truth." He took a swallow of his beer. "You have no problem telling me what's wrong with me, but when I tell you something about yourself, you get pissed off. If you don't want to know what I think of your life, don't tell me what you think of mine. I'm screwed up, I know that, I don't try to pretend I'm not, but I also don't try to jump down people's throats when they tell me I'm screwed up. You're in love with Jerry, you know that, I know that, hell you told me that, but he's never going to want to be with you if you don't change. If you love him, just love him, don't think about it, don't plan it, just do it. Your problem is you try to control how much you love and how hard you love and that's not fair to anyone in your life. Shut down your brain for a goddamn day and open your heart. I think you might be surprised by what happens."
I looked at him in awe. His voice had remained calm throughout his speech and yet his words felt like daggers chipping away at the protective layer of ice that shielded my heart from feeling real pain. "You're entitled to your opinion," I told him, trying to pretend that his words had no effect on me.
"And you're entitled to pretend that the truth doesn't hurt, but you might want to wipe away that tear that's falling down your face."
I wiped away the wetness on the right side of my face. "There was something in it," I explained.
"Yeah, your ego," he responded before he reached for his wallet.
"What are you doing?" I asked.
"I've obviously said too much and I hate to overstay my welcome."
"Don't leave on my account," I told him. I didn't want him to stay, but I didn't want him to leave either. I wanted him to sit there and ignore me and that's what he did until we finished our food. The silence should have been uncomfortable, but it wasn't. I paid for the food when the bill came and we stood up to leave. We reached the street corner and he turned to walk in the opposite direction. "We should do this again," I told him, trying to let him know that I truly meant it.
"Okay," he said and then he turned around and kept walking.
Copyright Lustyville 2006 Please send comments to lustyville@yahoo.com and check out my yahoo group at: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/lustyville.