The Secret Sex Life of a Single Mom (13 page)

I rubbed my arms and stared at the ceiling. A dream had woken me and I remembered it vividly.

I was crouched down in front of my garden bed, digging up dead annuals with my trowel. Suddenly, I felt a tickle inside the arm of my long-sleeved shirt. I itched it and continued working. Awhile later, it happened again. I scratched and continued digging.
Ah, but my garden would be beautiful this year,
my dream self thought.

Then the tickles snuck up both arms at once. Maybe I had a rash? I sat back on my heels to take a peek. I rolled up my sleeves.
Oh, Christ!
My arms were covered with insects! I jumped up and vigorously started swiping them off.
Gross! Gross! Gross!

Suddenly, a voice told me to calm down:
Look, Delaine, look at them.
Still panicked, I gazed down at my now totally bare arms.
Ladybugs. I’m covered in ladybugs.
Hundreds of them. I smiled. No need to be afraid. They were a reminder.

As I laid in bed remembering my dream, I rocked between
excitement and disbelief.
Ladybugs again. The ladybugs were back!
This had to be a sign, especially since I rarely remembered my dreams.

Back in March, one month before the Graham bomb went off, they had appeared in my dreams for the first time in my life. The dream was so unusual and emotional that I’d even told my girlfriends about it.

I was lying on a gynecologist table, legs spread, in preparation for my check-up. My doctor, a sixtyish woman with pulled-back gray hair and glasses, was busy on the other side of the room. All of a sudden, I felt something between my legs: movement, wiggling.
Worms!
I thought to myself
, I have worms—parasites!

I screamed to the woman, “Help! Save me! them!” She looked over at me, totally unconcerned at all; instead, she seemed pleased.

I sat up and frantically looked down at my pelvis.
Hold on. Oh phew, they’re not worms, they’re ladybugs. This must be a dream.
I looked around the table and sheets.
Where the heck are they coming from?
I then watched, bewildered, as a stream of ladybugs emerged from my vagina.
What the!? Why were they in my VAGINA?
Then I woke up.

The dream was so bizarre yet vivid that the next morning I googled the meaning of a ladybug dream. I’d always felt akin to the Native American beliefs in animal totems; that is, each animal is symbolic and acts as a specific dream messenger.
What might a cute, red bug have to tell me?
I grinned.

Chills ran up and down my spine as I read about their meaning:
a sign of good luck, new beginnings, and rebirth
. My ladybugs had actually come out of my vagina. No doubt they were a sign of rebirth! This was too odd and loaded with meaning to be a coincidence, I thought. I took it as confirmation that I was on the right path, that a wonderful new chapter of my life was opening to me with Graham—that we were soul mates, destined to be together. It never occurred to me that rebirth required the death of something first.

Their reappearance tonight felt significant. I had experienced so much death! The death of love, the death of trust, and the death of my old self. At the cusp of so much change and uncertainty and second-guessing of myself, their return both soothed and uplifted me.

I curled my body into the fetal position with my hands cupped close to my chest. As I drifted off to sleep, I guarded the ladybugs’ hope-filled message close to my heart.

THE DUKE SAID IT WAS time for me to “stop talking” and “start walking.” It was time to get out of his online classroom and take action in the real world. He wrote:

I laughed and thought,
How about
“
Bite me, sir.
”

I leaned back in my chair, still smiling.
He sure does have a strange sense of humor.
But for whatever reason,
I liked it.
I liked that he caught me off guard, and I liked that he made me lighten up around the issue of dating and sex.

Shane’s proposition appealed to me, despite the fact it was totally unconventional. Not taking every date seriously seemed a pretty sensible thing for me to do right now, because it liberated me to have fun and explore. Maybe my need to “seek and replace” wasn’t as urgent as I once thought. Surely it wouldn’t hurt to delay it a month or two . . .

I hit the reply button, smirking and shaking my head.
Yes, I think I’ll play along with
“
Sergeant Shane.
” Temporarily, anyway. Or unless Mr. Right comes along.

 

Mission No. 1
Subject’s Name: Payton
Age: 36
Body Type: tall, average build
Penis Size: I’ve no clue, Shane!

 

 

My “training” kicked off with a wavy-haired computer techie named Payton. I reread Sergeant Shane’s last directives before walking out the door to meet him:

I met Payton at a pub in his neighborhood, a twenty-minute drive from my house. As our date progressed, I willed myself to be interested in him. I couldn’t quite finger why, but I wasn’t attracted to him.
Give the guy a chance!
I barked at myself.
He’s cute, he’s smart, he’s nice—what more do you want?

But no matter how vigorously I rubbed my thoughts together, my body didn’t spark.

Nonetheless, as per Shane’s directives, I decided to “experiment” a bit near the end of our date, for curiosity’s sake. Suddenly, the night didn’t seem like just another disappointing, dead-end date.

Payton and I were in the parking lot, preparing for our final goodbyes. I could tell that he really wanted to kiss me, but earlier in the night, I had mischievously joked to him: “Don’t even
think
about kissing me tonight without my permission. Otherwise I might just have to slap you.”

Behind his half-smile, I could see him wondering,
Is she serious?

I stood across from him in the parking lot, hands at my side, body language open. His eyes were darting, his hands fidgety: in his pockets, out of his pockets, through his hair, rubbing his chin. I could hear his thoughts,
Is she going to kiss me? God, I want to kiss her. Should I try to kiss her? Will she slap me?

I stood where I was, staring at him unwaveringly.
Fidget-fidget squirm-squirm, fidget-fidget, squirm-squirm.
Outwardly I appeared cool and collected, but inwardly, my body surged with adrenaline.
Stay in control, Delaine
, I coached myself.
Stand in the tension. Don’t back down.

Finally, I smiled and offered him a handshake. “It was good to meet you, Payton. Thank you for the drink.” And I turned and got in my minivan.

By the time I got home, my adrenaline rush was gone and I was convinced I’d just acted like a cold-hearted bitch.
You toyed with him like a cat does with a mouse,
I inwardly scolded.
Then why are you smiling?
taunted a voice in my head.
Admit it: it
was
kind of fun.

I sat down at my computer, my smile quickly fading. Time to fill out a report. “Shane,” I wrote. “No doubt I was in a dominant position tonight. But I have mixed feelings about my behavior. I can’t help but wonder, Why am I doing this? What feeling am I striving for? In the big scheme of things, “playing” like this isn’t sustainable.”

To which he immediately replied:

His condescension was transparent and my blood quickly boiled
. How dare this jerk-off speak to me like I’m some kind of drama queen!

But you are being a tad melodramatic,
a part of me calmly stated.
He’s just calling you out.
It suddenly dawned on me that maybe a good glove-slapping was what I needed. He was a Dom, not a sympathetic girlfriend—what, was I expecting him to rub my back and wipe away my tears? He and I were playing a
game
: sportsmanship rules required I toughen up.

My jets cooled off, I reread his message more objectively
. I
did
become aware of a new aspect of myself tonight,
I thought. It was kind of fun, too. Maybe I did need to stop worrying so much about what everyone else was thinking and feeling.

But this kind of power is calculated and potentially hurtful,
a voice inside my head protested.
True power comes from treating everyone with love and respect.

Oh, it’s not like I beat the guy up or belittled him,
I retorted. Don’t be such a marshmallow, Delaine, he’s
a big boy, not a child.

I called a truce between my sensibilities and decided that, at least for now, I was going to study and play under Shane’s tutelage—but
carefully
. Not only were other people’s feelings at stake, so were mine.

 

A FEW DAYS later, I negotiated, signed, and sealed a deal with myself: I was placing my Internet business on the backburner.
Indefinitely.

I’d stressed about it for months. Beat myself up for neglecting it. I’d poured my soul into that business; was
so
close to launching it. How could I just . . . walk away? Everyone would surely label me a quitter.

The bottom line was that pregnancy and childbirth and babies were of no interest to me. Given my recent life circumstances, the subject matter seemed like a twisted joke. And no matter how hard I willed myself to revive my passion for it, I felt nothing. Flat line.

A voice in my head objected, and rancorously:
You never finish anything! You bounce all over the place, there’s a new flavor every day.
Those criticisms were too familiar; they first came from Robert. And now, even though he was gone, the tapes played automatically.

True, when I was younger, I never focused on just one job for very long. From renting out boogey boards and singing and playing guitar in the streets, to working in corporate finance and building a counseling business for women, my work life had taken some sudden swerves and detours.

But I never thought that was a
bad
thing. I just figured I had an adventurous spirit; that regardless of income earned (or not earned), each job was a life experience contributing to my being a more well-rounded and interesting person. I kind of liked that about me. I’d thought Robert did too.

But somewhere over the course of our marriage, he apparently “reassessed” my past and decided that it reflected “a very irresponsible, uncommitted person.” More so, it made me “a spoiled little girl,” always taking the liberty to do as I pleased.

I spent years wondering if he was right, doubting myself and my character. Maybe without a man’s steady financial support, I’d be in for a huge reality jolt. Maybe I really was a spoiled brat. I knew I couldn’t earn the same amount as him in the workforce, especially the longer I stayed out of it. I felt indebted to Robert: All those long hours and weeks he spent away from home were for me and the kids, he’d remind me; “I’d work a fraction of the time if it were just me,” he’d say. I was wracked with guilt; after all, I enjoyed my life as a stay-at-home mom. His suffering was for my gain.

Almost all my mom friends had returned to work within a year of giving birth. To a “real job,” Robert called it. “Not everyone has the luxury of staying home all day, eating bon-bons, and watching Oprah.” He was so off—and I tried to explain the scope and value of my hard work at home. But he cut me off: “Geez, you women never stop complaining. My grandma had six kids, no appliances, and she had to grow our food and work in the fields. Maybe I should’ve married a good ol’ farm girl.” No matter how I tried to explain my situation to him, it fell on deaf ears. “Every uterus has been doing what you do since the beginning of time,” he joked backhandedly. “C’mon Delaine. Cowboy up.”

So I did. I saddled up and shut up. I knew how tough a job I had, I knew how hard I worked.
He just doesn’t understand the
demands of parenting because he works out of town
, I told myself.
But that’s okay. I’m strong and I don’t need his validation.

I knew he was wrong in his assessment of my past, too. I had finished six years of university, held two lengthy professional jobs,
but... but...

The seeds of self-doubt had taken root. The Delaine I saw reflected back through his eyes was much less than what I’d credited her to be. I knocked myself down a few notches. Then a few more.