The Secret Sex Life of a Single Mom (19 page)

I sat there with my mouth agape. I guess I had been expecting a jubilant high-five, not . . .
this
. It felt like a half-reprimand, half-reminder that my weekend men were but puny sprouts compared to the “Super Alpha Man.”
Grrrr,
not only was he trying to put me in “my place” again, he was titillating me with an even greater challenge: squaring off with him.

He was right, though: my actions and orgasms were, in part, because of him. Perhaps I did owe him a smidgen of gratitude. And yes, I wondered what might happen if I
did
give more of myself to him?

But I was getting ahead of myself. Because Wild Woman or not, this Super Girl could only take on so many challenges at once.

THE SCHOOL GYMNASIUM WAS PACKED full of parents when I arrived to watch my middle son, Evan’s, autumn kindergarten performance. I was standing to the side, scanning the room for an empty chair, when a hand waving from the back caught my attention. It was one of my mom-friends, Tina, gesturing me over.

“We saved you a seat,” she said as I sat down next to her and her husband.

“Thanks guys. I meant to come a few minutes earlier but homework was a
war
tonight, and I had to get the kids settled with my sitter.”

She smiled knowingly. “We have those nights too.” The lights in the room suddenly dimmed. “Good timing,” she whispered.

“Ladies and gentlemen, friends and parents,” the school principal announced over the microphone from center stage. “Welcome to this year’s kindergarten performance of
Songs from Around the World.
”

The room was abuzz with parent anticipation. Actually, this was an all-out family affair: younger siblings climbing in their seats, moms and dads perched side by side with video cameras, a grandparent or two reclining and browsing through the program. I noticed that a lot of fathers were present, some in their work suits,
a few sitting alone. Though I had attended countless past events solo when Robert was out of town, tonight I felt my “singleness” acutely amid all these families. I wondered:
How many of these men are separated or divorced?

All at once, music boomed over the loudspeakers and children paraded onto the stage and through the gym’s side doors. The room exploded with their sweet voices, a sound so angelic it brought tears to my eyes. I searched through the hoards of children smartly dressed in their navy blue and white uniforms, until there, off on the right side of the stage, I saw my son’s wild red hair. His mouth was moving, but I could tell he was looking for me. I half-stood and waved, again . . . and again . . . until finally our eyes met. He waved back immediately, beaming from ear-to-ear. I nodded enthusiastically:
Don’t worry, Mommy’s here!
And he carried on singing, now more animatedly.

The opening number ended with mighty applause. Cameras flashed like paparazzi. As tiny feet scurried off the stage, I quickly scanned the program. His class wasn’t performing until the last act. That meant five other kindergarten classes to sit through.
Sigh.

As the first act commenced (some ditty about China), my attention shifted. There, in the back of the dark, elementary school auditorium, buried amid row after row of seemingly devoted moms and dads, my mind floated to a wholly different realm.

The tape rolled, unedited snippets of X-rated footage from last weekend’s sexual encounters: The Minotaur then Chad, Chad then The Minotaur.
Hungry lips on my skin, a rough hand caressing my nipple, hard muscles engaged, groans from the throat, strong hands clenching my hips . . .
Could I even tell them apart in my reverie? It was all just sizzling touches and erotic captions relived, replayed, over and over and over.

I felt a sudden warm rush. My body responded in the here and now. I sat up tall in my seat and crossed my legs.
Welcome back.
Did anyone notice I was gone? Am I looking in the right direction? Oh, everyone’s laughing. Smile along, look engaged.

Man, this is so bad,
I thought, feeling
really
guilty.
Instead of marveling at my son’s first kindergarten performance, I’m off in a sexual fantasy world!

I gazed at the faces and profiles of those near me. I was looking for evidence, signs, clues about their
real
lives: secret passions, hidden desires. I wondered who had a fulfilling sex life, a passionate lover in the wings, or maybe no sex at all. Surely I couldn’t be the only one with something to hide.

Suddenly, a man in the row ahead looked back over his shoulder at me. We locked eyes for a long second until I pulled mine away. What made him turn away from the stage? Did he unconsciously feel my wanton sexual energy? Did he see “Wild Divorcee” written all over me? Please don’t let his wife look back, too. She’ll
know.
She’ll know I’m a “promiscuous girl.” I swear I’m transparent.

Oh my God, I am so paranoid
.
I just can’t seem to escape it. Might as well go ahead and write in on my tombstone:

But now that I’d had a few days to digest last weekend’s promiscuity, my mind was at war with itself
and
my body. Why the heck did I call it “promiscuity” anyway? I hated that word. It was so judgmental and, well,
limiting.
Why couldn’t I think of it as “sexual exploration”? Yes, that sounded way more empowering.

Where had this shrill, paranoid voice inside my head come from? Was it high school?
Man, I perseverate!
I thought back twenty-three years to that crazy self-defining time when I heard whispered rumors about “so and so” being a slut. Talk was vicious
and spread like wildfire. No one had a clue how to keep a secret at that age, and once a girl was labeled, she was marked for good.

High school may have acted as a launch pad for my beliefs, but they were most certainly reinforced and drilled home afterward. In university, the workplace, the neighborhood, bars, sometimes even family gatherings, talk about “some woman” was bound to get cheap. It still did.

I’d naively assumed that the popularity of TV shows like
Sex in the City
and
Desperate Housewives
indicated that times had changed, that women could be seen as respectable and moral
and
sexual beings. But on closer look, that’s really wasn’t the case at all, was it? We still held our breaths when our favorite characters fell into bed with yet
another
man. They could only make so many mistakes. We still judged their actions: warranted? Or inexcusably whorish?

Then, there were the full-blown slut characters that we loved to hate. Look at Super Slut Samantha Jones who unapologetically “has sex like a man.” Carrie and the gang were ahead of the rest of us, accepting and loving and valuing her despite
and
because of her sexual lifestyle. But how many women would have frowned and whispered behind her back as soon as she left the table? Or even invited her to lunch in the first place?

And because I’m not just a woman, but a Divorced Mom, the harsh judgments potentially cast my way scared me to death. After all, “decent” divorced mothers should never engage in casual sex, right? Otherwise these women were loose, irresponsible, unfit mothers: the stereotype “divorcee.” That’s right; the insidious “D” word. Better lock up your husbands, ladies. No—decent divorced mothers should only want a serious relationship. And they better get on that quick, because with each year that passed, they were apt to grow more bitter and undesirable and desperate. They were women with cargo. Women who’d failed. Women who didn’t deserve any better.
Spit.

I’m not even sure where my own judgments and those of society began and ended. All I knew was that I never dreamed of waking up at this point in my life a single mother of three. But reality dose: Here I was! And contrary to what any rule books may say, I knew beyond any morsel of doubt that I was not “dried up” and dead! Why couldn’t society trust me to be a good mother (amongst many other things),
and
allow me to be in charge of my own sexuality? Why should my “adventures,” which were helping me to heal, grow, and transform during a radical period of change, be a source of embarrassment or shame?

“We have to be careful about who we discuss our dating lives with,” Hali had warned me a month back. “You and I want to talk about this stuff because it’s exciting and scary and we’re suddenly single again. And we naturally assume that the people we love will understand us. But the truth is, most people can’t relate to it.”

Her warning had come after a conversation she’d had with her close, longtime friend Megan over lunch one day. Hali, accustomed to being open and honest with her, was rambling on about a twenty-nine-year-old man she’d met at a bar. The more she talked, the more she became aware of the disapproval in her friend’s eyes. When she’d confronted Megan about it, her friend replied defensively, “But I’m not judging you! You know I love you.”

“Yes you are!” Hali responded. “I can see it in your eyes! We all filter information through our own experiences and then judge it. And you are a dear friend who has three kids and has been happily married for fifteen years and you are looking at and judging my situation through your set of glasses! I can
feel
it.”

Ultimately, her friend agreed to disagree, and conversation around dating was indefinitely shut down.

I heeded Hali’s warning, but I already knew to restrict who I told of my escapades. Remember—I’d felt my own pangs of caution during the summer when I’d met with my “mom-friends” at
the local pub. They were so curious about what single life looked like for a woman of our age. But my intuition kept telling me to be cautious; they
were
judging me, consciously or not.

It’s the difference between not having kids but having an
opinion
about motherhood. Having wild sex with multiple partners after separation wasn’t a pair of shoes most had walked in, and sexual promiscuity was a contentious zone to begin with; it could be hot and juicy yet still trigger judgment, even moral outrage. Even if the listener was a lovely friend—a strong, mature, independent mother and career woman—her ethical boundaries around sex could be rigid and unforgiving. And I didn’t want to be the next candidate up for a stoning.

I thought about my three-year-old daughter and what I hoped for her to experience some day, within her own sexuality. In terms of her partner “numbers,” my knee-jerk reaction was to say, “Make sure you can count them on two hands!” But my response came from fear: fear of her being judged and shunned by others, and fear that her choices would come from a place of unworthiness instead of empowerment. Big difference.

What I
really
hoped was that her heart wouldn’t be broken too much, that she would find deep, meaningful love and/or friendship in a relationship (or three or ten), and that she would live a passionate, fulfilling life. As for her numbers, I wanted her to be able to make that decision 100 percent on her own terms. No one else’s.

I now realized that every single sexual partner I’d had thus far had taught me something—about him, about sex, about our relationship, and about me. Bad or good, my Self was expanding, and each liaison had opened new levels of awareness. I wanted that freedom of self for my daughter as well. I wanted her to feel whole and fulfilled, not through self-denial and adherence to some societal code, but through her own conscious choices. I wanted her to sit strongly in her body, to listen to it and trust it; to understand
that her sexuality was one of
many
vital aspects of who she was, and that she was entitled to explore it—however she saw fit. And if she made numerous mistakes along her journey, I hoped she would learn from them, then
keep on going
instead of wallowing in feelings of regret or shame.

 

ACT SIX OPENED with the sounds of banjoes and fiddles filling the gymnasium. Hand-in-hand, two children at a time ventured forth on stage into a fluid circular formation. And here came my son! I joined in with the other parents who were clapping along to the barnyard beat.
Wow, look at him dance! He’s quite the performer, my boy.

At the end of the song, he looked directly at me. BIG smile.
He’s so gorgeous!
I vigorously clapped and gave him a standing ovation. Suddenly, I felt tears in my eyes.
Gosh, I’m such a mom.
But I can’t help it. Whenever I look at him, or any of my children, I see white light. They shine and display their loving faith in the world with such ease and brilliance.

With tightness in my chest, I continued clapping. Silently, I prayed that no man or woman would stomp out my children’s light—
that
would be the greatest and cruelest sin in my book. Especially my daughter. I knew what she’d be up against. Above all, I wished her the freedom to cultivate and share her marvelous “whole” authentic self with this vast and complicated world.

Mission No. 4
Subject’s Name: Black Cloud Brian
Age: 43
Body Type: tall, fit, really nice bum
Penis Size: undisclosed, but hoping for plenteous

 

 

ALTHOUGH I WAS OFFICIALLY OUT on “assignment” for this date, secretly I hoped it might he more. I’d already met Brian for coffee a few days earlier, and I was pleasantly thrilled by what walked through the door: Mr. Tall and Handsome with a motorcycle helmet under his arm. Not only was this guy really smart, he was also incredibly funny. I nearly spit out my drink from laughing so hard. Turns out, he was a professional comedian. And at the end of our first date, as he strode off to the men’s bathroom, I observed from tableside that his butt looked lovely in his jeans and black leather chaps.

For this second date, he’d invited me and a couple of my friends to the comedy club where he was the emcee. I had dressed with an after-hour rendezvous in mind: a fitted black dress with spaghetti straps that concealed a black, lacy bustier and garters. Oh, and of course: fishnet stockings and black high-heeled boots.