A Woman Trapped in a Woman's Body (9 page)

“I'll have the appetizer platter,” he tells the waiter.

“The appetizer platter is for five to six people,” the waiter says. He looks around to see if there's a large group of people heading toward us.

“That's fine,” Rick says and hands his menu back.

When the platter arrives Rick picks up a mozzarella stick, takes a bite, and sets it back down.

“It tastes off,” he says, pushing the plate of beige food away. He doesn't touch it again.

He's in an odd mood, but I'm just hoping won't affect our sex too much.

At his house, I go to his bed and lie down as per usual and wait for him to put on music. Instead he heads toward the bathroom and stays in there for a good ten minutes. I hear no noises whatsoever. When he re-emerges he looks pale.

“I have an idea,” I offer, trying to snap him out of it. “Let's pretend that you're the UPS man and you're coming to deliver a package to me, and I'll answer the door in my robe and ... we'll see what happens!”

I was amazed by how willing I was to throw caution to the wind with Rick. When Mathew and I were married, I'd once called him at work and told him that the UPS man had come by with a package and that he'd come inside and that we'd started making out. And I went on for about a minute telling Mathew what I thought men loved—fantasy—but Mathew
cut me off when I got to the part about “my special package,” and he sounded like he was crying.

“What's going on, Lauren?” he'd asked. “I'm at work right now—what are you trying to tell me?”

I told him I was just kidding and then hung up, embarrassed.

But now I had my chance to do it over again with someone who I knew would not only be game, he might also be willing to take a few moments to sew a pair of little brown shorts.

I lead Rick outside his front door and tell him to give me a few moments to put on a robe, and then knock. “Say, ‘UPS, Ma'am,' okay?”

He nods weakly and stands outside.

I have to cue him to knock. But he doesn't. So I open the door to find him looking like he's about to pass out. He's gone very pale and his eyes have sunk a bit into his head, like a skeleton.

“What's wrong? Why didn't you knock?” I ask.

Finally he starts talking. “I have herpes and I've had it since I was twenty. I'm almost positive when I'm about to have an outbreak and I know that I haven't had one with you. I know you trusted me, and I have been tested for AIDS and I don't have that. Just the herpes. I should have told you, but I like you so much and—”

That's not sexy.

My robe falls open and I'm somehow unable to wrap it back around me. I'm just standing there exposed in front of an open door, feeling vaguely violent.

I speak quietly and evenly, like a serial killer. “So. You knew that I was having sex for the first time since my divorce, and we agreed that it was 100 percent safe and ...”

But I couldn't keep talking like that. So I switched to yelling, “I am such an IDIOT!!! What a fucking IDIOT I am!!! I had unprotected sex and—what an IDIOT!”

The next afternoon I'm back at Jay's house, recovering.

“Did you storm out to your car in your robe?” Jay asks, as he shoves popcorn in his mouth like he's at the movies.

“Oh yeah.” I say, unable to tell him what had actually happened: Rick started to cry, and I held him and told him all the horrible lies I'd told in my life and all the mayhem I'd caused, and then we slept together again. But this time using four layers of condoms.

“Well, good for you,” Jay says. “You see? You're getting so much stronger now that you're divorced—you're looking out for yourself! We're all so proud of you.” The dogs and the lovebird nodded their heads in agreement.

Three days later, I break it off with Rick, explaining that we are just too different to be a couple. After all, he has full-blown herpes and mine is probably dormant.

 

 

After the dating frenzy and the adventures with STDs, I take a trip to heal myself in nature, alone. I knew of a place in Oregon
that required a day of hiking to find, but once there you were rewarded with incredible pools steaming from the center of the earth. Also: lots of naked people peacefully and casually milling about. Before my marriage I'd made the journey with friends but had been too uncomfortable to walk around naked. This time I couldn't wait to be fully exposed and free.

The week before I went to my doctor, who told me that everybody has herpes—everyone has been exposed to it. And unless I'd had an outbreak, I didn't actually have what, according to him, my mother, my sisters, the president, and my sofa cushions had: full-blown herpes.

As I lie on the side of the hot springs listening to it bubble up like a spiritual stew, I feel so free. Just me, naked. Not for a sexy video or a bikini wax or raunchy sex with someone from the softcore porn industry. Just me and the trees, the birds, the clouds, and the hairy hippies—all of us naked as we are meant to be. So this is the feeling all those pro-naked people have been talking about—where you don't feel naked, you feel connected with the earth and therefore connected to life at its most fundamental level.

I feel more deeply relaxed than I have in ... ever, right up to the moment when a young college student steps on my stomach, lets out a scream, and explains she'd mistaken my naked body for a big white rock.

A
fter my divorce, I fielded a variety of invitations for adventure at an array of locales, including video arcades, garage sales, and hotel bathroom stalls. Being polite and not wanting any trouble, I accepted all offers ... and regretted every one. (The garage sale expedition was especially troubling, since for some reason fellow shoppers assumed I was the one selling all the used medical supplies and kept looking to me for prices, asking, “How much?” as they held a used catheter tube and a Ziploc bag full of gauze in my face.) So when David asked me to drive with him from
LA to Baja, I thought it was the most romantic proposal I'd ever received.

At least until Gay Jay warned me that it was an intense, rugged trip with lonely stretches of beat-up roads, deadly blind curves, and roadblocks that might involve young boys with guns strapped to their legs. “When they stop you to inspect your car,” he counseled, “you're gonna have to show a little leg. So shave that shag you've got going or else figure out how to say, ‘I'm just a dirty hippie—please don't shoot me,' in Spanish.”

Jay also predicted that after the week-long trip, David and I would come back either completely in love, broken up, or dead. “That's the mystical power of Baja. And of brown tequila,” he said.

 

 

The morning David and I met to load up the car and hit the road, I ran up to him with high-five enthusiasm.

“Baja, Baby!” I shouted, my palm in the air. “Come on, don't leave me hanging!”

“Yeah,” he said, still looking inside the trunk. “Could you grab the sack in the kitchen? It's got some snacks for the trip. I got a case of water that should last us the whole time. Are you going to want to stop soon for lunch or could you make it to
blah blah blah blah
?”

I dozed off, so I think I missed the part about using paper towels as napkins.

When I woke up from my catnap, it hit me that I hadn't gone on a trip with a man since I was married. And Mathew and I certainly never got caught up in the boring details of “Do we have snacks?” or “Is there gas in the car?” We usually just jumped in the car and started driving. (Which was exactly what he did when he left me, so maybe that was just “his thing.”)

David's passionate attention to the mundane reminded me of the first time we went out—the first time we had gone out since his wife had died and I had been divorced. We had been friends before, but as soon as I got his email saying he and his teenage son, Jack, were moving to Los Angeles, I knew I was in trouble with a capital “T” (and that rhymes with “P” and that stands for premarital sex). We were both single and living in the same city. So when I walked into that coffee shop I suddenly felt shy.

Luckily I didn't have to worry about saying the wrong thing, since David barely let me speak at all. In fact, besides recovering from a sinus surgery, watching movies, and sleeping, I don't think I've ever sat not talking for as long as I did that day. I figured that he was nervous too. Either that or he'd picked up a speed addiction since we'd last seen each other.

The only time he slowed his monologue was when he got a cell phone call from Jack.

“It's Jack, I have to get it,” he had said, pounding on all his pockets to find the phone. When he finally pulled it out of his inside coat pocket. It was about the size of a regular telephone
receiver. I half-expected to see a curly cord dangling off the end of it. It seemed to be held together with electrical tape.

David noticed me judging his phone and said, “I could only get one new phone on our program, and I wanted Jack to have it. Hold on for one second. Sorry about this, he's home alone.”

He directed his attention to the ancient phone.

“Yeah, Buddy, what's up? Okay ... okay. That sounds fine, but let me talk you through it. Okay. Turn the oven on to “Bake” and then to 450 degrees. Take the pizza out of the box and take the plastic wrapping off. No, that's okay, go ahead and do it right now. Don't worry, take your time.”

I couldn't believe I was going to have to sit and listen to him explain every single detail of how to make a frozen pizza.

“The big thing is to be careful when you put the pizza in not to touch the sides of the oven,” he said, slowly and calmly.

This must have been what his life had been like for the past five years, ever since he'd had to be both Jack's father and mother. The two of them together every single night at the dinner table. Jack must love him so much.

Nobody had ever given me such sweet oven instructions. In fact, as a kid, when I burned myself taking out my first batch of chocolate chip cookies, my entire family responded to my screams of pain with, “Well, you idiot, did you think the sides of the oven would be cold?”

“Hey, and Buddy,” David continued, “if you want, you can put some extra cheese on it. But if you're going to do that, you need to do it now.”

I would have just told him to put it in the microwave so as to skip any more instructions, but David wanted Jack to have the best pizza possible. So he explained where the cheese grater was, even tackling the difficult hurdle of figuring out which side made the best shreds (which I couldn't have told him if I'd been standing right beside him, experimenting on the palm of my hand).

As with lengthy pieces of classical music and endless modern dance compositions, once I gave in to David's pizza-making description it started to slow my heart rate and I began to feel the sweet genius of it all.

By the time the oven was preheated I was so in love with both of them it hurt.

 

 

After David had stocked the car with water, turkey jerky, and bright red apples to bribe the border patrol police, we took off. The trip across the California-Mexico border was mind-blowing. Every curve in the two-lane highway revealed an entirely new landscape. Every time I'd think, “Now that's the prettiest ocean/cliff/mountain view I've ever seen,” the thought was replaced when we rounded the next bend and I'd scream, “No! Scratch that.
This
is the most amazing ocean/ cliff/mountain view I've ever seen!”

David uttered a few “wows” and “incredibles!” but for the most part he was completely quiet. Which gave me time to stare at his stunning profile and wonder if the time would ever come when he and I would officially be a couple. I had always been struck by how incredibly, painfully handsome he was—too handsome for me. When I was still married, we'd meet in New York for lunch and I would get high from simply sitting at a table with such an attractive man. I felt a little like a fat mafia guy sitting with his gorgeous blonde, except I didn't have to pay for his boobs to get him to have lunch with me.

Back then I thought if I ever dated David I'd be forced to throw hot oil on his face so I could trust him. But here we were, spending a week in Mexico together, and I still couldn't tell if we were just “friends with benefits” or whether it was serious enough to cover him in third-degree burns.

 

 

We had officially crossed the “old friends spending entire days together instead of looking for gainful employment” line into romance one morning two months before at the House of Pies. After our initial awkward coffee date, David and I had discovered we simply loved to talk and talk and talk about ourselves—both of us, endlessly, sometimes at the same time.

In the past, I would have waited until the object of my affection was too drunk to drive home and was forced to sleep on my couch. Then I'd take the opportunity to slur-whisper “ilikeyou” in his ear while he slept and to touch his hair—like a shy date rapist with a little crush. But David and I always
spent the early (sober) hours of the day together, so the only liquid courage available was coffee and Tabasco sauce.

As much as I as I loved our talks, my crush on him was causing me physical discomfort. The problem was that I never wanted to leave his side, even though after three pots of coffee, I was ready for my morning constitutional. But I couldn't chance being gone from the table for twenty minutes to take care of business. I was scared that I'd come back to find the waitress in my seat, helping David talk Jack through homemade waffles on speakerphone.

But finally I decided I could no longer suppress my feelings (or my bodily functions). “I need a break from our friendship for a little while because I've developed a crush on you that's making it painful to spend time with you,” I said. “Sorry.”