The Problem

“Are you having an affair?” Terry’s husband asked her, when she started writing erotica. She denied it. She wasn’t having an affair. He insisted she was having an affair of sorts, because her stories were based upon past loves and experiences with the men of her youth. She never wrote about her sexual experiences with her husband. Her writing was her escape, a lovely venture back to the memories of her youth. She wrote about the innocence of those first time experiences, reliving the longing and desire to be sexual. Fragments of times when she sought only the experience, not the desire to fall in love, but simply to feel empowered by her youthful spirit and the innocence that plays along with the imagination in the making of a good fantasy. Her words were figments of past desires, whispered on the page for others to read. In the process of telling a story, Terry realized what was wrong with her marriage.
Every couple goes through difficult times during the course of their marriage, but Terry wasn’t going through a difficult time. She didn’t want to be married to her husband any longer. Watching her husband eat a bag of potato chips, observing how after he pops a chip in his mouth, he sucks the salt from his finger tips one by one, making a smacking noise, Terry wants to grab the bag from his hand and slap him. Instead, she watches in silence, knowing that this really shouldn’t bother her so much, but the crunching and the smacking sounds were driving her crazy, so much so that she finally had to leave the room and find solace in her office. She closes the door, and turns on her computer. She hears her husband turn up the television and laugh. Even his laugh irritated her now, sounding loud and overbearing. His laughing had always bothered her, she felt it was staged, over acted, and it always made her uncomfortable, because most times what he was laughing at, she did not find funny.
In the quiet comfort of her office, her door closed to the man who ten minutes before, with a mouth full of potato chips, had asked her again if she was having an affair; and why she won’t have sex with him on regular basis, saying “For god sakes Terry, you should at least give it up once a week! A man has needs, Terry. All my friends at work say that you have a real problem!”
“Really Tom? You tell your friends at work that you aren’t getting any?” She was angry. Angry that he would reveal to his work colleagues something so intimate and personal about his marriage. She wanted to slap him, kick him, yell at him, tell him to go look at himself in the mirror. Then ask if he would have sex with the image staring back at him; a middle aged, out of shape man, with a receding hairline, who insists that he is not balding, but only has a large forehead! He could at least work out, change his eating habits, or try to make some kind of effort to look better.
“Yeah, go to your office, Terry! Go write about the men in your head. Like that is going to help you with your problem,” he says crunching on another mouthful of potato chips.
Her office walls are painted a soft shade of lavender because she had read that the color lavender evokes calmness and serenity. She needed that. It helps her now, as she takes a deep breath, and lights a lavender scented candle, a gift from her friend Dawn who said that if the wall color didn’t help her to find her Zen, then maybe the candle scent would.
Terry begins to write about the man she had recently met eyes with at the bookstore. They both were waiting in line to check out, Terry with her arms full of romance novels and a couple of dirtier ones hidden on the bottom, and he with a copy of a recent Gourmet magazine. Terry had kept eyeing him, looking him up and down. She guessed he was probably trim and fit under his navy suit. She liked the way he stood, not slouching, but erect, commanding, casually leafing through the gourmet magazine as he waited for the line to move, most likely contemplating what he was going to cook for his significant other. There was no ring on his left hand, but then again, why would this man not be married? He was well dressed, nice sporty haircut, and he smelled good, so good that Terry couldn’t help but move a little closer to him, but then retraced her steps, remembering she had just come from the gym, and was worried that she might smell of sweat from working out. The man she had married, now sitting on the living room couch, munching on potato chips and obnoxiously laughing at some juvenile sitcom, no longer even caused as flicker, a remote spark, or the desire to even sit by him.
Recently it seemed her husband’s whole presence did nothing but agitate her. The way he spoke to her, condescending at times, the timbre of his voice, his choice of words, to the way he chewed his food. She found his manner of dress unattractive; always in his office uniform, red polo shirt and black khaki pants, thin black belt and sneakers. Even on his days off, wearing a pair of sweat pants, and a worn out t-shirt that made him look fatter than he really was. He never dressed up, not for himself or for her because he never bothered to take her out, or even suggested going out. Instead, he complained that they didn’t have the money to go out, always laying the blame on her for this. His idea of a romantic evening was to make a large bowl of spaghetti and watch movies, but always the movies he wanted to watch, never offering her a choice of what they would watch. If she insisted on watching something other than a science fiction movie he would pout the whole night, mumbling under his breath that it was a stupid movie, and there had to be something better to watch. This was done continuously during the movie, ensuring that she could not enjoy it.
Terry pounds on her keyboard, trying to describe how the well dressed man at the book store triggered a sense of desire in her. Why was she feeling this way with a complete stranger when for the last two years, she couldn’t help but notice how her husband’s receding hairline kept migrating further up his forehead, making it appear to be getting larger, and wet black, curly hairs protruded from his nostrils? How she couldn’t stand the fact that he never picked up after himself, leaving his dirty clothing dropped everywhere, wet towels lying on top of the toilet in the bathroom after he showered. How he refused to ever do the dishes even after he made a mess cooking his spaghetti and meatball dinner, using every pot in the kitchen, slopping tomato sauce on the countertops and rationalizing that he shouldn’t have to do the dishes when he made dinner! He didn’t even have the consideration to rinse his plate, instead stacking it in the sink, encrusted with bits of pasta and sauce, leaving the mess for her to clean up. She felt like she was living with a self centered eight year old boy instead of a grown man.
Fifteen years of marriage and he had never done the dishes or cleaned the bathrooms. At forty years old, Terry realizes she doesn’t want to be married to this man any longer. For that matter, she no longer wants to be anyone’s wife! She wants to be one of the characters in her stories. She doesn’t want to experiment in bed with her husband the 101 Karma Sutra positions, like her best friend, Dawn had suggested when she complained to her on the way home from the bookstore that her husband no longer did it for her.
“Why would I want to have sex with a man who annoys me?” Terry had whined.
“Maybe that’s the problem, maybe you need to start in the bedroom, and work your way out of it.” Dawn giggled.
“I’ll tell you who I’d like to spice it up with,” Terry had laughed, telling Dawn about the man in line, and how he was wearing a form fitting tailored suit with soft leather loafers, and there had been something so polished about him, so well mannered. She had been intrigued, wondering if his undergarments were as fine as his outerwear.
“He’s probably gay, Dawn replied, “Spice it up with your husband, and stop daydreaming of the perfect man.”
That was the problem. She didn’t want to spice it up with her husband anymore. The very thought repulsed her. She didn’t like having sex with him, hadn’t for a long time now. He was a selfish lover, never attending to her needs, only his own. She really didn’t want to even consider having sex with him, which made her feel guilty, which is why now, she finds herself in her office, writing about other men, strangers, figments of her imagination, past loves, the promise of something special.
Something was seriously wrong. Terry closes her eyes, takes a deep breath, gets up from her desk, and walks to the kitchen. He is sitting at the kitchen table, eating a bowl of spaghetti, his second bowl of the evening. She watches from the doorway as her husband continues eating, not twirling it on a fork, but shoveling it in his mouth, slurping up the long thin spaghetti noodles, while sauce spatters on his chin and lips.
“I’m not happy.” She says, looking away from him because the slurping sounds made her wince and want to vomit. Why had she not noticed this when they had first started dating? But back then during the courtship phase they didn’t eat pasta together, they ate hamburgers and french fries, and slurped on each other. Ugh! The whole image now makes her want to retch.
“You Know, Terry, ever since you started reading those romance novels you have changed. You are not the woman I married. You lock yourself in the bathroom for hours, reading that crap. I think, Terry, you need to see someone for your problem.”
Terry studies him, squints her eyes at first but then relaxes them. She finds his nose odd, and unnaturally large for his face, and she can’t help but stare at his seemingly enlarged large forehead. His skin is grotesquely white on his balding head, and all she wants is to slap him, take his pasta bowl and dump it over his head. She wants to run away, pack a bag and leave.
“Tom, that’s the same thing you said about my other problem. Why is it I am always the one with the problem around here?”
If he only knew that she no longer reads the silly little romance novels, where she skipped to the good parts, skimming over the love story, but instead now buys hardcore erotica. If he only knew the reason she started reading them in the first place was because she needed some sort of relief from the unspeakable emotional loneliness, a sense of isolation amplified by living with someone she could no longer stand to be in the same room with. How she felt trapped, and reading her romance novels at least provided her a temporary escape from the helpless feeling of having no place to go, and writing about it made her feel as if one day there was still hope to not feel so god damned depressed.
‘You know, Terry, something is wrong with you,” he yells over his shoulder as he storms, out of the kitchen, leaving his pasta bowl on the table, and his dirty white tube socks in a ball on the kitchen floor right next to the table. She leaves both and walks down the hall to the bathroom and runs a bath. She hears him turn up the television in the living room. She contemplates that if she were a better wife, she would go to him, comfort him, and make love to him on the leather couch. Instead, she quietly slips into the bathtub, and cracks open her book about the vampire who’s pursuing the high priestess, and right when they are about to go at it, she hears a hard knock on the bathroom door, startling her, almost making her drop her book into the bath water.
‘Goddamit, Tom, go away, I don’t want to talk to you now,” she yells, running the water to drown out his response.
“You know, we really should see a sex therapist or something.”
She says nothing, waits, then resumes reading, turning on some more hot water with her big toe, and thinks about the boy she lost her virginity too. She remembers he was such a good kisser, something her husband is not. In fact, kissing her husband nowadays only revolts her. He always kisses with his mouth too far open, they clicked teeth when they were going at it on those first dates on his couch that smelled of cat piss. It was so frustrating, took away from the whole mood, and made her angry that they could never get in sync with the kissing. Why had she not seen the subtle warning signs back then that would have told her this man was not a match? Everyone knows that a kiss says it all, lights the fire, so to speak. Even in the beginning, he never really ignited her desire, it was more like a small flicker, a hope that the kissing would get better and the fire would grow, and the sex would be mind- blowing, but sadly that was never the case.
She snickers to herself, turning the page, right as the vampire has the high priestess in a lip locking hold, both tongues swirling, groans of passion and delight showering the page, and now her husband wants to go to a sex therapist? What would she say to the therapist, “give me a pill to make me want to have sex with my husband again?” Or no, better yet, “start with teaching him how to eat spaghetti properly and then maybe I could at least find him attractive again.”
“Did you hear me Terry?” he knocks again. “You know, Terry I am really starting to feel unloved by you.” What could she say to that? He was right again, and yet, it wasn’t going to make her get out of the tub and go make love to him. She’d rather soak in the tub with vampire Sean and Isabel the high priestess than venture to her own bed, and make love to her husband who she wished would turn into Johnny Deep, or someone else who knew how to kiss.
**
“Why did you marry him?” her father asks when she confesses to him over the phone the next week that she doesn’t want to be married anymore.
“I don’t know Dad, because he made me feel safe?”
“Well, there has to be something wrong with the sex,” he says in a matter of fact tone, like he was talking about a malfunction with her car and that is why the light switch won’t go on. “Are you having sex with him, Terry?” her father asks.
“No, not really,” Terry confesses.
“No wonder I have no grandchildren! If I would have known that you weren’t going to have kids, I’d have married a younger woman after your mother died, and then I would have had grandchildren.”
“Sorry Dad that I screwed up your plans,” Terry says, not wanting to confess to her father that she had wanted kids, way before she got married, and then she got married, and the whole idea scared her. She didn’t want to tell her father about her little problem, and how with the discovery of it, Tom had told her she was defective, and if he had known earlier he would never have married her. Granted, he had said this in a state of rage, angry at the unfortunate circumstances, but still the words hurt, made her feel unwomanly, made her feel as if she was a failure as a woman.
“There is no need to get that tone with me Terry, you have a serious problem, and you better figure it out, or you will be on the road to divorce! No man is going to put up with living in a sexless marriage.”
“Yeah, well, how you think I feel Dad?” Terry whines.
“So you do want to have sex?” he asks.
“Yes, Dad, but not with Tom.”
“Didn’t I tell you that you needed to be aware of his lack of hygiene before you married him?”
Terry listens, knowing it is not just Tom’s eating habits, poor personal hygiene or lack of interest in cleaning up after himself, it is something more, something deeper, a restlessness that she just couldn’t put her finger on. The slurping and licking did bother her, always had, but now it had become virtually intolerable.
“Dirty house is a real turnoff,” her father says.
Terry stands in the middle of her living room, looking out her front window while her father continues to lecture her about how she has wasted her good years on her husband. How if she had married Jeff, the stock broker, her life would be so much better, maybe even a couple of kids. No worries! He was attractive, and probably good in bed.
Terry wanted to interrupt her father, to dispel his image of Jeff, the boyfriend who had cheated on her numerous times. Life with him would have been boring! All he ever talked about was money, how much money he had, and how to make more money. The sex had just been okay, nothing spectacular. He had kissed better, but that was about it. He was also selfish, conceited, and only thought of his needs and that was why she had finally dumped him, after he’d confessed to her that he had been seeing someone else on the side for years. Plus, he probably would have been even less sympathetic about her problem, considering the fact that he now has three kids, and one more on the way.
Terry didn’t want to dispel her father’s belief that Jeff was the one for her because now he has a house in Wheaton just outside of Chicago, and makes a six figure income. Let her father continue with his own fantasies. Why ruin his impression of the past? At least he thought it was better than her current situation.
Her husband has taken the day off, not to spend time with her, but to spend time in his vineyard. Terry watches him from the living room window planting his new vines of Pinot Noir. Terry thought it was funny when he said that he was planting that type of grape because in the land of wines, and wine experts, that grape is known as the grape that likes to suffer. So fitting, Terry thinks, considering the landscape of rock, sand, cactus and dust that surrounds them on top of the mountain just outside of Santa Fe. To grow anything on this bedrock one has to dig deep to find fertile soil to be able to plant something that will grow in such a harsh terrain. Her husband loves his vineyard, takes great pride in tending to it, pruning it, sculpting it, buying vines that will survive the cold winters, and hot summers, and produce grapes in the end that look beautiful on the vines. Sometimes she feels a tug of envy, that she is not a part of his vineyard, but then she looks to the garish unfinished tire wall in the backyard, and she realizes, why would she want to be surrounded by a wall that will never be complete, never withstand the wind and rain of time. She is grateful that they live in a rural community where her neighbors have no need to complain, because most live next to junk yards or own a junk yard.
Recently, he has been spending most of his spare time tending to his vineyard, meticulously weeding it, weaving the untamed vines into place. She watches him, how lovingly he tends to the vines, arranging them carefully back into place, patting down the spoil, making everything just right so that come spring the vines will be strong and develop blossoms and all his hard work will be reflected in the reddish gold color of the grapes.
“You know Terry,” her father drones on, “you don’t have any kids, and nothing is holding you to your marriage. If you are unhappy, this is the time to get out. You are still young. You might be able to find someone else before it is too late.” As she continues to listen, Terry formulates a reply that she will never say, only in her head, does she reflect upon what her next step will be.
**
Terry watches the noon traffic go by, as she has lunch with her best-friend. She wonders if she could really do it on her own, not be married, to start all over again, to find that guy that did it for her again.
“You can’t stay married to someone just for his healthcare benefits.” Dawns says as Terry complains to her about her concern that if she did ask for a divorce, what would she do about health care? Where would she go? How would she even think about making a living that would support her current lifestyle?
“I am just too comfortable. That’s the problem,” Terry says matter of factly, like her comfort was a tangible bad thing.
“I want to stay comfortable, but do I have to sacrifice my mental and physical well-being in order to maintain the comfort?” Terry asks, knowing that Dawn has no real answer for her, knowing that she really isn’t all that comfortable. She is bored with her spouse and her life, and maybe if she had had children and become the happy homemaker, and doted on her husband, she would feel more fulfilled, as if she had some sort of purpose. But the little problem, as Tom likes to call it, got in the way with her becoming Susie Homemaker or Betty Crocker. That’s what bothers Terry, at forty years old and childless, she feels as if she has no purpose, no direction. Of course, she has her job as an editor at the local newspaper in town, and her own writings, which are both creative babies in a way, providing some sense of purpose and accomplishment in her life, but there seemed to be nothing to really hold her marriage together. Her father is right, she has no ties to hold her to Tom.
Terry sees her friends’ purpose in life, and regardless of the fact that her husband has gotten fat over the course of their 20 year marriage, and neither one even thinks about having sex anymore, because they are both too exhausted to even try.
“And who the hell wants to raise two twins alone?” Dawn asks, looking over to Terry with a strange expression in her eyes, as if the thought had crossed her mind.
“Sounds like the perfect life,” Terry says, shuddering at the thought of having twin toddlers and no personal freedom at all. And yet, sometimes when she listens to Dawn talk about her kids, and watches how her face lights up, Terry feels a pang of longing, a sense of loss, regret, but the feeling is brief, and then gone, which makes Terry feel guilty for never really getting excited about being a mother.
“Well, it’s not perfect, it is what it is. And well, I have to make the best of it, regardless of John’s smelly feet, and snoring,” Dawn giggles.
Terry looks away from her friend, looks out the window they are sitting next to. She looks out at the small parking lot covered sparsely with vehicles of assorted sizes and shapes, to the flow of traffic coming off the main road across to the Sandia Mountains that shadow the city, and wonders how she ever wound up in the southwest with its stark beauty and small town mentality. Everyone here it seems, gets married right after high school and starts having babies right away so that by the time they are in their forties they are grandparents, Terry thinks, looking back at her friend who was the exception to the norm. She had her babies in her late thirties, shocking her family.
“I believe that to be “in love” with someone you need to have the physical part, the intimacy, the part that wants to be with that person, to feel their body next to yours, and to want to give of yourself completely, emotionally and sexually, even if it is in the briefest kiss or softest caress. I love my husband, care deeply for him, but I know in my heart that I am no longer “in love” with him because I no longer have the desire to be intimate with him, or the willingness to start a family with him, Terry confesses to her friend, trying to hold back her tears, trying to stay composed, trying not to sound selfish.
Her friend takes a hard swallow from her coffee cup, and looks straight at Terry. There is softness to her blue eyes with the crow’s feet just starting to form around the outer corners. She has that motherly look to her, all serene, and fluffy, like she knows best, because she has popped out two kids as if they were credentials of wisdom. She takes Terry’s hand, “We all hope in the beginning to stay in love,” she whispers, patting Terry’s hand, trying to bestow some comfort to her friend.
“It’s the loneliness that is driving me crazy,” Terry whispers, not wanting the next booth to hear her. “It consumes me, makes me think terrible thoughts, and makes me wonder if I should have stayed in Chicago.”
“Do you feel as if you made the wrong turn, should have turned right instead of left? “ Dawn asks, staring at Terry with her bright blue eyes full of love for her friend, knowing her friend was hurting, but knowing that words this time were not going to make her hurt go away.
“Sometimes, sometimes, I wonder if I knew all along that I wasn’t going to stay with Tom forever.”
“Are you mad at him, Terry, for, you know…?”
“You mean mad at him for bringing home an ovulation kit two days after I miscarried for the second time, and yelling at me that I was defective, like some toy that once assembled didn’t work right?”
“I think you are still angry with him,” Dawn says with a slightly nervous laugh, taking her hand away from her friends, and taking another sip of her coffee.
“You think?” Terry says, staring out the at the window, thinking that sometimes she can’t believe she is so far away from her childhood home, but this is her home now. This place with its rugged starkness and raw beauty describes her much better now than the lush plains of the Midwest.
“What makes you so smart?” Terry teases Dawn, taking a sip from her now cold coffee.
‘I read a lot, and I know you thought I was going to say motherhood,” Dawns says, “Motherhood has made me fat, not smarter, just fatter.” Terry laughs despite it all, because what else was she going to do about her predicament.
**
“We have become nothing more than roommates,” Tom whines as he boils a pot of spaghetti, and begins to make the red sauce to go along with it. He minces the garlic, and then adds it to the second pot with the can of peeled tomatoes and begins stirring the mixture, splattering red sauce onto the stove top. “Did you hear me Terry?” he asks not turning around to face her, still keeping his back to her. Terry watches him work from her place at the kitchen table, as she mentally asks herself, what had she ever found attractive about him in the first place? His whole demeanor is frumpy. Can a man become frumpy?
‘I’m not hungry Tom, I’m going to take a bath,” her usual excuse.
“Always with the hot baths Terry,” Tom calls from the kitchen as Terry makes her way down the hallway. She couldn’t bear to watch her husband eat a bowl of spaghetti again, for the third night in a row. He gets into ruts with cooking and eating, and recently, all he has wanted to cook was pasta.
“You know Terry, you really have a problem, and I think it might be pathological. I hope those men you read about do it for you, because you really are delusional about your reality.” Tom snaps after her. Terry shuts the bathroom door, shutting out his voice and runs a hot bath. She throws some bath salts into the water, and watches as the swirling, steaming water turns a salmon color. She slips off her clothes, and slides into the warm water. She remembers that her mother used to read romance novels in the tub and smoke reefer. Sounds like a pretty good idea about now. Her grandmother used to read them in her rocking chair on her front porch while waiting for the mailman to deliver the mail. She used to joke that it made her day to see the young postman in his uniform while she read about young couples falling in love. The beginning of any relationship is the best part, she used to laugh, when everything is new and fresh, and nobody expects anything from anyone.
When Terry had asked her mother why she read romance novels, she looked at Terry, as if she was crazy and said flatly, “for the sex, Terry. Sometimes the sex is better in the mind.” Terry had been only16, and still a virgin when that conversation took place, and hadn’t a clue what her mother was taking about, but now at forty, she can definitely relate. Sometimes, everything is always better in the mind; unfortunately, the reality never lives up to the fantasy. She cracks open her newest novel, starts reading the first page thinking “love had nothing to do with it.” Terry uses her big toe to turn up the hot water. At least her uterus was shaped like a heart, some consolation for the disappointment. That’s how it was explained to her by her doctor about her problem. The problem was she has two uteruses. The nice part was that on the ultrasound it looked like a heart. The deformity had been there since birth, like a strong vine cutting her uterus down the middle, except for all her hard work, she cannot produce, the blossom dies within her, and she thinks, turning the page, and sinking deeper into the warm water, love is like that; sometimes it just dies without ever producing anything.
***