He Had To Know

{I NEED to write this. I am unsure why, perhaps just to help myself. I NEED others to read it, and I am not sure of the why of that, either. My entire life will change soon, this is nothing more than a relating of the events and why. My Mother is gone, my husband is gone. I have no ties other than financial and my work. I have a brother, who was going to come and be with me. He did not, he is lost in his world. I am alone, so here is my story:}

Sheer Terror! There is no other way to describe the feeling. But it had to be done, the new man in my life, the one I was tearing at myself trying to decide if I wanted to be in love with had to know all of the truth about me if we were to have any chance.

I needed to tell him about the stories I wrote, and the ones Ted wrote, many almost completely true.

Was I in love? What the hell is love, anyway? Is it sex, orgasms that make my mind twist into wrinkles of total confusion?

Jon came close to being the man my late husband, Ted was. I say close, knowing this may hurt him because he will read this story, too.

Just a fact, a few dates, meetings, some wonderful lovemaking do not substitute for over two decades of living and growing with someone you know you love.

Ted and I had that magic background, over two solid years of just being friends and caring. No relationship, no sex, no dates, no nothing other than quiet hours spent sharing meals and conversation.

It was like being completely one with one's own heart. So close, dependent totally upon it for life, yet often thinking nothing of it.

The day sex entered our lives, it was like an explosion of right, our union was like the best spring day when the sun comes up.

Ted's hands in my hair, his breath on my shoulder. My God, my God, my God! I would give up life for one more time! I still feel the quiverings of wanting to be inside him, him inside me. It was as close as we could come to the true union, the one inside us, in our minds.

It isn't possible for there to be greater pleasure than feeling your one true lifemate's heat melt into your own. All in giving, no taking, just a cosmic union of flesh. The rest was day to day, tiny moments of just living, mingled with trying to please.

We loved in dreams, so many times I would wake, his hand in mine, fresh from the touch of him, basking in the afterglow of just a memory. More sleep could come then, safe and secure, the best of all.

Twenty plus years of living that, with just a few short weeks in the middle of pain. My fault, my error, my failure, that short period. Then the ending, nearly three long hard years of worry and fear, finally over. One is never ready.

There were no children as a result of our unions, I was fertile, so was Ted. It simply didn't happen, only God knows the answer to that. We would have welcomed but we also never really had a concern or even discussed it.

My time came in my 43rd year, no chance for children after that. I ended up with another man for a brief period. Ted degenerated instantly into what he was before. One day I came to get my things, my new man with me, one touch of Ted and I was home.

Ted and I made love that day, it was like always. I knew. My new man was enraged and struck me, Ted just stopped him. Easy, no effort, careful to not really hurt him, over in seconds.

No one would ever believe, you would have to see that. Tiny little slaps and taps, and all fighting ended.

From then on we were back to the way it needed to be, the experience was almost like a healing to me. I was not aware then of my personal situations with depression, I was far too busy dealing with my man's. I knew of his suffering, I never really knew of my own until much later.

I am sorry to go into that, but it is true, and to understand completely, you would need to experience it.

Yes, children just never came up, we had each other. I was like the child Ted raised, and he was like one I raised too. This is hard for me to even explain, or put into any kinds of understandable words. Perhaps if you were to read all of Ted's stories it would be easier to discern. It does tell the beginnings, and the end, with a few changes that don't completely fit due to different perceptions of the same thing.

Realize the writings are from two different people, even though the two were just one, in truth. So perceptions, thoughts, moments, order, all are in the mind of the writer. Truth? It is all in there somewhere.

Ted hung on to life for a very long time, suffering with what would have taken most lessor men or women much sooner. He only did that for me, until one day it was no longer possible. He knew that night, I realize that now but I did miss it at the time.

I know he was with me waiting that morning, I felt his hand, he always held mine in sleep, always. I remember smiling and slipping my hand from his, then out of bed in the early light.

I went down to make his cup of coffee, it was his birthday, I was happy. I set the burners on the stove to warm a pan, went up to the loft we shared to take him his morning cup in bed. I touched his face to wake him, and knew.

He lay quietly, a soft and happy smile on his face, the same smile he wore every day of his life. He had let me go so I would not have to share and feel that instant, trying to the last to protect me.

My struggle with the loss was almost more than I could bear, I chose on my own, quietly and well thought out, to join him. I really have no fear of death. Being a Doctor, I long since have seen many things that let me know it is no end, only a change.

But he would not allow me to do that.

I know inside myself what he wants for me. He wants me to find a mate to share my life, to cry with me when pains of life come. To laugh with me when joys of life, so fleeting, fill a moment.

I expected it to take years, perhaps to never come, but I steeled myself to try.

I was lucky, one man stood out, and that man was Jonathan. It also happened quickly, all by accident, or was it? Who knows, I know my soulmate lives here in my home as I write this. I feel his hands guiding mine, making me write. I very seldom wrote before, now I find myself almost overwhelmed to put down the words.

Somehow the words, they come to me. I place my soul, my failings, my dreams, my hopes, my terror, on the screen. In the writing, I reread what I have written and find peace.

Jonathan and I dated, he was not Ted but he was a man in every respect. I am no prude, I love men, and in the later stages of my marriage Ted and I did share pleasures with others.

I really didn't mind, but sometimes I will say I wanted it over so I could get back to my man. Sometimes I found it nice and lost myself in the moment.

So I didn't resist when the moment with Jon came, in fact, I approached it eagerly. My body was months without attention. I was used to almost daily in my previous life. I quickly came to realize that lack of sexual activity was part of my personal troubles, I also noticed that I became less dependant upon medications to make each day survivable.

After the last visit from Jon, where nothing went according to plan yet all went just fine, I knew I had to go to the next step.

I waited two days for his call, and just as I was thinking it never would, it did. We talked for several hours, if that seems possible.

Jon hopped a flight to Portland, just to meet me, share a meal, and hop a flight back. He held me at the airport, not wanting to go, me not wanting him to go. Then he was gone.

I went back to my home, quiet and peaceful. My phone rang as I sat bouncing TV channels, stopping on the ones Ted always loved to watch. He would spend hours on Science and medical shows, my preference ran to news. Odd, but now I find I like cartoons, yes. Odd.

Jon and I talked until the airline staff made him shut the phone off for landing, it rang again a few minutes later as he was in the limo back to the Casino hotel.

He called again later that evening just to wish me a nice evening, I was in bed. He asked me what I was wearing, I told him, just a soft nightgown, sheer, nothing else.

That was the first time I ever in my life had a man talk me into an orgasm on a telephone, it was wonderful.

I blurted out something about writing, almost instantly I realized what I had said.

Jon was quiet, then asked, "You write?"

"Yes."

"What about?"

"Me, and things that happened."

"Did you write about me?"

"Yes."

"May I read those?"

Frightened, I tried to smooth it over.

"Some are just stories."

"Will I be able to tell?"

"Yes, I think so."

"How?"

"You will know."

I told Jon how to get to my stories, Ted's too. We talked for quite a long time more, finally, time to sleep.

I couldn't sleep, I was up and down. I felt the glimmerings of tears and fought back, "Damn it, 14 days, no medicine!"

I finally gave up, and took a pill.

I slept the sleep of the dead, and woke to the Sun shining in past the bare branches of winter.

One egg in the poacher, and I was sipping my first cup of coffee, the phone rang.

It was Jon.

"Hi, did you sleep good?"

"Yes, I had to take a pill."

"Oh, I am sorry, are you OK?"

"Yes."

"I read your stories."

"All of them?"

"Yes, all of them."

Silence, I felt the clawing at my chest, bubbles formed in my eyes.

"Well?"

"You write very well," he told me.

"I don't think so."

"I read Ted's stories, too."

"ALL of them?"

"Yes."

"But he has 100 posted, that would take all night!"

"It did," he said, laughing.

"Well?" impatient now.

"I love you!"

"What?"

"I love you!"

Silence.

Then finally, getting my breath, I said, "Jon, do you really mean that, I can't take it if you don't mean that."

"Lee, I love you, I can't think of anything else, I need you with me."

I didn't answer, I sat with the phone to my ear, just listening to his breath.

Finally, "Jon, I love you too."

He laughed with delight, then said the one thing I needed to hear.

"Bring your man!"

"May I?"

"Yes, it will be fine."

My head was spinning as he hung up, all the things to do. I must be crazy, my job, my life, my home.

Drop it all to go to Reno and be with Jon?

Finally, I got it figured out. Close the house, leave it. Hop in the Corvette, clothes on my back and what will fit in the tiny trunk.

I called Jon at 7 am the next morning, he answered instantly.

"Room for me?" I asked.

"Yes, when?"

"Two weeks notice, and I am on the way!" I told him.

I explained my plans to drive down, bringing the Corvette. He agreed, I told him I did have a Cat.

"26th floor, it can have the run of the place, it's just staff and us."

"Ted?"

"Pick a place."

"March 23rd, we start a new life?"

"Come what may, as long as you are with me!" he said.

March 23rd. A new life.

This may be my last story, I don't know. I just don't know.

I do know I feel all frightened and happy inside at the same time. Who knows? A week, a Month, a year, a lifetime?

Who ever knows?

Lee