Overwhelming Urges

"Then can I ask you to really think this through for a while? I need you to drill down and try and determine exactly what it is you really want or need."

"It doesn't really matter, does it?" she asked him. "It's not something that's ever going to happen. In fact, just talking about it and getting out in the open has made it so much better. I felt like I was carrying around the most horrible, evil secret in the history of mankind. Now I feel like I'm an okay person. I still have the same feelings, I just don't see them as evil. They're just feelings."

"I know you won't act on them, Jenna. I just want to understand—and I want you to fully understand—exactly where they start and stop."

"Okay, I'll give it a lot of thought, but again, I'm not sure how that will make a lot of difference."

"Knowledge is power, right?" he said with a smile.

"I guess so. You're such a good man, Oliver Preston. I'm so blessed to... Sorry, I'm so fortunate...to have you."

"Dittos, kiddo. So what shall we try tonight?" he said changing the subject.

"Anything but drinking," she said with a laugh.

For the next two weeks, neither of them mentioned her desires. Then on a Friday evening, Jenna was talking about work and Oliver couldn't help but notice how many times the name Marquees came up.

"Is Marquees your current fantasy guy, honey?" Oliver asked out of the blue.

"What? Who, Marquees from the bank?" she said as though she was making sure he wasn't talking about one of the many other Marqueeses they both knew.

"Yeah, him. I'm not jealous or upset, but you talk about him a LOT. And you smile most of the time when you mention his name. So I'm just wondering if he's your current...fantasy interest. And before you answer, how's the thinking about all this coming along?"

"Oh, that. Well...good, I think. I've tried looking at it from every possible angle and I was right when I told you I have no deeper interest than the fantasy of being with a handsome black guy itself. I don't want to marry him or fall in love with him."

"You just wanna fuck him," Oliver said with a smile.

"Oliver!" Jenna said feeling slightly embarrassed. Not because he said 'fuck' but because he finally put into words exactly what she'd fantasized about for years.

"Oliver...what?" he replied. "That is your fantasy, right? To be able to have sex with a black guy? And I'm guessing it has something to do with the size of his..."

"Okay! Okay. Enough already. Yes and...yes." She wasn't looking at Oliver because of the deep sense of embarrassment she still felt about even feeling this way about any other man, black or otherwise.

"So you won't develop romantic feelings for him?" He paused then added, "Or for...them?"

"Them?" Jenna asked looking over at him. "What do you mean by that?"

"I mean that since you don't want to fall in love with him, you can't possibly have...sex...with just one man. If you did, if you had sex with the same guy several times, it just seems like there would be a chance you might actually start feeling something else, something... more for him."

"You know, even though we've stopped going to church, I still feel very guilty about this. I feel like I've thrown this huge, terrible wrench into our lives. We have enough to think about and deal with and then I bring this into it."

He put his arm around and said, "Well, it came with you when I married you. I just didn't know it at the time. You've tried to fight it for several years now and it hasn't gone away. So as I see it, we have a limited number of choices."

"Such as?" she asked.

"Well, we could get a divorce and you could pursue anyone you wanted at any time."

"Oh, no. That's not an option. Not now, not ever. Keep going."

"You can just keep living with—and battling—your desires. We can acknowledge they're there, and you can try and ignore them and live your life around them."

"That's true. And I guess that's the best I can hope for, right? I didn't ask for this. I didn't create these desires or sit there one day thinking to myself, 'Gee, how could make my life more difficult and complicated?' and come up with this great idea. So that's probably all there is to it. I just learn to accept them without guilt and as you said, live around them. Did I tell you how smart you are lately?" she said only partly teasing.

"It's been a while so feel free to tell me again," he said with a smile.

She hit him playfully then said, "You are a very smart guy. And I love you so much. I think this is a very good plan, by the way."

"Or..."

"Or?" she said raising her eyebrows to indicate she was confused.

"Or...we could find a way for you to satisfy your desires in such a way that I don't have to worry about you wanting someone else. Permanently, of course."

Jenna felt herself get wet instantly for the first time in a very long time. "Um...and just how would we do that? I can't very well just invite Marqueese to come...fuck me...then expect to go back to business as usual at the bank. That just seems crazy impossible. No?"

"What if it isn't Marqueese?" Jenna sat up straight and looked directly at him and wanted to know who it would be then. "How about someone you've never met?"

"What are you talking about, Oliver? How do you meet someone you've never met?"

Oliver tried not to laugh but he did smile. "Here's what I've been thinking. We'd have to find a guy who didn't know us, who doesn't know where we live, who would be very unlikely to ever, um...stalk you...but who would be very happy to um...you know, take care of your...urges."

Jenna's heart was beginning to beat more rapidly. "How would we do that?" she asked with genuine interest. "How would we find a guy like that?"

"Or...guys," he corrected. "Once we learn how to find one anonymous um...sperm donor..." Jenna burst out laughing with nervous laughter. "Once we learn how to find one guy like that, we can find another and another and..."

"Oh, my gosh! Are you serious, honey? If you're not, don't even talk about this, okay? It's hard enough to live with this but if you start teasing me or...giving me hope..."

"I'm not teasing. I've thought about this a thousand times and I...I want to at least try it. For me, it's breaking another rule. It's proving to myself that we human beings create or own morality rather than some organization or group of men telling us what morality means."

"But wouldn't you be jealous? Like...insanely jealous? And...would you want to be there with me? With...him?"

"I'd have to be. Not knowing what was going on would make me jealous. I'd have no idea whether or not things stayed at the physical level only. And I think I'll be okay with it knowing how much this means to you. Love isn't a just a noun. It's a verb. If you love someone, you show it. So this may be the biggest way I can ever show you how much I love you. You know, for me...allowing you to do this. Not that you need my permission..."

She moved very close to him and said, "But I do need your permission, Oliver. I could never...I would never...do anything like this without it. And if you could stand to do let me do this and...still love me...and not look at me, you know...like that...then I would want you to be there with me. I'd want you to hold my hand or whatever you can do to show your support." She thought about what she'd just said then repeated herself. "Show your support? Is this crazy or what?"

"Unusual? Yes. Crazy? Maybe. But I don't think so. We all have wants and needs. One of mine is for my wife to be happy. And if my wife needs this to be happy, then I want her to have it. I just need her to keep loving me, too."

"I do love you and I always will. But if you let me do this, if you gave me this...gift...I would be so grateful and so happy and yes, it would make me love you even more."

Oliver told her, "I guess I see this like trying out the idea of quitting church. Had we been unable to live with that, we could always have gone back. I know we can't 'unring this bell' once it's rung, but if it creates new, serious problems..."

"Then that's it. I'd never risk what we have for any thrill—real or perceived. Ever."

"Then let's try this, okay? Let's try it once then give it some time to see how it affects our marriage. And who knows? I might be perfectly okay with it and you might only really need to do it occasionally."

"Like a birthday present or something. Not every week or every month, but maybe once a year or so."

"I'm guessing once a year won't be enough if I can live with this. Maybe more like...quarterly?" he said partially joking.

"So 3-4 times a year maybe?" she said trying not to sound too hopeful.

"Yeah. Something like that. But we've got to get this first one behind us before we'll know whether or not a second time is even going to be possible."

"Okay," she said. "So how to we find Guy Number 1?"

"Leave that up to me, okay?" he said. "I have a very large field to choose from on campus. With 40,000+ students enrolled, I'm sure I can find 3-4 guys a year to satisfy my wife's...special needs."

"Mmmmm. That sounds wonderful. Have I told you how smart you are lately?" she said again letting him know how happy she was.

Oliver told her that he'd start the search on Monday and see what he could turn up. He cautioned Jenna not to get her hopes up too high. After all, it might not be easy to find the right guy.

By noon on Monday, Oliver realized that finding a guy would be a piece of cake while the right guy would not. After spending all of his free time before and after classes 'shopping around' it occurred to him that the most likely place to find a...suitable candidate...would be the library, not the cafeteria or the locker room or out on the 'quad.'

A quick tour of the university's massive library after lunch looked promising. There were close to a hundred people in there and about fifteen of them were black. Seven of those were women, leaving him with a target audience of eight African-American men. Oliver wasn't all that great at telling who was good looking when it came to men, but he at least had a reasonably good idea as he began taking a second look around.

His goal was to find someone sitting alone, and that ruled out another three guys. Of the five remaining, one reminded him of Steve Urkal—a classic nerd. Four to go. The next solo black male was grossly overweight. Oliver couldn't help but feel sorry for him and wondered if he'd ever had a girlfriend. Three choices remained. The next guy looked interesting. He was muscular, good looking, and was buried in a math book on differential equations.

As Oliver walked past he stopped and said, "Excuse me. Sorry to bother you. Do you have the time by any chance?"

The young man pulled his left arm out from under the table and took a look at his watch. "It's 1:37." That's when Oliver saw the wedding ring.

"Oh, okay. Thanks. Sorry to disturb you."

"No problem," his fellow student replied going back to work.

Oliver hadn't given much thought to college students being married. He wouldn't make that mistake again. The next guy had a serious 'thug' look going on and that didn't bother Oliver at all. For all he knew, that might be a huge plus to Jenna. "Note to self," he said silently. "Ask your wife if she's looking for Usher or Allen Iverson."

Again, Oliver tried asking for the time. The guy looked up at him and said, "What the fuck, man? They a mother-fucking clock right in front a' yo' face. You blind or something?" In addition to his outright hostility, his teeth were well...a disaster. He couldn't see his wife kissing that mouth under any circumstance.

As he approached his final 'target' he saw the guy stand up and make a beeline for the escalator. Before he could even get close, the guy was on his way down to the ground floor leaving Oliver holding the proverbial bag. "Shit!" he said quietly out loud. Swearing was a newfound enjoyment although he indulged himself sparingly. It still felt 'sinful' and like he was doing some kind of terribly bad thing. He knew that would eventually wear off, but for now, it was still a big deal just to drop the occasional S-bomb to himself.

He had plenty of reading to do so he set his book bag down and took a seat. He pulled out the most recent assignment from Comparative Religion and realized the class no longer bothered him at all. He was now able to look at things from an outsider's perspective rather than from inside 'the bubble.' This cast things in a whole new light for him and rather than seeing an entire world in need of his former brand of Truth, he could now look at people as a product of their environment and accept that they believed something else for perfectly valid and understandable reasons.

He knocked out about 50 pages when something caught his eyes. Or rather...someone. "Holy cow!" he said to himself. "That could be our guy."

Oliver sat his book down and watched to see where this young, good looking, athletic black guy might be going. He didn't have to wait long. He watched as the guy went straight to the science area, pulled out a book on evolutionary biology, then took a seat. He also pulled two other books out of his bag which dealt with the topic, then started reading.

Oliver gave him a few minutes then strolled on by his table. He didn't see a ring on his hand but he also wasn't wearing a watch. "Time for a different approach," he told himself.

As he walked by, he stopped then said, "You're doing that old school."

The guy looked up and smiled at him. "Guilty as charged. There's just something about having real books in front of me. I could do all this on line and have several windows open on my laptop, but nothing beats having paper copies in front of you."

"I hear you," Oliver said. "You majoring in biology?" Oliver pointed toward the stack of books and smiled.

"Again, guilty as charged. I'm actually in grad school and my thesis is specifically on a narrow aspect of evolutionary biology."

"Oh, okay. You're one of those guys with the 20-pound brains that make the rest of us feel stupid."

"Stupid is as stupid does, right?" the handsome young black man said back. "At least that's what Forest Gump taught us." Both of them laughed. "You wanna sit down?" He moved his books closer to him to give Oliver room just in case.

"Um...sure," Oliver said nonchalantly. "I'm in!" he said to himself. "Now just take it slow and play it cool."

"Since you like hard copies, do you spend a lot of time in here?" Oliver asked.

"I feel like I live in here most of the time," he said. "My name's Darnell, by the way."

"Oliver. Nice to meet you."

The two men shook hands and Darnell said, "I see you're married. Did you serve in the military or something or am I just way off base? I mean, you look closer to my age than most of the 19-year olds walking around."

"Oh, um...well, I put off school for a couple of years to do something for the church I used to go to."

"Used to?" Darnell asked.

"Yeah. My wife and I have had a crisis of faith of sorts and we've recently stopped going to church altogether."

"That's fascinating. I was raised a Baptist by my grandmother, but by the time I was in high school I was reading every science book I could get my hands on. The more I learned, the more convinced I became that religion was something man invented."

"Wow, that's amazing. That's the same conclusion I came to. What did it for me was how prayer worked. Or rather...didn't work."

Darnell laughed and said, "You ever seen the George Carlin routine on prayer?"

"No, can't say as I have," Oliver told him.

"You gotta check this out!" He grabbed his iPhone and punched it a few times then handed it to Oliver.

For the next few minutes, Oliver found himself not only enjoying, but laughing at the whole thing. Carlin said he'd decided to pray to Joe Pesci and to God for the same period of time. In the end, Joe Pesci had granted him slightly more requests than God although both seemed to be totally random. "So I'm stickin' with Joe Pesci," was the upshot of the routine.

"That is spot on!" Oliver said. They traded anecdotal stories they'd both heard while in church about answered prayer and both of them laughed. "Yeah! That's like the woman who needed $50 to pay her light bill. She prays then a check shows up for $55."

"Yeah, so she can use the $5 to pay tithing!" Darnell added. They high-fived each other at that one.

Oliver waited for a moment then said, "So...you seeing anyone? You're not married, right?"

"Who me? Hell no! Home boy ain't getting married until he's out of school, got a good job, and established in his career."

"Girlfriend?" Oliver inquired.

"Nope. In fact, I just called it off with this chick who was gettin' all serious about a month ago. I just wanted to hang out and hook up and she's all about getting married and havin' kids. Kids! Come on, girl!"

"So...can I ask you a personal question?" Oliver looked very serious.

Darnell said, "What's with the serious tone? You're not secretly gay or something are you? I mean, you're not gonna ask if I wanna..."

"What? No! Are you kidding?" Oliver said slightly embarrassed.

Darnell laughed loudly then realized where they were. "Sorry!" he mouthed to some people who gave him a dirty look for being too loud. He turned to Oliver and said, "Man, I really had you goin' on that one." He paused then said very seriously, "You're not secretly gay, are you?"

Oliver fell for it a second time but Darnell let him off the hook easily the second time. "I'm cuttin' you some slack because you haven't been out of church too long. You're still a little naïve around the ears. You know what I'm sayin'?"

"I do. You're right. I've really led a pretty sheltered life and I don't have a lot of experience with...worldly...stuff."

"It won't take long," Darnell assured him. "So anyway, you were gonna ask me something before I had a little fun with you. Go ahead, ask away."

"It's funny you mentioned how it won't take long. We've actually come a long way in such a short period of time. I mean, considering how far out there we were. You know, really deep into it."

"Yes, I do know. I still remember it very well. You look at everything through that prism and it colors everything you think, say, or do." He pointed at his books and said, "This kind of knowledge explains why people are the way they are a whole lot better than some kind of war before God and the Devil. And don't get me started about the logistical impossibilities of Noah's Ark. There's no way he could have made it to Antartica to pick up a pair of penguins in seven days let alone back to Australia for Koalas and a hundred other things." He was smiling then said, "I'm doin' it again. Sorry. Ask me your question."

"Um...well, my wife and I...Jenna." He took out his own phone and opened his photos and handed it to Darnell.

He scrolled through 4-5 of them and said, "Damn! Your wife is smokin'!" He laughed and said, "So as an ex-Mormon, have you guys started smoking or anything crazy like that?" He handed the phone back to Oliver as he continued to smile.

"Funny you should mention that. We tried drinking for the first time ever last weekend and both of us ended up hating it." He explained how Jenna got sick and the way both of them had hangovers.

"Yeah, you gotta take it slow, man. Real slow. Just sip the stuff over a long period of time. It ain't kool aid, you know."

"Lesson learned—the hard way," Oliver replied. "Anyway, we're trying all kinds of new things and now that we've kind of run into each other, I wanted to um...well, run something by you."

"Oh, hold on! If you're gonna ask the black man if he can score drugs for you, forget it. I don't touch that stuff."

"Drugs? No! No way. We don't do that kind of stuff."

"Oh, okay. You just drink but don't do drugs. Okay, that's cool," Darnell said jokingly.