1968
It's not as if Will had never seen me in leopard skinned lounging apparel until that night when readiness for conception was ripe ... it's just that our habit had been to enjoy dinner before dessert.
As to that leopard skin get-up, which clung to my curves, I chose to zip it up whenever the hospital kept Will so preoccupied, over an extended period of time, that I felt lonely whether he was there, caring for patients or here, at home, head buried in textbooks.
You see, once my boyfriend became my husband, everything about our relationship seemed to change—but not for the better, as I'd expected to spend at least an hour, each evening, enjoying each other's company. I mean, Dad told me I'd love sex after marriage, but no one so much as hinted that once my boyfriend made me his wife, his mindful mission would redirect toward achieving an exhausting goal that had so little to do with me as to flip the switch that turned up the pilot light, which caused my teen-aged insecurity with guys to re-ignite. As subconscious insecurity set yesteryear's anxiety aflame, my fear of being so unattractive as to have dampened my husband's ardor burned away at my peace of mind until all that was left of my sexually charged self esteem was a dying ember that quietly turned to ash as soon as any criticism, concerning my looks, flew out of Will's mouth.
If you ask why I'd not voiced my underlying fear of abandonment aloud, my answer would be twofold: First and foremost, subconscious fear is unrecognized by the conscious mind, and secondly, voicing a deeply rooted fear of abandonment, aloud, requires courage—and courage is a trait that, being a pleaser, I'd not developed, as of yet. So rather than voicing my fear, openly and honestly, I did what generations of women, living in a man's world, have been wont to do: I resorted to animal instinct (also known as woman's wiles), suggesting my primping and purring like a kitten on a mission.
So anyway, the fact of the matter is this: On most occasions when I'd apply ruby red lipstick after zipping my firm, supple young body into that leopard skin get-up, those choices did not reflect my wild thing feeling hot to trot. My need to arouse my husband's desire was not inspired by my libido's spitfire but rather by the emergence of subconscious scars, which felt so piercingly raw as to have drawn forth a heartwrenching sense of loneliness so painful that anxious tears wet my cheeks during the darkest hours of the night when inner demons are known to wreck havoc with subconscious vulnerabilities, which we manage to lock behind walls of denial during the sunlit day.
If you wonder why my fear-laden tears did not awaken my husband, who, more often than not, rolled to his side of the bed in a comatose state, seconds after his head hit the pillow, I'd reply: Each tear drop proved as silent as every sob that I'd smothered into my pillow for fear of waking the young doctor, whose brain proved swollen with all of the book learning, concerning life saving knowledge, which Will had been expected to absorb and store within the forefront of his mind, hour upon hour, day after day, week in and week out, and as I'd watched him labor over his books, night after night, in no way did I feel that the depth of my unhappiness compared equally to my hard working husband's need to arise at the crack of dawn with a good night's sleep under his belt.
I find it interesting to note that every time that leopard get-up comes to mind, so does a particular evening when the guy in my bed who caught wind of my scent was not Will ...
No comments:
Post a Comment