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The fictionalized version of this true story is included in a full length manuscript titled,
Hallowed Hearts. I have extracted the excerpts which include the story in order to present it in this ezine. The names and certain incidental facts were changed during the writing of the manuscript, but the essential theme of The Tin Man remains intact.
Dinner was fun, and Jesse created a picnic in the great room instead of eating at the dining room table. She put on jazz because she knew he liked it, and the walls of her defensiveness came tumbling down with each bite and banter. After he began licking the pizza crumbs off her fingers, one by slowly one, she was once
again gone.
She had shaved her legs in the shower that morning, so she didn't put herself through the unnecessary paces of deciding about whether or not she was going to sleep with him. In fact, she sensed an edge to her affection with him that seemed to be pushing things along just to get them over with. She knew the end was imminent and wanted to pull it off quickly, like a band-aid, so it would hurt less. It felt natural to be getting more physically intimate with Nick, and he seemed relaxed. They stretched out on the floor where they'd had their picnic and read to each other from some books Nick had taken off the shelf. Mutual foreplay. Neither one listened as the other spoke except to the sound of the voice speaking. She watched his face as he read and saw how he couldn't hide the smile knowing she was looking intently at him. He gently ran his finger across her neck while she read causing her to blush and stutter, utterly pleasing him.
She argued with herself throughout the evening about getting too close to him, and knew she needed some space from him before they went any further. She didn't want to do this like this. She excused herself and went upstairs to her room. If we have sex, it will be over, she heard herself say. It really was a romantic room, and she sat on the window seat and tried to relax and sink into the now. Jesse didn't hear him come up the stairs, and even with lights on in the other rooms, he came straight to her darkened one. They didn't speak at first, and she watched him look around and then move over to the bookcase and flip on the lamp. Of
course: he would go there first; I would have, too, she thought.
The energy between them was tense but not negative, perhaps anticipating. He pulled out a few books as he went along, and they spoke only in one-liners to each other. She never took her eyes off him, and it was a long time before he looked at her, and when he finally did, he put the book he'd been holding down on the table instead of back in the bookcase, and Jesse thought this rather odd. He came over to her and held out his hand. She put her hand in his and held his gaze. Quietly, he said, "let's take a shower."
This was not what she expected, but once he said it sounded like a really good idea. Showers are Jesse's cure for everything, and there have been times in her life when depression, anger or some other healing crisis had sent her into the shower or bath sometimes three or four times a day. Water running over her naked, raw body soothed all the cells of her being. And every so often in life the only thing she found better than hot water running over her naked body was hot water running over a sexy man's naked body. The suggestion immediately caused Jesse's mood to shift into sensual play, and this was exactly what they both needed. The energy had been too intense, and though he didn't know how showers affected her, he was about to find out.
She led him into her favorite bathroom, even though there was one off her bedroom, and once there he agreed with her choice. It is the bathroom to be sensual in. She turned on the water to get the room warm and moist and left to get some shower gel, and when she came back he took one look at her and said in shock, "Who are you, my grandmother?" She had donned a shower cap because her long, thick hair takes forever to dry, and she didn't want wet hair right now; nor did she want to dry it after the shower. This pragmatic side contrasted
with the romantic mood, and she waved it off confidently. It added to their sense of play, and they had a blast.
They toweled each other off, and he took great pleasure in removing the shower cap and tossing
it aside, caveman style. He was beautiful, masculine, well defined and hard as a rock, everywhere, she noted. Jesse knew his self consciousness was not about his physical nakedness but its emotional sibling. She was more confident here than he was, and his sudden reserve didn't surprise her but saddened her. This passionate, playful, adventurous man had been tortured in this very arena, and that he allowed himself any pleasure at all was a good sign. Jesse didn't take this personally, because she knew it had nothing to do with her, but that was the saddest point. She was ready for more, and he couldn't give it at this point in his life. They slept peacefully and in the morning when he left, she was sad but not empty. He had given her what he could, and she received him.
It was weeks before Nick and Jesse saw each other again. They had chatted like new lovers on the phone almost
every day, and their closeness grew. Jesse decided to set aside her reservations about his readiness for an involvement and enjoy the time with him. They talked easily and laughed a lot and had brief moments of tenderness here and there. Nick paid attention when Jesse talked even about mundane things, and she found this endearing. Being a scientist made him a logical thinker, and Jesse loved how he challenged her to conceptualize more logically.
Jesse's intelligence came in flashes of intuition that often caught him off guard, and he accepted this difference reluctantly, but their mutual respect was apparent. They didn't agree on everything they discussed, but they both loved the thrill of debate without being invested in changing anything; they simply enjoyed the mental volley.
Jesse watched her heart open full throttle, and she tried hard to refrain from speculating where he was about their growing closeness . He reminded her of a rocking centaur; he'd come galloping toward her and then hop back away, then toward her again only to leap backward. They flirted casually and talked only once about the night they made love. He risked asking for reassurance, and she wanted to be real. She recalled a minister suggesting that silence is best honored when only severed by the following communication: It is kind, it is useful and it is necessary. So she lied, choosing encouragement over opinion. Sometimes the truth hurts more than it needs to.
One of the sand traps of premature physical intimacy, Jesse thought. If he and I don't have a solid enough foundation of trust for us to be honest about sex,
then we had sex too soon. It's not as if this was a brilliant revelation, and it was a source of frustration that she perpetuated the same old
dramas.
So then she'd turn it on God. "Why'd you make it feel so good if we're supposed to be so disciplined about it!" But it wasn't the sex that was so attractive. It was the deep connection formed through intimacy, and the need to be desired. Affirming our desirability is a woman's drug. Jesse tried to maintain her prayer and meditation ritual when she became involved with a man, and it was precisely at these times she needed it most. Romance is so titillating, darnit. She realized that when our sensory or sensual needs are getting met, we interrupt the practices that feed our spiritual body, but she was certain it didn't have to be an either/or type of response.
He invited her out to dinner one Monday night, and they played like two tigers in the tall grass out in public together. They were very affectionate with one another and talked as enthusiastically in person as they had over the phone. Jesse had not specifically planned on asking, but it sort of fell out of her mouth as they watched a family of three kids stumble past their table.
"Think you'll ever do that again?" She spoke absently as she watched the parents try to corral their brood.
©2004 StoriesByEmail.com
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