Chapter 4 - Passion or Love? Deirdre's Story

I've done it. I've opened myself up to a man for the first time in many years, maybe for the first time in my life. I've had sex in the past, not often perhaps, but with several partners. I'm not an innocent young thing.

But that's what I feel like. I feel like a virgin at the ball. I feel totally susceptible and yet totally accessible. What does that even mean? I'm vulnerable; very, very vulnerable. This could kill me. Can I take this kind of risk with this beautiful young man? I trust him. He's good; deep down he's good. But are we experiencing overpowering lust, or is there more to it? Is the lust based upon real values, true attraction? How can I know?

I've got to talk to Donnie. Maybe she can help clarify my emotions. I've got to get Donnie up here. She'll know what to do, how to react. I don't make any major decisions without my sister. I know that seems odd, but we are close; closer than any two sisters I've ever met. We are like two peas in a pod. When she meets Andrew perhaps she will be able to tell where physical attraction ends and emotional attraction begins. I'm afraid.

Andrew made love to me. I don't swear very often. Momma and Daddy would die if they heard some of the things I've said to Andrew. I don't think I've used the word 'fuck' a dozen times in my life, and yet here I am, thinking the word 'fuck' because that is the only word that applies. Yes, Andrew made love to me, but first he fucked me. What he did first could hardly be called lovemaking. It was fucking, pure and simple. I've never been so thoroughly fucked.

I had been without a sexual partner for four years. Perhaps I had some built-up passion that had been waiting to be released. Andrew released it all. I am incapable of any more passion than Andrew provoked in me.

We had just finished that wonderful animal-like fuck (I'm sorry but there just isn't another way to say it). I wanted to be held. Andrew came into my arms and we kissed; a romantic, sensual kiss of gratitude and promise; gratitude for what we had given each other, promise of what was to come.

We talked. I wanted to know about this sweet man who had become the focus of my existence almost overnight. He's from Ohio. He went to Youngstown State University. I had assumed he had majored in computer science, but I was mistaken. He majored in history! He is an endless well of surprises, all positive. Every time he talks, I learn something. He knows everything!

I asked him the obvious question. "Why are you in computing when your degree is in history?"

He gave me a non-committal shrug. It's no big deal to him. He said "I built my first computer when I was eight. You just pick things up. You're part of the community and you share knowledge. Before I was out of high school I could have run most of the IT departments I'm familiar with. Why go to school for something you can pick up independently?"

So I asked another obvious question. "Why history? What in the world did you expect to do with history?"

"Oh it didn't matter much which major I took. I was mostly interested in filling in my gaps in knowledge, in my understanding of the world. I took liberal arts, since the ability to think is a dying art, especially in America, where the authorities want to tell you what to think."

"Andrew, I have a firm rule that I never talk politics in bed."

He smiled an apologetic smile and said, "Sorry, Deirdre. I do get carried away."

I asked him about his other interests. He's interested in everything. He seems to have infinite obscure references at his fingertips. I've even heard him quote Betty Friedan. How many men can do that? How does all this information accumulate in one head? How is it so readily accessible for retrieval? He never seems to be stuck for a response.

So I asked him. "How do you know all this? What good does it do you?"

He laughed. "I know all this because my brain is a repository of totally useless information, and I remember almost everything I read. I can't help it. It's not a talent, it's a curse. What it's good for is to play Jeopardy. I could be a professional Jeopardy player and make a lot of money. I'm waiting for the National Jeopardy League to come into existence. I'll be taken in the first round of the draft. They'll be selling Andrew Adkins NJL bubble gum cards."

He builds these little imaginary scenarios that stand on their own but are just so ridiculous. How does he come up with them? I think it's very funny.

I asked him about his family. He's from small town Ohio, father is dead, mother still living. He has a brother and sister, both living in mid-western cities holding down professional jobs. He isn't close to any of his relatives.

I wanted to know about his love life. After all, I've made it perfectly clear that I have no love life. I didn't want to appear too obvious, and I didn't want to appear like it mattered to me one way or the other about his current love affairs, since they really weren't any of my business. But I found that it did matter. I wanted to know. I guess I wanted to know what my competition was. Still, I don't do relationships.

He was very open about it. "I've had a few somewhat serious relationships. I'm currently seeing no one that I expect to become serious with, present company excepted, of course." (I felt a delicious tingle throughout my body when he said that.) "Nothing has panned out because I guess I'm looking for something that most women aren't willing to give me."

This was interesting. "What is it that you want that you can't get?"

"I want someone who demands a relationship that is equal and open. I want a relationship where both people accept responsibility for making the relationship work. There has to be an open dialogue. I want a woman who I don't bore to death and who doesn't bore me to death. Unfortunately, that hasn't been easy to come by. I'm interested in things that a lot of people find deadly dull. I want at least an intellectual equal. My ideal woman would be smarter than me, I guess. I want someone who thinks, who challenges me with her mind."

"I don't want to find out that my partner has been brooding about something I said or didn't say, did or didn't do. If I do or say or not do or not say something that hurts my partner, I want to know about it immediately, so we can address the problem and get past it. "

"My last relationship broke up because this girl had been mad at me for over a month and I didn't even know why. To this day I don't know and I don't care why. All she had to do was tell me. I asked her, of course, but she was like 'I should know what I did wrong without having to be told'. What we had here was 'failure to communicate'. No relationship can survive that. I let her down as painlessly as I could, but I had to let her down. We had no future without communication."

"I guess I need a strong woman; someone who will tell me when I've failed to live up to expectations; someone who will insist that we work at our relationship every day of our lives. You have to have two people who think the relationship is the most important thing in their lives." He got a sheepish expression on his face. He said, "I guess another reason I haven't stuck with a woman is that I do go off on tangents."

Well. I'm a girl whose every relationship has been built around the needs of the man I was with. I never felt that my opinions about anything really mattered to any of them. Mostly I was window dressing, and when they wanted an opinion from me, they would tell me what it was.

I'm a smart person. I'm not embarrassed to admit that. I've got my MBA from Duke, and am close to my doctorate. But in my relationships with men, I've always been treated as if I were intellectually inferior. I think it's kind of a Southern thing. I would be earning twice as much as my boyfriend, but would be treated like a child. Is it any wonder that I gave up on relationships? I'm not good at existing in that environment.

And now Andrew is telling me his relationships failed for essentially the opposite reason. He needs a full partner. The women he's been with wanted a traditional male-dominated relationship. Andrew just isn't capable of that. He's too sweet. He's too considerate. He's too smart. He needs a full partner.

I'm getting scared. He's so perfect. How could anyone be so perfect? How could we fit so well together? We appear to be the pieces that will fit into each other's puzzle of a life to make both of us complete.