Zen and Sex (18 page)

“Frances, nothing happened between us. Can’t we even discuss it?” I interpret her silence to mean that she really doesn’t want to talk and regretfully, at this moment can’t stand the sight of me, either. I almost turn to leave and, based on my track record to date, I normally would have been long gone but something inside me, some stubborn, principled part of me is saying that this is a defining moment in my life, and to turn heel and run could be so damaging that I’d regret it for the rest of my life.

“Frances,” I say softly, “if I have learned anything from you it’s that honest communication is paramount to having any kind of relationship, with anybody. I know you feel like you hate me or despise me at this moment and I can understand that but if I walk out that door, then there’s probably no way we can come back from this. You said you wanted a conscious relationship with true and honest communication? Well, here it is. Or do you only want it when it’s on your terms?”

“You crossed a line, Martin.”

“Can you stop doing what you’re doing and we can sit down and talk?”

“Fine,” says Frances, as she throws a dish cloth across the counter top.

I sit down on the sofa as an invitation for her to join me. She does, although she sits away from me at the far end. I slowly and carefully tell her the story, beginning with finding the DVD in my car and ending with discovering that the Celtic knot tattoo was, in fact, something else. I talk about how I wasn’t really sure what it all meant or what was going through Janice’s mind, nor what she had hoped to achieve by her devious bait and switch. I finish the tale by somberly opening my shirt and revealing the tattoo for Frances to fully experience for herself: Hello mom.

“I honestly don’t know if she was protecting you from another sex-crazed boyfriend or trying to get one over on you by bragging that she could have stolen a boyfriend from you, I don’t know.”

“Could she?” asks Frances. “Could she have stolen a boyfriend from me?”

“Of course not.”

“She is going through some weird phase, lately.”

“How do you mean?”

“All this feminist stuff, she was never like that before. It’s probably a mix of whatever feminist courses she’s doing in college and a belated adolescence where she seems to blame me for all her childhood instability, not having a father…” As Frances becomes tearful, part of me heaves a sigh of relief that the intense pressure that was on me now seems to be off. I’m not sure if I should come closer and hold her but, rather than risk another rejection, or have the focus switch back to me, I stay put.

“She actually told me that I ruined her entire childhood.” Frances can’t hold back her tears and I do move closer to embrace her, which she actually welcomes. She sobs in my arms.

15. The Columbus Effect

I sleep over with Frances but for the first night since we’ve been together, it isn’t sexy. In fact, I would describe our togetherness as downright cold and I barely sleep at all. Feeling very fragile and vulnerable, Frances asks me to stay but she seems to have withdrawn into herself. I feel like I’m superfluous to whatever it is that she’s going through and maybe would have been better off going home. It’s fierce awkward and I have no idea how to be with her or what to say to her when she’s being so distant like this.

“We should get ready for the seminar,” she says and then I remember that it starts today and then I wonder: she now wants to go to a relationship seminar? Seriously?

“You still want to go?” I ask gently.

“You don’t?”

“No, I do. I just wasn’t sure if…sure, let’s go.”

I feel like now I’m walking on eggshells around her and I’ve no idea how to make things better between us. Does she just need some time? What is she thinking? Is she thinking about her daughter or me or her past failed relationships, what?

“Would you like me to drive?” I ask, when we get to her car.

“No, I’m fine,” she says, without looking at me.

As we drive in silence I’m now wishing that I was somewhere else, anywhere else, besides going to some ludicrous relationship seminar with a woman that’s acting at best, like she doesn’t care about me and at worst, like she hates my guts.

If I was with Mike, and he was acting like this, I’d punch him on the shoulder and say, ‘snap out of it, man, you’re depressing as fuck, let’s go grab a beer,’ and invariably he’d smile and say, ‘you’re right, dude, I’m feeling like crap today, let’s go get shit-faced,’ and off we’d go to the nearest bar and pretty much stay till closing. And that would be it, end of weirdness. You can’t do that with a woman. This silent shit sucks.

We sit in a small function room of a hotel along with maybe twenty other couples and one strange guy on his own who probably misread the brochure that said it was for couples and not for single guys hoping to get coupled up. Dr. Redmond Clark is first up and he’s going to give a PowerPoint presentation about something called the Columbus Effect and other fascinating oddities.

Dr. Clark is a total geek that seems to think in his head that he’s cool, which makes him come off looking ten times geekier. He cracks some lame jokes, presumably to get everyone to like him and maybe it’s his way of saying, hey I know I have a bunch of letters after my name but I’m a really cool guy and fun to have a beer with, too. Then he dims the lights and starts his presentation and in an instant he becomes deathly serious. I look at Frances and smile, as if to say, ‘can you believe this guy?’ but she doesn’t smile back. Not good.

“One of the first questions I like to ask couples is, ‘why are you in relationship in the first place?’ Some people answer that question by saying: because it’s fun or I like the way she/he looks or I want someone to do stuff with, I don’t want to be alone…’

“These are all valid answers but the one true, overriding answer is that the biology of evolution has hardwired you that way. The concern of evolution is not that you have someone to go to the movies with or to ensure that you have a dance partner, no. The concern of evolution is the continuance of the species. It’s the evolutionary impulse that is largely responsible for mate selection among animals. Humans, despite whether we might like to think otherwise, are no exception to that impulse.”

Already bored, I look to Frances to see what kind of response a neutral smile will get me but she doesn’t shift her gaze from the PowerPoint slide of a bunch of words under the title, “Evolutionary Imperatives.” I look around the room to see who else thinks this is a load of you-know-what but not only are most people sitting forward in their seats, some of them are taking notes.

I’d hate to be the only one here that feels like heckling but either the guys are really into it or they’re doing a good job of faking interest to keep their girlfriend’s happy. For the sake of the evolutionary imperative of the camaraderie of guyhood, I’m hoping it’s the latter.

“Let’s look what happens when two people, ‘fall in love,’ shall we? First of all, the body releases an extremely potent chemical cocktail called phenylethylamine or PEA for short. This love soup provides the body with a natural high: colors seem brighter, the world seems friendlier and so on. Monkeys injected with PEA demonstrate hyper sexuality and “moonstruck” behavior with their companion. If their companion is removed, the monkey will experience immediate withdrawal symptoms or what we might call ‘love sickness.’ An amazing facet of this drug cocktail is that the drug only works in the presence of the other lover, the object of one’s affection, you might say.

“After two to four years, the body ceases production of PEA. Nature has done its work, perhaps hoping that within this period one or more offspring have been produced and after which it is now up to the couple to either stay together or leave.”

I kind of mentally doze off with my eyes open while Dr. Coolgeek drones on and almost puts me to sleep. I rouse myself now and then to catch a few words and, in the midst of intense boredom, I notice a really cool thing. If I tune out and don’t pay attention to any words in particular but just let them all blend into each other, like that chant music that some yoga people listen to, I notice that my mind will ‘wake up’ to some specific words that get my attention, without my conscious mind having any control over it.

Sex…intercourse…copulation…sexual…anal…conjugation. Maybe guys do have a one-track mind, after all. But then again, I am listening to a lecture on sex or evolution or some combination thereof. Then he shows a video showing two rats in a cage and that gets my attention.

“Let’s talk about sex, shall we?’ he continues with a knowing smirk. “If you put a male and a female rat together in a cage, they will be observed to initially copulate at a high rate of repetition.” I hear some nervous laughs from people but then again, watching two rats going at it over and over again, it is kind of funny.

“As the honeymoon period comes to an end, the rate of copulation declines considerably. Familiarity tends to lead to a lack of sexual interest.” The rats are now slowing down until finally they stop and one of the rats, I guess the male, gets bored and goes off sniffing for food or something. Then they replace one of the rats with another rat and it’s off to the races all over again.

“If the female is removed and replaced by another, the male miraculously becomes rejuvenated and the rate of copulation is immediately restored to earlier, higher levels.” Okay, this is funny. “Scientists have called this the Columbus Effect. The same behavior is observed with monkeys and yes, you guessed it, humans. Sexual boredom is one of the strongest factors operating against stable relationships in both the human and animal kingdom. When sex between a couple comes to a halt, a break up in the relationship is sure to follow.”

I can hear some uncontrolled groans and some sighing by some women in the audience, like they just discovered why all their boyfriends have been cheating on them since forever. I’m making a note to remember this and maybe Google it when I get home. I can see how this could be a darn good defense to use when confronted about cheating, not that I ever would: ‘you don’t understand, honey, don’t blame me, I couldn’t help it, it’s the Columbus Effect.’

“In the absence of social restrictions, the human male would be promiscuous throughout the whole of his life. Women, however, tend to be more monogamous. Women want a lot of sex with the man they love; men want to have a lot of sex with a lot of different women.”

Wow, for me, this explains a lot. I’m not going to beat myself up over wanting to…

Without warning, Frances is up out of her chair and heading for the exit at some speed. I jump up and follow her. Catching up with her outside, I have to call her name to stop her speed walking. “I can’t do this,” she says.

“No, I’m glad,” I say relieved that we’re out of there and we don’t have to return for two more days of torture. “Me, neither. That thing sucked.”

“I don’t mean that,” she says. “I mean us. I can’t do this… I can’t do us. I’m sorry.” She turns and races off toward the car. I hurry around to her and head her off.

“That’s it?” I ask. “After all the talk about issues and honest communication and stuff: you’re just going to walk?”

“I can’t do this anymore.”

“Why don’t you say that you’re scared? I’m scared. Maybe everybody’s scared when they get close to commitment and intimacy but won’t admit it. I’ll admit it. I’m scared. I got so scared I almost screwed it up. Maybe I did screw it up. Did I screw it up?”

“I don’t know, Martin. I need to leave.”

I stand there in a kind of shock as I can feel my brain trying to figure it all out. Yesterday, I was ready to walk but Frances was really nice to me and I changed my mind. Now she’s ready to walk and I’ve no idea what to say or do to make her change her mind.

This is so peculiar. Boy meets girl and now boy is about to lose girl. What would Tom Hanks say to Meg Ryan at this point in the movie? I take Frances’ hands in mine and look her straight and meaningfully in the eyes.

“Frances. You’re a beautiful, caring, wonderful woman and…” This is always the best speech of the movie that’s so heartfelt and incredibly well written, that it brings a tear to the audience’s eye. I try my best to remember what Billy Crystal said to Meg Ryan in
When Harry Met Sally
, but I’m drawing a blank and I have to say something or she’s going to walk…“I’m really sorry you can’t follow your own advice,” I finally blurt out.

I knew it was really lame even as I was saying it and Frances does not look at all on the verge of tears and even less likely to have a change of heart. I stand aside and without a parting word and finally, with some tears in her eyes, Frances walks past me and out of my life.

It takes me two buses and a good stretch of walking to get back to my apartment. It feels like forever since I actually spent a night in my own bed and at this point, I am really looking forward to it.

First thing that hits me when I get through the front door is the weird smell. The air smells rank, like sweaty socks. The place is a mess with take out and pizza boxes, empty beer bottles and half empty bottles of hard liquor all over the place. I can pretty much tell by the placement and the general assortment of the take out boxes that this wreckage is not from a party the night before: this took some time to end up in this kind of a neglected state.

When I get to the hallway I see Mike sitting on the floor of the bathroom. The door is open and he’s still wearing his boxers and a tee shirt from when he got up this morning, or judging by his unshaven looks, this afternoon. He looks dazed and holds a beer in his hand that he doesn’t even seem aware of.

“What’s going on, Mike? You look like shit. You okay?”

“She left me, Marty. Gloria dumped my sorry ass. Can you believe it?”

“No, I can’t believe it. You were the best thing that ever happened to her.”

“She met…was seeing someone else, I don’t know the details.”

“Where did she get the time to meet someone else? She practically lived here, rent free, but that’s not important.”

“I think it was this guy we met at this party. I went to the bathroom, there was a long line…and when I get back she’s talking to this guy, a fucking photographer, can you believe it? Told her he could get her into modeling. I guess he got into her pants instead.”