Conversation with My Wife (218)
The women in my life have taught me a lot. Of course I write about it.
I have been writing a series on two nerds in high school in the 1970s, having a practice relationship (which became a friendship relationship, then a romantic relationship).
The boy character, K, is mostly me, only not as big a jerk as I was in high school and possibly a bit stronger on the autism spectrum. The girl character, E, was a mixture, mostly my first and second wives (both self-confessed nerds in high school). But as I’ve gone through the series, I’ve realized there are other influences.
ME: So I’ve told you E is mostly you and Linda, right? But reviewing, I realized that Sharon also shows up.
DEB: Your classmate from the Naval Academy? But I thought she wasn’t a nerd?
ME: She wasn’t. But she took someone who never even had a date in high school, much less a girlfriend—
DEB: Neither did I. A boyfriend. Not even in college.
ME: Except for Bill?
DEB: (pause) Yes. Bill. Continue.
Bill met Deb in college and proposed to her. She accepted. The marriage lasted until Bill realized he was gay. After the divorce, though, they became friends again. Any similarities with my marriage to Linda were recognized the first time Deb and I had a friendly conversation.
ME: Anyway, Sharon and I never had any sort of romantic relationship. We hugged a lot—
DEB: Randy.
ME: What?
DEB: I went out with Randy. In college. We worked together at the college snack bar and he asked me out. We had one date. It didn’t work. Continue.
ME: Um…
DEB: Hugs.
ME: Yes! We had a huge hug right after the graduation ceremony, me in my choker whites and Sharon in her dress Marine uniform. Then again when I flew up for her wedding to Hank, where I would have been part of the bridal party except that didn’t work in 1981, so officially I was part of the groom’s group. As ensigns and second lieutenants we couldn’t afford flights and hotel rooms, so Sharon had her half of the wedding party in the basement of her old sponsor’s house. I got in late because I couldn’t leave Orlando until nuke school class ended Friday afternoon, so I got in after midnight. Sharon stayed up to make sure I was okay and knew where to sleep, then gave me a hug like she hadn’t seen me in forever. Which, in fact, was the longest we hadn’t seen each other since Plebe Summer in 1976.
DEB: Aww!
ME: Some of the storyline from Nerd Romance was straight from Sharon schooling me on how women work. Like where K freaks out about E’s new haircut:
ME: Sharon had gotten some sort of new haircut, I forget what, and when I saw her my reaction was, “What the hell did you do to your hair?”
DEB: Because—
ME: Because I was an idiot. And then she didn’t talk to me for, I forget, days. A long time, it felt like at the time. And I apologized and was almost in tears because I knew I’d screwed up but I didn’t know why, and Sharon read me the Riot Act about never being anything but complimentary about a woman’s hair. Even if, or especially if, it looked awful. There are other bits in Nerd Romance where E instructs K, but they were taken from when Sharon was trying to help me. And then we stayed in touch for a lot of years afterward; she chewed me up one side and down the other after my suicide attempt, and instructed me in no uncertain terms if I ever felt like killing myself again, I could only do it after I talked to her first. I have a toned-down version of that in the series.
Something Sharon might have been able to help me with, but couldn’t—she died in 2011 when her cancer came back—was an episode where the kids are trying to have sex in a car. Which I had never tried, in high school or any other time.
ME: Did you ever have sex in the back seat of a car?
DEB: (looks at me with “how long have you known me now?” overtones; there is a long pause) No.
So I ask the only other woman I feel comfortable asking (both from the asking part and dealing with the answer part), my ex-wife Linda. And I cc Linda’s wife, Carol, because who knows?
LINDA: Well aren’t you just fascinating??? First question I would have to ask, “Regular sex or lesbian sex?” It does make a difference in terms of my ability to respond with authority. ;-) Second question, “While the car is running/being driven or are we parked?” “Front seat or back seat?” and finally, if the answer if “front seat,” then I’d be interested in the configuration of the car — e.g. stick shift? Console? Leather/leatherette seats or fabric? So many variables… If we’re sticking with the back seat scenario, the only “advice” I would give is that sex is messy. Take a towel.
CAROL: I wanna weigh in! Started encounter heavy kissing then evolving on front seat figured out that wasn’t good… with bench seats and shifters in wrong places its certainly not easy to crawl over half dressed to back seat. Trying to do things in near pitch black, and still very new at condoms you can imagine trying to unroll wrong way, trying to help and not being adept at such matters offers lots of ways to wind up laughing instead.
I can work with that! Especially the towel and scrambling around in the dark…
Copyright ©2021 by Jack Herlocker. All rights reserved, and sorry, if you want to know why Linda has so many questions about the type of cars to have sex in, you’ll need to ask her yourself.
