Nanowrimo Day 2

Well, I have found my title, The Men of My Dreams, and I have some idea of where the storyline might lead, but I am still writing dreams ...

Here is the last hour's work ...

Danny Returns With Another Message

I awoke with a start when he left. He had been telling me about his Hungarian mistress — the woman with whom he had his one great passion. The attraction was immediate and reciprocal and they had an affair that lasted for a few years. Eventually she left him, but the memory remained indelible. They made love recklessly and in all kinds of dangerous places. They flirted with detection, not at all like my affair with Armand. Was it because they had more courage or because they had less to lose?

Danny was married to his childhood sweetheart, a country girl who bloomed early and then became blowsy, a girl who rebuffed his somewhat adventurous sexual advances, calling them dirty. The Hungarian woman was not as pretty as his wife, but she was hot.

"Don't you remember?" he scolded me tonight. "I told you that the Hungarian woman kept my marriage viable for an extra five years. If I hadn't been having that affair I'd have made life miserable for Marie."

No roller blading; no lovemaking; just a lecture on the benefits of extramarital affairs.

I thought about how I had provided the same service for Armand; how every married man's mistress gives him what is missing in a dead marriage so that he never has to leave the stagnant pond. The pond is a haven for the cowardly. Even Danny had his moments of cowardice. He couldn't leave his pond until the one person he respected most had died. He couldn't disappoint his father. O'Grady's were responsible men who looked after their women. O'Grady's did not believ in divorce. Of course Danny's father had a wonderful marriage in which all his needs were met.

And what about the Hungarian woman? Was exciting sex enough for her? Maybe it was. She and Danny worked together so they were able to see one another daily, to skip out for an occasional afternoon delight by the river, to flirt at office parties ... it was more than just the odd encounter. They fed the flame daily, just as Armand and I had. And ... like me ... she likely left when she decided she wanted more — weekends, holidays, children perhaps — or the respectability of a wedding ring.

When she left, Danny replaced her with another highly sexual co-worker willing to risk losing her husband for the feeling of being alive that Danny provided.

I sigh. He was very good at making a woman feel alive, but when he wasn't getting everything he needed he simply flitted on to the next woman. He always said there are thousands of women you can love; none of this one love stuff for him. Probably a more practical approach than the romantic alternative, actually, but when he pulled it on me I left. No regrets about our years together ... and none about moving on when it stopped being good.

I lay in bed for awhile thinking about my life with my dog. It's a pretty good life. No one ever calls up while I'm writing to tell me it's noon and lunch should be on the table. The dog asks me to play sometimes when I don't feel like it, but she accepts "Later" far better than any man ever did. She has to be fed and watered, but kibble with yogurt twice a day is a lot easier than cooking for a man, especially if the man believes that pasta is something fit only for lunch; that eggs are a breakfast food; and that a real dinner consists of the kinds of things his mother always produced in her kitchen, one in which hamburger and all other less expensive cuts of meat were absent.

So, no regrets ... but why the hell had he started showing up in the middle of the night? It was fun to roller blade with him again, but really, who needs lectures at 2 a..m.?

Too wide awake to sleep, I made myself cocoa.

The dog asked to go out and I considered joining her. The moon was full and the sky so clear I wouldn't need a flashlight. It was tempting, but it was also November and I'd need to get dressed ... so I drank my cocoa and then we both snuggled in for the rest of the night.

I dunno, Grandpa. I think life with a dog is not as bad as you might think. Of course I'm a lot older than you ever were.

2:34 a.m ... another 700 words