Very few women deigned to respond to my initial cheery hello. So when a woman does respond, you don't spend time dilly dallying, lest she lose interest in you and move on to the dozens of other suitors she no doubt receives messages from. So when Maria responded, we got chatting. The conversation was easy. It flowed. She was second or third generation Hispanic. She did not work. But she owned a home. Her son, his girlfriend and their child stayed with her. I have no idea how she made any money, but I suspected that she was on welfare or disability.
In real life I would never have spent time talking to someone like her. But online we all assume different personalities. We metamorphose into somebody we're not. We reinvent ourselves. I was drawn to this woman out of curiosity. Curious about how someone with whom I had nothing in common lived.
We chatted over several days. We even skyped a few times. She wasn't pretty, but I wasn't looking for a princess. I wasn't even looking to her as a potential date. So, with no pressure, we kept chatting. And she told me more about herself.
She'd been married a couple of times, been in relationships a few more times. She had children young, at around 17. She ended up marrying the first guy she dated, and dropped out of school when she became pregnant. She had 3 children, the oldest of whom lived with her. He'd run into trouble with the law. He'd been in jail. But his girlfriend waited patiently for him to get out. While he was in jail, Maria and her son's girlfriend bonded and grew close. She hoped the two would get married.
"But I have to tell you that I have a clean record," she said, as though that were a sterling achievement. "The worst I've done is get caught driving drunk. My license was suspended for a year. That was the hardest year in my life. And if you knew my life you'd know what I mean."
"What do you mean?"
"My second husband was abusive. He drank a lot. He beat me up. He threatened to kill me. I was afraid to leave him, and suffered for many years. Then finally, I could not take it any more. I ran away one night and never returned."
I was taken aback. I'd never met anyone like her. Everyone I knew lived sanitized, comfortable lives. So I didn't know how to react. I didn't want to sound patronizing, and yet, if I didn't sympathize I might have appeared callous. So I cautiously expressed words of sympathy, but was unable to offer any real solace. Besides, many years had passed since she'd run away from her husband, so she was probably not looking for any solace.
One evening, as we chatted, on an impulse I asked her if she'd like to meet. She said she would like to, but she was nervous.
"Why would you be nervous? It's not like you haven't dated."
She'd told me that she'd dated a few men. She went dancing on weekends with her girlfriends, and sometimes met men there, danced with them, and even ended the evening kissing a few. So she was not a shy person. But she'd only dated Hispanic men.
Despite her misgivings, we agreed on a day to meet. She actually lived in Windsor, which is 10 miles further north of Santa Rosa, 50 miles from where I live. I wasn't expecting this meeting to result in anything. Perhaps I was just bored. So I drove all the way there. She lived in a community that looked like a trailer park. She asked me to call her from the road, which I did. She came out a few minutes later and sat down next to me. She looked older than her 46 years and curvy. She looked Caucasian.
Our initial conversation was tentative. We drove around the little town and through farmland. Soon we were on the northern edges of Santa Rosa. Our conversation didn't go as smoothly as it did when we chatted online. And it was unremarkable, for I can't remember a single detail about it now. She took me to the Santa Rosa Memorial Park and showed me the grave of one of her brothers who died in one of the wars. I was touched by the fact that she shared this with me. And, yet, there was a certain aloofness in the way she talked to me. A lack of enthusiasm. I couldn't tell if it was because of lack of interest in me or this is how she was with everyone.
I persisted, nevertheless. We ended up at a mall and went to an Italian restaurant for lunch. Midway through her lunch she excused herself to go to the restroom. When she came back she informed me that a close friend of hers, who drove buses for the city called her up and wanted to meet her. The friend wanted her to ride the bus with her.
That was interesting. At the beginning of our meeting Maria had mentioned that she had to meet her friend only later in the afternoon. So I didn't understand the change of plans. Regardless, I dropped her off not far from the mall. As she got ready to leave, I asked if it would be okay to kiss. She said yet. I leaned forward, put my arms around her and kissed her. She did not reciprocate. It was as though she was merely tolerating me.
Her saliva tasted horrible. It was the worst I'd ever tasted until then and since. There was an after-taste that remained in my mouth for most of my hour-long drive back home. After she got out of my car, I was overcome by a sense of revulsion when the after-taste hit me. I turned off the car and sat still. What did I know about her? How many men had kissed her? Why had I kissed her? I had nothing in common with her. There was no chemistry between us. I'd simply been curious. Curious to meet her, to know her, to kiss her. If she'd given me even the slightest encouragement, I might have even felt her ample breasts. And there I was, sitting in my car, watching her walk towards the bus-stop, feeling revolted. There was also a part of my ego that felt hurt. That she -- a woman who wasn't particularly attractive or smart -- had not found me attractive. I wasn't even sure if there really was a friend she had to meet.
As she turned the corner, I started my car and drove off, praying that I hadn't gotten any unmentionable diseases from her saliva. I felt cheated. Of what, I could not tell. It was irrational. I shook myself up, steeled my senses and drove on, tasting the bilious, fermented taste of her saliva in my mouth.
No comments:
Post a Comment