April 2: Project Memoir Part Something, Feeling Like a Writer

I don't know who this chick is,
but she has the right idea

After a long hiatus, I've got the next installment of Project Memoir.  I've lost track of what part this one is supposed to be.  I think it's Part 3, but I've decided to forgo the convention of counting the parts, since I've been such a loser about my Lenten writing project this year.

Part of my problem is that I refuse to post crap.  If I'm not happy with what I've written, I will not put it on Saint Marty.  I'm happy with this next portion.  Writing it made me feel like a real writer.  We'll see what my disciples think about it.  I haven't got any response from my previous memoir posts.  I'm not sure if that's a good sign or a bad sign.  I will take it as a good sign until I have evidence to the contrary.

For those fans of Charles Dickens and A Christmas Carol, have no fear.  Chuck and Scrooge will return with tomorrow morning's post.

Saint Marty is still feeling like a writer.

Chapter One

January 21:  Saint Agnes (continued)

I squeezed my eyes shut again. “And?” I said. I didn’t want to hear her answer. I wanted to check the oil level of the car engine, go inside the house and make a grocery list or clean the bathroom, maybe defrost the freezer. Anything else.

“And they turned me down,” she said. “Both of them.”

I let out the breath I didn’t realize I’d been holding. I looked over at her, saw weather fronts of emotions passing across the radar of her face.

“What does this mean?” I finally said. “Are you telling me…?” I didn’t know how to finish the sentence.

“I felt guilty after I did it.” Beth sounded surprised.

“Well, you should,” I said, trying not to sound pissed.

“No,” she said. She shook her head. “You don’t understand.” She acted as if she hadn’t heard the edge in my voice. “I’ve never felt guilty about doing stuff before. It was…I didn’t…feel good.”

She looked over at me. We sat staring at each other.

During the months Beth and I were separated, I spent a lot of time thinking about sex, sexual mania, sexual addiction, sexual addiction and pornography, and sexual addiction and pornography and the Internet. I missed having Beth next to me in bed. I missed the sweaty intimacy of her.

Almost since the first day we met, we'd enjoyed each other’s bodies. On our first date, we quickly progressed from sharing a beach towel on the shores of Lake Superior to sharing mouth and tongue, breast and thigh. It was July, and the night smelled of heat and sand. As I pressed against her, I could feel the icy lake on her skin. Even mid-summer, Superior stays glacial, an Ice Age remnant. In the dusk, I imagined mastodons mating in the surf, their cries of the prehistoric need coupled with the sounds of wind and waves. My hands explored and unearthed her limbs, the sickle of her neck.

Perhaps it was the wintry water that drove us to each other that night. Our mutual craving for warmth. Perhaps it was an urge more primal, more woolly and tusked. A throwback to Iron, Bronze, Paleolithic. Or perhaps it was the seed of something to come, the wild abandon of her future mental illness or addiction, that brought us together so freely, so easily that night. Whatever it was, she drove my twenty-one-year-old body crazy.

to be continued...