In Defense of Love

"It could be even nicer," I said, purposefully twitching my cock as it nestled in her soft flesh. She sighed a little laugh. A few minutes passed. I twitched again, and again she laughed. She reached under my arm, slipped her hand between us, and she took my erection in her hand.

"Oh, you're so big and hard," she said politely and sexily. And it was she who angled my manhood toward the awaiting fire between her parting thighs.

"Contraception," I inquired.

"How sweet. I am on the pill," she offered.

Sweet? I let it go. "And I am disease free," I assured her.

We made love for an hour in the spoon position, slow and sexy. We talked while we made love, about silly things mostly. I rubbed her back as I rocked in and out of her. I asked her out for a second date.

"You're sure?"

We needed to be more intimate. I instigated a change to the missionary position, and I kissed her as I entered her.

"All right, now it's my turn for the truth," I whispered in her ear. "The first time I saw you," I said coming up on my hands, "all I really saw were your beautiful, heavenly hips. That is why I wanted to dance with you, walk you home. You were right about me; I was just angling to get in your pants." I kissed her. "But that is not why I called you at nine o'clock this morning," I said, staring hard into her eyes. "I called you because I wanted to have breakfast with YOU, Eva. I needed to talk to you. Just to talk; that's all."

"Well you're doing a hell of a lot more than talking now, big boy," she said with a little Mae West flair.

"Yes I am, and now I just have to say it:" I said coming back down on her, sliding my hands under her and down over her voluptuous bum, "'Ooh baby, shake that big ass for me,'" I whispered in her ear teasingly.

I have never had a woman slug me while I was making love to her, before or since.

She laughed though. It was just a bump on my arm. And she at least wiggled her big ass for me (making me shudder).

We finished that way, kissing hard, my hands underneath her, gripping her abundant flesh.

We spooned are way to sleep, still naked, and we made love again in the morning, starting from the spoon position, still groggy from sleep, and ending aggresively, wide awake, with Eva on top.

We spent a lot of time together over the next week, and when we weren't making love, we were talking – about everything. We marveled at how many things we saw eye-to-eye on. We were cynical and skeptical and dryly humored. We were social-libertarian, anti-big government, anti-gun control, pro-choice, pro-death penalty, pro-euthanasia, pro-environment, and adamantly pro-civil rights (i.e., we could never run for anything because no party would have us). As for nourishment, we liked good red wine, Mexican beer, Vietnamese and southern Italian cooking, and praline ice cream.

And as for fucking, apparently we liked that too: three times a day if we could. Our favorite position was Eva on top, so I could run my hands over her breasts and bum. She liked that. We developed a practice where if I felt like I was going to come too soon, I would tap her on the hip and she would crawl up my body, rest those humongous haunches on my chest, and smother me with her neatly trimmed, furry wet pussy. She was hesitant at first, but I took to grabbing her ass and all but forcing her to rock her hips and slide her pussy over my face as I burrowed into her, rocking my head back and forth. I loved the sensation of feeling lost between her thick thighs, smothered with her goddess-like femininity. And Eva liked it too. She would hang on to the headboard and rub her pussy on my face and sing out her orgasms.

I could always get her to come a second time, too, when she was back on top, smothering my cock, and when she did, I kid you not, her vaginal walls would swell up like a puffer fish. The sensation was astounding. At one point I learned that when I was about to come I could get her to come with me by sliding my hands to the crack of her ass, pulling her bum cheeks apart, and tickling her bumhole with the tips of my fingers, and she would gasp and cry out, and her pussy would bear down on me like it was going to swallow me up.

To say we were sexually compatible would be an understatement.

Our one major "personality difference" was perhaps the strongest point of our relationship: she was artistically high-minded – I liked football and hockey and camping. I say it was a strong point because the truth was, though she liked gallery openings and avant-garde theater, she thought the people she met at these functions were pretentious and hypocritically class-conscious. I agreed. And while I would rather drink beer and watch football (or fight off mosquitoes in a tent, for that matter) than attend a museum after-hours party, I wasn't anti-intellectual. I had read everything from Moliere to Nabokov, and my dream was to write the next Great American Novel.

Eva once took me to a play written and directed by a grad student that Eva's faux-nerdy girlfriend had a crush on. I was at my fighting weight back then, athletic muscular and trim, and I had purposely worn red Converse high-tops, tight 501's, a slightly too-tight Gold's Gym T-shirt, and a Green Bay Packers hat. ("You look fantastic," Eva said with a knowing laugh when she saw me. "I can't wait to show you off.")

It was a hideous performance – morbid Greek tragedy in Les Miserables-like costumes, with ghosts that moaned annoyingly and a ridiculous suicide scene that left the victim alone on stage on her knees with her head to the ground and her ass sticking up in the air.

We were invited to an after party backstage. There was a group of four of us talking. I had stayed out of the conversation and looked bored no doubt. I had been listening, however. In an attempt to embarrass me, Eva's painfully too-chic girlfriend (okay, her name was Tia) tried to bring me into the conversation.

"What do you think of Melinda's interpretation, Charlie?" Tia asked, bringing silence to the conversation.

Melinda and Tia awaited my presumably awkward reply with pursed faces. Eva just smiled. Melinda's gushing interpretation was nothing more than a bunch of erudite words cryptically strung together, like she knew the lingo but had no idea what to really say about the play.

So I gave it my best shot.

"Ibsen once said that to create a good play one had to live trough the emotion and spirit of what happens in the play," I said with great seriousness. "All I can say is," I continued more casually, "ooh boy, am I glad I didn't have to live through whatever created that." I screwed up my face in mock horror.

More silence from Melinda and Tia, who were looking at me like I was choking a puppy. Eva coughed and sputtered and her face turned red.

"What?" I held up my hands. "I didn't mean that pejoratively." I opened my eyes wide. "It was very powerful."

That was the end of the conversation.

Less than a minute later, Eva grabbed my hand and pulled me in a brisk gate out of the gallery.

"Where are we going?" I asked with concern.

"To the car."

"To go where?"

"Nowhere." She slowed down and took my arm.

"What?" I was confused.

"My friends think your such a jock, and then you drop that Ibsen reference on them; it was the funniest goddamn thing I've ever seen. I thought I was going to explode I wanted to laugh so hard, and in the effort to not laugh, well…"

I had no idea what she was saying.

She stopped. We were at the car. She pushed me up against it, leaned into me, and whispered, "I think I had an orgasm."

I laughed. "My, aren't you easy. So what are we doing?"

"Open the back door," Eva instructed firmly.

My rusty four-door Buick Le Sabre was on the first floor of the parking structure next to the theater. We had loitered backstage for some time after the play, and all of the cars were gone.

A soon as the door was open, Eva shoved me inside and followed me in. She immediately went for the buckle of my pants.

"What are you doing?"

"I just have to give you a blowjob."

I was startled. "I'm not even hard."

"You will be," she said confidently.

I helped her get my pants down, she kneeled on the floorboards, I leaned back against the door, and she went to work.

I had never before experienced receiving oral sex while my penis was completely flaccid, and it was stunning. All those nerve endings had yet to stretch out, so every single one of them got to experience the exquisite sensation at the same time. It felt so good I tried to consciously NOT become erect, but to no avail. I closed my eyes and enjoyed.

I tapped Eva when I was about to come and she finished me expertly (because I showed her how) with her hand, pointing me straight up for the "shoot." She liked to rank my efforts – a mediocre six this time. ("Low on height," she explained, "but good volume.") Luckily, there were some napkins in the car.

"Have you ever done that before?" I asked as we walked back to the after party.

"What, given you a blowjob?"

"No. Started when it was limp like that."

"No, Charlie." She stopped. "You know, you might as well be the only guy I have every blown."

"Okay, sorry," I replied. "It was just amazing is all I wanted to say."

"I am glad you liked it; that was the plan."

The "limp blowjob" became another of our sexual routines. She would purposefully try to catch me off guard, and I was always grateful for her adventurous nature. I was too stupid to fathom how good I had it.

Time went by, and the words began to hang between us, like fruit just waiting to fall from a tree: "I love you." I know she wanted to say it; she was waiting for me. I was being overly cautious. I thought Eva was great for me, but Tom, my roommate and good friend, thought otherwise.

"Jesus, Chuck, she's got a horse-sized dumper," he offered one day.

"Tell me what you really think, asshole," I replied.

"She's from the U.P., right?"

"Yeah."

"Does she live in a trailer up there?"

"Fuck you, okay. She was valedictorian of her class, and she's an art history major, so in terms of smarts and class, she is way ahead of your dumb ass."

"Well, as twenty-year-old stud, I think that's just what you should be looking for in a girl – smarts and class. What are you going to do, marry her…?"

I was steamed. "I like her, okay."

"…Because she is certainly built like a breeder."

He was just pushing my buttons. I decided to stop short of explaining my near insatiable sexual attraction to her. That would only give him more fodder.

Tom invited me to a house party one Saturday. "This guy I know lives in Lake Forest, man – it's a fucking mansion. Just us, okay? It'll be like old times."

"I was going to go out with Eva," I tried to explain.

"You're such a pussy."

I told Eva I was going as a favor to Tom. And it was a fucking mansion, all right – a Tudor home with a guesthouse and a separate four-car, two-story garage. It was 1980, and the crowd was preppie and squeaky clean and everyone was gorgeous. I tended not to like these kinds of affairs, but the music was good and the scotch was single malt. I hadn't had a cigar since I had started dating Eva, but the one Tom offered me looked exquisite.

"It's Cuban, comrade. Take it."

I had a good time, but around midnight I was itching to get home. I was sitting off by myself in a big over-stuffed leather chair, when an absolutely stunning, raven-haired young woman came over to me. She was in heels, pressed slacks, and a professionally laundered white blouse open to her bra line – real class. I had spoken to a number of times earlier in the evening. She was, in the lingo of the time, a stone fox.

"You look sad," she said.

"Just winding down, I suppose," I replied.

"Do you mind if I join you?"

I looked around. There was a wooden chair nearby, so I thought to offer her the comfy spot and grab the chair for myself.

"Oh no, that's okay," she said as she settled in my lap. "There, that's cozy, now, isn't it?"

What was I supposed to do?

We talked for a while. She put her face close to mine, so our noses were touching. Her perfume was rich and warm, her eyes were steely blue, and her voice was raspy and low.

"Sounds like your friends are staying up here tonight."

This was news to me. "Oh?"

"Maybe you can stay with me?"

She kissed my forehead, and then my cheek, and then my neck. I closed my eyes and gritted my teeth. Her scent was intoxicating.

She led me by the hand up to one of the bedrooms. I asked if it was hers.

"It's mine for tonight, she said."

I watched her undress. When she was down to her flimsy white panties and lacy bra, she embraced me and bit my earlobe.

Let's just say that I expected the sex to be a lot better than it turned out to be. She was an awesome seductress, but an unimaginative lover. I wanted to take my time; she seemed like she lost interest at some point. I wanted to worship her; I half-expected her to ask, "So aren't you ever going to fuck me?"

When I woke up, she was gone. (And yes, I don't remember her name.)

"Holy shit, Chuck," was the first thing Tom said to me that morning, "do you know how much fine pussy we have just fallen into?"

"What do you mean?"

"That girl you were with last night, I overheard her talking to her girlfriends, and they were divvying us up like meat. 'I'll take that one over there,' she says. And twenty minutes later, off you two went."

I let this settle in. I tried not to believe it bothered me, but I felt unnerved by it. Tom, on the other hand, was ecstatic. He had gotten laid, too. His young woman had taken him back to her place in a vintage Porsche.

I was not ecstatic. Queasy would be the better adjective.

I wanted to see Eva that night. I had seen her just the day before, but I missed her like I had been away on a trip. She seemed distracted when I invited myself over, and she wasn't very talkative. It wouldn't take long for me to understand why. We were sitting on her couch, and I was talking and she was listening. When there was a lull, she said what she had to say.

"So I hear you were at Wendell Preston's party last night."

I was dumbstruck. I would find out later that a friend of a friend of Tia's ran in the "Lake Forest Scene." It was a smaller world than I thought.

I couldn't breathe.

"Did you have fun?"

I knew what was coming. I have relived this next moment a thousand times in my mind. I still wake from agitated dreams about it. It haunts me to this day.

"Do you have something you want to tell me?" she asks. Every time the same question rings in my ear.

That night, my mind raced. Part of me wanted to say that what happened in Lake Forest was none of her goddamn business. Another more significant part of me wanted to say I was sorry. And there was a third option, the best option, but I couldn't bring myself to say it. It was deathly silent in that little apartment. Inside my head, however, there was a riotous cacophony of voices.

I closed my eyes. I still couldn't speak.

"You know what really hurts," Eva said, startling me. I opened my eyes. Hers were wet, but she wouldn't let the tears run. My throat felt swollen shut.

"Why did she have to be so goddamn pretty?" Eva said coldly.

It was nothing? Could I say that? No. There was only one thing I could have said that could have saved that moment, saved our relationship, but I will never know if it would have worked because I was too chicken shit to say it.

Eva got up and went to her bedroom and closed the door firmly. I showed myself out. And that was the end of our relationship.

Tom and I spent a lot of time in the Lake Forest Scene that school year. We tooled around with pretty girls in their sporty MG's and convertible Karmen Ghias. We partied on yachts and at country clubs. We drank fine scotch, we smoked Cuban cigars and Hawaiian pot, and we snorted ninety-percent-plus pure cocaine – and we got laid regularly. For Tom, it was idyllic, but I was beginning to see the deeper pattern to what was happening, and it made me feel empty and sad.

We were being used. It was like a right of passage for these pretty, god-awfully rich young women. They were fresh out of high school, sowing their oats just like their rich male counterparts. But while their soon-to-be suitors were off on the east coast getting MBA's and law degrees and being groomed to be corporate executives, these women were in their own kind of finishing school. They weren't old enough for marriage just yet, and they were waiting for the right wave of suitors to return. They were playing tennis and golf and taking French and lunching at the yacht club, preparing themselves for their destiny – the tastefully modest three-carat engagement ring, the Caribbean winter home, the summers in Europe. And on the weekends, for the time being, guys like Tom and me were their unspoken form of rebellion – a temporary, reckless distraction. The community looked the other way; they knew our time in there midst was fleeting and harmless. We had enough going for us to get into schools like Northwestern and Chicago, and we looked good in the Polo button downs and Sperry Topsiders that our "date du jour" often bought for us. But we were commoners.

And every night that I slept in our apartment on campus that year, I would think of Eva just one floor down, four rooms over. So close. And I ached. There was no way she would have had me back. And I am sure tales of our Lake Forest adventures had reached her, and she was rightfully disappointed in me.

"I thought you were different," I can hear her say to me, and I see her pained, sorrowful eyes.

I had my moment, and I blew it.

"Do you have something you want to tell me?" she asks, and in my mind I finally answer her with the truth.

"Yes – I love you."

That would have been just the start, of course. I would have been effusive and eloquent. I would have pleaded for her compassion. "I didn't know until just now," I would have emphasized. The party, last night, it was nothing. All I cared about was her.

"Let me start right now," I can hear myself say. "This is our moment, and all that matters is what happens from now on. I love you, and you are the only women in the world I want to be with."

I like to think it would have worked. Not that night, necessarily, but in time. Instead of being lost without hope, our relationship forever dashed, maybe I could have wound up in Eva's doghouse for a while instead. And in retrospect, I'd rather have been in Eva's doghouse than in any of the neatly coifed, perfectly perfumed Lake Forest trim I naïvely and emptily cavorted with that year.

I don't know where it would have led. Perhaps there is an alternative universe where Eva and I live on a ranch with five kids and six dogs and a goat, and we are still madly in love, and happy – and the sex is still great. I take comfort in that thought. It could have happened.

Or, more likely, we would have undertaken to commingle our souls, to relax our defenses, to share our dreams and our true selves – to have unreservedly loved one another, if only for a time. And then we would have parted ways, amicably I am sure, our lives enriched by the experience, our time on earth made more valuable.

Whether you believe in God or nature, heaven or nothing, order or chaos, you must know one thing: the highest purpose in life is love. Our goal as a human being should always be to leave this world with more love than it had when we entered it. All else is subject to debate, save love.

Wherever you are, Eva, I want you to know that I wish from the depths of my soul that I had had the courage to tell you how much I love you.

And for God's sake, people, let it happen. Just say it. Just do it. Just fall in love

CONCLUSION

Eva, by the way, wasn't irreparably crushed by my indiscretion. By the start of the spring semester, she had another boyfriend. He played guitar and ate been sprout sandwiches and had wild hair and liked to laugh. And she seemed happy. And I am sure her friends thought he was much more her type. But every now and then our eyes would lock, and we knew that he wasn't any more her type than those pretentious, manipulative Lake Forest mannequins were mine. We were both just making due till the next great love came along.