Ah, Sweet Mystery of Life, at Last I've Found You

Last night I went to dinner alone so I could mine my memories of the trip to the Rosewood Inn for this post. My laptop battery was dead so I used a red crayon to cover the paper tablecloth with notes.

Looking at those notes now, I am amazed. More than twelve years have passed since that trip, yet the details are practically etched into the walls of my memory, like cave drawings or petroglyphs.

Here are some of them.

When we arrived at the Rosewood Inn, The Counselor expertly swung the Porsche into a parking spot and shut off the engine. Turning to me, he cupped my face between his hands and kissed me. Gently at first, then tenderly, then passionately.

After several long minutes, The Counselor opened the car door and unfolded his lanky frame from the seat. Coming around to my side, he opened my door and offered me his hand. No princess was ever helped from a car with more gallantry. When I was safely on the sidewalk, he turned to gather our bags from the back.

Inside, the innkeeper handled the formalities and then led us up a narrow staircase to our room (The Rebecca) on the second floor. I had never in my life felt so abundantly alive. After months of anticipation and 45 minutes in the car since discarding my panties, the juice of life, of sex, flowed through me like a river. In fact, it dripped from between my legs to water the flowers on the carpet runner protecting the scarred hardwood stairs.

In my real life, this would have embarrassed me beyond words, beyond imagining. But here, in the land of enchantment, it was something to celebrate. In the last years of my marriage, my body had known things my head wouldn’t accept. Our oh-so-rare entanglements of the sexual kind had left me dry. And cold. And sad. Oh, so sad.

I had believed myself permanently dried up, but now—thank all the Gods and all the angels—I’d tapped into the wellspring once again.

We reached our room and listened politely as the innkeeper gave us the run down on how things worked. When she finally closed the door behind herself, The Counselor and I broke into nervous laughter.

“Well,” he said. “We’re here.”

“Yeah.” I answered. “Here we are.”

We stared at each other from across the room , not sure what to do next. The Counselor broke the stalemate by busying himself with his bag. Digging around in its depths, he produced a small black boombox, a bag of ice surrounding a bottle of Murphy-Goode chardonnay, and two stemmed glasses.

“We have dinner reservations in an hour at a place called ‘Jack’s,’” he told me. “Let’s have a glass of wine first.”

Through a daze, I watched The Counselor deftly open the chardonnay and pour us each a glass. He popped a cassette into the boombox and punched some buttons. As he crossed the room to hand me my wine, Julio Inglesias crooned, “When I fall in love, it will be com...plete...ly.”

And it was. But that’s a story for later. Now, we’re talking about sex. Pure, unadulterated, I’m-not-married-to-this-man sex.

The Counselor had a black belt in the art of seduction. Hell, if there’s anything beyond a black belt, he had that, too. He started slowly, with gentle kisses that deepened only when I took them there. By the time he unbuttoned the first button of my dress, I didn’t think I could stand wearing that damn thing for one more second.

We did not make it to dinner.

We did make it to the sofa, the bed, and the floor. I did make it to Paradise.

Even now, more than 12 years later, I can tell you how the dying light glowed in window-shaped patches on the chintz bedspread, how the candles cast flickering shadows on the deep green walls, how the purplish label on the wine bottle stood out against the colors of the room.

What I can not tell you—will not tell you—is exactly how The Counselor unlocked for me the secrets of my own body, how he taught me its intended uses. I will not tell you these things in part because I do not completely understand them my own self and in part because some things are better kept secret, held close to the heart.

I have kept those memories close to my heart for all these years. I have also kept the cork from that wine bottle. I never see the cork or the name “Murphy Goode” without thinking, at least for a moment, of the night I learned how Goode sex can be.

For me, life truly did begin at 40.