Friday, October 3, 2003
I was worthless at work. I went to meetings, spoke when spoken to, and did what I needed to do to appear to be functioning. My body was present but my mind was on a cream-colored note sitting in a large toolbox inside the downstairs back door of a two-flat in Chicago.
People at work knew something was up. I was wearing a short black skirt, chunky black sweater, black tights, and little black heels. They were used to seeing me in blue jeans and a jacket. I didn’t say a word and they didn’t ask.
By the time I got to the el [the elevated train in Chicago] that would carry me home I was nearly dizzy. My brain had spent the day considering every possible response he might have and all of my possible reactions and I was exhausted. I wanted to stay on that train and ride it past Rockwell, past the end of the line at Kimball, past Wisconsin, into Canada. Canada sounded good.
Walking to my house I could see that he wasn’t waiting for me by the front door. That was ‘Ideal Scenario #1’ and I could cross that one off. I unlocked the front door, walked upstairs, unlocked my door, and put down my work things. I couldn’t hear any sound coming from the back—no sawing, no drilling. Maybe he had fled—that was also one of the possible outcomes that had whistled through my head. I went down the back stairs and found him in the back yard. He said there were some things he wanted to show me. It was cold outside and I wrapped my arms tightly around myself for warmth and for self-bolstering.
Trent was talking about some aspect of the fence and I could hardly hear him. All I could think about was the note that he wasn’t talking about. As he walked me from the fence to the back of the house to show me something that needed to be repaired, I saw his mouth move but heard nothing. I wanted to melt, dissolving, sinking between the blades of dry grass and the gray dirt, disappearing into the earth. I stood there in my little black heels and I wanted to die.
Which is when he said,
“Do you want to talk?”
“What?”
“Do you want to talk?”
“Oh. Talk?”
“Yes. Talk. Do you want to?”
“Uh. Yes.”
“It would probably be good if we could sit down somewhere.”
“The back porch?”
“Sounds good.”
I led the way up the stairs and hoped that he thought I had nice legs.
by Jule Kucera on 7 March 2010
October, 2003
“I haven’t had sex in 5 years.”
That’s what I said to Persephone after I sat down at the far corner of the classroom where we were to observe a new training program. I hadn’t even said “hello” first.
Persephone is one of those people who takes things in stride. She looked at me with a steady face—no shock, no surprise, no discomfort—and said, “That’s not good.” When the training program ended we went straight to her office, me desperate to solve the problem, Persephone determined to help me.
She asked,
“Do you have any friends?”
“Sure, I have friends.”
“No, that’s not what I meant. Do you have any friends… with benefits?”
“With benefits?”
“With benefits.”
Seeing that I didn’t understand, she leaned in closer and clarified.
“Friends who would be interested in participating with you to end your ‘no sex in 5 years’ problem.”
“Oh.”
Persephone nodded and smiled. She let the wheels in my head turn.
“Do people do that?”
“Yes, they do.”
“Really?”
“Really. In fact, I may have done such a thing myself. So, can you think of any friends in that category?”
“Hmmm…. No.”
“No? None?”
“Well, there’s this one guy, he’s not really a friend, but….”
“But he might be interested.”
“He might.”
“There you go.”
“There I go what? What do I do, just walk up to him and say, ‘Hey, do you want to have sex?’”
“You could do that.”
“No, I couldn’t. I really couldn’t.”
We agreed that verbalizing my request might be too much for me and that a written note might be better. I didn’t know what to write but Persephone gave me the first line, “How do you feel about casual sex?” I finished the rest of it, with the ending being, “If you’re interested, let’s talk. If not, please throw this note away and never mention it.”
I waited before I gave him the note—I wanted a safety check before proceeding. My therapist thought it was a splendid idea. I decided to give Trent the note on a Friday. If he wasn’t interested he would be in Michigan for the weekend and I would have 2 days to hide and feel stupid.
On Thursday night, I took out my favorite cream-colored stationery with the rag edges and wrote the note several times. The first few versions were to get the spacing of the words right on the page. The next few were to work some constriction out of the script. I got it as nice looking as I could.
On Friday morning I took out the note, reread the words, put it in a matching cream-colored/rag-edged envelope, wrote ‘Trent’ on the front, underlined his name, and put the proposition in his toolbox. Then I left for work.
by Jule Kucera on 4 March 2010
