| The Bridge 10 |
| 1 | TEN Lay in the sun on the deck, Donna and me, the two of us on my becalmed sailboat, drifting with the current thirty miles north of Key West. "No woman in my life owns me," I told her quietly, patiently, "and I own not one of them. That's terribly important to me. I promise: never will I be possessive 'of you, never jealous." "That's a nice change," she said. Her hair was short and black, her brown eyes closed against the sun. |
| 2 | She was tanned the color of oiled teak from years of summer since a divorce far northward. "Most men can't understand. I'm living the way I want to. I'll be with them if I want to be with them, I'll be gone if I don't. That doesn't frighten you?" She moved the straps of her bikini, to keep the tan unstreaked. "Frighten? It delights me! No chains or ropes or knots, no arguments, no boredoms. A present from the heart: I'm here not because I'm supposed to be here, or because I'm trapped here, but because I'd rather be with you than anywhere in the world." The water lapped gently. |
| 3 | Instead of shadows, bright lights sparkled up on the sail. "You will find me the safest friend you have," I said. "Safest?" "Because I cherish my own freedom, I cherish yours, too. I am extremely sensitive. If ever I touch you, do anything you'd rather no.t, you need whisper the gentlest 'No.' I despise intruders and crashers-into-privacy. You ever hint I'm one myself, you'll find me gone before you finish the hint." She rolled on her side, head on her arm, and opened her eyes. |
| 4 | "That does not sound like a proposal of marriage, Richard." "It isn't." "Thank you." "Do you get a lot of those?" I asked. "A few is too many," she said. "One marriage was enough. In my case, one marriage more than I should have had. Some people are better off married; I'm not." I told her a little about the marriage I had ended, happy years gone hard and grim. I had learned exactly the lessons she had. |
| 5 | I checked the soft glass table of the Gulf for wind-ruffles. The sea was smooth as warm ice. "What a shame, Donna, we can't disagree on something." We drifted for another hour before wind caught the sails and the boat surged ahead. By the time we set foot on land once more we were good acquaintances, hugging farewell, promising to see each other again someday. As it was with Donna, so with every other woman in my life. |
| 6 | Respect for sovereignty, for privacy, for total independence. Gentle alliances against loneliness, they were, cool rational love-affairs without the love. Some of my women-friends had never married, but most were divorced. A few were survivors of unhappy affairs, beaten by violent men, terrified, warped by massive stress into endless depressions. Love, for them, was a tragic misunderstanding; love was an empty word left after meaning had been battered away by spouse-as-owner, lover-become-jailer. |
| 7 | Had I gone looking way far back in my thought, I might have found a puzzle: Love between man and woman isn't a word that works anymore. But Richard, is it a meaning? I wouldn't have had an answer. Months rippled by, and as I lost interest in love, what it is and isn't, so I lost the motive to look for my hidden soulmate. Gradually her place was taken by a different idea emerging, an idea as rational and flawless as those upon which my business affairs now turned. |
| 8 | If the perfect mate, I thought, is one who meets all of our needs all of the time, and if one of our needs is for variety itself, then no one person anywhere can be the perfect mate! The only true soulmate is to be found in many different people. My perfect woman is partly the flash and intellect of this friend, she's partly the heart-racing beauty of that one, partly the devil-may-care adventure of another. |
| 9 | Should none of these women be available for the day, then my soulmate sparkles in other bodies, elsewhere; being perfect does not include being unavailable. "Richard, the whole idea is bizarre! It will never work!" Had the inner me shouted that, and it did, it would have had rags stuffed in its mouth. "Show me why this idea is wrong," I would have said, "show me where it won't work. And do it without using the words love, marriage, commitment. |
| 10 | Do it bound and gagged while I shout louder than you can about how I intend to run my life!" What do you know? The perfect-woman-in-many-women design, she won the contest hands-down. An infinite supply of money. As many airplanes as I wish. The perfect woman for my own. This is happiness!. |
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