herr wunderschlange and the little black dress
At one point in our conversation, Lissa glanced up to see my laundry hanging to dry, tipped her head to the side, and asked, "Why do you have all those black clothes hanging there?"
I laughed, remembering Martha in the 1990's film version of The Secret Garden:
"What would you like to wear? Black, black, or black?"
Lissa remembered the movie, but not the scene.
Then I clarified, about the laundry. "There's a blue dress there."
"DARK NAVY," she said, also laughing.
Since the Mortal Peril, an unprovoked pulmonary embolism, I have gained a few pounds, just enough that I can't comfortably wear many of my favorite things. But, in the last few weeks especially, I've had terrific good luck finding several excellent pieces to add to my work uniform collection of concert hall blacks.
But we're coming to the end of the semester, lots of events, so by Saturday I was running out of clean clothes. That morning I had been rummaging through my closet and pulled out a dress I'd forgotten. And while I do tend to forget many things these days, (possibly because of the post-mortal-peril anti-coagulants?), my wardrobe is so small, I don't typically lose track of items.
The last time I'd worn that dress was when I met a fella for coffee after a concert last winter.
The week prior, I had signed up with an online dating site. For two reasons.
First. My pals set me up on a blind date, and I was a disaster, in a fugue state of nerves. I realized I needed practice.
Also. With the boys out of the house, one day I would think to myself, "This must be what it feels like to be 20-something and single! Except solvent and happy!" And I would feel delighted, fulfilled, and I would glory in my future and freedom. The very next day I would think, “Fuck. All of my best work is done, and there’s nothing left but DEATH.”
Obviously, I needed to get out more.
So. My son had met his darling girlfriend on what I call some variation on MediocreCupid—which, I'm delighted to report, my spellcheck recognizes—and I thought I'd give it a whirl.
We had a polite and frank conversation about where we were in our lives and what we were looking for.
I'd had a long work week, six days, and then this whirlwind meeting. I was tired. But when I returned home from this middle-of-nowhere coffee shop, I sent a thank you text.
And I did.
Also. With the boys out of the house, one day I would think to myself, "This must be what it feels like to be 20-something and single! Except solvent and happy!" And I would feel delighted, fulfilled, and I would glory in my future and freedom. The very next day I would think, “Fuck. All of my best work is done, and there’s nothing left but DEATH.”
Obviously, I needed to get out more.
So. My son had met his darling girlfriend on what I call some variation on MediocreCupid—which, I'm delighted to report, my spellcheck recognizes—and I thought I'd give it a whirl.
Right out of the starting gate, a polite German man messaged me. I asked what it was like growing up before the wall came down. We both shared a certain dismay at the idea that Angela Merkel was now the hope for democracy in the free world. We discussed Hermann Hesse.
And then we exchanged phone numbers and decided to meet.
Pretty standard.
(Except, perhaps, the Hesse part.)
The coffee was brief because I’d gotten lost on the way to the shop, in a nearby town where there seems to be no there there. He had his young daughters that weekend and needed to scurry home to help with homework. We took our coffee and had a stroll.
We had a polite and frank conversation about where we were in our lives and what we were looking for.
I'd had a long work week, six days, and then this whirlwind meeting. I was tired. But when I returned home from this middle-of-nowhere coffee shop, I sent a thank you text.
He replied, “I find you very sexy.”
Huh.
I turned this over in my mind a moment, and then opted to tell him the truth:
“Gosh. I haven’t heard that for a while. Thank you.”
There was only the briefest pause before my phone pinged again:
“I had an erection when we were talking.”
I was chopping an onion, making dinner, when the erection popped up on the screen. I felt a peculiar, particular ripple of fear and amusement and disbelief as I turned this over in my mind. We had crossed into new territory.
Before I had a chance to reply:
“In fact, I still do!”
After a good think, I washed my hands to type back, “Oh, I’m so sorry!”
He was helping his daughter with homework!
Boundaries, people.
Angela Merkel! Angela Merkel! How did we get to erections from Angela Merkel!
Confession: I let the conversation proceed a little farther than I would have if I’d had my wits about me. But I was surprised, and, frankly, a little curious.
I had been made aware, as it were, that there are people in the world who are able to have sex without intimacy, who are able to approach their bodies, other bodies, in a way that I do not fully understand. As a plaything. As things. Once, shortly after splitting with my husband, a married man volunteered to “get freaky” with me. I asked what his wife would think of that arrangement, and, evidently, they… have an arrangement. So I knew that people did this, disengaged their hearts.
Not my jam.
So when Herr Wunderschlange texted, “Please tell me you’re not into vanilla sex,” I was not entirely unprepared. I mean, I have a problem with the pejorative aspect of the term “vanilla.” And I had an idea what he meant. I asked him what he meant, anyway. It soon became clear that he was inviting me into his little sex dungeon for a spanking good time. Or, perhaps, a good, spanking time.
First thinking thoughts: I signed up for AdequateCupid to get out of the house. Why would I want to spend my weekends at his place out in the middle of nowhere?
More thinking-thoughts: The holidays! How would I schedule this sexy time? “Boys, I’ll be out for a few hours, then we’ll make peppermint bark when I get back.”
Generally, I try not to be uncharitable. It doesn’t feel good. But the whole scenario seemed hilarious. And that is likely not the reaction he’d hoped to elicit.
The next morning I woke with a screaming headache and knew I had to break the news. I was not going to be able to go downtown with this scenario. As it were.
I never heard from him again.
Huh.
I turned this over in my mind a moment, and then opted to tell him the truth:
“Gosh. I haven’t heard that for a while. Thank you.”
There was only the briefest pause before my phone pinged again:
“I had an erection when we were talking.”
I was chopping an onion, making dinner, when the erection popped up on the screen. I felt a peculiar, particular ripple of fear and amusement and disbelief as I turned this over in my mind. We had crossed into new territory.
Before I had a chance to reply:
“In fact, I still do!”
After a good think, I washed my hands to type back, “Oh, I’m so sorry!”
He was helping his daughter with homework!
Boundaries, people.
Angela Merkel! Angela Merkel! How did we get to erections from Angela Merkel!
Confession: I let the conversation proceed a little farther than I would have if I’d had my wits about me. But I was surprised, and, frankly, a little curious.
I had been made aware, as it were, that there are people in the world who are able to have sex without intimacy, who are able to approach their bodies, other bodies, in a way that I do not fully understand. As a plaything. As things. Once, shortly after splitting with my husband, a married man volunteered to “get freaky” with me. I asked what his wife would think of that arrangement, and, evidently, they… have an arrangement. So I knew that people did this, disengaged their hearts.
Not my jam.
So when Herr Wunderschlange texted, “Please tell me you’re not into vanilla sex,” I was not entirely unprepared. I mean, I have a problem with the pejorative aspect of the term “vanilla.” And I had an idea what he meant. I asked him what he meant, anyway. It soon became clear that he was inviting me into his little sex dungeon for a spanking good time. Or, perhaps, a good, spanking time.
First thinking thoughts: I signed up for AdequateCupid to get out of the house. Why would I want to spend my weekends at his place out in the middle of nowhere?
More thinking-thoughts: The holidays! How would I schedule this sexy time? “Boys, I’ll be out for a few hours, then we’ll make peppermint bark when I get back.”
Generally, I try not to be uncharitable. It doesn’t feel good. But the whole scenario seemed hilarious. And that is likely not the reaction he’d hoped to elicit.
The next morning I woke with a screaming headache and knew I had to break the news. I was not going to be able to go downtown with this scenario. As it were.
I never heard from him again.
In the next several weeks, before the Mortal Peril put an end to this nutty experiment, I had a variety of confusing and curious exchanges with several men and a few more coffee dates. And I enjoyed reporting on these interactions to my little circle of pals on Facebook.
After the Herr Wunderschlange incident, one of my former students delighted me with: "Welcome to the glorious hellscape of online dating."
GLORIOUS HELLSCAPE.
Indeed.
Later that winter, a friend and I were driving back from our annual pilgrimage to IKEA, and she said, "You need to write a book."
I protested. It's already been done. What could I add? I didn't try that experiment long enough to have enough material.
And then I turned to look out the window. In a rare copse near a car dealership, I saw a bird of prey, still and beautiful on a bare branch.
Ploompf. The structure of a book plopped into my head. I turned back to Linda.
"I could do it."
"I know you could."
"I know you could."
And I did.
For the last five or six months, constructing that narrative has been my focus, weaving these strands, the stories of love and longing and the construction of self—the stories of three generations of women, my grandmother's, my mother's, and my own.
Herr Wunderschlange was a blip.
So it's curious that I never wore that dress again and that I feel sick at the thought. Without realizing it, I'd retired the costume from my repertoire, because that is not a role I want to play.
In The Secret Garden, after Martha laughingly asks what Miss Mary would wear, her dour, unsmiling reply is, "Are you blind? They're all black. And I won't be laughed at."
Which is another way of saying, I won't be made a thing.
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