Mary Jane Could Never

Last time on Mary Jane Could Never: I met a businessman while celebrating my birthday on vacation. I wanted to go to bed with him because he was attractive, and we were hitting it off. Then, the topic of kids came up. 

“That’s the next thing I want to do with my life–have a family,” David said. 

“Is being a dad something you’ve always wanted for yourself?” I asked. 

“I guess, but now it feels more urgent,” David said. “I’m ready to have a family of my own. I see my colleagues having a life outside of work and I want that. When it’s five o’clock, they’re leaving the office to go to their kids’ soccer games. But I’m still there, stuck at my desk, working late with nowhere else to go.” 

I almost felt sorry for David at that moment. He didn’t come off as a pitiable person, so I don’t say that to debase him. But it was clear to me that this was a man who–while wealthy and enjoyed a material comfort most people will never know–was lonely and longed for change.

“I have no one.” He said this earlier when he mentioned his parents had passed and that it was only he and his sister left behind. I took this for granted at the time. Then I remembered the wide-eyed expression on his face. The light in his eyes simmered to a cool white and seemed transfixed by something. Maybe it was a truth about himself he didn’t want me to see?

I felt like I was starting to understand him. Then I started getting uncomfortable. This man who was pouring his heart out about his yearning to be a father had unknowingly spent five hours of his evening with a woman who didn’t want children.

I don’t remember how the cat got out of the bag, but it did. When I told him I didn’t want children, I could see the disappointment wash over his face. Then I felt even more sorry for him. He turned frosty and self-righteous. He turned into Dr. Phil. 

“You don’t want kids?” David asked.

“No, I don’t,” I said. I didn’t want to sit through awkward silence, so I kept talking. “I want to find love and be in a serious partnership. But I don’t want kids. I want my partner and I to focus on each other.”

“There’s a woman on our team–one of our senior managers,” David said, looking down at his drink. “She’s middle-aged with no kids, and she’s not happy.”

“How do you know that?” I asked.

“I just know,” David said, sounding irritated. “She doesn’t have anything out of work. All she has is her career, and it’s sad.”

I sat there, trying to be patient and understand his perspective. I knew he was talking like this because having kids was something he felt strongly about. But I knew he was projecting. And I knew it wasn’t fair for him to act like this.

Meeting David felt like an inflection point–not only because he was the first man I’d been out with in many years, but also because this was the first time I was at odds with a romantic interest over whether or not we wanted kids. Before, in my twenties, the subject hardly came up. Even if we had different opinions about it, it wasn’t really an issue. The subject was almost irrelevant then. My partners and I were too unstable and unserious then to unironically talk about bringing children into our lives. But this was a new decade. David and I were in our thirties, and for David, 40 was only a few years away. We had jobs. Good, stable, well-paying jobs. Plus, we were both thinking seriously about how we wanted to spend our time and who we wanted to spend our time with. It felt foreign and strange, but it made perfect sense for us to be having this conversation. 

David was the first man who had ever challenged me on my aversion to having children. This wasn’t because of his projecting, but because (at the most superficial level) he was the first man to make the prospect of having kids with him seem like an attractive and sensible life decision. But regardless of his intentions when he first approached me, it probably never occurred to him that I didn’t want the same things he did.

“Can I be honest?” I asked him. We had left the bar and were walking back to the main drag in the direction of his hotel. “I feel like I lost you when I told you I didn’t want children. I didn’t mean to dampen the mood. I just wanted to be honest with you.”

“I didn’t approach you with any grand expectations or anything,” he said, sounding flustered and irritated again. I just saw you, and you piqued my interest and here we are. God, I must sound so corny right now.”

“Corny?” I asked, balking at this. “Corny for what?”

“Corny for talking about wanting to have kids.”

“You don’t sound corny! What is corny about you wanting to have children? It just sounds like having kids is important to you.”

David was looking ahead, then at the ground as we kept walking. 

“So you want to have kids. And you want to get married?” I asked him. 

“Yes,” he said hesitantly. He lightened his tone. “You’re making me nervous. I can feel my heart beating. Want to feel?” David asked, gesturing to his chest. 

I put my hand on his heart. I couldn’t feel anything through his blazer, sweater and the button-down he was wearing. But he started getting fidgety and sheepish. 

“Look,” David said, calming himself down. “We’re both adults, and adults have needs. So we must be here for a reason.” David gently grazed my backside with his hand, then lightly tapped it on the small of my back. 

“Do you want to come upstairs with me?”

*                   *                   *

I remember how the light had come back in his eyes as he was holding me and guiding me backwards onto the bed. But the temperature was hotter now, like candlelight, and there was a smirk on his lips. Carefully, he loosened the sashes that were tied into bows along my back, then pulled my romper off my shoulders, down my breasts, and off my legs and feet. As I eased onto the bed, I could feel him lightly pecking my buttocks and the backs of my thighs. He eased himself onto the bed behind me, undressing himself along the way. 

David wrapped his lips around my nipple and sucked, then wrapped his lips around my other nipple and sucked. I started writhing with his hand cupped around the small of my back. We kissed and rolled under the sheets. At some point, I felt his fingers stroking the inside of me, making me wet. I wasn’t used to this feeling so good. I turned onto my stomach, holding myself up with my knees and forearms, and bit into one of his pillows. But I became overwhelmed with pleasure and released the pillow from my teeth, too weak to keep it between them.  

My insides became warmer, tinglier, more tender as he continued to stroke. And then I let out a deep, uncontrollable guttural sound. David gasped. Neither of us had heard a sound like that before. I reached my arm back so I could grab him. I wanted to feel him as he was feeling me. My insides were hot now, hyperstimulated. Every stroke set off a fuse. And then my back arched like a cat’s, and my body froze. I heard myself growl as he kept stroking. Then I let out another deep guttural sound I’d never heard before. But the sounds were far away, like I was underwater. I felt like I went somewhere, like I was lost in my own soundbath. 

I’d orgasmed before. But not like that.

*                   *                   *

I often fantasize about the way he held me when we were done. Exhausted, we collapsed onto the bed, with me on top of him. He scooped my torso with one of his arms, the one covered in a sleeve. His other arm was folded up with his hand behind his head, making his bicep pop. The sheets covered us just from the hips down; our body heat and the heat left in the room from our lovemaking kept us warm. I could see the big grin on his face because the lamp on the nightstand beside him was on. It thrilled me to see him so content and relaxed. It made me feel like a woman. 

“When’s the last time you had sex?” I asked him without thinking. I said it like an exhale. I remember I had a rasp in my voice. 

He told me it had been a few months. He asked me the same question and I answered. 

“Really?”

“Mmmhmm,” I responded. I lifted myself up so I could kiss the flesh above his heart. His chest was pillowy and smooth and his heartbeat was steady. 

“How?” David looked confused, dumbfounded. 

“Well,” I started, “I was with someone when I was abroad. And then I came back home, trying to break into TV. Then the pandemic hit, and I got my big break with my first on-air job. Then I kept to myself for a while. And then I met you.

“Five years of saving myself, and now it’s over. I ended it with you,” I said, wistfully and out of breath. 

“Don’t sound so disappointed,” David said, before starting to mimic me. I laughed at his imitation, hard. Truthfully, I was a little disappointed, but not because I didn’t enjoy myself. The sex was amazing. We both felt it was amazing. I was just disappointed we didn’t do more. But we couldn’t. We’d just met. It wasn’t safe to do more yet. 

When I stopped laughing, I looked into his eyes and traced his face with my fingertips. Then we turned over so he could spoon me and wrap his leg around mine like a koala. He felt incredible. 

Then, this uneasy feeling crept in. I started feeling trapped and suffocated. Now, I was getting nervous and fidgety. The more I tried to keep still, the more my body moved inside of his. I looked up at the ceiling, trying to catch a glimpse of his face out of the corner of my eye. I couldn’t see him, but I could feel him smiling at me. What kind of smile was it? Was it a flirty smile? Was it a mischievous smile? Was it a sinister one? 

Part of me was still high from the intimacy that we’d had. But a growing part of me was scared and mortified. For the first time in half a decade, I’d just had sex, and I’d had it with a man I hadn’t even known for five hours. This man could have been lying to me about who he was the whole time.

What if he was just some sleazy, sociopathic loser with no friends who somehow tricked me into sleeping with him? What if he’s some womanizer who picks up lonely girls in restaurants? What if he’s married? What if he had tried to hurt me? What if he could still hurt me? 

It felt like this encounter had some deeper significance in my life that I didn’t know yet. What if David was who he said he was? What if David was as safe as he felt? What if he was my future husband? What if he was the future father of my unborn children? I was desperate to leave but I didn’t want to let go of his embrace, either.

“I hope you find your baby mama someday.” I said this as I was leaving. I looked into his eyes and hugged him for what I thought was going to be the last time. 

Don’t show any emotion, I warned myself. Just call him when you get to your hotel room and go to bed. Don’t say much, I told myself and rehearsed some lines in my head during the Uber ride back to my hotel. Just put this behind you and keep celebrating the rest of your birthday. It’s not like you’ll ever hear from this guy again.

It was so late that even the receptionist was asleep when I arrived at my hotel. 

“I made it back to my room,” I told David over the phone. 

“Good,” he said. “Now get some rest.”

“I’ll try. Goodnight.” I was about to hang up the phone, thinking those were the last words I’d ever say to him. But then he kept talking before I could hang up. 

“I’ll let you know how my presentation goes.”

This gave me pause. I could feel him smirking through the phone. His presentation–the one happening in a few hours– was the entire reason he was in town. But he wasn’t telling me he was going to update me on how his presentation went. He was telling me he wanted to see me again. 

“Yeah,” I said. “I’d like that.”

I’ll pick this up again tomorrow. Thanks for reading.