Back to Chaos

ISAT UP IN Theresa’s bed, still thinking about the peaceful therapy of good sex. We had completed a couple of rounds, and had used a couple of condoms already. Theresa leaned over beside me and looked into my face.

“What are you thinking about?” she asked me.

I paused for a minute. “Sex,” I told her. I was totally relaxed by it.

“What about it?”

“It’s just what the doctor ordered.”

She laughed and fell back down. “Tell me about it.”

Then we were silent again.

“So…when am I going to see you again?” she asked me. That’s when the reality of life smacks you back in the face.

Instead of answering her question, I asked her, “Have you ever thought about how great it would be to just lie in bed all night with no time on the clock? I mean, like, the clock never moves, you know. So instead of it being three in the morning, and almost time for me to go, it’s still midnight, and going nowhere.”

“Hmm,” she grunted. “How would you feel about that? You’re the one who has to go.”

I said, “I feel great right now.”

“Mmm-hmm, right now, is the key word,” she told me. “Everybody feels good right after they just had sex. But how do they feel about it the next day?”

“First of all, everybody doesn’t feel good right after sex. Sometimes the shit ain’t no good,” I told her.

“Well, you know what I mean, after good sex then. But without real meaning to it, it’s only sex.”

“Is that how you feel? You’re telling me that you didn’t need this tonight? You would rather have meaning or no sex at all?”

She stopped and thought about it. “You need both,” she answered. “That’s when it’s the best.”

I nodded. I could see her point. Meaning was the concern that Geneva had expressed to me earlier. Had there been any real meaning for dealing with me outside of just fucking, I could have been with her that night instead of Theresa. But Theresa needed companionship more than Geneva, so I ended up with her. It was that simple. No more, no less. And at the end of the night I felt sorry for Theresa, sorry that I would never stay.

“WHAT TIME did you get back in here this morning?” my mother asked me. I was sleeping in her cozy guest room. I had no idea what time it was when she asked me that, but I knew she had to go to work by eight-thirty, so I assumed it was sometime after eight.

“I don’t know,” I mumbled. “I guess around five-thirty or so.”

“Well, nothing stays open that late around here on a Tuesday, so you weren’t out with your friends all night.”

I didn’t respond to that, and my mother didn’t wait around for a response. She gathered her keys and left for work, and I went back to sleep.

When I was back up for the day, it was nearly twelve o’clock and my mother’s home phone was ringing. I figured she had an answering service, so I just let it ring. The phone call wasn’t for me. But then the call stopped, and when it started ringing all over again, I went ahead and answered it.