Date: Wed, 25 Apr 2007 14:29:23 -0400
From: "volpone69@earthlink.net" <volpone69@earthlink.net>
Subject: My Dinner with Paul

"The problem is," Paul said, with that earnestness that I always loved,
"the problem is that sex can never live up to our expectations, which in
the end leads to disappointment and boredom."

We were having cocktails before dinner at a small, intimate cafe in San
Francisco.  We had been best friends from grade school through high school
in a rural town in Ohio many years before, a friendship that unbeknownst to
our parents, had blossomed into sexual intimacy during the last two years
of high school.  Then we had gone off to our separate colleges a few
thousand miles apart, and neither of us had been inclined to return to Ohio
for school holidays.  Then came work and careers and we had lost track of
each other.

And then, that very morning, we had run into each other at a computer
programming conference in San Francisco.  We recognized the other
immediately and arranged to have cocktails and dinner that night to catch
up.

After the usual reports on family and friends, the subject turned to our
long ago intimacies.  Both of us were now in our 50's.  Paul had even been
married for a few years (no kids) and now lived with a male partner here in
San Francisco, and I lived in Boston with my partner of 21 years.

"Look," said Paul, warming to his subject, "sex is life's biggest
disappointment.  Oh, sure, when you get all horny and some guy takes your
cock in his mouth, it feels as if you've died and gone to heaven.  But the
instant you cum, it's over, all that promise, all that anticipation.
Until, of course, the next time."

"Paul," I said, "you are simply so wrong I don't know where to begin.  For
starters, if sex is so BORING, how come so many people spend so much time
and money on porn?"

"You make my point," he said, flushing with excitement, "if sex by itself
were so fulfilling, who would need porn?  All it does is feed and intensify
the anticipation, thereby deepening the inevitable disappointment.  What we
really want is the anticipation, not the act itself."

Paul was still his tall, lean self.  His black hair was thinning on top,
now, and there were touches of silver at the temples.  His eyes were a
breathtaking grey, alive, warm, and passionate.

 "Are you suggesting that you find sex with your partner boring?" I asked.

"Look," he said, ignoring the question, "I'm saying that sex is not like
food appetite but more like a drug addiction.  Food satisfies.  Sex
disappoints.  It's the anticipation that provides the high."

"So are you saying that you find sex boring now?" I pressed on.

"Right now," he said, looking deep into my eyes and stirring up old
memories, "I get excited just looking at you and thinking about what it
would be like to revisit those old times.  The anticipation, that
possibility, makes me catch my breath, stirs my crotch.  But if we piled
out of here and into a room with a bed, within five minutes I'd be
thinking, `Is that all there is?'"

"That's not what we felt back in high school," I said, ".... or was it?"

"Back then, no," he agreed, "but back then the whole world was so full of
promise.  If a particular orgasm didn't push Planet Earth out of its orbit,
we knew the next one would.  But now we know better.  There is no ultimate
orgasm in the sky."

"Man," I said, "you have a bad case of post-coital tristesse."

"Now, come on," he said, snorting, "calling it names doesn't change the
fact.  We're older now and now we know that the build-up is what really
matters."

"OK," I said, "does this mean you don't do sex any more?"

"What it means is that I do everything except orgasm.  I live in permanent
anticipation."

"What does that do to your balls and prostate?"

"Well, I didn't say I never cum.  I just do so.... judiciously, and by
myself.  It's easier to feel depressed by myself than to let the other guy
see the disappointment."

"You know, Paul," I said, "all of this is making me want to revisit old
times with you."

"That's just what I mean," he said.  "We think that if only we switch to
another partner, or go back to one of yesteryear, somehow that guy's mouth
or ass or cock is going to bring on Nirvana.  Yes, I'd really like to make
you cum and I'd like to feel that intense desire again, but good God, don't
force me to cum with you.  I wouldn't want you to see me like that, in the
pit."

Damn, I thought, he's really serious about this.

"Paul," I said, "I hope you won't take this amiss, but I do still care
about you, a lot.  I think you ought to see a good therapist to talk this
through."

Paul laughed unsmilingly.

"Oh, I've been there.  My partner pushed me into therapy.  I was on every
anti-depressant known to man, from Prozac to dark chocolate.  This is not
depression.  This is reality.  If anyone needs help, it's all you guys
chasing what can never be caught."

By now our dinners had arrived and we ate for a while in silence.  Our
conversation resumed with politics and world affairs, and we finished the
meal with a dessert liqueur and espresso.

As we reached the street to make our ways to our separate hotels, Paul
reached out his hand and gripped me by the back of the neck the way he used
to.

"Look," he said, "don't go worrying about me.  I'm really fine.  And for
goodness sake don't let me spoil your happy illusion."

I took his face in my hands and kissed him full on the lips.  We parted
then without looking back.