"I'm on my way home, babe," she said last night on the phone.

Could You Circle The Block Ten Times?

I asked her if she could please circle the block ten or twelve times before parking and coming in; I was in the middle of something with my girlfriend. She laughed and replied that she was just now leaving Maytown, so I surely had plenty of time.

Little jokes like that endear her to me - but these days, it's only partly a joke. I'm really yearning to have an affair - and the odd thing is, it's got nothing to do with sex.

Spooner or Spoonee, Makes No Difference

It's fairly common that older people have sleep disorders. I do, and she does, too. The difference is, since I'm on Social Security, I can compensate for it by sleeping five times a day, 90 minutes at a time. She, on the other hand, has to get up and go to work at a scheduled time, whether she's rested or not.

If I so much as scratch my butt, it wakes her, so we don't share the same bed. We even sleep on different floors, so that my fitful sleeping doesn't bother her. Only it's not just fitful sleeping. A man dares not say "hot flashes" without risking his life, but, well, Marie, my german shepherd, loves to sleep in my bed. If I reach over and pet her, she gets the biggest grin on her face. If I reach over, and rest my head on her haunches as if it were a pillow, and pet her, she is even happier.

For About Three Minutes

For about 3 minutes. OK, I get it. Marie is wearing a fur coat, and she quickly becomes uncomfortable with the heat from a 98.6F body next to her. Blondie is entitled to have the same objection, and I understand. That still doesn't change the fact that I want to cuddle.

They used to raise babies "scientifically" until they found out that if you don't pick up babies and hold them, regularly, they have a distressing habit of dying on you. It doesn't matter if my arm is around the woman I love, cupping her bosom in my hand, her butt shoved into my crotch, or she has her arm around me, shoving her crotch into my butt, two hard points scarifying my back, I still need my RDA of cuddling.

Fibroids And Child Abuse

I can't touch her breasts. She has fibroid tissues in them, and they are very sensitive to touch. It's no fun causing pain for someone I love. And as a child, she was abused by an uncle, who would tickle her until she would wet herself, and then mock her. When I try to caress her, she complains that I'm tickling.

Be less gentle, she demands - but I have a hard time believing that she'd welcome someone being rough with her. I know for sure that I have no interest in battering her.

My Wife Understands Me

She understands me if she listens, but that happens less and less. She wants me to come downstairs and eat supper in the living room with her while we watch television together. She likes to watch Chris Matthews, who I find vain and stupid, but I ask her something four times and she ignores me the first three times. The show comes to an end, and the TV displays the white lettering on a green background for five minutes. I finally get up to leave, and she asks me, "Oh, you're leaving me?"

Well, I say, we aren't talking, because you don't respond to anything I say, and we aren't watching TV together because the TV isn't tele-vizzing, so I'm not sure what the point is, of being in the same room.

It's More Than Skin Hunger

It's brain hunger. Blondie goes out every day and deals with people. Many of them are infuriating, but I'm stuck at home, often stuck upstairs, because my agoraphobia makes me seek a cave. And the more time I spend in that cave, the harder it is to leave.

"I know that, honey," she says, "and I want you to get out." Except one of the ways I used to go out was to buy groceries. She pretty much put an end to that, though, with complaints that she was cooking the meals, but she never got to get the groceries she wanted. "I just want to go along with you when we get groceries," she would say, except that she doesn't want to do that, either.

She didn't like it when I would go to the farmer's market on Tuesday or Friday, because I would leave the dog in the car with the window open. "She'll get stolen!" Except Marie is 130 pounds and scares the hell out of people. And I dare not leave the window closed. If we go somewhere with Marie along, she wants to lock the car and leave the motor running so that the air conditioner works. That's unsafe, and it's very illegal. And while I can sometimes leave the house with Marie along, it's terribly difficult to do that all by myself, and most places don't allow pets.

Sold To American

I used to go to the auctions at the farmer's market. I'd get a dozen loaves of bread for a dollar, or an entire flat of strawberries for $2. Yes, the strawberries would be turning bad, but I could sort them and get 2 quarts of good strawberries. Blondie was highly critical of that; she would rather buy 1 pint of strawberries for $3.50 instead, because there was less waste.

We still have arguments over the 50-pound bag of carrots I bought. It cost $3, and there was nothing wrong with the carrots, they were top grade. These days, we buy carrots in much smaller packages for much more money.

And it's not like money isn't an issue. My social security check is small, and she works in human services, a low-paid job, and thinks 30-35 hours is more than she can handle. I've never done the work, and perhaps that is an incredible workload. All I know is that she works few hours, and is poorly paid for those hours.

Finding A Hooker Would Be Easy

There are lots of hookers advertising on Craigslist. I can't afford them, but even if money weren't an issue, that's not what I want. I want someone who I can talk to, someone who welcomes my gentle touch, someone who is eager to share my bed. And like I said, it's not about sex at all.

I keep thinking about that hooker that Eliot Spitzer hired. Was it $4300 an hour that she charged? He didn't seem to have a problem spending the money. What was it that she was giving him? Was it intelligent conversation, a welcome caress, a little spooning? Maybe she was a bargain.

It Seems To Be Common

I've seen lots of cases where a guy was an over-the-road trucker, and the marriage seems to do really well, until the guy gets assigned to local delivery and he's home every night. I know of many couples where he was a sailor, and the marriage seemed to go smoothly, until he retired from the sea and got a job ashore. It seems awful common for men to retire, and their wives file for divorce six months later.

I'm not eager to divorce my wife. She's beautiful, she's kind, and she does a lot of things for me that I'm no longer able to do for myself. If I were to have an affair, she would inevitably find out about it, and I'm not willing to have her humiliated and hurt that way. And hiding in my bedroom, I'm not likely to meet anyone, anyway.

But I'd sure like a second wife. Or I'd like someone who would come over three nights a week and play Euchre or 500 Rum with us. Someone who would call me up on the phone and gossip about neighbors and the weather and what's happening on House and Life On Mars.

But instead, I feel like a baby being scientifically raised, never picked up and rocked and sung to and cuddled. I want to have an affair.

Other Bloggers On Related Topics:
cheating - fibroids - heat flashes - skin hunger - sleep disturbances - spooning - tickling