Part 1

Part 2

I didn’t even like beer. After an ill-advised downing (and subsequent upp-ing) of a six pack during my senior year in High School, I stayed away from anything that formed a head when poured. Between 1981 and 1990, I bet I had a total of 3 or 4 beers, and those came after a day of skiing at 9500 feet. “Beers for the Knees” or some such shit. Blech. (I still hate skiing - sorry Heidi - but I can drink beer now.)

So when Mr. Hot and I made it over to a nearby bar, owned by a guy he knew, I had no freakin’ clue what to order. “Bud Ice”, I said, catching the name on the chalkboard over the bartender’s head. “Make it two”, said Mr. Hot.

We talked for the next two hours. I told him all about my “career” in Human Resources and how much I hated it. He told me about working as the Circulation Manager for a local newspaper. I told him that I adored kids, but couldn’t have any. He told me about his two - then 6 and 2, and how he had never really wanted kids; had never wanted to get married, but he’d dated her for so long that he felt like it was expected. He was too shy to date anyone else, and it was obvious that she loved him. So he married her. He told me how great it was having kids - how he never expected that he could possibly feel the way he felt towards those kids.

Based on my memories, this must have been mid September. We made this a usual Wednesday thing. We both had 6 pm classes on Wednesdays, so after his 2 o’clock, we’d go grab something to eat. We’d study. We’d talk. We’d laugh hysterically. I quizzed him on math formulas (he hated math with the heat of 10,000 suns). We’d watch whatever sporting events were on television in the bar (which started two decades of this). We looked into each other’s eyes.

He’d bring me roses he’d stolen from the city Rose Garden (the one he drove past at 3 a.m. while delivering newspapers) every day. He knew I loved all roses except red ones. He’d bring yellow, white, salmon, pink. Never red ones. He listened. He knew.
We became close friends - the kind you have for a lifetime. It had been two months.

I can hear someone out there saying, “Wait, Hot. Two months? - To become close enough to be friends for a lifetime? Right….” To which I say, “Yea, well, I wasn’t exactly swimming in friends, and this guy could have been my twin. So that’s how I felt. And I still feel that way - 18 years later.”

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My husband (Practice), the one that I’d met at Michigan State, was not interested in having children. I burned with the desire to be pregnant, to have a baby, to raise a child. When we found out that it was physically impossible for the two of us to have a child together, I wanted to take the next step. Medical intervention was going to be a necessity. He wasn’t interested. “Maybe when I’m 35″, was his refrain. He was 30. I didn’t think I’d last another 5 years.

His favorite past-time was smoking marijuana and watching (or looking at) porn. I was not morally opposed to either, in moderation, but the pot wasn’t helping our attempts at procreation. His porn addiction (and yes, it was an addiction), had caused us problems with our neighbors. I couldn’t handle the comments I was getting from the men on the street - men that worked in the plant with Practice. They assumed, apparently, that since my husband had no problems, um, wandering around the backyard in the nude, that I was fair game for their leering and their innuendos. I couldn’t take a walk or work in the yard without hearing threats from the fuckheads that lived around us. I became a prisoner in my house. School was the only way I could forget it all.

When I confronted Practice with the accusation that he was, um, “servicing himself” on the deck, he couldn’t deny it.

I couldn’t live with it.

And so, while we still lived in the same house, we were separate. It was only a matter of time before it was all over. He offered to “get help” with his problems. I had already disengaged. We’d been married 5 years. During our trip to the Bahamas for our fifth anniversary, he’d asked me if he could hire a prostitute to spend time with “us”.

Not in a million fucking years.

But, I had quit my job and was financially dependent on him, and I wanted to finish this degree. It would open up the kind of doors I needed.

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One day, after a particularly tough math exam (there it is again! math!), Mr. Hot and I were celebrating his A. It wasn’t a Wednesday, but we stopped for a quick beer (“Bud Ice”. “Make that two.” was our refrain) to toast his victory and my excellent formula-quizzing. As he was walking away from my car, I yelled at him.
“Hot! Hey, Hot!”.

He turned. We met each other halfway…“Don’t call me Hot”, he said. “Okay”, I replied. And I said his first name.

I opened my arms to give him a hug. He stepped in, and wrapped his arms back around me.

I looked up into his face (it was unusual for me to have to look up - there are physical things beyond dimples that make me weak in the knees - looking up into a man’s eyes definitely ranks in the top 10 of those). I saw his mouth coming down. I surrendered.

Somehow we staggered back to campus. We had to talk. We had to kiss more. We ended up in the Education building, making out like we were sixteen years old.

Finally, we came to our senses. Blamed it on the beer and the excitement over the math exam A.

I had a hard time driving the 45 miles back to my house that night, but when I got there, Practice told me that he was going skiing out west right after Christmas. We’d drive back to Michigan, spend the week with the parents (both sets), and then I could drive back to West-by-gawd-Virginia while he went skiing in Montana with a friend. “I know you don’t like to ski, so you may as well just forget going out west. I’ll go alone.” “Fine with me. I’ll relax before next semester starts.”

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Another three weeks or so went by. Mr. Hot and I talked and rehashed and beat ourselves up over and over and over again. We couldn’t break up his family. His kids needed their dad. We would always be friends…we could do this. Just because my marriage was probably breaking up, all I had was cats. No little hearts will be broken. Wednesday beer and lunch continued, complete with math quizzing and baseball watching.

Complete with my heart breaking.

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The week of final exams, Mr. Hot stopped me in the hallway. “Mrs. Hot knows that I am in love with you. I’m moving out over Winter break. I found an apartment. I can’t live with her anymore.”

I had 10 days to figure out what the fuck I was going to do. But first, I had to get through the holidays with my parents and Practice’s parents. Oh, and Practice. He would be there too.

In the meantime, though, I asked Mr. Hot to cat-sit for me while I was in Michigan. In his new apartment. He agreed.

….to be continued….

—- Y’all. The Pioneer Woman has a Fairy Tale story of her courtship with Marlboro Man. And although we share a name (she’s Ree, I’m Ree), her’s is truly a fairy tale written in parts (she’s up to 33 so far….and it’s heartwarming and HOT and I eagerly await each new chapter). My story is more of a catharsis after nearly 20 years of guilty feelings tempered only by the love of a man who is truly my soulmate - and the arrival of his son, his first-born, who has come to live with us. Eighteen years later, they are making peace and I’m writing our story. —-

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