The Things We Tell Ourselves

Here is an excerpt from Sex & Guitars... enjoy!

I drove myself crazy with questions that had no answers. I didn’t realize that I had already made up my mind until I was in that old Mustang, heading south. Only then did the second thoughts strike back with a vengeance.

I drove slowly, carefully. The rain whipped down in a torrent and the windshield wipers fought a bravely lost battle. I couldn't see my own headlights. Somewhere beside me the road dropped off into the river, a swirling beauty turned into a deadly monster by the hand of Mother Nature. Giving up to the rain, I slowly came to a stop, pulling as far off the road as I dared. I sat back in the old leather seat and focused on the downpour that slammed down inches from my face, watched as the drops didn't take the time to explore, simply made room for another and another, and another.

He was waiting in Memphis.

The leather was warm under my legs. The key chain made a ticking sound as it swung back and forth, still believing in the momentum of a car long stopped. Thought was almost impossible in the sound of the deluge. I rolled the window down just a bit, just enough to magnify the rush of sound, just enough to let the faint scent of his cologne dissipate. Could I really smell him, or was it imagination?

I thought about my memories of him evaporating with the ease of that seductive aroma and I found myself rolling the window back up, making sure it was tight against the outside world, as if that would shut out the passage of time or the need for choices. And then the question occurred to me.

For whom did he care more: the woman he sought to protect by keeping a secret? Or the woman he shared all his secrets with?

I thought about his hands. The hand that often wore a wedding band, the hand that worked with precision over his guitar, the hand that cradled his children. The same hand that had shook as he undressed me for the first time. The hand that held my head hard against his shoulder as we moved together, both of us knowing it was wrong, but feeling the rightness of it all the same.

I touched the steering wheel of the old Mustang. I could almost feel the warmth of him there.

She was the better woman. Of that I had no doubt.

I closed my eyes to the downpour. Gusts of wind rocked the car and I swayed with them. I was waiting patiently for the winds of change to stop trying to push or pull me, for the rain to stop, for the sun to peek over the horizon, for all to be right with the world. I thought about his long, dark hair gliding through my fingers.

I contemplated the heightened passion a shared secret could bring, the furtive need. The desire that the forbidden always provided.

Was it better for her that she not know of my existence? Or did she already know, the way a woman knows? There is a certain moment when a woman looks at her man in a certain light and suddenly she sees the guilt in every fiber of his being, the honesty that he can only hide when the walls are up and intact. Had she seen it yet? Had she felt the slight change in his touch and seen the barely concealed arrogance and anticipation that now filled the man she thought she knew?

It was better for me because I was allowed to see what she did not.

I decided I would believe that.

**

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