“I just want us to behave like normal couples do.”
Both of them were silent, digging deep into their brains for memories of what normal families and normal couples did. They couldn’t find what they were seeking. Both exhumed half-dead children of themselves whose eyes were blinded by pain and too much exposure to darkness. What did they know of families, couples, and what normal people did?
“We have a relationship but it’s a peculiar thing. It is one of those rare finds based on understanding and admiration. One great thing about you that I admire is that, despite your moral turpitude, I don’t have to worry that you will someday become a bitter old man who hates life. Bitter old men, Nawin, tend to be that way because they resent young men off having pleasures when they can’t engage in them any longer. You have your art, your permanent window on the world. You aren’t just wasting your life on the next thrill-I mean not completely. You’ll have something to show for your life.”
“I need intimacy with my wife.”
“Isn’t what I’m doing now intimacy?” she spoke with a bit of anger. “Isn’t going to an art museum even a higher intimacy? Isn’t being an artist or in my case sharing my research on zoology to a conference intimacy at its highest degree. You’re ignorant but you aren’t stupid. You’re not even so ignorant: just a victim of too much testosterone clouding over your senses.”
“I need tender love.”
“Tender love isn’t in a man’s lexicon. You think you need women to be tender enough to let you bang away on them. Pleasurable banging, and one or two women as your permanent trophies: that’s your need. I don’t think it is much of a need. Wanting the right people is good. Needing them isn’t.” She paused and waited but his voice was not forthcoming. “Nawin, are you still there?.”
“I’m still here. Piggy, you haven’t contacted me in weeks. I was beginning to think that you were filing for divorce.”
“The line was too large at the lawyer’s office” she joked. He chuckled.
“Are you okay, Piggy?”