"It's not Madison Avenue and it's not Hollywood. It's not Vogue, or Harper's Bazaar, or Redbook romances. It's not TV ads. It's not beautiful people riving beautiful carefree lives, using the right deodorant and the right toothpaste and the right mouthwash. It's not fuzzy-hued lovers going slow motion into each other's arms on a grass hilltop, or the smell of perfume or cologne. It's not wearing the right clothes to create the right impression. It's not candlelight dinners and romantic bars overlooking Seal Rocks.
"Love is just two people making a life together, with all of its problems and trials, two people who have a deep caring for and understanding of each other.
"That's why I argued with Mrs. Wiggins in the family-living class. Because she's teaching a lie, that -you will find your perfect mate and get married and live happily ever after. Well, it doesn't work that way, not even after all the romantic novels and movies and magazine stories, not by a. long shot.
"So what you get is a whole nation of people who grew up on this myth, the myth of love at first sight. Girl meets boy, falls in love, saves her precious virginity, and gets married in white, with relatives beaming in pride. It's got to be a perfect marriage, made in heaven, because they're both good kids and they've both been brainwashed by a lifetime of romantic bullshit.
"But it doesn't take long for the magic spell to wear off. If they're normal people, they know little or nothing about sex, they only think they know all about it. Good old Prince Charming lasts about two minutes in the saddle, if he's lucky, and whether she feels like it or not, gives his princess a good night smack, rolls over, and in five minutes he's snoring. She lies there wondering why the books and movies made such a big deal about sex, thinking that at least she's done "her duty," as her mother instructed her to do, and vaguely aware that maybe she-ought to be getting more out of it.
"And so their dream is shattered; the myth explodes in their faces like a storm of dirty diapers. They sit home and watch TV, resenting each other because they should be running barefoot and carefree through soft, green glens, and cavorting around in ethereal brooks.
"The dream disappears for both of them and pretty soon Cinderella starts looking around for another Prince Charming, and the old Prince Charming begins screwing a little stray stuff on the side. They might stay together and continue to hate each other's guts for the next fifty years, or they might get divorced; it really doesn't matter, because they blew it the day they got married, and everything else was just anticlimax. They bought the romantic dream and couldn't stand the strain when ugly reality slugged it to them.
"I love romance. I love to make love, and I've done a lot of it. I love sunsets, and sunrises also, when I can get my ass out of bed early enough. I love candlelight and soft music and quiet places like this with beautiful views and roaring fireplaces. I love beaches and parks and trees and flowers and children playing. I'm eighteen years old and I've seen some of the worst of life and some of the best. I want to live with you, love you, take care of you, and have you take care of me. And if we can make it, I want to spend the rest of my life with you, growing old and fat and probably bald, because it's in my family. A lot of people make fun of the marriage vow, but the cat who wrote, "… in sickness and health, for better or worse," knew what he was writing. He knew what it takes for two people to be able to spend a lifetime together.
"I want you, Susan. And I don't care if you're lying naked in bed or sitting on the John. I want your intellect because it can keep up with mine, and grow with mine. I want our music and our art and the things we love around all the time. I want your brightness, your joy in just living, just breathing air and seeing sights and doing things. I want that quality you have of making me want to hold you so badly sometimes it hurts physically, and I don't mean between my legs.
"I want you. And if all of that's love, then I love you."
Susan pushed her chair closer and slipped her arm under mine, taking my palm from the inside with her soft hand. I was staring out the window at the rocks below, afraid to look at her, afraid of what I might see in her face. I felt the caress of soft hair on my cheek as she lay her head on my shoulder.
We sat some time in silence. My mind seemed dull. Random, meaningless thoughts kept flashing through my head.
"And if all of that's love, then I love you," she whispered, crying softly. She squeezed my hand tightly and we didn't speak until the waitress carne over to hustle us for another drink.
After we were served, Susan turned and looked at me intently. I could feel the love from her touch, from her eyes. I could feel it pouring out of her and over me, bathing me in a flow of blessed warmth. God it felt good, better than the best cunt, better than anything I had ever known, the feeling of real love received from a woman and the feel of love given from yourself. I wished that I could have sat there like that with her forever.
Susan rubbed her eyes, drying them with the back of her hand. I reached to smooth away the tears with my finger but she stopped me. "Don't. I'm not going to live with you or marry you or anything else. You want to know the truth? Okay, I'll tell you the truth. I don't know what you've got or what you did to me, but I love you so much I can't even think straight anymore. I go out on dates with men old enough to be your father and I can't stand them because I'm thinking about you all evening. Their conversation bores me and their pawing hands annoy me and I can't wait for the evening to be over so I can go home and get into my bed and think about you in your bed and masturbate myself to sleep, because that's the only way I've been getting any sleep lately. And if I've shocked you it's just too bad, damn you.
"My life was all set. I finally got what I wanted, what I worked so hard for all these years, and then you come along and screw it all up just as it's starting to make sense, just as I'm starting to be happy on my own. Because I'm not giving it up. I've worked too hard for too long and I'm not going to lose it all now, just when I've almost got it. You're not worth it, no man is worth it.
"There's a whole world full of men out there, and when I find one he's going to be the right age and have a good position and I'll be able to teach as long as I want without complications, and loving him isn't going to cause me trouble, like loving you would.
"I don't want you to drive me any more and I don't want to see you outside of class. I don't even want to talk to you, not even in class. I want you to get out of my life and get out of my dreams and stop turning me upside down." She started to cry again.
The elation of love that I had felt instantly dissolved into bewildered panic. Susan was here, with me, loving me, and telling me that she wanted to break it off; it had the sense of the unreal. I could hear what she was saying but my brain refused to digest the words.
When she got up to leave I grabbed her arm and pulled her back into her chair. "Do you realize what you're doing?"
"I think so," she said. "But I'm going to do it, anyway."
"I don't think you really do realize," I said. "Look, the insurance companies say we'll both probably live to be around seventy years old, give or take a few. Right now you're twenty-four and I'm eighteen. Do you think the difference in our ages will matter when you're fifty-eight and I'm fifty-two? Or when you're a broken-down old broad of seventh-three and I'm still a young stud of sixty-seven? What the hell difference could it possibly make then? Or even next year, when you'll be just one of thousands of young teachers who are working while their husbands go to school on the GI Bill, or whatever? Nobody would even think twice about it, especially if you kept your maiden name for work. If we had any problem at all, it would just be from now until next June, when I graduate.