Maria’s body (“Fuselage”), a five-foot, half inch ripple in a pond, welcomed my wanting lips. In between trips to her engine, I peppered her arms and legs and tummy with kisses. Her eyes remained closed; her body stayed still.
Her ass (“Tail”) was a perfect sphere, as if it had been designed with a compass. No bone could be felt, only soft flesh, just enough in each cheek for one hand a piece.
“Are you comfortable?” I asked. Looking as though she’d been sedated, Maria smiled and said, “I’m perfect.”
After she climaxed, she turned onto her side and looked like a woman posing in a French oil painting. I kicked off my sneakers and snuggled next to her.
We were lost in the moment. If this is what it’s like to be drunk, I thought, then I have to start drinking. But I knew that what we were doing was infinitely better. It had to be, for it was not a solitary stupor but a mutual delight.
It wasn’t “intercourse”; it wasn’t “sex”; it was, truly, “making love.” And on that day Maria taught me more about love than I thought possible. I loved her so much that I wanted to give her that kind of pleasure all of the time. I thought this kind of feeling was nonexistent in other relationships for me and for others. Still do.
I don’t think that anyone ever loved a girl as much as I loved Maria. In fact, nobody will ever love anyone as much as I still love her. And to this day, I love Maria because she trusted me so much. Her life was in disarray when we met. Between her lousy father and shitty friends I can’t understand how she survived. She was just another Italian girl from Queens, with just another working class dysfunctional family. But when she was with me she was the first female President, a CEO, a Nobel Prize winner. Sadly, society judges people based on paper and not honor.
As I sit here writing, I can honestly say that one of my greatest regrets is that I never helped Maria with her reading. She spoke well when she wanted to, as if she was a scholar. But she read very slowly, and stumbled over vocabulary that came second nature to me. I once told her that she may have dyslexia. I should’ve encouraged her to get tested. Because of me, I guess, she never did find out why she read so poorly, or improve much.
I think her reading problem was rooted in her overriding lack of trust in people. One day, for instance, I remember Maria crying on the phone, telling me that when she was asked to recite the Emancipation Proclamation in front of her class, she got so nervous that she ran out of the room and cried in the hallway. She’d said, “Four score and seven months ago,” rather than “four score and seven years ago.” It was a harmless error, but she was horrified. A similar thing had happened to her years before. Maria had this problem, I think, because she didn’t trust her classmates. She always thought they would laugh at her, whether she read well or not.
But when she read all alone in silence, she had less trouble. She could zip through a Shakespeare play with uncanny ease. It still took her a while to read it, but she adored Shakespeare. In fact, she loved almost any book she put her little hands on. Reading alone in her room, in the still of the night, was probably an escape for her.
I wish I knew back then what I know now. I never thought I would leave Maria, or that she would leave me. The confidence I had in our relationship was best expressed in the Beatles song, The Long and Winding Road. It goes: The long and winding road that leads to your door, will never disappear. You left me waiting here, a long, long time ago. Don’t keep me standing here. Lead me to your door.
That was our song, believe it or not. We both felt as if life were a long winding road, nothing more, nothing less. It’s funny, because even at that young age, both Maria and I had very mature attitudes about life. Our peers dreamt of becoming doctors and lawyers and engineers. But Maria and I understood at a very young age that there is nothing in the world more meaningful than a loving relationship between two human beings. Anyone can become a lawyer; anyone can study that hard. Few can truly share themselves with a loved one for a lifetime. Sometimes I wonder if anyone ever has ever come close, besides me and Maria.
Neither of us ever placed much importance in school. We both thought, we’re all going to die, so while we’re here, just be good to everyone, and try to enjoy life. But still, everyone, especially parents, keeps telling us that grades and material things were so important, and that if you didn’t make a lot of money, you were a loser. But I think a loser is a person that equates success and money with happiness. I’d rather live in a hovel and give myself to another rather than live in a mansion and be alone and married or alone and unmarried. That’s what I thought back then, that’s what I think now.
Maria felt much the same way; however, I think it was harder for her to come by considering her tough life. For me, once I met Maria, it was an immediate and logical discovery. For her, it took time, effort, and, most importantly, trust. But we agreed just the same. We just wanted to be happy. We didn’t want to bother anyone. It was pretty simple, really. But if we’d told anyone but each other about our passions, we’d be accused of being crazy.
Parents should tell their kids: “Listen, the two most important things in this world are, first, be happy, and second, avoid hurting others in the process.” That’s it. Why bother screwing with kids’ heads about getting the best job, or the best grades, or worshipping a phony baloney God. Think about it: Does it really make any sense to tell a child otherwise? I think a lot of kids grow up hurting people—sometimes physically, sometimes emotionally—because they are concentrating so intently on their plans for success that they forget simply to be happy. People should stop and look around once in a while and realize that life is very short. Even seventy or eighty years of life on Earth is a terribly short time, when compared to rest of history. So why bother hurting yourself, or anyone else? Why bother killing yourself through an insane amount of work? Why bother?
Maria put it best the day we first made love. Afterward, she turned to me and said: “I want to find someone to grow old with.” What a wonderful concept. In that one sentence, Maria summarized my entire philosophy, only I didn’t call it that, because I didn’t realize how special that feeling was, how worthy it was of being called a philosophy.
Maria and I understood that life on Earth is short, and often sinister, so you might as well find someone to help you along, to make you happy. I remember trying to explain this philosophy to you, Mom. You accused me of being high on drugs, so I kicked a table in the kitchen, hurt my foot, and stormed out of the room. At least you never accused me of being on drugs again.
And you never understood, either, and that’s why you were always so depressed and angry. Like the rest of this crazy world, you were waiting for a miracle to come, never realizing that the world and life itself were a miracle. The only important thing is here and now.
Maria and I thought that organized religion was stupid, and it is. For some reason or another, a group of people occasionally assumes spiritual power over others, convincing the others—sometimes millions, other times just a few dozen—that they know a little more about the meaning of life than the rest. And with that, those in power get everyone to feel bad when they make mistakes. But what is religion if not a fiat organized by just a few people with the skill to sway the masses?