CREATIVE NONFICTION 53
Oh, I wanted to give in, but I didn’t dare do
it without lubrication. It was also sweaty and
awkward in the spa.
“I hate to interrupt things but meet me in the
bedroom,” I said. “Don’t stop to shut the lid or
anything. Hurry.”
I didn’t even pause to dry off, knowing how
quickly the urge could leave him. Wrapped in my
wet towel, I hurried to the bedroom, threw the
stuffed bear off my pillow, pulled the covers back,
and opened my nightstand drawer, where the K-Y
Jelly lived.
It wasn’t there. There were six pairs of shoe
inserts, ten handkerchiefs, two prayer books, and
a tube of estrogen cream, but no plastic bag with
the K-Y. But! I knew immediately where it was:
my suitcase. After our last trip, I left it there. I
figured I didn’t need it.
Where was the suitcase? Up on the top shelf in
the garage. Talk about an erection killer.
And here was Fred, ready for action. Oh my
God, what could I rub in there to make my post-
menopausal vagina slippery? Hemorrhoid cream?
We had a lot of that, but I was afraid to use it.
ChapStick? Didn’t seem logistically possible. The
best option seemed to be the estrogen cream. I
wondered what that would do to me and hoped
I wouldn’t wake up ten pounds heavier, with a
beard.
What it didn’t do was lubricate.
From the instant Fred’s penis touched the edge
of my vagina, all I felt was pain, as if I was being
ripped apart.
I clutched his
shoulder, grit-
ted my teeth,
and let him
push in and
out, thinking,
Come on, come
on. I was will-
ing to hang on
until the end,
but suddenly he
said, “Oh no,
not again.”
He went limp.
As he pulled out of me, I began to cry.
At first, it was the pain; then, it was everything:
the loss of Fred’s driving, the sleepless nights, our
inability to communicate, my inability to leave
him alone, the frightening future of dementia. I
had given up on sex with him. I had been celibate
for thirteen months. He was losing his mind and
dying piece by piece. Now, when he seemed to be
miraculously back, making sense and holding out
the possibility of a sex life, we had failed again. I
couldn’t stop crying. So much for being calm and
supportive.
Fred kept apologizing. “What can I do to make
it better?” he asked.
I think he mostly felt bad about the physical
pain he had caused. When he asked, “Did I hurt
you?” I nodded. But that wasn’t really it. If we
got a regular sex life going, I was confident the
pain would ease. And if I had even a glimmer
of excitement, it would help, but we didn’t dare
take time for foreplay. Though that wasn’t it
either.
I realized as I cried that the old Fred was there,
the guy I hadn’t encountered in months. “I don’t
want to lose you,” I wailed. “The way you are
now, you’re here, you’re your old self, but you’re
not always like that; you’re confused.”
Ms. Buzzkill, bringing up the illness.
“That’s why?”
“Yeah!” I shouted into the darkness. “I hate
Alzheimer’s!”
The dog, lying at the foot of the bed, stirred
and looked up, wondering what all the shouting
was about. I began to calm down.