(A Memoir)
Quite out of the blue last month I discovered I’d been #MeToo’d by a woman who some years ago interned in an office where I served as a publishing executive. And I cannot tell a lie: Yes, I did indeed have a fling with Cara, soon after she left our employ. Describing me only as her ‟married boss,ˮ Cara declared that ‟while at the timeˮ she saw our relationship as consensual, in hindsight she viewed the matter ‟very, VERY differentlyˮ [emphasis hers]. She added that she’d decided to join the growing chorus of women with such retrospective grievances because she hoped to add momentum to a movement that would inoculate her young daughter against the indignities she’d experienced.
At first I was taken aback. Shocked. It seemed unimaginable that Cara or anyone else who knew the circumstances of the relationship would deem it #MeToo-worthy.
Now, however, after some soul-searching, I feel compelled to write this piece, not only as a personal mea culpa, but as a wake-up call to the cohort of other men who may find themselves in my position: shamed for the egregious liberties they took while in the thrall of a woman whose signals they misread.
And so, as a man entering his seventh decade and preparing to meet his ultimate judge, I shall hereby not only out myself as an adulterer, but also make a provocative confession: I forced myself on Cara throughout the duration of our yearlong affair. In #MeToo terms, I suppose, this is almost by definition. After all, Cara was barely 21 when we began seeing each other, and as Lewinsky revisionism has taught us, it’s unreasonable to expect a girl of that tender age to make clear-minded sexual decisions in the face of the irresistible temptation presented by men older than her father.[*]
But I digress. So let’s begin at the beginning. During the five months of Cara’s internship, she conducted herself with unerring class and reserve, even when she wore those leggings that looked as if they’d been purchased in order to eliminate the need to undress for gynecological exams. Typical was the day she sashayed into my office, propped her hands on her full hips and coolly mused that her next lover, “whoever the lucky SOB is,” would be Number 9. Nor, surely, was there any larger purpose to her mentioning one day as we perused page layouts that she’d gone on the pill, ‟because condoms are hardly foolproof, you know, and who doesn’t prefer skin against skin, anyway?” Thus when she called the week after leaving the company and suggested brightly that we have dinner to discuss what she wanted to do next, I had no reason to suppose it might be me.
On the night we’d arranged to meet in the city—we both lived some distance from the second-tier metropolis where we worked—she immediately signaled her lack of interest by showing up bra-less, her nipples like equidistant buoys in the silken sea of her beige blouse. The top was paired with a skirt so short that when she sat, it looked more like a slinky black bandanna tied around her nude pantyhose.
Together we strolled the downtown streets in the light rain, taking in the sights and sounds of city life in today’s America. She’d giggle her girlish giggle when she glanced up at me, and every so often bounce herself lightly off my hip as we walked. Ordinarily one might have thought we were sharing those small bonding moments that presage hot sex, but it strikes me now that no such inferences should’ve been drawn from Cara’s antics. If she giggled, it must’ve been because she thought me silly-looking; as for the hip-bouncing, she could’ve simply been itchy. Playing bear to my tree.
After a very nice dinner (one drink apiece) she clearly became quite concerned about me driving home on the slick roads, for she asked, “Are you staying in town tonight?” Yes, I told her, I’d booked a room. She smiled: the old guy will be safely ensconced for the night.
For some reason she accompanied me back to my hotel room (still giggling, still bouncing against my hip—a most persistent itch). We sat inches apart on the tufted settee, Cara staring deeply into my eyes, no doubt scanning for cataracts. Then she moved in closer—had she found something suspicious? A kiss ensued. Cara parted her lips, perhaps to blurt something in protest, for I felt her tongue moving. I met her tongue with my own, and then, predator that I am, placed a hand on her hip and grasped her firmly. We kissed configured like that for some moments until Cara canted her body towards me, leaned back against the plush arm of the settee, elevated and opened her legs, took my face in her hands and guided it downward under her bandanna, uh, skirt—a nonverbal gesture that must have been meant to say, if you think you’re going to be enjoying THIS tonight, forget about it, fella! Cloddishly misunderstanding, I tugged off her pantyhose and…well, you know. Moments later Cara had the first of two presumably indignant and ironic orgasms. The second time—by now moving astride me on the bed—she moaned, “Oh God, you have a wife, why are we doing this??”
Afterwards, Cara lay nestled into my shoulder, thereby keeping at least one of my arms pinned down, reducing the odds of further molestation. She looked at me soulfully and said, ‟I loved having you inside me. I’ve fantasized about it since the day I started working with you.ˮ Dullard that I am, I did not recognize her words as well-known feminist code for, “Get lost, rapist.ˮ
Over the course of the next year I went on to inflict trips on Cara that featured extravagant culinary experiences and must-see shows, sightseeing, moonlight walks, shopping jaunts. (She took me to lunch once and also presented me with a nice attaché case on my forty-sixth birthday; this of course balanced the scales for the thousands of dollars I was investing in the getaways that, I suppose, helped dissuade her from going to the police.) Needless to say, we spent our share of time in bed, those beds often situated in four-star hotels in resort areas of Scottsdale, Chicago, Orlando, suburban Washington, DC and other choice venues. We even watched a space shuttle launch from the roof of a Cocoa Beach boutique hotel (renowned for waking you up in the wee hours and herding everyone to the roof for the dramatic countdown). Back in our room, later, as dawn broke across the Florida horizon, Cara nearly broke my back straddling me, telling me she was too wound up to sleep.
Not desire, you see; just insomnia.
If I wondered at the time why a sexy young thang more than 25 years my junior would stay with me, I can only assume in light of her Facebook post that she was terrified of what might happen if she called it quits. Stockholm syndrome? And yet even back then, as the weeks raced into months and we approached our one-year anniversary, I could no longer hide from the awful truth: I’d taken a vulnerable 21-year-old, a naif who’d had a mere eight partners before me, and transformed her into a bona fide sex addict who grew surly if too much time elapsed between instances of Oh God you have a wife! If we were alone together and I so much as placed a hand mere millimeters above her knee she would snap, ‟Don’t tease me, Steve,ˮ and in short order there’d be a reprise of that action from that first night we met for dinner. I also think of the one or two road trips when she’d peel my right hand off the steering wheel and guide it into her pants and alongside the slick fabric of her panties.
The shame I feel in retrospect: a man of supposed maturity and bearing who, instead of focusing on getting us safely where we were going, let his gaze wander to the passenger seat, where his young companion was noisily coming.
* * *
But all of this sexual intrigue paled before the most unforgivable crime of all: I fell in love. (We men have this charming thing we do sometimes wherein we simply add a second love to our lives, rather than ending one relationship to begin another; we will do this even when married, regrettably.) This was an offense I compounded through fulsome expressions of my feelings, which of course worked to keep her bound to me out of a sense of duty or pity. I filled her pretty little ears with whispered compliments and her voicemail with endearments that no one could possibly think sincere, even though I was enchanted: with her unflappably cheerful demeanor, with her zealous attention to honing her own writing skills, with her growing ability to carry on extended conversation that, for savoir faire, rivaled talks I’d had with legendary editors. Cara thrilled me with her propensity for turning on a dime from sweet to sultry and back again—not that she ever spent much time off the sultry side of the dime.
As she prepared for her ambitious move to the epicenter of publishing, New York, I spent countless hours schooling her in the subtleties of the industry, thus efficiently sustaining her victimization by keeping her emotionally tethered to me. So committed was I to undermining her sense of self-sufficiency that I made myself available for her calls at all hours of day and night, even excusing myself from family events if she wanted to talk about some potential opportunity in her budding professional life. The calls came increasingly often as the big move approached: Who did I know in New York? Could I make some introductions? Could we walk through a mock job interview? We continued these mentoring sessions even during our final few romantic dinners—my psychological gamesmanship knew no bounds! What could have been more venal and manipulative than tipping the pianist in a pricey bistro to play a special song in Cara’s honor, then sitting back down at our table, taking her hands in mine and repeating, “I love you, baby…I love you..” as the sentimental music filled the air? If she was planning to cut the cord, I wasn’t going to make it easy for her, dammit!
But cut the cord she did, as unceremoniously as a busy obstetrician with golf plans. Just weeks after the move she called and told me in a very few words that she had ‟met someoneˮ more age-appropriate in New York. Undaunted, I became that most loathsome of clichés: the ex-boyfriend who couldn’t let go. My assault on Cara’s self-confidence continued when she’d call now and then for advice: I spent hours talking her through this or that workplace crisis, vindictively smacking her in the face with what she still didn’t know.
Her career trajectory was as steep and swift as I knew it would be. I began seeing little blurbs about her in which she was lavish in doling out credit for her meteoric progress—but always leaving out one name.
‟Not even a word about me?” I scolded the last time we spoke.
‟It’s embarrassing. Besides, I think you’re being pretty presumptuous. And if you’re going to be that way about it, I’d prefer that we not talk anymore.ˮ
‟OK. By the way, Cara, what number are you up to?”
Click.
* * *
So there you have it, my #MeToo mea culpa. Faithful to events as I recall them. Alas, faithful is a word that feels so very wrong in this context, in this piece. Certainly one could argue that as a middle-aged married guy fooling around with a girl less than half his age, I had it coming.
Then again, to listen to today’s women—and here I paraphrase that haunting Eastwood line from Unforgiven—we’ve all got it coming.
[*] This, by the way, calls for a wholesale rethinking of DUI laws. How can we plausibly hold 21-year-old women responsible for driving while drunk if they’re not even responsible for fucking while sober?