Free The Sportin' Life by Nancy Frederick Page A

found the woman who would be my mate forever.
    Finally we made love, and it was almost as good as it had been so many time in so many fantasies. And at the end I felt totally satisfied and at peace. I know most women think that men always feel totally satisfied after every sexual encounter, because sex is usually defined by the man ’ s cycle of arousal and climax, but that just isn ’ t so. I can reach orgasm and still feel itchy and distracted and tense, not at all nourished and satisfied in the way that really close sex with an essential emotional undertone can provide. And despite the fact that I have had so many women, there are still only a handful that linger in my mind as the special partners with whom I felt that sense of completion and peace. Imagine if I could take a week out of my life and rotate that handful of women so that each night I could have one of them, and then imagine the cumulative happiness that would build as a result of so many perfect nights of passion with so many perfect partners. It would be astonishing.
    I was happy, and it was good to have Holly beside me in bed, naked and warm and open. I stretched my arm out to cradle her head and she snuggled down into my embrace like a puzzle piece falling into place. We lay there talking about everything and nothing. I told her about moving here from New York and I asked her about her plans for the future. Holly said she liked working as a temp because it gave her a chance to meet people. She thought that one day she might discover a job that she would like to have permanently, but if not it didn ’ t really matter, because the thing she wanted more than anything else was to fall in love, get married, and raise a family. She didn ’ t really have any career urges and she didn ’ t have a need to be liberated.
    I looked at her clear, fresh face, and I listened to her talk. It was like a trip back in time, and in a way it was refreshing. Imagine being married to a woman who wanted to be married rather than one who expected you to wash the dishes because she had legal briefs to read. Imagine having a woman who was happy to stay at home and to focus on your needs instead of demanding that you be some modern, liberated equal partner version of a man, whether or not you made the real money. Imagine a woman soft and sweet, someone without that hard, sophisticated edge. That could be wonderful. I could come home at night to her and tell her all about my day, and she would want to listen because my day would be important to her, and all her days would be pretty much the same. Her days would focus around me and my homecomings. And if I were stressed out at night, she would rub my back, happy to care for me and filled with the serenity of a woman who has the freedom to stay at home and retreat from the chaos of the real world. She could be like a soft nest of security and love into which I could sink.
    More and more I began to think that Holly was the woman for me, and so I was extra attentive, because I wanted to insure that she would feel the same, if I did decide to fall in love with her. She became my steady date. Every weekend I would plan something wonderful to do with Holly. Because she lived at home with her parents and because I was still bunking with Lou, we had to go to a hotel, and that gave us the chance to explore the Los Angeles area, and in a sense to have a honeymoon every Saturday night. Each weekend we would go somewhere different, and each time I tried to make the setting more romantic than the previous one. Sometimes we would start on a Friday and then we would have the whole weekend together, although that was rare, because I like to ease into togetherness and not overwhelm myself or my partner too much at first.
    I called Holly every day, and it would improve my mood each morning to talk to her and to hear the warmth and affection she felt for me. I would try to time my calls to just before lunch so that I could carry those feelings out