Heaven’s Gate
44 Topic for Discussion
“Papa, do you always talk to La Madrina?” Matthew asked as I cut slices of melon at the counter. Whenever I was at home with Casa del Agua, my son seemed to join me in the kitchen to listen to me talk to Hannah.
“Do you mean all the time or every morning?” I asked. He puzzled that one for a minute.
“In the morning.”
“Yes. I have almost since the first time I met her.”
“La Madrina is special. Do you talk to anyone else?” I nodded my head to both comments.
“Yes. I talk to all the people who are special in my life.”
“Like Aunt Whitney?”
“Yes, son. Aunt Whitney is very far away and I miss her very much. I often talk to her and tell her I love her.”
“Does she hear you?” Wow. My son was full of questions today.
“Matthew, when we talk to people in our heads or when they aren’t around, they can’t really hear us with their ears. I think, though, that at some level they hear us in their hearts. They know we are thinking of them and telling them we love them and hoping they stay safe. When we talk to them, it isn’t the same as being with them, but it reminds us how much we care for them.”
“I talk to Ellie.”
“That’s good. Ellie is your friend.”
“She’s my compañera. I talk to her before I go to sleep at night.”
I didn’t know what to say about that. I needed to have a chat with Larry and Theresa.
“Do you talk to me, Papa?”
“All the time, son. Every time I think of you I say ‘I love you.’ And I think of you a lot. And all my children. C-Rae and Xan and Céleste. You are all precious to me.”
“I hear you in my heart.”
I rinsed my tears off the melon.
For all of us, August was a month of getting ready for big things. For one thing, Josh and I had been preparing Cassie and Mary for motherhood and they missed their August periods. None of us were saying anything yet, of course, but there was a lot of jumping up and down and onto our cocks. Just to make sure.
We celebrated all the August birthdays and Liz started her third trimester, healthy and happy.
And we planned and prepped for our new season of shows and Nikki’s new book tour. She was being feted in New York the weekend after Labor Day and would then fly back to Indy to appear on Chick Chat. Then she’d be off to San Francisco, Seattle, and Denver. She had appearances and signings in Minneapolis, Chicago, Detroit, Philadelphia, and Boston. Then out to Providence for a huge party at the University. She would do a loop south through DC, Richmond, Atlanta, and Tampa. Then she’d fly home to Indy and appear on XX/XY the last week of September.
I was okay with her book tour. Every place she went, she would have a driver/host who would make sure she got to her hotel, was fed, and got to the bookstore or television station or radio station. What I wasn’t completely okay with was that she was taking six months pregnant Liz with her as her ‘secretary’. I was worried about all kinds of things everyone assured me were no problem. It’s just that I’ve always had this insane protectiveness toward my pregnant women. I guess not just the ones pregnant with my children, but all the pregnant women on the ranch.
I’d just have to deal with it. I wasn’t going to object to Liz going with Nikki on this book tour any more than I had objected to the two of them motorcycling around the country. And I was in a state of near panic the whole time they were gone.
They left. Whitney began her second temporary assignment—to Turkey, for God’s sake! She was assigned to the embassy which I found out wasn’t in Istanbul, but in Turkey’s capitol, Ankara. I didn’t know that was the capitol of Turkey, or that Turkey was a perennially disappointed applicant to join the European Union. Damn! It sounded like she was being sent into a war zone. I heard a fair amount about Kurds being relocated to southern Turkey and knew that having Marines at the embassy left them only a step from the border with Iraq. In Whitney’s phone call the day they shipped out, she told me not to worry. Embassy duty was a breeze.
And then I had to go on stage, in front of an audience, in front of cameras, and be lively and entertaining. Fuck!
ME: Let’s talk about seduction. I’m of the opinion that seduction is not a bad thing. In fact, it is one of the fun games that couples play to heighten their anticipation of being together. You might think that our principles of ‘no pressure’ and ‘always have permission’ would rule out the idea of a seduction, but that’s not true. All that we require is that the couple have permission and that ‘No’ is always honored.
I see some women in the audience who are squirming a little, so let’s reverse the roles. Women, let’s talk about how to seduce a man.
I know. You are all saying, ‘What’s to seduce? Offer and a man is yours.’ How boring. Guys never get to play hard to get. They don’t dare! There’s always the chance and likelihood that they will lose the opportunity. Let’s set up the rules for seducing a man. There are rules for both the man and the woman. I’ll try to knock you on the head when one applies to you.
Rule one is for women. You need to understand that men are dense. They are not likely to recognize an invitation to seduction unless you print it out and read it to them. I received an invitation to a seduction not long ago. I wandered around in a fog for a week, not knowing what to expect. It was done in calligraphy, but clear enough that my little brain could make out all the letters. Don’t make it hard on the guy to understand the invitation.
What’s on the invitation? Date and time, of course. Specifically, who is invited. You don’t want a guy showing up with a bunch of his buddies or with his baby sister. “This invitation is for one admission, only.” And it should specify who is doing the inviting. Ladies, do not send the invitation from a ‘secret admirer.’ The object of your affection will suffer from complete brain freeze. If he is in a relationship with you or someone else, he will wonder if he dares to accept this invitation. It could be from his girlfriend, but it might be from someone else and he’d be cheating. If he is not in a relationship, he might have designs on someone and assume the invitation is from her and not you. Do not lay traps. Tell him outright.
Now you don’t have to guarantee the seduction. It’s good if you have an occasion that merits the invitation. It could be as simple as celebrating the end of the school year, or could be something intensely personal, like the three-month anniversary of your first kiss. But let him know that seduction is on the agenda. My invitation suggested that I dress in clothes I would like to be seduced in.
Gentlemen. Do not show up naked! If you are invited to a seduction, it is not an invitation for you to be the aggressor. I am dressed today in the clothes I went to my seduction dinner in. Let me point out that I am completely and properly clothed. However, acting on the advice of my designer and his team, everything has an easy escape route. The laces on the shirt are easily untied or slipped out of the eyelets. The trousers have a Velcro closure. I’ve heard some women love a man in a western shirt because they like to pull and have the snaps all pop open. For Pete’s sake, talk about it!
And remember, men. You are the seducee, not the seducer. Do not try to take over the role. Fellas, she invited you to be seduced. The only possible way this can go wrong is if you screw it up!
We had a good time and a lot of laughs. I even had a couple come up and role-play a seduction, then had Georgia LaCrosse, a local etiquette advisor, critique their performance and offer suggestions. I had an actress from a local theatre company read Colette’s menu for a seduction in Claudine à Paris. I once did a demo of the menu on Miss Polly’s show. With Whitney. Damn.
Still, it was a great start to the new season.
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