Hi darling J, so you’ve decided you’re going to have an affair. How exciting. Remembering how you looked when I last saw you, it's what you need. Whoever you have it with, he’s a lucky guy, I wish it could be me.
Let me tell you something, darling J, I only mention it because as the years go by women seem to doubt their sexual attractiveness, well, your magnetism’s as powerful as ever, you looked to me just as you did as a student. I wish I’d been less reticent when I was with you in Australia, I’d have given you as much cunnilingus as you wanted, the thought now gives me an erection.
The crucial thing about marriage, at least for me, probably for a lot of people, is that doesn’t go with sex. Sex is transitory, intense, chaotic, desperate. Sex is about discovery and excitement. Marriage is none of those things. Marriage is about steadiness and reliability and durability. Which makes it annoying that they’re so yoked together.
Maybe it made sense in bygone times. Marital fidelity would matter if we still had primogeniture, restricted social reach, high mortality. When marriages lasted about seven years before one or other died, faithfulness might have been achievable, maybe that’s why the seven-year itch kicks in when it does.
But now it's all different. Now we have contraception and women’s emancipation and social networking. You’d think that ideas of fidelity would update themselves.
But still, what I find surprising, J, is that marriage itself stays worthwhile. For me anyway. Sharing the lifelong narrative. Laughing at old jokes, remembering old things. The time the cat went missing and turned up days later in the laundry basket. Getting up early together to watch a spacecraft return. Holding hands to comfort one another at a friend’s child’s funeral. Do without those small things, you start to go crazy. Tiny reference points for sanity.
And of course, the big thing, if you’re going to have children, they need the steadiness and reliability and durability too. Marriage is very good for them.
That’s what I think, J. It’s not that marriage doesn’t matter, it’s that it matters a lot. Too much to be shackled to sex. Because in fact sex doesn’t matter at all. It’s like a meal, you eat it, you savor it, you enjoy it, you get vital nutrients from it, but then it’s gone.
And when we see each other again, J, we can take a break from the cunnilingus to raise a toast, to the glorious transitoriness of sex.
Stay well, darling J, and stay your beautiful self. Love, R, xx.
