The Sportin' Life Read Online Free PDF Page B

marriage became an open marriage in which we were both free to be with other parties, and she didn ’ t seem to care either way. Women never have any ethics. No matter what the story is at the beginning, all they seem to want is to be with me on any terms. Then, later on they get mad at me because I ’ m not exclusive or theirs permanently or whatever the circumstances.
    I told Liana about my meeting with Paula. I thought she ’ d laugh as she had at all my other women stories, but she watched me silently in such a strange, intense way, and didn ’ t even smile about the open marriage joke or anything. I realize later that this story was happening in the present tense while all the others had been in the past tense and perhaps that was what got to her. I felt bad as I was telling it, seeing the flicker of pain in her clear eyes. Most women would have gotten angry, I guess, which is why I never tell them any of my stories, but Liana stayed calm. I reached for her hand as we walked down the street and she gave it to me for a moment but then pulled it away and put it in her pocket as though she were cold, not rejecting me. There was a long silence, and I know I felt awkward. Finally she spoke, “ It ’ s OK, Kevin, I understand. You ’ re telling me, ‘ This is what I am. ’” But there was more pain than love in her eyes and she did nothing to shield me from the naked vision of her soul that her eyes always revealed so uncompromisingly.
    I don ’ t know what I felt after that, but we continued seeing each other for quite some time, and I knew that Liana still loved me as much as she ever did because she was the kind of person who would have ended it herself if her feelings had changed. I had Paula to divert me, though, and she was fun. All she ever wanted was sex and stroking, and I like those things very much.
    I would arrive at her apartment for a date to find her snuggled naked on the couch waiting for me. I never saw her actually dressed except for the night we met. No matter how many times I told her I liked to go out, Paula didn ’ t care, because she wanted just to stay at home and make love. I told her that I like undressing a woman, that she was depriving me of that pleasure by never bothering to get dressed in the first place but she shrugged and indicated that all took up too much time.
    After sex I would try to talk to her about my work, about my life, my career, the issues I struggled with daily. She would lie next to me happily cosseted in my arms and seem to be listening, but she never asked a question and in no way did any of her comments indicate that she comprehended anything at all that I was saying. It was then that I longed for Liana, because Liana had a way of really listening and becoming involved in what I was saying, of asking thought provoking question and offering insights into my problems. I guess I was a fool to trade her in, but where could we really have gone from where we were?
    I look back at my childhood and wonder whatever will become of the American family. Mine was average, no more dismal than any other, but still it was not filled with the small layer of satisfaction and deep happiness that the filmmakers promise. My parents were married their whole lives. I think that my mother never slept with a man other than my father. I don ’ t think that she slept with him either. He slept with anything that moved and I think she liked it that way so she had an excuse to reject him. They stayed together but she felt nothing more than disdain for him and I think it was her anger and disappointment over her circumstances that ultimately caused her death. Of course doctors have other terms to describe it, but I saw the reality of her life, not the pathology of her body.
    In our house it was the worst thing in the world to be likened to Dad. I still blush at the memory of someone innocently comparing me to my father, for I had learned that was no compliment. When my mother would intone, “