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The Monday after that Saturday night “break up,” I got a brief e-mail from her: “My dear, you were so out of sorts Saturday evening, and I feel I contributed to it. Write and tell me how you’re doing.”

Fuck you, Millie, was my gut reaction to that email.  I didn’t answer it.

I sat down at the dining room table with my beading tools Tuesday evening and restrung the four broken necklaces that Millie had given me Friday evening when she and her son were over for dinner. As per her request, I also made a matching pair of earrings harvested from beads from one of the necklaces. I sat at that damn table for 3 and a half hours and got the job finished. I packed the repaired necklaces up in a box, threw in the paperback novel I had borrowed and not read, and then bleary-eyed and weary, wrote the following brief letter to put in with it:

July 10, 2007

Dear Millie,
Thank you for the pleasure of your company during the past few months. My life has been richer and happier for the experiences that our relationship has brought me during that time. I felt at peace with myself and my life, smiled a lot more often, and had feelings blossoming inside me in a way that I hadn’t felt in quite the same way before.

I talked a lot about these feelings with Dave, my life-long partner and soulmate. I never talked about these feelings with you because I wasn’t sure what direction our relationship was going to take. You’ve had so much going on – both with things and with a variety of people – that I didn’t want to add to the complexities of your life. Your life and all its components hasn’t seemed like a very stable place right now, and I didn’t trust myself to get deeply involved too quickly.

For now, I was content to spend time with you, get to know you, and see if our relationship was pointed in a direction that might foster that trust and closeness. It’s obviously not going in that direction. As you said, something is missing from your life, and I’m not providing what you need. So, continue your search. I hope you find what you’re seeking, what gives your life meaning and happiness. Take care,
Kinsey

I tossed that in the mailbox Wednesday morning and felt as though I had achieved a small amount of closure. I resisted the (faint) urge to say anything to the e-mail she wrote late Wednesday night before receiving the package and the note I had written the night before.  I felt that the note in the package said all I really needed to say, and she’d receive it Thursday.  Her Wednesday email said:

“Well, I know you’re alive because I see you’re on line at Fastcupid.

If you are mad at me I’d like to know what I did. If you just don’t want to talk to me, well, I can’t exactly make you, but it was never my intention to drive you away. I’m sorry if I’m confused or not so clear about things in my life as you are.

You said something Saturday night that started to make things make more sense to me. You told me that you talked to Dave about our relationship. I’ve felt for a while that the idea of what was between us was much more developed for you then for me, but I couldn’t figure out why. Really we’ve only talked about it a bit that first night at my place.

Maybe we got involved too fast, I don’t know. Sometimes it doesn’t seem like we have much in common. But then there are times when we’ve really had fun, so I don’t know. Maybe I just need to talk more then you do

So, please let me know where we stand.

Millie

She was surprised that I talked to Dave about our relationship??  She knew we have an open and honest relationship.  Why wouldn’t I have talked to him?  OF COURSE I talked to him about my sexual involvement with her!  From Day One!  Duh!

She couldn’t figure out why the relationship was more “developed” for me than for her because we hadn’t talked about it beyond the evening of that first sexual encounter??  Well, we’re two different people, for one.  Two people don’t always follow the same path.  What’s to figure?  And talking about it or not talking about it doesn’t change the inferences that are there because of other outward  nonverbal behaviors, such as hugging, kissing, holding hands, having sex, noticing the ”gleam” in a partner’s eyes!  Does not talking about it ensure that nothing serious develops for one party or the other in light of those behaviors?  I’m not sure where she was coming from with this comment.  It seems like a very naive position from a woman who has allegedly had a lot of experience.   

I could have told her a lot regarding where we stand and why, and why what she said to me Saturday evening “drove me away,” whether it was her intention or not. Basically, if you’re wondering outloud what you have in common with someone, you wonder why you’re in the relationship, you’re musing that it’s not providing what you need, then WHY ARE YOU SPENDING TIME WITH THIS PERSON!!?? I never pressured her in any way to go out with me. I was never the one who said, “Take me to bed.” I was never the one who said, “Let’s go snuggle for a bit…” I was the one who said on the evening of that very first sexual encounter in May, “I don’t want to rush into this. I want to make sure we’re on the same page with this first.”

She replied, “I don’t do one-night stands, and I don’t get involved lightly.” I took her at her word.

And this week in July was the last time I had any contact or any words with Millie.

Prior to last night.