The Reluctant Master - 21. Chapter 21

Prof

From Alan: Do you live in Cedar Rapids or Iowa City? Or neither? I got the idea you were a businessman who lived in the Quad Cities and traveled a triangle whose two far points were Cedar Rapids and Iowa City.

From Prof: No, I teach in IC, but I travel sometimes.

From Alan: At the university? You were probably there when I was. I’ve got a couple of grad degrees.

From Prof: I came to UI 18 years ago. Was at UM for a half-dozen years, then wandered a bit.

From Alan: Michigan or Minnesota? Or Manitoba, for that matter.

From Prof: Or Maine.

From Alan: Which?

From Prof: Minnesota. Too cold for me there.

From Alan: I was in Michigan. Got a grad degree from there, too.

From Prof: How many do you have?

From Alan: Four. Undergrad and grad in English. Doctorate in Education then another Masters in Public Administration.

From Prof: Why?

From Alan: Makes me more competitive.

From Prof: And you like to compete.

From Alan: I like the money – in a field that doesn’t have a lot.

From Prof: Teaching?

From Alan: Oh, yeah.

From Prof: What level?

From Alan: High school. I always figured I’d have a university career in a place like Iowa City. Instead, I ended up with this. But it’s as interesting.

From Prof: There are times I wonder why anyone would live anywhere besides Iowa City, though it’s also a good place to leave.

From Alan: I was born and raised here. Ran away for college. Stayed away for grad school the first time. Came back because it was the best job offered in a tight market. But I never expected to stay. I did my other degrees while I was teaching, figuring they were my way out.

From Prof: And?

From Alan: I kept getting promoted. I may make superintendent before I’m 50.

From Prof: And then?

From Alan: I don’t know. Run for governor.

From Prof: You’re kidding?

From Alan: Half. Maybe three-quarters. Seems like a restful retirement career.

From Prof: LOL.

From Alan: Yeah.

From Prof: My younger son is headed toward politics. He’s at NYU now, intending to become a New Yorker. Full circle – I was born there.

From Alan: Now there’s a couple of surprises: you’re from New York, and you have kids. So do I. Are you still married? I am. So that would be something

From Prof: Yes still married, though I also have a boyfriend of 30 yrs standing, though out of state. Now my wife and I are empty-nesters and dealing with that. And I was born in New York when my parents were in grad school, but they soon took jobs in Illinois. So I’m a faculty brat myself. And when you first said you taught English I fantasized that you might be the adorable unmarried English teacher my kids had in high school.

From Alan: It’s been a long time since I’ve been described as adorable though I sometimes still look that way in pictures. I guess I should send you one.

From Prof: Cute.

From Alan: Maybe. Till you realize I’m six-one and used to being in charge. And I was probably married soon after you were, so sorry to destroy both your fantasies at once. Still, I’m very impressed that you’re both married and have maintained a long-standing relationship for 30 years. Those are the things I like to hear

From Prof: It’s almost an accident. If you’d told us it would happened when we were 19 we’d have said you were full of shit. But we just keep seeing each other, and it rarely gets old.

From Alan: I’m totally jealous.

From Prof: Isn’t life grand? There’s the hetero family model that we all accept and then there’s the reality of what people do and maybe have always done. Myths are socially very useful in their way to provide a center, as long as they aren’t used to bash people. And there’s nothing wrong with being a thug. Guys in charge sometimes have very pretty wives – whose sons ARE adorable, so...

From Alan: I’m not really a thug. At least, I hope not.

From Prof: Ah, a gentle giant. And my longstanding relationships aren’t perfect but my marriage has been happy about 80% of the time. I’m going through a bad patch with the 30-yr bf, which is one of the reasons I occasionally cruise on web sites.

From Alan: So you’ve largely had sex with him and your wife.

From Prof: Yeah, no pun meant, but I can only juggle so many balls.

From Alan: Funny.

From Prof: And I’m not always fair to everyone, but there it is. Just the way the personalities clicked. Part of it has been my wife’s willingness to accept him, which is very unusual. And I’m off to Chicago and the opera for the weekend.

From Alan: That’s even more interesting – that your wife and lover know about each other and accept that. I’ve often wondered how much my wife knows, though I try to be extremely careful. I’m afraid talking about it might upset the balance. And enjoy windy Chicago – I’m glad you enjoy opera.. Even when forced to go, it’s all incomprehensible screaming to me.

From Prof: This was perhaps even worse (or maybe better?), as it was Handel’s Julius Caesar, so Baroque. And not so much screaming, but countertenors, so a lot of higher ranges, and 5 hours in the theater (incl intermissions). But it was terrific--the best Julius Caesar I have seen.
Yes, wife and lover well acquainted--he comes to visit, has known the kids since they were newborns.

From Alan: You picked a great weekend to travel. Hope you avoided the storm.

From Prof: Thanks, no problems. Got into the city ahead of the storm on Fri night, and it was all melted by the time I went home Sunday. The hike back down Michigan Ave on Sat was a challenge as the Windy City lived up to its name with snow as well.

From Alan: And I guess there’s another one headed our way.

From Prof: It’s hard to tell anymore where its chancier to live, huh? This is not really unseasonal, tho the ice is a little strange in December--that’s March weather. Followed by tornado season. The ski folks in the Cascades must be happy. My problem is that I didn’t get back in time to scrape the sidewalk before the cold hit and froze it solid, so folks just have to walk on top of the snow till next weekend

From Alan: Lovely afternoon. I had the house to myself and played with myself on-and-off for six hours, only coming twice. Might have tried to come a third time but wanted to make sure I could make love tonight if my wife wanted. She didn’t, though that would have been really greedy of me.

From Prof: I envy you both the leisure and the ability to cum 3x in a day. Well, OK, I can still do that, but it’s not quite what it was.

From Alan: It was kind of a stunt for me, too. I was home fielding phone calls on a long hoped for project, so was nervously waiting. It the most obvious way to distract and relax myself.

From Prof: To every cloud, a silver lining...

From Alan: There have been fortunately few clouds in my life, especially since I got married. It made me grow up. As for sex: I was reminded in the middle of having it how busy my wife and I have become. We often make love after a long day of work, but that means it never stretches beyond a pleasant half-hour. My stunt today takes me way back to earlier times. And how are things going with your partner in Chicago? And can your wife and his wife help smooth out the empty nests? I hope so. All those relationships seem too solid and long-standing to end. Is his wife as supportive as yours?

From Prof: Male partner is not in Chicago, but Ohio – we meet in Chicago often as a halfway point. And he isn’t married – it’s just me, or I thought it was just me, but it turns out there was someone else for a rather long time and a lot of lies told. If the truth is now being told that has ended, but I am still hurting. My own moral position in this is very complex, of course, so I’m struggling still to figure out what reasonable reactions should be, as opposed to what my real reactions are.

From Alan: It doesn’t matter what lies were told on his end, of course, and it doesn’t matter that the relationship was shared with your wife at your end; you were still emotionally involved, so you’re still going to be hurt. And it takes a long time to get over suddenly discovering changes – or lies – in a 30-year relationship. Maybe you’ll never get past them. I hope you can. Also, by now, your friendship might be more important than the sex. You seem to be able to find that without driving to Chicago. And, oh, yeah, I keep meaning to tell you that obviously there are easier ways to write than through this site. I just don’t know how well protected you need to be.

From Prof: I prefer to keep to this means of conversation for the time being anyway. Partly because when looking at the other email boxes I’m working, whereas this is time off and fun. And the 30 yr relationship is not close to an end, but it isn’t the same as it was, for me anyway. And yes, sex can be found much closer than Chicago.

Alan: Glad the relationship is continuing, but I’m not sure any relationship as complicated as yours could stay the same over 30 years. I told you how amazed I was that it’s lasted at all. I still see several former partners, now friends, and there’s one I have to be very careful around, so we don’t quickly end up naked. But that’s mainly sex, which we were both pretty good at. He unfortunately never was the kind of person I could live with every day. And this site’s fine for writing. I was just giving you an option. Didn’t want to seem rude.

From Prof: Not rude at all, just easier to talk here about things like ending up naked. It’s true that over 30 years things aren’t going to stay the same, and it’s also true that I don’t know if he and I could have lived together all that time. But it turns out my wife and I are people who can live together day to day. If there hadn’t been children, I’m not so sure the marriage would have lasted, but I’m also not sure it wouldn’t have.

From Alan: Yeah, well, if I’d known in my early 20s what I’ve learned later, I might have done things differently. But the world has also changed to accommodate that. But I could have occasional sex with guys and still be in love with my wife and be 99% faithful. And I suppose I could still be in love with a guy and be 99% faithful to him and still have occasional sex with women. I guess I find that being in any relationship has the same conditions. It all depends how you set them. And in your case, with your wife always and already knowing, there’s no sneaking around. But when did you explain it to your sons, or did they just understand?

From Prof: My sons "don’t know," by which I mean whatever they have figured out we haven’t discussed. As with a lot of kids in this generation they are cool with homosexuality though not interested themselves, as far as I can tell.

From Alan: I guess the questions are when did your sons figure out that you and your wife have a very sophisticated marriage, and when did they realize it didn’t concern them? Sounds like you’ve raised them very well.

From Prof: Actually, I don’t know the answer to that, or what they may or may not know (neither does my wife.) What I do know is that some fairly explicit pix I downloaded from the internet and stashed in a folder on the family computer a couple of years ago disappeared. I thought maybe I had gotten rid of them and forgotten, but a second batch disappeared too, so SOMEONE was playing censor and I’m pretty sure it wasn’t my wfe...

From Alan: Maybe your sons were afraid they’d accidentally downloaded some gay porn when they were downloading the straight variety for themselves, so they defensively deleted it. Or maybe they were just trying to protect your wife. Maybe they know about you but don’t know that she knows. There’s something sweet about them being protective of you both. Or maybe it was simply "Mission Impossible" porn that self-deleted after 24 hours. Now that’s a franchise I’d like to own.

From Prof: The second possibility is one I hadn’t thought of. Could be. Anyhow, I’ve learned to cover my tracks better!

From Alan: I’m getting really forgetful, and I always was absent-minded – it’s why I’m happy to be an administrator now, not teach. It’s a different process. And my wife, our daughters, and I have a handful of computers, but we usually stick to our own. Still, I never write anything personal outside this site, and I store some information here. I’m afraid I wouldn’t remember to delete what needed to be otherwise. As for your sons knowing: there was a funeral of an older colleague several years ago, when his wife and partner were both present. The partner was actually far more emotionally upset than the wife, but the people who were really angry were the two grown kids, a man and woman in their 40s. They didn’t know about the partner, and they were furious about the fact their mother knew and never minded. And they really resented still being treated as kids.

From Prof: Yes, I could see that reaction, but my kids know the bf so well (and he’s 63 now, so we’re moving on to a new phase of things) that I wonder how much of a surprise there would be. I got on this site to cruise but it’s been pleasant to find its got a "pen pal" aspect as well.

From Alan: 63, well, that changes things a bit. I thought your partner was your age – 50 – and you’d met in grad school. Looks like I got school part right, and I’m guessing that’s where you met your wife. But I’m also guessing your partner was your former teacher, or at least a teacher. Still, his being slightly older changes things as he ages. When I was in my late 30s, I was involved for a year with a guy almost 15 years younger. But no matter how much we liked each other, we knew we couldn’t last. Our bodies weren’t fairly matched, and don’t even mention our shifting interests. That seems like what’s happened with your partner.

From Prof: You’re pretty perceptive. And yes and no. He has this thing for young guys which I stopped being after awhile, but until most recently that hasn’t gotten in the way of sex. What HAS gotten in the way is simple aging plus my own disappointment at what happened (yes, he was involved with a younger guy, also a student/former student). Whereas I am actually attracted to older men, which now means roughly 60 – his age. Though I have to say the scenery at the University gym is most appealing and sometimes breathtaking.

From Alan: Yep, I played basketball in high school and college, but I still didn’t have the kind of body some guys do nowadays. But the problem with all of us, younger, is we look great but often don’t have a lot interesting to say. I was recently working on an extended project with a mixed group of people in their late-twenties and early-thirties, and I’d forgotten how unhappy and unsettled they can be. I’m sure we were as well, though I remember at my 20th high school reunion how competitive people still were. My parents assure me that in another dozen years, people will calm down, at least their friends did. They’d either gotten to where they wanted or realized they were was pretty much where they were going and were reconciled with it.

From Prof: Years ago, when I was in my early 20s, my mother said she would never want to go through that period of life again, and I now understand why. For me it was grad school and coming out and deciding about where marriage should go, then junior professorship and the mendicant scholar’s life of publish or perish. But I know my brother, who’s in sales, had it even more stressful and until recently has continued to have the stress. Actually, finding the person to talk to is the major challenge even now. I think that’s one important reason why I’m still with my wife and bf despite all the reasons things should have broken up. But if I can exercise and watch the scenery without having to talk to it, what the hell?

From Alan: Something to distract you from the routine of the gym.

From Prof: Now here’s a tech question: can you tell me how to embed images in a message on this system? I can’t figure it out.

From Alan: First, you have to upload the photo. Do that the same way you upload your general photos. Then, when you write a message like this one, click on Attach Photos. The real question is, "Who are you sending the pictures to?"

From Prof: A guy I met in Chicago while working at a local research library. He wanted a face shot which I’m not comfortable having on the site, but would like to be able to send sometimes.

From Alan: That’s why I’ve never asked you for your picture.

From Prof: I’ll send you one later.

From Alan: Thanks.

From Prof: But that better not end our conversation. You’re much better looking than I am.

From Alan: So you think. But that’s not what matters.

From Prof: You’re right. I should know that by now.

From Alan: And I’m hoping this turns into another of your 30 year friendships. Though not a relationship.

From Prof: Yes, and no, respectively. That would be great.