Chapter 45

Harold loved Emily. He felt she was his closest friend, his playmate, his soul mate. He found he could tell her anything. They would come home from work and talk for hours. On this particular evening Emily had gotten home late. The experiment had run over and the downloading to backup disks had not been finished until nine. She made it home by nine thirty and Harold was sitting in the den reading. Robert was in bed already. Harold always changed into shorts and a tee shirt after running. It made him look like he was about to exercise. She loved to see his bare arms and legs but never told him that.

Harold had made dinner and they sat and talked for an hour over the tortellini and mixed veggies. Harold was a survival cook. He had lived for years without starving. Nothing he made would ever win a prize, but no one had ever gone hungry or ended up in the ER from his cooking. He had several of his favorite thirty minute dishes. The ingredients were always kept frozen. He would nuke them into submission, spice them into palatability, and voila-edible grub in less than thirty minutes. Such was the dinner tonight.

They didn't watch television with dinner. Harold just couldn't get into modern TV fare. In a given week, the average American has sex three times and murders no one. If you have sex irresponsibly, you are sentenced to change 5000 diapers and go to PTA meetings. If you murder someone, you either have to buy your way out of it or spend the next few years learning how to make license plates. But there are 100's of murders a week on TV and not even one nude person. Each of us actually carries a concealed nude person under our clothes every day, all of the time. Some of those concealed nude bodies are pretty serious weapons. If you carry a concealed gun, it's a crime. If you don't conceal your naked body it is a crime. But if you show a child hundreds of brutal rapes and murders, it is entertainment. If you show them nudity or two people making love, it is child abuse. Harold would certainly have watched TNT's all nude news channel, Tits N Tushes and News too! They just didn't have it, so he just didn't watch it.

After the dishes had been dumped in the sink to soak, Harold and Emily went to bed. They didn't believe in TV or pajamas in the master bed room. They usually ended up talking or laughing more than anything else, but this evening there was some heavy breathing, autonomic dischange followed by relaxed nerves. In the wonderful after-glow, Emily asked one of those questions that is asked only after one is truly comfortable with a mate.

"Harold, how did you end up being thirty and single?"

"Oh, that was quite easy. No one would date me."

Emily withdrew a bit from the skin to skin embrace to get him into focus, as if she couldn't believe the answer.

"Let me clarify that. No one would even consider dating me."

"Come on. Good looks, great body, brains. The women must have gone nuts."

"You are obviously objective." He bit her nipple playfully. "No, really. It was tough to get them to talk to me. I always felt I had really bad body odor or something. I spent jillions on anti-perspirant and soap before I realized that wasn't it. I thought for a while that I had some awful physical deformity like a piece of broccoli stuck to my forehead. I looked and looked but it wasn't obvious."

"I haven't noticed anything truly repulsive about you." Emily snuggled in closer trying to get 92% body surface contact rather than 91%.

"You say the nicest things." Harold kissed her on the forehead. "I really never understood it. I would look at a woman. Think, oh wow! And then realize she would never tolerate me. Women spend a tremendous amount of time, money, and energy being attractive to men. As soon as a man is attracted, one of three things happens. They are offended, enraptured with a Neanderthal, or shocked that you could express interest."

"Women don't spend all that effort trying to be attractive to men. They spend it to compete with other women. The fact that men are driven nuts by it is merely an irritating side effect. You notice that many women's fashions are not particularly flattering or attractive to men. They are merely purchased in the continual competition between members of the same sex for members of the opposite sex." Emily ran her fingers through his hair. "We don't want to succeed in attracting a male to the point of mating, just drive you guys nuts in the competition."

"I thought those clothes were designed by men who were interested in other men and wanted women to just be uncomfortable." Harold smiled at her then kissed her on the nose.

"That too, but those muted earth tones, padded shoulders, mid thigh, power clothes are supposed to let a woman compete with other women." Emily rolled over into the spoon position.

"They never made me particularly hot under the collar." Harold sat up a bit and kissed her breasts. "The most important thing I learned in high school was that no matter what you fantasize about, no woman is ever going to call you on the phone and invite you out. A male must take the initiative or else. Without a male making the moves, nothing ever happens. He is left high and dry. With initiative, a male gets dumped on over and over and over. It's a tough job finding a mate but persistence is the key."

"You found me."

"Yeah, but it took 17 years of searching though chafe to find the right piece of wheat."

Emily rolled over again and bit Harold on the lip.

"Hey watch it. You'll make me die of low blood pressure in the rest of my body."

"Oh, goody."

Chapter 46

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