Bette’s Affairs

A Bawdy Story

Bette kept her private life as distant as possible from her professional life as a psychotherapist. When one of her patients attempted to ask Bette a personal question instead of focusing on her questions to them, Bette nipped the attempt in a nanosecond, with a no-nonsense penetrating stare followed an appropriate silence. “You want me to help you? Then focus on my questions to you,” she responded sternly immediately after the patient’s faux pas.

Like several of Bette’s female patients, she did not care much for the concept of matrimony or even monogamous relationships. Consequently, she had few qualms of sleeping around, as long as details of her affairs were not also spread around. In sum, she was careful with whom she dated and even more cautious with those with whom she slept. Living in a large city granted her a modicum of privacy. The men she dated were similar to her as single professionals with busy schedules. However, Bette stuck with one rule: she didn’t sleep with married men or men who lived with another woman. She was also meticulous about researching her men before she dated them. A lover who desired too soon to take the relationship to a higher plain of commitment quickly became history.

Bette held the cards of her personal affairs close to her ample chest. She shared little more than basic facts about herself with her lovers. Not even Bette’s close friends knew much about Bette’s personal life, except for selected inconsequential tidbits she might share with them.

The exception was Norm, her best friend with certain benefits since her grad school days. She shared everything with Norm, including her frustrations with certain aspects of her work, as well as with the men she dated and those with whom she slept. Norm was different. He wasn’t a successful lawyer, physician, academic, or other professional like most of her lovers, but he also was no slouch intellectually. Before he retired enjoyed a long and successful career as an IT troubleshooter. He was also a voracious reader of books and newspapers who could discuss myriad topics with aplomb.

With Norm, she could be herself. He was her everyman — her male counterpart and her ersatz safe harbor in a storm. He was the only man she ever trusted enough to bare her soul. On one level, her love for him was platonic, not only a dear friend but also like a brother. On another level it was shamelessly carnal. She could vent, even rage, and he’d listen calmly and patiently. When she finally fell silent, he’d ask her quietly, “Would you’d like a glass of wine or something more soothing?”

She’d then laugh and reply cheekily, “How about one of your delicious full-body massages for starters?’ as she stood and walked toward the bedroom, shedding her clothes along the way. When she woke the next morning, she felt emancipated like a new person. Next to her, Norm snored lightly with a childlike smile on his face.

Bette and Norm never saw themselves as a couple in a traditional sense. They never considered marriage, neither with another person nor with each other. Yet they were always there for each other. She lived in one part of the city and Norm lived in another. Their rendezvous were most often sporadic, spur of the moment. They conversed more often on the telephone than in person.

When they did get together, either at her or his place, there was often laughter, jokes, and harmless teasing. Bette knew she could always get a rise out of Norm when she hummed or sang The Look of Love” while trying to sound as much as she could like Dusty Springfield.

Norm like to tease Bette about when they first met and she tried to psychoanalyze him. Instead of engaging with her probing questions, he’d caress the side of her face and other parts of her body as he kissed her neck, until she groaned, “Oh, fuck it!” and gave herself to him. Their sexual relationship was playful, almost childlike as they giggled and laughed during foreplay. But their lovemaking was intense, if not volcanic.

They gave each other personal nicknames for their genitalia, similar to Lady Jane and John Thomas in D. H. Lawrence’s Lady Chatterly’s Lover. Bette called Norm’s penis Ready Rod and her called her vagina Madame B. Whenever Bette playfully teased Norm, as she often did, he’d threaten her, saying, “Keep it up Bette, just keep it up, and I’ll give Madame B a licking she’ll never forget!” Bette would shriek in faux shock, screaming, “Oh! Oh! Promises! Promises!” And then, clenched in a passionate embrace, they laughed until their tears flowed and mingled unabashed on their faces.

Their affair endured some fifty years until Bette succumbed to cancer in her seventies. Norm never realized what true love was until Bette no longer was part of his life.

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