Chapter 8 #4
She and Steve had been totally compatible.
John and Helen had been different. John ran the show, and Helen had been much more compliant and meek than Isabelle.
Occasionally John gave Isabelle directions that sounded like orders, and Isabelle discouraged him immediately and ignored them.
She and Steve had made joint decisions as partners, especially when they ran their business together.
Neither one was in charge. It rapidly became obvious that John expected to be in command, merely because he was a man.
But he was in her home and apartment, and she was used to doing things her way.
She hadn’t been looking for a man to complete her life.
It had felt quite complete before without him.
He assumed that she was ready for a full relationship with him on his terms, which wasn’t how she viewed it.
John was a proficient lover, and Isabelle enjoyed having sex with him.
It made her feel as though she was back in the world as a woman, but she thought his sexual needs were excessive.
She had the feeling now that when he came over, he didn’t talk to her the way he had before he slept with her, rushing through dinner so he could get her into bed.
Several times, Isabelle felt obliged to have sex with him to meet his needs and what was turning out to be his voracious sexual appetite, whether she was in the mood or not.
It had altered their friendship and she wasn’t convinced she wanted to continue the affair.
It was ruining a solid friendship and didn’t seem worth it to her.
When he assumed they were going to the country for the weekend and she told him she was busy in town, and had two dinner parties to go to without him, he had a fit and stormed out, after calling her a bitch.
She wondered if that was how he had treated Helen, which made her sad for her friend if it was true.
Steve had never spoken to her like that, and she didn’t intend to start accepting it now, even from an old friend.
Once or twice, she thought John was just using her for sex, but told herself it was absurd.
No one used a sixty-five-year-old woman for sex if they could go out with a younger one, unless they were ninety themselves.
The idea seemed comical at best. But she remembered Helen’s comment that John had a hearty sexual appetite, and it seemed as though she had been right, and had understated it.
Some nights he stayed to sleep with her, and at other times he was in a rush to leave. She looked at him one night as he was dressing hastily after they made love.
“Where do you go when you’re in such a hurry to leave?” she asked him in a smooth tone. She didn’t mind his leaving but she found it odd, with no explanation for his haste.
“Sometimes I have conference calls in other time zones at odd hours. I have two tonight,” he said defensively.
“You work too hard,” she said with a smile.
He had apologized for calling her a bitch the week before, but he didn’t seem as bothered by it as she was.
She had been shocked. She and Steve had never called each other names in thirty years of marriage.
John was turning out to be rougher around the edges than she had previously thought.
She wondered now if Helen had been hiding the fact that she was unhappy with John.
Once or twice, Isabelle wondered if he was seeing another woman, which seemed unlikely since he had led such a reclusive life after Helen died.
He said that only his long-standing crush on Isabelle had brought him out of his shell.
He was unlikely to have two of them. She decided eventually that he just needed time and space on his own sometimes and didn’t know how to express it, so he rushed off right after sex, and he probably went home to stare mindlessly at the TV and not have to perform for anyone.
He set a high standard for himself for sexual prowess, more than she would have wanted.
In fact, she would have preferred more time to herself too, but didn’t dare say it to him and didn’t want to hurt his feelings.
He prided himself on what a great lover he was.
Sometimes it was all just too much. Isabelle hadn’t confided the affair to anyone, so she had no women friends to discuss it with and give her an additional perspective.
She had to figure him out for herself, and she was puzzled by him at times.
He seemed so unaware of other people’s feelings and reactions, and interested only in his own.
She sometimes wondered if he took Viagra in secret to achieve it, but she didn’t ask him.
It surprised her that he was furious about all the negative coverage in the press about the shipping line he had bought.
He was livid at the various news agencies, but he didn’t seem remorseful toward the men he had harmed, the families he had starved, the many people and children that had been affected by his firing hundreds of them at once, right before the holidays.
If nothing else, she found him extremely self-centered, and colder than she’d realized.
He was sex-driven but not compassionate or loving.
Isabelle wondered at times now if Gabby was right about John.
It was a worrisome thought. He had always been such a warm, generous friend, but his behavior as a man left her feeling that there was a lot about him that she didn’t know.