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Love
November 2009 
Gentleman Jim in The Land of the Lotus Eaters
Posted on Sep 8th, 2009
by 
Fearless
Fearless
JAMES was the perfect antidote to Dick's laissez affaire attitude toward love and aversion to 'relationships'. James was devoted, dedicated, a total gentleman and, it felt to me, completely besotted!
I first met Jim when he came to visit the town where I lived, as part of his work as a geologist. He was a business partner of one of Dick's friends, and I joined the group as they explored gold leases in the valley. As we walked through the bush, it was James who held tree branches back so that I could pass, or who helped me up embankment, offering me his hand and his protection, throughout the day.
A girlfriend and I were invited to join them at dinner and I found myself sitting in between a gallant Frenchman and the very well-mannered James. I was in heaven! For a woman, living in a small country town, it was such a delight to be treated 'like a lady'. I liked James immediately - his conversation, his attention and the way he made me feel. Some time later, he came back to town on a visit and looked me up. We chatted without any sort of reserve between us and when he said that he had to go down to Melbourne for a few days, and asked if I would like to join him, I immediately accepted.
On the day though, I thought, "Oh my god, what have I done? I hardly know this guy! What if he's boring? We've got a four hour trip down to Melbourne and three days down there! What if he wants to have sex? (I wasn't immediately physically attracted to him). But I needn't have worried. He was a thorough gentleman. He'd rented a two-bedroom apartment and I never felt uncomfortable or uneasy about being around him. It soon became obvious that he WAS physically attracted to me, but for the time being, intimacy wasn't something that I wanted to explore.
At this time, Dick was away and before he had left, he had told me that our relationship was over .... again! I was very much in mourning, but still, very gratified to have the attention of such a lovely man as James.
Soon after the Melbourne trip, I got a telephone call from James. "How'd you like to fly up to Sydney to see 'Phantom of the Opera'?" he asked. "I've got to do some business there and I'd love to see you."
Now ... the thing was ... James was married. I had wrestled with my conscience when I first realised that I was growing attached to him. "Why would god bring such a lovely man into my life?" I asked myself. "Especially since I've had such a lousy experience with Dick." "It's like being presented with this beautiful gift after you've gone through some trauma, and being told to give it back." Anyway ... I was able to rationalise the relationship with James under the guise of, "Well, I don't want to take him away from his wife ... I just want to experience what it's like to be in a relationship where the other person actually WANTS to be with me."
James and I agreed that whatever it was that we had between us, no one was to get hurt. There would be no, "I want you to leave your wife" ultimatums. And I was fine with that. I needed what he had to give, and he, I think, wanted to experience desire and passion again. Simple.
Whenever he came to town, James always referred to my life there as "living in the land of the lotus eaters" ... He had such a high opinion of me and my lifestyle and my abilities. He gave me nothing but adoration and attention and made me feel like the most wonderful woman in all the world. If my phone rang, he just assumed if was one of hundreds of people clamouring to be in my company. He would open car doors for me; buy me little gifts as mementos of our time together; take me out to dinner and pull out my chair for me ... he was SUCH a contrast to what I'd had with Dick.
Dick was all wild man and adventure. Fun. Fear. Desire and Desperation.
After the trip to Sydney with James, my feelings for him deepened and I realised that I did want to be intimate with him. I wanted to be as close as I could be. Here was a man who made me feel safe and wanted and desired. And totally accepted.
So the next time he phoned to say he was coming to visit, I told him, "I'm ready ... I want us to be together intimately." I can remember the night he arrived - a bunch of flowers and a bottle of Glenfiddich whisky in hand. A girlfriend had called in and she lingered awhile to chat with James ... eventually though, she finally twigged to the emotional tap, tap, tap of our feet as we waited impatiently for her to leave.
As soon as the door closed behind her, we were at one another! Desperate. Longing. Desirous. Hot! Sexual union with James was as fulfilling and rewarding as I had hoped. In front of the fire (of course), as we made love, he kept repeating, "Oh my beautiful one, my beautiful one." It was everything a woman could want ... a man with a beautiful soul, loving you!
James had been born in Kenya (or Zimbabwe or somewhere like that). When his mother went into labour, they were rushing her to the local hospital by car, when a huge bull elephant blocked the road in front of them. She had to be carted into a nearby tent where she gave birth to James. He used to laugh when he told the story saying, "If I ever don't close a door and someone says to me, "Close the door! Were you born in a tent?", I can say, "Yes, I was actually!"
When he was only two or three years old, there was some kind of native uprising (was it the Mau Maus?) and he was sent away by his parents to where he would be safe. He was given to the charge of one of their servants, who was supposed to take him to a nearby town. On the way, the servant was kidnapped by one of the rival factions to go and fight, and poor James ended up in a tribal village somewhere with the natives scratching their heads as to where this white kid had suddenly appeared from. It was several days before his frantic parents managed to track him down and retrieve him.
My beautiful love affair with James lasted about ten years I think. These years were interspersed with time spent back in Dick's arms. It seemed that any time Dick heard that James was in town, his bointerest would suddenly inflame again. I've always been a faithful partner, but somehow I managed to rationalise this dual-relationship with both James and Dick. They were like two sides of the same coin. Both gentleman and both upper-class English types ... but one a wild man and the other, a bon vivant.
Where it was sleeping rough in the bush under the stars with Dick ... it was five star hotels and luxurious bath towels with James.
I loved it! And in between I was still open to the idea of finding a love who would be just for me. Someone who would want a life with me that we could share all the time, rather than occasional visits, which is pretty much what I had with both James and Dick.
I'd found an internet matchmaking site and was quite blown away by all the male attention that could be had. One of the likely lads was Jim, a chef in Brisbane. We were both convinced that we were 99.9% perfectly matched with one another. His voice was deep and rich, a real man's voice and he said that I sounded like sunshine. We'd arranged to meet in Sydney to see if this cyber electricity translated to real life. It was at this time that James contacted me with the news that his wife had fallen in love with someone else and had left him.
Talk about timing. I loved James, yet the thought of a life together hadn't really been an option for me to consider before. He loved his wife. What he and I shared was something that he didn't have with her. That was enough for me. I had thought the only way that James and I could ever have a life together, would be if his wife died. Divorce was something that I'd never thought would happen. But here he was, telling me that his wife had left him. He was devastated. Completely in shock. Traumatised, and I think he also felt that he was being punished for having been unfaithful himself.
I let James down at this point because I was far too interested in what I'd started to develop with Jim (the other guy). I was selfish. Preoccupied. And to be perfectly brutal about myself, rather unsympathetic I think. This new situation, where James needed something from me - some comfort, attention, time, caring ... I just wasn't there for him. I can't explain why. It's one of the situations I look back on and know that I could have handled it better.
This was a time when James was focused on his own survival, and I was focused on mine. Of course, Jim (the internet one), turned out to be a dud in the relationship arena ... 99.9% just wasn't enough. He was moody, distant, unco-operative, stubborn, withdrawn, not at all affectionate. We'd been speaking for months on the phone and via email and when we arranged to meet, I spend over a thousand dollars buying new lingerie and clothes, having my hair done, legs waxed etc., for the big meeting. When he arrived in Sydney, he was wearing just an old pair of jeans and teeshirt and a grubby ol' baseball cap. My immediate response was, "God, he hasn't gone to any trouble at all, and I've spent a fortune on wanting to look good for him!"
I'm an affectionate person and when we met, I held his hand and as we sat in the taxi going to our separate hotels, I rubbed his back and was sitting close, all very happy and smoochy. He later told me that he was put off by me "pawing at him". I can laugh now, but at the time I was crushed by his lack of response to me. I knew things weren't going to work out when he spent all his time photographing the scenery, never once asking me to step into shot. We ended up as friends for several years, but later lost touch when I bought a new computer and didn't swap his email address over and he moved to Japan to teach English.
Eventually James faded from my life as he struggled to make a new life for himself. He had to get his mind around his new marital status ... divorced. I know it was a very dark time for him. I have no answer for why I left him to go through this on his own. What cruelty do I have inside me, that I wasn't there to give him a loving place of warmth and security?
Still ... that was many years ago now. Our friendship survived. He has his new life and a new partner. Not so long ago we caught up for lunch and it was as though those intervening years had never been. He's still very much the gentleman. The kind of gentleman who, when making love, "takes his weight on his elbows" as he used to say. The kind of gentleman, who when he is dreaming about making love to you, takes his watch off so he doesn't scratch you.
I love James ... still. There is always a sense of warmth in my heart when I think about hi. I don't know how he feels, other than he is determined not to jeopardise the relationship he has now. After we'd lunched, he took me to see his yacht and the thought did cross my mind .... "Mmmmm, all alone ... I wonder what he's thinking?" But whatever he was thinking, he thought it and never acted on it. I still don't know how I would have responded.
Everyone should have a James in their life ... a true gentleman.
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