Friend’s husband, Dennis, asks, “Have you thought about getting married again?” My eyeballs involuntarily roll heavenward, then flash him a piercing side eye. “I guess that’s a no.” I agree. “Don’t ya get lonely?” “With two goldens and a chocolate Labrador? Being solitary doesn’t bother me; I treasure my alone-ness. No one tells me when to eat, sleep, go anywhere, and all the other stuff.” Dennis, is a direct, straight forward guy, so “other stuff” escapes him. (He and Cindy match perfectly.) “Dennis,” I say, “I’m a narcissist magnet. I dump nice guys and opt for assholes.” He lifts his battered blue ballcap to scratch his gray head.

I do not tell him how when younger other stuff meant survival, how my skin crawls at cultural demand for intimacy, how what was once a thread of resistance evolved into hawser. I do not say how storms rattled two marriages with deluge, lightning, slamming thunder, even tornadoes. I do not tell him how pairing left me a smashed, tinderbox house cast across a blood-soaked ground. I do not tell Dennis about three dead dogs and a horse. I do not tell him how I became wadded up poetry, stomped on, and tossed into a woodstove. I do not elaborate on how other stuff scrambled my battered brain. I cannot speak unspeakable words that made my ears ring. I do not tell him women don’t interest me either. I don’t share my simple opinion — what other people do in their bedrooms isn’t my business, but what happens in mine is. I do not tell this gentle person standing beside me how boundaries had to become cinder blocks.

I’d never heard of “ace” until I was old. Dennis wouldn’t understand.

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