Disclaimer: This is not a true story.

The I and me is not me.

The intent is to say things I would not otherwise.

It’s to provoke a reaction.

So, let’s begin.

There comes a time in every man’s life, somewhere between boy and man, when the body wakes up. I’m told that girls wake up even sooner.

A boy-man has needs. His temperature rises. He sees females in a new light. He wants to test the common knowledge that boys and girls fit perfectly together anatomically.

Convention says you should get married first. But boys will be boys and girls will be girls and I didn’t wait until marriage. I had needs, physical needs, that would lead to discomfort if not met. This is a common problem with an obvious solution.

There was this girl. Her name was Brenda. We just called her Bren. She was pretty, and knew it. She used enhancers to drive us crazy. I followed her around and she invited me in.

It was my first time, though obviously not hers. She had been around the block many times. I had chosen well, because she knew what to do and did it well.

I said, “Can we do this again?”

She said, “Is tomorrow soon enough?”

We were too young to get married.

Legally, too young for our parents to agree to it, though her parents didn’t seem to mind.

I know societies celebrate adolescence as a rite of passage. Some girls officially become adult at fifteen and are on the market, though laws tell them they have to wait until sixteen or eighteen. There are laws for everything, old enough to drive, old enough to vote, though old enough to copulate is somewhat indetermined.

Boys get confirmed at confirmation. Some religions put the age of seven as a turning point, when you’re old enough to be responsible for your actions, but pre-adolescence limits their range.

I can’t explain things I don’t understand.

But Bren and I were hitting it off so often that I decided I loved her, she was the one, and we should get married as soon as we were old enough.

She didn’t see it that way. She called me, “Silly Boy!” Apparently she had been hitting it off with lots of other boys and men, before, during, and after me.

There are names for such people.

So I kept looking. After several attempts, I was finally old enough, and settled for Susan.

Susan was attractive in her own way, certainly not repulsive. She was dependable and would make a good wife.

Both our families got involved.

THE INTERROGATION.

Her father, who would be my father-in-law, sat me down.

“Why do you want to marry my daughter?”

“Because we both want to.”

“How will you support her?”

“I’ll get a job.”

Apparently I passed muster.

Then the two families got together to check each other out. Some cultures require an exchange of money, a “bride price.”

“How much would you be willing to pay?”

Some families saved up for years to afford to buy someone’s daughter for their eager son.

I don’t know what went on behind the scene, I just knew that Susan would make a good wife, keep the house clean, cook my food, raise my children, and spread her legs whenever I wanted.

I never asked what she wanted. It never occurred to me. We both had our jobs, and hers was to serve me and not complain.

I always say that marriage gives you something to do. It fills out your day.

Anyway, we got along, Susan and me. Sometimes I’d even take her out to dinner. Or to a movie, when there used to be movie theaters.

Otherwise, she’d just wait for me to come home. I don’t know what she did with her time if she had any left over from housewifing. Maybe she had hobbies. I never asked.

When she found out somehow about me and Ruby, my colleague at work, I lied, but she had witnesses. She tried the word “divorce,” but I squashed that pretty quick. “What would you do for money? You’re too old for anybody else.”

She tried crying, but that just scared me and made me mad.

So I never told her about Betty, or about Rachel. I mean, a man has needs, he’s gotta satisfy himself.

Anyway, there was this one time when we were watching this movie on television, and this married couple in it who were middle-aged, they looked at each other and said, “Who are you?” and, “Do you love me?” And the woman said, “After twenty-five years of cooking your food and washing your clothes and cleaning the floor, if that isn’t love, what is?”

So I looked at Susan and the light went on and I said, “I guess this is the best we can do,” and we resigned ourselves to it.

So, like I always say, “Marriage can save your life by giving you something to do.”