Forty-Six and Sexting
By: Caterpillar Talk
Tags: Relationships, Humor, Divorce, iPhone, Dating

Forty-Six and Sexting

Photo by Tim Mossholder on Unsplash

A picture of his penis bloops up onto my iPhone. I’ve seen this penis before, in the flesh, mind you, so it’s not shock value that has me frozen in this moment. It’s the expectation: Now it’s MY turn. I’ve been on my couch for about an hour now, engaged in a series of racy, back-and-forth sext messages. I’ve teased him with the suggestion that I’ll reciprocate. That I’ll reply with a sexy photo of ME.

My new boyfriend, who we can call “Dick” just for fun, and I have been texting ferociously for about three months now. We’re forty-somethings, both separated, but via text message, we’re just two, hot somethin-somethings.

These conversations with Dick would probably only last about 15 minutes if we were actually speaking. But with texting it goes on all evening. The imagination is free to play. I’m witty, charming, insightful; he’s coy, sweet, so smart. We are incredible on these text threads. Bulletproof! Inspired! It’s so provocative. Albeit all this texting has my caused carpal tunnel syndrome to return to my thumb joints.

This is the first time our mildly racy and romantic messaging has crossed into the realm of . . . photography.

Boobs, I think. That’s what the young folks are doing, right? Sending pictures of their boobs? I’ve only recently learned that this is the new “dating.” I yank off my shirt, arch my back, and snap a photo. I have in mind something very sexy and provocative — but classy. Renaissance-ish. The result is a far cry from the Venus de Milo that I have in mind. My boobs are small to begin with. And now, having breastfed two children, they don’t hold up as well as they used to. I try moving the phone down, hoping the upward angle will amplify —

“Let’s try something else,” I say to no one. I thumb-snap a pic of my shoulder. Then my hip. I even get on my hands and knees and raise my arm over my head to get my lower back at a sexy arch. I check the photos: DELETE.

The seconds are ticking by. I imagine him laying down in his hipster-Brooklyn bachelor pad, an apartment I’ve yet to see even though he’s been to mine about a dozen times. He has GOT to be hot with the anticipation of my sizzling photo, sure to arrive any second now.

I’m starting to begrudge this dick pic, staring back at me with its accusing eye.

And the three dots . . . the dots that tell you when someone is typing a text message . . . they’re surely teasing him . . . popping up then going away with every pic I ALMOST send.

With a surge of resolve, I run into the bathroom so I can lock the door in case my kids wake up. No more of the half-clothed, suggestive photos I had in mind. I take photos of my boobs, my ass, my crotch, my hand-on-my-boob, my hand-on-my-crotch . . . it goes on. I quickly thumb through to choose the best one — the one that makes me look the skinniest, obviously — well, everywhere except my boobs.

Crop. Enhance. SEND.

And then I wait. And wait. Where are the three dots?

Obviously, I took too long; it took me — ten minutes? The momentum was lost. Now I’m imagining Dick in a barren man-kitchen, standing fully clothed in the light of a grimy refrigerator, eating vegan tofurky giblets.

The vulnerability of sending this photo — a posed picture of my breasts as I lay artfully “relaxed” on the hard edge of my bathtub — has me feeling needy. In this one act I have gone from a self-assured 46-year-old woman to a silly teenager, desperate for reassurance. Even if it’s a lie, I’m EXPECTING a compliment.

I stare at the unmoving, judgmental screen of my iPhone. In this silence, my mind travels back to the many times I looked across at my husband (my “ex-husband” as I’m still getting used to calling him) staring at his phone exactly like I am now.

Fifteen years ago, HE was my “new boyfriend.” I used to stay up late talking to him on my flip phone, a clunky, plastic thing that made my cheek hot from our hour-long conversations.

Our first Christmas as newlyweds was the same year THE IPHONE came out. Rod and I splurged: he bought me THE IPHONE and I, in turn, bought him THE IPHONE. We raced home from the Apple Store and sat on opposite ends of our couch. “Hi,” I typed, and hit SEND. It blooped up in a glossy little green balloon. “So cute!” Then his reply, “Hi,” in an adorably shiny white balloon. We squealed with delight, then texted each other from either side of our couch well into the evening.

Back then we had to back up our iPhones by actually plugging them into our shared computer. And every time you backed up your iPhone, the photos taken on your phone were saved onto iPhoto.

One evening I opened up the laptop and, in a single CLICK, before my eyes a dozen photos of a penis came blooping onto the screen of my laptop.

This was a penis I knew well. Rod’s ROD, if you will. But these photos I had never seen. I scroll down — and look: MORE photos! But these are of BOOBS. And not my boobs: BIG boobs. Big lips. Big butts, reflected in mirrors. Close-ups of red fingernails grasping at body parts that I had to squint my eyes to decipher.

“They’re just photos!” Rod begged my forgiveness. “Nothing ever actually happened.”

By then I was pregnant, and splitting up over some racy text messages seemed selfish. Plus, Rod assured me in the marriage counseling that I insisted we go to, that he had never actually DONE anything with these women. It was just — flirting. “Like porn, but over text message.”

“GET OVER THIS!” I say to myself. “Don’t be such a prude. We can fix this.”

And we did. Sort of. My relationship with my iPhone, however, changed dramatically. I became slow to reply to texts. I never answered phone calls. Days would go by and I didn’t even know where the stupid thing was. I resented ALWAYS being “on call.” My detachment drove Rod, and eventually my family, CRAZY; I was “disconnected.”

Conversely, and no doubt consequently, Rod’s attachment to his iPhone grew exponentially. It was attached to his arm at all times. He became obsessed with social media, and was always doing SOMETHING on his phone, playing a game, or watching a video. And there was the way he laid his phone face down, or put it in his pocket, and rarely left it out on a table or dresser. That I noticed . . .

It sucks to realize that you are in a typical story. But those first boobs and butt photos were just that — the first. What followed was a succession of MANY more discoveries of MANY more photos, of the MANY more women with which my then-husband was involved. Relationships initiated by, but NOT limited to the iPhone. I came to realize they had NEVER been limited to just the iPhone.

Earlier this year, I ended it. Turning a blind eye for so many years had only made the situation worse. And frankly, “blind” is not what I want to be. Packing up all of his belongings into boxes made me feel like a fucking superhero, like Wonder Woman, wielding her lasso of truth.

But at times like this — I feel embarrassed. Ashamed. Why I didn’t walk out at that first indiscretion? How willingly I believed. I get mad that I didn’t KNOW . . . How could I not have known?

And now here I am, staring at MY very first dick pic EVER. The very first dick pic of my very first new relationship in over fifteen years.

Even before our first date, Dick and I started flirting via text. My iPhone has suddenly become alluring; I check it frequently, hoping for a message from him. Where I used to hold social media in contempt, the platform upon which my husband openly flirted in replies, I now go straight to my new boyfriend’s Twitter feed to see what witty remarks he made today.

Still staring at my phone, out of nowhere it happens. The thoughts wash over me like a tidal wave. This has happened before, these waves. The moment I let my guard down, they whisper: What if he’s LYING?

“Stop!” I say to no one. But it’s too late. Here I go . . .

What if he’s been pulled away from this conversation because he’s not alone? What if SHE’S there? After all, you’ve never even been to his apartment.

I hate this feeling. It would be such a typical story for me to be SUSPICIOUS. I don’t want to be suspicious. I don’t want to be this person.

But despite what I want to be, my mind spins like it has so many nights before, going down the rabbit hole of WHAT IF:

What if he’ll never divorce his wife? What if she’s THERE? What if she’s been there ALL ALONG? What if he isn’t really separated? He’s living a double life?! He’s a psychopath?! A hoarder?! A serial killer? A werewolf?!

Weeds of fear spring up and strangle my heart. “I should have known.” My familiar refrain. “How could I not have KNOWN!?”

“Stop!” I scold out loud, “GET OVER THIS! This is not the person I want to be.”

My phone BUZZES. It had gone into sleep mode, so the buzz shocks me back into this moment. I’m sitting on the cold, hard side of the bathtub, still half-naked from my impromptu photo shoot.

He has replied: “God, you’re gorgeous.”

There. My compliment. And, despite having spun myself into a tizzy, it feels good.

“Thank you,” my numb thumbs type. I watch it bloop up in a blue balloon.

It’s true: he is hiding something. If nothing else, he’s hiding a shitty apartment. But . . . what if it’s more than that.

I’m hiding too. I’m pretending to be trusting. Easy. Confident. Bulletproof. I hide my fear when I’m with him with superheroine bravado.

And yet, I want this. For whatever reason, I do. Maybe the familiarity of a man who keeps things from me is what feels so good? This constant state of wondering, standing on trap door, counting the ways it will it drop out from under me. Anticipating the pain but unwilling to avoid it.

And yet, I don’t care.

I’m not the same person I was back then, when I had everything to lose. It took me a decade to find the courage to start a life for myself as a SINGLE, and I’ve only just learned that I’m a woman who likes sexting. I’m not ready to let it go. I’m not ready to know. Not yet.

Whatever he is hiding won’t stay hidden for very long. And then . . .

I can handle it.

I am able to handle it.

I WILL handle it . . . THEN.

And there it goes: Fear relaxes its grip for tonight, anyway. A sliver of happy light pierces through the darkness. A spark of joy.

“Thank you.” I type with numb thumbs, and it bloops into a blue balloon.

I add, “I’m so glad I found you.” And I mean it.