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Vacillating: If I do this thing, if I did go with Lita, knowing myself, Lita would be a longing part of my memory forever.
Vacillating: If I do this thing, if I did go with Lita, I would be “cheating” on my wife again. I would be “cheating” on my marriage again, and, truly, I did not want to go through the agony of a separation, again.
Vacillating: If I did not do this thing, if I do not go with Lita, knowing myself, I’ll be, figuratively, kicking myself in the ass forever.
Vacillating: If I do this thing, If I did go with Lita, I might well be biting off more, much more than I could chew.
Elysium Fields 10
Topanga Canyon, California
Sunday, May 11, 1986
12:54 PM
Feeling as I did for this lady there was no black or white! There was no Negro or Caucasian There is only Lita and me! Only a man and only a woman!
But this man and this woman were both married and I had no idea how Lita really felt, how far beyond this erotic day and this beautiful place Lita would want this to go.
As for me, even if Lita and I were to go no further than now, if I did this thing, Oh, God, but I wanted to! If I did this thing, if I, once again, stepped beyond this boundary, all semblance of love for Marsha would be gone and we, for whatever the future of our marriage was worth, would also be gone.
“Lita,” my hand, on her stomach, aching, actually aching for the soft, warm feel of her breast.
“Lita, I don’t know how it happened, but in the little time that we’ve known each other, I’ve, uh, really gotten to like you... a lot! And you’ve no idea how much I’d love to go to a room with you, but...”
Sitting up, looking at me, “you don’t want to go with me?” she asked incredulously. “You’re turning me down?”
“No, but… I don’t know! Lita, are you willing to let this go further than,” motioning towards Elysium’s Administrative area, “this?”
“Mitchell, you’re a nice guy, but I’m married! Why would you think that I’d... Forget it!” Reaching into a gym bag, removing a pair of shorts, pushing her feet through, standing, Lita pulled the shorts over her hips, then hastily, a loose fitting top.
Watching, “Lita, I didn’t...”
Jamming her feet into sandals, “Thanks for a really lovely morning!”
Truthfully, women have always been a mystery to me.
Sitting nude among the field of nude people, embarrassed because those nearby were looking, I watched as Lita hurried from the fields of Elysium, and my life.
Woodland Hills, California
Sunday, May 11, 1986
2:17 PM
“You’re home early.”
Huh?
The enjoyment of this day shattered by Lita’s hasty, angry departure from Elysium, already mentally kicking myself in the ass for turning her invitation down. Also feeling that I’d had enough sunshine for one weekend...
Huh? I thought, she’s talking to me again?
The house smelling of fresh baked cake, standing in the kitchen, Marsha was slathering chocolate icing – which she knew I loved – onto the layer cake she’d baked.
“Yeah, I’ve, uh, had enough bike riding this weekend.”
“Good! I’m glad you’re home now because, if you want, I thought we might catch a move, have a bite to eat out, then come home for desert.”
Truthfully, women have always been a mystery to me.
10:47 PM
As though the past two weeks had never happened.
As though the hateful words we had both spat at each other had never happened, our hands could not get enough of the touch of or the feel of the other. The utterance, “I love you!” If stated once was stated a dozen times, by both Marcie and me.
Our lips parting, “Mitchie, I love you.”
Moving from atop to alongside, now so glad… actually overjoyed that it did not go further this afternoon, “Me, too, honey,” I said sincerely, “I love you, too.”
Laying closely together in the dark room, our ragged breathing returning to normal.
“Mitchie, can I ask you something?”
“Sure, baby.”
Switching the light on her nightstand on, turning onto her side, facing me, “You’re so tan!” Both of us completely nude, tracing her finger from my chest to my, now limp penis, “How come you hardly have any tan lines?”
Taking a moment to think...
Knowing the truth most often the best way to go: “Marcie, we had a listing in Malibu that the office caravanned on Friday. We took Topanga to get to P.C.H. and passed this place called ‘Elysium’...” Stopping I waited for Marsha to ask...
“What’s ‘Elysium’?”
“A Nudist camp.” I said.
“I can’t believe it!” Sitting up, looking at me, looking at my body, looking at my extremely tanned body with hardly any tan lines. “This is where you’ve been?” She laughed. “A ‘nudist camp’?”
“Yeah,” I said, “It’s beautiful there! Marcie, It’s absolutely beautiful there! You’ll love it!”
“ ‘Love it’? I won’t go!” she said emphatically.
Loving the sense of freedom being in the open completely naked gave me. Loving being in the open with other people and the utter sense of beauty I found at Elysium.
Knowing Elysium was now a part of my life.
Also knowing the will power I displayed today may not always be the case. Well knowing how easily I could get into trouble on my own at Elysium. Truly wanting to be there with my wife! Truly wanting Marsha to see and sense the peaceful beauty of Elysium.
“Marcie,” I said, “it’s unbelievably beautiful there and it’s ‘clothing optional’ so you don’t have to get all naked if you don’t want to.”
“ ‘All?’ Well, let me tell you,” also emphatically stated, “I wouldn’t get any naked!”
Wanting to say something, anything to help change her mind, “Believe it or not,” I said, “Elysium is also ‘family oriented’.”
“ ’Family oriented’?” she said disbelievingly. “You mean people bring their kids there to see naked people, and to run around naked?”
As though explaining it, “Marcie, some of the people there are throwbacks from the sixties.”
“ 'Hippies'?”
“Well, yeah. Some of those Hippies are parents now and they think the human body is beautiful and would rather their kids learn the difference between boys and girls now, when they’re young, so a lot of the mystery will be gone and it’ll be easier when they get older.”
Knowing what she was thinking, “And they do not… Elysium does not allow any open display of anything sexual!”
Married in 1955, by the time the ‘sexual revolution’ came about Marsha and I had two children and Marsha’s ambition to be a ‘princesses’ didn’t exactly coincide with ‘hippiedom’ as there weren’t too many ‘princesses’ in training running about burning their Maidenform bras.
Remembering the lady in the bikini bathing suit that, among the many nude women there, caught my eye and, weirdly, excited me, “Come on, honey,” I coaxed, “It’s really beautiful there and,” – still a beautiful woman with a very pleasing, on the thin side, figure – “if you want, you can wear a bathing suit.”
“I don’t know,” she said softly,” I’ll think about it.”
Lying quietly side by side, Marsha, her eyes closed, me, staring at her breasts – that even after four children and thirty-one years I still thought of as beautiful – as my hand, lying lightly onto her pubis, my index finger very gently massaging the hardening bud at the upper cleft of her vagina…
Not having an orgasm earlier, enjoying the dandling touch of his finger, “Lots’a naked men there, huh?” She said, trying to make it sound like a joke. “What if I see a man that appeals to me more than you?”
©August 16, 2011 / Mark M. Lichterman
