Although I was climbing the walls to pursue Mariah, I fought the temptation to say something.  The problem with excessive lust is that it leads to poor choices.  Given that Mark was my best friend, my instincts warned me Mariah was an especially poor choice.  Ultimately, I was relieved by the development of the Love Triangle because it made it that much easier to leave Mariah alone.  So I stayed on the sidelines and waited for an opening.  Fully expecting problems to develop, it did not take long to realize I had read the tea leaves correctly.  There was Trouble in Paradise.

Throughout January and February I had watched Mark, Sean, and Mariah with morbid fascination.  I was curious about all sorts of things.  It was surprising enough to learn the Ice Queen was having sex with two gay men, but what was the arrangement?  Who is zooming who?  Previously I had assumed Mark was completely into men, but now I wasn't so sure.   Trust me, I was in the dark about all sorts of things.  However, I did not dare ask.  Knowing Mark, he would have given me every gory detail.  In reality, I was reluctant to know what the answer might be.  The Gay World no longer held my interest.  If nothing else, there was no longer a shred of doubt in my mind that I was straight.  Furthermore, I had nothing left to prove with my dancing.  I was not in Disco Dave's league, but I was good enough to satisfy the terms of my Leap of Faith.  As far as I was concerned, mission accomplished.  Feeling myself disengage from the gay scene, the less I knew about what happened behind closed doors in Mark's Love Triangle, the better.  I tried to be open-minded, but sometimes the Gay World was just too bizarre for me to comprehend.  So why pry the lid any wider than necessary? 

Mystery Mariah continued to unsettle me for all sorts of reasons.  By definition, Mariah had to be at least partially straight.  After all, she was having sex with two men at the moment.  Even more perplexing, I never did understand why a beautiful heterosexual woman was living with a gay man in the first place.  I had never found the nerve to ask Mark this question, but I was dying to know the answer.   It crossed my mind that maybe Mariah was just as weird as me.  Was she a Misfit too?  Was she taking a Siesta?  Maybe Mariah was a Stranger in a Strange Land for her own complicated reasons.  Lost in the wrong world together, maybe we would find each other.  We certainly belonged together... or so I told myself. 

On Friday the 14th, Valentine's Day no less, Mark stopped me in the hall and asked if we could talk.  This was theoretically the most romantic day of the year.  No such luck for Mark.  Closing the door to his office, Mark wasted no time confessing he was having problems in his complicated relationship.  I was sorry to learn that Mark's Triangle was in trouble, but not surprised.  I had seen this same troubled look at the Farmhouse last Saturday.  Mark dropped hints that he wasn't getting his fair share of the pizza in the bedroom.  He did not come right out and say it, but I gathered Mark was settling for the crust while the other two got the pepperoni.  I wanted to ask if this meant he was forced to watch while the other two went at it.  However, I did not pry. 

Four short months ago our roles had been reversed.  Mark was the one who listened to my problems.  Without him, I would have never recovered from losing Rachel as fast as I did.  What a blessing to have this kind man take me under his wing and help me through my loss.  Now it was apparent that Mark and I had flipped roles.  I was the listener and Mark was the troubled one.  It was like the two of us were on a seesaw.  Lately I could do no wrong.  With my fortunes on the rise, Mark's love life plummeted faster than a hurtling meteor.  How utterly strange to witness this flip-flop in our fortunes.  It saddened me to see my Brightest Day run parallel to Mark's Darkest Day. 

The entrance of Sean into Mark's life did me an odd favor.  Once Mark stopped drooling over me, Juicy and Lucy were starting to believe me when I said I was just here to dance.  Recently I had told them the whole story... Acne, Scars, Phobia, Epic Losing Streak, Vanessa, Graduate School, River Oaks Seven, Disco Dave, Rachel.  Once I explained how unattractive I had felt all my life, they finally figured out what I meant when I said I was on a mission.  With our conversation turned serious, both ladies said they were rooting for me. 

Lucy understood how it felt to be unattractive because she had dealt with the same issue.  Jill said ditto for her.  They were sweet women.  Nature had not blessed them with beauty, but it had definitely given them a kind nature.  I was glad they were my friends.  I had been thinking about visiting a straight dance club to check things out, but my friendship held me back.  Showering me with profuse compliments, these two women had made me feel attractive for the first time in ages.  Due to the gratitude I felt, I was reluctant to leave.  Besides, dancing somewhere else would not be the same without them. 

Strangely enough, Juicy and Lucy reminded me of my beloved childhood dog Terry.  I remembered how I agonized over leaving Terry behind when I went off to college.  I had wanted to take Terry along with me more than anything else in the world, but it wouldn't work.  Same for Juicy and Lucy.  I could not take them with me.  If I were to leave, there was a strong chance I would never see these two women again.  Where would the Plumpettes find the courage to follow me to a straight club dominated by slender young women in the prime of their lives?  For all my flaws, I did have one redeeming trait... I was very loyal.  I did not want to turn my back on my friends.  For this reason I stuck around even though the thrill of the Farmhouse was gone.

On Saturday, February 15th, I was hanging out with Juicy and Lucy at the Farmhouse.  Jill was singing the blues. 

"Well, guys, last night was another Valentine's Day spent alone.  It has been a long dry spell, my fourth in a row.  Thank goodness I had my favorite bottle of wine to keep me company.  I watched The Way They Were on TV and had a nice cry."

Good grief, first Mark, now Jill.  Is anybody happy?   I decided to try and cheer her up.  "You can be my Valentine, Juicy." 

Seeing the instant frown on Lucy's face, I quickly added, "So can you, Lucy.  Gosh, you're so slender now I forgot it was you."

They both smiled at my quick recovery.  Now it was Lucy's turn.  "In case you have forgotten, Rick, I've already warned you when I lose fifty more pounds, I'm coming after you.  I am losing weight at a rapid clip, so by chance do you have a cute friend lined up for Juicy?"

Jill objected.  "Hey, wait a minute, I don't want Rick's friend.  I want Rick.  You can have his friend and I will take Rick."

"Knock it off, you two.  No claws, no scratching.  I hate it when you fight over me.  I don't want blood on my shirt."

"We need to find a way to slice you in two, Boy Toy!"

"Please don't talk about cutting things off.  You know how that makes me nervous."

The girls laughed.  Fighting over me was a game we had played many times over the past three months.  They loved to talk about the three of us having wild sex together, but unless they found some way to get me very drunk, the orgy wasn't happening.  Maybe that was another reason why I never drank at the Farmhouse.  I was worried about my goofy girlfriends.  My friend Jason back at Colorado State had handed me an article titled 'The Point of No Return'.  The article said that when the frustration over weight gain reaches a certain point, there is no hope of ever conquering the problem.  I would never embarrass the girls with the truth, but I doubted either woman would ever lose the weight.  Both ladies were pretty lonely, so my companionship filled a much-need void.  Considering my value to them, I was completely taken off guard by the next part of the conversation.

Jill asked, "So what about you, Boy Toy?  Any romantic possibilities?  When are you going to start dating again?"

"And leave you two?  Never."

Jill said, "Oh, Rick, cut the shit, don't start that again.  It's time for you to go off into the sunset and thanks for the memories."

Lucy agreed.  "Jill's right.  I would love to keep you around, but every time I look at Mark, I change my mind.  Things just aren't the same as they were at Casa Mark.  You don't belong here anymore."

I stared at both women in surprise.  Why so maudlin?  Clearly Mark's woes in the Love Triangle had affected each us.  It was depressing to watch sparks fly between Mariah and Sean out on the dance floor while Mark was a ghost of his former self.  At the moment Mark was pretending to talk to someone, but mostly he was sneaking worried peeks in their direction.  It was a pitiful sight.

Jill broke the silence.  "Okay, Rick, you say you came here to learn to dance.  You've achieved your goal, so what are you going to do about it??"

Lucy nodded.  "I agree with Jill.  Now that you have chased off those nasty rich women, what's your next move?"

To be honest, I was shocked, maybe even a little hurt.  "Are you girls giving me a hint?"

Lucy and Jill looked at each other, then looked back at me.  They replied as one.

"That is exactly what we are doing!!"

Jill and Lucy were being noble.  They were trying to make it easier for me to move on.  Now that I had vanquished the River Oaks Seven, I had experienced a total let-down in regards to my dancing.  But the real reason the Farmhouse had ceased to be fun was Mark's misery.  Mark was the heartbeat.  His enthusiasm and laughter were the glue that kept this circle of 20 to 30 friends together.  It wasn't just Lucy, Juicy and me.  Mark's unhappiness was affecting everyone.  Without Mark's sunshine, our Farmhouse fun had gone into eclipse.

Right now the only thing keeping me here was my friendship with Jill and Lucy.  And here they were shoving me out the door for my own good.  Should I listen to them and jump ship?  No.  I decided I still wasn't ready.  With the memory of Rachel's betrayal still fresh in my mind, I preferred to avoid risking another heartache until I was sure of myself.  I decided to take it one week at a time.  Who knows?  Maybe Mariah would come my way.  With that thought, I frowned.  Who am I kidding?  Noting the lurid show Salome was putting on for her lover Sean, Mariah would not be headed my way anytime soon.  Mariah wasn't headed back to Mark either.  Mark was a lost cause, I was sure of it.  Based on the way Mariah was enticing Sean right in front of Mark, he was a doomed man.

Mark, Lucy and Jill had been directly responsible for my comeback.  I did not want to leave them.  Just then I thought of a solution.  I had nothing to do on Friday nights.  The Jewish Community Center was closed for religious reasons, so there was no basketball or volleyball.  Why not use Friday to seek out a new venue?  I could reserve Saturday for the Farmhouse, but maybe visit somewhere else on Friday.  I decided to give the idea serious thought.

Thursday, February 27, 1975, Age 25, the lost years

THREE'S A CROWD

When I first met Mark, I thought he was the man who wrote the Book of Love.  I assumed if anyone could pull off a Love Triangle, it would be him.  I was morbidly fascinated to discover that even in an open relationship like Mark's where everyone started with good will and knew the rules, it became unstable.  This seemed to suggest that in all Triangles, the two who click the best will eventually exclude the third.  As I watched this poor, sad man wrestle with his emotions, I thought it was strange that something similar to what I had gone through with Vanessa and Rachel was now happening to Mark.  I had gotten the short end of the stick in both Love Triangles and now Mark was facing the same problem.  Welcome to the Odd Man Out Club. 

On Thursday, February 27, Mark called me on my office phone.  He did not sound good, so I hurried over to his office.  Mark broke down the moment he saw me and openly wept.  These were not moist tears, they were the crocodile kind.  Mark was sobbing with gut-wrenching grief.  I sat there awkwardly and let things run their course. 

Finally Mark composed himself enough to explain.  Mark said his Three-Way was spinning badly out of control.  Yesterday afternoon Mark played a hunch and deliberately came home early.  Sure enough, he caught Sean and Mariah in the act.  Given the direction the sex had been going lately, Mark suspected this wasn't the first time the Three-Way had split off into a duplicitous duet.  Following his habit of confronting his fears, Mark asked the two of them what the story was.  Upon questioning, Mark discovered that Sean and Mariah had been going at it in secret for some time now.  They preferred to have sex when Mark wasn't around, but wanted to conceal the painful truth.  For this reason Mariah had reworked her schedule to accommodate afternoon delight while Mark was at work. 

Mark was absolutely crushed.  "I cannot believe Sean and Mariah have been cheating on me!"

Good grief.  How could it be 'cheating' if two people who had been having open sex together in front of Mark continued to have sex on the side?  I decided Mark was in no mood to explain the nuance to me.  Besides, I got the point.  Mark could not bear feeling left out.  So instead I asked Mark what had gone wrong.  Mark ruefully explained that Sean had discovered a previously unsuspected interest in having sex with women.  Apparently Sean had no idea how much he liked sex with women until Mark invited Mariah into their bed.  Mark moaned that Mariah had awakened Sean's latent heterosexuality.

My ears perked up.  'Latent heterosexuality'?  Did Mark really say that??  I had never heard that term before.  I almost laughed out loud.  Fortunately, out of respect for Mark's acute sensitivity, I managed to suppress it.  This fiasco was dripping with irony.  After all the times I had been accused of being secretly gay, poor Mark had been done in by a guy who was secretly straight.  Now that Sean and Mariah's secret was out, things had taken a strong turn for the worse.  Sean and Mariah decided there was no longer any point in hiding.  Since they preferred to have sex in private, last night Mariah and Sean had asked Mark to leave the room while they had sex.  Mark gave me the woeful details of how they apologized profusely for rejecting him.  They hated sending him away, but claimed they had no choice.  Given their intense feelings for each other, they needed to be alone.  Mark took the hint and pretended to go to another room.  However, after Sean shut the door and locked it, Mark had pressed his ear to the door and listened to them make love.

Mark was in serious pain.  "I despise being excluded!!  It drove me insane with jealousy listening to them pant and moan!"

I was horrified.  Was Mark out of his mind?  Why would he torture himself like that?  I tried to imagine how I would have felt if Vanessa and Kenny had sex in another room and I was forced to listen.  Or Rachel and Aaron.  I would have gone berserk with jealousy.  And yet at the same time, I understood Sean and Mariah's point of view.  The last thing they wanted was have Mark bawl his head off with grief while they practiced the horizontal Tango.  Indeed, judging from the puddle of tears collecting on Mark's desk, Mark had been driven to madness from listening.  It wasn't just that he was jealous, the rejection he felt was unbearable.  Now that the Three-Way had turned into a Two-Way, Mark had been handed a One-Way ticket out of town. 

"Is there is any way to rescue your Triangle, Mark?"

Mark looked up with red, tear-filled eyes.  "I don't know if this rift can be repaired."  Shaking his head in doubt, Mark continued with a sigh.  "Probably not.  Three's a crowd.  Someone has to go and it is bound to be me.  If Sean had his way, I could stay.  It is Mariah who is unsure.  I am worried that Mariah will force Sean to push me aside completely.  Right now I am terrified of being put out in the cold."

I didn't know what to say.  I had warned Mark long ago that he was playing with fire, but took no pleasure in finding out I was right.  I finally decided to ask Mark to explain his dynamics with Mariah.  As Mark explained the story, he and Mariah were best friends, sort of like girls who are roommates.  Mariah could have cared less while Mark had casual sex with one man after another.  She wasn't possessive in that way.  However, when Mark and Sean started to fall in love, Mariah felt abandoned.  Fearing being left out in the cold, Sean's presence threatened the stability of her relationship with Mark.  Furthermore Mariah was the one who had to listen as Sean and Mark went at it behind closed doors.  Threatened by Sean's increasing importance, Mariah confessed to Mark her fear of losing him to Sean.  That's when Mark came up with the brilliant idea of involving her in a three-way.  It worked at first, but then it backfired. 

I listened with astonishment.  I had never heard a stranger story.  What was Mark going to do?  I was reminded of the old punch line... "My best friend ran off with my wife and I miss him!!"  Sean and Mariah enjoyed making love so much, they had fallen in love.

"I don't know what I am going to do,  Mariah doesn't want to share Sean with me any more.  She won't let me touch her anymore and she has a fit if I try to hug Sean."

This did not sound good.  I had completely misjudged Mariah.  Underneath her cool ice queen exterior boiled a hotbed of lava.  I understood it is possible to have casual sex with different people at the same time.  Assuming strong emotions are not involved, it becomes a game of physical pleasure.  I scratch your back, you scratch mine.  However, the equation changes when feelings get involved.

Thursday, February 27, 1975, Age 25, the lost years

PIANO MAN

Seeing Mark fall to pieces in my office shook me up something fierce.  I hated to desert a sinking ship, but Juicy and Lucy's advice to ditch the Farmhouse loomed heavily in my mind.  Lucy and Jill made it clear it was time for me to leave the Gay World and begin seeking that missing girlfriend.  The Farmhouse dancing and the encouragement of my two friends had done wonders for my confidence.  Feeling attractive for the first time since Vanessa left me, I now believed I could approach a girl at a nightclub and ask her to dance. 

Only one way to find out.  I decided this was a good time to re-evaluate the bar scene.  On the way home from volleyball that night, I stopped by Prufrock's, a piano bar in my neighborhood.  Although I wasn't much of a drinker, I ordered a glass of wine.  Then I sat back and began thinking of a place to visit tomorrow night.  The thought of abandoning my two friends prevented me from leaving them just yet.  However, they had given me an idea.  Saturday belonged to Lucy and Jill, but Friday was the obvious night to branch out.

Just then I noticed an unusually pretty lady sitting alone.  Stimulus-response kicked in immediately.  Breaking out in a cold sweat, my ancient fear of rejection kept me riveted to my seat.  Who was I fooling?  My dance success at the Farmhouse had not done a single thing to diminish Phobia's grip.  All the Farmhouse had done was help me avoid facing my fear of women.  Simultaneous to this reaction, I asked myself if I could use my new-found confidence in my dancing to ask a girl to dance at a non-gay dance club.  Instantly I was hit by another surge of fear.  I was so angry at myself.  All this work to learn to dance only to find I had not made a single dent in my fear of rejection by a pretty girl.  I shook my head in disgust.  I was so pathetic.

When the piano player returned from his break, I noted the warm applause.  The piano player had a very good rapport with the crowd.  He began by taking requests.  I heard someone call out for 'Piano Man', the current hit by Billy Joel.  The young man was so quick to oblige, I wondered if he had asked a cohort to make the request.

Singing with gusto, the piano player raised his voice when he hit the lyrics, "And they sit at the bar and put bread in my jar..."   In case no one caught on, the young man boldly pointed to his tip jar.  It worked.  Not only did his gesture draw a big laugh, several got up to stuff coins and bills in the jar.  That was only the start.  After the song ended, several others came up to make contributions.  That included the pretty girl I had my eyes on.  I saw how she lingered to make sure the man noticed her.  Judging by his smile, she had successfully caught his interest.   Just to be sure, the  same girl brought him a glass of wine later on.   He nodded, smiled, then blew her a kiss. 

Hmm.  This piano gig was quite the babe magnet.  Feeling envious, I assumed this was an excellent demonstration of what Jim Deane meant about finding a way to display one's expertise to women.  The piano player was okay looking, but nothing special.  However, when he played piano, he had the girls in the palm of his hand.  Watching the women swoon, I recalled what Deane had written.

"The best place to meet women is any venue where a man shows his superiority.  Since the beginning of time, women have been attracted to successful men.  Every man needs one place where he is the clear choice as the Alpha Wolf in the room.  Every man must identify his Stage, the place where he can demonstrate his ability and look his most confident.  A man's Stage is the spot where he becomes very attractive to women."

Watching the guy smile and work the crowd, I could see how his piano skills paid off big time.  His confidence and ability made him very attractive.  He was the star, the main attraction.  I thought of Frank Sinatra.  He was a scrawny guy, 5' 8", 160 pounds.  Sinatra was so sensitive about his stature that he wore elevator shoes.  "Sinatra was a skinny guy with big ears," said bandleader Tommy Dorsey.  "And yet what he did to women was something awful.  And he did it every night, everywhere he went."

Put Sinatra on stage and watch the girls scream.  However, he wouldn't rate a second look at a grocery store.  I understood what Jim Deane was saying.  A man needs to know where he looks his best.  Back when I was at Colorado State, I used my Graduate Student status as an excuse to approach any woman who passed through the Psychology Department.  Not that it did much good.  I lacked the conversational skills to get to Second Base.  But at least getting to First Base had not been a problem.  Unfortunately, those days were long gone.  Take this piano bar for example.  Not a soul gave me a glance.  I was a nobody. 

My strong point was education and intelligence.  Although Brains were a good thing to have, they were a poor substitute in a beauty contest.  What place could I go where brains counted?   Hmm.  Given my woeful lack of confidence, bars and dance clubs were hardly my cup of tea.  However, there was nothing stopping me from looking for girlfriends in places besides a nightclub.  But where?  I racked my brain.  The best place to meet women would be any venue where I could show superiority.  Then I snorted in disgust.  What superiority?   The only thing I had ever been good at was education and look where that got me at Colorado State.  On the other hand, I had certainly done better at CSU than I would in a bar.  With a wry smile, I recalled how I managed to strike up a conversation with 50 different women during Jason's Dating Project.  It wasn't that tough because I used the Psychology Department as my stage.  I would go to a seminar or a workshop, look around the room for someone I was attracted to, then approach them with a question related to the topic.  It wasn't that difficult.   Hmm.  That was the moment something clicked.  I was on to something.  My intelligence was my strength.  That is what had attracted Vanessa.  What a shame I wasn't still at Colorado State.  Meeting girls had not been a problem there.  That gave me an idea.  What if I were to bypass using bars and go back to college instead?  The best way to meet another girl like Rachel or Vanessa would be to go back to college.  This was a good idea, but it would never work.  Thanks to Fujimoto, I had vowed never to return to college.  But then I paused.  Who said I had to attend the college?

With a laugh, I recalled a friend who had recently visited Canada.  He went to a bar and complained he could not tell the Canadians from the Americans.  In a sudden flash, it dawned on me I did not need to be a student to visit a campus.  Why not visit a college and pretend?  At age 25 I could still blend in with a college crowd fairly easily.  Well, duh, what took me so long to figure that out?  What about Rice University?  With that, a wry smile crossed my face.  Since Aaron, a professor at Rice University, had stolen Rachel from me, maybe Rice University would be kind enough to offer an attractive replacement.  Wouldn't that be sweet?  The Karmic balance in that idea was so amusing that I locked on to it.  On the spot, I decided to pay Rice University a visit tomorrow evening.