an interview with mimi about plan c

So Mimi, you’re still together with this wonderful man?

Yup. It’s been three months and two days. We met on February 10th.

Of course, you were also together with Performer for that long….

That’s true. I was.

How can you tell this relationship is better?

Oh god. Given my background — a terrible father, negligent, dishonest, disliked by all close to him, including his second wife, my half-sister, his parents sometimes, his siblings’ spouses — it’s amazing I can discriminate among men at all, in any way. But let’s see — well, at this stage, Performer was still promising to tell his children about my existence, an action postponed so long that in fact it never took place. At this stage — or a little later — I was (and with good reason) beginning to feel angry at Performer a bit of the time. And by about the fourth or fifth month, with P, I would occasionally ask myself, If there weren’t sex, would you want to spend time with this guy? would you want to take care of him as an old man? is he the person you want to converse with forever?

And that’s not what’s happening with Plan C?

Not at all. I’m hoping we can have at least 20 years together (he’s about to be 66), and with luck, 30 years. I was thinking about that lying in bed (alone, at home) this morning. And I asked myself, suppose he wasn’t up to much at 96. Suppose he was creaky and weak and forgetful — would you still want him? and my answer to myself was, I’d want to see the look in his eyes when he looks at me.

Wow. Okay. I get it.

He has much natural sweetness. Over dinner with his friends the other night, the wife of the other couple leaned over jokingly and put her cheek next to his, and her husband turned to me, smiled, and said, ‘My wife is in love with Plan C.’ He then explained he was only kidding, which of course I knew, but the little episode confirmed for me that I was right to see in him what I saw.

What surprises you most about Plan C?

His relationship with his cat.

With his cat???

They adore one another. The cat’s female — Polly — and Plan C gets really close to women: his mother, his late wife W, the cat, me….he gets more emotional about women than about men.

But a cat?

The cat sleeps in the bed with him (and with us, when I’m there). She slept with him and W. So when W died, Plan C was not altogether alone, because Polly was there. Taking care of her, feeding her, giving her treats, talking to her, and especially brushing her — their daily ritual, actually all their daily rituals — grounded him the way taking care of a child would have. He says, ‘She was all I had…’

Sniff sniff.

I know. He’s very sentimental. But so’s the cat. I’ve never seen a cat so attached to a human. If he’s lying in bed with the cat and gets up to go to the bathroom, the cat gets up also and sits outside the closed bathroom door… He keeps the radiator on in a back room off the kitchen so she can sit on the radiator and look out the window at the squirrels. He says, ‘That’s Polly’s Miami.’

‘Polly’s Miami’ is not helping global warming.

You can’t talk that way to Plan C about the cat’s needs. What’s the environment compared to keeping Polly happy?

Is he that devoted to you?

That’s a thought. Maybe I should ask him to brush me every day when we’re together. It might feel good.

Moving right along….No, actually, moving back…. you can accept this, the close relationship with the cat?

It’s not a problem. She accepts and loves me as another parent, not as a rival. In fact, she comes over to me to have her chin scratched and her neck rubbed almost as often as she goes to Plan C.

An honor.

It’s nice to be loved by a cat.

Speaking of other females, how does W figure in your relationship with Plan C?

That’s more complicated.

Duh!

She’s definitely a presence. He misses her and thinks about her a lot. Yesterday, as we were passing a photo of the two of them in which they both look terrific — tanned and happy in Hawaii, both wearing leis, W in a white skirt and shirt looking really nice, Plan C leaning in toward her with his arm around her — I said casually, ‘I really like that picture.’ And as we went into the hall, Plan C burst into tears.

Hmmmm.

And yesterday was a Sunday. He misses her more on Sundays.

Why?? he’s not religious or anything, is he? and anyway, they’re Jews…

My theory is that it’s because we have a lot of sex on Friday and Saturday, and by Sunday, he feels guilty — toward her. He feels he has been unfaithful to her.

Oy. This guy cries a lot…. Aren’t you concerned about all these emotions for his dead wife?

No, I’m not. Of course I don’t know what other widowers are like, but I guess you don’t get over 37 years of intimacy in three years. I’ve only known him three months…His feelings for me are very intense. After a while, I think the guilty feelings will diminish. I just have to watch out for Sundays….And anyway, his crying isn’t narcissistic, like Performer’s. Performer used to cry when he was moved by something in his own life or something he said.

You always define and praise the new man by contrast to the previous one.

How else to understand him? And anyway, there have been a lot of ‘previous’ ones.

How many?

Oh gosh, it depends what you count — boyfriends, husbands, lovers, recent ’serious’ dates and relationships. I’m a woman with a past.

You’re shameless.

Thank god.

???

When I first knew I was going to be divorced a second time, I felt ashamed: two failures! I didn’t feel bad about getting Ex out of my life, but about my public persona. But after a year or so of dating and six months or so of blogging, I began to feel sort of in-your-face-sexual,
like the Wife of Bath: ‘Welcome the sixte, whan that evere he shal. For sothe I wol nat kepe me chaast in al.’

Translation please?

‘Welcome the sixth, whenever he turns up. For truly you better believe it I’m not going to stay chaste forever.’ That’s a loose translation.

From a loose woman.

From a shameless woman.

Back to Plan C: all I hear about is his tears, his cat, and his late wife. Do you guys ever have any fun??

We have a lot of fun in bed…

Funny, you never seem to mention that. What is it, are you running your posts by the Pope or something for censorship? Where have all the details gone, long time passing?

Oh gosh. Gee…

Your interjections date you, you know. Next thing it’s going to be ‘gee whiz’ and you and Plan C doing the twist and talking about Dick Clark and Doris Day and Debbie Reynolds.

Who are they??

Very funny. As if you didn’t know.

Okay, well, back to sex. We have terrific sex. We can’t lie in bed together, even for an afternoon nap (with Polly….), without — you know — beginning things… Plan C is all-over erogenous zones. I’ve never known a man whose back was erogenous. Sometimes after sex if I touch his back he pulls away because it’s too sensitive….it arouses him so much he can’t take it.

This man is — well, I don’t know about him — the cat, the tears, the erogenous back — where did you find him?

Stupid, boring old jdate. That’s where I found him.

So when he’s not crying or brushing his cat or squirming because you’ve touched his back, do you guys ever fight? or disagree about anything?

Well, I mentioned the political fights two posts back. And we may have a little conflict about timing and logistics when we travel abroad together in about six weeks, because I like to get to the airport really really early, and he doesn’t. And there are other little trivial things we’ve annoyed one another about, but now, for instance, he knows not to talk about untidy parts of my apartment, because I’m working on them, and I know to leave him alone Sunday afternoons and evenings (when we’ve parted after spending the weekend together), because that’s when he’s likely to be missing W. I can hear in his voice when he’s going to get irritated, and I back off or stop talking to him or just disappear briefly.

And your socks?

Either he has gotten used to them or he has decided not to ‘fight that battle.’ I think a little of each. Whenever I put them on, when I’m with him, I say, ‘Are these all right?’ or ‘Do you mind if I wear these?’ and he always says they’re fine, whatever they are.

Money?

I pay when we go out for dinner with my friends and he pays when we go out with his. I pay for food at my house and he pays for my food at his house. I have to stop him from being too generous. Though it’s funny, once he lent me twenty dollars for a metrocard, and when we’d been home about half an hour, he said, ‘Don’t forget that twenty dollars.’

What are you giving him for his birthday?

Well, I’ll tell you this, I’m not spending the huge amount on him that he spent on me. I’m going to down the antes. But I have a very good idea, which I’ll whisper to you. {{{{ pssshhhh whsshhh pssshhh whsshh}}}}

That’s brilliant. He’ll love it. Very clever.

Thank you! I think so, too. And just because you’ve flattered me so much, I’ll tell you one more thing about Plan C and sex.

Goody.

‘Goody’??? Your interjections date you. —– Anyway, here’s the final thing: sometimes he likes me to talk dirty to him, so I do. And when he praised my dirty talk the other day, I said, ‘It’s not as if it requires a great deal of imagination. It’s just the same words over and over.’ And he laughed…

But doesn’t the cat sleep with you guys? you let her hear the dirty talk?

She likes it too.

Mimi, you’re perverse.

Thank god.

* * *
UPDATE: photo of Plan C’s cat Polly, reposted from ‘the sleepover’ [21 april 2008] in honor of DT & WG

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