Naked Vulnerability
“Love is about vulnerability,” the marriage counselor said. “You need to open up to one another. You need to trust each other.”
Martin listened to the clock on the wall tick off the seconds as he and Miranda sat on the couch, a foot of space between them. At $200 for a 50-minute hour, each tick was costing money.
“When you fell in love,” the counselor continued, “you both opened yourselves completely.” He looked at the couple. Martin had his arms crossed. Miranda hugged herself tightly. “Now you are both closed. To heal, you must lower your guard — do something that makes you feel naked and exposed — like you did when you first met.”
“What are we supposed to do?” Martin asked. “We’re not twenty-something anymore.”
“It doesn’t need to be anything big,” the counselor said, “just something that jars you from the monotony of your marriage, ”
Are we really seeing a shrink because of monotony? Martin thought. Isn’t this just middle age? Isn’t this just what happens to marriages?
The counselor stood up and motioned them towards the door. “Try that, and next week we’ll see if any of the walls between you have come down.”
***
Martin sipped his coffee.
Across the table, Miranda said, “The appointment is this afternoon.”
The whole week had passed, and they hadn’t thought of anything to fulfill the task the counselor had set for them.
“All right,” he grumbled, getting to his feet. “What if we take the man literally?”
“You want to actually get naked?” Miranda asked, incredulous.
“Why not? It’s a start.”
She glanced out the front window to where a neighbor was out mowing the lawn.
“Not here,” he said quickly.
He ushered her to the hallway, away from windows.
They took off their clothes.
Two middle-aged bodies.
“We’re going to have to spice this up,” Miranda said. “Our bodies stay naked, but we each get to accessorize with shoes and a hat.”
It couldn’t hurt.
As he gathered his accessories, Martin looked out his window at their backyard. They’d recently redone the fence, making it solid and high enough to give them plenty of privacy even as the neighborhood grew around them.
That gave him an idea. The sun and the heat were both rising. It was plenty warm enough out there to be naked and exposed.
***
Miranda was overheating.
She’d gone along with Martin’s outlandish plan to sit naked in the backyard, facing each other in their old lawn chairs. But now sweat covered her body. Her eyes traced the beads of perspiration as they slide down the bare skin of her legs and dripped to the ground. The grass is yellow, she thought. It needs watering. Let me get the sprinkler.
Without a word, she rose from her chair and walked to the shed. She could feel Martin’s eyes on her naked body. Now she did feel vulnerable.
Luckily, the hose attachment was behind the fence, and she managed to attach the hose with only Martin able to see her. She walked back to the grass, the heels of her red shoes sinking into the earth, and placed the sprinkler right between them.
The sun beat down on her as she returned to her chair. Thank goodness she’d had the idea for the hats. Each time the sprinkler arced to her side, the bright flowers that wreathed her hat’s brim were watered as if by a rain shower. She’d bought her hat in Costa Rica when she’d met Martin. They’d kissed in a downpour their bodies radiating the heat between them so strongly that she’d been sure they’d turn the rain to steam. Then, his goatee had been shorter and darker, and his face had been much closer to hers. There had been such passion at the beginning! And then at least a compassionate warmth, but now …
She looked at Martin through the curtain of water. He sat with his arms crossed and his right leg draped over his left. He was keeping things decent just in case someone peeked over the fence. He’d accessorized with sturdy hiking boots and a bowler hat. The hat, she knew, represented their middle-class life, and his hopes for further upward mobility.
It was funny how the more important the relationship became — first with marriage, then a house, then with kids — the more they’d feared losing it. They’d each closed down, afraid to show too much to the other. In guarding the relationship, have we lost it?
***
The sprinkler showered Martin again, then arced over to Miranda. He followed the rainbow generated by the spray to Miranda’s body and watched the water run over her skin. The droplets ran down her legs and into her sexy red shoes. The water streamed over her curves and angles, before falling to the grass and soaking into the dry earth. She has aged since we met, of course, and so have I, but she is still beautiful.
The droplets gave his skin a chill. His muscles tightened and his skin tingled. With a shiver, he remembered when she bought that hat. An impulse buy, followed by more impulses. He remembered when they couldn’t keep their hands off one another.
The curtain of water moved back to Miranda, its droplets showering her once more. Swinging like an argument, or perhaps a conversation. She shivered too, her body tightening with the chill, but she continued to look at him. Waiting.
Martin pressed his palms into his thighs and stood up. Across the sprinkler’s curtain, Miranda’s eyes widened in surprise, and followed him as he picked up his chair and walked through the sprinkler spray over to her side.
“Is this seat taken?”
She shook her head, smiling, and gestured for him to sit.
“I guess we have something to tell the marriage counselor, eh?”
“I guess we do.”
