The Catholic Church and other derivatives of the Judeo-Christian faith extol monogamy as the true state of man and woman, then explain sex with the mystery of the birds and bees. Actually I don’t ever recall getting that lecture from my parents, although the stork was mentioned whenever a new brother or sister arrived unannounced from the hospital. Storks at hospitals made no sense to me, but my parents remained faithful to each other till death like mating pigeons.

On the other hand I have been a wanderer. I can’t count the number of my paramours on one hand or all my digits either. I’ve never made a list. Somehow that seemed a little too gauche. While I don’t remember all their names I do recollect their faces, smiles, and smell. Strangely very little of the sex. Woman pride themselves on their memories. They can quote you twenty years after the utterance left your lips. I thought that females would be the same about the act of love.

Not all of them.

Several years back I ran into Valda at a studio opening in Manhattan. I had been out of town for a half-year in Asia. We sat on a window sill and spoke of our lives. Past and present. Two younger people came up to us and asked if we were a couple.

“You seemed so comfortable together.” The male beamed with the promise of two hearts beating as one. He held his girlfriend’s hand with tenderness. They had a lot to learn, but I wasn’t giving them any harsh lessons, so I said, “No, we’re not a couple, but we once were lovers.”

“No, we weren’t.” Valda’s answer was quick and harsh.

“We weren’t? I was certain we had slept together on my futon. Sweat slickening our bodies on a hot August night.

“Not at all.” She was adamant about the non-existence of a shared night or two.

“Are you sure?” Her kiss had been long.

“100%.”

Those encounters couldn’t have been a phantasm of my fantasies. Her nails had scratched my back to shreds.

The young couple were aghast by the fury in her eyes.

“Sorry, guess I was thinking about someone else.”

“Not me.”

“Not you.” I admitted defeat and Valda stormed away, as if we were a divorced couple.

She had almost convinced me that nothing happened between us.

She was wrong.

I had slept with one her best friends, Lucille.

She would know if I was right, but the skinny Texan had vanished from New York at least a decade earlier.

Valda glared at me the rest of the night. I hadn’t thought I was so bad, but you never are as your memory fades from clarity.<