The Catholic Church and other derivatives of the Judeo-Christian faith extol monogamy as the true state of man and woman, then explain sex through the mystery of the birds and bees. Actually my parents never lectured their children on that subject, although they spoke about the stork whenever a new brother or sister arrived unannounced from the hospital.

“A stork?” The bird was mot native to New England.

“Yes, a stork.” My parents spoke the word with reverence and my parents remained faithful to each other like mating pigeons. Bees never came into the conversation, maybe because the queen bee had so many lovers.

Just like me.

I can’t count the number of my paramours on one hand or all my digits and while I don’t remember all their names, I do recollect their faces, smiles, and smell, yet very little of the sex.

Woman on the other hand pride themselves on their memories. They can quote you twenty years after the utterance left your lips. I thought that females would be equally recollective about the act of love, but 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 past and present. Two younger people came up to us and the girl asked, “Are you a couple?”

“Not really.” I smiled at the tenderness in her voice. I had once been young.

“You seemed so comfortable together.” Her beau beamed with the promise of two hearts beating as one and he held his girlfriend’s hand with tenderness. They had a lot to learn, but I wasn’t in the mood to bust their bubble, so I said, “No, we were never a couple, but we once were lovers.”

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

“We weren’t?” I was certain we had slept together on my futon with slick sweat cooling our bodies on a hot August night.

“Not at all.” Her adamant response bristled with denial.

“Are you sure?” Her kiss was etched on my mind.

“100%.”

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

“Really?’

“Yes.” A fury dwelt in her eyes.

The young couple were aghast at this reversal on their intuition and fled from the charred ashes of mt pleasant memory.

“Sorry, guess I was thinking about someone else.” I waved the white flag of surrender.

“And there were plenty of those.” Valda stormed out of the gallery.

She was right.

A woman is never wrong about a man.

I had slept with two of her best friends.

Mary Beth and Lucille wouldn’t know if I was right, but I was gracious enough to allow Valda her victory.

Something bad had happened back then and I hadn’t thought I was so bad, but you never are bad as long your memory is outdated by reality.