That Delicious Feeling of a Steel Band Being Pulled Tight Across my Chest

Every once in a great while, I meet a man who excites me. In the past almost 10 years--since my last encounter with Mike--only seven men have given me that delicious feeling of a steel band being pulled tight across my chest, that crazy pain in my groin, that electricity shooting through my body.

One was a one-time massage client, my very last client of the day on my last day at a chiropractor's office back in 2000. An instant attraction. We met later for a long, fancy dinner. He was such a Southern gentleman, giving me compliments at every turn. Such sexual tension, but alas, he was married and lived in Atlanta. We almost kissed, but knew that if we did that, we'd do everything. I never saw or heard from him again.

Then there was the 21-year-old surfer. We had three fantastic bouts of kisses, one on a boat. One of the most erotic times I've ever had with anyone was fully clothed with him at an art museum. We took on other personalities. I was Svetlana, complete with a Russian accent, a cynical attitude, and black back-seamed nylons. He was a fish affecienado who was confused about his sexuality. Our favorite game outside the museum was me giving him verbal instructions as to how he was to adjust the passenger-side mirror on my van. That's the best: When there's the thinnest veil of propriety, when an outside observer might think that what we're doing and saying is completely on the up and up, perfectly normal, above board. And yet, to us, it's charged with sex. I told him he should relax about the age difference, think of me as a priestess in ancient Greece who would invite young men to the temple to be schooled in the ways of love. Though he told his parents of his feelings for me, when he found out I was 44 and not the late 30s he had suspected, that was too much for him.

With the third man I had a few amazing times, but the last was ho-hum. He is someone with so many commitments, personal and career, that he never had more than a few hours every six months or so to give me.

Charlie I've written about previously. We had some wonderful kisses in Flagstaff on one October afternoon in 2004, but he, too, was married, and I never saw him again.

When I danced with a stranger at a supper club late last year, I felt that sweet, agonizing pain in my groin. We exchanged numbers and were supposed to get together the following weekend, but he flaked. My friend Bev said he must have been married too.

The email-and-phone trysts with a craigslist guy nearly drove me insane with desire last summer. We never met in the flesh.

And lately I've had a crush on someone. The sexual tension goes both ways but most likely will never be voiced or acted upon because the societal roles we play make manifestation problematic. As with the young surfer, there is that intriguing and delicious duality of propriety and legitimate business vs. sexual undertones. But as long as nothing physical occurs, it's a feeling I can take out from time to time, as I would a book from a shelf. No harm in that.

Sure would be wonderful to have this feeling for someone who is available and who feels the same for me. Wouldn't that be something! But that seems like a fairyland, a world I heard about some time long ago in a dream. All the things I have been imagining! All the things I've been storing up since my days with Mike! WOW, I am so ready to let all that loose!

But it's possible that, like good health, I will have to wait until my next lifetime to actualize all the passion, love, intimacy, wonder, and craziness I've been stockpiling all these many years because letting it out with someone who doesn't thrill me would be so not happening, so dead. I have friends who tell me they don't aspire to feel the steel band being pulled tightly across their chests. That someone who is nice and they get along with is good enough. Well, that's not good enough for me. I'm too much of a romantic. I'm not interested in settling.