My Husband, My Roommate EPISODE 1 St. Augustine

My Husband, My Roommate

EPISODE 1

CAREFRONT

My Husband My Roommate

Copyright 2014 by EMAS de la Cruz

Published by EMAS de la Cruz

Smashwords Edition

Smashwords Edition

License Comment

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This book grew out of a number of diverse and unusual life experiences. As writers, image makers and participants in the world around us, we’ve had many chances to see and experience divergent cultures, languages and personal relationships. We’ve even gone so far as to travel around the US to learn about people and the ways that relationships and their expectations are changing.

This book is part of the new genre that focuses on Digital Romance and Distance Love. It is grounded in the real-life activities of more or less ordinary, non-computer experts and fantasizers who seek to use their comfort with technology as a way to make their loving commitment stronger. Most people still look at online connectivity as a way to arrange anonymous or pornographic sex. Digital Romance is about the intimacy and sexuality that can occur in the same virtual spaces but for positive impacts – to improve relationships. Distance Love, in a related approach, is focused specifically on how a couple can use the convenience of technological communication (and one might say stimulation tools to strengthen their love while they are away or as they work from around the physical or virtual world – a reality that is happening more and more all the time. We’ll address more about the stimulation tools as part of the grand series since many of them – though very real already – are just coming within reach.

My Husband, My Roommate is one level – just an introduction, actually – to this growing field of opportunities to use technology for love and passion. A growing body of evidence suggests that as many as one in four otherwise modern couples say explicitly that the fun and titillation in their love lives fades with the years. Our first task exemplified by Episode 1 is to use the stories of authentic characterizations of people to explore why this is happening. Therapists say it’s difficult to sustain the pleasure and experimental opportunities with people we value and respect too much – it seems like giving them sexual fun is a type of disrespect, in part thanks to what pornography and Internet sleazy access has done to our culture.

To do this, we have listened to and viewed the online lives of many. We must thank and appreciate them most directly. They demonstrated that there are other avenues. This explicitness is also why we’ve opted to write under the assumed hybrid moniker, EMAS de la Cruz. Like a conversational avatar bio, it adds mystery and spice to the adventure. We trust it also keeps the secrets we gathered from many all the more protected … until the couples or individuals are comfortable to unveil themselves.

This being said, however, we still want to thank a few folks for lending us access to their lives. We elected to use their initials here for the same reasons just mentioned. LK, for example, and LM are two women who told us more than they probably should have about where they are in their living arrangements with their husbands. Arguably, these two inspired the title of the entire series, My Husband, My Roommate.

As we traveled the country, we observed many lives and relationships. Three people and families, noted as ZW, BB and TT, gave us their thoughts. Some of the characters in the story found their names from indirect linkages to these guys and gals. Others, like RC, didn’t say much to us about her sex or intimacy, but gave enough openness to make it clear about how her culture and religious beliefs played into her struggles with intimacy and a lack of fulfillment. While we don’t agree with RC’s way of living – preferring in real life to be much less closed and judgmental – the fact is that some people still harbor her perspective. This book reflects some of those complex loving challenges too.

Mea Culpa

This story takes place primarily in the town of St. Augustine, Florida. The place was selected because of our familiarity with it, and because of what we know about its history. It is the oldest recognized formal city in the United States. In an interesting bit of fate, its first language was Spanish, an important audience for all successful books geared toward the future. We have done our best to do justice to that community. Sorry if that doesn’t always come through.

St. Augustine is in the heart of an area where imprisonment, worker exploitation and enslavement went hand-in-hand with the struggle to make a new nation. Natives, Spanish residents and African slaves settled and thrived in St. A., as we sometimes call it, in ways that undercut the perceptions of the American south. Then again, on the other hand, some historians believe this region is also responsible for putting some ugly parts of the business of buying and selling human beings in the forefront of display. This too is a fact that needs to be recognized and we tried to work it into and through the plot in direct and subtle ways.

Throughout this story there are references to specific sites, stores, restaurants and tourist services and attractions. Many are mentioned using their real names; others we either made up or adapted. In all instances we did this because we thought it added something to the experience and might even encourage people to want to find the locations. Because we changed the truth, the places might not seem as their founders or owners or stakeholders like to see their treasures. Sorry about that; it was not our intention to disparage. Don’t hold such happenings against them. Go see these places.

In a similar way as we noted, the characters names are made up. And so we end this qualification with the kind of language that writers often use to keep their legal advisors happy: This is a work of fiction. While, as in all fiction, the literary perceptions and insights are based on experience, all names, characters, places and incidences are either products of our imagination or used fictitiously. No reference to any real person is intended or should be inferred.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Acknowledgements

Mea Culpa

Chapter 1 - Woman Cave

Chapter 2 – Driving Away

Chapter 3 – Retreat Essentials

Chapter 4 – Dawn

Chapter 5 – Roommate Dance

Chapter 6 – Immersed

Chapter 7 – Rules Our Rules

Chapter 8 – History in Hiding

Chapter 9 – Fountain of Relief

Chapter 10 – Morning, the Loss

Chapter 11 – Roommate Rules

Chapter 12 – Contexting

Chapter 13 – Naming the Lies

Chapter 14 – Disheartening

Chapter 15 – Hugs in the Storm

Chapter 16 – Sugar Skype

Chapter 17 – Fly Bye

About the Authors

Other Resources on Relationships

Connect with EMAS

Sample – My Wife, My Roommate

Publishers To Be

Chapter 1 - Woman Cave

What I have truly fallen in love with is the routine of getting ready for my breakaway. One of the best parts of this trip is the last minute running about and getting everything in order. These kinds of travel preparations remind me that there are limits to what I can do.

The timeshare locations that we use on our outings are good sized, but, somewhat as a joke that got started about the time our annual trips first came together, we made a silly rule limiting the amount of clothing we could bring – only what could fit in one average size travel bag.

At the time we created it, it seemed like a harmless expectation, and most of us assumed it would go by the wayside quickly. Which is what happened.

It worked fine for the first couple of years as we enjoyed the vanity it allowed us as we made a show out of our choices. But weird it was as a rule, and soon it was gone to the wayside.

Except in regards to my activities. I took a liking to it. It has remained a perfect fit for me. I love showing off and speaking out with style. Most of the rest of the gang aren’t so emotionally accessorized, as I liked to say, and haven’t missed its passing.

To me, life’s a full-fledged game of fashion, so I’ve kept up my part year in and year out. The others saw the bag limit as being asked to overly dress for a picnic; for me, it remains the chance to be outfitted in Saks’ Fifth Avenue style for my personal Macy’s parade!

And so here, about 20 years later, I’m in love with the whole idea of selected the outfits that will sensationalize my many appearances on the catwalk of this vacation!

Planning and packing the order of my outfits and their corresponding accoutrements – laying out the order of my unveiling! – is as titillating as anticipating the diverse places I’ll get to show-off, no matter whether they be high- or low-brow. I want my options choreographed for any stage that might appear. That’s what I like. It’s thrilling to me knowing that I’ll look good even if I turn the expectations upside down and go screaming through a museum or sashaying about an amusement park!

My feelings about getting decked out for each portion of the trip this year was all the more exhilarating. I missed going on the outing last year because of a last minute upstage of emotionalism by my husband, Todd. He’d been bother by my sharing with him the evening before that I was going to quit my steady job when I got back so I could start the healthcare service business that Juliana and I’d been discussing.

When I said it last year, I hadn’t thought much about it that much. I had no idea it would be an issue. I was literally just filling in the space of a conversation, not considering that I could be starting a big disagreement. Apparently, however, as it turned out, I was wrong. And now, a year later, I’m still carrying some of that baggage and it is not at all fashionable for any setting … a part of life though it may be.

As I would later learn, Todd’s reaction from that night was way more than it appeared to be at the time – a worrisome concern about the business and financial struggles. Carefront, the name we eventually settled on for our home health consulting service, was going to be a risky adventure, true; but I gave no consideration to it really knocking him so far off his guard. And I had no idea that it would get so wrapped up with some problems with our kids that it became necessary for me to back out of the vacation last year as the very last minute.

Getting ready for this year’s away gave me the chance to look back and make some adjustments and test his waters on the subject. In the past few weeks, I’d brought the topic up again in various little ways to let him blow off any residual anger. I made sure he and I talked about what had happened and whatever might still be lurking in his mind or heart. Though I noticed some leftovers, all in all it didn’t seem that he was in so much turmoil about the incident.

Which was why I was feeling good about getting ready now.

Twenty years of marriage plus the relationship foreplay have shown us on multiple occasions that we couldn’t possibly agree on everything. For the most part, Todd and I were as simpatico as most couples could get. We didn’t just balance each other across our daily lives, we actually came up with a few new recipes for compatibility -- or as my mother used to joke about such over confidences, we had all the ingredients but still needed to figure out the proper balance to ensure that we had the right amount of snicker and the right amount of doodle!

Todd wasn’t where he needed to be but he was in a sweeter position than last year – and I was taking advantage of that face. I’m exhausted from the work that follow as Carefront came on line and I wasn’t about to let Todd’s take from the past drag me down. We’ve talk through or around it enough. Until Carefront gets where it needs to be in making the money Juliana and I want from it, there are going to be struggles. It was time to put this stuff aside for my regular journey to the wild side.

There is only so much a good woman can handle!

And, of course, I reminded myself as I tucked in the last of my outfits, the good news is that, because I wasn’t there last year, my companions will be all the more excited about seeing me and my one-bag collection of sexy.

This is going to be a year of Beverly originality!!

After finishing my clothing selections and showering for travel, I knew I still had to make the to-do list for Todd and the kids, but that for the most part the items on the preparation menu had been scratched away.

A couple of hours left. Time to chill: The perfect opportunity for a ‘fare’ and a ‘well’ in me and my Woman Cave!

*****

Mom used to say she and I were different kinds of girls; different from any she knew anyway. We needed our space in the same way men thought they had to have a lock on specific rooms or locations to secret away some fun.

Her space was in her special kitchen. It was hardly private but she had a way (and the fortitude) to capture it’s ‘alone’ qualities when needed. With a flick of an attitude or a shot of harsh tone, the room – any room – started to feel like it was physically separating itself into a distinct, private place. She could command it to be as she pleased to enable her to regain the hold of her anchor on life. Seldom did she ever have to react a second time before we were on the move out at lightning speed.

Many times she would tell me it as a black grandma thing!

Her ability to do this has never left my mind. Todd and I had put together a different kind of house where there was