How A Failed Foray into BDSM Paved the Path to the Love of My Life

It had been three years since my marriage ended, and I’d basically been on a hiatus from men—a “guyatus,” if you will. I was, as the song goes, “down with love;” so burned out and exhausted from being in a bad marriage as well as the demoralizing process of extricating myself from the same that I wasn’t in the mindset to be seeking out men or love or even sex AT ALL. It just wasn’t on my radar, and to be honest, I seriously thought it might never be. I was pushing fifty (and fifty was pushing back), and I thought it entirely possible that I had arrived at the place in life wherein I was perhaps post-romance, like it was a parade that had passed me by. And I was OK with it. Because what this guyatus wrought was a process of recovery, and not just from a failed marriage, but recovery as in an actual excavation of self. And, to my surprise, I had for the first time ever been digging what I dug up. I was reanimated and wildly productive: more creative, more inspired, more enthused, more driven, more myself, happier, and more free than ever before, or at least since banging about the unbridled corridors of my youth. My thoughts were clear-eyed and unfettered and my usual diffidence was nowhere to be found now that I was flying solo. Then into my dervish whirled a man I nicknamed Darth Vader. He was a business associate I’d had no intention of dating until I discovered we were, at least in his mind, in the middle of one at the Broadway opening of Beautiful: The Carole King Musical. And it was fun at first; suddenly, and without any of the usual attendant mishegos that comes with the buildup to remounting the old dating horse, I was back in the saddle and thoroughly enjoying the ride. That is until it became clear that Darth Vader and I had very different predilections when it came to sex: he was into BDSM and I was, as he liked to put it, “vanilla.” And though I respected his proclivities, he kept pestering me to broaden mine and as he did, like a moth to flame, or perhaps more aptly, a junkie to smack, I began, once again, to question and doubt myself.

Luckily, our entanglement was, in the scheme of things, relatively short and I was able to quickly course correct and get myself back on track, but the episode itself was instructive. Besides absorbing the general wisdom that one’s personal growth is not linear but serpentine (and often circuitous), I learned something about myself, and that was that I had been wrong—I wasn’t “post-romance,” not even a little. I still loved love, and nothing—not endless heartbreak, not being with the wrong person or even being benumbed via the waterboarding of divorce—would ever change that. It was a truth as much a part of the authentic me I’d exhumed as anything else. The incident also happened to be life-changing as the relaying of it via email to one of my oldest and dearest pals (Howie) kicked off a chain of events that led to our becoming a couple after thirty-two years friendship.

It is the evolution of this love story, chronicled in my new memoir, Almost Romance, from which the following excerpted email takes place.

***

OK.

How, you ask, do you get from the opening of Beautiful: The Carole King Musical to The Opening of Misty Beethoven (your “punch-up” referencing the ’70s Golden Age of Porn does not go either unnoticed or unappreciated—prayer hands emoji):

So, one night, after seeing each other for a few months, Darth Vader and I were at the Met attending a rather decadent soiree in the Temple of Dendur. And as we swanned about, noshing on bite-size Bloody Mary tomatoes with vodka gelée, Darth Vader asks if I happen to own a leather restraint harness. Thinking he’s kidding, I laugh.

He’s not kidding.

“Because if not,” he says, “I’d like to buy you one.”

And I thought this guy didn’t get my taste when he bought me a seersucker tunic from Vineyard Vines for Valentine’s Day.

ANYWAY.

So I politely demur, and thinking that would be that, I ask him if he thinks we should try or skip the miso-glazed black cod. Nope—he wouldn’t let it go (and he didn’t want the cod either). For the rest of the evening—as we stood on the sidelines, watching revelers dance on the custom-built black-and-white Lucite dance floor; as we traipsed down the 1200 votive-lit stairs of the Metropolitan Museum’s Great Hall; on the walk to the parking garage; in his Beemer as he drove me home to Chelsea—Darth Vader continued to wax syllogistic about how my “vanilla ladylike mom-identity” might just be the perfect yin to eroticism’s yang.

So now—cat’s out of the bag. And though I said, “You know, this ain’t my thing,” thinking that would be that—that was not that, and soon, even in the most incongruous of spots (like the Cathedral of Saint John the Divine in the midst of his assistant’s wedding ceremony!) it became Six Degrees of Yes, My Supreme Mistress.

Seriously—this is what he started calling me: “My Supreme Mistress.”

(Remember how I always hated the name “Nancy” cuz I thought it was humdrum and old-ladyish and felt I should have something more exotic? I take it back . . .).

And this is how it went: no transition, no segue; Darth Vader would just randomly out of nowhere slip kink into the convo:

“Can you please pass the salt?”

“Yes, My Supreme Mistress.”

“Hey—where am I meeting you for the Soderbergh thing again?”

“The Tribeca Screening Room, My Supreme Mistress.”

And then, of course, there was the cajoling, the coaxing, the relentless prodding, trying to pull out of me what he referred to as the “libidinous tigress” caged within me, as if he were Orson Welles and I his Citizen Kane.

I know.

OK, so why didn’t I dump this guy the minute he started in with this stuff?

The truth is, Howie, that by the time we entered the porno-Pygmalion phase of our story, I actually really cared about the guy. And these feelings took me by surprise, as did my attitude when he’d opine on my prudishness: he’d wonder aloud why I was so uptight, and rather than getting defensive, I’d wonder the same. And not wanting to, as the Bear would put it, “yuck his yum,” I said to myself: OK, is there anything here? Is there anything to the idea of embracing a more multi-nuanced, nonbinary, rife-with-complexity state of mind? What if I at least try to imagine myself the way he sees me, because who knows, maybe it’s really true that I’m hampered by a false sense of decorousness and maybe I’m due for some sort of sexual self-discovery?

The whole experience of dating Darth Vader had been such a new one for me that I became thus a new experience to myself, leading me to ruminate on that age-old koan: “If everything’s up for grabs, is it possible that some of those grabs might include a vibrating glove?”

Sure, I felt like the entire five-month Darth Vader episode was an extended-play version of the Clash’s “Should I Stay or Should I Go,” but something about being told I was “sexually parochial” brought out my inner–Diane Sawyer and launched an intrepid investigation into the world of BDSM.

Now, when I say “investigation,” do I merely mean a cursory trip down that deep, dark rabbit hole known as Nancy in Googleland? Yes. Nevertheless, it was still an education and I learned a lot, especially in my visits to chat rooms, where I found hyperlinks not just to Reddit reviews of anal hooks but to a “sex-positive, kink-friendly, non-pathologizing” community of some of the loveliest, most helpful, and respectful people I’ve ever had the pleasure of not meeting. Which, can I just say after the sanctimonious shaming I endured on those bitchy Mommy Message Boards, was a f***ing panacea?? I mean, anonymously ask another mom about sleep-training or bottle-feeding and batten down the hatches to prepare for holy hell. But if you’re new to ass-play and don’t know where to turn for body-safe titanium dildos, or should you, you know, need to find an inflatable gag in a pinch, these folks seriously have your back (and any other body part with which you may need help), and all without any judgment whatsoever!

They also had these hilarious usernames, like “Cock-Ring Lardner” (not kidding), from whom I learned that there are actually studies which seem to indicate kink can reduce one’s stress cortisol levels (!!) and that sure, props are cool, but kink doesn’t necessarily require a ton of expensive “stuff” (“It’s not like you’re taking up hockey,” opined “Cock-Ring”). But I must say that it was the salient words of “Fisted Sister” (!!), whose homily on communication and trust being primo (along with understanding, patience, and above all, LISTENING) that resonated most. I heard all about what Darth Vader wanted—but what about what I wanted? He hadn’t indicated he’d heard that—he hadn’t indicated he was even interested! And, as “Fisted” further pointed out, “Boo shaming you for being ‘vanilla’ is not the look. If this isn’t for you, he needs to respect that.”

“Fisted” was right. Why the shaming?? Also, yeah, I cared about him, but come on, we didn’t want the same things, and quite honestly, litmus test: I had no interest in introducing him to any of my friends, let alone my kid.

So I broke up with him.

Or I tried to.

Somehow, what started out as me ending things turned into me agreeing to going to another two openings and a film screening that same week! This same exact thing had happened earlier in our entanglement when I’d tried to break things off: not only wouldn’t he accept it, he somehow, through the deftness of his lizard brain, actually three-card-monte-d me into believing that no, I did not want to break up—I just wanted to see these 6 movies with him! It was dizzying—I sometimes felt like he was a cult leader and I his lone follower. I sooo relate to you on how hard it is to break things off, even when they’re not right. But this time, I did get him to at least acknowledge that we were on different pages sexually and that I needed him to quit pressuring me about role-playing and “scenes” and strap-ons and the like, or I’d need to stop seeing him altogether, period, end of story.

“I understand,” he said. “But I think you and I are more kindred than you think.”

And, Howie, I kid you not—for the rest of the night he’s texting me:

Please forgive me and let’s try to move forward. Please give me another chance—I feel so connected to you; we don’t even need to speak and I feel the connection . . .

Even in the flatness of radio waves transmitting binary codes I could feel his sadness. Which made me sad. Like, unbearably so. And later, when I began to unpack it all, I kinda felt like this was the thing—this quality of poignant haplessness—that I found most compelling of all about Darth Vader. Because, for all his bluster and as imposing a figure as he was, there was a peculiar frailty about DV, as if he wasn’t quite of this realm. I’d watch him, you know, after shows, at invited dress rehearsals, after-parties, etc., holding court, chatting with friends or colleagues; fastidiousness masking a chronic melancholia (what Yeats would call “an abiding sense of tragedy, which sustained him through temporary periods of joy”), a trait that, as you know, I’ve always found so winning. And it made me feel oddly protective of him. Eventually, though, the very thing that drew me in began to make me feel caught, stuck, and just like you felt in your thing, guilty.

Jesus. How sorry are you that you asked me to elaborate?? Anyway, if you haven’t yet nodded off or stuck needles in your eyes, stay with me and I will do my best to wrap this up:

Fittingly, I suppose, it all came to an end the same way it began—with a Broadway musical.

It was one of those windy mornings that caused Diane Lane to make such bad choices in the movie Unfaithful: very last minute, Darth Vader called, told me to meet him just before 3 PM at the Schoenfeld Theatre. Unlike the glamorous opening of a future Tony Award winner, our swan song would be the closing matinee of the gorgeously lush, but financially underachieving, Bridges of Madison County.

Never a fan of the book or the movie (sorry, Meryl!), the musical version, with its THRILLING score and performances as unapologetically extravagant as the Iowa cornfields of its setting, should have been an instant classic, and, as I sat weeping along with the rest of the packed-to-the-rafters audience that Sunday afternoon, I was desolate to be witnessing its untimely demise.

Hours after the curtain had come down, and we’d bade our farewells to the cast and creatives at the sad little closing “party” at Sardi’s, I was still trying to ferret out the reasons Bridges hadn’t been able to sustain its run when Darth Vader and I arrived at his home in Montauk. “How could something so good come to an end,” I wondered aloud as Darth Vader steered me to his bedroom.

“Was it that the leads—attractive, vibrant, thirtyish—were hardly the weathered fiftysomethings whose lives had passed them by? “Was the audience for a Broadway musical either too shallow for an exploration of such honesty and emotional complexity or too priggish to root for an extramarital affair?“Was it that the show, though it had received four Tony nominations, had failed to garner a nod for Best Musical?”

“Who knows,” Darth Vader said absently as he unfurled me from my DVF wrap dress, unhooked my bra, and slipped off my panties.

And as I continued to postulate and puzzle over the mysteries of the commercial theater box office, Darth Vader began piling s**t on the bed: a dog collar, lube, a belt, Jergens Ultra Healing moisturizing lotion (???!), and several rolls of Bounty paper towels.

I’m like, “Um . . . that’s a lot of stuff?”

He goes, “There’s also a machete under the bed.”

“A machete?”

“Not for this,” he says.

NOT FOR THIS??

NOT FOR THIS??! As if, somehow, it would make me feel better that whateverthef*** he had in mind—which did include a dog collar, a belt, and, god help me, JERGENS—did not include the preferred weapon for a Southeast Asian melee?? Forget about the fact that we’d only weeks before had the convo in which I said, “Hon, I know this is you, but it ain’t me.” Because forgetting seemed to be a thing everyone in that bedroom was doing, and I am absolutely including myself BECAUSE WTF WAS I DOING IN HIS BEDROOM AT ALL AT THIS POINT?? I wish I had an answer for that, Howie, but the best I can come up with is that some higher plane of my subconscious understood that because the sex/kink talk had theretofore existed only in the hypothetical, it was going to necessitate the unambiguous realness of s**t playing out in real time before I could say NO in a way that he finally heard, yes, but more importantly in a way that I could hear myself.

Anyway, there I was in the bedroom I had no business being in and suddenly he’s got the dog collar on and he’s demonstrating how to snap the belt while telling me all the awful, horrible, mean, vile things he wants me to say (and do) to him. Again, I don’t know why; I cannot explain why, but for some f***ing reason, I actually TRY to snap the belt like he’d demoed and, I kid you not, the f***ing thing goes FLYING across the room, and next thing I know, I’m hysterically laughing and I can’t f***ing stop.

I mean, I was laughing so hard I was crying (which DV totally thought meant I was “crying,” but I was laughing like middle of act 2 Noises Off laughing), and that was it. I. Was. DONE. Like so done, I wanted to get the f*** out of there right then.

I fled; got home, and after downloading the whole ordeal to a horrified, pearl-clutching Nat, we sat in the coffee shop where I crafted a dignified “Dear Darth” breakup letter that left no space for rebuttal (I wasn’t about to even attempt to do this s**t in person). Nat called it the TED Talk of breakup letters. And though that was that, the whole thing left me feeling demoralized and deeply depressed. I kept saying to myself, After all I’ve learned, here I am AGAIN??

After months spent deprogramming, trying to unravel exactly what had made me susceptible to all this, I came to the conclusion that I had, in fact, been so starved for attention and validation that the minute I became involved with a man, I missed things that I should never have missed, whether they were subtle hints or wildly obvious affronts.

I had done this genius job—for years at that point—of burying all the inconvenient longing for connection, intimacy, the yen to be bound up in another being. I wasn’t even remotely thinking of these things, because how could I when they were submerged beneath my fear of menopause and dying and worrying about money and word counts and where my daughter would go to high school in 6 years. In other words, I was lost but had no idea I’d even been missing.

Was I retrospectively freaked out by DV’s behavior? Yes. But I was even MORE disturbed by my own. Eventually, though, I slunk right back into my guyatus, but this time with even more of a vengeance, even more isolating, because I was like, How the f*** can I feel safe with a man if I can’t even feel safe with myself?