About a week before I went to Slovenia this summer I went to see Helen. This was the first time we were alone since we made love nearly four years ago. The ostensible purpose of my visit was to give her one of my computer-generated drawings, which I had had framed for the occasion, but I actually wanted to spend some time with her. I wanted us to reconnect.

We spent a bit more than hour together. Some of that time we fiddled with my drawing and its possible place on the wall, but most of the time we talked about our lives. I wished to come closer to her, I wished to touch her, but I felt awkward about it. In the end, I got up rather abruptly and told her that I had to go. She did not stop me. We hugged and kissed, but there was no spark that could change my decision to leave. A few days later, just before I left, on July 20, I sent her an electronic-mail message about my conflicting feelings:

I know you will not see this message until your return to London in mid-September, but I still feel like writing to you now, rather than then. I am leaving the office and electronic mail tomorrow, and I am returning in mid-August, way before you.

I wanted to tell you that I feel a great deal for you, and that I feel that it is wrong to be so silent about it. In the confusions of my marriage and/or divorce, I have neglected you in some way. I have neglected my feelings toward you, that is. Yes, I love you as a friend, but I also love you in other ways. I love you as a woman, a fine woman, and I want you to know it.

Your touch has meant so much to me the last few times we were together. I touched you back, but I wished to touch you more and freely. I wanted to feel you in my arms. I wanted us to be much, much closer than the norms prescribe. This is what I wish to tell you today, before I suppress it again.

I know that you are a big girl and that these words will not confuse you or make you uneasy. Other words can wait for your return. By the way, I do not know why I am not sending this message to you by snail-mail, as so many postcards I have already sent to your island. Perhaps I want to surprise you at a different time?

The whole summer I was very much aware of this message in waiting. It was like a sprung trap, although not in a negative sort of way. On September 14, a day or so after Helen returned from Majorca, where she spends long stretches of time mainly in summer, she finally responded:

Thank you for your words of surprise. I understand and you didn’t need to say anything. It was lovely getting you postcards and much entertainment from the electronic mail generated via your web of interactions on my return. A wonderful way to slide myself back into La Vida Londres. While I was away I think I turned into a donkey. As you know, burros don’t have writing as one of their strong points. Waggling their ears and shaking their heads, yes, especially when pleased.

Helen’s response arrived while I was frightfully busy as the coordinator of a sizeable gathering in Reading. Nevertheless, I responded to her the next day, explaining I could not write earlier because I was in the middle of a big do. When I returned to her the following week and asked whether we could see each other, it turned out that the only day I was free was impossible for her, as well as that she was going back to Majorca for a few weeks.

I am not sure what will happen next. That is, I am not sure what I wish to happen next. That is the real rub with Helen. I just do not know what I want from her. This is probably the reason why I felt so awkward the last time we were alone together. We made love only once and clumsily, if not ineptly. Still, this one encounter was sufficient to dull the urge to make love to her again. Been there, done that, as the horrible expression goes. Without that urge at a high enough pitch, I apparently feel all else is somehow unclear, undetermined.