There was this little Mormon girl named Kelly. We were on-again, off-again, a beautiful, chaotic pendulum. She was one of the greatest teachers I ever had. She was… advanced. Coming out of a twenty-year marriage where the manual hadn’t been updated since the Reagan administration, I needed someone to show me the ropes. I needed a crash course in modern warfare.
And Christ, was she a professor.
We didn’t “go out.” We didn’t do dinner and a movie. We just… did things. Four times a day when we were together. We went at it like rabbits, a strong, desperate passion, back and forth. And then, because we were both damaged goods, I’d force a fight, or she’d say something crazy, and boom. Breakup. I’d move to the next person, she’d move to the next person.
And a month later? I’d find myself back with Kelly. It was a repeat performance. A greatest hits album of dysfunction.
I learned the art of the “monkey branch” from her. She never let go of one vine until she had a firm grip on the next one. There was always a guy on standby. Always a backup generator humming in the background, just in case the main power grid went down.
On this particular day, I hadn’t heard from her in a while. I was courting Lara. A different kind of woman. Lara told me she “doesn’t date” like the other tramps I was used to. She “does relationships.” Serious business.
We were sponsoring a band called Traffik in downtown Bend, doing the radio thing. Lara decided to park her RV right there in the mix. We’d been doing the kissing, the goofing around, taking it slow. But that night, the RV was there, the mood was right, and she invited me back.
”Yes,” I said. “Please. Let’s do it.”
And just as I’m mentally preparing for the main event, my phone rings.
It’s Kelly.
”James,” she says, her voice tight. “I don’t have time to explain, but you’re the only one I can count on.”
It’s never good when they start like that. She already had the hook in my mouth; now she was just reeling in the line.
”I had a guy come in through my window,” she said. A guy she was dating. He broke in, crawled through the bedroom window, and started choking her in her own bed. Her oldest son heard the noise, came out, saw it, and screamed the bastard away. The police were there. The whole ugly, terrifying circus.
”Is there any way I can stay at your house?” she asked. “Me and the kids? We can’t stay here.”
I didn’t hesitate. “Sure,” I said. “The door is open. But I’m not going to be there tonight. I’m out of town.”
”Okay,” she said. “I really need this.”
”The house is yours.”
I lied. I wasn’t out of town. I was a block away, inside a Winnebago, about to seal the deal with Mrs. Relationship.
That was my first time with Lara. And true to form, it was a “relationship” kind of night. I spent the night in that RV. I kissed her goodbye the next morning, still covered in the sweat and the “love juices” of a successful campaign. Kiss, kiss, bye-bye. She drives the RV home.
And I walk a block to my house.
I open the door. It looks like a refugee camp.
Two pre-teen boys are asleep on my couch. They’ve destroyed a bowl of popcorn; kernels are everywhere, a testament to a night of anxiety and bad movies.
I walk upstairs. To my bedroom.
Kelly is already awake. She sees me. And she doesn’t ask where I was. She doesn’t ask why I smell like another woman’s shampoo. She just pulls back the covers and invites me into my own bed.
A quick thank you. A push of the lock button on the door. My reward for providing the safe house.
And that’s how Kelly and I worked. She was a good person to be with, in a lot of ways. We completed each other’s chaos. But she was really, really good at always having someone right there.
Even months later, when I was deep in the “relationship” with Lara—fighting, arguing, doing the “we’re a couple” dance—Lara and I would get into a blowout. And where would we go? To Kelly’s house.
We’d knock on the door. “Let us in.”
And she would.
Our partnership in the bedroom, Kelly and I… it was intense. It was passionate. Coming out of a dead marriage, I didn’t know that level of connection existed. I have to honor her for that. She brought the intensity. She taught me the dance. She showed me that sex wasn’t just a duty; it was a conversation, sometimes a screaming argument, sometimes a prayer.
I’ve had to be the entertainer so many times since then. The teacher. The one bringing the other person up to speed. But with Kelly? It was natural.
Even though I’d leave my house that morning, stepping over her kids and the popcorn, to go back to Lara… it was never the same. With Lara, it was quantity—sex five times a day, trying to prove something. With Kelly, it was quality. It was fire.
A very unique relationship with that little Mormon girl. She was a disaster, sure.
But she was my disaster.
