With Ifs, You Can Put Paris in a Bottle: A Woman’s Memoir

By Edmonia Guerin

With Ifs, You Can Put Paris in a Bottle

With Ifs, You Can Put Paris in a Bottle recounts the early and middle adulthood of author Edmonia Guerin. As a naïve freshman at a historically Black college, she is date-raped by a Black upperclassman at the height of the Black Power Movement. She conceals the attack and fails to get counseling. This leads to other poor choices as she tries to cope with diminished self-esteem and a changed view of the world. After failed relationships with Black men, she marries a gifted White French architect and embarks on a quest to make him famous. With hard work and the help of African Americans, he succeeds. Near the pinnacle of his career, Edmonia’s husband must choose between his Black wife and the demands of a racist world. Guerin discovers the challenges facing all wives and mothers and gains insight into the degradation, shame and helplessness experienced by her enslaved female ancestors.
A memoir, With Ifs, You Can Put Paris in a Bottle calls attention to a host of topics, such as racism, misogyny, interracial and intercultural marriage, abortion, adultery, rape and resulting health problems.

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Oct 24, 2019
• ISBN: 9781532076527

Edmonia Guerin

Edmonia Guerin is a pen name used by an Alabama freelance writer. Guerin has a BS in Speech, a License in English, an MA in Theatre and other degrees. She was also a summer intern for a major newspaper and an English teacher. She self-published a children’s picture book and a book of poems under a different pen name.

Book preview

Chapter 1

Me, Too

The Black Power Movement was in full swing in 1969 when I began my freshmen year at a Southern historically Black college. All Black men, even a convicted rapist who confessed to practicing rape on Black women before raping the White ones, were presented as heroes by Black apologists. My father, the product of a majority Black farming community, had warned me not to idealize Blacks. My mother, whose protective father died when she was fourteen, had warned me about rape; however, I didn’t think it would happen to me. I had been raised in a suburb with a father, mother, brother and good reputation that afforded me a degree of safety. I was unprepared for what was about to happen and where it would take me. The second semester of my freshmen year, I had dropped David, a sophomore I had been seeing, after he tried to shame me into having sex. Then I dated two other men without the discernment to gauge their characters. One respected my vulnerability; the other, Aaron, raped me.

While taking a class at a neighboring college in the Black university complex I attended, I accepted a date with Aaron, a six-foot tall, 206-pound, former high school football player. Aaron was a twenty-three-year-old undergraduate English major in his fifth year of college. He had butterscotch colored skin, a disarming smile and the country-boy-charm and smell of cigarette tobacco I associated with Daddy. His darker side was hidden. I lowered my defenses, not sensing danger. As a football player in a small Southern town, Aaron had a sense of entitlement. He wanted to be a writer and would later become an actor in horror films. Meanwhile, he was a sexual predator.

You can tell this one is a virgin! Aaron told the guys walking with him loudly enough for me to hear. I turned to see who was talking, noted I was the subject of discussion but said nothing. After several weeks, Aaron and I began to chat on our way to classes. I thought him amusing but harmless. He made me laugh.

I haven’t seen you before, Aaron had said one day. You must be a freshman.

I am, I said. "But I don’t go to this school. I’m just taking a speech class. My aunt, Dr. Mildred Harris, heads the English department here.

I took classes with her, Aaron said. She didn’t appreciate my poetry. She’s old school, and I write about sensual things. It was pretty funny watching her face as I read my poems.

Many Blacks wrote in sexually explicit ways during the Black Power movement. My high school best friends had been safe adolescent Black boys who hinted at sexual things; therefore, I was not overly concerned about Aaron’s comment about my virginity and report of having read provocative poetry in front of my conservative aunt.

What’s your name? He asked one day.

Edmonia, I said. His class was apparently at the same time as mine because I saw him each day at the same time, walking with friends.

Would you like to go to a party? Aaron asked on the way to one class.

Sure, I said.

I’ll pick you up Friday at six, he said.

When I was summoned to the downstairs desk, Aaron was waiting for me. I signed the dorm registry giving the time I left. The dorm mother silently peered over her glasses, as I walked out with Aaron. She was a suspicious woman after having worked for years with vulnerable young girls. She once protected me when a local Black politician had asked female students who campaigned for a Black candidate to work all night. We came back to the dorm and asked permission to break curfew. The politician had offered to put us up in a motel.

You will be sleeping in your dorm rooms, she had said. You can work for this campaign in the daytime.

Aaron did not own a car, so we walked. He wore a short, stylish light grey jacket with matching pants. I thought it was a real date. I was a naïve eighteen-year-old, but I didn’t drink or use drugs that affected my judgment. Neither was I enamored with Aaron, and we were walking, not getting into a car, so I expected an ordinary, safe date.

The party is just down the street, he said.

When we arrived at the building where he said the party was, he went looking for something or someone. He didn’t say. He just told me to wait for him. So, I did.

Come with me. He said, when he came back.

I followed him as I had the habit of following my older brother. Aaron moved behind me but told me where to go. Following his directions, I walked into an empty room. Thinking it a mistake, I turned to exit, but he had dropped his pants and underwear.

I stared at him, unable to speak. I could not get past him to get out of the room. His eyes and demeanor warned me not to scream. The menace of this dangerous stranger had been masked by his student status. Now his eyes look drugged. I noticed this as I stood facing him in terror, his back blocking the door. Looking back, it occurs to me that we may have been in a drug house. I had seen only one or two people there.

Take you pants down! He said calmly, as if he had done this before.

Pl-e-a-s-e! I begged.

Aaron was unmoved. Take your pants down!

I was five feet four, a hundred and seven pounds, no match for the threat and force of a grown man his size. He moved closer and tried to penetrate me. I pulled back.

You are hurting me! I said.

He grabbed me and continued. The attack was brief, a brutal gesture showing conquest with no pretense of romance. My virginity was a trophy like those he won on the athletic field. So far up had I come from my humble origins with years of hard work and self-control; so low this man brought me in seconds.

Pull your pants up, he said after it was over. Let’s go.

He walked me to my dorm and dropped me off. I was now a captive to this awful secret. Maybe he took my virginity for bragging rights and figured I would not tell anyone because of my aunt’s status. He was a bully and took privileges his status could not win for him. I went to bed, but I did not sleep.

Other classmates had been raped, kidnapped or seduced. Reporting these offenses destroyed the girls’ reputations and ruined their freshmen year. One tall, stout girl had gone to a fraternity house to have sex with a guy. Once he got her in bed, his buddies gang raped her. Word of it was passed around the dorm because she needed medical care, I suppose. The rapists were students at a prestigious Black male college in the same university complex as my college and Aaron’s. They got away scot free. Maybe they became leaders or professionals in their communities after graduation.

On another occasion, three classmates had hitched a ride with Black strangers they thought were students and gotten kidnapped. When they got back to the dorm the next morning, they were accused of lying and put on social probation. No police were called. The college’s reputation was protected. Another classmate was encouraged by a chaplain to allow him to deflower her as he promoted the virtues of temple prostitution. She shared this with me. Unlike these girls I kept my rape secret as my mother’s warning echoed in my head:

If you get raped, crawl into a ditch and die. You won’t be fit to marry a decent man!

After the rape, I left Mama’s advice behind and struck out on my own without a map to guide me. She would die without ever having known that I had been raped. A dormmate had attempted suicide over academic issues. I chose to live. Aaron asked for me at the dorm again. I came down, not knowing what I was supposed to do after he took my virginity. He had borrowed a car and said he was taking me to meet his parents. He gave me his class ring and drove me to their house in his hometown.

I’m going to marry you, He said, without bothering to ask me if I wanted to be his wife.

He had come from a home where he learned that was the right thing to do after deflowering a girl. It was irrational to get into a car with him, but I accepted his commitment, too ashamed to date others. His parents lived in a small humble house and worked for White people in his town. Aaron’s mother opened the door when we got to the house.

Come in, she said. Have a seat. Would you like some lemonade?

Yes, please. She brought the lemonade.

This is Edmonia. Aaron said. She’s studying theatre. Her aunt was my English teacher. She is from Chicago. Aaron’s father came in. This is my girlfriend, Aaron said.

Glad to meet you, Edmonia, his father said, examining me. Where you from?

Chicago. Aaron said. Her aunt heads the English department at my college.

We made small talk. Then Aaron drove me back to my dorm, so I did not miss curfew. He came to see me again, and we sat in the room where girls received their dates. He knew where to sit, so the dorm mother could not see what he did. I was embarrassed when he touched me.

I am going to marry you, he said again. My brother Mark said my parents are glad I chose a decent girl.

The next time he came, he took me to his dorm room and tried to make love. I was embarrassed and stiff. It did not work, and he was frustrated. One day he came, and we went out with my girlfriend and her date.

Janie, you have big legs, but you don’t have any tits, he told her in front of me and her date.

I was embarrassed. Janie was still a virgin. Aaron came less frequently. He took me to his room again. Thinking I could no longer date others I went. Again, I was too embarrassed to have relations with him.

I’ve been seeing other nice girls around, Aaron said one day.

I guess he was telling me he was moving on. I had heard that he was sleeping with the wife of a soldier who was on active duty. He seemed to have a taste for loose, sexually experienced, unconventional women and virgins. Now I was neither. Taught to conceal abuse to protect family relationships, I didn’t seek counseling or medical care. Moreover, I did not want to embarrass Aunt Mildred. Like many other rape victims, I kept my nightmare secret.

I am itching, I told Aaron before we parted.

I didn’t give you anything! He said.

I was too ashamed to see a doctor. My grades dropped, and I failed to make the Dean’s List that semester.

Why did you stop dating David? My dorm mother, whose penetrating eyes silently examined Aaron when he requested me, asked privately. I didn’t answer.

In my world, loss of virginity attached me to the man who took it. Finally, reality and misery freed me the end of the academic year. By then, Aaron was disinterested, realizing he violated a girl not ready to be a woman. He began to treat me like a platonic friend. But the physical and emotional damage he caused could not be undone. We parted without explicitly ending the pretend engagement. I returned to my hometown for the summer and decided to stay there.

Chapter 2

Hiding the Shame

That fall I enrolled at a two-year college back home without explaining to my parents why I had not gone back to the other college. I continued the fiction of the engagement. I had Aaron’s class ring but no engagement ring.

You don’t look happy for a girl who is about to get married! Daddy said. Southern boys think they are in love with Northern girls because they are different.

Daddy always spoke from his experiences and observations. A gentle man with insight, he was usually reasonable and frank. But Mama’s family was puritanical. She was a caring, attentive, generous mother, but she reflected her upbringing. I could not talk to her about personal feelings or sexual experiences.

When my maternal grandmother had tried to elope at sixteen to marry her fiancée, after he got another girl pregnant, her sister told their parents about grandma’s elopement plans. My great-grandfather tied her to a chair and beat her with a buggy whip. He and his wife were biracial and had once escorted their white-looking son to the courthouse with a shotgun to make him marry the dark-skinned woman he disgraced. My ancestors tried to be moral.

You’re not going to bring shame to this family, my great-grandfather said. Fred ruined a young girl and did not marry her. If he was a decent man, he would raise the child he made. How’s that girl supposed to raise that child alone? Everybody would be gossiping about you. You came from a decent family.

My grandmother had a stroke after her father’s beating which gave her a social stigma. Her parents married her off to an older, wealthy, biracial man of their same caste. It was an unhappy marriage with no children. My grandmother divorced this husband. He gave her a house, but divorce gave her another stain. Her parents then married her off to my grandfather who was ten years older and dark skinned but wealthy enough to build her a house as a wedding present.

Grandma looked White. In those days, upper-class biracial people married people with a similar color and social statuses. Grandma had been trained on the organ by a White teacher and had played the organ at church and taught school. Now she was an embarrassment. Her fiancé moved north and started a new family in Chicago. How could I tell Mama I went on a date with a stranger and got raped? Mentioning marriage to Daddy had already opened a Pandora’s Box.

You have had more than a year of college. He said. That’s enough education for a woman. You’ll get married, and the education will be wasted. You could go back to work for the phone company.

As a farmer’s son, when Daddy got big enough to manage the mules and plow, he was not allowed to attend school except when it rained. He dropped out after eighth grade to manage the farm while his parents worked. He wasn’t trying to be mean to me, but he didn’t know that for me marriage was no longer a possibility if the rapist did not marry me because I carried a stain like my grandmother.

The fact that this man had degraded me kept replaying itself in my head, like a song! Now I felt betrayed by my father too, so I searched for live-in jobs in a local newspaper and found a mother’s helper job for two wealthy white boys. I moved in with their family, so I could stay in college. I went to my classes and babysat. It was a lonely life for a nineteen-year-old. One day I ran into a man who finished high school the year before me.

Isn’t your name James? I asked.

Yeah, he said.

You graduated with my brother Sherman.

Yeah, I remember your brother. Would you like to go to a movie? He asked.

That would be nice, I said.

I was back home, and this man was familiar, not a stranger like Aaron, and I was lonely. I did not ask what movie we were going to. It would be my first date with another man since Aaron’s attack. We saw a provocative film directed by Melvin Van Peebles. During that era, it was probably considered pornography.

Until then, I had never seen anyone make love and did not know how it was done under normal circumstances. This movie was explicit and enticing. For the first time, I wanted to have sex. James, my new acquaintance, was a predator like Aaron, but he seduced: he didn’t rape. More importantly, he listened.

I was raped when I went away to college, so I came back home. I told him.

That does not make you a bad person, he said.

But what I was about to do did push me over that moral line. Unfortunately, James had a wife he didn’t mention when he asked me out. We were so young it did not occur to me he was married. I was 19, almost 20. He was 21. After spending the evening preparing me for seduction, he confessed.

I’m married, he said. My wife had a nervous breakdown. I have a child who is with my in-laws. I’m depressed a lot, and I smoke weed as much as possible. I don’t know when my wife will be released from the hospital.

We were literally on his doorstep when he shared this. Both lonely, we didn’t turn back. For the first time I had normal intimacy with a man and associated with someone who admitted he used drugs.

We have an open marriage," James said, and shared things about his relationship with his wife. But after he seduced me, he let his mask down.

I’m an artist. He showed me his work. I used to ask girls to let me draw them, so I could seduce them.

He laughed. He was an experienced predator. The woman I lived with, estranged from her husband, went out on a date. Angry at being separated from his father, her ten-year-old son hit me in my back full force with his fist. I moved back in with my parents and got a job at a restaurant. When James’ wife got out of the hospital, he confessed and brought her to meet me.

I’m sorry, I told her.

After that, James and his wife showed up repeatedly to visit me because they were lonely and lost too. It was awkward to say the least.

You will reap what you sow! My mother said angrily.

At the restaurant where I worked, I met university students of different races. Two acquaintances were memorable. An East Indian college student, working as a bus boy, asked to read my palm. He said my lifeline was broken, but I had a very long education line. The other memorable acquaintance was an exceptionally tall, dark-skinned, graceful, African man with a beautiful face. He came often with White classmates from a university. This man would impact my life in a greater way.

You have a beautiful face, I said to him one day.

He smiled. After that, I called him pretty face because I did not know his name. We started to talk and became friends, but we were never intimate. His name was Kizza.

Would you like to go out? He asked one day.

Yes, I said.

Neither of us had a car. I took a bus downtown to meet him, and we walked around looking into shop windows. He bought me Shalimar perfume.

I am working on a doctorate in music, he said. But I need to go home to Uganda.

We exchanged addresses. I went for a medical check-up for the first time since the rape and learned I had an infection.

You have Chlamydia, the doctor said.

I didn’t know if it came from the artist or the rapist. If it came from Aaron, I gave the infection to someone’s husband. If it came from James, was the infection God’s punishment for adultery? Years later, I would be tortured by these questions.

The infection was quickly cured, but it left a trace in my blood like a vaccination, a silent witness to the errors of my youth. The doctor did not explain this. Maybe he did not know this fact about Chlamydia. As time would pass, I would forget the name of this unfamiliar disease.

Chapter 3

More Bad Decisions

After I graduated from the two-year-college in my hometown, I moved East to complete my studies. My roommate at the undergraduate school I enrolled in was a dynamic, confident, Black student studying broadcast journalism. Sophia talked her way into a five-minute weekly Black history spot at the radio station of our majority White college and brought me along as the reporter. I investigated and developed stories; Sophia read them on the air. Kizza wrote regularly describing his work at a university in Kampala, Uganda.

I travel to different schools throughout Uganda, setting up music programs, he wrote. Uganda is beautiful! When I save enough money, I will send you a ticket, so you can visit me.

I was interested in all things African and imagined the possibility of marrying Kizza. I looked forward to seeing Uganda, but Kizza’s letters stopped abruptly. Idi Amin had come into power and begun killing his countrymen in the ruling classes. With his height, upper class status and American education, Kizza stood out.

I wrote the university where he worked enquiring about his whereabouts, hoping his silence meant he had gotten married or moved to a safe country and was not one of the corpses Idi Amin left behind, during his ruthless carnage. There was no response. I felt a new sense of loss. One fall night my roommate Sophia asked me to go with her and friends to a concert. She followed the career of Corneil Adams, a handsome Black musician who was performing at a local club. During a break, Sophia approached him.

Could you play Them Changes?" She asked.

In the middle of the performance, Corneil inserted several bars of the song Them Changes. Sophia smiled in appreciation. I had never heard of Corneil but would later learn he was famous. I wore hot pants and fitted boots, the current fad, but I wasn’t a groupie. I was just hanging out with Sophia. After his performance, Corneil came over to me, when the transition music was turned on.

Would you like to dance?

Yes, I said, surprised and delighted. He was very beautiful. I was an average dancer, but he was impressive.

Could you spend the night with me? He asked quietly.

I don’t know, I said. I was not prepared for that question. I went to consult with my friends.

He wants me to spend the night, I told Sophia.

Go for it, one of the girls said. I walked back over to him.

Yes, I said. The other young women went back to the dorm.

I had grown up in the shadow of the Detroit music scene and the romantic dreams it created, as it poured out hits that youth in my hometown devoured, as we bought our weekly forty-fives. Corneil was a flesh and blood manifestation of the Detroit fantasy come to life. He was my same age, 20, and he was a possibility. A song from my youth encapsulates my feelings as I entered Corneil’s room and waited for him to take the lead.

I don’t even know how to kiss your lips, just the way you want me to. But I’m ready to learn.

I had not been ready for the two men who tried to force me into having sex my freshmen year. Loneliness and isolation led me into the brief affair with James, the young artist. But now, I was walking into this emotional experience with my eyes open and waiting for Corneil to unlock secrets for me that men and women shared.

Let’s take a shower, Corneil said, taking off his clothes.

I took mine off, and we showered together. He touched me in a neutral way, rubbing soap on my shoulders and arms, comforting and relaxing me. I had never showered with a man. Our interactions felt normal. Poor Aaron who tried to move a woman’s emotions by brute force. It was tenderness, as Otis Redding said, that captured women’s hearts. We dried ourselves.

Lie down, he said, and he began.

For the first time I understood what it meant to make love instead of having sex. I felt no shame, just pleasure and connectedness. I trusted Corneil like a puppy dog, following a new master, as he initiated me into the mysteries of making love. He did something that was a red flag, letting me know how cold he could be, but I was too eager to heed the danger signal.

This is my phone number and my address, he said, handing me a piece of paper before sending me home in a taxi.

When he returned to the state where he lived, I was lonelier than I had ever been. He had broken through my protective shell and left me hanging with nothing to hold onto except a phone number and an address. I called and wrote him.

I’m rehearsing, he said each time he answered my calls. He was pleasant, but he never talked to me from home. He lived with his mother.

Again, I thought having sex implied a relationship, even though Corneil had mentioned a woman back home. I would later read he practiced his music six hours a day and had been a celebrity since childhood. His phone number and address did not give me access to his world. It embarrassed me to keep calling when he never called back. That winter I got a call.

It’s Corneil Adams, someone at the dorm told me excitedly as she summoned me to the phone. He was back in the city where I lived. I had thought I would never see him again.

Hey, he said. Can you come?

Yes, I said.

Can you bring some friends? The guys can get them in free. I’ll send a taxi.

OK, I said. I asked some classmates to come with me. After the set, my classmates left without even speaking to the musicians who had gotten them in.

What kind of women are these? Corneil said angrily. They could have at least sat and talked to the guys. Some people don’t know how to behave. Let’s go. He led me to his room. When we got inside, we hugged each other tightly, and I spent the night.

Would you like to go to a wax museum? He asked.

Sure, I said. The next day he took me out to eat, and we went to a museum that showed the Saint Valentine’s Day Massacre. In his room, he took out a leather bag with a snowflake design and a shoulder strap.

That bag has gone all over Europe, he said proudly. Would you like it?

Yes, I said. It smelled like his cologne. I would sniff it when I was alone and think about him.

After we parted, I went walking one day near the hotel where we had been together, unable to get him out of my mind. I had suppressed my loneliness before meeting Corneil. To my surprise, he came out of a restaurant.

Do you want to see my son? He asked. As if to reassure me, he whispered that he was no longer in a romantic relationship with the mother. I told her I would give her money to take care of herself, but she had the baby anyway. He’s beautiful.

Another red flag. He had gotten a woman pregnant but didn’t marry her. He led me to a table outside where a woman sat under an awning, with a baby boy, a few months old, seated in a highchair.

He’s beautiful, I said. Then I left.

Normally my upbringing would have made me distance myself from a man with a child. Now sexual intimacy connected me to Corneil, as sexual assault had to Aaron. I was confused and sad when he didn’t call me after that. I had no other intimate partners and no best friends to confide in. I wasn’t used to casual sex or exposing my emotions. I went into mourning, but Mama had taught me too hide feelings. My classmates did not know I was depressed.

Every time I walked on the street where Corneil had performed or passed the hotel where we stayed together, I involuntarily looked for him. When dorm mates called me to the phone, I hoped it would be Corneil. It never was. Winter passed, and there was no word from him.

Sophia’s five-minute Black News radio show gave me writing opportunities that distracted me from my sadness. One day I went to a press conference to get news for this show. Hubert Hill, a Black journalist from a major university in my hometown was there. He had been the first Black to graduate from that university in journalism. He worked for a national newspaper. Mr. Hill noticed me while on assignment for his newspaper.

Do you have your question ready? He asked, as I lingered in the back of the room taking notes after other people’s questions.

No, I said. I am a student.

Think of a question and ask it! He said. I did. We have a summer internship program. If you apply for the program, I will recommend you.

He wrote down the information for me. Spring passed and there was no word from Corneil. With the help of Mr. Hill, I was hired as an intern for a national newspaper. College students from different Eastern states came to the big city where I lived to find summer work. I longed for Corneil, but he was gone. I felt abandoned and began to see Solomon. Because I did not usually initiate relationships, the same kind of arrogant, narcissistic guys chose me. Solomon was a college student.

I am completely African! Solomon said. I will not marry a Black American who is part White.

He deluded himself. His skin was lighter than mine. Ours was a relationship of convenience. He wanted an African woman; I wanted Corneil. However, Solomon was imprudent. He used the same faulty, condom-less birth control system Corneil used: withdrawal.

The men in my family are very potent! Solomon bragged one night, as we were making love and released himself in me, instead of stopping before orgasm, as he usually did.

Why did you do that? I asked. I can get pregnant.

If you get pregnant, you can jump around and lose the baby like women back home do, he said.

We were both in our junior year of college, and we had agreed to have a summer relationship. He was leaving in a few weeks. What now? I didn’t know about the morning-after pill, or it hadn’t been invented. Maybe I would be lucky, and no baby would be conceived, I thought. Fall classes started. Three seasons had passed since I saw Corneil. As I was agonizing over a possible pregnancy, he called.

Phone call. It’s Corneil Adams, someone said when I opened my door. I walked to the hall phone.

Hey, he said. Can you come tonight?

I was ambivalent about seeing him. But the girls in the dorm were excited whenever he phoned. How could I tell him I missed him but had turned to another man out of loneliness and might be pregnant? I didn’t discuss my feelings with anyone. He always talked, and I listened. I wrote my feelings, a habit developed as a child.

Instead of shouting at him, You’ve got your nerve! I have waited almost a year for you. You could have called or written me. Where were you? I said simply, I don’t feel well, so I can’t come.

I had begun to feel odd, and my period was late. I was well enough to go, but I was disheartened. I had given up on him, before his call.

Come on, he said. I want to see you.

No, I said.

I ignored his entreaties, thought it over, then walked to his hotel. He was usually nice to me. Now he was angry. He had taken me for granted, and I had embarrassed him by refusing to see him. He may have been calling other women when I knocked on his door. Maybe he had told his companions I was his hook up in that city and would bring other women. When I arrived alone and unexpected, he was furious.

Don’t ever walk in on me again! He said coldly, although I had waited almost a year to see him.

He was showing his celebrity face. I should have walked out, but I still had not developed self-preservation skills. We showered together then made love, but there wasn’t the same emotional connectedness, just physical pleasure. We had broken the emotional bond by