Love & The Goddess by Mary Elizabeth Coen

great! Know something? I’m not very hungry. How about you?”
    “I could eat the legs from under the table. I’ll get weak if I don’t eat something soon.” The aroma of garlic, tomatoes and peanut soy sauce wafted past him and my
stomach grumbled.
    “Yeah?” He looked disappointed. “I suppose you can get some bar food.” He ushered me towards the bar, where the barman came over and handed each of us a menu. I searched
for the choice most resembling the aroma that had greeted me.
    “Just a glass of wine, please,” Steve said to the barman.
    “I’ll have the chicken satay and a bottle of still water, please.”
    When the barman left, Steve turned to me asking: “Is there a problem with the drinking water in Galway at the moment?”
    “No. Why do you ask?”
    “I always drink tap water.” His face changed from concerned to animated as he launched into the conversation with: “Well, Kate, we’ve certainly had great chemistry with
the banter in our emails! It’s been fun! You have to have a sense of humour otherwise life could really get you down!”
    “Yes, you’re very humorous …”
    “Now, I want to be open and honest with you from the start, so I need to tell you a few things. How are you with that?”
    “Absolutely. I agree one hundred per cent. Honesty all the way.” I put on a chirpy voice to deflect from my sudden sinking feeling.
    “First, I have to tell you a bit about me. My wife and I didn’t have sex for the last eight years of our marriage. Now I’m not going to crib about her because she’s a
lovely woman, but that’s very hard for any man to put up with. And I remained faithful to her while some of my buddies were off having affairs. But I respect women and I didn’t do that
to her, even though she often came to bed with her hair in rollers and would turn her back on me for fear I’d suggest anything.” Too much information and this from the person I’d
expected to entertain me with his mad-cap humour. I was embarrassed and confused. Nothing seemed to add up.
    “I can understand that was difficult for you.” Was that what I was supposed to say?
    The waiter arrived with drinks and lunch. The chicken satay came on four skewers and was served with french fries. I was ravenous. “Would you like some?” I pushed my plate towards
Steve. Without any hesitation he helped himself to a skewer of chicken, continuing to talk as he did so.
    “Now, I was good to my wife in every way and in fact I still do more than my share of parenting, though the kids are fairly independent at eighteen, nineteen and twenty-one years
old.” He fiddled with the skewer, his eyes transfixed on the remaining two cubes of chicken as though he were forensically examining them. Why was he prattling on in such a defensive manner,
unable to make eye contact?
    “How long are you divorced?”
    He launched back into chewing the chicken from the skewer. “Just separated six months.” His mouth was full as he spoke. “Now the point is, I’m very attracted to you but I
could never enter into another relationship like the one with my wife. Do you understand?” He grabbed a handful of French fries and tossed them in his open mouth. What a barbarian! What had
happened to his inimitable sense of humour? I was beginning to find him common and coarse. Was he unaware he was wolfing down my lunch? The lunch he didn’t want? I was annoyed that he
presumed I would consider a relationship with him. His other hand sneaked towards a second skewer of chicken. I moved my plate away from him.
    “It seems a bit early to be thinking about you and I starting a relationship – you live quite a distance away and we’ve only just met.”
    “Yeah …” He stuffed down another handful of my French fries. “But I would need to know right from the beginning that the relationship would include sex. Do you
understand?”
    “Yes, I understand – but it’s a bit early. We don’t know if we even like each other