In which I admit waaaay too much

To say it was not erotic is not to say isn't wasn't a little sexy. When I woke up, I'd been looking over her tattoos--of which there were several. Oddly enough, her tattoos were clearly amateurish, as if she'd been to a summer camp where campers left their signatures in indelible ink. Parts of her looked like an autograph book. No John Hancocks--nothing that big. Just nicknames. 

Mostly, they were on her back, on her torso. They weren't particularly visible, but there was a gallery all right, and each of them required translation. Clearly, I was enjoying the show, whatever it was. 

Dreams sometimes exist out of time, right? I don't know how long this one lasted, or how it was that the two of us happened to be together, me and this tattooed girl. I don't even know who she was. The moment I woke up, I didn't. She was tall, long-legged, and she was fun, but no one I knew.

And I have no idea about myself. Was I a kid or was I seventy years old? Did I enjoy this tour of tattoos as some college guy would have, or was I an old geezer--just about seventy, too old for the  leering I was offered. 

The truth is, whatever was going on between us was fun. I wasn't hip-deep in guilt either. I wasn't thinking about my wife or my daughter or even granddaughter. I was all in, like a college kid.

And it wasn't a memory. I never knew a girl with tattoos. Clearly, she was not from my time. 

I'll admit it--the whole episode was flirty and fun, not night-marish in the least. I did not wake up howling, and therefore it would cause me no pain to return. So am I talking about a form of adultery here? I think I did lust after her, whoever she was--nothing heavy, just, well, sweet. Should I feel guilty? Was the tattooed girl something the Devil conjured? Did she sneak out of the darkened corners of my heart? If if she did, why was the whole thing so un-sleazy? Why did I feel so charmed?

Even though it was unlike any experience I ever actually had, I understood what was happening because, whoever we were, we were flirting. There I was in the middle of what psychologists call "a lucid dream"--I halfway understood this wasn't real--doing something I haven't done for a half-century. I knew it, and I liked it. I wasn't broken up when it broke up. I'm quite sure I was smiling.

I read a long essay last week by a therapist, a man who was, in that essay, a bit of a scold--but then maybe we have it coming. He said he quite regularly gets calls to come to churches to talk about LBGTQ issues, and when he does, he says, he always asks about the church's openness to talk about the whole issue of sexuality. People blush when he asks that question, and they shake their heads because few churches talk well about sex. Why am I not surprised? 

Right now, I'm worried about my telling you about the tattooed girl. Good grief, I'm just about 70 years old. What the heck am I doing--even in my dream--looking over the tattoos on a young lady's bared torso? If my daughter reads this, she'll hope to death nobody else does. My granddaughter would be sick to her stomach. My wife may spend the next 48 hours in silence.

I have no doubt the therapist is right. I'm not surprised people blush when he asks them if their church talks about sex. Listen, if someone decides to have an open discussion about sexuality in our church, I'll get a quick head cold. 

Am I a dirty old man? Is that what this is all about? 

And what about my father-in-law? Does he ever dream of tattooed girls? He's 99. I darn well hope he does. 

Maybe I'm just squeamish, ridiculously uptight, Puritanical. Do we have a right to our dreams, even if we didn't cook them up ourselves? 

Sorry about all of this. I'm just going back to bed.