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Ashley was my second ex-wife’s nail tech.  She was 35 years old and she came to came to live with us one summer.  She worked in a salon where they practiced witchcraft, or at least what they learned in beauty school.  They knew how to accentuate a woman’s features and have her come off as the most attractive she could be.  In the late spring, Ashley’s lease was up and her credit history was so checkered that she and her two daughters (also known as the bedbugs) were going to be left without a place to live.  My then-wife took pity on them and told them they could live with us, rent-free, until Ashley had saved up enough money to put a down payment on a townhouse for them to live in the fall.

When they first came to live with us, it seemed like a match made in heaven.  Ashley was going to help with the cooking and cleaning and shopping.  It was almost like gaining another wife.  She was a wonderful cook when you could get her to stop and make a meal.  She always had the greatest recipes.  Early on, I got to spend a lot of time with her; often as her sous chef and we had a blast.  She was funny and friendly and she practically never stopped talking.  With the blonde hair, the voice, the makeup, the boobs, her laugh (she was always telling off-color jokes); it was something no man could resist.  I think I fell in love with her without even trying.  But at this point in my life, falling in love was no longer an experience to be desired or even enjoyed.  It was simply a nuisance, something to be ignored.  Maybe my GABA receptors were finally wearing out.  I just thought of her as my friend.

It’s hard to explain but while Ashley was OK looking, she was utterly attractive.  She was trained in the dark arts they employed at her workplace and she used them to the fullest.  I think her X chromosomes were larger than most.  One of her greatest complaints to me was that men were drawn to her like moths to a flame and all they wanted was sex.  No wonder!  She was a walking pheromone factory.  Her hair was perfect.  Her makeup was always perfect.  She had tattooed-in eyeliner and lip liner.  Her nails were always perfect.  She had a baby-doll voice.  She wore the perfect clothes.  She wore the perfect perfume. She laughed at your jokes, had stories to tell; no red-blooded man could resist her.  She wanted a man who appreciated her inner self but none of the men she met at the bars or using the on-line dating services could get past her sex appeal.  It was actually sort of amazing.  They’d get the vibe through the phone, through IM, even via email.  Ashley tried to keep her profile plain, not lascivious but somehow it always got through.

I really enjoyed spending time with her.  I cared about her and tried to help her dig her way out of her financial mess.  For a short time, we had a very nice routine.  Everybody behaved.  However, it wasn’t long before she started taking advantage of the situation.  She started coming home later and later, just assuming that we would serve as babysitters for her without even calling.  Her daughters complained that she never spent any time with them.  I think she was intoxicated with the freedom that our living situation offered her.

Having spent time with her, I came to learn that Ashley was damaged early in life by events beyond her control.  She was put up for adoption when she was just a baby; adopted by a family that was later fractured by divorce.  Her adoptive mother remarried and became an alcoholic.  Her new stepfather tried to molest her.  Right out of High School, she fell for the first guy who paid attention to her and got married young.  She had two children of her own fairly quickly and never really lost the weight she had gained during the pregnancies. At that stage of her life, she was at the bottom of the totem pole when it came to attracting men.  Her self-esteem was shot.

She must have known that she was missing out on something.  I don’t know what triggered it but one day, she decided to reinvent herself.  She lost a lot of weight, got breast implants and developed a more self-confident attitude.  Men started to come on to her, something that she had never experienced before.  She couldn’t resist.  She cheated on her husband once, then again, and then she had a rather prolonged affair with a celebrity.  It finally broke up her marriage. 

Her new persona carries a lot of baggage from the old.  While she claims otherwise, she has tremendous needs that to the untrained observer would make her appear needy. She is definitely flirty and from what I could see, fiscally “challenged.”  To this day, she still puts off the needs of her own daughters in search of her own happiness.  They live with her during the week and many days, she only sees them in the morning getting them ready for school.  Many nights, she gets home just in time to put them to bed.  She ships them off to her ex-husband almost every weekend so she can find the love of her life.  One time, she did find him.  It was several years after her divorce and this fellow was completely in love with her (how could he help it?) but he became insanely jealous of her.  She couldn’t go anywhere or do anything without him suspecting her of cheating.  Needless to say, it didn’t work out.  While he was damaged in his own way, who could blame him? Looking like she looks, sounding like she sounds, it would take an extraordinary individual to trust her and believe that she could be faithful.  She says she can do it.  But everything she has learned about attracting a man now works against her building and maintaining a lasting relationship.

I think that Ashley is punctate evolution, personified.  While I am a scientist and believe the party line about survival of the fittest and evolution over eons, I find certain things, like birds evolving from dinosaurs, a little hard to swallow.  How could a dinosaur “know” that someday it was going to be a bird?  It would have to work over millions of years to hollow out its bones, lengthen its forelimbs, develop feathers and jump a lot.  Then suddenly one day it could fly?  I think not.  It seems more likely that in some cases, mutation causes punctate evolution.  Two dinosaurs, having been exposed to some sort of mutagenic radiation, have a litter of eggs.  Those eggs hatch and novel creatures are born.  Some live, some die.  I think a flying dinosaur had to be born just like that, not evolved.  And there had to be others like it born at the same time, otherwise how could they breed?

In Ashley’s case, the same principle applies.  She knew what she wanted and simply evolved one day into Woman, perfectly suited to conquer the modern world.  She has taken what nature has given her and created a creature that men lust after without having any choice in the matter.  When she walks into a room, men flock to her like flies around honey.  She always has pick of the litter.  While she says she is just looking for love, how could she find it?  The good men, the ones more interested in her soul than her body, never break through the front tier.  I have no advice for her on how to find that man, not while she looks the way she looks, sounds the way she sounds and smells the way she smells. Being a walking pheromone factory isn’t always the advantage that you think it might be.  Somewhere, deep inside her, she probably doesn’t believe that any man could love her or even be friends with her without it being sexually based.  That may be the thing that keeps her from actually finding a life-mate.

I loved Friday nights with Ashley.  Even though she liked to play, she worked so hard during the week that often, on Fridays, she had no desire to go out.  The bed bugs were off at their father’s and for the only time during the week, Ashley would come down in loose fitting clothes, with no makeup, her hair tied back.  She’d have a glass of wine with us.  Sometimes we’d have dinner together.  Sometimes the three of us would watch a movie together.  But mostly, we’d laugh and laugh and laugh.  It was the only time she relaxed and stopped performing the role of the sex goddess and her true personality shone through.  That person, even with all her flaws, was a joy to be around.  I feel bad for Ashley because she doesn’t realize that that’s the person that needs to connect with a man.  That’s the person that a man could love for a lifetime, not just a one-night stand.

One day I made the mistake of telling my then-wife that I liked having Ashley and her children staying with us.  I told her that it brought a certain life to the house that had been missing.  Well, that was it.  They got booted out within weeks of my statement.  My then-wife’s self-esteem was at an all-time low and she couldn’t handle the competition.  In the end it was probably a good idea.  It certainly seemed to reduce our drama quotient a notch or two.  Ashley never really forgave me for allowing my then-wife to force me to choose between them.  We drifted apart.  I didn’t really have a way nor was it appropriate at the time for me to stay in contact with her.  Our friendship was over.  I have nothing but warm memories of the time we spent together and wish her all the best.  I truly hope she finds the man of her dreams some day.  I’d like the chance to see her one more time so I could tell her so.