They met one summer in a seaside resort in Greece. She, Birgitta Andersen, a pharmacist, daughter of second-generation Scandinavian immigrants, from Minnesota; and he, Ramiro Jiménez, an economist, scion of an aristocratic Chilean family. Culturally, they had little in common, not even a language. Birgitta’s Spanish was as limited as Ramiro’s English, and neither spoke Greek. Yet they somehow managed to communicate and forge a close relationship without the usual sexual complications.
Although Birgitta did not realize it, or maybe did realize it but owing to her strict Lutheran upbringing could not bring herself to admit it, she was a Lesbian. The love of her life, her first sexual partner, at age 13, had been Linnea Borg, the girl next door back in Minneapolis. After Linnea moved away two years later, Birgitta rationalized her pubescent same-sex experience as a normal part of growing up, and as social custom in those days prescribed, she started dating boys, and later men. Not that she was ever attracted to any of them. Their insensitivity, their mindless competitiveness, their penchant for promiscuity, their shallow sexuality and, especially, their hard, hairy bodies, turned her off. Yet she longed to bear children of her own, and now, at age 39, her biological clock was fast ticking down. Subconsciously she had been searching for a male Linnea, but not finding one, she would have to settle for a resemblance thereof, and the never-married Ramiro, also 39, fit the description as well as any. Unlike most men she had known, Ramiro was remarkably gentle, considerate, a good listener, and not at all sexually demanding. The Chilean, for his part, was much admiring of the intelligence, unpretentiousness, self-reliance and, not least, the wholesome, Tom-boyish good-looks of the tall rubia, blonde from Minnesota. By the end of the summer they had tied the knot.
After a brief visit with his family in Chile, Ramiro joined Birgitta in the United States, and they bought a home in Washington, D.C., where Ramiro landed a job with the World Bank and Birgitta in the pharmaceutical department of the George Washington University Medical Center.
But once in the crucible of the real world, their Platonic idyll began to unravel. Ramiro’s macho colleagues at the World Bank had swayed him to believe, contrary to his natural disposition, that as a husband it was role, his manly obligation, to keep his wife in her place, show her who was boss. So though Birgitta worked longer hours, Ramiro insisted that she be the one to cook dinner, wash dishes, do the laundry, grocery shop and, between the maid’s biweekly visits, keep the house clean. Nor would he stoop to do yard work and minor repairs around the house, as manual labor, he held, was beneath a cultured caballero, gentleman, like himself. When the boy they hired to mow the lawn didn’t show up, as was often the case, or they couldn’t find a handyman to fix a leaky toilet or rewire a lamp, it fell on Birgitta to do the job herself. Fortunately, she had learned such skills from her blue-collar father and enjoyed the work.
Then ensued a pattern of emotional abuse. Ramiro would mock Birgitta’s opinions, neglect to introduce her at parties, and criticize her “unfeminine” ways. She owned no dresses, no high-heeled shoes, wore no make up, and kept her hair cropped short. Once he threatened to slap her, but seeing in her eyes that she would fight back, and probably win the fight, he prudently backed off.
Needless to say, their scheduled sexual sessions diminished from the once-a-week that Brigitta had insisted on in her bid for motherhood, down to every two months, then down to zero. Each was now sleeping in separate rooms on opposite sides of the house.
Birgitta at first retaliated by waxing insufferably neat, a tactic she recalled that one her aunts had effectively employed to torment her four husbands. If Ramiro left a book he was reading on the dining room table, when he got back to it, the book would be gone, hidden away in some shelf in another room, where he would have to search for it. If he left a cup of coffee to cool on the kitchen counter, when he came back to drink it, the empty cup would be washed and put away in the cupboard. And so it went with his clothes, shoes, tooth brush, cologne bottles and, most galling, his wallet and car keys.
“Damn eet!” He would protest in his heavily accented English. Where deed you poot eet?”
“Where it belongs, of course,” she’d say evenly, pissing him off all the more.
“Coño! And where een the hell ees that?”
Birgitta, however, didn’t want Ramiro to bolt the marriage, as had her aunt’s four husbands. (Actually, one went mad and committed suicide). Instead, she would try to change him back to his real self, make the marriage work, at least until they procreated. Besides, she had grown quite fond of him, in a maternal sort of way, notwithstanding his faux machismo. So she came up with a new tactic.
Ramiro in his youth had been a decent rugby player, not so much because he enjoyed the sport, but because he was expected to follow in the footsteps of his three older brothers, all members of the Chilean national team. Over the years he had kept in reasonably good shape by jogging and playing pick-up games on weekends with friends. Age, however, had inexorably crept up on him. He no longer could keep up with the younger players, and his once resilient body became susceptible to injuries. The physical decline and a fast receding hairline were beginning to take a toll on his ego.
“Problem with you is,” Birgitta offered, “is that at your age your body doesn’t process nutrients from food as efficiently as it once did. To regain your youthful vigor, to the extent that you can, what you need is a regimen of vitamins and mineral supplements.”
Ramiro listened with rapt attention. “Really? And what kind of supplements would you recommend?”
“Well,” Birgitta said, a professional tone to her voice. “My supervisor at the hospital is a pharmacologist associated with the National Institutes of Health. A world authority on men’s nutrition. I’ll check with him first thing tomorrow.”
Next day she came home with a bagful of small plastic bottles: Vitamins A, B, C, A and D; zinc, selenium, calcium, potassium; amino acids; digestive enzymes; and a special testosterone booster formula. Arraying the bottles on the dining room table, she described the contents of each and how they would work together to rejuvenate his male body.
“The important thing,” she explained, “is to take them religiously, as prescribed, never skipping a day. When you see one of the bottles running low, let me know and I’ll get you another one.” And handing him a pill dispenser with compartments for each day of the week, she said: “Here, this will help you stay on schedule.” Ramiro gathered his nutrients and, for the first time since their honeymoon, gave his wife an appreciative peck on the cheek.
It didn’t take long for the nutrients to start taking effect. By the end of the third month, Ramiro was a different man, less aggressive, more sensitive, more inclined to help with the dishes and the housework. Now, instead of jogging and playing week-end rugby with his friends, for exercise he would take Birgitta dancing or on long walks, as they had done at the Greek resort where they first met. Their sex life, too, was rekindled, though not as physically as before. Now it was more like a warm glow. His erections were not quite as firm as they once were. Sometimes he could not erect at all. But that didn’t matter. The hugging and cuddling and just being together, was all the satisfaction that each needed. Birgitta, though, concerned that Ramiro might eventually lose all interested in physical sex, and, more alarming, that his sperm count might be dropping, had prompted him to leave samples of his semen at a fertility clinic, to be frozen for future use if necessary. Ramiro by now had moved back into the main bedroom with Birgitta.
As the months passed, Ramiro waxed increasingly sentimental and emotionally dependent on Birgitta. The adventure documentaries he used to enjoy watching were supplanted by maudlin chick-flicks, which would move him to tears. Sometimes he would cry for no apparent reason. His physical appearance also was changing. His hairline was not receding as fast, his facial and body hair had become downy, his skin more sensitive, his muscles softer, and his buttocks, hips and thighs fuller. He looked ten years younger.
A year into the nutrient regimen he felt a slight, almost pleasurable tingling in his nipples. Birgitta examined them and saw that the corollas had doubled in size and, at her gentle touch, the nipples stood erect and pretty, like the budding breasts of a pubescent girl.
“Not to worry” she assured him. “It’s just the normal effects of the nutrients. The tingling would soon go away.” And Ramiro did not worry. In fact, he was quite pleased with the physical and emotional changes he was experiencing.
That night, as Ramiro slept contently, cozy in his Birgitta’s pajamas, Birgitta went downstairs to the kitchen shelf where Ramiro kept his nutrients and refilled the empty testosterone booster bottle with the estrogen tablets that she had been putting in it all along, this time upping the dose from 2.5 to 5.0 mg.
“This finally ought to do it,” she grinned, placing the bottle back on the shelf with the other nutrients.
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