My Trust Fund Husband

I met David in 1976 on a cross town bus on 87^th Street. As I got on the bus, I realized that I did not have the exact change to pay for the bus fare. I shouted loudly, “Does anyone have change for a dollar?” People stared at me without offering me change. But, a handsome, dark brown haired, muscular man, about thirty years old, wearing bright-red tight pants showing his muscular legs, walked over to me and gave me change, and went back to his seat. He caught my attention because I admired men with great build. I began to look at him seductively while I was standing in the aisle in front of him. He seemed a bit embarrassed. He smiled at me a few times without saying anything. When the passenger next to him got up, I quickly sat next to him and said “Thank you for giving me the change. You are the only one who helped me!”

He said to me, “You have an accent. Where are you from?”

“From Trieste, Italy.”

“What is your name?”

“My name is Luciana Contin. And yours?”

“My name is David Spencer Keiser.”

Knowing that I had to get off the bus soon, I gave him my phone number. He called me on the same day.

“Would you like to see a play and have dinner with me tonight?” he asked.

“Yes, Yes!” No man has ever asked me out in such a courteous manner. I was fascinated!

That evening, he took me first to the Lincoln Center Playhouse to see Mrs. Warren’s Profession, and afterwards to an elegant restaurant across the street from Lincoln Center. At the end of the meal he massaged my foot underneath the table.

While he walked me home, he tried to kiss me, although I had a big fever blister on my upper lip. I told him, “Don’t! I will let you kiss me when my lips get better.

David called me the next day and asked me out again. Seeing him date after date, I developed a great affection for him. I felt happy to have a handsome man. Finally I felt I belonged somewhere.

David asked me several times to spend a weekend at his parents’ country house before I accepted. While he was showing me the house, he received a phone call. I heard him saying, “Mother! I want you to know that I have met a wonderful Italian woman in whom I am very interested. She is here in our house in Wilton with me.” There was a long silence from the other end of the telephone before she told him, “Have a good time, dear!”

After David showed me the house I said, “Your mother must be quite a lady to have so tastefully furnished the house.”

At lunch time David grabbed a cereal box, but I persuaded him with a kiss to let me cook a delicious Italian meal for him. He got impatient while I was cooking. He called a friend and said, “I have an hysterical woman here with me in my house in Wilton who is bossing me around. What should I do?” Before the friend could answer I kissed him passionately and he let go of the receiver.

The following morning we returned to our lives in Manhattan. A week later I helped David to move out of his apartment. Since his clothes rack was too big to fit in a taxi, we pushed it all on the sidewalk on Riverside Drive from One hundred and Seventh Street all the way to mine on Eighty-seven Street.

In New York City I did my best to get David interested in our life together, but he still wanted to go home every weekend. He would say, “I am sick of the pollution in Manhattan. I need to go home to Wilton to breathe clean air.” He would take his cello on the subway to Grand Central Station and on the train to Wilton. He enjoyed playing classical music with his mother and friends.

I had been living with Dennis for almost a year when I received the sad news of my father’s cirrhosis of the liver getting worse. He was in the Terminal Stage. Immediately David decided to fly over with me to Trieste, my hometown in Italy.

When, at long last, my father met Dennis, he said, “This man must really care about you for having come all the way from the United States to meet me.” “I know he does. He loves me, father.”