A Waterbed Has No Solidity.
If you’ve never slept on a waterbed, you might think it’s cool. But I truly believe that there are reasons beyond “imminent flooding” that made waterbeds disappear from popularity rather quickly.
First, special sheets are required for a waterbed. I’m not sure Larry knew this, and I certainly didn’t know. The sheets Larry had on the waterbed wouldn’t stay in one place on the bed, so when I moved, the sheets moved, too. By morning every day, the sheets would either be wrapped around someone’s leg or they would be on the floor. And sleeping on a waterbed without sheets meant sleeping on sticky, awful plastic – so that’s what we slept on after the sheets fell off.
In the morning, we would have to rebuild the mess back into some semblance of “bedding” or we’d have to rebuild it in the evening before we passed out. Either way, it was unpleasant.
Having sex on a waterbed was also impossible, for many of the same reasons. A waterbed has no solidity. There is no way to get traction. Any movement we made meant that I desperately sought some form of stability – which meant I often begged to be allowed to move to the floor. Waterbed sex might be glorious in movies, but in real life it’s miserable.
And there was nowhere else to have sex in that house since we had two roommates, one of whom lived on the couch.
As a result, for the first time in our young relationship, Larry and I had sex much less frequently in Florida.
Fortunately I was always, always drunk, so I was usually able to pass out in the bed. Staying asleep … well, that was something else entirely. I woke up every single time Larry moved, because the whole world shifted. It was not as pleasant as sleeping on a boat, or even on the sand when the tide came in. It was like sleeping directly on water.
Every. Movement. Caused More Movement.
It didn’t help, of course, that Larry had spent eight years in this bed with Suzy. But I was trying to forget that.
I wanted to be happy in Florida. I just couldn’t find a way to do that. Yet.