A Conspiracy to Deceive

Barry sat there clenching and unclenching his fist as he listened to Jack's explanation.

"There is no way that Carol can just bury those strong feelings and sensations she received from her lover. Just impossible. She has already admitted to both of us that her sex sessions with Les were intense and satisfying for her." ... Long pause ... "Nothing is going to change that in her mind." This time Jack got up from his chair and began to walk slowly around the room.

"What happened here yesterday, during Carol's session was necessary for her to come face to face with those feelings that she was trying very hard to suppress. For the past several weeks she devoted all of her thoughts and actions toward you. She wanted to make amends for her infidelity and help repair the damage to your marriage." ... Jack stopped next to Barry ... "I think you knew down deep that she still had those strong desires, planted in her psyche by her lover. She demonstrated her desires for his kind of dominant sex the night she put on those leather straps and called you her master."

Barry looked up at Jack as if he wanted to make a rebuttal. No words came out.

"Why are you angry now, Barry? And most importantly, who are you angry at? .... Me?" Jack returned to his chair and sat down, all the while watching Barry's face.

"Goddamn it Jack! I don't know who I am angry at right now. And yes, it could very well be you!"

"I really think that you are angry at yourself, Barry. And I think the reason for that is that you were hoping somehow that my diagnosis about Carol's dysfunction was wrong." ... He nodded his head toward Barry ... "And, I think that you just wanted all of those feelings she acquired during her affair to just disappear."

Now, Jack could sense that Barry's rage was beginning to deflate a bit. He needed Barry to settle down some more before trying to steer him further down into his plan.

The next half hour was spent in a quiet question and answer period where Barry became more relaxed. Jack's questions weren't the hard kind. They were mellow questions intent on getting Barry's mind into a receptive mode.

"Do you still love your wife, Barry?"

"Yes..... In some ways more than before."

"Do you want to stay married to her, Barry?"

"Sure...yes... I don't see any reason to want a divorce at this time."

"Do you want her to be a happy and fulfilled woman?"

Blam!!! The 'fulfilled' word slammed into his brain. In the infamous video, Carol had said that she needed her lover to "fill that empty hole in my soul."

"Goddamn it Jack! That's an asshole question to ask!" Barry snapped back in anger.

"I seemed to have hit an exposed nerve there, Barry. I must tell you that we psychiatrist just love exposed nerves." Jack said in a calm voice, deflecting the brunt of Barry's outburst.

"Now let's explore that question again." ... Jack smiled as Barry unknowingly moved in the direction he needed him to go ... "Was it the part about you making her happy? Or was it the part about you making her a fulfilled woman? Huh...Barry?"

Barry just sat there seething. He wanted to go on an all-out-attack on the doctor's questions. But, there was something there that he couldn't fully deny. Yes, he wanted to make her a happy wife, and he was sure that he could do that. But...to make her a fulfilled woman, that part he wasn't sure of. Her words kept ringing inside his head.

"Maybe it was a place inside of me that you and I never knew existed. The reasons for my depression still eludes me. But, now for the first time in years, I think I have found what was missing in our marriage."

That was the conundrum for him and secretly he knew it. Carol needed something that he had been incapable of giving her. She needed to be treated like a slut! Her discovery of that fact might have been a direct result of her flip-flopped state of mind induced by her PTR syndrome. But, whatever caused the discovery, it was there. And there was no denying that it was still running around inside her mind.

Then he thought... "Damn straight! I can do that! I can be both her loving husband and her dominant lover if that's what it takes to make her a 'fulfilled' woman." A smile came across his face.

"Ok, Jack...you want an answer, I'll give you one! Yes, I want her to be happy and I also want her to be a fulfilled woman. And you know what? I think that I can do both for her." ... Barry felt like he was on a roll .... "There's no doubt that I can be the loving husband and sex partner. And after the other night when I was the Dom and Carol was the sub, I'm sure that I can do that also." His voice was clear of any anger. Now he felt confident and that he had the answer to dilemma created by her mental dysfunction.

The room went silent. It was Barry's turn to wait for a response from Jack.

As if to surrender to Barry's answer and his solution, Jack pursed his lips and nodded his head in agreement.

"Yep....sounds like you may have something there, Barry." ... He took in a deep breath ... "But, have you considered the confusion and possible conflicts that might arise from you being both of her lovers?" Jack made some soft noises with his mouth.

"Carol needs more than an evening of role-playing every now and then, Barry. Her illness is a serious matter not to be treated lightly. A 'make-believe' lover may only make the dysfunction react in some other strange fashion. Or maybe even worse, she might get stuck in one state and never want to return to the other state."

The confidence that was all over Barry's face a minute ago, began to fade away slowly. "So, what the fuck's the answer!?" Barry snapped back. The agitation returning to his voice.

"What do you think the answer is, Barry? You're as close to Carol's problem as I am." Jack returned the volley.

"She wants another goddamn lover! Even after all we're going though to rid ourselves of her last lover's influence." Barry was shouting.

"I think if you try re-phrasing that statement a little differently, it may just resonate a little better with you." Jack replied...leading Barry a little further down his plan.

"What the fuck is that supposed to mean!?" Barry was now back to where he was when he entered the room almost fifty minutes ago.

"Simply that there are really wants and needs in all of our lives. And a want and a need are two separate things. Carol may not want another lover in her life, but when she moves into her dysfunctional state, she truly needs a dominant lover."

Barry made a grunting sound as if to reject what Jack was telling him. Jack ignored the sound and kept speaking.

"As hard as it may seem to you, Barry. Her need, for a dominant lover, has nothing to do with you as her husband. It's as if her needs were operating on an entirely different plane of consciousness for her. When she is in that flip-flop state, her needs are completely different. She needs to be dominated. Pure and simple."

Again, silence filled the office as both men just sat there looking at each other. It was obvious to Jack the gears in Barry's head were grinding slowly.

"So, I am supposed to just sit back and let my wife go off with a lover, everytime she has a relapse into her fuck-slut state. Is that it, Jack?" Barry's eyes were narrow and intense as he looked at Jack for his answer.

"I could give you a long answer, Barry, But, the short answer is 'yes'."

"Damn!!...damn!!...damn...!!" Barry shouted as he jumped to his feet. It was his turn to pace around the room as Jack sat back in his chair waiting for the last domino in the long chain of dominos to fall in place.

"I don't think that I can do that, Jack." ... Barry said as he stopped in the middle of the room ... "I love her too much to share her with any other man." There was firmness in Barry's voice.

"You're probably right, Barry. Most red-blooded men are repulsed by the idea of their wife having sex with another man. It goes against some of our most fundamental beliefs. A monogamous marriage, one man and one woman, is what our society had set forth as the ideal relationship."

Then as if to take up to the other side of that debate, Jack said ... "But with a divorce rate over 50% in this country and many young couples opting to just live together outside the legal ties of marriage, you really have to ask yourself if some of our marital problems aren't caused because of strict adherence to the monogamous marriage concept."

"Oh.....so we're back to that polyamory bullshit again." Barry countered.

"Only if it supplies an answer." Jack said not backing down from his comments.

"I don't see it offering an answer to my marital dilemma. All it can offer is more problems as I see it."

"Maybe so, Barry. But, if you don't come up with a solution, what happens the next time when you and I aren't around and Carol has another relapse. How will you deal with that next episode of hers?"

"I'll divorce her damn ass the next time!" Barry was spitting out fire as Jack's words were grating on his nerves.

"Well....Barry old buddy, guess what? There will definitely be a next time! It may take awhile, a month, a year, who knows for sure just when it will happen. But, I guarantee you that a relapse will happen." ... A long pause ... "So, why not divorce her now and save yourself the future pain and misery?"

A small explosion went off in Barry's mind. ... Damn it!... Its the proverbial rock and the hard place...its the devil and the deep blue sea situation. No simple solution, no waving the magic wand and everything becoming be 'nice' again.

"So, what's the problem here. Barry? A male ego problem? An ownership problem, like she's your exclusive property?" Jack was on the offense again. Keep pushing Barry back until he's fully backed into the corner.

"Didn't you tell me in one of our sessions that you became aroused and you even got a hard-on, when Carol was telling you about her first weekend with her lover?" ... Jack cleared his throat ... "You said you were revolted by the things she told you, yet something inside you was reacting just the opposite to her words. How do you explain that, good buddy?"

"Explain that!?" ... Barry shouted back ... "You're the fucking head shrink around here, why don't you explain it to the both of us!" Jack could see that Barry was losing complete control again. The rest should be just gently nudging him a little more.

"The simple answer Barry, is that the human being is a complex animal. Many of our actions are unplanned and in some cases just pure subconscious reactions. On one conscious level, Carol's words and ideas repulsed you. On another level, maybe subconsciously, you became genuinely excited and aroused." He let that idea settle into Barry's brain before he continued.

"Its the same as with that ambiguous word, Love. It has many meanings and usages in our language. But one of the biggest misconceptions about love is that it is somehow a finite entity. Its like we have only so much love in us to spread around. Not true. Never was true." Jack shifted the topic slightly. Still pointing Barry in the direction of the plan.

"You said you loved her too much to share her with another man. What did you really mean by that? Or were you just misusing the word...Love? Did you really mean that you owned her and no other man could share her?" A word game for sure and Barry didn't know how to answer Jack's questions.

"You see, Barry, I think that love is infinite. Love is not just one whole thing that gets parceled out in little bits till its all used up." ... Short pause... "You can see examples of that all around you. Take the mother with one child and another mother with four children. Does true love mean that the one child receives 100% of its mother's love while each of the other four siblings will only get 25% of their mother's love? No...we reject that idea outright. The mother of four children is very capable of giving just as much love to each of her children as the mother with only one child." The word gambit continued.

"We recognize the fact that love can be equally shared among children, but somehow we reject the idea that it would work that way among adults. Unfortunately for the current state of monogamous relationships, there are more and more studies that show that a pluralistic marriage may be the most loving and stable relationship for many married people." Jack stopped and looked at his watch.

"Well....my friend, our hour is up. And it seems that the subject is just hanging out there in the wind." But, Barry didn't seem to want to just let the subject just hang there till their next session.

"Whoa there, Jack....I don't give a fuck if the time is up. I'll not going to leave here with all that unresolved shit buzzing around in my mind for the next four days." Barry seemed determined to push the discussion to a conclusion. Just what Jack was trying to get him to do.

"All right Barry......I'll give you another half hour then I have to leave regardless if you have your solution or not." Jack said while his mind was shouting out...Hurrah!

"How should we continue, Barry? With the discussion of sharing love? Or with the idea that human beings are complex animals and sometimes require complex solutions?" Jack began speaking as he settled back in his chair.

"Let's start with that idea of 'fulfillment'." ... Barry replied. That was the word that was gnawing at his gut ... "Why do you think that Carol won't be able to find complete fulfillment in our marriage?"

"History, Barry..... Simple facts of history tell me that Carol will, at some time in the future, be at the same place in her mind where she was at the start of her affair with Les." Jack smiled to himself acknowledging the fact that Barry had by-passed the other minor issues and had gone directly to the heart of Carol's problem.

"Right now, Carol has only one mission in her life, and that's you and your marriage. That singular focus will push any other conscious or sub conscious desires to the back of her mind." ... Short pause ... "Her therapy sessions may bring her to realize the damaged her infidelity has caused. But, that therapy will not completely erase the fact that her affair had made her feel like a complete woman. Even though it was in a mentally altered state for her."

Barry was again on his feet, pacing around the room not saying anything.

"I'm not trying to be a prognosticator, Barry. But Carol did tell you, and I use her own words. "... this might be something you never noticed about me, because you're very successful, self-confident and rarely have any self-doubts about the things you want or the things that you do in your life. But, I do have mountains of doubts. I feel like a total failure most of the time. Somehow you never caught on to the fact that your lack of doubts and my constant stream of doubts were causing me to feel more and more inadequate as a wife and as a woman.

"There were times when I felt that I could not go on living the life we shared. I know that you thought we were a happy couple, but that was again your self-confidence masking my troubled heart. The past two years have not been truly happy years for me, Barry. I felt as if I was an actress stuck in a bad B-movie. I said my lines and acted my role but it seemed so make-believe for me. My true emotions were suppressed and I gave you the person that I knew you wanted to see in me."

"Therapy will help her deal with most of those self doubts that she has, but there will always be some of them that linger in the back of her mind. You told me about your recent promotion and your continuing success in your career. That will only reinforce Carol's view of your successes as compared to her perceived failures."

Barry finally stopped his pacing and turned to Jack. "So, I need to be a failure in order for my wife to stop feeling like a failure herself!?" His voice was filled with sarcasm and irony.

"No Barry, that would be self defeating. You need to remain the person you are. Trying to compromise your successful abilities to make up for some other perceived deficiencies in Carol would only create more problems for the two of you." Jack motioned for Barry to sit back down.

"What you need to realize that you both need to feel 'fulfilled'. Your success in business gives you quite a bit of that 'fulfillment'. You have made a business career into your mistress. You are in love with your mistress. It may not be a direct sexual relationship, but it does give you levels of satisfaction comparable to a sexual orgasm." He paused as Barry now moved over to the couch and sat down.

"Can't you see that in her hidden meaning? She knows that she is competing with your career and that your career is winning." Now it was time for the final push.

"Carol's dysfunction made it easy for her to move outside your marriage to find her sense of fulfillment. Because of that action, our social mores have branded her an adulteress. But, what if our social mores were different? What if, like the Eskimos of the North, where wife sharing was a common practice of love between a man, a wife and others, it was the same for us 'civilized' people also?" ... Silence ... "Can you move into that Eskimo mind-set, Barry? Can you get there for the sake of your wife?"

Silence ... "I'm not just suggesting a swinger's lifestyle, Barry. Carol needs more than a series of one night stands. She needs to have a sense of belonging and being dominated to make her feel complete. The real question here is, can you give that to her?"

"Maybe I should have left when I thought I was ahead, Jack. I'm not sure that I'm going to like your proposal." Barry was now at the Y-junction in his mind. To the left was the path leading to divorce, to the right was a different marriage lifestyle that he had never thought possible.

"So, what do you suggest, Jack? If I decide not to divorce Carol, then sharing her with another man seems to only alternative you are offering me.... True?"

"I hate to keep defaulting back to the simple answer, Barry. But yes, you're right. Its almost a binary choice that you have here. The question is what kind of love do you really have for her? Is your love a possessive, ownership kind of love? Or is it much broader than that? Like the mother with four children, is your love large enough to embrace more than just one child? More than one husband for your wife?"

Bang!.. bang!.. bang!.. The sharp words and questions were hitting their mark in Barry's brain.

There was nothing Barry could say that wouldn't sound like self serving answers to Jack's questions. How much of this situation was about him alone, and how much of the situation was about Carol...alone? Questions, questions and more questions. Answers? Very few and very hard.

"Since we're almost out of time, Barry. I want you to leave this session thinking about your wife's new lover. Who will he be? How will you accept him into your marriage?" ... Jack stood up now ... "Carol needs a pluralistic marriage, Barry. You need to accept that fact and be willing to participate in that marriage arrangement." A very long pause as the two of them stood there facing each other.

"If you can't get there completely, Barry. Then the decision of what you need to do about the future of your marriage has been made for you."

Barry was just about to exit, when he turned back to Jack and asked. "Will you be available on Saturday? I don't think I can wait till Tuesday to have another session."

"Give me a call Saturday morning. I maybe able to squeeze in a hour or so if you still feel the need for it." Jack now knew that Barry was just where he wanted him. Barry would wrestle with which path to take, the left path or the right path. Jack was betting that Barry would turn right.

Chapter 15

The Secret is Out - Carol is Told: