Another Unromantic Love Story

Fortunately Julian was flirting with one of the women at the next table. If he had been looking directly at ME he would have seen an uncharacteristic flash of blinding rage in my eyes.

I had lived for two years secure in the thought that Biff and I had something special going on - something that she never shared with anybody else.

Now I found that I was getting the cyber equivalent of sloppy seconds.

It was hard to blame Biff. I was a virtual-abstraction and her married lover was the real thing. But there was something stirring at the base of my lizard brain that wanted to find this guy and kill him. And maybe toss in Biff as a side dish.

What the fuck was the matter with me!! I was acting like a normal man and I hated it.

Julian fixed me with a glance like I was the last lifeboat on the Titanic.

He said with eyes misting over, "I can never repay your loyalty my friend. Hannah is everything to me." He must have meant every word of that because real men don't cry.

I had my usual ambiguous reaction to that. Pointless, I admit. But difficult to deny.

Hannah was Julian's woman. Julian was a good guy and he loved his wife. He and Hannah were perfect together. They had a beautiful marriage and I would be the last man in the world to want to horn in on that.

But Biff was my special lover, my karmic other half. I had known her longer and far more intimately than Julian would ever even be capable of. And it killed me to think that Biff wasn't mine.

What I wanted her to do was spend the rest of my life with me in the realm where we both belonged.

I knew that I could endure being near Hannah. That is... As long as I didn't have to witness any more of her off the hook sexual exploits.

Hannah's beauty was way beyond anything my poor nerd charm could justify. And the first lesson you learn in high school is that the pretty girls don't EVER end up with people like you.

But I could never get the desire out of my head to possess Biff's bright soul. That was an extremely unhip, middle-class outlook. But I felt it nonetheless.

So, I was willing to go "all-in" to help ensure that the only woman - belay that! The only human being - who I have ever loved or wanted in my life, could remain attached to the guy sitting in front of me looking so eager.

I owed the man nothing. But tragically, I could see that helping him was the right thing to do.

So, I poured Julian a fresh mug, ordered another pitcher and said, "Do we need a plan, or do you already have something worked out?"

He said, "I want you to talk to her about her past, before she met me. You can do that as an interested stranger.

"If I do it she is going to think something funny is going on. Try to find out who this fellow is and how much of a threat he is to my marriage. Can you do that for me?"

I said, "Sure, but I have only met her once and that was remarkable in the "wrong" sort of way.

"So, I can't just walk into your house gaze deeply into her eyes and ask her to spill the beans. That might put her a little bit on guard."

Julian laughed and said, "No problem, Booz is having its annual Christmas party this Saturday and since you are one of our contractors it would make perfect sense that you attend as my guest.

Then we can liquor her up and you can interrogate her in some dark corner." He added the last part with a conspiratorial wink.

I don't think he caught my look of horror. At least I hope not.

I knew that he was just doing the age-old guy thing - "boys versus the broads". But I barely trusted myself around Hannah. And the last thing I wanted to do was be alone in a dark corner with a drunk on her ass Biff.

Nonetheless, I sucked it up and gave him the obligatory, "Yeah - Heh! Heh! Heh!" and rubbed my hands together like a good co-conspirator should.

If he had been paying attention he would have seen how forced that response was.

Instead, he looked at me dewy eyed and said, "Thanks Man! Really THANKS!" I hoped that I looked more sympathetic than I actually felt and I definitely didn't deserve the man-hug that I got.

So there I was a week and a half later standing by myself in the main ballroom of the Sheraton Premier at Tysons.

I would have been more comfortable with blazing bamboo shoots under my fingernails.

I was wearing an actual tux. I had to rent it for the occasion. I had never worn one in my life but the event was formal and I would have stood out like Buster at an AKC dog show in my usual outfit.

Bond - James Bond - I definitely was not.

My lifelong policy is to never get involved in anything, especially anything emotional.It was Biff's almost planetary gravity that was pulling me into this situation.

It was the revelation of her OTHER lover that put me there. Along with the impact of how seriously her deep love for the guy had trashed the few things that I have ever held sacred.

I had to be honest with myself. It was Biff's betrayal of ME that had gotten me to go along with Julian's stupid plot.

I just wanted to know WHY she did it. I had to understand why she had seen fit to make me think that we were as connected as we were. And at the same time betray that connection by falling so hopelessly in love with a stranger. It just made no sense.

I smiled with bitter irony. For the stupid mistake of joining the human race I deserved all of the pain I was experiencing.

Hannah and her Prince Charming made the predictable arrival.

Julian is almost the ideal size and build to be a male model. And his Irish good looks are the sort of thing that has kept Hollywood in leading men for the past 80 years.

His grace, charm and natural insouciance are something you are born with. And unlike me he looked like he was birthed in a tux.

Tall, skinny unkempt members of the pack just naturally defer to alpha-males like Julian.

Only a woman with Biff's striking looks could eclipse a man like Julian. But cast a shadow on him she did.

Her beauty is like the Parthenon. You might have seen it a thousand times but it still moves you.

She is not tall but she is the ideal height to fit with her man. Her thick silky blond hair was a sheaf of golden beauty.

She has the face of an English Rose, perfectly proportioned features, huge wide-set china blue eyes, a neat little pointed chin, stunning cheekbones and a wide sensuous mouth.

She had gone all-out with the makeup and her normally striking features were enhanced to a point where you wanted to just light a little candle in tribute.

I have already mentioned the fact that she is built like a bag-full-of-bobcats. But in her demure cashmere "little black dress" she seemed to radiate an extra amount of sheer feminine power tonight, both physical and sexual.

Not a single male in the room could take their eyes off her as she almost sensuously glided along toward their table on her 4 inch FMPs. She was a study in womanly confidence. She KNEW every man in the room desired her and it showed in how she walked and held herself.

They were a golden couple.

Julian had arranged for me to sit with them. So I was heading toward their table from the other direction. Their progress had everyone looking their way. I could have arrived naked carrying an AK-47 and nobody would have noticed me.

We got to the table more-or-less simultaneously. Hannah looked delighted to see me. Of course the instant I caught her eye I began to carefully study the floor between us.

Nonetheless, before I turned away I had seen something odd in her look. She was VERY happy to see me and that fact continued to perplex her.

Women like Hannah do not notice the riff-raff. Nor do they EVER have stray feelings when confronted by a member of that rabble.

I mumbled something suave like, "Thank you for inviting me for Thanksgiving. I threw up for a couple of days after that."

Damn! I am such a weirdo!!

Hannah look dumbfounded.

Julian laughed uproariously and said, "A guy that suave, no wonder all of the women can't keep their hands off of him." This all said with dripping sarcasm.

Hannah giggled and added with her own heavy irony, "I'm glad you enjoyed my cooking."

I must have been several shades of chartreuse at that point, but the ice was broken.

Julian said by way of explanation, "Bill is one of Booz's super-stars and our management wanted him to come celebrate the end of another very profitable year. I drew the short straw so he is sitting with us."

His voice was fond and I am used to being the butt of other people's jokes.

We sat, ate, drank and talked.

Julian was pouring alcohol into Hannah like he was watering a horse.

I had to admit that Hannah was tough. She had absorbed Julian's best shot and was still upright.

Of course half of the male population had sidled over to ask her to dance and she HAD spent a lot of time away from the table.

Every time she left Julian would look at me with boyish eagerness and say, "How are we doing? I think she's loosening up?"

Even a socially retarded fellow like me thought that was a little over the top. But a woman like Hannah makes any guy stupid.

Hannah was definitely looking more and more hammered as the night wore on. The last time she left the table she was more-or-less draped on the fellow who had asked her to dance.

When they returned Julian said with studied casualness, "I am going to have to spend some serious time with our VP now. Can you make sure that Hannah gets home?"

I saluted him with my glass of soda water and he sauntered off looking uber-cool.

I was moved by his trust in me. He had made certain that his stunningly gorgeous wife was totally wasted. No guy in his right mind would do that unless he completely trusted the person he had just handed her over to. Or he had no respect for my abilities as a man.

It was clearly time to "cue the nerd".

I turned to Hannah and said, "Would you like to go home. I can't hear myself think let alone talk and it's giving me a headache?"

She looked eager, bleary eyed - but eager. She said, "I'd love to get out of here. I hate these kind of events but Julian has to attend them for his work. And I have to support him."

She grabbed her purse and stood up. Everybody near us watched her stand, turn and begin to glide toward the lobby with me in tow.

As I passed along I heard the occasional, "Who the fuck is that?"

That was an understandable reaction. Julian and Hannah looked like they belonged together and as they said, "Who the fuck am I?"

The valet fetched the car. She got in and I navigated out onto the Beltway headed toward College Park.

Brubeck was playing on Rover's excellent Bose system. It was, "Blue Ronda ala Turk". Paul Desmond's mournful sax matched my mood perfectly.

Hannah was sitting in the passenger seat looking pensive. The faint scent of her perfume was stirring every hormone I own.

We had not exchanged a word since we left the table.

I was tongue tied. No surprise there. But I knew what the mission was. It was to find out about Hannah's mystery lover. That was for both Julian's and my sake.

She made the first move.

It was dark and quiet on the Beltway at that hour. And the Rover is so well built and sound insulated that you could literally hear the dashboard clock ticking.

Hannah turned in her seat and just looked at me. It was like she was trying to recall an indefinable memory.

I had assumed that she was more-or-less out of her mind drunk and that she was struggling to figure out who I was and why she was there.

I turned my head and looked at her and the woman I knew as Biff was looking back at me!

The intelligence was so profound and the gaze so penetrating that I very nearly wrecked the car in surprise.

She was about as drunk as I was. And I had been drinking soda water all night. It was all an act.

Whether she had been pouring Julian's drinks into the potted plants. Or whether she was just THAT strong minded, which was equally likely, she was absolutely and totally in control and she was a little pissed.

She said, "Why are we REALLY here Bill. What are you and Julian up to?"

The little voice in my head threw up its hands in surrender and said, "So much for subtle and covert."

Caginess is not in my skillset and I am the opposite of cool. I gulped noisily, so loudly that I am sure she heard me. And I am certain that my face advertised my guilt.

I said, "You're right. We are up to something. But it isn't what you think."

I wasn't sure what she thought. But whatever it was, especially if it involved her and me and boundless passion, she was dead wrong.

I said, "This is a little touchy so could we please get to your place before I explain it. I don't think you will mind what I have to say. But you will have some questions. Basically Julian is trying to save your marriage."

She looked poleaxed.

She turned and went back to silently gazing out the window. Now she was REALLY pissed.

I live in a world of uncomfortable silence so the rest of the trip was no problem for me. We got in the front door of her place and she offered me a drink.

I said, "Scotch if you have it." A little Dutch courage seemed in order here.

She said, "I am going to give you a whole lot of Julian's precious Johnny Walker Blue just to get even with him for this." I was thinking, at $500 a bottle that was some payback.

She came back into the room with two cut-crystal, double Old-Fashioned glasses, three fingers in each. She flicked on the gas fire in their big fireplace.

I was sitting in the leather wingchair. It was the same one that I was in when I had discovered who she really was. Somehow she had managed to erase any evidence of Buster from the arm.

She sat demurely opposite me on their expensive couch, sitting up straight, knees together, fondling the glass she was holding. The fire lit her beautiful face in soft shadows.

Her eyes were so overpoweringly deep and intelligent that they might as well have been black holes.

She was going to interrogate me now. And I was a helpless little lamb in the face of her will.

She said with some anger in her voice, "Now tell me what you two little boys are up to and what does it have to do with my marriage?"

Then she leaned back in the cushions and took a sip. She expected an answer.

ALLRIGHT THEN! Into the breach.

I said, "I am here strictly as Julian's friend, and yours too. He has been concerned that you are pulling away from him. That somebody else is influencing your lives together."

She looked startled. It was almost like she didn't give Julian enough credit to have known that.

I continued with, "He loves you to distraction and the thought of you possibly having somebody else in your life made him hunt around for anything that would give him a hint about what might be affecting you."

Of course I saw no reason to mention my own little escapade in their den.

She looked appalled.

She said, "And what evidence did he find? Think closely about your answer because I am seriously considering killing both of you."

The focus of that immense intelligence was almost like a physical weight.

I chuckled, she WAS joking - right?

I said, "He found the diary that you kept before you met him. I know that digging up an old diary sounds a little hackneyed and more than somewhat strange but he is aware of the affair that you had with the man who you knew before you met him.

"And he is threatened by how deeply you felt about that fellow. Is this guy still in your life? Is that the problem? Is he the reason why you have been distracted?"

For just a fraction of a second she looked like I had caught her off balance. And she was clearly, visibly upset.

She squawked, "He has been going through my diary?"

She said that in a tone of voice that was close to the outrage of a classic TV show 13 year old, who had just discovered that her mother was reading her personal stuff.

Okay - now the cat was well and truly out of the bag!!

I thought to myself, "I could have handled that more subtly."

My total lack of tact even impressed me. But what did Julian expect sending me on this mission? I am a nerd and everybody knows that nerds have no social skills.

In fact I was suddenly very pissed at Julian too.

Why would he put an idiot like me into a situation with a demi-goddess like Hannah? He'll probably come home tonight and find me staked out in the front lawn over an ant-hill.

And I deserved it for being so clumsy and geeky.

My poor attempt at mediation had clearly awakened the towering intellect that was Biff.

She made a visible effort to calm herself. She said, "Okay, what do you two idiots want to know?"

I was now in full groveling mode. I had managed to make my friend sound like a fool and I had utterly destroyed any personal bridges with his wife.

I said as placating as I could, "All he wants to know is if that man is still in your life. If he is affecting your marriage in any way, and if so, what can he do about it?

"I know that makes him seem as peculiar as it makes me sound, but I am just trying in my own graceless way to be your friend."

She looked at me almost sympathetically. She said, "The man you are afraid of can never affect Julian and my marriage because he doesn't exist.

Now it was MY turn to look stupefied.

She continued with, "You look at me and you just assume that I am a brainless twit. That is the price that all beautiful women pay in a man's world.

"But in fact, I am very smart and before I met Julian I kept a totally separate persona in cyberspace."

I knew that. That was Biff

"It is like there are two Hannah's. One is what you see, the debutant socialite with the gorgeous husband. And the other is the real me. The one who exists in the faceless sexless world of the internet.

"When I am in cyberspace I can be who I actually am. I can interact with people and they interact with me in the purest sense, based on ideas and our values and ethics, not our looks.

"I have always had my mind. I know that I have a remarkably superior intelligence. I've always known that. It is isn't a matter of ego. It is just who I am.

"But since puberty it has been at constant war with my appearance. There has never been a person who has given me the credit for my genius IQ. That includes Julian.

"All they do is look at this body and tell me I am beautiful. It made me feel like I was being crushed to death by people's expectations.

"Even worse, every man I have ever known has spent his spare time trying to get into my pants. As a result, I came to believe that all men were pigs."

That matched what Biff had told me about herself. I wondered how Julian was different.

She said sadly, "Several years ago I met a man - at least I think he was a man - in a chat room and that saved me and it changed me.

"We talked for hours every day. We shared everything, every idea, every value, and every simple little moment together. He was like the missing half of me.

"And he freed me totally.

"Love is such a weak and trivial word. I was totally consumed by him. I spent my entire waking life thinking about him.

"And eventually I began wanting him in a physical way. Women are different from men in that respect. When you give yourself to somebody, as I did to this man, you want to give EVERYTHING to him, not just your virtual self.

"It might seem like hypocrisy. Since my chief complaint about men is that all they ever want to do is fuck me. But the only thing I could think about, waking and sleeping, was having my virtual lover fuck me.

"I am much more skillful with a computer than you probably think I am. And I hunted him in cyberspace. It didn't matter who he was, where he lived, or even what he did. I had to make that final connection with him. I had to be with him physically and never leave.