How's That Working Out For You?

I transferred to another battalion and was lucky enough to land with a great group of soldiers with whom I could work.

*********************

6 years later, I was coming out of a nice restaurant in Raleigh, NC. My beautiful wife, Gretchen and I had just celebrated our 2nd anniversary and found out that we were expecting our first child. Yes, I had met Gretchen a couple of years after my divorce in Wiesbaden, Germany. She is very petite at 5'1" with raven colored hair, blue eyes, and an incredible body. She was and is everything a man could hope for in a wife...most importantly loyal.

We had come up from Fayetteville for the evening and had since decided to spend the night in a nice hotel since we were on another of those great weekends where the division commander turns every 3 day weekend into a 4 day weekend (don't worry, your tax dollars are being VERY well used).

Gretchen and I, being fans of Starbucks, decided to stop and have a latte. It was a beautiful evening so we decided to sit outside. It was next to a bar, but the noise wasn't that bad and we were enjoying our lattes and each others company when I heard a familiar voice behind me.

I turned around and who do you think I saw, but SGT Jacobs. Well, he was actually PFC Jacobs when he was transferred to Ft. Bragg from what I had heard. He and his lovely wife, Julie were having a discussion of sorts. Jacobs appeared to be the bouncer at the bar next door to us and Julie was standing on the sidewalk next to a beat up car that was still running and the door was open.

I couldn't tell what it was about, but Gretchen could tell I was interested, so I told her who the couple was and her eyes and mouth got wide. It was then that Jacobs and Julie seemed to simultaneously notice us. Julie's eyes lit up and Jacobs smiled, but it was one of those that you knew wasn't friendly. They both walked our direction. Jacobs was the first to speak.

"Well, if it isn't the wimp. How are you L.T....or should I say Brice? Since I'm not in the army any more there is no reason to pretend to have any respect for someone that obviously can't keep his woman satisfied."

"Stop it, Larry," said Julie.

Larry...as his name apparently was, just pushed her aside and honed right in on Gretchen.

"Well, little lady, would you like to see what a real man is like?" Larry addressed her directly.

Obviously this infuriated me, but I still tried not to make a scene and stayed seated.

"Brice is more man than you'll ever be and as much as I'll ever need. I don't want to be rude, but clearly there is nothing for any of us to discuss, so maybe the two of you should go ahead with whatever it was you were doing," responded Gretchen.

That's my girl, I thought to myself. That should give us one final chance of getting out of this without making a scene, but that was wishful thinking. Larry moved around toward Gretchen and I had had enough. I pushed my chair back and punched him in the stomach as he swung but missed me. My quick punch both surprised him and knocked the wind out of him.

I shouted over my shoulder for Gretchen to get to the car and she did so. With her on the way from the scene and Larry starting to recover, I unleashed several punches in combination on him. He was as big as ever, but much too slow to be able to effectively counter. Finally he fell in a heap on the sidewalk.

"Wow," said Julie.

"What?"

"I never knew you had that in you. I wish I had known before."

"Oh, well. So your stud isn't in the army any more, huh?"

"No."

She hung her head and then started to break down.

"He got chaptered out shortly after we got to Ft. Bragg.

"I'm so sorry, Brice. Can you ever forgive me? Why didn't you fight for me the way you just did for that woman? I thought you were a wimp."

"Why? Because I let you make a lot of decorating decisions and treated you kindly? Julie, I did that because I saw you enjoyed doing it and it just wasn't that important to me. Let me guess, Jacobs...sorry, I'll always think of him as Jacobs...helped you with your thinking that I was a wimp?"

"Brice, I can see you're with someone now. I have to be honest and say that my life has been pretty miserable since you divorced me. I just wish I had seen what I had when I had it.

"At the time, I just found the sex with Larry more exciting than I did with you. I let that cloud my mind and forget two pretty important things. One of those being that comparing new and illicit sex to sex with someone with whom I've been with for a period of time is not a fair comparison because it's ALWAYS going to seem more exciting at first. Second, that sex is just one aspect of a relationship...and learned the hard way that it's no more important than the other facets of making a relationship great.

"You always treated me amazingly well. In a way, that contributed to all this because I, consciously or subconsciously thought that's how I'd be treated in any relationship. I hadn't let myself get close enough to anyone before to know how great I had it with you.

I don't suppose that, if I left Larry........?"

The start of her question hung in the air for a moment before I could figure a way to answer. I felt sorry for her and wanted to hurt her at the same time if that's possible.

"Julie, I have to be honest with you. Part of me is very glad you haven't been happy. You see, I never told you, but I heard you and Larry fucking in my platoon CP when you thought I was in the field several years ago. I heard the things you said to one another and could tell you relished in doing things with him that you had denied me.

"I could see in some circumstances, how a one--time indiscretion could occur. But you kept going back again and again. That took making a planned decision to betray me over and over again. In doing so, you demonstrated not only a lack of love, but a lack of respect for me. That, I could never get past.

"Finally, the fact that you did things with him that you would NOT do with me was the ultimate in humiliation for me. You may not have meant it that way. You may have just been caught up in the circumstances and found it more exciting and/or acceptable. You may have just been selfish and wanted two kinds of sexual relationships. However you thought about it...or didn't...those actions were as great a display of disrespect and disdain you could possibly have paid to me or to any man.

"If the manner in which I treated you somehow contributed to a mental or emotional state on your part where you felt that I was something less than you wanted and not worth your love and respect, then it only makes me more happy we're not together. In my opinion, anyone worth my love...would think and act exactly the opposite of you"

After a pause, she thought about it and nodded slightly.

"Let me answer your other question. I didn't fight for you because you weren't worth fighting for. Gretchen was and will always be worth fighting for because I'm the center of her world...and because she'd do the same for me.

As we watched the groaning Jacobs I asked her, "Regarding you having had the impression that I am a wimp...... How's that working out for you... so far?"

I turned after asking her and walked back to my car and wife, not really expecting an answer or caring about one.