The Qualities of Intensity

Clifford sat on the table's bench next to Alex. She sat up, still sobbing a little with relief. She sat on one hip and lay her head on his shoulder. They sat in silence for a while, caressing each other lightly and kissing once or twice. Then she quickly began getting dressed as Clifford watched her sleek body and swaying tits appreciatively.

I drifted silently away from my observation post toward the house. His had been a masterful performance. I was aware somewhere in my brain that I had witnessed something extraordinary, something that I had never equaled and probably never would. A shadow of despair passed over me. Never had Alex come three times with me, rarely twice. The image of his rampant cock, the cock every man is terrified his wife will someday encounter, burned in my brain. At the same time, I could not deny a splinter of admiration for him, a splinter that lodged in my heart and began to fester.But it was not love, I told myself as I crossed the yard,it was just . . . just fucking! . . . Wasn't it?

The whole episode must have lasted no more than twenty minutes and I was glad I didn't bump into anyone as I made my way around the house and into my car.

Driving home the calm never left me; my movements were measured and precise with no hint of a tremor, no sign of the rage that burned inside. The cold that clutched my mind and body as I stood behind the trees and watched the sickening, lascivious scene still controlled me and the nauseous knot in my stomach was a jagged lump of ice. But now, after it was over, I was aroused! I desperately wanted Alex! I wanted to fuck her, to pin her to the mattress and plunge my raging cock into her over and over again and fuck her till I fell from exhaustion. I wanted to listen to her cries and wails as I bruised her, abused her, poured my rage into her unfaithful cunt!

I didn't get to. She came home about an hour after I had got into bed. I feigned sleep. I heard her car stop in the driveway, the front door, the soft pad of her bare feet on the carpeted stairs. She entered our room quietly and rummaged in the closet for a few seconds; then I heard the flush of the toilet, the water running in the bathroom sink. The bathroom light clicked off and she crept carefully into bed. She huddled on the far side from me and fell straight to sleep. I wanted to turn over to her, wrap her in my arms and reclaim her as my own. But I didn't. I knew that she had probably put on her full-length nightgown, the one that buttoned to her neck and was always a signal not to touch her. I lay still in my frigid despair until darkness and sleep overcame me.

I arose the next morning later than usual and, without waking Alex, went downstairs and made coffee. It was raining, a soft June rain that beaded the flowers and washed the grass to a brighter green. I opened a tube of frozen cinnamon rolls and baked them. An hour later, Alex descended, her long dressing gown thrown over her long nightgown and belted tight.

"Good morning," she offered, her eyes cast down.

I returned her greeting as cheerfully as possible but both of us were unnaturally subdued, our voices tight and unnatural.

"The coffee and rolls smell good," she ventured.

"Have some," I said unnecessarily.

The awkwardness was palpable. Never in our history had we been so uncomfortable with each other. I saw her hand tremble slightly as she poured coffee and buttered a roll. I put her discomfort down to feelings of guilt. I wondered what she thought mine was engendered by.

She drank her coffee but only nibbled at the roll. She sat looking out the large breakfast nook window across the wet back yard and the flowers bobbing in the light breeze. Her face seemed sagged, older than her thirty-six years. Finally, she turned her sad eyes to me.

"You know, don't you?" It wasn't really a question.

I waited a long, wretched moment, then said, "Yes," knowing that with that admission I was bringing everything dangerously into the open. I asked, "How did you know . . . that I know?"

"I saw Robert as I was leaving," she said, "He said you had been there, looking for me. I searched for you; most of the people had gone by then so it was easy to see that you weren't there anymore. That's when I thought to check my messages and found your last . . . that you would be there after all."

I didn't know what to say, how to respond. Alex continued in a tight, forced voice, "How long . . . what exactly did you see?" Her trembling was more noticeable now, her shoulders vibrating, her hands clutched together in her lap.

"I watched you dancing with . . . Clifford? Is that right?"

"Yes."

I drew a deep breath and took the plunge. "When you left through the French doors, I went out the front and around the house. I followed the path to the clearing and the picnic table. I left just as you were . . . getting your clothes together." It felt like a confession and I felt slightly seedy, as if I had been the one who betrayed her.

"You watched us then? You saw everything?"

"I guess. I left when he seemed to be . . . finished with you. He was sitting on the bench and you were . . . pulling on your panties." I was aware that my choice of expression cut her a little, made the whole episode seem tawdry and I took some bitter satisfaction in it. "If there was any more," I added, "I didn't see it."

"Yes, there was more. And I'm going to tell you because I want you to know everything . . . you have to if we have any chance of getting through this. Besides, I can't stand the thought of you finding out later and thinking that I hid some part of it from you."

I waited. She looked out at the garden again and seemed to be gathering courage. Then, with a shuddering sigh, she turned back to me her eyes cast down.

"The . . . experience was intense . . . very intense. I had been drinking --- more than usual, I'll admit --- but not enough that I didn't know what I was doing. I did --- and I freely confess that I cooperated with him, allowed all that you saw . . . and more. After I had allowed it to go as far as it did while we were dancing, I couldn't just . . . tell him . . . I couldn't just cut it off. But I was not prepared for the intensity of what happened."

"Yes," I interrupted, "It seemed as if you were not just . . . fucking. You seemed to be making love . . . very sincere love." Again, I felt a small thrill of satisfaction at pushing her deeper into her shame.

Alex shuddered and cast her eyes out the window again, then down at the table. "Yes, it must have seemed that way, especially if you watched it through to the finish." She lifted her head again. "And itwaslove. Not my love for him or his for me but something . . . different, a love of being alive and happy and young and full of . . . passion . . . an exuberance . . . a, a love of life. That sounds so . . . so frivolous in the cold light of Saturday morning but in the warm atmosphere of Friday night, the drinks, the memories --- I felt --- well --- it serves as a very good description of what I felt. It was like spitting in the eye of death and saying, 'Not yet! Not yet!' I don't think what I felt had anything to do with Clifford, not much anyway."

She fell silent and I let it last for a few minutes before saying, "You said there was more."

"Yes." She gathered herself, straightened in her chair and looked me in the eye for the first time that morning. "What I felt toward Clifford was gratitude. Gratitude for taking me to such . . . what? Heights, I guess. I was thankful for the raw passion and intensity of it all. I know I keep repeating that word, 'intensity,' but that's all I can think of to describe it. After we dressed he helped me down from the table. Had you left by then?"

"Yes."

"Well, I was overwhelmed by what he and I had done together. And he had showed me the way; he had taken me there. When the part you saw was over, my whole being was bursting with joy and . . . and gratitude. He placed my hand on his trouser front to show me that he was getting hard again. So I . . . Oh! This is hard!" She gathered herself once more and went on in a rush. "I went down on my knees and unzipped him and took him in my mouth and I sucked him off!"

I was quiet, struggling for control. She rarely used language that plain and it jolted me a little. I managed to ask in a dead quiet voice, "So, do I know everything now?"

She seemed to sink into her chair. "Not exactly. He wants to see me again. I know you wouldn't like that and I'm quite willing to not see him again, but . . ."

"But what?"

"In my --- enthrallment or whatever you want to call it --- I told him I'd think about it. I gave him my cell number and said to call me."

"Then you want to see him again."

"Oh, God! I can't deny it. Yes, I do."

"So that's it? That's all there is? If not, get it out now."

She sat gripping her hands together, eyes wide and staring down at nothing. She was holding her breath and I could see her struggle maintain control was as fierce as mine. "Yes," she whispered hoarsely, "Now . . . now you know everything."

I waited till her breathing seemed to regulate and she glanced nervously in my direction.

"You're willingnotto see him again?" I asked.

"Yes. I won't if you don't want me to. But I'm emotionally exhausted now and I don't want to talk about it any more for a while. Is that all right with you?"

"Yes."

She rose and started to leave, gray and shaken.

My gut was knotted worse than the night before; I had never felt so tightly contracted. I feared that my joints would not work if I tried to stand. My mind boiled with rage and the need to make her suffer for what she had done. My next words put an end to our marriage.

"Oh, by the way . . ." I said. I tried to sound as casual as possible.

"Yes," she said, turning back to me.

"While you were on your knees before him, did you fondle his balls and let him come in your mouth?" I asked quietly and coldly. "I ask merely for information; you've never done anything like that for me."

Her face came up sharply, drained of color, her eyes pained and tearing up. The breath left her body as if I had punched her in the stomach. In the next second her face hardened into a mask of outrage.

"Yes!" she hissed through clenched teeth. "And I swallowed it, every drop, and licked his cock and his balls till he was soft!And God damn you for asking that!" She rushed from the kitchen and up the stairs.

I exulted! I had prevailed. A high feeling of justification made my scalp prickle as it had last night for a different reason. I could feel the smile on my face, cruel and self-righteous. A few minutes later I caught sight of her as she hurried down dressed in jeans and an old plaid shirt. She slammed the front door and I heard her car start and pull out of the driveway. I was alone in the silent house on a gray Saturday morning.

I never saw her again. I packed, still full of self-righteous resentment, and moved to a hotel near my office. Our divorce was easy and uncontested and handled completely by lawyers. You can do that if there are no kids and neither of you wants a fight.

Well, that's how it goes, folks. You think you have a marriage, then a few hours later, a few ounces of alcohol, some raunchy dancing and --- you don't anymore. Now that my resentment has passed and the lava-hot anger that my ice-cold demeanor masked has subsided, I remember what she said that fateful morning.

"Yes, there was more. And I'm going to tell you because I want you to know everything . . . you have to if we have any chance of getting through this."

And so I rationalize. She had made a good-faith effort to right the boat, I tell myself from time to time. I tipped it and swamped us. What she had experienced that night was no more than what men experience all the time, the wild, tumultuous joy of raw, passionate sexual expression without regard to whom we are with or what lies ahead. But she was a woman and had the soft, emotions of her sex. The overwhelming experience caused her to fuse it with love, any love, any acceptable version of love and that was what she tried to tell me. The gratitude she showed to Clifford, what she did for him before they left the clearing, was obligatory for her, a pouring out of her gladness from a full heart. It was nothing to do with love for him, nor did it have anything to do with me; I was just wrenched that the woman I considered "mine" had found such bliss with another man.

But I had never done that to her . . . and she wanted to see him again! That's what really tore it. I still can't banish the feeling that that brings. The feeling of being a pathetic loser.

I think occasionally of trying to get in touch with her again through friends or her lawyer but I never act on it in spite of my rationalizations. At times I long for her; the rest of the time --- most of the time --- I tell myself, "Good riddance!"