Too Close for Comfort B

He was of course right. We had always been close enough to know what each other was thinking. And looking back on things, I'm sure that Grant would have forgiven me for the first one. And he'd have done it for all the reasons he mentioned. However, like everything else, love has its limits. And Grant loved me enough to forgive one mistake.

But, the second time wasn't a mistake; it was curiosity. I guess I wanted to know what else was out there. What was out there that I wasn't getting?

Well, I found out alright. I found out that sex without caring could be intoxicating and desperate. But in the end, it lacked something. It was kind of like drinking too much alcohol. When you first started, it was fun and you thought you were having a good time. But after a while, you realized you weren't. And then when you woke up the next morning, you felt awful.

So, I found out that what was away from home, wasn't as good as what I already had, but ironically, it cost me what I loved most. However, I wasn't giving up without a fight. I called the clinic back and scheduled my appointment for a later time. I had plenty of time, but I needed to put a stop to the divorce first.

I went out and hired the nastiest, most cut-throat lawyer I could find. I found myself one of those bitches who hates men so badly that she can taste it. I found one of those twisted bitches that was so fucked up that she acted like a man. She even hinted around that once we had fed Grant his own nuts, maybe she, and I could get together. I couldn't wait to fire her ass and give her a piece of my mind. But first she had to help me.

It was pure hell around the house after the first meeting between us and our lawyers. My pit bull of an attorney went into attack mode at the very beginning. Grant's lawyer was a kindly older woman who seemingly only wanted the best for our family. Her opening statement surprised me. She reached out her hand and took mine. "I hope we can resolve this so that everyone comes out a winner, even though this is a very difficult and emotional situation," she said. She held on to my hand, and I could feel genuine concern from her.

"Your husband loved you very much," she continued. "But sometimes events just force us into situations where we can't continue to be with the people we love most. My goal is to make this transition as easy as possible, first for the children and then for Grant and you."

I believed her. She was the kind of woman who just seemed to empathize with others and truly feel their pain.

"Get your God damned hands off of my client," yelled my lawyer, destroying the mood as she walked in, late for the meeting. "I heard all of that crap you were spouting. I can't believe you call yourself a woman. She doesn't need that crap about the kids making her feel guilty. My client is a career woman that holds a higher position in the company than he does. Perhaps she doesn't want the kids. Maybe he should have to take care of the kids. Why is it always the woman?"

"I'd gladly take custody of my girls," said Grant.

"See what I mean," hissed my lawyer. "The bastard is trying to take away her children. I've researched this case thoroughly. I think he's only angry because she did, just one time what he's been doing all along. And another thing; what proof does he have of his allegation of infidelity?"

"She admitted to it," said Grant quietly.

"She wasn't in her right mind then," snapped my lawyer. "Her admission of guilt can be struck down by her emotional state at the time of the admission. She was under duress. You have no proof that she did anything."

"My doctor handed me the proof when he treated me for the STD that she brought home from Jamaica," said Grant. I could tell that he was getting angry. Every cell in my body cried out for me to go to my man's defense. But I held my seat and my tongue and hoped that my lawyer knew what she was doing.

"How do we know that you didn't get the STD from one of your whores?" Spat my lawyer. She was so angry that I thought she was foaming at the mouth.

"I don't have any whores," said Grant. He was smiling. I think he thought my lawyer was joking. He turned and looked at me. My heart started beating faster.

"Dahlia, have I ever cheated on you?" he asked.

I looked into his open blue eyes. Grant had never hurt me. He had never lied to me. He had never done anything to me at all except tried to love me as much as he could. I had no doubts in my mind that he had always been faithful to me. Just as I opened my mind and drew breath to answer him, my lawyer screamed again.

"Don't you dare try to talk to her, Motherfucker!" she screamed. "90% of divorces in this country happen because the husband cheated. We all know that you're banging your secretary on the QT. Or maybe it's that cute coworker you sit next to; the one with the big caboose."

"I don't have a secretary," said Grant calmly. "And the coworker next to me until recently was Dahlia."

"That's what you men always say," she said with the venom fairly dripping from her mouth. "You went out of town and had an affair with some exotic floozy, and now you're expecting my client to just roll over and take it. Well, I've got news for you buddy; it's over. My client isn't taking your shit anymore. She wants this divorce, and she wants it now. Your vacation exploits have cost you a good woman."

"But she's the one who..." began Grant. He raised his hand to point at me indicating that I had been the one who went on vacation.

"Did you all see that?" screamed my lawyer again. "He attacked her. I'm filing a restraining order barring him from coming within a thousand yards of her home and workplace. I'm also filing to "TEMPORARILY," give custody of the children to my client. He will only be allowed to visit them under..."

"Bitch, are you high!" I screamed. "Why are you talking to my husband like he's an abusive spouse? Do you even remember what we're trying to do?"

She got that deer in the headlights look on her face. "My Bad," she said. "I had a flashback to..."

"Vietnam?"" I asked. "You're supposed to be keeping the two of us together. I don't want him out of the house. I don't want ... shit my kids would never forgive me if I forced him away from them..."

"Can we just start over?" she asked.

"I think that's the best idea you've had yet," I said. "Let's start over with a different lawyer. You're fired!"

As she grabbed her briefcase and left the room muttering about, "Bullshit," under her breath, my head slumped to the table. Before the tears could even fall from my eyes I felt a familiar hand on my shoulder and then another one.

I looked up to find that both Grant, and his lawyer were comforting me. Before I knew it, she was asking Grant to leave the room, so she could talk to me. He nodded his head and left. I think he looked both ways as he walked out of the room. He was probably trying to make sure that my lawyer wasn't lying in wait for him.

"You don't want this divorce, do you?" she asked. I didn't know what to say to her. I'd expected for her to be adversarial towards me, much as my lawyer was towards Grant.

"I don't want you divorced either," she said. "From talking to your husband, I don't think he wants one either. The problem is that he's hurting pretty badly, and he's really confused and upset about this whole thing. His trust has also been destroyed unfortunately. And then there are the big two."

"What big two?" I asked.

"The male ego and the belief that fidelity and love are related," she smiled.

"Grant is one of those guys who believes that if you love him, you aren't going to have sex with anyone else. To him when you married him, the two of you became a bonded pair like wolves or eagles. It's that whole macho, 'my woman is mine,' thing," she said. "And then there's the ego part. I've handled hundreds of divorce cases, and the problem is that a lot of them are exactly what LL described..."

"What's LL?" I asked. She smiled at me again.

"LL stands for Loopy Lisa, or Loudmouth Lesbo, whichever you prefer. She's the woman you just fired. She became a lawyer, just so she could do divorce cases. She hates men with a passion, or so she claims. Her own divorce was caused by her husband cheating repeatedly. Then he just dumped her and walked out on her for a considerably younger, much better looking, and richer woman. Since he wasn't working before the divorce, she ended up having to pay him alimony too. That's why she claims to hate men so much."

I just shook my head. "That explains her outburst," I said.

"Anyway, I have a solution in your case that might work out for everyone concerned. It's a possible win/win/win/win situation, if you're interested. Of course, it's a gamble on your part, and you're probably going to have to bust your ass, but the alternatives aren't great," she said.

"Why would you help me?" I asked. "Aren't you supposed to be on Grant's side? And how the hell can there be a win/win/win/win situation. That's too many wins, there aren't even that many people involved here."

"In my solution, Grant wins," she began. "He doesn't get exactly what he wants, but he gets close enough that he can hold his head up. Your kids win because they keep both of their parents in their lives. You win because you get a chance to keep your husband close and possibly win him back, and you get enough time to fight for your marriage. And I win because, I get paid."

"I'll take it," I said gleefully.

"You need to let me explain the particulars first," she said. "And you need to realize that this is all contingent upon my ability to convince Grant to accept it as well. I have to tell you, that man loved or maybe still loves you a lot. His pain goes pretty deep. He is not going to get over this overnight. And there's a chance that he might not ever get over it at all. Even if he goes for my idea, you, in particular, are in for a very rough road."

"What do I have to do?" I asked.

"It's very simple," she said. "I'll draw up the divorce papers, including the settlement agreement that we'll start working out over the next few days. When the papers are done, the two of you sign them," she said.

"Are you crazy?" I screamed. "I'm not signing any divorce papers."

"Yeah, you are," she smiled. "You want to sign them. Because the divorce papers are what will make Grant think that he won."

"But if I sign them, Grant won't be my husband anymore. I'll lose him and..."

"Dahlia, you've already lost him," she said. "The papers we're going to write up will state that the divorce will be granted, but not until your youngest child leaves the house. Lilly won't go away to college until four years from now. That gives you four years to win him back. If you can't do it in four years, it's never going to happen."

My eyes opened a lot bigger. It was the best idea I'd ever heard.

"You like?" she smiled. I nodded enthusiastically.

I don't know how she did it, but she convinced Grant to go for it. She used his greatest weakness ... well, his current greatest weakness, our kids, against him. She convinced him and not untruthfully that children, even nearly adult children, whose parents divorce before the children left the home don't fare as well as the children from unbroken unions.

Grant, of course, needed time to think about it. To him, it seemed like a lie. We would continue to live in the same house with our kids. We would separate our finances and pay the bills according to the settlement we would work out. When Lilly went away to college, we would sell the house and then go our separate ways.

Grant would believe that he was doing it for our kids, and that he'd get the divorce he thought he wanted. The only thing was that he would have to wait a while to get it. He would also be able just to walk away and not pay me any type of alimony. Not that he would have had to anyway since our salaries had been fairly close before I became a manager.

On my part was the challenge. By signing the papers, I would start the clock on my marriage. If I hadn't won Grant back by the time the agreement ended, he was gone, and I'd have no recourse.

Grant and I also had to pretend to be normal in front of the kids. We had to be civil to each other, and I was not allowed to push things. That meant that I couldn't try to force myself on him in order to win him back.

Away from the kids, we were free to do whatever we wished. Grant had requested that I keep my, "MEN," away from our home. That one almost made me laugh.

After all the financial arrangements and other details were worked out, I breathed a sigh of relief.

Grant still looked at me with that haunted look, but he kept up his part of the bargain. After the first few days, I was walking on sunshine. I came home every day and made dinner. Grant would arrive a few minutes later; he insisted on driving to work separately now. We told the kids it was because I hated how loud his Mustang sounded. Realistically, I'd have put up with it and loved it. However, there was also a real reason why we drove separately. Now that I was a manager, I had freer hours, but I also had to work harder because most of the things that Grant used to do were hard for me. I got to work earlier and left earlier so I could get home and make dinner for Grant and the girls.

I loved evenings. I had come so close to losing them that they became very special to me. The kids seemed to get into it too. It was normal for Lilly to spend a lot of time with us, but Rose seemed to be staying in more frequently as well. We had dinner, and then we played games with each other or watched cheesy movies on TV. When the first Sharknado movie came out we watched it together and nearly died laughing.

Grant did his best to keep up the pretense. He laughed and joked and hugged our daughters the way he always has. He laughed and joked with me as well. I don't think either of the girls noticed that he almost never touched me.

Grant was so good at flirting, or pretending to flirt with me that the kids really didn't notice the difference. I personally picked up on a couple of problems that no one else did. One was when Rose pointed out that her father was seated between the two of them and hadn't hugged me yet. Grant nearly killed me with his reply.

"I have to stay away from your mother, to avoid getting started right here in front of you girls," he said. "But once we go up to bed; she'll be walking funny tomorrow."

As soon as he said it I got so wet that my panties were dripping. I had to slam my legs closed, and both of my daughters noticed it. That was the other problem. I wanted Grant so badly that it was almost painful. He also made it a point to play up things that he liked about me, or used to. He once talked about how beautiful my eyes were when we saw one of the actresses on TV whose were a similar color.

"Your mom's eyes are that same shade, but they're bigger and prettier," he said.

"It's a good thing that you love mom's eyes," quipped Lilly. "Because she's beginning to chunk up a bit. Maybe she should start running with you again dad."

It made me realize that I had put off going to the clinic almost to the point that it was too late. I made an appointment for the next day. It was the hardest thing I had ever done. I felt awful and for every reason in the book. I hated the idea of ending a life. However, the thought of my marriage ending was even worse. Grant was the best father I knew, but the chances of him accepting another man's child on top of everything else I had already done to him were nil. In fact, I was sure that it would destroy the tenuous and precarious balance we had begun to build.

If the Catholics are correct, and I was going to hell for doing what I did, it wouldn't happen until after I was dead. While I was alive, I needed Grant more than I needed another baby.

The procedure was painful, but the guilt was worse. I cried during the entire time that they made me stay in the clinic until they were sure that I was okay. The doctor begged me to call someone to drive me home. He was sure that the strain on my body over what I had gone through was too much for me to be on the road. He gave me a bunch of instructions on what to do and not do over the next few days.

I laughed when he told me about not having sex for the next few weeks. "Doctor, if my husband wanted me, he could have me right now," I laughed. My joke was wanted on him though.

I felt weaker and weaker as time went on. I barely made it home. And then I had to sit in the driveway until I gained the strength to get out of the car.

I got out of the car and barely managed to stand. I must've been out of it not to hear that God awful rumbling sound. However, just as I began to black out, I felt two strong arms wrap themselves around me and hold me up.

"Dahlia, are you okay?" he asked. There was a real note of concern in his voice. I have to admit that I loved it. He saw the brochure that I brought from the clinic.

"Dahlia, did you have some kind of surgery today?" he asked. "Why did you try to drive home?"

"It was just a small outpatient procedure," I whimpered.

"Surgery is surgery," he said. "You might not have made it home. You could have just asked, and I'd have driven you home."

"Grant, it was one of those female things that men never want to know about," I said weakly.

"You always told me about them ... before," he said with a slight hesitation.

"Exactly," I said. "Before ... and since this one was caused by ... what I brought back from Jamaica, I didn't want to bother you with it. You already hate me enough."

"I don't hate you Dahlia," he said. "In fact, I probably don't love you any less now than I did before. It's just that I'll never be able to trust you again. And I'm just so damned angry."

I was so wobbly on my feet that he just picked me up and carried me up the stairs to our bed. He undressed me and put me under the warm blankets. I drifted off to sleep and dreamed that Grant had gotten into bed with me.

He wrapped his arms around me and told me that he forgave me. I had a dull ache in my belly, but having Grant so close to me had me mentally, if not physically, ready for anything he wanted. I remembered the doctor's warning, but I knew that Grant would never hurt me.

"If it hurts you'll stop, right?" I asked. But it didn't hurt. It felt magical. I felt wanted and loved, for the first time in what seemed like forever. And when Grant looked into my eyes as he slowly thrust inside of me, I wanted him to keep it up perpetually.

I wished at that moment that I was still pregnant, but that Grant was the father. I didn't say so though. I didn't want to wreck the moment. There were some things that I just couldn't say because, I was lucky that Grant was even willing to have sex with me this soon. I expected it to take a long time. I had also expected it to hurt really badly, but it hadn't. In fact, there was no pain, down there at all. The only pain I felt was in my wrist.

I wondered why my wrist hurt, and then I noticed that Grant was no longer next to me, and I was cold.

"Grant, I'm cold," I said.

"I'll see if there's a blanket in this cabinet," he said. He seemed so far away. I opened my eyes and realized that I had been dreaming. I was numb from the waist down and beneath the numbness there was a throbbing pain. The pain in my wrist came from the IV that was dripping some type of drug, probably a pain killer directly into my veins.

I was in the hospital, and Grant was in my room. "What happened?" I asked.

"After I put you to bed, I went back to check on you," he said. "You were bleeding pretty heavily down there, so I panicked. I picked you up and put you in the car and came here to the hospital. The rest is history," he said. I couldn't read the look on his face. That more than anything else surprised me. After all the years that we'd been married, I thought that I could read Grant like a book. However, at that moment I truly could not tell what he was thinking or feeling.