Ch.4 Like Scales from Their Eyes

Consequences

By H. Jekyll

CHAPTER 4: Like Scales from Their Eyes

There is no sex in this chapter.

*****

The guest bedroom. John didn't recognize where he was at first. Then it came to him: the night before and his whore-wife's check list. He rose and left before Laura woke. There was a morning appointment with the therapist and he didn't want to see Laura before he'd had his visit.

In her office he sat across from her and announced he wouldn't do any more intimacy exercises. As always, almost always, the therapist looked calm and interested. "Any of them?"

"No hugs, no date nights, no touching in bed. Not even hand holding."

"Something happened."

"Yes. We had sex. We didn't plan it. And, yes, it was fine. It was nice. But it got her to ask if she could do ... fellatio on me. What an offer! Frankly, I could read her mind. Thinking if she did me it would cancel out six months of George Mathis, so she could worm her way back in. Once I realized that, I couldn't imagine anything except the two of them, her doing things with him! I can't accept that anymore."

She was quiet, letting them both think about what he'd said.

"And that affected how you saw yourself?"

"Heh! I've always thought I was a pretty nice guy. Not perfect, but good. Always helpful. Always polite. Not argumentative. Always controlling myself. People liked me. Laura loved me. But now? What am I? I know the answer to that one now. Finally. I'm a total fucking loser!

"And no, I won't apologize for the word. It's what I am. That's the problem, being one of those nice guys who finish last. I lost friends. I thought they were friends. I may walk away from my job. I get to be the butt of jokes there. They stop joking around when I come by. My volunteer organizations? Poof! We've quit our church. All because I lost my wife, I mean really lost her. Hell, George Mathis is dead and he's still her number one!

"I'm John Reynolds the loser. What do I want to do? I want to murder my so-called friends. I want to murder Laura. I wanted to kill George Mathis but I never even confronted him. He had to go off and kill himself. Himself! John Reynolds didn't do it! Not the good guy. Not go-along, get-along, don't-make-waves John Reynolds! The fucking loser."

She gave him time to finish. Finally, "I won't get her back, not like she was. And I don't want the new Laura."

The therapist gestured for John to calm himself, and she waited. She had more patience than anyone John could ever remember having dealt with.

"Let's turn to what started this conversation, John, okay? It doesn't have to do with the paramour." She still didn't use his name, even with him being dead. "Tell me about the comforting exercises. Have they been hard on you?"

John thought about them a bit, then shrugged. "No. Not of themselves. She gets more than I do from them."

"She likes the hugs and all?"

"She loves the hugs. She gets these attacks. Maybe she told you. Then she's all over me."

"You're her base."

"Yeah."

"And? How are these for you?"

"They're fine. She feels good to hold."

"But?"

"That's not the problem. Not how they feel. Not that. It's this: why should I be comforting her when she's the one who cuckolded me? They just make it easier for her to stay, to get back into her comfortable, old life with nice guy John. After what she did!" John held his hands out for a moment, then continued. "Whereas I have to be sweet and accommodating ... to learn to live with being the failure, the sucker. I provide her with everything she always got from our life together while she gets to remember the joys of fucking the dead guy."

"John!" So, he can't use 'fucking' as a verb.

"I'm sorry. No, I'm not sorry. What she was doing with him wasn't making love. It was fucking. And she loved it. But I have to live with my busted up, fragile, male ego? How can that be right?"

"Do you feel like she's manipulating you? With the intimacy exercises?"

"No. Not really. I think they help her."

"You could refuse her."

"I wouldn't. John's the nice guy who listens to and follows instructions. Only now I realize that means being a sucker."

"Okay. They aren't helping you. And you're angry today."

"No. And yes."

*****

"Okay. Let's go back to the fellatio. She offered and you turned her down. So, you did refuse her that."

"Okay. Yes."

"Which put you more in control."

"Okay."

"Did that make you feel better?"

"Well, I didn't get the blow job." He stopped and chortled. "But yeah. It felt good to tell her 'no.'"

"It put you in charge, not being such a nice guy. You could keep doing that."

"Meaning what?"

"There are alternatives and grey areas. Consider a hypothetical--asserting yourself. What if you were to tell her to do the fellatio? Just hypothetically. I'm not telling you to do anything specifically, just using this as an example. But ... here's the 'but.' But you set the conditions. The circumstances. Give the entire scene to her as a take-it-or-leave-it proposition. 'Sure, I'll do this, but only if x, y, and z.' Make it a little less her idea and a little less consensual."

"Less consensual? Well, I wouldn't rape her!"

"Oh my, John! Even in a hypothetical I wouldn't suggest you be a monster. Just that you set the agenda. Since she'd already offered, there would be a lot of pressure for her to agree. She could decide yes or no, but it would have to be on your terms. It's done a lot in role playing. There, both partners get enjoyment from it, the dom and the sub. This would be similar but more serious, because real life is on the line. Don't be a monster but don't be ... as you put it ... a sucker."

He considered it long and hard.

"And John, you did confront her paramour. It was you who made him confess to his wife."

"Laura couldn't do it."

"Listen to yourself: 'Laura couldn't do it.' Laura is actually pretty weak in these things. She's a follower, not a leader. That should be obvious by now. She loved you. She does love you. Mr. Nice Guy. The man she knows will love her and protect her. But it turns out she could be seduced by a dominant-seeming man who offered the excitement of flames. That was George." When had she last called George by his name? "On telling George to confess, ultimately you took charge. And you made her tell him she would be with you when you told his wife. Right? Remember that. You've asserted yourself. You can do it again. And again."

*****

*****

Laura didn't have her session with the therapist. She had a statement to make that had to be in front of John, and then she would leave. So, there were the three of them sitting in a triangle, the therapist in her desk chair that she had rolled around in front of her desk, John and Laura facing each other across the coffee table, Laura looking awful, red-faced, swollen-eyed, hair unkempt, lacking makeup, clothes unmatched, sleep-deprived. Standing to make her statement, her final apology.

There are only so many things one can say and so many types of apologies. A person who is serious about healing the relationship may fling a mea culpa and hope to cut a crack in everything that can let the light touch her love. Maybe, just maybe, she can find a path back. Most statements are pretty much the same, declaring love, saying it was only sex, promising to do better, to make it up to the partner, to do this or that, sometimes to beg. Laura's statement wasn't like that. It was the type you give when you've truly given up, when you know you've lost your love and it's over.

"I'm sorry, John. All this time I've been trying to convince myself that I could undo what I've done, that it wasn't as bad as it was." I knew that the first night, Laura. Where have you been? "That was my maybe not-so-secret agenda. I apologized, but I hid the full truth from myself." This was where she started wiping her eyes. "It took until last night for me to realize just how badly I had hurt you, that I couldn't make things whole.

"I'm so sorry for what I did to you. And to others. Oh, when you let me come home, I was so happy and so hopeful. I thought you would take me back. Truly take me back. But what I did was too long and too intense and too selfish to get over.

"And though I've always said I love only you, and I do love only you, I didn't love you enough while I was cheating. I can't keep being false. I'm not sure how much I loved you then. I just don't know. When I thought of you it was mainly how to get around you, how not to let you catch us, so I could keep doing ... it ... with George.

"And the list. Oh, the list! What you said last night was so true, like you were reading my mind. And I'm so pathetic. I did have a list, and not just in my head. I saved it in a Word file, so I wouldn't forget anything I might done with George and not with you. So I could check everything off the list over time." That's how shallow I am.

She looked appallingly woebegone, as though she would collapse at any moment.

"I know it was unforgivable. I'd hidden it from myself, but I know it now.

"And it wasn't only you I hurt, though you bore the brunt. I hurt Marge, Mom, even George. I'm a pariah in this community and I deserve to be, but you're a pariah by association, and so is Mom, and even Kayla and Kyle, and you didn't deserve any of that!

"Anyway ... anyway, I've decided I need to leave so I can stop hurting you. I hope you can heal. I hope one day you'll be able to forgive me, maybe to think of me fondly from the time before this. All I ask is, please give me some time to find a new job and a place, maybe in a different city. I'll call you when I find something. And I won't contest the divorce. Please, just let me have visitation rights to the children." She picked up her coat and purse and turned to go because she was about to break down completely. "I'm sorry. I love you, but I can't be here."

*****

But she didn't get to go because John said "Stop!" Laura looked back at him and he looked to the therapist. "Don't I get to make a statement too?" Yes, he did.

"Okay, sit down." Laura hesitated. "Sit down!" He almost shouted it. He stood and Laura sat.

"I wasn't expecting that. You basically made my entire case for me, so what I say I'm making up as I go along. It may not be that organized. Just listen carefully." He thought for a moment.

"Laura, let's get one thing straight. You're not my soul mate, not my life partner, not the love of my life. Not anymore." Laura put a hand over her eyes and nodded. "But there's no need to run away. I don't hate you. Not usually." He scoffed. "And one thing I can do is, I can stand to be around you." Neither Laura nor the therapist made a sound.

"Yeah, that's not much. But you don't really want to move out, not really, do you? Christ! You don't even have a plan! And the kids need stability. To me that's fundamental. We need to figure that out. Why hurt the rest of the family? You and I, well, we know we can be cordial if we need to be. The divorce has been filed. It's not going anywhere but it can wait a bit until we see what happens. Things happen.

I'm not predicting what could happen. I don't know how anyone ... anyone! ... could ever get over what you've done. We can never go back. It's just ... sometimes I want to hurt you so badly, and I wish I'd killed George myself. So this is chancy.

"Our relationship would have to change and you'd have to do without all the intimacy gimmicks." He looked at the therapist, who kept her calm, professional face. "I will set the conditions. All of them. You're on notice. You might not like much of it, but you'll do what I say ... in everything ... or leave." The therapist had a look to her, as though she were thinking this is interesting.

"That said, I'm proposing a defined period during which you stay and we try to act like parents around the kids. For what? Say, three months. I don't know. We'll come back here at some point and take stock. Okay. That's my offer. I'm done. Make a choice. Yes, or no? Say yes or go home and pack."

Laura stood. "Can I hug you?" She was as hesitant as she could be.

"No. Make your choice."