Conversations 05

"I know you are," I said, keeping my voice soft as well. "And I know you are going to do the right thing now that you realise you've done wrong. Don't ask me what it is. But you're very intelligent and you'll figure it out. I'll help you.

"So back to the subject of cucks and wimps. Who else was in the hue and cry?"

"Johnny. I didn't expect that from him, but he was saying it loud and proud and clear."

"Johnny... you talking about Goofy? The geeky guy with glasses like beer glass bottoms?"

"We don't call him that anymore, and he wears contacts now."

"Okay. Let's call him Johnny. Johnny bust up with Luanne, didn't he?"

"Yeah, he caught her fucking around with another guy and wouldn't stand for it. Made that loud and clear."

"Wow. So he's definitely not a cuck or a wimp. He's certainly a man – a big, strong man! She was fucking another guy?"

He paused for a moment in thought. "I don't know, he just said she was fucking around. I presumed he meant sex."

"Presumed is based on evidence. Assumed is guesswork. Which is it?"

"Assumed then."

"Okay. What do you know about Luanne?"

He shook his head. "Not much, she only transferred here last year."

"What does she look like, I can't picture her."

He thought about it. I liked that he did that. I wished he would do it more. A lot more.

"Sort of small and geeky, with black hair and glasses."

"That's it? What colour are her eyes? Does she have broad shoulders? How big are her tits?"

He recoiled from me. "Jesus, Dad. Why do you want to know about her tits? She's just out of school and you're really old."

"I'm forty two. That's only old when you're under twenty. Besides I don't care about her tits. I just wanted to know what you thought."

"Honestly, now that you mention it, I've never thought about them. I couldn't identify them even in a line-up, and I could do that with most of the girls at school and get a ninety percent score. Her eyes? Maybe grey or blue. I have no idea what size shoulders she has. She just one of those girls..."

"Who disappears into the background, I'm guessing," I finished for him.

He shrugged.

"Okay, let me tell you about Luanne. At two years old, she was dumped on her grandmother when her mother ran out on her. Her mum was the usual story, a bit stupid and a bit slutty, pregnant by eighteen and nothing to look forward to in life. So she simply dumped the baby on her mother and moved on. Luanne was then raised by the bitch from hell. She could never do anything right for her grandmother, whom she thought of as her own mother. She was never good enough.

"It turns out that your grandmother knows her grandmother. Your gran can't stand her and thinks she's a walking advert for why abortion should sometimes be mandatory – even on adults. Turns out that Luanne's gran doesn't like to be touched, by anyone. So Luanne grew up a loser – never good enough to even be touched. Shit, that's one of the most basic human needs.

"Then she transferred to your school when her good old gran decided to downsize and have Luanne sleep in the lounge. Why have a house with a whole bedroom for a worthless girl when you can sell the house at a nice profit, get a smaller house and just make her bed down in the lounge. Fuck it, James! She's the walking, breathing equivalent of Harry Potter, for Christ's sake. Dumped on time and time again by everyone in the whole fucking world!"

James drew back, his eyes huge, aghast and all too aware of how upset I was getting at telling this story. Fuck! I hate when kids get abused, and this was abuse all the way. That fucking old woman should have been locked in a kennel with starving dogs!

After a moment, I managed to get a little control back.

"But then she met good old Johnny and they fell in love. I can understand that, she was the mirror image of him – both of them geeky and forgettable. He became her whole world, you know that?

"And then she did the hideous crime of letting a guy hold her hand for a couple of minutes. She didn't even know that wasn't supposed to happen. All she knew was that a human touch was pleasant. And then good old Johnny – that nasty fucking dickless little cunt – dumped her in the worst possible way, ambushing her and proclaiming in front of everyone, including the few friends that she had made, that she was a two-timing, no-good whore and a slut and he wasn't willing to be seen even in the same room as her.

"I was on call that night when her grandmother finally dialled emergency and got us out there. She was eighteen and had taken an overdose because she could no longer live with discovering she was a whore who wasn't worthy of having a life."

I was so angry, I could feel tears on my cheeks.

"Luckily, she had puked most of the pills up, and after her stomach was pumped, the doctors managed to pull her through it. Then she was up to the psych ward to be evaluated and treated."

"Shit Dad, Johnny dumped her just two weeks ago," he said.

I got myself under control.

"So, three different situations, three different cheats. Who gets burned and who gets forgiven? First of all, do any of them get forgiven? How about Luanne?"

He struggled to get his thoughts together. I'm a paramedic and have seen some of the most awful things in life and learned to be cool about it. I talk to the right people to get myself back to a place where I can be human once again. So I think seeing me lose it over Luanne had shaken him.

His forehead was furrowed for a while and then cleared.

"Luanne is... I feel so sad for her. If all she was doing was holding hands then Johnny way overreacted in doing what he did. If it bothered him that much he could have just broken it off and walked away."

"Why do you think he did it the way he did. He invited her to join you guys and then denounced her in front of everyone, without actually saying quite what she'd done wrong."

"Actually, when you put it that way I think it was a complete dick move. He didn't give her any chance at all, and just burned her for holding a guys hand. Hell, when we went to dances, guys would try and get their hands all over Serena during the slow dances. I had to peel them off with threats of violence sometimes when she couldn't stop them. I would have been delighted if they'd just held hands with her. Fuck, Johnny's a complete dickwad."

His language had broadened as much as mine. As I'd said, this was an adult conversation.

"So why did he do that? Wasn't she his first girlfriend?"

"Yeah – he was such a nerd that no girl ever wanted to be near him – even the geek girls."

"But then Luanne should have been perfect for him. Together they could have discovered love and everything that goes with it. And by it I'm talking about sex."

"Yes I know," James said, still distracted by his thoughts. "You know, when he got his contacts, he got his parents to stump up for a new wardrobe and actually started to look good. Well, not good – halfways decent perhaps."

"Ah, I think you might be on the right track. So what was his nasty little ambush in front of all of you about?"

"No, it can't be that. I mean, why... You think he did it to fit in with the rest of us? So we wouldn't think of him as Goofy any more. Jesus, that's no reason to..."

"I think it was to him," I said. "I think he was so afraid of being thought of as a wimp that he went looking for trouble, and when he found even the faintest scent, he launched his pre-emptive attack. He threw her to the wolves to try and be seen as a wolf."

"Dad, that's the most fucked up thing I've ever heard of."

"You think I'm wrong?"

"...No."

"Okay, now Josie. I mean she was a slut, right? After all, she fucked the both of you and even had a little dabble with the other girls if my information is right."

James went bright red. I think he was hoping I wasn't going to get back to her.

"Jesus, how do you know all this..? Well... I suppose her case was different. In a way it wasn't her fault. I mean, I suppose you're right, I did know what buttons to press to get her interested. After that it was pretty easy to get her to come along with us."

"I think it's fairly clear that she was up for a fivesome, or pentangle or whatever it's called," I said. "So don't beat yourself up too badly. If she was interested it likely meant that at some point she'd thought about having multiple partners and found the idea intriguing. So it probably would have happened in the future at some time. If she hadn't considered it as a possibility, you could have talked yourself blue in the face, it wouldn't have happened.

"But what's happening now is still your fault. So you get to fix it. What are you going to do?"

His forehead wrinkled up again as he frowned in thought.

"Ah, shit. I'm going to have to tell Nigel that I know he knows."

"What do you think will happen then?"

"I think he's going to bounce my head off the floor like a basketball."

"So don't let that happen. But you can't fight him, because..." I left it hanging.

"Because I might win, and that would destroy him." He had put it together.

"You're going to have to tell him and then run. I don't know whether your fucked-up buddies would help you out on this one. So you make preparations beforehand and you do a runner. I don't want you hurt over this, am I clear? You'll take shit for running, and rightly so, but you do it anyway. That's what you get for being a fuckhead with someone else's girl. But I'm ordering you to do it, so you don't need to feel bad. Clear?"

"Yes sir," he said automatically. I grinned at him.

"Okay, I wasn't particularly proud of you in that situation. You wanted an orgy, you could have got it together with people who weren't linked up. But I am proud of what you are about to do to make it better. If you do it right, he'll have to either forgive her completely, or dump her ass for cheating on him. Although, he must have been perched on that windowsill and watched all the way through it to know what happened at the end, so maybe he enjoyed it in some weird way. Maybe it's a case of the cuck calling out the cuckoo. But either way they can move on with their lives."

I looked at the pieces of the clock on the bench and realised that my marriage was like that. It had broken, but I was still trying to pick up the pieces and put it back together. It would never be quite the same, but I was hoping it might still be a good clock.

"Okay, so much for the cuck-caller and his sidekick, the wimp warbler. Shit, more birds. Seriously, we should find new metaphors. So now let's look at your mum."

"I don't know what to say anymore, Dad. It seemed so clear when I came in here. You had let mum move back in with us after she cheated on you, so you were wimping out. Now I think maybe I don't know enough about it to make a judgement call."

"James, you know, you saying that has actually vindicated my belief in you. So you don't want to burn her anymore?"

"I don't know. I did. I was so mad at her. But then when you pointed out that I was the douche bag who did things so wrong with Josie... It shook me. At the time, I never even thought about consequences – apart from STD's and pregnancy, which I why I never went bareback with any of them. She was just a girl I wanted to fuck – so what else was there to think about? Now I realise how easy it might be to get into that place, and how really hard it is to get out again."

"Good, my job is almost done then," I said.

"So why did she do it, Dad. Did she stop loving you? Did she fall in love with dickweed and his cock?"

Hmm, maybe the conversation was getting a little too adult. I never meant to open the gates to all sorts of invective.

"Tone it down a couple of notches, James. I'm still your Dad, and I don't want you accidentally sounding off when your mum is anywhere near. She'd beat your ass raw."

"No she won't, not after what she..." I put my hand over his mouth. He stared at me in shock, his blue eyes very wide.

"You don't want to finish that sentence, my boy. Believe me, you don't. Unless of course, she's not your mother any more? Is that what you're planning – to do a kid-divorce of your mum? I've read about it happening before, so I guess you could make it happen. Although what would be the point? You're nineteen. You're an adult, so you can go whenever you want."

His eyes bugged and I removed my hand.

"You want me out of the house?" he asked.

"No, but I am dancing on this whole thing like a slab of butter on a hot plate. I don't need anyone tipping the stove right now. Capiche?"

Damn, I sounded like some Mafia boss.

"James, either she's your mother or she isn't. You can't bob and weave between the two whenever you want. She loves you so much she couldn't take it, so I won't let you do it. So choose!"

He stared at me for a long moment.

"I'll watch my language when I'm around mum," he said.

I squeezed his shoulder.

"I don't believe she fell in love with dickweed – hey I'm an adult and I do adulty things, so I can say it. I think she fell for his line of bullshit. I think he took his time and gradually found a crack in our marriage that he could work on. I know she wasn't the only one he was working on, and I reckon there's at least a dozen women in that place who fell for his crap over the three years he's been there.

"This may sound weird, although you're nineteen and have access to the internet so you probably know more about it than I do. But there's a type of dirtbag who only targets married women. Now it may be that it's just so there's no comeback from single women wanting him to make good on his promises, as married women have to stay silent to protect themselves.

"But I don't think that's really it. I think the man who seduced your mother into having that affair gets off on thinking he's fucking the husband. Not fucking with the husband, but actually fucking him. I'm fairly convinced that if your mum and I were naked with our butts in the air, he'd be up my ass faster than lightning. It's a power thing, like you get in prisons. They fuck the weak for sex, but even more for the power of it.

"Please never, ever quote me back about me with my ass in the air. Ever. Even the thought is nauseating. But it's something I have to take into consideration. So as an insider, what cracks might you have seen in our marriage?"

He thought again, tapping his chin with a forefinger. Shit, he even has my unconscious mannerisms.

"Well, mum was getting a bit frumpy," he said. "He may have played on that, telling her she was so much prettier than she thought she was."

"Good thinking," I said. "That's the carrot. What's the stick?"

"Easy – your hours. You have to work at night some weeks, and I guess Mum probably gets lonely. Especially if I'm heading out to parties while I'm here for the holidays."

His frown deepened into misery. "Shit, Dad, I never realised. I'm so sorry. I probably helped dickwad. If I was going out and she was having to just stay at home alone... I am so... Please forgive me, I'm such a stupid, fucking..."

I pulled him close again. I think we had hugged more during that conversation than we had over the last year.

"It's not your fault," I assured him. "It didn't help, but I was the one who wasn't there for her. You were doing what kids are supposed to do – testing your wings before you fly the nest. And it wasn't my fault either. It was just life happening. We don't get everything we want. Hell, there wouldn't be room for it all if we did. Yes, I wasn't there, and neither were you, and that caused a crack. But that's all – a small crack. He recognised it and started to work his way into it, making it wider and wider.

"Like I said, it took him three years, but he had plenty of other things to amuse himself with during that time. He was working at the cracks on all of the married women, and some fell apart quickly and others slowly. So I reckon he was probably banging at least some of them at any one time. But for some reason nobody linked the trail of broken marriages to him. He was that good. Even the other women never realised they were all targets together, one big turkey shoot.

"That doesn't excuse your mum's behaviour and she knows that. Like Josie, she's an adult and has to be able to defend our marriage in the same way I do. I get hit on, and women know how to push buttons just as well as men. Perhaps even more so. I mean they have tits to wobble and asses to shake. But I've turned them all down."

James was staring at me as if I'd grown a new head.

"Damn it, James. Despite me being obviously completely decrepit and about to pop my clogs at any moment – in your eyes anyway – I do get hit on now and again. Some women do find me attractive sometimes. I think it's probably the uniform. I don't know how it fits into genetics, but uniforms do seem to get women's motors running.

He cocked an eyebrow and I knew he was thinking that that might be a handy thing to know, a useful tool in his perpetual hunt for the next pussy. When he finally met the girl who would have him hopelessly staring into her eyes rather than at her tits, I was going to laugh my head off. And let him know why. I was forty two years old, dammit, not ninety two.

"Some people, men and women, have the idea that it's the man's job to defend his woman from all comers. Now that may have been true in the days when the guy who could use a club the best got all the women, but things have changed.

"If women get treated equally in a marriage, and you know I genuinely believe that they should and mostly do in today's marriages, then they have to take equal responsibility for its health and well-being. I can't be out there swinging my dick and my club while at the same time bringing in the bacon. And if she's also bringing in the bacon, how am I to defend her at work, doing the caveman thing while she's trying to take a meeting?

"I know men are stronger and women get raped, but this is not what I'm talking about. Rape is not an affair, and any man who thinks it's cheating needs to be tarred and feathered and his balls glued to a railway line. And I know more men have affairs than women, but that's changing as well and it's now getting fairly close to equal numbers."

I sighed. "Maybe the idea of marriage is coming to an end and we are moving to an age where people just fuck who and how they want. But I honestly believe that most people want to be in love with and remain true to that one special person, and have them do the same. "

Shit, I had wanted him to work it out himself and then gone and given him the whole lecture anyway.

"Okay, the penultimate thing I want to talk about is this. When all is said and done, your mum had an affair, and I had no say in it. I didn't give her permission, obviously she didn't need that as we wouldn't now be in this situation if she did. So out of everything we've done in our marriage, this is the one thing I've been excluded from completely. I couldn't stop it, I couldn't protest and I couldn't even give her a warning. It was a complete secret until Joan in unit seven had to swing past the hotel on her way to a traffic accident and saw our car there. She thought maybe I was having an affair and was giving me both barrels when we both suddenly realised that she had the wrong end of the stick.

"That's how I discovered what was happening. And unlike online recommendations, I didn't try to collect evidence or anything like that. I went straight to your mum and confronted her. She's an honest woman is your mum, and can't lie to save her skin. So she didn't. And I made her leave."

"And before you ask, the cunt that seduced her didn't get away clear. I persuaded your Mum to go and talk to the other women he had worked on. Five of them agreed to launch a joint suit against him. He was fired, his wife divorced him, and now the lawyers are enjoying munching on his bones to get as much marrow out of him as they can; a fair return on his investment of all his time and effort with married women. His life is now worth shit."