February Sucks Next Chapter

I walked into my living room at 10:15 p.m. I heard some sounds coming from the family room and I went in there. Linda was a mess. She was sitting slumped down on my recliner facing the TV. She was sitting perpendicular to me, so that she didn't seem to be aware that I was there. The TV was playing a tape of our wedding reception. She also had an almost empty bottle of wine sitting on the coffee table in front of her.

I softly said, "Hi."

It took a minute for it to register and she turned towards me with a completely bewildered look on her face not expecting to see me. And yes, for the first time in a long time the pain she had on her face registered deeply with me.

"What... What are you doing here?"

"I'm back!"

"Back?"

"Yes, back for good. I ended things with Ellen tonight."

Now you might be thinking, hold on, wait, that's not what happened. She dumped you, or more truthfully you never really truly had Ellen. Well, I think in life, and in a marriage, there are such things as unnecessary truths.

My older brother was a pathological liar, and so I grew up absolutely abhorring lying. However, absolute truth sometimes can be very counterproductive as well. Take for example when I asked Linda to tell me, completely honestly, about her night out with Marc. Now, any husband asking his wife if he was her best lover, compared to her lovers before she met him, doesn't really want an honest answer. Even if he makes her swear up and down to be completely honest with him, he doesn't really want her to be honest if the answer is no. He really wants her to tell him, "damn right you are!" You'd think all wives would know that. I mean that's the right answer for both partners to that question. The only exception I could imagine is if the husband or wife is so inadequate and the spouse is so frustrated, they're like, "well...", because they see this as an opportunity to discuss the matter that needs solving.

But the fuck of it was that Linda was absolutely truthful with me about how much she enjoyed the sex with Marc. First, probably because I've never known Linda to lie, or to even exaggerate to make herself look better. Second, she probably had the mistaken belief that if I knew that she wasn't lying about that, when it would be beneficial for her to lie, then I would believe her when she told me how much she loved me, and how happy she was to be back with me.

The problem was that I'm a guy. So, the volume with which she told me about how much she enjoyed the fucking registered with me at a level of 100. I heard the part about her loving me, and being so happy to be back home with me at a level of five. Unnecessary truth! She shouldn't have completely lied to me that it was horrible, but maybe something like "it was pretty good, he's obviously been with a lot of women, but there was no intimate connection there..." would have been a much better version of the truth. Not only for the both of us, but especially for me.

Why tell Linda the unnecessary truth? Why tell her that I came back to her by default? That the only reason I wasn't still with Ellen tonight was because I found out that she was paid to be with me.

If Linda and I ended up making it work, she would always believe I chose her over Ellen. She knew how much I was in Ellen's power, so it would be especially meaningful for her. Even if we ended up not making it and we still divorced, I wanted to give her that gift. That I chose HER over that gorgeous creature. I knew what someone's self-esteem being shattered felt like, and I had done it to her long enough. I didn't want her to continue to experience that anymore.

Plus, on my drive, as the Ellen fog started wearing off, I realized that what I told Linda was not that far from the truth anyway. It was kind of funny, because at the time I couldn't imagine ending things with Ellen. But as I drove and thought about things I remembered my history with Linda, the love we shared, the family we had, my beautiful children, it was a relief that things had ended with Ellen. By the time I walked into my house I was ready to start to make things work.

That's what we did. We started going back to counseling again. Except this time, we both had issues. We were both victims, as well as victimizers. We had both found out things about ourselves and about one another that shook us to our cores. We had both been unintentionally cruel to the one person whose back we were always supposed to have. We had a great deal to work on in counseling both individually and together.

About three months later I saw an article in the sports pages about Marc Lavelle getting married. I looked at the picture they printed and it was a gorgeous redhead with short hair named Victoria Ellison, now Lavelle. It both irked me that he got another beautiful woman and was having a happy ending, and I felt a little sorry for Ellen that it didn't work out for her.

Initially I was terribly hurt by what I felt was deception at the hands of both Ellen's and L.W. But she had hinted several times at her troubled childhood, and I could see how she was trying to make the best of her situation, and that when she had met me it was with the best of intentions. Plus, she had ended up helping my marriage. We weren't in completely clear waters quite yet, but Linda and I were on our way there. When now and again, I thought of Ellen I remembered my time with her fondly.

Something about Victoria seemed familiar though. As I looked at the picture more closely, I realized that it was actually Ellen. I guess her real name was Victoria. Her long blonde hair was gone, and now she was sporting short auburn hair. Amazing how beautiful she still looked even after the makeover. Perhaps she was trying to disguise her identity so that none of her clients from her past would be able to recognize her, and reveal her secret to her new hubby.

I let this information sit for a while. I really did. I didn't do anything for several months. Then the football season started once again, and the local sportscaster on TV was recounting Marc Lavelle's virtues, about what a great guy he was, with all the charitable work he did. That he donated so much of his time and income from both playing and the commercials he did to charities; although, I'd never seen anywhere any kind of figures on how much time and money he actually gave to charity. That he was so charismatic and would make a great broadcaster. That the post-game analysis he had done on NBC during the last playoffs, after his team was booted out, showed that he had a future in broadcasting after he finished his playing career.

I think her calling him "a good guy", the way Linda had, ended up getting to me more than anything else. Marc Lavelle was not a good guy. He was a narcissist who was incapable of feeling empathy for anyone else. Not only did he not care about humiliating and devastating me that night, but he didn't care if Linda's life and marriage burnt. He also didn't care if he broke up my children's family. All he cared about was that he wanted a toy for the night and he didn't care who he hurt to get it. It probably went beyond that. I can't help but think that he loved the idea of being able to take a married woman right in front of her husband. Just because he could.

The following week I called up both the sportswriters and investigative reporters of our two local newspapers. I also reached out to two of our local TV channels' sports divisions. I figured one of them would be interested in the scoop that the local sports hero, the golden boy, was married to an ex call girl, and that he had a habit of bedding married women.

That's what I did. I ended up meeting with all of them, hoping that one of them would be interested in the story and would expose Marc for the fraud that he was. Yes, I was using Ellen/Victoria as a pawn to hurt him, but I justified it to myself by choosing to think of what she had done as playing me, and manipulating me. I further justified it to myself that she should have told him that she used to be an escort. That that was a necessary truth.

Nothing happened for several weeks. I was bummed that none of them were interested in the story. Then the local newspaper printed "an exclusive" on their front cover detailing Victoria's past as an escort, and went into several examples of Marc's targeting of married women, from sources who wished to remain anonymous.

The investigative reporter for the competing newspaper, Evening Gazette, called me up livid that I had given the scoop to another reporter as well. I apologized that I had wasted her time. She laughed and told me she had done too much work on this to just dump it at this point. She said the other paper had anonymous sources. However, she had gone back to her sources and got the approval of three of the couples to print their individual stories using their names. Their wives' night with Marc had resulted in divorce for all three couples and two of them had young children. She asked me if she could name me as another source, but I declined telling her I was trying to work things out with my wife. She laughed and added that she was going to "juice up" the story and add color to it. The following is an excerpt from the article she wrote that was out the next day:

"A close friend of Marc's has told me that Mr. Lavelle has known all along that Victoria was a call girl well before he married her. He said in fact he believes that was and continues to be her main attraction for him.

"You see, dear readers, there are certain men that are voluntary cuckolds, or cucks. They actually enjoy knowing their partner is having, shall we say dalliances, with other men. They get actual sexual gratification from that knowledge. This friend hinted to me that Marc actually likes to watch his wife with some of these other men.

"Above, I have listed three divorces Marc's predilection towards married women and the heartache making cuckolds of their husbands has caused. It is interesting that he now enjoys being the cuckold, himself. What made it more egregious is that he did not do it behind the husbands' backs. In fact, he would literally whisk the wives away right in front of their husbands, and as publicly as possible, to cause the maximum amount of pain and humiliation for the husbands.

"I have to ask myself is his desire for Victoria Lavelle to have sex with other men some kind of penance for his past transgressions? Or perhaps doing this for years he started identifying with the men he was victimizing and wanted to become the victim himself. We know that bullies are usually children who were bullied and abused at home. Also, typically pedophiles have been the victims of pedophilia themselves. Is this the reverse of that? Instead of going from victim to victimizer to try to gain some kind of control, he has a psychological need to go from victimizer to victim?"

Well, TMZ picked up the story, and national sports writers did, as well. The nation loves gossip. The only thing Americans enjoy more than a hero's being built up, is having him torn right back down again.

The story was picked up on talk shows and newspapers across the country with topics ranging about hero worship, about cuckoldry, about sports stars targeting married women. After all the only thing that gets higher ratings than sex, is kinky edgy sex. Talk shows disguise their true intentions by trying to seem like they are discussing the moral aspects, but what they are really peddling is the kinky sex. They know that's why the audience has tuned in to start with. The moral tsk-tsk is to assuage the moral conservatives who've come to watch the naughty bits, but were feeling guilty about doing it.

This all was coming out the 14^th week of the NFL season. Just three more games to go before the season ended. Marc's team was tied for the top spot in their division, so they had a good chance to make it to the postseason. Only the team with the best record in each division was guaranteed a spot in the playoffs.

Something interesting happened that first week after the news went national. In the stands, during Marc's team's away game, there were a few signs held up by spectators with some version of "Marc Lavelle is a Cuck." One section tried to get a chant going of "Marc the Cuck" every time Marc touched the ball or they showed him on TV, but it was sporadic and didn't spread across the whole stadium.

The sportscasters announcing the game noticed the chant.

"David, what is that? Why are they chanting Marc Lavelle is, umm, cock-y? Is that supposed to be some kind of insult?"

"Umm, Bob, I guess while you were in the Bahamas this last week you didn't read any US sports pages? The word is 'Cuck', as in cuckold!"

"What the heck is that?"

"Umm, that's a man whose wife is cheating on him with or without his knowledge."

"Ohhhh!"

"Yeah, Oh!"

The following week was another away game for Marc's team, but this time it was with their rivals with whom they were tied for the best divisional record. Likely, the winner of this game would be the one guaranteed a spot in the playoffs.

When Marc took center field for the coin toss as one of the co-captains of his team, the whole stadium started chanting "Marc the cuck, Marc the cuck, Marc the cuck..."

It happened again every time he touched the ball or they showed him on the large jumbotron screen. The fans were vicious and they were doing their best to help their team win the game by distracting and upsetting the visiting team. Marc got into several scuffles during the game. I didn't have to wonder too hard to imagine what the opposing team players were calling him.

Marc's team lost the game. They were edged out 27 to 23. As Marc was running towards the tunnel to leave the playing field and go back to the locker room, an employee of the stadium said something to him, which was later reported as, "Nice game Cuck!" Marc literally tackled the employee to the ground, sat on top of him, and started punching his face repeatedly.

Now, that may have possibly resulted merely in an expulsion as opposed to being completely thrown out of the league, if what happened next hadn't happened. Apparently, Marc flew home that night and attacked Victoria. A 911 call tape was released, with the voice of a terrified Victoria asking for police to be sent over because her husband was attacking her.

Then there were the pictures of Victoria's bruised face, and body shown on TV. She had also been four months pregnant, and had miscarried the child because of the attack. There were speculations on whose child it truly was. Of course, both the employee and Victoria sued Marc. Her attorney brought her gynecologist on TV and the doctor declared that because of the attack, Victoria was unlikely to be able to take a pregnancy to completion in the future.

Two weeks later there were reports that Marc had settled the lawsuit brought by Victoria for an undisclosed amount. It was speculated that the settlement was in the high seven to low eight figures. Apparently, part of the settlement agreement was that Victoria wouldn't testify in criminal court against Marc, so the prosecutor dropped the criminal charges against him for his attack against Victoria because of a lack of evidence.

Marc still had both criminal and civil cases pending against him regarding the stadium employee.

I showed Linda the newspaper article about Marc beating up his wife, and causing her to miscarry.

I told her, "Doesn't seem like that nice of a guy!"

Linda looked at me with concern in her eyes about my reaction to anything related to Marc and responded, "No, no he doesn't!"

It has been exactly a year since that fateful night that Marc came into our lives. In fact, it was the end of February again, but this time instead of going to a club to celebrate, we had gone to Southern California where the temperature was already in the high 70's to low 80's. We had taken the kids to Disneyland, and Legoland the prior two days. This morning we had taken them to the beach to play on the sand. At noon we drove to Fashion Island, which was a high-end outdoor mall in Newport Beach, just a few miles from the sand.

We sat down at outdoor seating of a restaurant that overlooked a large quad area of the mall. I had finished eating, but the kids still hadn't. I told Linda I was going to check out the suits in the store across from us while the kids finished eating. I walked about twenty yards away from my family, and I almost literally ran into her. Her hair was blonde again. Not quite as long as before, but she had obviously been letting it grow out.

"Oh, hi, Ellen!"

"Oh my god, Jim! What are you doing here? It's actually Victoria though. The whole world knows now, so you might as well, too." And she smiled at that.

God, she was still gorgeous, and she still had the same old sincere unpretentious smile.

"Just on vacation. Decided to get out of the freezing cold for a week. How about you?"

"Well, I decided to do that year-round. Get out of the cold I mean. I live here now."

"Umm, I read about all your troubles. I'm truly sorry you went through that. About losing the baby, and not being able to have anymore and all that."

Victoria got a distant sad look on her face.

"I really loved him, you know. I could tell he was cheating on me, but I was putting up with it. I figured when his playing days were over then maybe we can have a more traditional married life. I never thought I would have any children. I told you a bit about my childhood. That left me a little paranoid about having children myself, but I wanted to have the baby for him."

You could see her snap herself mentally out of it.

"Anyway, that's done with. We're in the process of getting a divorce, so that will be done with soon. And, yes, the doctor testified in the deposition that I was unlikely to have any more children, but he told me I won't know for sure one way or another until I try again. Maybe if I meet the right guy I will want to try again. Who knows?

"And I have twelve million reasons not to be too down about things, I guess. I made out like a bandit. I guess my price really went up!" She laughed at that last part sadly.

"Wow, twelve million dollars. You did make out."

"Well, the clincher was that he was facing five years or more in prison. The settlement made that go away. I wouldn't have testified against him, anyway, but I wasn't going to tell him that. Like I said I really loved him and saw us getting old together. Oh, well!"

Then she smiled, "Listen, why don't I take you out to dinner tonight? I could afford to take you out for a change. Where you staying?"

"I don't know if that's a good idea, El... Victoria."

"Look Jim, I hated the way things ended between you and me. I really was developing feelings for you. You didn't know who I was so you were acting like a loving boyfriend, and I started off pretending being an interested girlfriend, but along the way I started to genuinely like you. If you can put up being involved with an infamous harlot, we can see if there is something real there. Maybe us running into one another like this a couple of thousands of miles away from home is some kind of omen."

I looked at this beautiful woman in front of me, and she was still as attractive to me as any woman I'd ever seen. The only difference now was that I was in the power of the love of my wife and my children.

"You don't know how tempting that is, Victoria, but I've patched things up with my wife. I'm actually here with her and the kids. And we're good. Real good, actually! So, I really thank you for the offer. I have to say you always did wonders for my ego. And I'm really glad we ran into one another. I was really feeling gui ...worried about you with everything I read, so I'm real glad you're doing well. That night things ended with us was a bad night, but I think of you fondly now. I really do!"