February Sucks

"I need you to understand what I felt like in Marc' arms. I was keenly aware of his size and his strength every moment I was with him. It made me feel small and powerless, even though he never came close to coercing me. I felt overwhelmed; almost absorbed in him. It wasn't as if I had no will, it was like my will was surrounded by his. It wasn't as if I had no choices, it was as if all the choices were already made. I felt that almost instantaneously when he took me in his arms for the first slow dance. I was his at that moment, for whatever he wanted, as long as he wanted me, and we both knew it. I didn't make a conscious choice, I just was.

"Did I like that feeling? At the time, yes. How do I feel about it now? I don't like the idea that I could voluntarily give up that much control of myself to anyone, but I must face the fact that I did, and to someone who I knew didn't care about me at all. I made absolutely no effort to take control of the situation, I just went with it and enjoyed the ride. Would it have been the same with any other big, strong, assertive man who wasn't 'the' Marc LaValliere? I don't think so. You know Paul is big and strong, and sometimes he can be assertive, but I've never felt anything while dancing with him like I felt with Marc. So I guess it must have been just Marc.

"When I signaled Dee to take me to the restroom, she already knew what it was about. She said something about him wanting the only pretty girl in the room who didn't go after him. I think she might have been a little jealous. Then she told me how lucky I was, and that she would make sure you didn't find out for long enough for me to get well away, and would remind you how much I loved you. She told me to have fun, and tell her all about it. Then I was out the door, and Marc was waiting there with my coat. I'm not sure how he got it without the coat check ticket, I guess it helps to be a celebrity. When he put his hands on my shoulders after helping me into my coat, I felt just as overwhelmed and possessed as I had in his arms on the dance floor.

"He drove me to his house, took my coat and hung it up, and put on some soft music. We danced for a while in his living room. I don't know why he did that: maybe he was trying to show me he was a gentleman by not taking me straight to bed. I appreciated it, and told him so. We kissed as we danced. He was in complete control, as he had been since that first slow dance at the club.

"After we danced for a while, Marc swept me off my feet into his arms, and carried me to his bedroom. He laid me on my back in his bed. He gently stripped me, almost worshiping me as he did. When he had me down to my underwear, I was as aroused as I have ever been in my life.

"I have no idea how long we had sex. It seemed like forever, and forgive me, Jim, but forever was exactly what I wanted. One time after we cleaned up, I briefly thought of texting you to let you know I was safe and tell you I loved you, but I was just too tired. All I could think of was sleep.

"I woke up in Marc's arms. Even half asleep, I felt the same possessed feeling that I had at the club, and during our sex. He woke up and we did it again, then he made breakfast for me. It wasn't as good as when you do it, but he'd worn me out to the point I would have eaten just about anything, even hash browns. (He didn't make hash browns, thank goodness.) Then we were together one last time, slowly and gently. I showered again (he has a bidet, and I used it thoroughly), I dressed, and he brought me home.

"When I got into his car, I felt like I could make choices again, as if he'd released me or something. I know it sounds silly, but that's how I felt. I think maybe you were right: he'd had what he wanted and he didn't want me any more, and I felt that. So immediately, I started thinking about you, and how devastated you must feel. I know we are in for a rough patch, but I don't believe for a moment that our marriage is in danger. Our love is too strong; we are just too perfect for each other.

"Marc pulled into our driveway, said 'Thank you for a wonderful evening and morning,' and gave me a hug and a last light kiss. He stayed in the driveway until I had the front door open, like you always did when we were dating. I expect he does that for all of his dates, but it was still nice of him to do it. I smiled and waved, he smiled and waved, and it was over. I walked in our front door, eager to show you just how much I love you and want to spend the rest of my life with you. I feel exactly the same way now, as I write this.

"I don't think Marc thought he was doing anything to you. I think he just assumed he had a right to me, just like he would have a right to any woman he wanted. He picked me, and that was that. Not that he would have forced me; if I'd said no, I'm sure he would have gone on to someone else. He was completely sure I wouldn't say no to anything he wanted, and he was right.

"You need to know that Marc was kind and considerate to me the whole time. He didn't mistreat me, far from it. He was chivalrous and gentlemanly. He treated me like a lady, holding doors for me and everything. He even surprised me by remembering my name the next morning. I knew it wasn't about me; I'm quite sure he'd have treated any other woman the same way, and has done so often. Still, I can't help thinking well of him as a man because of it.

"This part will hurt, Jim. I'm crying as I write, thinking about what you will feel when you read it. Tears on the paper are such a cliché; I've 'borrowed' a couple of your handkerchiefs from your dresser. They'll be ruined when I finish this; I'll buy you some new ones this week. I would never dream of writing or telling you this, except that you told me to.

"Marc is an excellent lover: no doubt from lots of practice on lots of women. He knows his way around a woman's body very, very well. He knew what would please me and excite me better than I knew myself, and he used it all. He knew when to be gentle and when to be forceful, but even at his most forceful, I never felt forced: it was something I wanted as much as he did. He was always completely in charge, even at his gentlest. It was as though I was the instrument, and he was the virtuoso, and he was brilliant.

"I've read and heard sex described as a man possessing a woman. I never really understood that, but I do now. You treat me as an equal in all things. If there is possession involved, it's mutual: we belong to each other. Marc possessed me from the moment he took me in his arms on the dance floor until he seated me in his car to take me home, and there was nothing mutual about it.

"I responded to him, fully and completely. I lost track of how many times I came; they all ran together after a while. From the moment he took me in his arms, he dominated my senses to the point that there was no room for anything else, including what is most important in all the world to me: you and our children.

"This is the worst part. I'm crying as I write this, but you asked, so I must tell you. I'm so sorry, Jim, but this will hurt. Marc is a very, very skilled lover. With all the experience he's had, he ought to be. If he weren't, it would mean he's a fool, which he isn't. It was by far the best sex I've ever imagined, let alone had. He's learned and practiced well, so that he can give a performance like he did on me. I mean that exactly as I wrote it: it was a performance, and it wasn't with me, or for me, it was on me. You'll never have the experience he's had, thank God! But you've learned so much through the time we've been together, as have I. You have a far better motive: you want to learn because you love me. That's far more valuable to me than even the greatest sex.

"That's the hardest part. I think it gets easier from here. I hope so, anyway. Your second handkerchief is almost soaked.

"Marc wanted to give me great sex and please me, and he did, but it didn't really have anything to do with me as an individual. I was just another female to him. I think he would be the same with any woman, but it's because of who he is, not who she is. For such an intimate act, it was almost impersonal.

"One more thing you must know. If Marc LaValliere got down on his knees in front of me and asked me to divorce you and marry him, I would tell him no. That would be true even if we didn't have Emma and Tommy. If I were single and both you and Marc asked me to marry you, I would choose you in a heartbeat. I would not need to think about it, and I would have no regrets. He is an excellent lover; you are an excellent man. He may be the city's unofficial hero; you are my official hero.

"How can I say you're my hero when I've told you I had better sex with Marc? Neither you nor I believes there's such a thing as 'just sex.' I don't think it was 'just sex' for Marc, either; if it had been, it wouldn't have been as good. And that was what we spent most of our time doing. But what you and I have together is more important than anything Marc and I did. If I were to trade what you and I have for a lifetime of nights with Marc, I would be the world's biggest fool.

"I don't love Marc. Not even close. I like him, I respect him for what and who he is, and I enjoyed my time with him, but that's all. It's over, one and done, and I'm more than ready to move on with what's really important to me: to return to where my heart is, and has been for the last ten years.

"Which brings me back to the beginning of this letter. How could I do this, loving you as I know I do? Or to put it another way, why didn't my love for you stop me? I'm not sure I completely understand, but this is what I think. When I got up to dance with Marc, I thought it would be a couple of dances, a few minutes' teasing from our friends, and that would be the end of it. The man who every woman at our table wanted, wanted to dance with 'just the same old me.' So I went to dance with him. I had no idea at the time of doing anything more than that: just a couple of dances. What could be wrong with that? Then came the slow dances.

"I think men like Marc really do believe they have a right to any woman they want. What was it Henry Kissinger said, 'power is the ultimate aphrodisiac?' When Marc asserted his 'right' so confidently and strongly, it never even occurred to me to question it. If I thought at all, it was something like, 'Oh, of course,' and I didn't think about it any more, except to be flattered that he wanted me. It was just who he is.

"It wasn't that I stopped loving you or the kids. It was more like I wasn't thinking or loving at all; everything in me was just reacting to him, like an instrument reacts to a musician. I'll say again, there was and is no love for Marc anywhere in my heart. My heart is at home where it belongs, with you and our children, and that's where it will always stay.

"Jim, I know you're hurting terribly, and I know it will take time for you to heal. Take the time you need. Do anything you need to do. I ask only two things: don't do anything that would hurt the children, and please don't take a lover. I know it sounds hypocritical, but that would destroy me. I will do anything to help you heal. (I've already arranged to get my blood drawn for the tests tomorrow morning.) Even the worst hurts heal with time, and I will be right here for you for as long as it takes, and forever after.

"I know you very, very well by now, and I know you love me. I can see it in your eyes, behind the pain; I can feel it as I write this, even though you're not in the house. I trust my future, and my children's future, to that love. I know you're upset that my love for you didn't prevent me from letting Marc take our special night, and borrow things that I had promised would be only yours. I understand, but now, everything he borrowed has been returned, and like my love for you, they are unchanged, and will be yours as long as I have breath.

"Love, as always,

"Linda."

I was exhausted. I tried to slip into bed without waking Linda, but just as I was about to drop off, I heard her sleepy voice.

"Did you read it?"

"Yes."

"All of it?"

"Twice, some of it more."

"Heaven help us." I think we both cried ourselves to sleep.

Linda and I sat on the sofa after the children were in bed, with our usual glass of wine. "How was your day?" she asked.

"Genuine, 100% Monday," I replied wearily.

"I'm sorry," she replied. "Mine wasn't too bad, actually. It was a relief to have something to think about besides..." she trailed off.

"Yeah, I wish I'd been able to." I wasn't able to keep the sharpness out of my voice. I felt her flinch away from me.

"Dee called this afternoon," Linda resumed after a moment.

"Yeah? What did she want?"

"She's not as bad as you're thinking, Jim. She asked about you first thing, even before she asked about Marc. She says she's sorry that you're in so much pain, but she knows it will get better, and eventually this will all be just a bump in the road."

"That shows how much she knows."

We sat silently for a few moments. We looked and sounded the same as always: just another stay-at-home night. I could tell there was something different though: a space or barrier or something between us that hadn't been there last week. I think Linda felt it, too.

"Do you have any questions, Jim? About what I wrote?"

I shook my head, wondering where I should start. "There was something I was hoping to find there, but didn't."

"What's that?" I could feel her tension.

"Any indication that you understand what I have to get past if we stay together." I felt her shudder. "Do you want to talk about that tonight, or are you too tired? You need to know, but it doesn't have to be tonight."

"The sooner you get this out, the sooner you can start healing. Let's do it tonight."

I collected my thoughts. "Let's say we were out on a date, as a couple, with our friends. You walked away from me and left with another man, and spent all night and the next morning fucking him. If you'd done that on our first date, would there have been a second one?"

"But Jim, it was Marc..."

"What the hell difference does that make? Whoever he was, you chose him over me. On a first date? Fine. That's your privilege. Have a nice life and don't let the door hit you on the way out. I won't think well of you, I certainly won't call you again, but I'll get over it. After almost ten years of marriage? How am I supposed to get past that?"

"Jim, I keep trying to tell you, I didn't choose Marc over you."

"The hell you didn't! For the rest of my life, I'll have to live with the fact that I'm your first choice only when Asshole isn't available."

Linda was horrified. "Jim, you're my first choice always; you have been for more than ten years. One night doesn't change that."

"One night did change that, or maybe it just revealed it. You chose Asshole over me every chance you had, from the moment he asked you to dance until he decided he was finished with you."

"How can I make you see that isn't true?"

"You can't, because it is true. And don't give me that crap about not really deciding, or your choices were already made. You chose to signal Dee to take you to the restroom. You chose to tell her to cover for you. And when you walked out of the restroom, you chose to walk toward Asshole instead of away from him. You chose him over me every time."

Linda was quiet for a moment.

"Maybe I just don't want it to be true," she almost whispered. "I don't want to think I'm the kind of woman who could do that, even if all my friends thought it was okay. Which they do, by the way: Dee told me this afternoon. But I promise you that's not what's in my heart. Remember just a week ago, when you knew everything about my heart, and I knew all about yours? What a mess." She shook her head sadly and went on.

"I know I've hurt you badly, and I can't undo it. But even the worst hurts heal in time, don't they? This doesn't have to affect our entire future, does it?"

"You're right that this will hurt less as time goes by, but don't you see there's a lot more to it than that? What you did Friday night changed our marriage forever. It showed me that things I was sure I knew about you and about our marriage were wrong. Basic things, like your always being there for me, like the things we promised would be forever private to just us, even trusting that you wouldn't be cruel to me. Since Friday night, all of that is gone. None of it is true, and it never will be again. So what's left that I can count on?"

Linda was thoughtful for a moment. "Think about our car. You know, the non-splashy, non-flashy, mom-and-dad-and-kids car that we picked out together. The one we and our children have laughed in, cried in, bought groceries and taken vacations in. I love our car because it's ours, and I wouldn't trade it for anything. But say suddenly, on the spur of the moment, I had a chance to test drive a Maserati. I never even thought about wanting to, but there it was, and all our friends were looking at me enviously, and I said yes. I put the top down and felt my pulse race and felt the wind in my hair. I drove it faster than I've ever driven before, and I enjoyed it completely. Then I drove it back to the dealership and saw our homely, beautiful car sitting on the lot, waiting for me. I thanked the salesman and gave him back the keys. I enjoyed the experience, but if he'd offered me $50,000 to trade our car for the Maserati, I'd have laughed and turned him down and never regretted it for a moment.

"Yes, now I've driven a Maserati. I've had sex with another man who is very good at pleasing a woman. I enjoyed it fully, but it's over. I'm home now, and home is where I want to stay."

"So what happens when someone offers you a test drive in a Lamborghini? Or maybe a souped-up classic Mustang? Or maybe offers you a Maserati to keep alongside our car, so you can have the best of both worlds?"

Linda shook her head violently. "No, Jim. Never. I have everything I want, right here."

"Isn't that exactly what you would have said about the Maserati before Friday night?"

She sighed, but didn't answer the question. "Jim, I haven't changed; I'm still just me, the same old me as always. I know ever since I came home Saturday, you've been looking for something about me that's different. You haven't found it, have you? And you won't, because it isn't there, it's in how you're looking at things. It wasn't even 24 hours out of our whole lives together. We can't let this break us, Jim. We can't. Please tell me what's making this harder for you than it has to be."

It was my turn to be thoughtful. "You keep insisting that you haven't changed. But if you're right about that, then I've been wrong about you for ten years, because I'd have sworn you could never do what you did Friday night. If I was wrong about something that fundamental, what else was I wrong about? What, if anything, is left of what I thought I knew about you? You still haven't answered that."

Linda kept trying to prove that nothing had changed. I came home the next evening to the smell of a delicious dinner, and the sight of my beautiful wife wearing her blue party dress and a smile that was trying to be her best but was betrayed by her lack of confidence. I couldn't help it, all I could see was my wife in Asshole's arms, giving him her best smile, eager for what they would soon be doing together. I shuddered and looked away from her. Her face crumpled; tears puddled in her blue eyes. I saw Emma and Tommy behind her, putting the silverware on the table, but watching us intently.

I closed my eyes and took Linda in my arms. I felt her breath catch as she tried not to cry in front of the kids.

"I didn't mean... I meant..."

"Shhhh," I whispered in her ear. "I know what you were trying to do, but it's too soon. I'm not ready for it yet." I wondered if the day would ever come when I would be ready for it.