For the Greater Good - Conclusion

"I've seen Ashley at her best, Kurt," he continued. "She's at her very best when she has a set or a list of challenges, can prioritize them, and then work to solve each in the proper order. I think you're probably more or less the same, to a lesser degree, and I think you know I'm right about your wife. I think with a reasonable amount of guardrails both of you will come to determine the importance of your relationship, and possibly a way back."

"I'll think about it, John. No promises." I told him.

"That's all I can ask," he was conciliatory. "You can call me on this number, anytime, Kurt."

Later that night, I admonished Ashley first thing, about giving that asshole my number. It turned into a fight, more because our nerves were totally frayed than anything else. It wasn't either of us at our finest. In the end, we both calmed down. Ashley brought up the elephant in the room first.

"Kurt, when can I come home, and start working on putting this behind us?" she asked hopefully.

"There is no putting this behind us," I said honestly, as I heard her gasp. "What I mean is, if you come home, it will be working on a solution and repairing our marriage, and what the future holds. There is no going back to before."

Ashley was frazzled and sad. I could see her worn face through her tone of voice, over the phone. But there was also some amount of hope that I could hear too.

"Okay," she said, "so when? Your family is starting to get very suspicious. I've already had to confess to Jill. She won't tell anyone, but she's completely enraged with my actions. Your mom and dad are going to pick up on that, probably just a little before your brother and Melinda."

"Let's agree to talk Saturday afternoon here at the house," I suggested. "If we can agree then you can move back Sunday."

Life certainly is strange. Sometimes more so than others.

I laid in bed that night not even trying to go to sleep, just thinking. At some point my head hurt, so I went to the living room, with two Ibuprofen and a pad of paper.

I thought about what John had said. Then I stopped and backtracked. I thought about my feelings for Ashley. It was easy to acknowledge that without the deep love that I felt for her, there wouldn't be the pain or anger that went along with it. It would be easy to shrug her off and walk away. So then, I needed to isolate the anger and identify her treachery completely.

Of course, I knew about her idiosyncrasy. I was a happy participant in it. She lied about her weird issue at RCA, and she cheated. At some point, she lost respect for me. But maybe she didn't. If she really didn't think about me like she said. I didn't believe that - didn't believe her, in that regard, so we were back to trust. And the worst fact, maybe the hardest to ever overcome - was having seen her with him. Her facial expression was in the throes of bliss and ecstasy; his contorted and twisted like a man possessed. And equally as bad, her inability to ever understand how it had impacted me. Sure, she'd say all the right words, about betrayal and vows, how she'd feel if the situation was reversed. But she would never be a man, and she'd never understand the hit to my manhood, pride, and ego heavily weighted.

So I started writing. I based a lot of what I wrote on those thoughts. I'd circle back and create conditions later, just so I could see if trying to stay together was feasible. I crossed some things out as well. Those were just anger-driven thoughts based on my current state of mind.

Then I began the framework, based on my discussion with John Paxson. I thought about some of her good traits, things that had been wonderful before she fucked Beltran. I wanted our talk to be even-handed and fair, even though I'd been unfairly wronged. Mostly, I wanted her to feel as much of the mutual pain and anguish as I did. I needed to somehow balance the scales, or this would all be an exercise in futility. Lastly, I needed conditions that spelled out clearly and concisely my views on fidelity.

Ashley arrived at precisely noon. I expected nothing less. After a brief hug, some small talk, sitting in our living room facing each other from separate furniture, we began.

"I suppose I'll go first if that's all right," I told her. She nodded. "I've thought hard, about almost nothing else this week. I've come to some conclusions. I love you, Ashley. I don't like you very much right now, but after careful assessment, my love is still there. I feel obligated... no, that's not the right word. This is separate from saving Tom's life. I feel compelled to see if we can find a way forward... to stay together and try to rebuild a better future together. I know you've said that you want to reconcile since you got home, so as of right now today, do you still feel the same way?"

"Of course!" Ashley's eyes flooded with tears, happy ones. "That's all I want! I'll do anything to show my love, earn your trust, and make all of this up to you. No, that last part isn't right either. I could never make up for what I've done. But I do intend to make you forget, even if just a little every day, by showing you what you mean to me. If we stay together, that will be my main focus."

I studied her face. The genuineness I was hoping for was there. "Okay, so let's talk about what it looks like. I have a proposal and some conditions."

Her happy face fell. Maybe it was anticipation, or maybe she was shocked. If she thought things were going back to what they'd been before, and she could just love the betrayal out of me, she was gravely mistaken. I picked up a stack of papers from my right side, just out of her view. All the things I'd written a few nights before had been organized several times over. I'd gone online to a do-it-yourself divorce site and created a trial separation. I'd selected the addendum and a blank page to add all my conditions. Then I'd typed it all up and made a duplicate. I handed Ashley her copy, and she tentatively took it from me, staring at it like a poisonous snake.

"A separation?" she asked in disbelief. "I thought you just said..."

"I did," I interrupted. "These are guidelines as far as I'm concerned - for success. Take a minute to read through them and then ask anything you'd like."

Ashley's hopes had been immediately dashed, and it showed on her face. She didn't get far before looking up at me.

"Kurt, really?" she asked. Then she took a deep breath and let it out. "I know you talked to John. I know Chad... I know he called you too. I'm told you know about the disciplinary action against me, and the fact that Chad... he is off the team."

"First, wife," I scolded, "stop trying to not say his name. It only serves your guilty conscience and keeps the bastard front and center in my mind. His name has nothing to do with the callous thing the two of you did - four times."

She seemed shocked. Not by my words, but it seemed like it had never occurred to her that I'd engage her that way. She was going to find out a great many things were going to change, if we were going to give our marriage a shot.

"But you must know I'd never call on him ever again?" she stated.

"I don't know that," I replied evenly. "Or I wouldn't have put it in there. That goes for him specifically and for anyone else." She went back to reading.

"I've already been tested," she said, having read that condition. "I should have the results Monday or Tuesday, at the latest." There were a few moments of silence as she continued.

"What?" she almost wailed. "You want me to see someone professionally about my... idiosyncrasy?"

"Yes," I nodded. "You're going to be on the road, as John tells me, and some of that will involve working with other labs when you're not being interviewed by some TV host. That means you'll have opportunity and motive, just like at RCA."

The wheels were spinning in my wife's head. She was beginning to understand that we weren't having a negotiation. Being boxed in wasn't good for her genius ego.

"Okay," she said after a long pause. "If that's what it will take." It was time to put that to rest as well.

"It's not what it will take, Ashley," I scolded. "It's what needs to be. You're here, hopefully for the reasons you've stated. I'm telling you what has to be done for us to move forward. I never want to be in this doggy fuck situation ever again. I've thought about how we can make that happen. There it is." I waved at the paperwork.

"I understand," she nodded and kept going. Finally, she got to the last part. "No," she said firmly, "I will not agree to this condition. You're not sleeping in the spare room for any length of time. I need you in bed with me, even if only to cuddle. I can't express my love if we're living together but physically separate. That will only lead to hard feelings, and then emotional separation. That won't work for us."

I took a deep breath. "Ashley, I'm going to ask you to do something. I want you to close your eyes and imagine me having sex with someone else. Not some ugly woman either. Maybe your nemesis from school or something like that. Imagine me really enjoying it."

I was silent and stared at my wife. She looked at me with... I don't know. A look that said how upset she was that I was treating her like a child. She was smarter than me, at least in her mind, and in many things that was true. But it also spoke to the respect or lack thereof. She thought her IQ extended to everything in our relationship. Finally, she saw I wasn't budging and closed her eyes.

She waited about twenty seconds before opening them. "All right," she said.

"All right," I mimicked. "Would you want to have sex with me, if those visions were constantly on your mind? If you had to consciously push them aside, all day every day?"

Ashley's head hung like all the air had been sucked out of her. "No," she replied softly. "I suppose not. But I need to regain our intimacy."

"No, you don't," I said quickly. "If the situation were reversed, I'd have to be patient with you - delicate even - until you were willing."

Ashley had had enough of the barrage. She quickly agreed to my conditions, I think mostly to spare herself the indignity of being bested. I wasn't hopeful, but we'd have to see.

My wife had been optimistic and had all of her stuff loaded in her car, so moving back in took less than one hour. I'd already set up in our spare room. Dinner and relaxing in front of the TV that night was anything but. The air was thick, and finally, mentally exhausted, Ashley announced she was going to bed - at least an hour before her normal time.

The next morning, I went over to Tom's to help with some general chores, that he wasn't supposed to be doing just yet. I was nice to Ashley, but I didn't offer any terms of endearment, or loving gestures. It wasn't intentional. I was still angry, and it was hard to be around her. That night, as we both headed up to bed, she stopped me gently in the hallway and kissed my cheek.

"I love you, Kurt." She sounded sincere.

"I love you too, Ashley," I told her with some amount of reassurance.

Our lives went on like that for weeks. She knew the time to go on 'tour' was coming quickly, and was at times, desperate for affection and physical attention.

Tuesday, I came home from work and found her on the phone. She didn't stroll off or change her volume, so I figured it was simply work things. When I went upstairs to shower, I found her lab results laying on the pillow of my bed.

She was wise enough not to push for sex that night. I could tell that my attitude was wearing on her, but she needed to understand. She hadn't simply made a mistake. That would have been the one with Beltran, but not four times. But there was more to it in my mind. And it was there, in my mind, where the real issue lay. I couldn't stop thinking about what I'd seen with my own eyes. I'd tried, over and over. I could only hope time would help solve my dilemma.

For the next two weeks, life went on in a sad vacuum. Ashley and I went from speaking very little to one another, to actively trying to avoid each other in the confines of our home. I went to work earlier and came home later, unsuccessfully hoping to avoid the inevitable.

Finally, two weeks after Ashley had returned, she entered the spare room as I was getting ready for bed, in the nude. I gave her a shocked look and she simply raised an eyebrow at me.

"I'm sorry," she said nonchalantly, "but I need my husband. It's been far too long for both of us."

I hadn't considered her going on offense. I guess I'd just expected her to acquiesce to me. So, in the spur of the moment, I decided that I might as well give it a go. Her timing had been impeccable. I stood there in my boxers, getting ready to put on my pajamas. She came to me, wrapped her arms around my neck, and kissed me.

It was very odd. The kiss, her smell, and her taste were familiar and inviting. She was doing something we'd done hundreds, hell, thousands of times. But in another sense, it was foreign, like she was a stranger. That made me sad and made it hard to focus on the positive feelings I should have been having. I discarded those thoughts as best I could and tried to give her my undivided attention.

My hands roamed her familiar flawless skin. Other memories, fonder ones began to settle in, and my cock responded. She felt it too and kissed me with more urgency. She quickly found her way into my shorts, and her warm hand encircled me. I gasped - it had been a long time - she was right about that.

Ashley has a high IQ if I hadn't made that clear. Her approach was not lovemaking with extended foreplay. She'd thought this through. As she laid back on the bed, she pulled me along with her, and her free hand deftly removed my underwear. Not falling on her awkwardly and hurting her was a challenge, but within seconds we were back to kissing wildly and she was inserting my rigid pole into her wetness.

There was a loud gasp, from her that time, as our lips separated. I began slamming into her, with vengeance. There was no tenderness in what we were doing. It was almost like our very first doggy fuck, except facing each other, I remembered thinking.

It all went sideways from there. I thought about our doggy fucks, and almost immediately, I saw Beltran behind her, pounding away like an eighteen-year-old. I tried to refocus. That scene wouldn't go away. I felt my erection fading before she did. I think she was really into what we were doing, but then my cock slipped out of her, and she quickly reached to put it back, thinking it was only a slip.

As soon as she realized the cock in her hand was completely deflated, her eyes opened in horror, searching my face. I'm sure I looked embarrassed and sheepish. After a few seconds of searching, staring, and processing, her expression turned sad. But she was also determined. She began stroking me, her grip tight and hurtful. Her eyes were imploring me to respond. My embarrassment turned to anger. Anger because she'd done this to us - to me. I reached down and pulled her hand away and turned to face the window.

I felt her hand on my back, gently rubbing. "Do you want to talk about it?" she asked softly, "Or is it just too soon?"

I shrugged, not turning to look at her. "I'll leave if that's what you want," she said resolutely, "Or I can stay. We can talk about it, or if it's okay, we can just cuddle. I know this is my fault, not yours. I'm here as your wife and because I love you. No blame, no judgment or condemnation. Just love."

I let her stay, and we did cuddle. I fell asleep, and when I woke in the morning she was gone. I expected she'd had a restless night and was probably in the kitchen, but to my surprise, she was in our... her bed, sleeping. I watched her peaceful face for a minute or two and wondered if we'd ever get back on track, or if we even had a chance.

Ashley and I did talk about our shortcomings, although at times arduous for her and burdensome for me. We also tried twice more that week and one time the following week with similar results. By that third time, I was so twisted up inside, thinking about her and Beltran, that was all I could think of and didn't even get hard.

That following month was surreal. We did our best to act like husband and wife - no, we tried to act like 'us' throughout the days. But the nights were hard. We meandered around each other, and our problems, both afraid and aware of the fragility that existed between us. More often, instead of cuddling on the sofa and talking about - well, anything like we'd used to - she would plant herself in a chair and read, while I watched TV or played golf on my phone.

One morning, Ashley addressed the issue head-on. "What do you think about counseling?" she asked sweetly. There it was. I'd thought plenty about seeing someone and pushed the idea away like the plague. I wanted to be diplomatic about it, but she read the indecision and anguish on my face.

"You think about it, is all I'm asking," she said patting my hand. "We have time. You know I'm leaving Wednesday for ten days, so we can talk about it when I return."

I knew that, but with my mind in constant turmoil, I'd forgotten. "Where are you going again?" I inserted that final word in case she'd told me that too.

"Well," she said, excited to tell me. "The first four days at the National Cancer Research Center. Some meetings first, and then our team will be meeting with groups working on pancreatic and liver cancer. Then we fly to Los Angeles. There we are scheduled to do a taping for "The View," and then the final four days at UCLA and a stop at Children's Hospital."

I wanted to ask her why any self-respecting scientist would do a talk show with a bunch of nimb-wit cackling hags but thought better of it.

"Who's going?" I tried to ask nonchalantly but failed.

"The entire team, minus Dr. Beltran," she answered after a nefarious sigh. "It will just be John Paxson and me in California."

I had to force myself not to ask about hotel accommodations, but she must have felt it dripping from me.

"All of us are booked into separate rooms for the duration." She added, with some disdain. If this was how things were going to play out every time she had to go, our marriage probably wouldn't last.

Ashley called each night on her trip. Some nights we talked longer than others. I found myself less worried about what she was up to and the time I spent alone was refreshing.

Jill came over two times, just to visit and waited until the second night to address my issues.

"What are you planning to do?" she asked discreetly right after the ballgame ended.

"About what?" I answered stupidly.

"You know what I'm talking about, Kurt," she admonished. "You and Ashley. What are you going to do?"

Jill had always been that way with me. She tackled things head-on, and she was very good at getting me to open up.

"We're trying to work it out," I said dismissively. "That's where we are right now."

"Well," she said, "the family is getting suspicious. For some reason, they are looking to me for answers. Mom and Dad were planning on coming over here just before Ashley left to drag it out of you two, and then try to help you solve your problems."

My parents had always been a little overbearing. Tom called it 'meddling,' but that isn't what we all called it. Still, they were the glue that held our family together. They'd certainly taken to Ashley and treated her as a daughter long before she helped save Tom. They treated Melinda the same way.

"I can't tell them," I looked at Jill sincerely. "It isn't just that I don't want them to know about her idiosyncrasy, I'm embarrassed, damn it!"

"Well, then," she lectured. "You better get your head out of your ass, appear happier around all of them, and spend a little more time with your brother and his family."