Frank and Ruth

"Edna relied, "He didn't hang himself. I put him there to dry. How soon can I go home?"

That got her a laugh, but not a really big one. She went on:

"A guy was looking for a pace to sit in a crowded library. He saw a girl sitting alone at a table with four chairs and he approached her and asked her if he could sit there. The girl replied in a loud voice:

"No! I don't want to spend the night with you!"

All the students in the library started staring at the guy. He was truly embarrassed and he moved to find a seat at another table. After a couple of minutes the girl walked quietly to the guy's table and said with a laugh:

"I'm a psychology student and I know how men think. You felt really embarrassed didn't you?"

The guy smiled up at her and then said in a loud voice:

"Five hundred dollars for one night? That's too much."

All the people in the library looked at the girl in shock and then the guy whispered in her ear:

"I'm a law student. They teach us how to screw people."

That one did get her a good laugh so she tried one more.

"George was just getting ready to go to bed when his wife told him he had left the light on in the shed. George opened the door to go and turn out the light when he saw that there were people in the shed in the process of stealing things. He immediately phoned the police who asked if there was anyone in the house. George said no and explained the situation. They explained that all the patrols were busy and he should simply lock his doors and an officer would be there as soon as one became available. George counted slowly to a hundred and then called the police again.

"Hello. I just called you a little bit ago because there were people stealing stuff from my shed. Well you don't have to worry about them now because I just shot them."

Then he hung up and within five minutes three squad cars, an Armed Response unit and two ambulances showed up. The police caught the burglars' red-handed and then one of the policemen said to George:

"I thought you said that you shot them. George smiled at him and said, "I thought you said that there was no one available."

That got a good laugh and she curtsied and handed the mike back to Bobby. I looked at my watch and saw how late it was and I got up and headed to my place.

I did feel cheered up until got out of the bar and turned my cell on. After my last conversation with Ruth I had decided to turn the phone off and then check it for messages every hour or two. When I turned it on in the Strip parking lot there were six missed messages and three voice mails from Ruth. I deleted them all, turned off my phone and headed for my new apartment in a downer of a mood.

I slept okay and when I got up in the morning I turned on the phone and saw the usual stuff from Ruth and deleted then unread or listened to. There was one other call and it was from my mother. She hardly ever calls me so I guessed that it would be about Ruth and I was right.

"Ruth tells me that you two had a disagreement and that you moved out."

I laughed at that and said, "A disagreement? I guess you could call it that."

"I thought you were more mature than that Frank. You don't move out over an argument. You work it out. Ruth clearly loves you and I know you love her. You belong together. Get back home where you belong Frank. You can't fix anything if you don't talk about it."

"Talking won't fix it mom. Apparently Ruth didn't tell you what the so-called disagreement was about. She thought having sex with other men was okay and I most definitely disagreed with that."

"You must be mistaken Frank. Ruth would never do that to you."

"She did mom and I know it for a fact. I hired a private detective to check upon her and he found out that she was having sex with two other men. That's two that I know of in the week I had her followed. There could have been more and it could have been going on for years. I do know of the two however and that is two to many."

Mom changed the subject. "Are you coming to dinner Sunday?"

"Wouldn't miss it. I'm sure I'll be tired of my own cooking and restaurant food by then."

As soon as I disconnected from mom the phone beeped and I saw that it was a call from Ruth and I turned off the phone.

I'd gotten a bed and a decent couch from Goodwill, but there were still a few more things I wanted and needed to get to set the place up like I wanted. I spent Thursday and Friday taking care of that and then on Saturday morning I went out to Red Hawk for a round of golf. I was able to hook up with a couple of other guys and had a fairly good time. Late Saturday afternoon I went to my parent's place to visit and have dinner. There was an unspoken agreement not to bring up Ruth and it turned out to be a pleasant evening.

Sunday morning was again spent at Red Hawk, the afternoon was spent at a movie and then it was early to bed to get a good night's rest before returning to work on Monday. Not surprisingly my in basket was full to overflowing and I was going to have a couple of very busy days wading through the backlog. Ten minutes after getting to my office the receptionist let me know that my wife was on line one. It was Ruth and I didn't give her time to say anything.

"I told you all communication was to be trough my attorney" and I hung up on her

I told Shelly, the receptionist, that my wife and I had separated and not to take any more calls from her. The rest of the day was busy and I worked late trying to play catchup. Tuesday Ashcroft called me and told me that Ruth had hired an attorney and was going to fight the divorce. I made an appointment to see him on Wednesday. When I met with him and discussed the situation he told me that things would go pretty much as Brenda Maxon had spelled out for me on that night at the Landing Strip. I asked him for advice and he told me bluntly that I should just drop the divorce.

"Move on with your life. Eventually she will meet someone and want to get married again, but in order to do that she will have to divorce you. My advice to you is let her file and then you not fight it. You also have another option. Get a girlfriend or two and let her find out. It may piss her off enough that it will make her want to divorce you. Just ignore her from now on and leave things up to her."

I decided that I would do just that.

I called Ruth and gave her the good news that I'd dropped the divorce. She of course heard what she wanted to hear instead of what I was saying.

"I knew you loved me and would eventually realize it and come home."

"I'm not coming home Ruth. Once you decided to get an attorney and fight I decided not to waste the time and money. I doubt that I'll ever want to get married again so there is no great need for me to get myself single. You on the other hand may eventually find someone and want to get married and in that case you will be the one who will have to get a divorce and when that happens I won't fight it so it won't cost me a dime. That means that you will have to pay for all of it. By getting an attorney and fighting the divorce you have saved me a lot of money and a lot of wasted time. Goodbye Ruth. Have a rotten life!"

Ruth finally seemed to have gotten the message because she stopped calling.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

After a couple of days I started leaving the cell phone instead of turning it out and checking for messages every couple of hours. A week went by and it slowly dawned on me that I was going to have to change my mind set. I had absolutely no idea of how long it would take -- if it even happened -- for Ruth to get around to divorcing me. I knew I could have gone without sex for the three to six months it would have taken for my divorce to go through, but what if Ruth never did go for a divorce? What if she decided to just keep on fucking other guys and say piss on a divorce? I was going to have to re-evaluate my stance on wedding vows. I remembered what Brenda Maxon said when we first met. About how I seemed to be able to be selective in which vows I chose to honor. I was definitely going to have to rethink my position on that.

It was a Wednesday and I was occupying a bar stool and nursing a PBR. It was early and the open mike part of the evening hadn't started yet. While waiting I let my eyes roam the room looking at the unescorted women in attendance and wondered if any of them played. I had to laugh at myself when I had that thought. I had been out of the game for so long I wasn't even sure I could remember how to go about hooking up with one of them. I decided that I didn't want to stick around and I finished my beer and headed for my apartment. I unlocked the door and started to open it when I heard a noise behind me and something hit my back and shoved me into the room. I stumbled and fell and before I could get up I was grabbed, picked up, set down on the couch and held there. I shook my head to clear it and then took note of my surroundings. There were two guys holding me down on the couch and Ruth was standing in front of me.

"I'm sorry to have to do it this way Frank, but since I can't seem to get you to talk with me any other way I'm forced to do it this way. Larry and Alex won't hurt you. They are just here to hold you here while we talk."

"Doesn't matter Ruth. We still won't be talking. I may have to sit here and listen, but I've already said all that I'm going to say to you."

"You are being stupid about this Frank. You love me and you damned sure know that I love you. You may think you have reason to doubt that, but you would be wrong. You think that I can't possibly love you if I'm playing with Larry and Alex, but you would be wrong on that too. I play with them because they fill a need that you can't. That's not a shot at you Frank; it is the cold hard truth. No one man, not even the one I love to death, can give me all the sex I need. So I've been playing with Alex and Larry; so what? Have I slacked off in showering you with love and affection? No I haven't and you know it. I give you all that you can handle baby and that is where the problem lies. I give you all that you can handle and when we reach the point where you can't physically get it up any more I'm still wanting. Still wanting and needing Frank. I'm not taking anything away from you Frank. I even do it during the day so we can always be home together in the evenings.

"I've never said no to you Frank and more often than not I'm the one who starts things. I spoil you rotten Frank, just the way a loving wife is supposed to treat the man she loves. There isn't going to be any divorce Frank. I know what you said when you called me the other night, but I'm never going to go for one and I'll fight any that you go for. Since there will never be a divorce you might as well come home to where you belong. You will never be sorry Frank. I promise you that you will never regret it."

"That it?" I asked. "Got it all out of your system? Well let me tell you that all that you've just said doesn't mean jack shit to me. If, as you say, no one man can give you all the sex that you need you should have stayed single. You never should have gotten married. That is what marriage is all about Ruth. Taking yourself off the market; taking yourself out of play and committing to one man. There was nothing in the wedding vows that said you could go out and play if the man you committed to couldn't do it for you. When you said "I do" you committed yourself to me and me alone. Not to me and others to be named later.

"It is your misfortune that you married a man who has old fashioned values. There are a lot of men out there who would go along with your ideas and let you play. Modern thinkers who would jump at your idea because it would free them up to play also. I'm not one of them. My wife has to be mine and mine alone. Once you took on your first lover you were no longer mine alone and our marriage was over. I have no idea when you first took on a lover, but that was when our marriage died. The instant you let him touch you for the first time is the exact moment in time our marriage ended. I just didn't know it until recently. But I do know it now and we are done. I dropped the divorce when you chose to fight it because I wasn't willing to spend thousands and thousands of dollars and spend all the time it would have taken to go through the process.

"The important thing that you need to take from this meeting that you arranged is that I am through with you. You can hang around and stalk me all you want and it will do you no good. I do not want you any more Ruth. I cannot make it any plainer than that. I do not want you. When I filed I fully intended to stay celibate until the divorce was final, but since you decided to fight I've changed my mind. I'm going to go out and play and I am not going to hide it. It will be right out there for you to see. I'll give you all the grounds that you need to divorce me for infidelity. If you never do divorce me it won't bother me one little bit. The bottom line here Ruth is that you and I are over. There is no way we will ever get back together."

"There is one way."

"Not likely."

"I'm pregnant."

"How wonderful for you. Is the father Alex or Larry?"

"It is yours Frank."

"And you think I believe you?"

"Doesn't matter if you do or don't it is still yours."

"Not until a DNA test proves that it is and even then so what? All it means is that the kid will grow up with a round heeled slut for a mother. I won't be around to get attached to it."

"You would turn your back on your own child?"

"In the first place I don't even believe that you are pregnant. I see it as just another attempt on your part to get back with me and I'm not buying it. Even if you are pregnant and it is mine it won't get us back together. It just means that the child will start its life with separated parents and it will grow up the same as other children of divorced or separated parents have. Every other weekend and a couple of weeks in the summer with dad. Every other holiday with dad. All the rest of its time will be spent with his slut of a mother except for babysitters when mommy goes out to get fucked by who knows how many men."

"That's a rotten thing to say!"

"Why? The truth hurts? I've only known about you, Alex and Larry for a couple of weeks now and I have no idea how far back you started stabbing me in the back and how many men there were between then and now. And save your breath. I wouldn't believe you anyway if you were to say it only started recently and that it has only been Alex and Larry."

Then I looked at both Alex and Larry and said, "You mind letting me go now? I believe all has been said that needed to be said and I really need to use the bathroom."

They let go of me and I hit the head and took a badly needed whiz. When I returned to the living room both Larry and Alex were gone, but Ruth was still there. The look on my face must have screamed out "Why the fuck are you still here" and she must have read it because she said:

"I'm still here because in spite of what you said I'm not giving up. I will never divorce you and I will never stop trying to get us back together. I love you Frank and you know I do. You can deny it all you want, but I know you still love me. Yes, you are pissed at me and rightly so, but in my defense you were never supposed to know and what you didn't know wouldn't hurt you. I always did it during the day and in a place you never, at least to my knowledge, went to. And regardless of what you might think it hasn't been going on for years. It did get its start when we got married, but I never acted on it until six months ago.

"Once we were married and started making love on a regular basis my body started to change. The more we made love the more I wanted to make love. It got to the point where you would fall asleep and I would get up and go into the bathroom and try to get one more orgasm using my fingers, a hair brush handle or even a toothbrush. Understand me here Frank; you gave me all you had and it was always great and you never failed to get me off, but eventually you wouldn't be able to get it up any more and you would go to sleep leaving me wanting and needing more. Nights when you went four times it still wasn't enough. I needed more. I couldn't tell you that. You would have taken it as a blow to your ego, your self- esteem that you couldn't get the job done. I could not do that to you. I just could not hurt you that way. I loved you too much to hurt you Frank so I kept quiet about my problem.

"If I would have told you you couldn't have done anything anyway. How many times did we make love three or four times and I kept trying to get one more out of you? That isn't a slam at you Frank. Your body just would not let it happen. You have it all over Larry and Alex in the making love department, but you were just not physically able to give me more. I know you wanted to, but your body just wouldn't let it happen. Alex and Larry gave me enough during the day so that when you got through with me at night I could snuggle up to you and go to sleep instead of going into the bathroom and trying to get myself off again. All they were getting Frank is what you couldn't use anyway. And I have to say it again; this is not a slam at you. From everything I've read and from what I've heard from the girls I know you are exceptional in that you can go three and four times. Alex has only made it three times once since I started with him and Larry has never managed to go more than twice. The problem was never with you Frank. The problem is with me. Can't you accept that and love me?"

"That isn't the problem here Ruth. I do love you and a part of me always will. But as I said earlier I am an old fashioned kind of guy with old fashioned beliefs and one of those beliefs is that my woman is mine. Mine alone Ruth. Mine alone until she isn't and you stopped being mine when you first let another man touch you. Also you need to think about all you have just said. I can't satisfy you and I'll accept that it isn't a slap at my abilities, but the fact remains that you have needs that I can't meet and you can deny it all you want, but you are going to want to get those needs met even if I were to take you back. You can say "Oh no; I've learned my lesson. Never again" but I wouldn't believe you. The need was so great that you acted on it and regardless of what you might say the need will still be there and you will eventually try to get it met.

"You will remember being caught and you will plot and plan to take steps to see to it that you won't be caught again, but you would get caught because I wouldn't believe it when you said "Never again." I would always be watching you for the slightess sign that you were up to your old tricks. I won't live like that Ruth. I would never trust you again and I will not live like that. I just won't. Accept it Ruth. We are done. Our marriage is over and there is no way to bring it back. If you are indeed pregnant and it is indeed mine the best you will get from me is that we can be friendly exes. That's it Ruth. That is all that it can ever be. Now if you don't mind I need to get to bed. I have a long hard day waiting for me at work tomorrow and I'm going to need the rest."

"Friends with benefits Frank."

"No Ruth; not even that."

She stood up and said, "I'm not giving up Frank. I'm never going to give up."

I shrugged and she came over to kiss me, but I turned my face away from her. I saw a tear run down her cheek as she turned and walked out of the apartment. As she left I had another thought and I couldn't believe that I hadn't thought of it sooner. Multiple partners and STDs seemed to go together. Maybe Larry, being married had limited his catting around to just Ruth, but then again maybe not. I'd pulled the private detective before he could dig into Alex and so I knew nothing about him. He could very well be out looking to hook up with whatever he could find when he wasn't fucking Ruth. I decided that I'd better get myself checked out ASAP.