Heel and Toe

She looked at me trembling. "I-I miss him so much! I'm still lost, what if we wreck the car? What if I mess up so badly again? And you said it, you read my mind: I-I really want to be in his arms in one of those passionate clenches where he made me lose my mind. I need to lose it now, it's full of guilt and pain and loss, it's really bad in there.

"Reggie this may be inappropriate, but after what I've put you through and what you saw in those photos, it would be wrong to keep anything from you. When James was younger, he could really drive. He was quite the technician in the bedroom too. That was our favorite hobby, it was the one I was most passionate about. For me the racing was second. Reg, the way James operated that car. It was sensual. He was confident and he could make it growl or purr until he made it sing. James could thread it through an apex or down a straight like no body's business. We talked about it, the similarities to his two passions: the car and me."

Marta blushed and looked away. She then set her jaw and forced herself to look at me. It seemed like the sort of conversation one has with their doctor when explaining an embarrassing problem. I thought to myself, 'Marta thinks I can help her. She's being vulnerable putting herself in my hands this way.'

"Reggie, the way he handled, even sometimes commanded, that car to perform seemed very like how he ... damn it, Reggie this is personal and sort of rough for me to share ... it seemed very similar to how he handled or even commanded my body to perform in the bedroom. I responded to it. I saw the analogy for myself. Even if we weren't fooling around, driving in the Aston with him was a very sensual experience for me. I saw him do things with it, even the way he touched it, smooth here and hard there, a gentle nudge here, a commanding expectation there, it was very much like how he, er, handled me in the midst of passion.

"When I went off my rocker and messed up your life, I wanted some man to, oh damn it, fuck me senseless and hold me through the night. My plan was to get more than a little tipsy and get in one of my almost meditative connections to James, and pretend it was him. I wanted to use my body to say goodbye to him, I thought it might help me realize he was gone, instead of looking up at every little noise expecting to see him walk in from the trip he's been on!"

Marta absent mindedly rubbed her temples. The separation of two folks so close was really hard on her. And she had no family around to lean on because she'd abused her daughter when she was available. This was a rotten set of circumstances.

"I'd sleep in that man's arms afterwards as sort of a substitute for hearing James' voice tell me it will all be alright. Afterwards, I wanted to date the guy for all the reasons I said earlier, I'd become a pariah, an emotional vampire, I wanted to be around people and make them happy with my presence again." She looked away lonely, "I know it was crazy. It wouldn't have worked. I would have freaked myself out then felt bad for betraying James. But at the time I was in a frenzy; I was driven to have it. And I drove us all over a cliff.

"I see poor Devon; she ended up with the fate that should have been mine. I put her in a twisted situation. She didn't want to betray you and she didn't want to let me down, especially when she could see how much I was suffering. Of course, it went sideways. She was running away from her reality just as I was trying to. Reggie, she may find other answers, but that's the big one. You can save on the shrink bills if that's all the two of you are hoping to find. I put her in an impossible situation: and torn between two people she loved I corkscrewed her into a stance she'd never faced before. Of course, it was messed up and twisted, because I messed her up twisting her. I'm not just piling on my guilt, think about it. Maybe you don't want such a simple explanation for such a heartfelt problem, but there's your root cause.

"I would trade places with Devon if I could. But I can't. I can't and I have hurt you two so badly. Reggie, I shouldn't go back out there, look what I do when James is not here. Oh Reggie, lock me away. Please forgive Devon. Please, I know how she feels about you. She talks to me or used to. It was like hearing my own thoughts about James. I thought of you as a sort of a younger James when he introduced me to you. It didn't take either one of us very long to think you might be the perfect man for our daughter. I may have ruined it now. Reggie, my heart is broken without James. To think I might have broken both yours and Devon's is horrifying.

"And Reggie, there is one more terrible piece to this shattered life. For me James died loving me. He would be here if he could. But it you two break up, you will both be alive. It seems so much worse knowing you are both forced to live apart while knowing you should never be seperated from each other. It's almost the definition of perversion.

"Why don't you and Devon take the car, I'll give it to you! Take her to the races. The two of you should go. I-I should stay here. James and I were a team like you and Devon. No one, especially not me, wants to see sad partial reminder of that team they loved so much. Without James my life is over, I was wrong to fight it. It will actually be kinder for me to accept that, especially if my trying to live kills those around me."

I sat down and let out a long slow exhale. Marta saw me thinking. It took a while to formulate my response just as I wanted it. When I was ready, I stood and closed the distance between us to hug her. I told her to pretend it was James hugging her for a while. I felt her melt into me, so I thought it was working. Eventually I asked her if she felt a good connection with James right now, telling her our hearts never quite lose the ones we love. With a small sob, she said she did.

I started, "Marta this might take a while, but I have a reply to what you just said. If I do it right, I hope that channel to James might be a little larger by the end. I don't think I'm the man to fulfill what you said you desired earlier. But I'm happy to lend James my arms to hold you with again. That goes for the end of our little discussion here tonight, or whenever you need them, okay?"

Marta nodded like a hurt child happy to find solace with a protecting adult. I held her hands and looked deeply into her eyes.

"Marta, did you ever watch what your husband actually did as he drove? Not how he touched the car but what he was accomplishing with it?" She nodded enthusiastically. "Especially with the old cars, before computers and all-wheel drive, you hit redline wherever you can. Except when you are purposely decelerating, then you just keep the car as close to redline as you can in whatever gear is appropriate. Curves are their own special thing. They have their own rules.

"Life throws you curves. How well you navigate them the tells the tale. You brake while still going straight, before you hit the curve. If you brake in the curve, you spin. If you go in too hot you can't take the curve or are completely off course exiting it. To do it right you set your speed, positioning the car to make that curve as wide as you can, considering the marbles and slick spots, which only experience can tell you where to expect them, and you hang on.

"The first half of the curve is the toughest. It's hard to go through with no action, until finally you realize that setting it up properly and hanging on is an action and an art form. When you're halfway out, you reengage and accelerate out of the curve. It's trickier with rear engine cars but that's simply part of your context. Halfway through the curve you're ready to stir the gear box and hit redline and take on life on your terms again.

"Marta, you have had a serious curve to deal with. Your love has passed from this realm of immediacy. But that love is still there for you. You just have to navigate the curve and you'll feel it again. There's no sitting in the shadows or staying on the bench, life won't allow it. Life will continue to pile on while you rest and lick your wounds. Life will rarely show you pity, you simply have to make your own breaks. You have to navigate what it throws at you.

"The problem is you haven't for a while. And we get out of practice quickly. You made a tracking error forcing you to tap the brakes mid-corner and pray not to spin out. That's precarious. You drove too hard into the corner without braking. You didn't set yourself up well. You were going too fast, wild, and blind without any plan except to fly off the track. I understand. You'd gladly accept a fiery wreck if that's what it takes to end your laps and be reunited with your James. Except that's not your destiny. Your laps won't end now. There are those that still need you and count on you, though you're unable to feel them right now.

"Marta, as a consequence you'll have to make it around and around with all that extra damage with everyone else looking at you and passing you. Until you can correct some of that damage, you'll be a moving hazard no one wants to be near. By not dealing with the issues at hand others are gaining on you and threaten to overtake you, leaving you behind. Your course is now so haphazard it threatens those around you. And that's where I HAVE to get involved. In order to save my wife, I had to get her to a different part of the track, and now the race has changed. I have to save you to finish saving her. Marta, you're well worth saving on your own, this isn't an action I take reluctantly. I do it for Devon, and you, and James, and all the others, as well as myself. Take that to heart.

"I've no qualms about saving you, you were a good person and can be again. So dammit, stop fighting me, and stop being such a destructive bitch! Let's get this "mess of an S" curve behind us; going in hot has us messed up for the whole course. We will lose some time, we will wear down our tires, but we can still get out of this chain of curves intact. That will allow us to address matters again on the other side. Marta, once we're there, we can and will. And Marta, my dear, things will start to get better too. They will never be as they were, not here anyway, but those good times and life with James is far from over. You just have to get back on track to feel the groove again."

Marta cried, "What do I do?" She was really listening, sometimes we just need to exclaim. It clears the decks and allows us to reset and re-take control.

"You can't jerk your foot off the gas, that will spin you too. First get your hands back on the wheel. Be ready to take control while backing off slightly on the gas, but not enough to spin you. Put your other foot on the brake and slowly depress.

"The next time we go through this chicane we will set ourselves up better, and there will be a next time. At that time, you put your heel on the brake and the toe of the same foot on the gas and you modulate which is harder, alternating between them as needed, and always steering the best possible course. That would be what you do control. For right now, however, we have to weather this curve that we are coming out of.

"So, don't do it jerky, ease off the gas a little, while putting your other foot on the brake. Slow us, there will be a place between curves where we can make the car go straight for a way. Before we reach the next corner, you come off the gas even braking if needed while staying straight. Set yourself up and ride out the first half of the corner keeping on track, then reengage the power smoothly going into the second half. For the situation we are in not as much as before. As soon as we can come down to reasonable speeds then you can back off the gas properly going into the next curve eventually resetting the angles and course we need for best efficiency, but that's going to be two or three bends ahead."

"Then what?" Her question made me smile. She was used to the cockpit, thought she let James steer their course. She was confused as to my analogy yet was beginning to see the point. The blood still pumped in her veins, she was engaged in the description. She'd felt it before, lived it. I wasn't telling her anything she didn't already know, just trying to revive it, and her, with some advice on how to handle it.

"Marta, all of this sounds onerous and complicated. It's easy to mess up when we consciously think about it. It's daunting if you have to think out each tiny maneuver, it seems almost impossible. The magic is that we get so good at it that it just flows. We really can be in tune with life. Yes, there are wrecks and mistakes, even tragedies. They knock us off our course, we lose momentum, and our flow. Eventually we reestablish ourselves and we flow again.

"We get back on the straight and check everything and once you do, you rev her up and go! Maybe not back to redline right away. We may need to change the tires, maybe not, but once you're really ready with your head is back in the game, and in command of yourself, then yeah: redline!

"Life is to be lived. You can be careful with it, if that's really what you think is best, but you can't trade living for some elusive safety that doesn't really exist. The trick is to manage risk. The worst way to manage it is to refuse to race. Not living, that's just another form of death. You don't have to be, excuse me, balls to the wall and elbows out, you just want to take good solid laps, and yeah, a lot of them need to be hot laps. Maybe right on the edge of control; I'm sure you had some with hubby. Maybe you want more or maybe just turning in good times, doing it right, feeling the wind in your hair is enough. The track is there anyway, so use it up. Just don't put her in the weeds, don't have a fiery wreck, but never pit prematurely to turn off the engine. Got it?"

"I think," she said nodding while blinking back happy tears.

"What do you do now, Marta?"

"Get myself out of these treacherous corners and re-establish my course."

"Good, then what?"

"Steer my best course and heel and toe, heel and toe."

She matched my broad smile with her own, "That's right. That's it exactly, and I will be right there to help. Soon we will catch the pack again, then you'll be surrounded by help, and life will take on its charm again. It will be different, yet still valuable."

"I-I don't know how to repay this."

"Yes, you do."

She looked confused.

I explained, "Same thing darling, the same thing: heel and toe, got it? Heel and toe. That's life, don't merely navigate it, live it. Heel and toe, that's what you did with James. He's watching you, seeing what you got from him, seeing how important he really was to you. Let him see what you learned and loved. Drive Marta, don't stop now!"

She threw her arms around me and bawled like a baby, a happy baby.

* * * * * *

Marta started taking to some of her old racing buddies during the week. In time she became an organizer of who would be at which race and where they should meet once there. She helped organize the spreads too, food, wine, etc. for all of them. The races were always more about people than challenge for Marta. She loved the pageantry, the beauty of the old cars, like-minded individuals that came from all sorts of interesting backgrounds. Races are exciting, loud, dangerous, and vital. James and I were there for the race; we lived it. Most who came for the race were about it. For both sets to have anything meaningful, there was a small army of folks there to support and nurture the experience, people like Marta.

I had a great time too. I enjoyed making more of James and Marta's friends my own. I was sure Marta would hook up with some widower there eventually, the group of extended friends was in the hundreds, and she met more people each race. The races were a time capsule for her too. After I dropped her off from one of our outings, I was sure she slipped into her husband's old office, now was a virtual shrine to him, to discuss each outing with James; it was something they could still share. She didn't need a lover as much as to belong somewhere and to some group.

My wife thought I was a caring genius, especially after she saw her mother's change back to her former self. My wife enjoyed the races too. Eventually the three of us traveled to the farther ones together. Eventually. It took a long time to fully trust my mother-in-law being near my wife alone again. To Marta's credit she understood. She even confessed it all to her two other kids. She didn't make herself look better in the doing. I was impressed.

We had an intermediate step. When Marta decided she wanted to ride in the parade laps between sanctioned events again, we started planning to make sure the DBR1 was sound and up to spec. I told her I'd do it slowly in between the end of this season, which was already half past, and the start of the next. That way we could keep the momentum going through the off months and keep sharing that common love of racing which also included James. Posting my progress and announcing the DBR would return to the parade laps kept Marta involved with her community of friends on-line through the off season.

Marta explained the car should be in great shape as James loved keeping it in form. I used to help him, so I knew what to do for this particular car's idiosyncrasies. I told her that I was going to be bringing others with me from time to time to help out, but I would make sure they fit in with Marta and the household she kept. The ruse worked better than I hoped. The first day I brought my team to help with the DBR1, I introduced Marta to my hand-picked helper. As my helper stepped out from behind me Marta discovered my crew consisted of Devon. They hugged and cried. It had been months since they'd seen each other, though they'd started talking on the phone earlier when I was ready to face that challenge.

Devon made me very happy when upon breaking the clench with her mom she stated, "I'm here to learn about the car and help my husband. I may only hold a light and hand things to him at first, but it's a start. Also, I plan to be out here with him every minute; I'm not coming over here to disappear with you to have coffee or wine and leave him toiling away out here alone."

Marta nodded her head understanding, though barely able to hide her disappointment at not sharing the time with her daughter.

"But Marta," I added, "if you want to join Devon and me out here for the entire time we work, I'd welcome it." Marta left her daughter's arms and flew into mine. She thanked me profusely. I whispered, "I'm pushing as fast as I can. My wife's affair really messed me up. I really feared Devon didn't love me very much. It's okay to say whatever you want in front of me, but please don't leave to be alone with Devon for a while yet. I promise I'm getting there as quickly as I can." She put her hand on my cheek again letting her eyes both apologize to me and thank me. She turned back towards her daughter. That's when I caught a glimpse of my wife, looking positively adoringly at me.

* * * * * *

Part Three: Devon

I had real problems seeing that guy's hands all over my wife. I had a gazillion photos all time stamped. My mind knew Devon didn't screw him, at least not the night I'd had her surveilled. There was no record of blowjobs, but I constantly saw her giving them to him when I closed my eyes. I felt like her affair was growing so I didn't think worse behavior was hidden in the past, meaning what I saw was the worst. My brain knew she didn't have time to screw him; my mind took a while to come to the same conclusion. But my heart was sick simply because my brain and mind were having the debate.

Devon swore, with the one exception she'd told me about that finally woke her up, that he didn't come close to having sex with her or making her come. The damn photos show they did everything but, because speaking of butts I had photos of his hands inside her skirt, on her ass, and others that show her without panties. Dammit, I had a photo that shows his fingers weren't just outside her, though in the next photo taken shortly after they were no longer in place. In fact, the not so happy couple were rapidly leaving his car. The time stamps didn't allow any known form of sexual congress. It seemed Devon was telling the truth on that score. Though I don't know how she had the presence of mind while in a clench tongue wrestling with him to not let him take at least a quick dip when everything was lined up. Thinking it through over and over again was driving me nuts.