Heroine Addiction Pt. 04

I held my arms out at my sides, "Or you could have simply not done it in the first place. I keep telling you, even if your scheme worked you engaged in activities that will haunt me the rest of my life. You've been in a clench with the devil's soiled underwear, Lewis. Even if we make it, there will always be a glimmer of a doubt that was never there before. Do you know what it does to me to think that he, of all people, has licked your lips? I have to contend with that now when I kiss you. Frankly, I thought I had it all over that talking pool of dog vomit, but you lied to me in order to have him! Doesn't that put me in second place?"

Kari was worried, was this an insurmountable obstacle?

I decided to shift gears, "Did you have an expository paragraph about how wonderful your husband was and "I would never go with you" ready for Lewis at the end? No. Did you remind your friends each time you dallied with Lewis, "My husband's wonderful for letting me do this for you. He's the best man in the world." Because actions like that might have mitigated the damage. No, your plan accelerated the flame of my burn. You didn't mitigate anything. You never told me, so I wasn't on board, so I never did grant my consent. And why dear wife and best friend did you never mention it to me?"

"B-Because this was something I knew I could do: a great deed making the whole neighborhood better."

"Why didn't you tell me about it then? Why didn't you ask for my consent? Do it, tell me, admit it again."

"B-Because you wouldn't have given your consent."

"In fact, I told you not to see him and you did. You wouldn't tell your husband you would stay away from the man he told you he thought you were having an affair with. Is that heroic? Does that even qualify for anti-hero? Or is it villainous? Kari, think, isn't that worse than anything Lewis actually did before you started your fling with him?"

All three of us sat back against our seats. Any sort of magic spell or notion of heroism surrounding Kari's actions evaporated off her admission when viewed in the plain light of day. She'd done everything for herself.

"So, you wanted to play sex kitten, then avenger. And I think you enjoyed your sex kitten role. I hope it was good for you because you cut me in half doing it. You sent signals to your friends that you really don't love me, and frankly that I'm not that important. Even if you didn't want them to pity me, you certainly told them that I hadn't earned, and wasn't worthy of, fidelity!"

"No, I swear..."

"But you did. Let me take this further. Let's say you pull this one off, you'd be flying high confident you could do this - again. All through this fiasco you couldn't help but push matters, so you'd push, you'd do it again. You'd go undercover until you finally were under the covers. You're too close to your own flame, you'd do it again until we all burned. You'd do it because you've already done it."

Both women were silently horrified. I'd laid it out pretty well. I scared the bejesus out of them.

"Or supposed the next jerk is more ruthless. Maybe he doesn't let you pull up and walk away when the action heats up. Maybe he continues even against your will, so what now? You put yourself in his bed, now how do you live with something that happened that you didn't want? How would you stop it? How would you control the fallout? Would you tell me? How would you explain that to me?

"What happens when we have kids, or you get older? You've succeeded in pulling the wool over my eyes in the past. Your habit is not to confide in me, pulling further and further away as time goes on. This is a freaking timebomb. If it explodes, I want it to be now, while I have time to straighten out my life and where the blast doesn't harm children."

Kari was breathless from my conclusions. There was a pang of truth in my accusations, even if this was a rant. Both Kari and Susan felt this was much more than a wounded man venting his spleen. They knew I was truly concerned, hell, consumed, by these notions. Which made it obvious that if I didn't care about Kari I would've already filed for divorce and been long gone instead of having this ridiculous conversation.

I tried to calm myself but there was still a hint of menace in my slightly lower voice, "My being relegated to minimal status, to bottle washer and bill payer - and fucking cuckold, in real time, right up on stage, come one come all, but no cumming for the poor clueless cuck, has rather changed my relationship with the neighbors, hasn't it? After all, you don't want me at your parties any longer, that's where you have fun with your boyfriends. Instead of their asking me how I am at parties what will they say to you now? "Say, has anyone polished his cock cage lately? We wouldn't want him to get tetanus from rust, after all he does pay those bills nicely.""

Kari shook her head back and forth horrified mouthing the word "no".

"If I'm not at that point in the neighbor's eyes already, you've at least put me in the fast lane headed there. All your friends knew you were with another guy. No one rushed to my defense! No one clued me in, there was a flipping conspiracy against our marriage and no one, not even you, cared!" Then very quietly I added, "Hell, you led the charge."

Kari and Susan were horrified to see my condition: devastated.

"Barry, my heart is breaking now at how your broken your heart is. I'll always be sorry for the lack of care and defense I've shown for your heart in this affair." Having used that word, Kari almost brought her hand to her mouth. Susan rolled her eyes towards her forehead.

"Dammit Barry, you know what I mean. Your heart it is my most valued possession. That's still true despite how broken it became in my care. I don't think the neighbors think less of you. I know many of them think less of me. I've made sure of that. Though what you feared may have been true to a lesser degree before I went to each of our friend's house and explained my actions.

"It is a great perversity that my love for you blinded me to the impact my actions could have on you. I'm so in love with you I could get close to him, and he still never had a chance with me. Though my actions didn't exist in the vacuum I thought they did. Others saw them and took them for what they were designed to appear: my being interested in him. One of the people who saw and was fooled was you, the love of my life. What a wonderful gift I gave you in return for your complete devotion and fidelity to me: doubt. I knew he couldn't touch my heart, yet I did such a good job of hiding that from him that I hid it from you."

"Well Kari, perhaps he didn't touch your heart, but you let him touch everything else. What the hell does that say about your love for me? What is it really worth?"

"I am so sorry! My God, I am so blind I never thought you could think I could lose my love for you."

"How was I to react to your keeping your love for me while subletting your body to the neighbors for ultimate use by that scum bag? I seemed to be the dead last consideration of every decision chain."

"Listen Barry, if folks think the wrong thing about me, if I've poisoned them about you, we can move. We can go to the Aleutians. I don't need anyone else's validation. I don't need to be a hero. I don't need anyone else's love. You can keep me locked up in the basement. I never need to see the sunshine again. I just need your love! I'm sorry. I never ever meant to hurt you. I'm unsure how to erase that picture in your mind of my being so willingly in another man's embrace."

Kari sobbed struggling to continue after the picture of pain she'd painted. I think I'd set the stage I needed. Kari had responded as I hoped. She saw it and didn't try to duck responsibility. It was a little late, but she seemed focused on the cause and cure of my needs and pain now, as opposed to blindingly causing them.

Kari was coming apart, "Barry, I've fought this, avoided it. I don't know what to do. I've admitted where I was so caught up in what I could do and what I could be, so focused on what I could gain that I never saw what I could lose. I didn't mean to be selfish as it sounds. I thought you would like having a more capable partner; more a partner than a side kick. No one respects sidekicks. You've never treated me like comic relief. I didn't mean to bring this level of drama either. I really didn't see it like you do.

"But I see it like you do now. Barry if I thought I was having ... an affair ... I would have run. I wouldn't have gone near it. But now you think I did, and I'm not fighting against you I'm fighting for you. I'm all turned around. If I don't admit seeing it like you, you'll never have confidence in me expecting me to do this again. But Barry, maybe you need to see my side here just one last time. Barry I never saw it as an affair, I truly didn't know that's what it was. I just didn't see it that way.

"Barry think. While you aren't exactly straight and narrow, you have boundaries and things that stray are done and over. If I call it an affair because you've made me see it as you do, you'll LEAVE ME! I can't think about life without you. Yet, I don't seem to have any credibility with you denying that's what it was. I'm damned if I do and if I don't. You think it's like being pregnant: you are, or you aren't, I either made out with him, or I didn't. I didn't sleep with him. I didn't blow him. He didn't get to second base in my book. I never wanted him. Yeah, maybe I wanted to stretch my wings, but it was really to prime them for you. Lewis is repulsive. I HAD to think of something to get near him. The only endearing trait he had was the story telling part of the schmooze, so I immersed myself in that. If you can recognize what I did, then I think there's a way back for us. I'm not trying to duck responsibility or preserve a future where I could do this again out of continued ignorance. I see all your points, but if I say I had an affair my marriage is over." She looked confused, then determined, "Barry, this is crazy, but if we divorced, would you date me?"

"What?"

"Would divorcing me give you back part of what I stole from you? If you humiliated me with a divorce like I accidently humiliated you with ... dating, c-could you call it even enough to let me date you for real? C-Could we be exclusive? Would that be a huge enough concession on my part that you'd know I want to play straight by you? I'd be one foot on the curb already knowing I'd lost my treasured marriage, so I'd never push the boundaries again. Does that offer make sense in this crazy situation? I only know I love you. I wanted it so badly that I deluded myself, but I wanted you to be proud of me. I-I ..."

Kari began to shake worse, quite badly in fact. Unexpectedly she threw herself at me in the booth. Accidentally she slid, starting to submerge under the table. She grabbed at my legs trying to choke out the words "I love you. I love you."

Apparently, I'd made the impact I wanted, shooting past my goal by a considerable margin! I wanted her to feel the sting, not to burn her. It seems I didn't have as much control on my pain as I thought. I looked at my love grasping me as if trying to keep from going over a cliff. She wasn't wrong. She was desperate for me, for me to forgive her, mostly for me not to be hurt by her actions any longer. That she loved me was a fact so obvious it permeated the air we were breathing.

I couldn't resist her, I never could. This was the first time I regretted it though. I just couldn't stand to see her in pain. I pulled her up and to me, wrapped her up in my arms trying to shush her fears, explaining that I needed her to heal me. I apologized for her misery, which broke her heart again.

My rant was designed to blow off some steam. I'd earned that. It was not designed as a manifesto to be delivered at the end of our marriage however. I wanted to throw different parts of this at Kari to see her response. I needed to know exactly what she'd thought through, and how much pain she decided she could inflict on me? I wanted to gauge her guilt and understanding of her misdeeds and their consequences. Frankly, I wanted to see how much she still loved me.

I always wondered if Perry Mason wasn't really the judge too. He controlled the courtroom and the guy with the gavel let him get away with it. It would surely explain why DA Hamilton Burger lost so many cases. I mean the poor sot's record was two to two-hundred ten! I found myself in the position of being judge and executioner as well as the defense attorney that acts more like a prosecutor. Hmm. Perry Mason was more confusing than I remembered.

I summed up, "I'm not leaving you yet. You seem worse off than me and I can see we have unfinished business. I love you Kari, but I don't know what to make of you. That's a really bad combination, and I have to know before I leave for good. You seem contrite, you seem motivated to work on it. Then again, you continued to do what was wrong knowing it was wrong and knowing it was hurting me. I can't make sense of that yet, maybe it just has to sink in. I don't give up easily. I don't know what it means and I'm promising nothing, but for now let's go home."

Kari stopped frozen once more. Her head raised, her eyes incredulous, searching out mine to verify this was not some sort of joke. In a voice so hushed and tiny I almost couldn't make her out. "A-Are you sure? I hurt you. I got selfish, there may be others who are better for you."

She cast a quick look to her friend, who blushed furiously. When I showed no inclination to change my mind she tried once more, "But Barry it was all my fault, are you really sure? I snuck in here today because I wanted to hear your side. When I did it was so much worse than I thought, and I already knew it was really bad. I see how you see things now, even when you might have it wrong. I was desperate to get you home when I came here but listening to you, I feel like I don't deserve you! Barry, I'm trying to do what's best for you now; are you sure you want to come home ... with me?"

Susan was looking relieved and more than a bit confused. I'd made it sound like I was gone without ever wanting to go. I wasn't sure it said good things for our future if I was playing games like that.

"You have a lot of convincing to do to get me to stay, Kari. But you've convinced me that you believe the crap you are spewing. Strangely, I'm happier to think that you are just really messed up as opposed to duplicitous. If you see that it's crap now, well that's progress. You do know I'll be gone with the wind, without so much as a "Frankly Scarlet", if you so much as flirt with a guy now, right? You must earn my trust back. It's not going to be an easy chick flick sort of resolution."

"I just wanted to make sure it's what you wanted." A thought occurred to her that gave her strength and gladdened her considerably. "You just watch me fight for you, Barry. I can still make you proud!"

* * * * *

Love, it's the strongest thing on earth, but can also be quite fragile. Not everyone gets a shot at it. I believed Kari loved me, I even believed she hadn't screwed Lewis. Both of us know she hadn't honest with me, and despite her feeling she had to finish her "mission" to prove she didn't have a real interest in him. A better way to do it would have been to be honest and straightforward with me and have no contact with him. That was the actual crux: whether Kari intended to or not, for a chunk of time, she put her "mission" ahead of me. No, she put her ego ahead of everything, certainly ahead of me, and ahead of her own heart. She sees it now and sees the extreme peril of what she did.

I went back for a couple of reasons. First off, I could always leave. Heck, going back for a while would make it easier to take my stuff with me if I left. I believed her sincerity in wanting to save the marriage and in loving me; she was bending over backwards, and forwards too, to make things up to me. I didn't think she'd repeat the mistake. Her priorities had gotten out of whack and were reset with a sledgehammer.

Mostly I went back for love. I love her and it had to play out. I couldn't leave until I'd done everything else to keep her. I had no idea if I'd find love again, though that misses the point: I loved Kari. Love can be ours just as long as we both want it and respect it. Love is a precious thing, but you play by its rules. If you don't nourish it, if you mistreat it, it will flee.

* * * * * *

It was almost a full year later before we both felt we'd put ninety-five percent of the problem behind us. In my mind Kari had an affair, even if it was devoid of full-on sex. Stranger things happen every day. Kari was well aware she had a husband who believed they were together because he'd forgiven his wife's affair and that she'd already used any second chance she was ever going to have. At this point she was no longer walking on eggshells, and we were back to being normal around each other.

Irony is interesting. After several months where we'd made great progress Kari told me with a gray pallor that if we were not going to move, and I wasn't going to ban her from seeing the women in the neighborhood, that she wanted permission to talk to them about what she'd learned from our problem and to discuss me with them a little bit.

Kari explained that she wanted the ladies to know that when I gave her more lead, she was still going to keep herself on a short leash.

"They understand how much I value you. They'll respect that. Women may not like controlling men, but they respect strong men. You acquitted yourself marvelously. They saw that. They saw how you took charge and what you did: organizing their husbands and beating respect and fear into the dog testicle tick."

I hadn't realized I'd said that nickname for Lewis in front of her. Hmm, maybe I got it from Kari?

"Barry, you may not realize it, but you're the larger-than-life hero to this neighborhood, to both the guys and the gals. It's certainly the case under this roof, and in my heart.

Kari looked at me full on. "I know, that's what I wanted to be. Even if successful, I never thought my "mission" would make me stand as tall as you. And that was before you had to take charge of us all.

"I want you to know that you should have this respect. Irony of ironies, it will make me even more proud of you; how I wanted you to feel about me.

She winced hoping I would feel the emotion she wanted to share, "Barry, it's hurting them to not have you around. I messed up while you weren't there. We all need leaders. You can leave me at home when you go, but you need to be with them again. Please do it Barry. It feels ... karmically correct."

She was so hopeful and had been so ... faithful.

"I tell you what, Kari. If it comes up do what you feel best, but don't go looking for an opportunity to talk to them about us. I'm scared you want to make it "a mission" to restore something, anything, to me. Another mission doesn't seem like what we need, especially if it involves others. You push things, Kari. You're pushing your sorrow and regret through subservience to me. Frankly, that's been a big help. It's helped me believe you want to be mine alone, and that we're partners again. I need you less focused on some mission and more on just being genuinely you. I just want to be with you."

It was a big turn and Kari felt every bit of it. She sat down hard and cried ... happily. She looked up and whispered "Thank you" in her loudest possible voice. It took her a while to start up again.

"I promise no missions unless you approve them. But I would be very happy to undertake one just for you and just between us. That also seems karmically balanced. With your new promotion at work, we can take some fun budget conscious vacations now. If you want me to live out some sort of James Bond fantasy for you, for a day or week, I promise to do my part, playing it to the very last ... inch." She purred like a cat.