How High a Price: Another View - M

Early was reminded of an old movie he'd seen. He couldn't remember who starred in it, perhaps Audrey Hepburn. She'd been faced with a dilemma about the truthfulness of the man she was falling for, and someone put forward the old riddle about lying Dirty-foot tribe and truthful clean-foot tribe. Dirty-feet couldn't tell the truth and Clean-feet couldn't lie. The actress wasn't interested in the riddle, only the truth and said she'd probably look at their feet, the correct answer to the riddle was to ask one what a member of the other tribe would say. The answer would always be untrue. Early knew that Susan could deceive him. How could he ever trust her again?

When Early went to claim his luggage at the airport he saw just how much he had for the first time. As Early loaded his luggage cart he decided that two of his bags must have engaged in some sort of unnatural behavior to produce this litter of smaller cases and bags. After a futile attempt to load it all into a regular size cab, he'd been forced to pay a premium for one of the min-van type cabs to be able to hold his luggage's new family.

Early's apartment had that neglected look that is hard to explain but impossible not to see. Still, Early dumped his luggage in the middle of the living room floor before taking a quick shower and heading over to Susan's apartment.

When he got there, no one answered his rings or repeated knocking. As he was turning to leave, he spotted Susan returning with an empty trash can. She looked horrible. She didn't have any make-up on and she'd lost weight... weight she couldn't afford to lose. She was only a few feet away when his presence finally registered on her, whereupon she gave a shriek and practically screamed, "Early! What the hell are you doing here? You can't see me like this!"

Early who hadn't been able to keep suspicious thoughts from forming when no one answered the door now wanted to laugh. Susan wasn't expecting company, not looking the way she did. "I just landed and I came right over, I wanted to finish our talks."

Susan looked like she was going to cry, "Oh Early! How did you get here so soon? I've been praying that you might want to see me, I was just going to get cleaned up on the off chance that you might call. But, I checked the flights and you can't get here until this evening! Early, really, you can't see me like this, please, let me take a shower and get fixed up, please."

Early ignored her protests, she might not want him to see her au natural, but she was clearly pleased to have him here. "Susan, let's go in and talk. There's some things I want to get straight."

Susan nodded and squeezed past him to open her door, then squeaked again and tried to close it, "Early, can't we go someplace else, you don't want to see my place like this..."

Early pushed the door open, he'd already seen what he thought she was trying to hide. The place was decorated in early period "Susan and Early." Pictures and memorabilia of their life together dominated the apartment. Over on one wall was a 11x14 picture of him complete with two candle holders and partially used candles. It was to sort of arrangement you might find in the home of a very religious Catholic except the picture would have been of Jesus or Mary.

There was an poignancy in Susan's voice when she said, "It's not exactly what you might think. I don't have an obsession, even my shrink thought that what I've done is healthy."

Early searched her eyes, "You're going to a shrink?"

Susan smiled. "No, I went right after the divorce to see if there was a magic pill I could take to make me not hurt. After about four sessions the shrink said I was perfectly normal, I had good reasons to feel bad and I was dealing with them in a healthy way.

"I didn't want you to see this because I didn't want you to let my feelings get in the way of your moving on. That's what I need. As long as you stay single I can't help hoping that something might happen to get us back together. My only hope is that you'll find someone, marry and have children. Then, I'll know there's no hope and I might be able to move on too."

Early reached out and lifted Susan's chin, "So, that chastity till death part of your letter was puffery? You really just mean until there's no hope for me?"

Susan's voice was firm when she answered, but the tear that rolled down her cheek showed her true feelings, "That's right, Early, it was just manipulation. Once I have you safely married off, I can get on with my own life... so if you care about me at all you'll find someone..."

She turned and fled back to her bedroom. Almost fifteen minutes later she emerged still looking overwrought. "Early, why won't you let me at least try to do the right thing? I do want what's best for you with my whole heart. I can't pretend that I don't want you, or that my life without you isn't meaningless, but please believe me, I'm trying to help you be happy. You deserve happiness, I'm the one that doesn't. I will always be your wife, there's never going to be anyone else in my life. I can live with that, I can even be happy in a day-to-day sort of way as long as I don't see you." She paused, "I meant that in a good way, not that seeing you makes me unhappy."

Early locked eyes with her and she met his steady gaze. "You said I have to forgive you, what does that look like in the real world? I don't think it's possible for exes to be 'good friends,' so what sort of behavior do you want from me?"

"I think it means you can move past the anger stage of your grief process. I don't know, Early, I just know I want you to be happy. For you to be happy you need a partner, a wife and you need children. I know it doesn't mean you have to be involved with me, but you have to love again."

With their eyes still locked, Early could see her chin quivering at the edge of his vision. "What if that's what I want? What if I want what we once had, or what I thought we once had?"

"NO!" Her chin stopped quivering as she stamped her foot. Her eyes flashed as she continued, "No Early! I'm the last thing you want, or deserve, a cheating whore, and a screwed up one at that!"

Early smiled, "What if I decided that the best way to punish you for all you did would be keep you close so I could mess with your head, your heart..."

Pain flickered through Susan's eyes then she said, "I'd have trouble with that..." she paused, her face brightened, "but you won't do it, you're too good a man. I know you Early, forgiving me and moving on would be good for you. Taking me back won't work, and I won't let you do that. I don't deserve you."

Still smiling Early asked, "Would you be faithful not just to the letter of that word but the spirit of it too? Would you forsake all others for just me?"

"Oh Early, don't do this to me. You know that's what I want more than anything. I would never... the very idea of another man now makes my skin crawl. That doesn't change what I was. Once a cheater, always a cheater. Even if I never look at another man you'll always know that I'm a cheater. I break vows, I didn't value our commitment and you deserve someone better than me." Susan was pleading with her eyes, but Early saw she wasn't certain what she was pleading for.

Early's face turned grim. "Yes, Susan I do deserve someone better than the woman you were. Still, the fact is I loved that woman more than I knew was possible for a man to love a woman. You don't deserve another chance. I don't have to give you one, but I can choose to do it. A man on the ship talked to me about grace. The whole idea of giving a sinner something they don't deserve. I've spent more hours than I care to remember thinking about this. In my heart of hearts I know that I can extend grace to you. Not forgiveness, because that would be saying that I somehow balanced the scales, and they never will be.

"Part of what I didn't understand until I talked to Jim was how to get past the issue of justice. He showed me that sometimes the scales of justice will never balance, without a 'finger weight,' that is unless I do something to make them balance.

One of the things that has torn my guts apart about what you did is that I was powerless. I couldn't stop you and I couldn't punish you either without your permission or going to jail. In granting grace, I have the power, no one can force me, and in giving it I acknowledge that you can't earn it. It's a gift from me to you. It's the gift that puts us back to square one. Jim had a funny way of putting it, he said, "let the dead bury the dead, let the past bury the past." I'm going to have to look him up somehow and thank him. He's retired military so I should be able to find him through them."

Susan's eyes had been getting bigger as she listened to Early, "You don't mean Admiral Martin do you? Oh God, I knew he was on the ship, but I never did see him." Early's face must have reflected his confusion because she continued, "He's a world famous theologian, was the head chaplain for the Navy and the personal pastor to the last four presidents. He's written a slew of best-selling books about God and human relationship. I was dying to meet him, but I didn't have the nerve... I'm babbling, Early, what about trust and your pain? Why would you want to live with me when you know that even if I'm as faithful as an old hunting dog, there will still be times when you'll doubt me?"

Early gave her a wry grin and said, "Trust and verify! I've never looked at your Private Investigator's reports, but since you did set up a trust to have yourself covered, I will use it. If nothing else, it might serve as a deterrence to help you keep to the straight and narrow." Early gave a dry chuckle, "The fact is, though, I do believe you. I don't think you can look me in the face and lie to me ever again. If I have the power to grant you grace, I'm giving you to power to hurt me..."

"Never Early, I swear to God if you give me this chance I'll give up my life before I would let anyone or anything hurt you. Early, this is so much. Can we go to the aquarium and just walk and talk like the old days? I haven't been there since the divorce; I knew it was one of your favorite places and I didn't want to ruin your visit there by seeing me. There's a new baby sea otter named Alki that I've been dying to see..."

For the first time Susan broke eye contact and turned her back to Early. "No, no Early, please don't do this to me. How can you just put all I've done behind you? If you haven't thought this through it will kill me to lose you again.

Early took her in his arms, "Susan, I'm human. I can't promise that when we get into a fight, in the heat of anger, I won't throw your past up at you. If, no, when I do, you have my permission to throw it right back. My commitment to grace is on the same level as my marriage vows."

When he took her into his arms, the move hadn't been sexual, but as he pulled her to him he became acutely aware of two things. His hands were on her breasts and her ass was mashed against his rapidly growing erection. In all of his thinking about Susan and their future, sex had never intruded. Odd, since Susan was by any measure the best he'd ever had. Evidently, if his mind hadn't been thinking about that minor detail, other parts of his anatomy had been anxious.

Susan spun in his arms and pressed herself fully to him. Her cheek rested on his chest and her tears wet his shirt. After a full minute of silence Susan lifted her head and said, "Early, you have to know how much I want you, but let me make it more special. I need a bath, I look a mess and..."

Early cut her off with a kiss. His tongue moved into her mouth and was caressed by hers. Her breath was sweet and her taste what he'd remembered. He couldn't get enough of her. At the same time that he wanted to be tender and loving, he also wanted to consume her with his mouth, with his whole body.

He crushed her body to his and felt her involuntary moan, but no resistance. Her arm went under his, first around his back then moved up until each hand was on one of his shoulders pulling him to her.

Early broke the kiss and sucked a deep breath. That breath was full of her scent, spicy and warm. Susan was breathing hard as she again lay her wet cheek on his chest. She did that little move he'd tried so hard to forget. It was something like a cross between a shiver and shimmy. It had always been her body's involuntary announcement that she was open to any and every thing he might want of her. Early's cock was hard enough to crush diamonds.

His hand moved down her back and pulled her blouse from her jeans. Susan's response was to pull herself closer. Then with an unnatural abruptness she pulled back. "Early, it's my fertile time and I haven't used protection because I knew I didn't need it."

She bit her lip, "I know I want your baby, but is this the right time? Early, I'm scared by all this..."

Again Early cut her off with a kiss. This one was tender. The thought of making a baby had, impossibly, made his cock harder, but it gave the rest of him pause. In the abstract, Early wanted kids; he'd even accepted that he wanted Susan's children. However, faced with the actual act of making them, he was conflicted. Desire was balanced with fear at the awesome responsibility of creating new life.

Early was a problem solver and it only took him a few seconds to solve this one. "I want your baby, our baby, but I want it done the right way. I want us married and all legal. Right now I also want you and I don't want to wear a condom either. The only solution I can figure is to see what sort of flights are available to Las Vegas. We can get married, get you pregnant and still have time to see a show before we come home Sunday.

Susan's face glowed as she playfully hit Early on the shoulder, "Early this is like waking up from a nightmare into a fairytale. I hate to get serious, but I don't want to make a baby for us unless we know that we're not being swept up by the passion of the moment.

Epilogue

Thirty-five years later:

Susan leaned over and kissed Early's forehead. "Of course you're my favorite grandchild, you're the youngest and that makes you the best..."

"Granny! You tell all of us that we're your favorite, and Aunt Mary going to have another baby so I won't always be the youngest."

"Early, you'll never pin Granny down, whoever she's with is always her favorite, and that will never change. Now hurry, the cousins are already up in the pool. The contest starts in ten minutes and you don't want to be late." As the boy shot from the suite, she added to his back, "remember no running on the ship..."

Susan smiled at her daughter, "When are you and Jay going to tell him that you're going to have another?"

"As soon as we know that I'm past the danger point. I don't want to take a chance even though I didn't have any problems with him. Mom, you know I've never regretted forgiving Jay when I caught him..."

"When he confessed..."

Anne smiled ruefully, "When he confessed that he'd cheated on me. You told me then that you'd share where you came by all your wisdom 'someday.' This seems like 'someday' to me. I mean I know that you and Daddy were divorced for awhile, and I assume that you caught him cheating on you, although I have a hard time picturing Daddy doing something like that."

Susan took a deep breath, "This cruise has been a wonderful family time, I'm so grateful that Early's company gave us this as a retirement bonus. I did promise to tell you and I hope you won't regret it. It doesn't make me look too good... You see, your daddy never cheated on me. Before our divorce I was a slut and I cheated on him repeatedly. What I saw in Jay was much like what I knew happened to me. He woke up to what he was doing and changed his behavior. He didn't confess until he knew he wouldn't cheat again, and he wanted a fresh start before you made a baby together. I think he should have kept his cheating to himself, but it was easy to see that you still wanted him -- you just had to get past your pain to make your marriage work.

"It wasn't that easy for your father. I hadn't quit, and I didn't confess. I didn't deserve forgiveness, much less what your father calls grace. I suppose that's why it's grace. If someone deserves to be forgiven they don't need grace. I wanted your father back more than I can possibly put into words. Yet there was nothing I could do to make up for what I'd done. Let me start at the beginning...

"... So we flew to Vegas and got married that night and we lived happily ever after." Susan's expression and tone said better than words that the healing had required hard work and more than a bit of pain.

Anne was quiet for a long time, then said, "I had no idea. Were you ever tempted again, I mean I must have heard the expression 'once a cheater always a cheater' a million times when we were having problems."

Susan wiped her eyes, "There's truth to that, people don't change very easily, but unlike every other species we do have the power to change who we are. Church history is full of sinners who became saints; it's just that most people don't want to change or have sufficient motivation to change. I'd have a double mastectomy before I'd bare my breasts to another man. Early's grace gave me you and your brother, and our wonderful grandkids. I've tried to be the best wife a man could have, but that's only what every spouse deserves. I can never make up for what I've done, all I can do is remember and use it to be a better person than I was. Your father is the one who deserves all the credit for our happiness.

This story is much better because Erik Thread edited it. Any mistakes were added after he finished.