I May Be Dumb . . .

When she met me at the door, I noticed that she was wearing a sun dress that showed off her legs nicely. Her bare shoulders and neck were equally enticing. "Damn," I thought, "she's still a beautiful woman." She took me into her den and offered me a glass of wine. After a couple of sips, I asked her, "So what's going on with Josh and Jake?"

She sat her glass down and clasped her hands in her lap. "I think they're doing OK, but our divorce has been pretty rough on them."

"I know it has," I said, "but it was your decision, not mine, to do that to them."

"Anyway," she went on, "I've been thinking about what would be the best thing for them in the long run, what would make their lives better."

"We're doing everything I can think of to provide for their welfare," I thought. "Where is she going with this?"

"And to be honest," she continued, "I haven't been very happy with my own life. I've missed a lot about the way things used to be."

My thoughts were a jumbled mess: "What is this all about? What can she want?"

She looked up at me with her blue eyes and said, "I've been wondering lately if I made a mistake, maybe the biggest mistake of my life. I guess what I'm trying to say is I'm wondering if you think we could ever get back together?"

And just like that, there it was. In one magic moment, I thought, all the heartbreak and pain of the last couple of years could be undone. I could stop making a fool of myself trying to meet new women. All my loneliness could end and I could have my family back together. And I could get the most beautiful woman I had ever met for my wife again.

As she waited to hear what I had to say, I also thought back to all her deceit and betrayal. I remembered that morning when I wept to learn how coldly and calculatingly she had manipulated me.

I put the glass down and rose to my feet. "I may be dumb, Julia, but I'm not stupid."

I walked out the door.

Julia's Story

I heard a line from a song on the radio not long ago that went "Don't hate me because I'm beautiful." If I were singing that song, I'd change the line to "I hate it that I'm beautiful." I hate it because guys are always hitting on me, trying to chat me up, trying to get me into bed. Sure, there are some cute guys out there, but most of them are dumber than a post and have no greater ambition in life than to get laid. Attracting men like that is not gratifying, it's a pain in the ass.

If I sound like it's the wrong time of the month, there's a reason for it. I had just gotten out of a marriage with a guy who turned out to be just like the guys I was just talking about. OK, that's not entirely fair: Robert was not dumb as a post, he was just a good old Carolina boy who turned out to be neither as intelligent as I am nor as ambitious. He romanced me while I was in college, and I was naïve enough to think I was in love with him. Once we settled down together, it didn't take long before I was climbing the walls. While I was eager to advance, he was content with his 8-to-5 job. When I wanted to attend cultural activities, he wanted to go to football games. We were about as compatible as oil and water.

Finally, I told him it was over. The poor oaf, he never even saw it coming. I felt sorry for him, but I just couldn't settle for a second-rate spouse. I divorced him, quit my job and left for graduate school. It was time for me take a step up in every aspect of my life.

I'd expected to feel relieved to be out of a bad marriage, but I was surprised to find how badly I felt after the divorce. I felt like I had failed, and I couldn't help wondering if there was something else I could have done to make our marriage succeed. My parents always pushed me to be the best, and I guess I've turned into something of a perfectionist. I get upset when everything isn't just the way I think it should be, and I'm hardest of all on myself when I'm not perfect. So failing at something as major as a marriage was a terrible disappointment for me.

Maybe that's why I wasn't put off when Mark began to talk with me the first day of graduate school. I knew he had to be smart or he wouldn't have been accepted to the Goizueta School. And I quickly learned that he already had a good job in marketing with a major corporation, so he clearly was ambitious enough to take the next step up in his career by strengthening his academic credentials. On top of all that, he had also just gotten out of a bad marriage. In short, we had a lot in common.

As school went on, our relationship seemed to blossom spontaneously. One minute we were talking after a class, the next we were taking long walks across campus. Afternoon study sessions seemed to transition effortlessly into dinner. Everything seemed easy, so asking him into my apartment after one of our non-date dates seemed perfectly natural.

He didn't come on strong, but he made his desire for me clear. Then he left it up to me. That was such a change from the way men usually hit on me, that I was turned on, not off. I led him to the bedroom.

We both had been without sex for too long. We were so horny that we wound up making love three times, going from quick-and-frantic to hungry-for-seconds to loving contentment. Even in the height of passion, he made sure that I came first.

From that point on, our relationship moved to a higher level, and I think it was clear to both of us we were headed toward marriage. I took Mark with me to meet my parents over Christmas, and I knew they were favorably impressed. As we were leaving to return to school, my Mom pulled me aside and whispered, "Hang on to this one, Julia, he's a keeper."

By our second year in grad school, we were engaged and the future seemed to open up in front of us like a script from a movie. And that's when my doubts started. I woke up in the middle of the night from a dream about Robert, my ex. In my dream, he had been taunting me, "You gave up, you failed, you couldn't make it work." I tried to run from him, but it felt as though I was running in slow motion. And Robert was always right behind me, yelling and rebuking me.

I tried to tell myself it was just pre-wedding jitters, but once it started I couldn't shake the thought that the divorce was my fault. The idea kept eating away at me. "Was it me, not Robert? Did I fail my marriage?" I wondered. The closer we got to my wedding with Mark, the guiltier I felt.

Finally, my guilt reached the point where I couldn't stand it any longer. I knew what I had to do: I had to go back to Robert and see if I could make it work.

Mark, of course, was devastated when I told him. He begged me not to go, but I told myself to hold firm. "If I don't do this," I realized, "I'll never have any peace of mind. Besides, I couldn't be a good wife to Mark with this doubt in my mind."

I called Robert and arranged to fly over to Durham and spend the weekend with him. He was ecstatic; it was clear that he hadn't gotten over me. "Well," I thought, "that's a good sign."

The day Mark drove me to the airport, I could tell he was despondent. There were tears in his eyes, and Mark isn't a big crier. But I just put that out of my mind -- this was something I had to do for myself.

When we got to the gate, Mark helped me with my bags and then hugged me tightly. "Just please don't sleep with him," he whispered to me. Of course I knew that was a major fear for Mark, but I already knew that I would have sex with Robert. That was one of the big questions I needed to answer about our relationship. Rather than lie to Mark, I just said, "I understand," and headed for the counter.

When the plane got to the gate at RDU, Robert was waiting for me. Before I could say a word, he picked me up off the floor and kissed me passionately. "Wow!" I thought, "This is going to be quite a weekend!"

It took a while for my baggage to show up on the carousel, and even longer to drive to Robert's place in Durham. When we finally arrived, it was time for dinner. Robert was never very good in the kitchen, but he'd had the foresight to order take-out from a very good restaurant in the Triangle. So we sat around his dining room table, enjoying the meal and a couple of bottles of wine. After dinner, we moved onto the couch in his den, and he brought out a bottle of liqueur for dessert.

The two of us sat there drinking and laughing about old friends for a couple of hours until Robert suddenly put down his glass, kissed me passionately, picked me up and carried me into his bedroom. He was like a wild man, frantically pulling my clothes off, kissing me everywhere he could reach. I was drunk and horny, and I had no plans to stop him.

Before he could mount me, I pushed him onto his back and began to lick and suck on his cock. Normally, I don't care for blowjobs. They make me feel subservient and degraded; the thought of swallowing some man's cum usually makes me gag.

But tonight I was determined to give everything I had to making this weekend successful. I had made up my mind before I left Atlanta that I was going to give Robert the best blow job he'd ever had in his life. So I held his straining cock in my hands and licked and kissed it until he was almost there. Then I puckered my lips around him and began to bob my head faster and faster until he exploded. As he lay there stupefied, I smiled at him, opened my mouth to show him I still had all his cum there, and then made a big show of swallowing everything.

When we were married, Robert was a once-a-night guy, and I really didn't expect anything else to happen that night. So I was pleasantly surprised when, after only a few minutes, he rolled me onto my back and began to fuck me. At first his cock wasn't very hard, but it soon stiffened as he began pounding into me. It usually takes a lot of foreplay to get me excited enough to enjoy sex, but his urgency seemed to stimulate me, and soon I was pumping my hips off the sheets until we both came in a major orgasm.

When we awoke the next morning, Robert leaned over to kiss me, but I could smell his morning breath before he even got close, so I hopped out of bed and darted into the shower. Over breakfast, he told me about his plans for the weekend. He wanted to spend the day driving me around to show me some of the places we used to frequent when we were married, as well as some of the new developments built after I left. That evening we were going to meet up with a bunch of his friends at a sports bar and watch UNC play in the regionals of the NCAA tournament.

As we drove around, it was fun to see some of our old haunts again. I had some good memories of them, but Robert acted as though we were on a holy pilgrimage. And you can only see so many strip malls and new housing developments before they all begin to look alike.

The sports bar was already lively when we arrived, even though it was over an hour before tip-off. I knew a couple of the guys and gals we sat with, but most of them were strangers. I did notice several questioning glances in my direction from the women, but fortunately there were no awkward questions about the past, present or future.

In fact, the guys ordered several buckets of beer for us and proceeded to discuss the upcoming game in endless detail. I know basketball is a big thing in North Carolina, but frankly, it's not my thing. Some of the girls joined in the discussion, and I wondered if they really cared or if they were just trying to score points with the guys. The rest of the women gravitated together and began to chatter about local gossip, people about whom I neither knew nor cared.

When the game finally ended and the celebrating wound down, Robert had had too many beers to be allowed to drive. I wheedled the car keys from him, said good night to the rest of the crew, poured him into the passenger's seat and headed for his place.

By the time we arrived, Robert had sobered up a bit, but he was still far from steady. As he kept rehashing the high points of UNC's victory, I steered him toward his bedroom and began to undress him. I'd gotten him down to his boxers when he surprised me by grabbing my arm, pulling me down on top of him and starting to undress me.

I could see that his drunken excitement had changed to drunken lust, and I decided not to fight it. No one could say I wasn't giving this weekend my all.

It was over pretty quickly. I may not have been aroused, but Robert certainly was. He slobbered over me and rutted in me, shooting his load in a few minutes. As he fell asleep beside me, all I could think was, "Thank God that's over."

Robert didn't awaken until close to noon, which was fine with me. I spent the time showering, being careful to douche, and packing my bags. We went out for a late brunch at a restaurant in a shopping strip, and by then it was time to head for the airport.

On the way to RDU, Robert continued to reminisce about good times we'd had when we were married. As he droned on, I too was lost in memories, but I was thinking of all the things I had hated about our marriage. I had forgotten all the little things Robert used to do that drove me nuts; in one weekend all of them had come back to me with a vengeance. Now I knew for certain that I was not to blame for our divorce.

When he dropped me at the curb to catch my flight, he looked hopefully at me and asked, "So when are you coming back?"

"Never," I said, and walked away.

I may have broken one heart that weekend, but I repaired another when I returned to Atlanta, so I guess that evened things out. Now that I had vanquished all my doubts and guilt about Robert, there was nothing to stop Mark and me from getting married.

I'm going to jump ahead now, because although the next few years were great, there was really nothing remarkable about them. Our wedding was small but beautiful; my parents couldn't have been happier. Buying our first home in Alpharetta was exciting, and I set about decorating it just the way I had always envisioned it. Then, along came Joshua, and that changed everything.

I had always envisioned myself as a mother, and I loved nursing and caring for this little bundle of life that had been an actual part of me. Mark proved to be a good daddy, getting up in the night to bring Josh to me when he needed to nurse, taking his turn changing diapers and generally doing his full share of our new responsibility. So motherhood was good for me.

But after Josh's first anniversary, I began to feel a sense of discontent. I guess I had begun to make that transformation from mother--the child-bearer and life-giver-- to mom, the maid who's always on call and never gets a day off. I loved Josh, of course, but I missed that sense of wonder I felt when he was first born.

After thinking about it for a while, I realized that the best way to recapture that wonderful feeling I had had with Josh was to have another child. I think Mark was a little hesitant, but when I made it clear that this was what I needed, he had no objection. And so about nine months later, Jacob was born.

The routine began again, but this time we had the benefit of knowing what to expect, so we weren't as panic-stricken by every cry and hiccup as we'd been with Josh. On the other hand, we had a two-year old who had lost his position as the most important person in the house, and that required a new set of skills.

Once again, after a year of nonstop mommy duty, I began to feel that familiar uneasiness, that sense that I wasn't fulfilling my potential. By now I knew that another baby was not the answer, so I decided that it was time for me to go back to work. Mark wasn't too happy about that; he wanted the boys to have a full-time mother for a while longer. But I convinced him that our children would be better off if their mother was happier, and he gave in as I knew he would.

Finding a job after three years out of the workforce is no easy task, but I was lucky. Dr. Allen Spencer, one of my old professors at the Goizueta School, had started a company and wanted me to work for him. I had taken one of Dr. Spencer's courses in grad school and been very impressed. The man was definitely a genius, and I had worked hard to do well in his class. Now he had left Emory to form his own consulting company in the red-hot field of networks and telecommunications policy.

I felt that my background with the Georgia Public Service Commission would be excellent experience for the position, and I hoped that Dr. Spencer would remember me favorably from when I took his class.

Both those assumptions proved correct; he offered me the job after my initial interview with him. I would learn that that was a characteristic of Allen Spencer: he made decisions quickly and acted on them immediately. What a welcome contrast that was to the people I used to work with at GPSC. They dithered over decisions for weeks; no one seemed brave enough to take a position and stick with it.

I was pleased to see how quickly I could return to career mode after so long a layoff. Within the first week I was dealing with issues that were every bit as challenging as my toughest courses in grad school. I loved the work and I loved the working environment.

Of course all this meant that I couldn't spend as much time at home as before. But Josh and Jake seemed to thrive in the daycare arrangement we found for them, and Mark was there to pick up the slack any time I had to work late.

I was also gratified by my new salary. Unfortunately, it wasn't as much as Mark was making -- I always felt a little competitive about the relative size of our paychecks -- but it was a great starting point. Of course, returning to work meant I had a lot of expenses. The business wardrobe I'd had at GPSC was completely out of date, so I had to replace that as quickly as possible. Not only was I expected to look professional at work, but Allen soon began taking me on some of his frequent trips to Washington, D.C., to consult with the Federal Communications Commission. That meant a travel wardrobe, plus new luggage and other expenses. And, of course, my old car wasn't suitable for my new role. I had to spend quite a bit to get back in the workforce, but it was worth it.

Indeed it was all heady stuff, and I found myself exulting in my good fortune. Perhaps the thing I liked best about my new job was my colleagues. I'd known a couple of them from grad school, but the others I met were equally sharp and dynamic. We all had a lot in common, and I was very glad to be part of such an exciting team.

But my biggest inspiration was Allen Spencer himself. He was one of the few people I would willingly admit was smarter than I. He was able to see the implications of technological changes well before others, and to realize market dependencies when others saw no relationship. And then he could turn those insights into programs and algorithms that were golden.

In addition to his intellectual prowess, he had an aura of leadership about him that was equally remarkable. In truth, he wasn't that handsome a guy, but when he walked into a room, he just seemed to command the attention of everyone around.

For someone so brilliant and compelling, I thought his wife was surprisingly ordinary. I had met her at a university function when I was in grad school. She was a mousy little thing; I couldn't imagine what had attracted Allen to her. He did have a couple of cute kids, though.

One time, one of the newer staff members asked Allen what the key to success was. I thought it was a rather stupid question, but Allen's answer really made me think. "I can't speak for everyone," he said, "but the reason I'm successful is because I'm amoral." That brought a little gasp from around the table, but Allen continued, "Many people know the solution to their problems, but they're afraid to act. They worry about the morality of what they want to do or they're afraid of what other people will think. Either way, they fail when they could have succeeded."