Looking Right At It Ch. 02

She stopped for a minute, sobbing a little, but pulled herself together and went on.

"And I did ... things with him that I never did with you—things that you had wanted to do with me, but I refused. And it would ... have gone on, if you hadn't found out. I don't know how long, but I hadn't ended it.

"Alan," she said suddenly, "do you want to talk? Do you want to shout at me, or call me the names I'm sure you must have thought of a thousand times? Shall I stop, and let you say something?"

"No, Julie. I'm sure I'll have plenty to say to you, but for now I don't mind listening. You have obviously thought about this a lot, and frankly I'm impressed. Your attitude is very different from the way it was the last time we talked."

She smiled ruefully, her cheeks still wet. "Yes, well, I was still in total denial back then, Alan. But if I can, let me at least say one more thing.

"I don't know what you want now, and I'm pretty scared to ask. But what I want is to come home and be your wife. I want to show you that I am so sorry for what I did; and show you that I can love you so much and so well that you'll want to stay with me."

She was crying again, fiercely. "You haven't asked yet, but I haven't spoken to Bobby even once since they day you threw me out. I've been staying at my sister's, and I quit my job at the agency. I found another job with Williams & Prentice, and that's working out all right so far."

"You really quit your job?" I said in surprise. Julie just nodded, then gradually pulled herself together and stopped crying. We sat quietly, each of us full of our own thoughts.

I got up and started to pace. "I didn't really know what to expect, Julie, but I was more than prepared to toss you back out of the house if you came in with any sort of attitude at all. I'm sure the last two months haven't been much fun for you either, but you can't really imagine what they've been like for me.

"I had a wife that I knew loved me, respected me—and desired me. Maybe our sex life was a little bland, but that was a compromise I was OK living with.

"And now—now I don't know what I have. I have a big hole where my trust in you used to be. And an even bigger one where my confidence used to be—my confidence in myself as a man, as your husband, and as a lover."

She just nodded, her eyes brimming again.

"I've found out some things about myself in the last two months, Julie. I found out I can manage without you. I could actually live the rest of my life without you. I can run the house, feed myself, stay in touch with the kids. I could maybe even find someone else who would love and respect me."

She was watching me intently, and now I did recognize what she was feeling. She was absolutely terrified.

"So if we're going to be together," I concluded, "I need to be convinced that I'm better off with you than without you. And that it's worth going through the continued pain of working through this. Because frankly, I'd probably be able to put the pain behind me a lot faster if we just got divorced and I moved on, maybe found someone else.

"Let's be honest, OK? Every time I see you, talk to you, hold you, I'm going to be thinking about you and Bobby. About how what we had meant so little to you that you could jump into bed with him."

I was still calm, speaking quietly, though my heart was thumping. "And how the hell am I ever supposed to make love with you again? How can I even kiss you, and not imagine his cock in your mouth?"

To my surprise she didn't gasp—she just kept looking at me intently, and listening.

"The worst, Julie—the very worst, and there's a lot that's bad, believe me!—is the sexual things you did with him that you would never do with me."

I started to say more, then abruptly stopped. What was the point? She knew what I was saying. I could see it on her face. Her expression had changed: she was no longer frightened for herself or worried about the marriage, she was feeling sympathy for my pain.

I kept pacing, enjoying the silence in some strange way.

After several minutes she said, "how about I get us some ice cream, and we can go out in the back yard? I miss seeing our trees."

We sat outside with our bowls of ice cream, talking about the yard and the work I had done. Then we chatted about the kids, and shared our impressions of our visits with them. We walked around the yard, and Julie told me a bit about her new job. She complimented me on my tighter, more muscular appearance, and I told her about how I'd been working out harder at the gym.

A couple of hours went by, and I realized that my mood was calm and cheerful—which surprised me. The good feelings had just sneaked up on me, enjoying Julie's company without thinking about what she had done, what had come between us.

Of course, at that thought I tightened up again. Julie saw it in my face, and she waited several minutes before she spoke again.

"Alan," she said very quietly, looking down, "do you think it would be all right if I came back home, at least for a little while? I'll sleep in the guest room, or wherever you want me to. And our relationship can be whatever you want it to be. I'm so desperate not to lose you . . ."

I could tell that she was once again very frightened—this was the moment of truth.

I sat silently for a couple of minutes. I had certainly considered this possibility, but I wanted to be sure before I said anything. And, I will admit, I didn't mind letting Julie hang in an agony of suspense for a while.

"Okay," I said finally. "I think you should sleep in the guest room for now.

"Frankly, Julie, I didn't expect I would want you to move back in. My feelings are still pretty raw. But I was really impressed by what you had to say to me earlier. It makes me feel we might have a chance."

I could tell she wanted to move into my arms, and I let her come to me. The hug was intense, very warm. I hadn't had her, or any other woman, pressed up against me in more than two months, and the feelings were almost overpowering. Neither of us spoke. I loved the feel and the smell of her. I was aware of how aroused I was feeling—which made me think about sex, which made me think about her and Bobby, which made me angry again. I broke the hug and stepped back.

Julie could see it all in my face, and she just looked down and said, "I know; I am so very sorry, Alan."

*** *** *** ***

Julie drove back to her sister's to pack a bag, and then she moved her things into the guest room. We agreed that I'd help her move the rest of her stuff home on the weekend. After our intense conversation I guess we were both exhausted; we quietly said goodnight, without touching, and went into our separate bedrooms.

The next morning I was up early, but Julie was already in the kitchen. There was fresh coffee and a big breakfast waiting for me, along with my wife watching me hopefully and a bit fearfully.

We still didn't touch, but I smiled at her and we ate together, sharing the newspaper and reading bits of it to one another as we had done for years. It was totally weird, simply because it felt so familiar and so good.

When our plates were empty and we were on our second cups of coffee, I looked at her and said, "Julie, can you tell me why?"

She flushed a bit, but never looked away from me. "Alan, I want to tell you everything—but I need to say first that I have no excuses. There are reasons for what I did, but none of them makes it excusable. None of them makes it less awful, less selfish. Okay?"

I nodded.

Julie talked for a while, mentioning some things that were new to me and others I'd already thought of. It was our first year with both the kids out of the house, and she'd been feeling a little restless. She still had her job, which she liked, but the big part of her that was her life as a mother suddenly seemed over. It made her feel a bit useless, and afraid of being middle-aged.

And we'd been married more than twenty years, and sex had become pretty routine. (It enraged me to hear THIS complaint, since she was always the one refusing to try anything different, but I sat quietly and listened.)

Men had always shown an interest in Julie, because she was very pretty and had a great figure, with breasts almost too big for her small frame. She was used to being flirted with, and to handling passes from men; and the attention pleased her. It had gone on the whole time we were together, and it was not a big deal to either of us.

But Bobby had caught her at a time when she was feeling vulnerable, wondering if she was getting older and less attractive. And his passiveness—the fact that he eyed her with obvious interest, yet never made any sort of move—confused her, and intrigued her. In all likelihood, this was Bobby's standard way of getting women, and it probably worked with a lot of them.

"Again, Alan," she said seriously, "none of this is an excuse. I HAVE no excuse. But the last thing I want to say is something Darlene talked to me about. Sometimes a person—even a person who knows better—does something really, really stupid. Or really, really bad. It's not logical, it doesn't make any sense, but they do it."

Suddenly, out of nowhere, she was crying again. "And that's what I did. And all I want is to make it up to you, and for you to take me back . . ." She stopped, crying hard.

I felt the instinct to take her in my arms, to be her comforting husband—but I just couldn't do it. I reached over and held one of her hands, and just watched her while she cried.

JULIE'S STORY

After a couple of weeks I was thrilled, but I was also very frightened. I couldn't believe how much Alan and I had gotten back to being good friends again—sharing our lives with one another the way we had before. We watched TV together, ran errands, cooked, and talked about everything. We talked about the kids, and work, and friends—but we also spent a lot of time talking about my adultery, and how he was feeling about it, and how we could move forward.

It had shocked me that when I first came back he wasn't wearing his wedding ring. But after a couple of days, without our discussing it, it was back on his finger.

I was so grateful to him for his patience! I could see the anger boil up in him at unexpected moments, I could almost feel the heat of it from across the room—but he would control himself until it had passed. Sometimes our talks would get fierce, but never nasty. I felt he was being a lot fairer to me than I deserved—or than I could have been if the situation were reversed.

But while as friends we were doing great, as lovers we were nowhere. There was an occasional hug, and once we held hands at the movies, but nothing more. I was still in the guest room and there were no signs that that would be changing anytime soon.

It wasn't that we weren't talking about sex. We talked about it a lot, and Alan was very direct about how he felt.

"Even though we're getting along, Julie—and I'm amazed sometimes at how well we're doing—it's painful even to imagine making love to you. When I think that you took my twenty years of fidelity and pissed all over it . . .

"And how am I supposed to compete with a 26-year old, who can probably get it up four times in an afternoon? For that matter, how am I supposed to touch you, while in my mind I'm seeing you fucking him doggy-style, or giving him the blow-job you never ever gave me?"

He was right, and I knew it, and I said so. And I said that I hoped that eventually my two times with Bobby would fade in importance, compared to the hundreds or thousands of times Alan and I had made love.

"And I didn't make love to him, Alan—we fucked. It was a matter of physical pleasure and nothing more. He didn't make me feel cherished and safe, the way you do."

"Yeah, well, he must have made you feel something good or you wouldn't have invited him back for seconds, would you?" Alan glared at me, and then sighed.

"Julie, I know sarcasm doesn't help, but I don't know what to say. Of course I want you, but too much of me is just too hurt and insecure. I can't match a 26-year old hunk; and knowing that you gave him what you wouldn't give to me is a pretty big obstacle."

I had been continuing to see Darlene twice a week, and she'd helped me a lot in understanding how Alan must be feeling. I had two things to try, and I tried them.

"Alan—honey. What I did is awful, we both know that. The first man I . . . took in my mouth should have been you; and the first man I tried those positions with should have been you. To my dying day I will wish I could take those things back, but I can't.

"But each of them happened only once. I want all the rest of the oral sex I have in my life to be with you. I want to . . . please you that way over and over, and learn with you how to please you best. I should never have begun with anyone else—but please let me continue with you!"

He smiled faintly. "That's a nice way of thinking about it, Julie. I know what you're saying is true ... it's just not so easy to get past what I'm feeling."

"I know," I said, and I handed him a book I'd been holding. "Let me tell you about this, OK?"

He looked at it in some amazement. " '101 Positions for Great Sex?' Hardly your cup of tea, I would have thought!"

I smiled at him, as lovingly as I could. "I bought that about a week ago, and I've been looking through it at night. There are lots of things in there that we've never done—that I've never done with anyone. I put some bookmarks in to mark the ones that particularly excited me.

"Alan, I know I robbed you of something that should have been yours. But there in the book are things that would be all ours, no one else's. And I promise you, I am ready and willing to try whatever you would like to try. I want is to be all yours."

I smiled at him and felt the tears welling up in my eyes yet again. I'd given it my best shot. I truly didn't know what else I could do.

*** *** *** ***

ALAN'S STORY

It had been almost four weeks, and where were we? I didn't know. Julie was back in the house. We were getting along okay, and in fact I liked seeing her every day, liked eating with her and talking about things. I liked our life together—this was my wife, and I hadn't stopped loving her.

My anger and pain was no longer broadly focused on Julie, but much more narrowly on Julie as a sexual being. We could be friends, we could be parents together, we could laugh and talk and hold hands—but the moment the possibility of sex arose, even if it was just in my mind, the painful feelings flooded over me.

So not only had we not made love, we hadn't even kissed, beyond a quick peck when we left for work in the morning. We'd had a couple of nice hugs, but they'd been the warm, friendly kind. As soon as they started to arouse me, I got angry and pulled away.

Julie was being patient and loving. I couldn't get over how much her work with the therapist had helped her, made her more self-aware and more understanding of my feelings. I felt a maturity and a generosity in her that I certainly didn't see during her brief affair with Bobby. In many ways I felt more than ever that this was the woman I wanted to grow old with.

Except. Except. That I couldn't have sex with her. Part of me wanted to, of course. I'd never stopped being attracted to her, and she'd made it very clear that she was ready and willing whenever I said the word. She didn't push, but she did make sure to let me see her a couple of times in her sexiest nighties as she poked her head into my room "just to say goodnight".

And the sexual positions book she gave me was quite a turn-on, especially for a man who hadn't had sex in about three months. Some of them appeared to require advanced gymnastics skills, but there were a few I would have been dying to try, had the situation been different. And it was definitely arousing thinking about the half-dozen or so that Julie had specifically marked as being exciting to her.

So we were stuck—or perhaps I was all by myself. I couldn't think of making love to Julie without feeling angry and humiliated all over again. Even imagining plain old missionary sex made me think about the guy who'd last been on top of Julie—and about whether his 26-year old cock was bigger or harder than mine, or whether he'd had more stamina and made her come harder. How does a guy get past that?

And imagining oral sex was worse. Julie was clearly eager to give me a blowjob, by way of atonement if for no other reason. But the vision that filled my mind was not of my cock in her mouth but Bobby's, with her sucking hard and looking up at him in excitement. Needless to say, the image was painful rather than erotic.

In short, we were at an impasse, and I didn't see how to get out of it.