Moot Point - Anita

"I can't explain how lucky I am. You made me feel better. I guess I won't feel good for a period but thank you for tonight."

I stand up and pay for both of our drinks.

"Call me if you want to talk. Or to have coffee." Man! That felt good. After all those years, to feel that I'm not yet dead inside - or outside - and I can still get phone numbers from such angels.

When I am walking home, I feel better. I don't know why I did that but I kissed her hand when taking the napkin from it and saying "I will."

I don't feel guilty. Even if it was a false suspicion. No one has the right to make their spouse go through something like that. Especially me, I never did anything to deserve it.

Tonight, I will not talk to Anita. I feel better now and I will try to feel like that after this moment. She betrayed my trust. Not because she cheated on me, I still don't know about this. But now I know that she can live like nothing happened when I am suffering like this.

I changed my mind. I will try to talk to Anita tomorrow and if she avoids me again, I will make my mind. Cheated or not, that's not the woman I loved and that's not the marriage I deserve.

I enter home silently. I sincerely don't want to talk to her. If she was faithful, she deserves to be left in the dark. Like she did to me. I remove my shoes, slowly walk to the living room and...

Wait. I don't see her shoes where she always leaves them. I slowly walk to the door, check the bowl that we put our keys and stuff in. Her car keys aren't there.

I put my shoes back on and go outside. Her car isn't there.

I go up and check the bedroom, she hasn't returned home.

I really don't want to but I have to. I call her. She doesn't answer.

I call Andrew and go to his place to sleep. I don't want to be alone. That's too much for me. That ruined my good and confident spirit.

In the morning I talk to him. He doesn't want to say much but I get that he agrees with me.

"Dude, let's not get ahead of ourselves. She'll eventually show up and you'll learn what's going on."

"I'm getting past that suspicion part Andy. This is not acceptable. I don't deserve such a thing and I don't feel like we can be Ok after this. Even if she has a good reason."

"I see your point, maybe she's having a breakdown or something like that?"

"She was breaking down on his jokes that night, you may be right. Are these Cuban?!"

"Come on man, I got only one box left!"

"Can't you see I'm in pain?"

"Fuck! Get one, no more. And stop piling on the agony, your horns are about to show!"

"Hey! No jokes on that part. I'll take two as punishment."

It feels good to be with a friend in such times.

It's finally morning. I couldn't sleep well again. I am waiting for him to go to work, so I will go out with him. I don't want to go home because probably she won't be there and I will go crazy. I can go to work, invent some meetings and spend time like that. If I can manage to act cool at night, she may feel confused. I hate to see myself still trying. It's out of my hands already.

I return home at night to see that the lights are on. She's home.

I open the door and see her looking at me in the kitchen. I go to the bedroom without speaking to her. She must see I'm angry and I can have my own walls.

I take a shower, change my clothes and go down.

"Where were you last night?"

No, I didn't hear wrong. It wasn't me asking this question. She was asking me.

"What do you mean?"

"You weren't home when I returned."

"Oh, you did return then. I called you."

"I was busy."

"Busy with what?"

"I told you. Flo introduced me to some..."

"Oh, shut up!"

"What? How can you talk to me like that?"

Oh, dear Anita. Look at me with those beautiful angry eyes all you want. They don't have that power over me now. You're not the Anita I fell in love with. She wouldn't do that to me. I feel like you lost me already.

Damn! What did I just think? I should have said that out loud.

But they weren't true. Those were good words, just if I had the guts to tell them to her.

It hurt me thinking like that, I want to change that thought to "I feel like I lost you already." Because I was lying. Those eyes and this look are still making me squirm. At least until I learn that she betrayed me somehow. I need proof.

"You may tell me if you want. If you don't want, I already suffered. I know something's going on."

"What? What are you talking about?"

"Do you fancy this guy? Do you let your slut friend Sandra meddle with our marriage? Do you not care when you're leaving your husband worried about you and this marriage like that? I learned that I can't stop you, since the day before."

"Sean, I didn't know you had such an inferiority complex, what are you trying to say?"

"I'm not trying, I'm saying it. You proved that you can do whatever you want, without answering to anyone."

"You're not making any sense!"

"At least I'm not hiding things from you."

"Are you crazy? I didn't do anything. I was working, you idiot!"

"Not answering the phone, not calling me later, not coming home, disappearing in that party with him? I didn't beat him up there just not to embarrass you. I hope I see him again."

Oh, she understands it's serious. I can tell.

"I told you I didn't do anything. He's an important person and I just tried to..."

"So, you made me feel like that just for a few more clients. As if you need more money. Good luck then."

"Sandra told me to stay by his side, that's how we work. We keep the network alive. She said that he was going to up both our businesses."

"Oh, she said it, didn't she? Before or after telling me that you looked like you were having fun? With all her disturbing mimics and implicative smile?"

"What? There must be a misunderstanding. Why would she put me in a bad position? Maybe she regretted introducing us since we got along too well. Maybe she said that to get you alarmed and..." She was talking silly. These sounded like random words just to find an excuse.

"And what? Stop you from coquetting with him? After insistently pimping you to him? Don't insult my wit."

"I wasn't..."

"Oh, stop that. You're picking a word I said to go off on a tangent of the real conversation. You still didn't answer where you were at that party!" I guess this is the first time I'm raising my voice to her.

"What do you think? That I was letting him fuck me? Upstairs? When you were there? In that party with all those people?"

When she talks about it like that...

Maybe she has a point. We weren't teenagers, no such things happened in those parties as far as I knew. But still, they weren't around.

"You can think what you want! And do whatever you decide to do. You will regret this in the future. I will make you regret this. That's it. I won't talk about this anymore. You've insulted me enough. You will suffer for a chance to apologize to me. I will be at the office the whole week and stay at Sandra's; so, if you're threatening to leave me or something else, be my guest. If you don't trust me, there's no need to talk anymore." She threw the plate on the counter, put her shoes on, took her purse and keys. She left without looking at me. She looked angry.

I can't think clearly at the moment.

She was very angry so I had to be wrong. But there is no explanation of how she avoided to answer some questions and how she tried to find some lame excuses to some of them.

I'm calling her but she's not answering.

This is my third call and this time her phone is off.

I couldn't sleep the whole week. I called Sandra a few times, she told me that Anita was sleeping or at the office in all those calls.

Sandra talked to me in a way that she was blaming me too. But she didn't sound angry. She sounded like she was enjoying this.

I wanted to insult her but she was the only possibility for me to communicate with Anita.

A week, especially feeling like that, clouds your judgement. It can go either way but, in my case, this led me to feel guilty more than feeling wronged.

My panic of ruining something that I invested my life in upstaged my anger on how she treated me in a way I didn't deserve. I learned that, even if I was mistaken, I didn't have that credit where she would try to comfort me.

But I had times wondering where she was at that moment. What if she was with him? What if I was right? I don't know. This feeling is here to stay, as it seems.

I probably will not feel the way I did before but I still love her, I guess. I don't want her out of my life. I would, if only I had a proof or a confession.

If she confessed and if she was sorry, I might have considered things, I don't know.

But I can't unlove her based on a hunch, can I? Again, can I live with that doubt in my head? Wondering where she is when she's not with me?

Fuck! Was she in the office all those nights?

And Sandra's voice. I don't trust her. That weasel could be calling that leech to her house and play cupid for them. Of course, if I'm not too optimistic about my situation. Of course, if they haven't been fucking all those days. It started to feel like there were too many gray areas within this short period. Including Anita's business trip!

But as I said. The guilt overcame my suspicion and anger. May be because the other alternative had a higher chance of being wrong. Or being harder for me to accept. I don't know.

Today is the day she is supposed to return, if she was counting the days as I did.

It's 10:40 PM and she's not still home. I call her. Her phone is on. She doesn't answer. I managed to stay calm up to now but now I feel panic. I feel the need to apologize but I can't reach her. I think I screwed it up.

I hear her open the door. I stand up and she's there, standing in front of the door. I can't understand if she's angry or frustrated to see that I'm still there.

"I'm sorry for everything I said. I love you more than anything and I lost it because of that, I guess. And my jealousy." I don't like myself a lot at that moment. But I don't have the energy to defend my case. I'm at the point of 'fix it or leave'.

It's hard for me to see her not even trying to make me feel better after I mentioned my love and jealousy for her. My declaration on how I value her.

She looks softer. Not as she loves me but softer.

"Can we forget what happened? I promise I won't act like that again." That last sentence was not in my plan. I acted like a rookie while making a business deal, trying to tie things up with a last-minute trade-off.

"Ok."

I watch her remove her shoes, walk to me, give me a peck on the lips and go upstairs. I feel Ok; not great but relieved. I'm relieved because, in theory, I preserved what we had.

But deep down, there is something horrifying me. Because if she cheated on me, I begged her to forgive me and she just said 'Ok' in return. She wouldn't be that cool, it's not possible. She didn't cheat.

I'm waiting for her to get out of shower. It's weird, actually. Normally, we should have been in the shower together, having sex. A peace sex. To show each other everything is fine after a troubled period.

But I don't feel like it's Ok for me to go in there. As if I need permission. As if she's not mine. Even worse, as if don't know if we're at that stage, like a new date. I guess it will take time for us to get back to normal. I somehow feel that I have a bit of hesitation, the kind you feel for strangers. I hope it won't be like that for the rest.

She comes out wearing a robe. I'm not sure if she did that most of the time. She grabs another towel and goes back in. When she's out, she has her nightgown on. I miss her tities.

I stand up to hug her, she says "I'm still a bit angry, give me some time."

In the morning, I look at her, to watch her sleep. I don't feel peaceful this morning. I'm not sure how she will react when she wakes up.

She opens her eyes to see me. A tentative smile and then she gets out of the bed. I watch her bosom when she sits up, her hair when she leans forward to put on her slippers, then her swaying ass when she walks to the bathroom. I want her body more today. But I don't feel that soft, peaceful love that much. I wonder if anyone else watched that ass being hauled by her to some bathroom recently.

She comes home late for the following two weeks. After that, things start to turn to normal.

We had our first sex then. It was the first day she came home on time.

It's been two months and I think our normal was different from that. She stares into space or looks bored time to time. I feel that I have less impact or importance in this marriage.

Today, at the office it dawned on me that I never heard of any parties or exhibitions lately. In fact, I didn't hear Sandra's name for a long time.

I'll call and ask Andrew.

"Hey, I haven't heard from Sandra or her parties for a long time. Have you?"

"Yep, I was there this Saturday. I didn't ask you why you weren't there because you haven't been there for months. Anita stopped coming after a few weeks too."

"Anita? When?"

"The weeks when you had problems. Wait, you didn't know?"

"Alone?"

"I have no idea."

"Was that guy with her?"

"What guy? Oh, that guy. Yeah, they were, uhm..."

"What?"

"No, no big deal but someone asked me if he was her husband once. They were talking or standing together all the time. Sandra was with them as I remember. Are you still wondering about that issue? I thought it was a false alarm. Sorry dude."

What the hell?

"Why didn't you call me?"

"I didn't think it was a big deal, since they were like that when you were there too. Why? Is there something going on? What did she say?"

"Nothing, that's the problem. Did they arrive and leave together?"

"I don't remember Sean, I guess they left together once."

Is he a moron? Do I have to ask all of these?

"Ok, call me if you hear anything."

"About what?"

"Them. Or if you see him around Anita again; I will kick his ass. Even if this costs me my marriage on 'false alarm'."

"Who's ass? Florian? I doubt I will. He's engaged with Sandra now. As in fiancée engaged."

"What? When?"

"Ok, this may sound a bit suspicious. I mean I feel like you can find it suspicious, thinking about it now."

"Andy, tell me whatever it is, god damn it!"

"I heard that he took Sandra to a vacation for two days after that party, the last one I saw Anita."

Yeah, this is suspicious.

"And he put a ring on her finger that week in her exhibition. Ross said Anita and Sandra had an argument that week and they're not talking anymore."

"Fuck this! I'm calling Sandra."

"Come on man! She'll cloud your mind for no reason!"

"See you later." It's Anita's fault to let her slutty friend have a chance to cloud my mind. Months ago, no one could cloud my mind about Anita.

Sandra was the reason for all of my problems. But at this point, since she had fallen apart from Anita, she can be the only person who may help me clarify things.

She answers, finally.

"Yes Sean." Her voice sounds distant. As in 'cold' distant.

"Hi, Sandra. How is it going?"

"Fine, what's this about?"

"Why are you talking like that? Is there..."

"Ok, if you want to play that game, it's fine by me. I'm fine Sean, how are you? How is work?" Her fake friendly voice was even worse than that cold one.

"Ok, I talked to Andrew and he told me that you and Anita weren't talking anymore. I wanted to ask you because Anita didn't tell me about it."

"Oh, that. I'm sorry but I don't like to gossip. And, if you have to know, I'm not like you. I mean, I don't share."

What the fuck is she talking about?

"I don't understand, can you..."

"I'm getting married and my husband is not for sharing. All marriages aren't like yours. Don't disturb me anymore."

And she hung up.

This time I didn't even have to think about it. Ideas started to pop in my brain. Her words about my marriage were disturbing.

She didn't answer my other calls and I'm standing with the phone in my hand, confused, almost completely sure what her words meant but still without any proof.

Could she be that witty to think of something on the spot, to put a false stain on Anita like that? I mean, is it possible that she made that up? That I shared my spouse?

I hardly waited for Anita to return home. It is time to confront her. I can't wait anymore and I ambush her when she's taking her shoes off.

"I called Sandra."

I was expecting panic or fear on her face but she looks at me with indifferent eyes.

"And?"

"She told me things."

She looks at me. I don't know if she's even a bit stressed about this conversation but she doesn't look like it.

"Yeah, she's getting married with that French guy."

Oh, Flo became 'that French guy'.

"You mean Flo?"

"Yes."

"She implied things."

"I'm not surprised. She talked rude to me about him. I guess he was acting too friendly with me and she wanted to keep me away. It's about her twisted mind, not me. And, you know me. If someone choses to dispose me for some reason or for someone else, that person becomes insignificant for me."

I don't have words because instead of preparing a counter argument, I've been watching her expressions. This has to be true. Sandra was a bitch and...

Damn! I'm stuck in a position with my instincts, the suspicious ambiguous events, Anita's disturbing change and a slut's words which I can't trust, while there is my love and desire to trust Anita without any concrete evidence to get me out of that love.

While I'm looking at her, her words made me settle, stay passively living with this conflict.

"I hope you didn't forget to prepare something to eat while you were snooping around. I'm starving." I watch her walk upstairs, looking at her legs, desiring her.

It's been two years and we never became the same. But I didn't regret not leaving her because I still couldn't find any proof that she cheated me with that guy.

I know it's pretty obvious that something happened in that period but I don't know the extent of it.

Similar episodes happened a few times, lasting for a couple of weeks or a month but I made sure that bastard wasn't around in those times.

A cynical mind could think that she had some other affairs with other people but since I decided to trust her, this only proved that she was busy with work in those periods.

Plus, Andrew gave up trying to convince me that she deserved to be left.

Ok, I don't want to admit it but, I would have left her if she didn't make me feel like she wouldn't have cared.

If you still love someone and if the only reason to leave her is to punish her, you need to be sure that she will suffer from that.

Otherwise, I will be the only one suffering. More.