Obtuse

I had been calling and texting Jason every ten minutes. He answered on my first email. I tried another casual lie, and he put me right in my place, asking what happened to my hose. I wasn't wearing them having taken them off after they became soiled during our sex. They were in my bag as I left the hotel. Suddenly, my obtuse husband became all observant.

I either had to stop lying or become more careful as to what I said. About seven, I arrived home to an empty apartment. I was beginning to realize that Jason was not coming home. I began to get frantic with worry. I was concerned about him. He was clearly hurting, and I was unsure of what he would do. I had tried his office repeatedly, but he had not answered. I called his boss Nancy. She is a good person and has quite a bit of experience with jealous partners.

I told her I was looking for Jason, and he has not been answering. I said we had a misunderstanding, and he had gone off mad. She said she would check his office and call me back. When she did, the news was not positive.

"I thin you's got a problem, Lucy," she said.

"How bad is it?"

"He's not angry, he's furious. Says he never wants to see the BITCH again. Never even heard him use the word before."

"Tell me he is alright at least."

"Seems physically Ok. He is working, but mentally, I'm not sure. Give him the weekend. He says he is staying in the office. I will check on him before I leave, and I will have the night watchman look in on him," she offered.

"Thank you. I appreciate the help."

I called my oldest daughter. Where Jason was concerned, she was my second choice in daughters, right behind Tina. For obvious reasons, I could not involve Tina at that moment.

"Katherine, it's your mother."

"Oh, what's wrong that you are calling me Katherine or even calling at all?"

"It's your father. He hit someone."

"With his bike?"

"No, with his fist."

"What! Dad had a fight?"

"Well, not exactly a fight. A friend of mine got between your Dad and me trying to protect me, and your Dad sort of knocked Frank out."

There was a long pause, and then she said, "Would this be the black guy you've been screwing."

"How did you know about that?"

"Classmate saw you with the guy in Chicago. Said he was tall, very dark, and good looking. Let's say I know your taste in men."

"Well, apparently I crossed some line with your father, and he is not talking to me."

"I think what happened is you got caught finally," she said.

"That's the thing. I'm not sure how much your Father knows, or what may have set him off. I need you to do some reconnaissance, so I am not flying blind here," I said.

An hour later, Kate called me back.

"Mom," Kate said.

"Am I screwed?"

"I think maybe. He said something about wedding vows, and that he is divorcing you. I don't think he ever knew, but I have no idea what he knows now," she said.

"Will he talk to you or better yet me?"

"You. I would say definitely not, and he warned me not to get involved. I think I will wait a day or two and call to find out how he is. How does that sound?" she said.

"Probably the best policy in the circumstances. Look if he calls you let me know," I said.

When I hung up with Kate, I just cried. What else was there to do? If you have missed it, I'm in love with my husband. I have a lot of faults. I'm greedy, ambitious, and promiscuous. But I love my husband. I guess when you come right down to it, I was the obtuse one. I was too stupid to see what my lusts would end up costing me.

Chapter 3

Jason: Girl Loses Boy

It was Saturday evening that I came out of my haze. My mind cleared enough to look at my situation. My work involves solving problems and teaching others to do the same. From Friday night through Saturday, all I did was work. I tried not to think about my situation. I was able to distract myself until I had regained control of my emotions.

Saturday at 7:00 p.m., I realized that I was hungry and tired. I had not eaten or slept since early Friday. It was time to take stock. A check of my wallet showed I had forty dollars and a credit card in my wife's name that had hitherto been for emergencies. You see; I had trusted my wife, implicitly. She handled the money. My paycheck went into her account. Every Friday evening, she gave me money for the week's groceries and our miscellaneous expenses.

By Friday, I had just enough left for the pizza dinner; I had planned? Friday is kind of a down day for us. I realized that was why the back of my mind knew that something was up from the way Mary was dressing. I guess I already knew what she was doing and just needed to convince myself. Well, recriminations would not solve the immediate problems.

I had no money and no place to live. First things first, I needed money. The student union was open, so I headed out to see if the credit card still worked. I made the maximum withdrawal of $500.00 dollars and grabbed a burger for dinner. Then I headed over to the bulletin board to see who was seeking roommates. It was a bad time of the year most people were set, but there were a few new ads up. I tried a couple and made appointments for the following day. There was a satisfaction in working on my problem.

Monday came too quick, and Nancy enforced her threat. I had several leads on sharing rooms, but no place I could move into. I would be stuck going home with Nancy. The department secretary kept leaving me messages that my wife had called. I ran some errands. First, I opened an account in my own name at the credit union and then went to the Admin Building to get my paycheck switched to my new credit union account. It was going to take four weeks, but they agreed to immediately stop the current direct deposit and issue me a paper check until the new direct deposit took effect.

I had long been a member of the Midtown Boxing Gym. It was a fairly modest and traditional boxing club-style place until the craze for boxing lessons as a workout hit. Now it occupied two floors of a high rise. One floor was virtually all women taking classes from over-muscled men who would not last one round in a real match.

Manny Silverman, who has run the place within living memory, is a philosophical old coot.

"The way you are beating on that bag, Professor, you would think it had offended you in some way," Manny said.

"I thought the point was to hit it hard," I replied.

Manny gave a knowing chuckle and raised one eyebrow.

"When a great technician forgets everything, he knows and just starts wailing away it's not his body he is working out," Manny said and walked away.

I stopped; he was right. I needed to get my head back into the game. I was only going through the motion. I needed to concentrate on the rest of my life, the new single life that I was going to have to deal with.

By Wednesday, I had suffered two nights at Nancy's. She and her girlfriend Betty had a home in Riverdale. It was a nice place with a great guest room, but Betty was smothering me. Nancy chases everything in a skirt. Only current students are off-limits due to University rules. Betty understood my pain and was trying too hard to help me through it. What was least helpful was the belief they both had that somehow Mary and I would work it out.

Returning from my Wednesday morning class, I found my Mother-in-law waiting in the corridor outside my door like a sixty-something undergrad.

"Katherine what are you doing here," I said.

"Came to see my favorite son-in-law," she said.

Steven Fitzgerald was her other son-in-law. He was an interesting man, a lawyer, but not at all like my wife. They say he practices criminal law and is very good at it. There is something odd about him that makes him difficult to relate to. I knew Katherine tolerated him only because he married her daughter but otherwise felt uncomfortable around him as do I.

"Well, what can I do for you," I said as if I did not know the real reason for her visit.

"Come to lunch with me, and we can talk," she said.

She was dressed as if for a day out in the city shopping. She had on a dark-blue suit with a long over the knees skirt and a bolero jacket. She wore a white blouse against which sparkled her emerald necklace. The necklace did not fit the rest of the ensemble. It cost a fortune. When it was worn on some fancy occasion, it was a conversation-stopping piece. In the hallway of my modest office, it was grossly out of place.

Her waiting limousine took us to an intimate Italian restaurant.

Seated in a secluded booth, she launched into the subject that brought her.

"Can you at least talk to my daughter?"

"Sorry, I'm not ready yet."

"Ok, take your time, but forgive her and go back to her."

"I'm bound to forgive her eventually, but I doubt we can go on together. Can't see that working. I've been thinking about our life together in light of my new knowledge. I have begun to suspect that the guy I punched out was just the last in a line, and I don't even know where the line started, but it sure doesn't begin last Friday," I said.

"I came because you and I have the same problem. We married a Singleton. They are not faithful. It is not part of their character. But I love my husband, and I know he loves me. Mary loves you more than her own life, but she doesn't have what it takes to be faithful.

"I wear these emeralds when I know one of my husband's paramours will be at a party or a function. They are a present he gave me to buy back my love after one of his more notorious affairs. She was a movie star. She has long since faded from the scene, but my emeralds have not. I have these, and I have the man. It still hurts, but I have my pride, and he paid the price. They are very expensive."

"I have a price too. I want the life I thought I had. Can Mary buy that back for me?"

"Obviously, she can't erase the memory of her past mistakes but wasn't it the good you had together that made the life you had. The love you had and made together. The home and family that you shared together. Are you going to turn your back on your family."

"How do I get my pride back. What can your daughter do to give that back to me? There is no way she can buy that back for me.

"How do you know if you don't give her a chance?"

"She made me a cuckold, and you don't get that genie back in the bottle."

"You are going to throw away a twenty-one-year marriage over a word?"

"Yes," I said as I stood up to leave, "Sorry, Kat, I lost my appetite."

"Jason, Jason, please wait," She called, but I was not going back.

That began a string of attempts by various parties to intervene. By the end of the third week, I was being driven insane. Then my luck changed.

"Professor, can I speak to you?" she said.

"Of course," I replied.

Collen Dreyfus was a senior. She was a bit old at thirty for an undergrad, but, like more and more young women, she had spent time in the military. Her red hair and prominent freckles resembled her first name more than her last. She was a big girl more than six feet, and not thin but not fat either. She is more a fullback, than a cheerleader.

"Ah...Well. You see there is a rumor going around that you are having marital problems and may need a place to stay—" she said, the last words coming out in a rush after the slow start.

"News does get around. Yes, I am looking for a place to live."

Collen had been standing at the door to my office, and now she came all the way in.

"Well, you see, I lost a roommate and desperately need a replacement, but there are some problems. You see, there were four of us. Two are a couple, and they share the master bedroom. It's a three-bedroom apartment in Sunnyside. They're lesbians, just so you know. The third girl dropped out and went back to Kansas. We didn't exactly split the rent four ways.

"You see the girl who left, and I paid two-thirds, and the couple paid the balance. It was a good deal because we each had a private room and only paid one thousand a month apiece plus utilities.

I would have been shocked by the price of an apartment in a lower-middle-class part of Queens had I not already been looking and already had my dose of sticker shock.

"What do your lesbian friends think about a male roommate?"

"Oh, it was their idea to ask you. It's Sally Hider and Karen Snil."

I remembered both of them. They were associates of Nancy's, my boss. Not friends in the normal sense, and certainly not possible love interests. Nancy liked her women at least vaguely female. I believe these two fall into the category of gay from a mile away. They seemed odd roommates for Collen and even more for me because I always believed that they were of that minority within a minority that hates the other sex.

"Are you sure? Because it seems odd, those two would not mind a male roommate."

Coleen could not look me in the eye.

"If I'm going to take this deal, I need to know that they will not be a problem," I said.

She didn't want to answer, but she did.

"They know all about you how you raised the kids and did the housework so your wife could have a career. They say you're not like other guys more one of the girls."

Well, there it was out on the table, a cuckold and a wimp, was that my problem. I had yielded to a strong woman and lost her respect because I had stopped being a man.

I took the deal because it was a good one. They did not need any security because the departing girl had to forfeit that. I gave a check and got a furnished room, an effeminately furnished room, but a place to lay my head. Anyway, when I wasn't at work, I began to haunt the gym.

****

Mary

I was truly fucked, and I had no one but myself to blame. That does not mean that I did not get angry at Jason. If he would only be reasonable and let me make things up to him, the whole problem would disappear.

Mom came back from her lunch with him in a very depressed state.

"He would not listen," she said.

"What did he say?"

"Basically, you ruined his life. Made him a cuckold, and he suspects the current guy is not the first. Then he walked out on me. I think he has a pretty good handle on the situation, but can't come to any acceptance of it," she said.

"What am I going to do?"

"My advice, based on the personal experience of being in his place, is let him stew a while. But keep the pressure on. Maybe when he sees what life is like on his own, he will come back? Loneliness is a great persuader," she said,

Two weeks later, I was having lunch with his boss Nancy. She invited me.

"Well, he has moved out of my place," she said.

"Oh, where did he go?"

"Got himself a one-third share in a Queens' apartment. I will give you his address. However, don't tell him where you got it."

"I know you are his friend, not mine, so thank you for your help," I said.

"Just looking out for my own interests, can't afford Jason to go elsewhere."

"Oh, he would never do that. He loves Columbia and working for you," I said.

Nancy began to laugh, "Don't get it, do you?"

I could only shrug. I had no idea what she was talking about.

"Jason is the most valuable member of my department, but he is paid the least. He is the jewel in the Math department's crown. Any school would grab him in a minute. Some would pay him double what we do. But he could also go to industry at four or five times what we pay.

"Nobody has come calling because they knew that he had this rich wife who was locked into a big job in Manhattan. The local schools didn't want to rock the boat, especially since money wasn't a factor with Jason. However, now as the news of your breakup begins to leak the vultures are circling," she said.

"You mean he could move away and do it for a lot more money."

"Duh!"

I began to cry in spite of myself. Events were moving against me. I needed to do something. I just didn't know what.

It's funny you live in a city for most of your life and see so little of it. They call this part of Queens Sunnyside, and it is right across the East River from Manhattan. It must be less than five miles from the apartment we own.

The house wasn't much to look at, a two-story two unit with one apartment on each floor and a double entryway to one side of the building. I rang the bell for the upper apartment. The buzzer sounded opening the outer door. I entered to be confronted by the steep stairway to the second floor and a voice from above.

"Hello, can I help you?"

"Yes, I'm looking for Jason," I said.

"He's not here right now, but he usually gets home by seven," said the voice from above.

"Who is it," said a second voice.

By this time, I reached the top of the stairs. I was confronted by two women with short boyish haircuts. They were both shorter than me and in desperate need of cosmetics. Dykes, there was no room for doubt.

"Oh, she's the wife," said the more masculine and stouter of the two.

The other took a step back as if I had some contagious condition.

"May I come in?"

They backed away from the door and let me enter. A few minutes later, I was seated in a living room furnished from the thrift store and looking like the student apartment it was. My hosts were seated opposite gazing at me with something between a leer and a smirk. Introductions were made. Sally was the taller, more feminine one, and Karen was the smaller clearly male of the pair.

Sally had offered refreshments, and I had a glass of spring water. The door opened, and a very tall and good-looking redhead entered. This girl was clearly a female and proud of it.

"Oh shit! What is she doing here?" the new entrant said.

"She's waiting for Jason," Sally said.

"Mrs. Sullivan, I'm Colleen," the redhead said to me.

"Nice to meet you, Colleen," I replied.

"Do you really think you should be here?" Colleen asked.

"I just need to talk to my husband."

They did not seem to know what to do. They were too polite to throw me out, but they clearly knew that Jason would not be happy to see me.

We spent an awkward twenty minutes, staring at each other until the door opened, and Jason walked in.

He looked great. He was fitter and more handsome than any middle-aged man had a right to be. I knew I missed him, but in that instant, my body and soul felt a yearning that was truly intense. The mere sight of him made my heart skip.

"Jason I—"

"Please, Mary just go," he said.

"No, not until you speak to me. Give me a chance to explain," I said.

The others in the room were silent, just watching with a fascination the little drama that we were playing out. Jason was the injured husband, and I was the fallen woman pleading for his compassion, but it wasn't coming.

"There is nothing you can say that will make the slightest difference to me except that your continued lies will make our lives much more difficult," he said in a rehearsed manner.

Well, at least, he had been thinking of me enough to plan his opening line.

"Then please give me a chance, to tell the truth. So, it doesn't help you, but at least, it gives us closure after twenty-plus years. Don't we owe the marriage that much?" I said, having my own argument ready.

He sighed, realizing, I guess, that I was not going quietly away, and that I did have a point. We owed each other the truth after twenty-one years.

"Alright but not now and not here," he said, aware of the fact we had an interested audience.

"Ok, when and where? But soon," I said.

"Saturday morning at your place, I can pick up my bicycle at the same time," he said.

"Very good Saturday morning at OUR HOME," I said unwilling to let him discard our mutual residence so easily.

I held it together down the stairs and out the door of that student abode. I ignored the pitying looks as I left. Was I so pathetic? These women who on their best days had not the fraction of my looks, intelligence, or wealth could now look down on me because, in my stupidity, I had lost what to a woman must be the most precious thing in her entire existence. I had lost the love of my husband. Even those two obvious lesbians knew how great a loss; I had suffered. My death would have been easier.