Perspectives Series: Jess Pt. 02

At first, all of my senses seemed to work independently. I detected an odor, but couldn't put my finger on what it was. Then Simon practically jumped when I touched him, and blurted out some name that he was trying to cover up with my name.

When my eyes finally focused on the khakis in his hand, it all started to come together. I searched my memory from when I was with him in Dubai. He wore shorts both of the days we were together. And then I remembered something else. Those khakis were hanging up in his closet when I was there. They were neatly pressed and clean. I remembered noticing them along with a couple of other shirts because they were the only things remaining in his closet.

Slowly the realization came over me. Simon had been with another woman after he had been with me in Dubai.

I froze. My body felt numb and I could hear a roar in my ears. The silence was so loud it was deafening. Simon's reaction told me that this time my conclusions were correct. And he wasn't denying it or trying to cover it up. We just stayed there locked in a gaze for a long time.

I stepped back a couple of feet. I wanted to flee. I needed some time to sort the whole thing out. How...Who...Why? I had so many questions I didn't know which one to ask first. My heart was beginning to race and I could feel my blood pressure rising. My shock gave way to hurt, and then very quickly, to anger.

"Jess, I..."

"I don't want to hear it, Simon."

I cut him off cold with my raised voice. I'd never raised my voice at Simon before. I had no idea how he might react, but I hoped it would make him mad enough to leave.

"Just let me..."

"EXPLAIN? Is that what you were about to say? EXPLAIN??? What is there to explain, Simon? Oh, it just makes PERFECT sense to me. You want to have children but you don't want to be tied down. You want to be able to fuck whomever you please."

"That's not it, Jess."

He gritted his teeth when he uttered my name and then shoved the clothes into his bag. His emotions had now escalated to anger, also.

I couldn't seem to keep myself from blowing up.

"I don't care to hear your explanation, Simon. Nothing you have to say interests me. You are so full of shit to come back here and start calling me baby and sweetie and telling me that you love me and missed me. It's all BULLSHIT! Meanwhile you barely had time to shower after leaving your last girlfriend."

~

Nothing will get me angry quicker than belittling sarcasm. Jess's words instantly sent me over the edge. For the first time in our relationship, I wanted to hurt her.

I was beyond the point of discussing rationally. I could only think of really nasty things to say and do to her. Would it make more sense to you if I tied you up and fucked you in the ass until you begged me to stop, bitch?! You seemed to like that, I recall. And then of course, the real zinger...I don't remember you being so reluctant to fuck Mike while we were living together.

Something stopped me from saying all the nasty thoughts I had in my head out loud. Maybe it was the fleeting notion that I really did love this woman, and that she might just be carrying my baby. Whatever the thought...it was very brief because all I could seem to focus on at that point, was how I was going to get out of that place.

I realized that I had nothing in that house that I couldn't walk away from. The most valuable thing was in the bag I was holding in my hands.

I finished shoving the clothes in the bag and zipped it up. I stood up with the duffle in my right hand and faced her. Jess was standing between me and the door.

"Go ahead...leave. That's what you do best, anyway." Jess sneers.

I didn't trust myself to say anything further at that point. I stepped around her easily and took long strides toward the front door. I paused in the doorway for a moment, but I was too mad to stop there. I don't even remember the walk to Martin's house.

Chapter 12

It was our first fight. Ever. In the entire year we lived together, we never fought. It's really hard to believe. I thought Simon might come back the next morning, after spending the night at Martin's cooling off.

After all, I am right, and he is wrong. He was the one who was having an affair with another woman. And who was that girl? Was she his girlfriend for the past year he spent in Dubai? Why didn't he tell me about her? Why was he so anxious to get me pregnant if he had this other woman on the side? Is she American? I started remembering other things he said when we were talking in bed in Dubai. Why was he planning to only come to Kansas City for two weeks? I remembered him saying something about it being enough time. Enough time for what? To get me pregnant? And what is that all about, exactly?

I had to go to work, but I waited around until 10:00am and just went in late. He didn't show.

At work, I realized that I had no way to get a hold of him. He didn't have a cell phone, and no e-mail address that I knew of. By the time 5:00pm rolled around, I was beginning to get frantic. It actually started to dawn on me that the situation could be more serious than I had first imagined. I'd had the same cell phone number for the previous 5 years, so he knew how to reach me. A glance at the screen revealed that I had not missed any calls. I checked it about every 10 minutes. All day long.

I felt this uncontrollable urge to get home, where Simon and I could reconcile. Where I could make everything right again. I had so many questions to ask him. I am ready to accept his apology.

When I got home, there were no messages on my machine. There were no notes on the door, and nothing in the mailbox. His toothbrush and shaving kit were still sitting on the sink in my master bathroom.

Maybe he is just waiting for me to come home from work. It is now 5:45pm so it is still early.

My nervous energy needed to be channeled into something useful, so I started cleaning house. The kitchen was a pretty logical place to start. First, I put the dirty dishes in the dishwasher. Then, I started to clean out the refrigerator. That led to an all-out assault on the refrigerator shelves. After I got the frig put back together, and all the food in its proper place, I went back to the counter tops, and re-cleaned those. A quick glance at the clock revealed that my cleaning spree had eaten up about an hour. It was 6:55pm.

I took a damp mop to the floor and while it dried, moved down the hall to the bathroom. I kept cleaning supplies in every room, so I simply grabbed the Scrubbing Bubbles and rubber gloves from underneath the sink, and started on the hall bath.

I peeled the gloves off, and walked back down the hall toward the kitchen. Another quick look: 7:30pm.

It was still light outside -- thanks to our longer summer days. I can continue to wait for Simon to show up. This may lead to a very clean house. OR...I can go to Martin's house.

I decided that it wouldn't be too much effort to just jump in the car and drive over there. Even though he lives in my neighborhood, his house is deceptively far away from mine -- maybe as far as a mile away. What harm could it do?

I arrived at Martin's around 7:45. The house looked dark, but it was hard to tell against the setting sun. I rang the doorbell twice but no one answered. I could see no sign that Simon was there. He would have gotten his Volvo out of storage by then, but it was not in the driveway, as expected.

I finally fell asleep around 11:45pm, with my cell phone by my side.

Chapter 13

Martin pumped me for information the second I showed up at the door. I just didn't feel like talking about it. I did tell him that I would not be marrying Jessie, and that I would likely be leaving for Dallas as soon as he could drop me off at the storage place so I could get my car.

Martin took me straight away (at Teresa's urging) which was fine with me. I packed up the Volvo with as many boxes as I could, and left around 9:30pm. I made it a point to tell Teresa that I would be calling them with an address to ship the rest of the boxes as soon as I got settled. It wouldn't be more than a couple of days.

I was still mad when I-35 started to head southward toward Oklahoma. Thanks to my jet lag, I was able to drive through the night. Early morning rush hour traffic just south of the Denton area slowed me down a bit, but I made good time.

I pulled into a Residence Inn near Plano. I didn't have a reservation, but there were vacancies. Thank God, because I was exhausted.

I woke up to this feeling of dread. I fled before we could even fight the thing out. I let my fucking temper and my guilt drive me away; all the way to Dallas. I felt like a chicken-shit for doing it.

It was 1:00pm. Jess was at work and had probably figured out by then that I wasn't going to call her. What would I say when she asked me to come over and work it out, 'Gee, I can't...I'm in Dallas.'

Jess is a big girl. She can take care of herself. She has a great job, a big house...she's better off finding someone else. Anyway, I have my own shit to take care of right now. I've got to find a place to live.

Chapter 14

I almost forgot that I had a 3:30pm appointment with Dr. Tracy Stevens. My Outlook calendar reminder popped up at 2:30pm.

I waited in her office while she spoke with the receptionist. She shared the office staff and waiting room with another clinic. The other clinic was an Obstetrician/Gynecologist practice so most of the patients in the waiting room were women. I have been mistaken many times for someone waiting to see the doctor on the other side. I usually didn't have to wait very long, if at all. Dr. Tracy rarely scheduled patients back-to-back. I didn't know if that was because she liked to write notes between patients, or if it was for privacy reasons.

"Sorry about that, Jessie. We had a little incident in the waiting room earlier."

Dr. Tracy looked in my direction, waiting for me to ask about it, but I didn't. The small talk at the beginning of our sessions usually helped me to calm down. But my thoughts were on Simon, and I could think of hardly anything else.

"So, how have things been? Happy Birthday, by the way."

"Thanks! A lot has happened in the past several weeks."

I decided it would be best to just jump right in. We would hardly have enough time to scratch the surface by the time my session was over, and I wanted to get Tracy's take on why Simon hadn't tried to call me since our little disagreement.

"Oh? That sounds promising. Did you take my advice?"

I thought for a moment, "Yes, as a matter of fact, I did. But not in exactly the way you meant."

Tracy raised her eyebrows and waited for me to continue.

"I went to Dubai, ran into Simon, slept with him; He came back here to Kansas City, we got into a fight on my birthday, and I haven't heard from him since."

"Ohhhh...kaaaay. That's a lot. Where is Simon now?"

She spoke slowly, not knowing where to start. She was still trying to digest it all. I could tell she was stalling a bit, and this made me very happy inside.

For months, nothing much happened. We'd just been sort of chipping away at my psyche. We talked about Simon, my mother, my father, my stepmother, my childhood Pekinese (Lily) who got ran over by a car. Up to that point, she had always supplied the answer to everything. It felt satisfying to see her squirm a bit.

"I don't know. I'm assuming he's at Martin's still. I rang Martin's doorbell last night but no one answered. I drove past his house this morning before I left for work and I didn't see Simon's car in the driveway. Either he hasn't gotten his car out of storage yet, or he wasn't there."

"What was the fight about?"

Tracy had already caught up. The thing I liked most about her was that she was very smart. Not just book-smart, either. She was intuitive and quick-witted on top of being positively brilliant at getting to the heart of matters.

"His Dubai girlfriend. I found out that he slept with her after he and I were together in Dubai. That would be after he told me how much he loved me and missed me, and didn't want to be apart from me again...blah, blah, blah..."

"How long had he been with this girlfriend?"

I didn't think she would get to a question I couldn't answer so quickly.

"I don't know. We didn't get that far in the argument."

I paused, hoping that Dr. Tracy would bail me out with a different question but she decided to stay on the same uncomfortable path by remaining silent until I had satisfied her question.

"I pretty much went off on him. He tried to explain, but I wouldn't let him. I kept interrupting him with a deluge of sarcasm. It really pissed him off. He packed and left."

"Did he say anything before he left?"

"Nope."

I realized as I was talking, that my tone while I was recanting all of that, was very flippant. I believe Dr. Tracy would characterize my behavior as me being protective of my feelings. If I act as though these events are meaningless, they will hurt less. I have learned a thing or two about myself in the past year of therapy.

"We've never fought before." I want to own my feelings, but I'm not quite ready yet. "I don't really know if it was what I said that sent him off, or if he just wanted to leave, anyway."

That thought hit closer to a nerve for me, and I could feel my lip begin to quiver. My real fear was that he didn't want to stay, anyway.

"Because you had never fought before, you didn't really have established rules of engagement, did you?"

I shook my head.

"It could have been what you said or how you said it that sent him away. Usually couples step into fights with small arguments first. Ones that are basically harmless. They do it by accident. These small arguments serve their purpose of establishing boundaries and rules for all future arguments. That way, when the stakes are high, everyone knows what line not to cross.

"Does that sound like what may have happened here?"

"Could have; I don't know. The morning didn't start out well, and I could tell that something else was wrong."

I decided not to tell her about the sex part. It was a difficult decision because it really did tie into the whole thing, but I wasn't ready to talk about it.

"Alright."

Dr. Tracy stopped to think for a minute. She knew I was holding back, but she also knew that she wouldn't be able to drag it out of me. Unfortunately, she could read me almost as well as Simon.

"When did you start to notice that something else was wrong?"

I thought back for a moment. "I remember thinking that he wasn't as excited about the house as I would've liked, but I'm not sure if that was because he just got off a long flight and it was 11:30 at night, or not. Then I distinctly recall a change in his mood when I suggested that he give me my key necklace again for my birthday. He hadn't bought me a gift, and I thought this would be a great re-gift from him. He told me that he didn't want me to wear it, anymore."

"Did he say why?" Dr. Tracy seemed very interested in this point, and I could practically see the wheels turning in her head.

"No. He told me that it wasn't because he didn't love me." I could feel myself start to break into tears again. The thought of him loving me was too much.

"Did Simon bring up marriage?"

The question was so blatant, and it hurt me deeply to answer. I barely choked out "no" between sobs.

Dr. Tracy handed me a tissue and waited patiently for me to gather my composure.

"I know this is difficult to talk about, Jessie. I have to ask questions so I can gain a better understanding of what has happened. Did he tell you he loved you?"

I sat a little taller, "Yes, he said it all the time. He told me that he missed me; he called me cute little names, like babe, sweetie, honey, you know, stuff like that. It was different than before. He was different. And in other ways, too; it wasn't like it used to be with us."

"Did you talk about that?"

"No, not exactly. I told him that I wanted things to be the way they were before, between us."

"What was his reaction to your saying that?"

I shrugged. I couldn't remember any reaction. He didn't agree or disagree, that I could recall.

"I don't...no reaction, that I can remember."

"Did Simon mention anything about the future at all?"

"He talked about kids. How much he wants us to have kids."

"Really? That's surprising. In what context?"

I wasn't ready to talk about that part, but I could hardly sidestep it any longer.

"I forgot to take my pills to Dubai with me, and so I accidentally went off of them. When I told Simon about it, he just wanted to have sex all the more. He said he wanted us to have children; that we were old enough, etc."

I always end my sentences with either 'blah, blah, blah' or 'etc' when I'm reluctant to talk about something. It's a dead giveaway that she has touched a nerve.

"You had unprotected sex, didn't you?"

I closed my eyes and nodded.

"How do you feel about that decision now?"

"Stupid."

"Do you think you might be pregnant?"

I bit my lip and took a deep breath. "I don't know. I could be."

"Have you decided what you are going to do about it?"

I shook my head slowly and then quietly spoke.

"No. It's real hard to think about what to do when I can't even get my mind around what just happened between us. I mean, he hasn't called, and I have no way of getting a hold of him. I'm starting to get real scared that it is over this time. The funny thing is, that I was just about to move on. I was in Dubai, and I hadn't found Simon, and I just decided that I was tired of being sad about him. It was a real uplifting moment for me. How ironic is that?"

Tracy laughed. "It always seems to happen that way, doesn't it?!"

"It's not fair."

Nothing said during that session would prove to be a magic cure for me. There wasn't anything that Dr. Tracy could do to bring Simon back. She did say one thing that I found to be very interesting.

"Simon may have well been ready to leave for other reasons. It's difficult to say why, for sure, but it may not have been for the same reasons you've been assuming. Be careful when you make assumptions. One can lead to another, until you've gone down this path of misconceptions for so long, you believe them to be the absolute truth."

She wouldn't give me other possibilities. She just told me that she could think of many, and they weren't anything like the conclusions I had drawn. I did find some comfort in her final words.

"There is no sense in worrying over the things you can't change. We'll know soon enough if you're pregnant, and then we'll have even more to talk about."

She was right, of course. We would know soon enough. As it turned out, I knew exactly nine days later, when my period was late for the first time since the eighth grade.

Chapter 15

My new job was going well. I liked the people, but then again, I'd always liked Texans. They were so friendly and easy to talk to. The sunshine and heat in Dallas reminded me of Dubai. The difference was that August in Dallas felt like May in Dubai. I found it amazingly easy to breeze through the Texas summer because of my year abroad.

I settled on a condominium in Dallas. I didn't buy it. I saw it advertised for rent in the paper and signed a six month lease. I didn't want to commit to a longer lease because I wasn't sure the job would take. If this job in Plano didn't work out, and I went to another firm in say, downtown Dallas, I would want to move closer to work. I didn't want to spend my life in Dallas traffic.