Sex, Lies, and Confusion Ch. 04

As I entered my house to find Carla, in the lounge talking on the phone, she gave me a quick smile and nod as she talked. I listened to one side of her conversation.

"He's just arrived now."

"No, I got Phil to take the children back to our place, they have no idea what's going on, we just told them that Caitlin wasn't well. Roger will have to go and see them later."

"We've called the doctor to her, he should be here soon. But we don't want him giving her too many pills and things in the condition her minds in at the moment. Perhaps Rog will be able to calm her down a bit."

"OK Jean, I'll speak to you tomorrow. Bye."

She replaced the receiver and smiled at me.

"Oh God Rog, I'm so glad you're here, Caitlin's in a terrible state. She's in your bedroom, you've got to go and talk to her."

"Thanks for being hear Carla, Lin and Jim persuaded me that I needed to speak to her. But I can't undo anything, she started all this."

"No Roger, that arse-hole Tony started this! Now we've all got to try and pick up the pieces. We realise you have been very badly hurt, but for the time being Caitlin is still you're wife and she loves you very much. From what she has been saying I don't think she intends to live without you. Please go up there and at least give her some hope. With time she might be able to accept losing you, but she couldn't handle the shock you gave her last night!"

I didn't reply to Carla; I went up to the bedroom.

Caitlin didn't hear me enter the room; she was lying on the bed, curled up in the foetal position. I could hear her sobbing into the pillow, at the same time she was mumbling to herself. As always my heart tried to reach out to her, and I felt like a piece of shit. I had brought the woman I love to this. But no I hadn't; Caitlin had done the cheating I had just reacted as any man would. I'm only bloody human.

"Caitlin." I whispered softy. "Caitlin can you hear me?"

Cait stopped crying and slowly lifted her head from the pillow. I think she wasn't sure whether she had imagined my voice or not.

"Caitlin I'm here. Do you want to see me?"

She turned to look at me, her eyes looked red raw from crying. God she looked like death, no wonder everyone was so worried.

"Please Roger, I'm so sorry."

I crossed the two paces to the bed and took her in my arms.

"Not now Babe, I'm not leaving, I love you. I read it all wrong, I thought you were tired of me."

Caitlin started mumbling again, but I couldn't make out what she was saying.

"Baby you have to calm down and get some sleep, everything will be alright tomorrow!"

I wasn't really convinced of what I was saying. But there are times in life when you just have to say what people need to hear, and this was one of them.

A few minutes later the doctor arrived, Carla and I had filled him in on the story, he gave Caitlin a sedative and said he would see her again in the morning.

Once Caitlin was asleep. Carla told me that Jean had told her that with the help of the police, she had thrown Tony out of the house. Jean told Carla that she wasn't putting any blame on Caitlin and had called to try to tell her, in the long term she hopped they would be friends again. But of course Caitlin had been in no condition to talk.

It struck me that whatever Caitlin had said after I left last night. It appeared to have convinced everyone that Tony was the villain of the piece and Caitlin was the fall guy. I was beginning to wonder how our friends were going to react to me if I were to divorce Cait?

At Carla's suggestion I slept in the same bed as Caitlin. Carla thought that if Caitlin wakes up, me being there should calm her down. When I awoke in the morning Caitlin's arms were around me, and it was with some difficulty that I extracted myself. Caitlin was still out of it from the sedatives.

Downstairs Carla, who had stayed the night in our spare room had prepared breakfast. We sat to eat it and were just beginning to discuss what was going to happen between Caitlin and me. When suddenly we heard a heart rending scream come from the bedroom.

"NNNNooooooooooooooooo! No Oh no!"

Carla, who was nearer the door, ran up the stairs with me in close pursuit. We arrived in the bedroom to find Caitlin sitting on the floor beside the bed sobbing uncontrollably. Carla knelt beside her, enveloping Cait in her arms.

"Caitlin what's wrong?" she asked.

"I dreamt he had come back, he was here with me, but he's not! Oh I miss him so much. What am I going to do?"

"I am here Cait! I said in as gentle a voice as I could manage. I haven't gone away again."

Caitlin who hadn't seen me enter the room, jumped to her feet and threw her arms around me. I gave her a hug in return.

"You must relax Caitlin, because you are making yourself ill. When you feel up to it you can tell me what happened and I promise I will listen to your explanations."

"Oh darling I'd thought I'd lost you. Please forgive me."

"Cait, I want to forgive you, but I don't know you reasons for betraying our marriage, you are going to have to convince me that I should. But please don't go worrying about it now, Just try and calm yourself down and don't go scaring us like that again. Now I don't want too but I have to go out for a little while and meet Jean."

Caitlin gave a start.

"Don't go getting exited, Jean isn't blaming you for all this. She called yesterday to make her piece with you. But she needs my help in getting rid of Tony. I've got to meet her shortly, but I'll be back by around lunchtime, you just take things easy and we'll talk later."

Carla told me she would stay until Linda came to relieve her. I queried about the children but Carla said they would be all right at her place, as she had the au pere as well as her children's nanny (Phil's a high flyer, money is no object in their home.) but I had better pop in and say hallow to them.

After assuring Caitlin once again that I would be back later, I left to meet Jean at the solicitors. My presence was not really required but I wanted to be there for Jean.

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After Jean had seen the solicitor and put the wheels in motion, we went to a café and had some coffee.

Jean was in remarkably good spirits. She informed me that, the Tony we all knew was not the one she lived with. He would put on a front whenever anyone else was present. Jean said he was frequently violent to her, and she knew he had several affairs, but she never had any proof before. When he hit her, he was usually very careful not to leave any marks.

"Christ Jean" I said, "Why the hell didn't you tell us that Tony was abusing you?"

"You were all Tony's friends, before you were mine." She replied, "I didn't know were your loyalties would lie?"

"Bloody Hell Jean, how many times have you heard me say to the kids when they were scrapping, that a gentleman never hits a woman. You should have known that I would have laid Tony out if I knew he had laid a hand on you."

"Well I do now, Phil showed me how a real man reacts when a coward hits a woman, I now know you would do the same, you didn't even threaten violence to Caitlin."

"I've got question for you Jean. Why are you so quick to forgive Caitlin? She was having an affair with your husband."

"Well, after you stormed off last night."

I took the dig without comment.

"Caitlin came back into the house and started to yell at Tony. He told Caitlin she had better shut her mouth or he'd make sure you found out what ES had told him. Caitlin went quiet and it was obvious to me that he was blackmailing her. That's when I really lost my temper with him. Tony lost it and lashed out at me, and then Phil knocked him out."

"ES, are you sure Tony said ES?"

"Definitely and it frightened Caitlin, she clamed up the moment he said it."

"Oh bugger! Tony must have met up with Elaine and she's told Tony something that Caitlin thought would upset me. Shit! Now things make sense. Cait you silly cow, don't you trust me by now?"

"You know what this secret of Caitlin's is then?" Jean asked.

"I afraid I do Jean. Unfortunately it makes this all my fault. I should have told Caitlin I knew years ago. But I never seamed to find the right time, I didn't want Caitlin thinking I was holding it against her. In the end I thought it was best to pretend I didn't know and forget about it. Looks like I got it wrong."

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I arrived back home around twelve, to find Linda had replaced Carla, on Caitlin sitting duties. Caitlin was looking much better and was sat in the lounge. She had made a good effort and looked more like she was going out for the evening, than having and awkward interview with her husband. I think she might have been trying to distract me with her natural beauty. Linda made us a pot of tea and then left us alone to talk.

Caitlin poured the tea and then sat looking at me. I thought there was no point beating around the bush, so I asked.

"OK Cait, you appear to have convinced everyone that Tony blackmailed you into having sex with him. They say you wouldn't tell them what he used to blackmail you, But now your going to have to tell me!"

"I I can't you'll hate me if I tell you. Please I don't want to lose you."

"To be honest Cait. You've already lost me! You shagging Tony is a good enough reason for me to divorce you. Now if you've been forced to shag him, I'm willing to take that into account. But you have got to tell me what Elaine told Tony that you didn't want me to hear."

My mention of Elaine's name gave Caitlin a shock. I saw her physically jump.

"Think about it Cait. You jumped into bed with Tony to stop him telling me something. He could well send me an e-mail or letter to tell me what it was. Then again Elaine could meet someone else and tell them. What are you going to do to keep the next one quiet. Shag them as well?"

Cait was crying again.

"I can't. I can't tell you! You'll hate me."

"Oh shit" I thought, "If you wont bring this into the open I'm going to have to do it!"

"OK lets do this a different way. Supposing I make a calculated guess and you tell me if I'm right."

Caitlin is looking at me now with wide eyes.

"Let's speculate that some young beautiful young woman falls head over heals in love with a self centred Pratt of a university student. The guys an idiot and doesn't realise what a prize he's passing up."

Caitlin had a confused and worried look on her face.

"Now our beautiful young woman is so in love with this guy she will do just about anything to be near him, but the guy doesn't even give her a second glance. After a time she finds out that her friend is having sex with this guy when he is stoned out of his mind, so she talks her friend into letting her have sex with him. She doesn't take any precautions and gets pregnant. Which was what she really wanted all the time. She figures if she can't have the guy, she'll have his child."

"Having got herself pregnant our young woman plans to return to her home in Ireland to have the child. Now her friend does something that she hadn't planned on. Her friend tells the guy that she is pregnant and surprise, surprise the guy goes to the young woman and asks her to marry him. The young woman says she will as she loves the guy, but everyone starts saying that she got pregnant to trap him into marrying her. I'm right so far, aren't I?"

"Yeesss." Caitlin said very softly.

"Well, shall we say that our young woman, starts to feel unnecessarily guilty about the accusations that she tricked her man. Then her erstwhile friend, who is much more worldly wise, comes up with the antibiotic story to explain why the birth control pills hadn't worked."

"But what neither of the girls know is that the guy she married, knew she was never on the bloody pill in the first place. And to complicate things for them in they're later married life, the bloody fool never did get around to telling the woman that he didn't care about the little white lie, he was just happy to be married to the woman he loved."

"Oh God darling!" Caitlin said, "You knew all the time that I wasn't on the pill."

"Of course I bloody knew, but I could never think of a way to tell you that wouldn't have been calling you a liar after you came up with that story. To me it was a little white lie and I forgot about it years ago. I love you. I married you because I loved you, not because you were pregnant. What was the point in bringing that all up again. You just jumped the gun a little."

"But how could you know that I wasn't on the pill?"

"Caitlin, that's one secrete I'm not going to divulge to you. But rest assured I knew you weren't on the pill and that Elaine was. As a healthy young student it was, shall we say, my duty to know whom it was safe to shag and who would require measures. Can we leave it at that."

Caitlin was smiling now.

"You randy bugger. I knew you had a reputation before you got hooked up with Kathleen. But, if you could tell whether they were on the pill or not it looks to me, as if you made an art out of seducing girls."

"I couldn't tell if a girl was on the pill by looking at them, I just made it my business to know who was available if I fancied them."

"But you didn't fancy me you used to avoid me."

"I avoided you because I was committed to Kathleen at the time I met you. Kathleen knew I liked you and would really get out of her pram when she saw me talking to you. I had to blank you, to keep her happy. Then after she dumped me I needed to get my head around my degree, so I steered clear of all women for a while."

"But then you went and got all impatient. Once I had graduated, I would most probably have asked you to go out with me, but you kind of jumped the gun on that a little, didn't you!"

"So if I hadn't got pregnant you might still have taken me out, and maybe married me?"

"The way I felt about you, I should imagine we would have got married in the long term. But then we would have missed out on something very special wouldn't we."

"What?"

"Claire of course. My little angel!"

"Rog am I forgiven?"

"No I'll never forgive you for not coming to me and telling me Tony had approached and threatened you. It shows me that after twelve years you hadn't learned to trust my commitment enough."

"I'm sorry darling, I promise I'll never mistrust you again."

"You had better not! Now don't you think you should go and collect our kids, they'll begin to think something's wrong with our marriage if they don't see us together before long."

"Yes darling." Caitlin replied, she came over and gave me a hug and kiss then went out the front door to collect the children.

As I watched her drive off Linda came into the room and stood beside me.

"So that was it, Caitlin was scared you'd think she'd tricked you into marrying her. She thought you would leave her over that."

"So it seems. You've got to remember that she has lived with a lie all the time we've been married. She must have thought that I only married her in the first place because of Claire. I'd have thought she would have realised by now, how much I love her."

"Roger I get the feeling your more upset about her not trusting your love, than her going with Tony."

"I think I am Linda, Caitlin has now idea how much I love her."

"But you were going to leave her!"

"I was going to let her go Linda, I had assumed, her going with Tony was a sign that she was fed up with being married to me. I was giving her, her freedom. A way out if she wanted it."

"So you're going to forgive her?"

"For cheating yes, but not, for not having the trust in my love. I think that's a wound that will stay in my heart forever."

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Three months later we are sat on shores of Lake Balaton in Hungary. Caitlin and I are watching the children swimming with Jimmy and Phil. Carla and Linda are organising lunch in kitchen of the vast Villa we have hired.

"Oh God," Caitlin suddenly said, "I just thought how close we came to not being here this year."

"Well we are here, so don't go worrying about it."

"But I do, I was so worried, I really thought I'd lost you when you made your speech at Linda and Jimmy's diner party. How long had you know about, You know Tony and me?"

"A couple of weeks I suppose, but I didn't know who were with until the Wednesday before. When I found out who it was, I could only just control my self, I nearly came in there to kick the hotel room door down."

"God, I wish you had, I would have loved to see you beat him up."

"No Caitlin, you know that's not my style. If I'd beat him up it would have been over. The fear of my revenge is far worse for him than the revenge itself."

"Do you know that Tony has moved once again. The last report I received, he was in the bar of his hotel in New York, when two guys sat at the next table to him. They made sure he overheard them talking about a special contract coming in from an English client. Then they let my name slip. I'm told, Tony checked out of the hotel less then ten minutes later. He's in Chicago now, and one of my Old University pal's there is planning a scare to throw into him there, in the very near future."

"How long are you going to keep on frightening him?"

"As long as the Pratt keeps moving to places where I've got friends. A lot of people owe me favours. But I should imagine I'll lose track of him in the end."

"Poor Jean, you're keeping Tony from contacting her and the children."

"Poor Jean, my bloody foot! You really do need to have a long talk to her. Jean and the kid's are my main source of intelligence concerning Tony. He was a right bastard to her and the kid's. They lived in fear of the arse-hole and now they all revel in the fact, I've got him running scared. There's no love lost there."

"He is an evil bastard. You should have seen the look on his face when he told me that he new I hadn't been on the pill. He had a really sick grin on his face as he told me, that when he told you he had proof I tricked you, you would leave me. I had worried about that dam story of Elaine's ever since she came up with it. The times I nearly told you about the lie and then chickened out."

"Look just forget it will you, I love you and you love me, so lets just be happy. Mind you, there is just one thing that's bothered me."

"What's that darling?"

"Why the hell did you fuck me crazy before you went to meet the arse-hole?"

"Are well, you see he was forcing me to have sex with him. It made him think he had something over you as well as me. Well, I told him that I couldn't have sex with anyone unless they got me in the mood first. He didn't like the idea but I made him eat me out before I would let him shag me. Now, by making sure I was full of your sperm before he got there, I got a little payback. I went to a lot of trouble you know, I got this little plug thing that I kept putting in after you fucked me. After I kicked him in the balls at Linda's place I bent down and told him that he had been eating your cum every time he fucked me, the wimp threw-up all over Linda's new carpet."

"You're a sick devious girl Caitlin."

"Yea but I'm you're sick devious girl. Now would you like to tell me, exactly when you realised that it was me shagging you and that you weren't dreaming of Kathy?"

"Are now, there's a question."

"And I like an answer please."

"Well let's put it this way, If you take or are given drugs. They sort of lose there effectiveness over time, your body gets used to them and it takes more of them to have the same effect. That's the drawback for your average junky, the more he takes the more he needs. Now Willie slipped the same amount of whatever that dust shit was into my drink every night. By the third week I knew it was Elaine who was coming into my bed."