Splashdown Ch. 06

"Gary, you need a friend, even Peggy knows it. She's convinced from our time before her launch, and her time in orbit, that I am your friend. I agree with her. Gary, understand that I'm not leaving tonight. Just as there was no way I was going to tell you your wife failed you over the phone, there's no way I'm going to leave you alone on the night you found out. Especially in light of everything that came before, and most certainly not as you saw this Grecian Tragedy playing out from the beginning. I'm not going to leave you to battle memories, fate, and heartache by yourself.

"Gary," Kathy said more softly as her hand clenched on my arm, "I'll even sleep with you if you need someone to hold or someone to hold you. Listen very carefully now, I can sleep with you or even, well, sleep with you according to your distraught wife. Peg would kiss me for it if we did and it helped you stay with her. Hell, she would be so happy she would probably have me back for regular conjugal visits."

Kathy pushed a lock of hair away from her eyes and quickly glanced to see my reaction to her quip. Her eyes glowed molten. Something very important had taken her for its own.

"Gary I-I'll be honest. I'm telling you something Peggy doesn't know. I would love the opportunity to ... go for broke with you, but this is not the time. However, if you two don't make it, I'll be right there to catch you. We've always been honest with each other. I appreciate that we're friends, so I must give you my best advice: give your all to save this marriage.

"I've felt some of what you feel for her, you'll regret losing her the rest of your life, although I think I would make you very happy. I'm willing to put your happiness before my own. I'd love for you to give us a chance, but I'm here as your friend tonight. So please be honest with me: if you need me ... that way, tell me. If not let me be the best friend you ever had right now, until the best friend you've had in all your life comes back to make amends."

I'm sure my brows were knitting a sweater.

"Gary, I'm trying to take your mind off the pain. I know you're not okay. I know your life is really messed up right now. Gary, we're running Peggy through a gauntlet of tests and medicals. There was never anything emotional in what she did with him. It sounds exactly as you called it. Also, as you predicted, she's distraught."

Kathy looked at me appraisingly. There was something else she wanted me to know. She decided against it. I wondered how she would paint herself out of this corner. I was pretty sure I knew what she wanted to tell me. I wouldn't let her stew too long figuring out how to broach the subject. She decided on a classic tactic: changing the subject.

"Gary, I presume you have ... er, taken matters into your own hands all these months?" Kathy tried to smile. "If you haven't after this long and I reached in your pants, how long would it take? I know it's a weird question."

"Right then."

"What?" Kathy honestly didn't understand my answer.

"That's how long it would take, if I hadn't had any relief for that long." She saw my smile.

Kathy put her forehead against my chest, "Yeah well, that's not the sort of stuff a woman's dreams are made of." She smiled back.

"Yeah, but the next five times will take progressively longer and longer."

"Five more times, really?" She said mocking.

"If I hadn't popped in six months, hell I'd be ready for re-entry early and often. And truth be told I haven't taken matters "into my own hands" as you called it very often. My heart just wasn't in it. You forget though, it's not just me that waited that long, the cosmonaut did too. The guy must be healthy, or he wouldn't be a cosmonaut. I imagine after that long he was a one-man bukkake machine."

Kathy looked at me confused, "The human lexicon strikes again. I think I understand the reference from context." She said with slight disapproval.

"Probably not. I miss-used it because I doubt Cosmo the Space Dog did me the solid of only doing that externally."

"Oh." Kathy cringed.

"Yeah, and you can expect me to be pissed when I'm over my heartache, totally pissed. And if he gave her a disease ... or made her pregnant."

"Wow," Kathy shook her head, yet seemed oddly pleased. "I thought of that as she told me. We're having her tested. I was hoping we could dismiss those possibilities, so you never had to think of them yourself. Too late, huh?"

Kathy studied me gauging my reaction. So far nothing bad. Kathy understood I refused to let it all sink in. She shook her head in frustration at the situation, and frankly impressed at my display of self-control. Kathy probably knew I couldn't keep that last up for long.

"Gary, we got her morning after pills, even though they should not have been necessary. You'll be happy to know the timing is off. Even so, Peggy couldn't swallow them fast enough."

Kathy regarded me appraisingly once more before adding, "You're always a step ahead. Although that talent gives you a lot of nasty things to think about my friend."

"Remember I made a living thinking of nasty things." I tried to cover my admission there. I believed I pulled it off, though I didn't get out of the sand-trap on my first shot. "I'm worth very little to you or anyone else if I'm not considering contingencies, trying to stay a step ahead. However, Kathy, you know I'm a failure, I haven't prevented a single thing I saw unfolding from happening. You need both sides of that coin before you can spend it."

Kathy's eyes narrowed, she caught what I said and how I said it. I decided I wanted to throw Kathy off the subject for a while, "It's a name."

"Pardon?"

"It's a guy's name: Bukakke."

Then I changed up again, "Kath, please get Peg treated and give her antidotes if she's picked up something from the Russian. The irony of Peggy being exposed to cosmic rays and not going sterile only to become that way by a cosmonaut with poor hygiene is enough to make my head explode. Right now, I don't know if her kids will be my kids, but she doesn't deserve to be barren."

Kathy flew into my arms, "Stop it. I'll take care of it. Don't go there, if you always dreamed of kids with her then have them, the only person that can stop you is you. Peggy will be extremely devoted from now on. She can't believe she did it and she's worse than beside herself. She's going to need help, Gary. She's going to need counseling.

"I'm telling you Gary, when this becomes public knowledge, she's out of the program. We'll try to keep this quiet. I doubt anyone high up in NASA knows yet. But there will be rumors and insinuations, you can bank on it. I think we can keep up a plausible deniability, but not if she's around all day. What happened after landfall, the quarantine, not being under NASA supervision, is on every one's mind. They will pick and pick at her until she unravels. When she does it's going to be bloody for everyone.

"If there was a plausible story it would be different, but this sort of rumor has never come to the fore, and Peggy will act guilty. We must remove her from that setting for as long as possible. Most likely all we're doing is delaying the inevitable. Her career's done and by her own hand: I'm certain she will resign. They won't have to convince her, no arm twisting needed. Hell Gary, it means a pay raise when she goes into the private sector with her experience now. So that's a bonus, right?"

That wasn't true. Many government jobs had surpassed private sector jobs in pay for some time. I liked that my mind was still sifting extraneous details like that. That meant I had a chance to keep myself distracted. And Kathy had given me something new to think about. That was good, I needed new problems to solve.

"Yeah, that's enough of that for a little while. What do you want to do, Kath?"

"I'm scared Gary."

"Why?" Keep in mind the sort of answer I expected was "let's get pizza, let's make a drink, let's go for a walk in the park". That sort of thing, not Kathy being fearful. Obviously, Kathy was thinking along a whole different line.

"Gary, I know what to recommend for you to release your anger and raise your confidence going forward. But I'm so scared."

"Why?"

"You and me Gary; I want that. I want you. But I don't want the complication with a friend and colleague, specifically Peggy. I don't want to be a homewrecker. I don't want to take advantage of you when you're down and have been kicked so many times. I don't want a married man unless he's married to me. Except Gary, I want you. Badly."

I'd been right. This was about as far from pizza as you could get. I certainly hadn't expected that. Kathy paused to compose her thoughts. She nodded to herself and went on.

"The two sides of my head are screaming at each other. This is my chance, yet I'm supposed to be your friend. You don't need another person professing to be interested in you while acting only for themselves. I know what Peg did, but she did it when she was compromised. Still, after everything that has happened, if you said enough is enough and walked out, some folks would stand up and cheer.

"Gary, no matter the provocation, to take advantage of a marriage in deep trouble, a long spousal absence, and a spoiled homecoming, to bed a friend who happens to be a colleague's husband, is wrong. To do it in her house and her bed is dirty and I don't want to be that girl. But Gary, without taking the baggage into consideration, that's exactly what I want. What I honestly think you need is to throw me over your shoulder, take me to your bed, and fuck the hell out of me, exactly like you imagine the Russian did to your wife!

Kathy unconsciously grabbed a hold of my shirt, "I want it to be me Gary, not just the first available girl when your defenses finally fail you, like I believe Peggy did with that cosmonaut."

That line was like a slap to me: it focused me. I was feeling like I had fallen into a trap. I don't like that feeling. Kathy pulled me back from my thoughts. She was beginning to chatter in her angst.

"Gary, I don't want you this way, but I want you. I want it to be wondrous and pure, not something to hide but to shout about. Oh Gary, I want to help you and all those feminine things. I haven't felt like this since my very first boyfriend, the one I made a man and, well, he did the same for me."

Kathy faltered, blushing at what she had just admitted. Thank goodness. She had just given me my chance to defuse this!

I feigned anger, "He made you a man? That stupid bastard!"

Kathy's laugher was a great cathartic endpoint too. She filled the room with nervous laughter. I grabbed her into a deep bear hug. It let her be near me and stopped the conversation from continuing, a double win. When Kathy pushed out of my hug, her eyes were full of tears.

Her expression told me I had done something wonderful. She gave me that look women give their mates when they've done something great and traditionally manly, like save a kid from getting hit by a car, or stopping a guy from beating a woman, or maybe stopping a bank robbery.

Okay, one example too far, but you know the look: you see it on a good vacation. They're happy they chose you and proud you chose them. They're impressed with you as a mate and man, and they're drunk with romantic love, and all they want to do is sink to their knees and get your cock in their mouth to get the proceedings started. And Kathy was wearing the look they wear the very last second before they actually drop to their knees and do it. But she didn't.

"I know what you need Gary. You're a protector, that's more that than a warrior, though I have no doubt you make an excellent warrior. The two proceed from different places though. And ... I know what you just did."

"What's that Kath?"

"I was ready to give you the whole damsel in distress routine. Yes, I would've enjoyed the hell out of it, but it was really more for you. Like everyone, you need to be needed. But you need it in a certain way. You need to protect. I could provide that, giving you something you could sink your teeth into, both figuratively and literally. Something you would respond to naturally, something you haven't had during this entire fiasco."

Kathy looked down with a sad smile then back up, her eyes were deep soulful pools. "But you aren't going to play the protector tonight, are you? Instead, you'll be the hero and deny me what you fear may be bad for me. I may've shot myself in the foot. I really do want to be the friend you don't have right now. Peggy knows and understands much of her problem isn't so much being a lousy lover and absentee wife, but rather being a tremendously crappy friend.

"Considering the cause, most men wouldn't have waited through a drought this long. I know I'm not unpleasing to the eye. Most would say I'm classically more beautiful than your wife. Most men, if they knew I was available to them, that their wife wasn't even on the continent, and that we will be alone in the same house all night long, would not be so heroic. They wouldn't be a gentleman when they knew their wife hadn't been a lady. But you will steer me clear of trouble, and not let me harm myself because of my confession."

Then she froze before a wry smile painted itself on her face, "Holy cow you did it anyway. Gary, y-you protected me. Damn though, that makes me even hornier." She shook her head, "No, I'm not trying to vamp or seduce you; I promised to always be honest with you. I think you know I'll melt at your merest touch, so what's the point in my playing hard to get? I don't think I'm capable of doing the same for you, if you want me, you'll have me. I don't believe I'm able steer you back to a cleaner course of action.

"Gary, one last note on this topic, for now. I don't ... I haven't ..." She sighed, "My dry spell between men has been a lot longer than yours without a woman. I don't want just any man. You'd never be just a notch on my bedpost."

Kathy looked around the room determined to find a way to explain herself and anxious at being misunderstood.

"Gary, I said it was for privacy reasons, but I made sure it was me and not anyone else coming here to advise you of the circumstances with your wife. Further, I admit having no intension of leaving you tonight when I left work. I-I'm not like this. I admit I'm putty in your hands. I want you to rip my clothes off and take me angrily, to make me yours so I claim you as mine, and we will be together. It's terrible of me to say it, but I want that. I want it bad, Gary."

Tilting her head down she sighed again, slowly her eyes lifted to mine once more. I'd missed my cue to do what she intoned.

Her teeth ground before she spoke, "I won't be a problem if you don't want it. Damn it, Gary, you're going to grow in my eyes either way. If you let me give myself to you now, I'll do so without reservation; I'll be jet propelled to have you. If you have enough discipline to say no, then you'll be even bigger in my eyes.

"We know your capacity for discipline outstrips your wife's. If you can't forgive her, yet don't want to commit her same infraction, I'll be here waiting for when you decide the time is right! Then I can have you guilt free."

Kathy stepped back shaking her head frowning at herself, "I'm fucked up. I'm being a lousy friend to Peg. But as you once mentioned, she planted this seed in my mind and it's grown. There's a nice difference, I wanted you before she offered my services in her desperation.

"Isn't that nice karma for you? I was trying to be the best friend I could for you. I still am, yet I fell for you. The way you handled yourself, the incredible love you had for Peg, the way you took life's almost unrelenting blows without losing your dignity though the whole world conspired to take it away from you...

"Yeah, you're bigger than life. When I spoke to Peggy for the second time today, without knowing how I feel about you, your desperate wife said, and meant, that she would even be happy for me to sleep with you if it bought her some slack with you. Though, if I can make that scenario happen, that slack may not include a complete reinstatement of the status she previously enjoyed."

Kathy smiled recalling the conversation with Peg, then more broadly remembering her conversations over the last ten months with me.

"Please Gary, even if you don't avail yourself, put me in your bed tonight, and tomorrow night, and every night until your broken-hearted foolish wife comes home. I'll cling to you. I'll keep you warm and make sure you never feel alone. You'll always feel appreciated. If need be, you can pretend I'm her. You can be angry, or strike out, dominate, claim, or even just cry Gary. You can get some of the frustration and pain out of your system before having to face her. You can do that with me. I won't tell, not even her. I'll keep it locked away in my heart, safe, forever."

I couldn't find the words. Kathy saw my fight internally, neither of us knew exactly what I was going to do. This was a real life, with real consequences. This was Kathy putting herself out there, this was Kathy being as vulnerable as she had probably ever been - all for me. I was so damaged, and she was so willing to help me. She watched her offer play out across my face, then leaned in putting her hands on the sides of my face.

"I know Gary, it's okay. What you need right now is not more decisions to make. You just need a friend, just a friend who will stick with you, and who cares. I know she hasn't, but I promise Peg is going to be that again for you.

"See what a good friend I am: I want you for my own, but I'm going to tell you the truth no matter what. Even when it hurts my bid. And Gary, I'll help you choose her and stay with her too, if that's what you need or want, even if you do the things I previously offered.

"Gary, I've never had a friend on this level, that's how extraordinarily trustworthy I think you are. So please let me in that much, let me be your best friend, even if only for a few more days. No pressure, whatever you need, you come first. No strings beyond friendship, even if that's throwing me all over your bed then choosing my rival afterwards. We won't speak of it unless you want to. Short of death or handicap you've had every bad break you could have. So now you're getting a really good deal. Take the deal Gary. Take the deal and turn your life back around."

I think I almost crushed Kathy hugging her so tightly. As she was my friend, I didn't correct her when she cried softly, "Gary, oh Gary," she quickly got herself under control and shushed me, telling me life was getting better now, that it would all eventually be better.

I don't know what we did the rest of the evening. I know we got dinner and talked about things: we liked the beach, warm water, mountains, math, and engineering. Yeah, common interests are great. We never let go of each other and normally the hold was tight. We fed each other so we didn't have to break our embrace. But if I kissed her it was on the forehead or the cheek.

My head was too messed up to jump into more confusion now. Kathy was a good friend, if she'd made a move I would have responded, and then we'd be having an entirely different conversation afterwards. I just didn't want that yet. An hour from now, who knows? I didn't.

I told her, "Kathy, I don't know what I'm going to do, what to think, or even all that I'm feeling right now. Since my parents when I was young, bless their souls, and the woman I married, I've never trusted anyone else enough to do what I am about to. Frankly, I've never actually done with Peg what I'm about to ask you for."

Apprehension began to creep across Kathy's face. It melted away replaced by a surge of happy pride. I hoped my request wouldn't disappoint her. From what I'd just witnessed I didn't think that would be the case.