Splashdown Ch. 08

"Yep, and I can't take it out on Peggy. And that's not fair either, but what to do? I tell you though, and I don't care if it's twenty years from now: if I see that Russian, hell he could be the Pope by then, I'll fucking kill him. If only to just get one of my balls back, and maybe take away this anger constantly ringing in my ears. It's omnipresent, because I can't get even with any of this shit. I'll kill him and like it, because I've been there, done that, and I do like it. That would be as good as the ultimate sundae, with extra fudge, whipped cream, and those ridiculous little sprinkle things on top."

Kathy looked at me with great sympathy. As she had been bugging me to let off some steam, she had no right to complain about the form the venting took. To her credit she didn't complain. She actually sat down next to me and looked on me like a true-blue friend would for a buddy that got a raw deal.

"Kath, even when the rage dissipates the remaining thoughts don't give relief. I'm not crazy about messing with her right now. Peg went and made up her own mind and I was along for the ride, like a bag of damn vegetables on the way home from the grocery store. Like the grocery store bag my wife brought her husband his new condoms in." I dropped my head, "Wow, this makes me wonder if venting is the right idea. Damn Kath, when a mind wants to torture itself it's ugly, it's just plain ugly."

* * * * * *

My mind drifted back to one of Peg's and my first video-conference chats once she had a room to stay in while the State Department, US Navy, and NASA jockeyed plans to bring her home. She had a pit stop in Germany where they gave Peggy another set of tests. And from there she contacted me.

Peggy had been almost desperate on the phone and computer during her delay in Kazakhstan to make sure I could switch our travel to the following week. She was desperate that her delay had not crossed up our pre planned vacation or her time with me. But alas I still had a job I had to log into, even if it had no duties, and they made sure to track all our locations. Thu,s the dates could not be changed that quickly, and I had to settle for a partial refund. Travel insurance didn't cover an extra week of "quarantine" when returning from space, or your wife having a two-person orgy in a field in Gran Fuckistan. So, I got screwed on the money like I got screwed everywhere else. I just didn't actually get screwed. Sheesh!

My revelry broke as I looked up to see Peg standing in front of me in our living room as she read my face.

"Which?" She asked bringing some humor to our plight. There were times when both of us would blank out. We'd taken to asking the question "which" because there were too many pokers in the fire to know exactly which we were thinking of.

I smiled at her warmly, "video-chat vacation conversation."

Peg remembered all too perfectly. Back then on the video chat she knew instantly the vacation was toast and that it was worse than only a money thing, it was one more log on the fire. At least she didn't waste my time crying.

To her credit back in the present in our living room she said, "I guess I'd botched our romantic beach vacation anyway, huh? You probably wanted to see if I had gotten an STD from my cosmic-debauchery-camping-trip before having me do my stuff for you, no matter how "re-new-lywed" enthusiastic I may have been to be with you. Especially after spending the week prior to the one I was supposed to spend with you making up my past behavior, with another man.

Peggy thought before adding, "Then I came home knowing I had to tell you I'd been unfaithful. I longed for your touch yet was scared of touching you at the same time." She blew out a breath, "I tell you Gary, of all the lows, telling you what I'd done, and that the only safe way you could have me until my tests came back was with a condom was the absolute worst. Gary, if you'd tried to strangle me then, I swear I wouldn't have fought you.

"I'm sorry Gary. Making you stay in a lonely dark house full of rotten memories instead of escaping to a tropical beach, while simultaneously having you pay for part of the beach anyway, hardly seems a recompense for botching your vacation, your planned reconcilement, your love, your marriage, and your life. It really does seem like I'm your personal "bad luck" charm.

Peg put her open hand on my jaw, "I know you can't possibly believe it, but I love you, Gary! I'm just astonished at how wrong I went concerning you. I want to love you and live the rest of our days together, but I want you happy and nothing has made you sadder the last year, than me. I don't know what you'll decide. I figure I had my time and ran amuck. I've told you what I want, but I know I don't deserve it, and I want you to be as happy as you can be. If you tell me the only thing that will make you happy is my leaving I will, but I am desperate for you to know that's the last thing I want.

"I plan to do whatever you want, Gary."

Peggy fought crying as hard as she could. Obviously, our chats were not a ton of laughs.

"I want you home ASAP, meaning we get along like before this happened. Both delighted to look up and see the other. No guilt just joy. No indecision, no remembering a slight, or caution in caring. I'm trying to get there, Peg. I didn't want this to happen. Now I just want it to go away. Maybe you started this, but I seem incapable of ending it and I know that part is on me."

Peg's mouth dropped open. She had no idea I thought I was part of the problem.

"We need to fix things Peg and there's a lot to fix. But I want things fixed. I don't know if we can, but by damn, I'm trying. I didn't swallow my pride to keep us together when it looked like there was only one of us in this relationship anyway, to give up now."

Peggy was astonished, "God bless you, Gary. Maybe you can think of something, of anything I can do to make you happy. It can be brownies or sexual, or damn it all, anything. Okay?"

As I forced my mind to clear I remembered my friend Kathy telling me about my wife's predicament.

The Russian doctors at landing, who were probably agents, told NASA Peggy needed a delay. Then they told Peggy the delay was ordered by NASA. Her phone wasn't charged for her to verify. Apparently, it was the Cosmonaut's job to delay Peggy's confirmation communication. The delay was not as long as they hoped, as Peggy left or escaped or whatever. Any way you slice it, the delay was not of her making, it was not her fault.

Once again it rested on me to accept the slight and move on, with the only option to swallowing my pride being leaving my marriage. It was a one-way street again. I had to make the decision and make it work. I was the screwed over party here, how did I end up with the dirty work again?

Peggy was watching my unhappiness with large soulful eyes. Her mouth was scrunched in a sick pucker on one side of her face her lower lip quivered slightly. She was unconsciously nodding with an "I know" expression.

* * * * *

I kept comparing Peggy's return to where we were now. There wasn't enough difference.

Peggy had been home for two days. Her homecoming was strange. While it felt like she had been gone forever she had very little unpacking to do. She had worn simple clothes from Houston to the Cape. Taking only a small bag to Russia for the rocket, changing into her flight suit in the great stan.

Apparently, it was strange for Peggy too. She walked around the house dragging her fingers over things. Touch allowed her to reconnect with them, make them real again. Except she was scared to touch me. Did she not want to touch me for fear of making me real again? I wasn't sure if I wanted her to either. In our bedroom she touched all the things on her dresser, and all the things on her bathroom counter, and her shampoo and conditioner in the shower. She came back out eyes welling looking at her dresser.

"They're right where I left them. Did you get a cleaning person?"

I shook my head no questioningly.

She looked astounded and said as her eyes began to water. "T-There's no dust. Not on the pictures of me, but yours are dusty. You dusted my pictures. No, you touched them ... frequently ... didn't you?"

I looked away. I nodded sitting on the edge of the bed suddenly quite fatigued. Peggy was suddenly kneeling in front of me.

"You - You handled them before I left too, didn't you? To remind you of me, even though I was still physically here. For you I was already gone, is that right?"

I felt my emotions welling up. Peggy seemed amazed at the amount of my emotions. She looked non plussed, then worried, and finally determined.

"Gary, I know you said not to get into it yet. So, I won't, but there's a small chip here I need to tell you. I think we've already confirmed that you know what happened, and we'll speak around it now too. I'll tell you everything when you want. But you may have fears and there is not much I can do for you unless I put a specific fear away. M-May I have permission to hurt you a bit in order to help you?"

I know my brow furrowed.

"I'll make it very fast. I don't want to hurt you, Gary. I'm sorry I ever did."

I nodded thinking, 'Sure, sure, here we go again.'

"I brought a folder home, I won't go get it, I'll stay here with you. It has various reports. One of them is from a physical I had in US hands while still over there. It was confirmed back here with yet another physical. The very first page is what I thought you'd most need to see."

She paused.

"Gary, I've been thinking a lot about the sins a wife can make against her husband. What I am about to tell you has landed number three on my list of worst things a wife can tell her husband, but that presumes her husband doesn't know anything yet. I believe you do, so I'll only tell you what I hope takes some worry and hurt away, in what is still a terrible ugly situation that we will deal with later.

"I'm sorry, Gary. I'm walking on broken glass, and I broke all the glass. I don't want to hold out on you, I don't want to conceal anything. But I don't want to seem cold and blurt things out," Peggy shook her head, "so I'm accidentally drawing it out like peeling off a bandage slowly.

"Gary. I'm clean, from a disease standpoint anyway. From ... his prior records and my current tests I'm clean. To be sure about AIDS we should still ... I can't say it. But there's no history of his having AIDS. I can't tell you how sorry ..."

"Don't."

Peggy nodded forcing a smile.

"The worst things on my list were a wife telling a husband she was leaving him for another man. I-I thought the second worst was a wife telling her husband she was carrying another man's child. The third was that she had physical relations ... sex Gary, that she had sex with another man. I won't go into particulars until you tell me. And no Gary, in case you are wondering because I brought it up, I am not pregnant.

"I wanted you to know that I'm clean Gary because I want to touch you. I-I know you may find touching me repugnant, but I needed you to know you won't catch anything if you allow it. I won't add infirmity to your body the way I've broken your heart and tormented your mind. So, my touch won't make you sick ... physically." Peggy dropped her eyes.

I nodded. While her eyes were full of tears none had leaked. I was proud of her will power on that front.

"G-Gary may I hold your hand?"

I reached out to her. She stared at my hand, amazed I'd offered it. Quickly she clasped it with one, then both, hands. She looked amazed to be able to hold it, then she brought it to her lips and kissed it, then touched it to her throat bringing her shoulders forward and chin down to hold and protect.

Peggy looked up, her tears streaming now. She broke into a huge smile, "Thank you, Gary, I've no words to convey what your gesture means to me."

"It's good to see you smile, Peggy. You didn't for so long before you actually left..." My sentence ground to a halt.

That almost wiped her smile away, but she forced it back.

"The pictures of me, you held them, didn't you? You took them off the dresser and held them. That's why they aren't dusty," she whispered sounding like she didn't believe her own words.

I shut my eyes, "Yes."

Now she pulled into me forgetting to be afraid of touching me. She hadn't been as afraid to enter the boiling hot and icy cold realm of nothing during her spacewalk as she was to touch me.

"Gary, you still love me. Don't you?" She seemed incredulous.

I couldn't answer, my tears blinded me, I just nodded. I felt her wrap her arms around me. I simply lost it.

"Oh Gary. Oh Gary. I've hurt you so. Please, I'm here, you don't have to think about anything, any consequence nor any dreams, any pain, any decisions, just hold me hold me tonight. I am yours for as long as you want: tonight, or forever. Don't decide tonight. I'll do anything you want, just tell me or make me. But please, Gary, hold me in your arms."

I wrapped them around her like I was holding on before falling over a cliff.

"Oh Gary. Oh, my Gary. Oh Gary."

We stayed that way for quite a while both crying.

"Thank you for your arms around me. Gary, for so long I couldn't feel! It was like being dead, and I reacted on auto pilot. I smiled, I laughed at appropriate times. Wonder, awe, and excitement got through, but they were muted when normally I would have been bouncing off the walls.

"Gary, it got so bad I-I couldn't feel myself. I sort of lost my own identity. If I didn't have the mission to focus on, I think I would've gone mad. When I felt that loss of self I started to panic, and studying was my way back. It doesn't account for everything I did, but you need to know that before you can understand that there were times that I couldn't feel your love. It wrecked me, and I'd run away again. I'm sure you felt it as running away from you.

"I've lived not being able to feel love or myself. Do you know what that state is? I thought it was animal, except I think animals feel love. Whatever it is, it's not human. We have to feel to be human. I never realized it or thought to define it that way before, but it's true.

"It's a realm comprised of horror, especially when you realize you don't actually feel the horror, rather you intuit it. Back on earth I regressed to an animal state, so I know the difference. It's part of why I know

I was not raped even if they drugged my body. Well, that's for later.

"In that state I couldn't feel your love! I didn't know if you had stopped loving me or if I was that numb. Now I can feel again. I can feel your love, and it's so strong, yet you are so wounded. To love like that and not have it returned, perhaps to even feel your love rebuked, must be devastating.

"Gary, I'm trying to explain that I have an idea how much I hurt you. I was numb, I couldn't feel or generate love, I couldn't feel myself. And that was terrible. But to fully feel and feel rejected, rebuked, and unloved, I can only imagine. Even now after all I have done, both accidentally and on purpose, including my fall, you still love me, and I still feel it. You haven't thrown it back in my face, the way you felt I threw your love back in yours.

"It's very much like I fell asleep loving you, and upon waking I still loved you. I do love you, Gary. Can you understa ... oh my God, Gary!"

I don't know what Peg saw, but I was done. All that fear I kept bottled up inside, that same blind raging fear I felt once and killed so that I could return to her, was back. But it had no focus, it had been bottled up killing me. It flowed out now like a flood, tearing through anything along its course. A terrible howl of a dying animal emerged from me as I shook in relief and rage.

"Oh Jesus Gary! I'm so sorry! I-I should've known. I-I didn't understand it was this bad: that I was this bad to you. I didn't see the effects. This is beyond bad, beyond betrayal Gary: this is cruelty. You're so strong Gary: I imagined it was bad, but I had no idea I had done THIS to you! I didn't think I COULD do this to you. Gary, please forgive me. I had no idea I was being CRUEL! Oh Gary, oh Gary, I'm so sorry. Forgive me Gary. Please!"

I took my hand and put it to her lips to silence her, then pulled her in tightly showing her how to help me. She clung back. We bonded in our agony, hopefully to awake without some of it, and to a bridge back to each other, forged in knowing there was a mutual desire to do so.

* * * * *

The next morning, we awoke still clinging to each other. We made no move to quickly disengage. We communicated nonverbally. Not needing words to convey ideas was a good sign.

We got up, shared some shy smiles and I thought some real consideration for each other. We brushed our teeth and performed the minimum necessary toiletries to head for the kitchen. We stayed touching each other even if it was fingertips or elbows.

I nodded to the coffee maker; Peg's eyes lit up. Her first sip was almost enough to make her orgasm.

"You know the coffee at the military bases stateside and at NASA tasted like ambrosia compared to the freeze-dried stuff on the ISS. But this, this is like," and she looked at me, "coming home." She sniffled and smiled, and even cried a bit.

Peg wrapped her mug in both hands, like she was guarding it with her life. Eyes firmly set on me she said, "I know, after all I have done to you maybe it doesn't ring true to you, but Gary, there is nowhere on earth I would rather be than by your side."

This wasn't the first time this sort of thing had happened, which made me wonder if it was to be expected or if it was Freudian. Peg saw my smile diminish. She had to think for a while to reason why. She figured it out with a sag of her shoulders.

"I really did a number on you." She looked just miserable, "There is no human being I want to be with more than you."

She'd tried to be definitive. I forced a smile. It was still not the message I wanted. I wasn't sure she was capable of telling me what I wanted to hear.

"Gary, I know it'll take a long time to undo almost a year of damage. After last night I'm wondering if I haven't inflicted more damage on you in ten months than I filled you with love in the all the years before. Would you allow me to get started trying to make amends?"

I nodded. She picked up her coffee and took me by the hand leading me into the family room. She sighed at being back in its familiar surrounds.

"Gary, if I'm right you don't exactly want to carry me upstairs and rip my clothes off to "welcome me home". If you do, I'm all in! I certainly owe you a lot of back payments, and I'm happy to be thrown on my back or where-ever to start. I need you to know that. I just figured that you may want some specific answers before anything else.

"I don't want to change our house back into the chamber of gloom for you, but maybe it's best we air that part, the physical part, out first. If you don't want to that's okay too. It's really whatever you want."

Great. I had said I didn't want to hear about it yet. Still, Peggy was the one who had gone through the horror. She was the one kidnapped and abused. She was the one who could be traumatized. If she needed to get it out, then, damn it, it was coming out.

"Gary, I-I just know I owe you answers, I won't try to hide anything or obfuscate, or try to make myself look better."

Peg sat with her legs crossed in front of her but turned directly towards me.

"For the first three months up there I was fine, then well, anything sexual got keener. I was up there with three guys. No, no, I didn't do anything! I was a good wife and workmate, er, co-worker." Peg shook her head ruefully at her continued poor choice of words. "All of them seemed to take a keener interest in me and I reciprocated. It started out as simple happiness in the workplace. I think it might have something to do with pheromones. The air scrubbers are good, but it's still stale air, there's still a bit of sweat smell, and I doubt the scrubber can take out years of accumulated pheromones.