What Did I Do that was Wrong? 01

" 'But you would never have to know! I would never, ever do anything to embarrass you, I swear! It would only be while we weren't together, and when we were together you would have all of me. Just the way you've had all of me every minute we've been together, since that first night you made dinner for me.'

"I knew I had to get out of there. It felt suddenly like I was in the middle of a nightmare, and unable to wake up. I told Leanne I needed to think, and that I'd be in touch. She tried to get me to stay, to talk further about it, but I just gave her a quick kiss and got the hell out of there. I was in total shock."

Not surprisingly, Leanne's revelation completely threw Mark for a loop. It was several days before he could even bring himself to call her, though she had left him a number of affectionate and concerned messages. He could barely focus on his work, with all the thoughts running through his head.

And one thought above all: "Could I have been so wrong about Leanne? Have I been totally blind to what kind of person she is?"

The kind of promiscuous lifestyle that Leanne was insisting on continuing was totally at odds with everything he understood about her: that she was loving, considerate, thoughtful, and devoted to him. Mark just couldn't put the contradictory pieces together, and it drove him crazy.

Finally, after nearly a week, he called Leanne and they met for lunch.

"My heart lurched at the sight of her, when I picked her up. She was so beautiful, and I realized again how much I loved her.

"When we were waiting for our food to come she took my hand across the table, and said, 'I've really missed you, Mark.'

"Before I could stop myself I said, 'how many...' and then stopped. I was going to ask, 'how many guys have you fucked in the last week?' It was halfway out of my mouth, and then I stopped. I knew I didn't want to know.

"I excused myself, went to the Men's Room, washed my face, tried to calm down, and then went back to the table, and we talked about other things."

After they'd eaten, Mark told her how much trouble he was having with her insistence on being with other men.

"It revolted me and frightened me, quite frankly," he said to me. "I had always been a confident lover, and now I was wracked with doubts that I couldn't satisfy the woman I loved. I obviously wasn't enough for her, or why would she want to fuck other people?"

All Leanne could do was reassure him, over and over again. This had nothing to do with him, she said--he was a fantastic lover and she was completely satisfied with him, in bed and out. This had to do with her own needs, for something exciting and spontaneous and totally separate from their relationship.

And she asked Mark if they could just continue seeing one another? Step back a little, go back to dating, spending nights together sometimes, and see how it went? She told him she was sure that he'd realize how deeply she cared for him, and how her other "activities" were no threat to their relationship.

" 'Please don't give up on me, baby,' she said.

"As crazy as it may seem, I decided to give it a chance. I'd been thinking all week of how much I loved Leanne, more than any woman I'd ever known, and I couldn't imagine not being with her. So I told myself, what did I have to lose?"

One of Mark's ground rules to Leanne was that they wouldn't talk any further about her involvement with other men. He didn't want to know anything at all about it, and was counting on her to keep her activities completely hidden from him.

"I know that I've always been good at denying unpleasant things, pushing them away and pretending they don't exist. I probably got it from my father, who is the same way. During my junior year of college my mother got breast cancer, which she died of after a year and half. I still remember all those meetings between the doctor and me, my father and my sister.

"The doctor would spell out my mom's condition in detail, and the prognosis. And when we three talked about it afterwards, it was like my father and I had never even been in the room! My sister would say, 'you don't remember the doctor said she only had three months to live?' or something like that, and my father and I would both shake our heads.

"We both just had a need to protect ourselves emotionally, I guess, and we did it by repressing painful things. And I did the same thing with Leanne's 'flings', I guess I can call them.

"I guess that another man in the same situation might have wanted to talk it all out: establish all sorts of rules with Leanne, like no more than so many flings in a month, or never in our house, or always use condoms. But I just didn't want to know anything--I felt like closing my eyes and sticking my fingers in my ears.

"Actually, I did know about condoms, because Leanne always insisted on them. It was a big deal when we decided to stop using them together: when things were getting serious between us, she started taking the pill. We went and got tested for STDs, and when we both turned out clean we celebrated with our first bareback sex.

"So I knew, without asking, that she must be using condoms with the other guys as well.

"Otherwise, though, I insisted that this be a forgotten topic, not to be spoken about again. And Leanne readily agreed--she was so eager to please me, willing to do anything to keep us together. And so we just dropped the subject.

"Actually," he recalled, "that's not totally true. I brought it up one more time with her, about a week later. I asked her whether I didn't have sex with her often enough, whether that was the reason she needed to have other guys. And she looked at me lovingly, kind of sadly, and said No, it had nothing to do with that, she loved our sexual relationship just the way it was.

"It was more like needing a massage, she said, or a vigorous game of racketball. Just a physical release that had nothing to do with love, nothing at all to do with the way we felt about one another.

"I can't say I found that a satisfactory response--but there was nothing to do but let it drop."

After that lunchtime conversation, Mark and Leanne's relationship gradually regained its footing. They took it very slow, backing off to just one date every week or two for a while. At first Mark wasn't sure he wanted to continue having sex her right away--perhaps a combination of resentment and a new insecurity about his performance.

Every time they were together, he couldn't keep from thinking about who she might have been fucking in the days since he'd last seen her--what they might have done with her, whether they'd turned her on more than he could.

But Leanne was too loving and sexy to resist for long, and when they fell back into bed again their lovemaking was as passionate and satisfying as it had ever been. Somewhat to Mark's disbelief, he found within a few months that things with Leanne were as great as they had been before.

"Like I said, I was good at denying, and I'd had plenty of experience. It wasn't that I forgot what Leanne might be doing when we weren't together. In fact at first I thought about it all the time, every day we were apart. Was she screwing somebody right now? Where did she meet him? Was he better hung than I, was he giving her pleasure I could never match?

"But I resolutely pushed the thoughts away, and after a while there weren't so many of them. And Leanne never ever did the slightest thing to make me jealous or suspicious. She might have been fucking other guys once a month or three times a week, and I would have had no idea."

"How about your own sex life? Was Leanne available to you when you wanted to make love? Did she initiate love-making with you?"

"Yes to both. Both back then and since we've been married, we have a lot of sex, with either one of us taking the lead. I guess there's an occasional night when she says she's too tired or just doesn't feel like it, but it doesn't happen often at all. And there's never been anything about it to make me suspicious. I have an occasional night when I don't feel all that sexy either, so I can understand."

Ten. months after Leanne told Mark about her flings, he proposed again, and this time she accepted him joyfully.

"I knew I had to indicate to her that I understood what I was agreeing to, but I just didn't want to talk about it. So I said something like, 'I love you, and I love the relationship we have now--and I want it to continue, just like this, for the rest of our lives.'

"So Leanne knew I was accepting that she could have her flings, without me having to spell it out."

And their marriage was happy and fulfilling for both of them--right up to the time he saw her with another man. They had decided not to have children--Leanne stayed on the pill--and when they weren't working they were cooking together, seeing friends or traveling, skiing many weekends in the winter and sailing in the Caribbean on summer vacations.

"I have to say, Tom, I grew to love her more and more. My dad has become a crotchety old man, hard for me and most other people to get along with. But when he comes for visits Leanne turns him into a pussycat! She flirts with him and he flirts right back--he's utterly charming. He's always pulling me aside and telling me how lucky I am to have her. And because of their great relationship, my dad and I are closer now than we've been in years.

"And when it comes to my friends and colleagues from work, Leanne is absolutely wonderful. I was afraid at first that she'd maybe be too flirtatious, you know, a little inappropriate? But she keeps her sexy side completely under wraps. She is utterly comfortable being the devoted, supportive wife, and again, all my buddies tell me how lucky I am.

"It's not that she puts on an act, either, with my dad or my work friends. She is genuinely warm, and thoughtful, and knows how to make people feel at ease.

"And we have such a great time together! I mean, out of bed. I see from your ring finger that you're married, so I'm sure you know what I mean. After a while marriage is about so much more than sex--it's the companionship, the feeling of having a loving friend who supports you and understands you. It's the silly times together, watching a dumb movie, doing the grocery shopping..."

Mark stopped speaking, quite suddenly, and put one hand over his eyes. Then without looking at me he began to speak again, hesitantly.

"What did I do that was wrong? I...just love her so much. I can't imagine being without her. But I can't ...I... just don't see how I can live with... what she does."

We sat quietly for a while, and then I asked him if he would tell me about the day he found her with another man. He nodded, but then he sat for almost a minute before he began.

"I'd flown up to Milwaukee for two days to supervise a project we were doing up there--I've made the trip four or five times over the past year. I was due back on a Thursday at dinner time, but we finished early the second day and when I got to the airport at around noon I was able to grab a standby seat on a flight getting back to Chicago at 1:45.

"I barely made it onto the plane before the doors closed, so I didn't have time to call Leanne before we took off. When we landed at O'Hare, I called her cell and left a message that I'd be home by 3 pm. Then I called the house too, just in case, but she didn't answer--so I left a message there too."

"Were you thinking about whether she might...be with someone?" I asked him.

"No, I...shit, I don't know. Probably. At least a little.

"I'd like to say that after four years I'd stopped thinking about it, but that's bullshit. I NEVER stopped thinking about it. I just thought about it less often--found it easier to push the thoughts away.

"Because as I've said, Leanne never did or said anything to give me the slightest suspicions. No coming home late with her clothes all rumpled, or racing past me for the shower, no people calling the house and hanging up when I answered--nothing like that at all.

"I could have been married to the most perfect, most faithful wife in the world, except that I knew I wasn't.

"So yeah, I guess was I thinking about the possibility. I don't know how seriously I was worrying about it, but.... In any case, when I got to the house there was a strange car in the driveway. Then I really WAS worried.

"I sat there for a moment, not knowing what to do. I used my cell to call the house again, but Leanne didn't pick up. I wondered if a friend had dropped by and they'd gone somewhere in Leanne's car. I guess that's what I hoped had happened. I tried her cell again and got no answer.

"So I walked slowly towards the front door, hoping against hope that she wasn't inside balling some guy. I really didn't want to walk into anything like that! All the same, I was damned if I was going to sit and wait outside my own house.

"As I came towards the house I heard sounds from the back yard, where the pool is. Our house is in a very private location, with a long driveway, set back into the woods, and the back yard overlooks the lake. And it was a really hot, sunny day.

"Anyway, I heard a man's voice--saying something like, 'oh baby, that's so good!' And I--I..."

Mark stopped, grimacing, looking down, folding his arms tightly across his chest, as if to keep from falling apart. I waited quietly.

"I know I shouldn't have gone back there," he finally said. "I should have turned on my heel, gone back to my car and driven away. I still would have had to confront Leanne about it, but it... it wouldn't have been as... as bad as actually seeing it.

"But I just couldn't help it. I quietly walked down the path around the side of the house until I could see the pool deck. Leanne was there, naked, with a naked guy. He was young, maybe 28, tall and skinny. He had a long skinny dick too, which was hard to miss because it was sticking straight out.

"She was sitting on a chair and he was standing in front of her, as though he'd just pulled his dick out of her mouth. She was smiling up at him, her hands on his hips. She picked up a condom, tore the wrapper open, and rolled it onto his cock. Then she got up, took his hand and led him over to this air mattress we have, a double mattress that we use to float in the pool together.

"It was lying on the grass. She lay down on her back and he climbed on top of her, in the missionary position. As he was up on his hands and knees, not inside her yet, she reached up, put her arms around him and gave him a long, loving kiss.

"It shocked me--I mean I just about fell over. I was frozen in place, watching. Then he gently entered her and settled his body on top of hers, and they began to do it." Mark was telling the story in a low voice, almost a monotone, his eyes fixed on the carpet in front of him.

"What killed me was how loving it was. She opened her legs for him so tenderly, like not lustfully but with love; and while they were fucking, slowly and gently, her arms were around his neck and they were having these long, deep kisses, tongues and everything.

"All these years I'd been coping with...Leanne's flings partly by telling myself that her...her sexual encounters with other men were purely physical, almost like a whore and a customer. Just physical lust, you know? Like a sweaty tennis match. But this was..." He broke off for a minute.

"She and I have made love in the backyard hundreds of times--slowly, just enjoying the privacy, and being with one another. And here she was doing the same thing with another guy! It looked so loving and intimate--just like I imagine it looks when Leanne and I make love. She was giving herself to this guy so completely. They were murmuring to each other, and smiling, and kissing a lot.

"I must have watched them for a minute or two, I don't know how long. I was numb, and in incredible pain. And all I could think was, 'this isn't fucking--this is lovemaking. She's making love to him, just the way she does to me.'

"And, of course, it was incredibly obvious to me that it wasn't the first time with this guy. They were so familiar, so relaxed and loving together.

"Finally I pulled myself away--I knew I had to get out of there. I was suddenly terrified that I'd see or hear her orgasm, and it would just kill me.

"I never even considered breaking in on them--that's the old denial instinct, I guess. I went back to the car, drove to the mall, of all places, and just sat in the car in the parking lot, running the air conditioner and blasting a hard rock station as loud as I could stand. I guess I was trying to turn my mind off, or blow the images right out of my brain. Needless to say it didn't work."

Mark stopped again. He sat, staring off into space; then finally he looked up at me, gave me a half-smile that was more of a grimace, and wiped his eyes with the back of his hand.

"I guess you've got to hear the rest of it, don't you?"

I just smiled and nodded, trying to look sympathetic. He nodded back at me, and went on.

"I stayed away until about 6, the time I was originally due to get home. I wandered through the mall, looking at women's clothes, CDs, hardware. I saw a dozen things I might have bought Leanne as gifts, but I didn't buy anything.

"It wasn't that I was angry--just stunned. Like a truck had hit me and sent me flying, but I hadn't hit the ground yet. It was gonna hurt soon, but....

"I would like to say that I thought things through and figured out what to do next, but it was just the opposite. My mind swirled, taking me back over and over to seeing them together, screwing so lovingly, and I just couldn't get past that.

"When I stepped into the house, Leanne was there waiting for me with a bottle of Sam Adams in her hand. That was kind of an inside joke between us--she always did that when I came back from a trip--but her face was tense and worried.

"She was completely cleaned-up and put together, of course, but she'd checked the answering machine and knew I'd gotten an earlier flight. It wasn't hard for her to put two and two together, and she must have been very concerned about what I might have seen or heard.

"I guess as soon as she saw my face she knew things were bad, because she didn't even try to give me a cheerful 'Welcome home, honey' or anything like that. She just looked at me and said, 'oh Mark, are you okay?'

"And I shook my head, and said something like, 'no I'm not, actually,' and went past her, ignoring the beer and her attempt to hug me, and went straight up into the bedroom and locked the door. I wondered if she'd come up after me, but she left me alone for a while.

"I kicked off my shoes and lay on the bed, and before I knew it I was crying--sobbing like a baby, my mind replaying over and over what I'd seen that afternoon. I couldn't stop. I must have cried for nearly twenty minutes. Finally I just fell asleep for an hour or so."

When Mark woke up, he took a shower and went back downstairs. Leanne was waiting with dinner on the table, looking even more worried than before.

"I knew I had to tell her something, so I said, 'I saw you with him this afternoon.'

"And she looked horrified, and started to say, 'oh Mark, I'm so sorry!' and I just stopped her. I said, 'I don't want to talk about it.'

"I went over to the table and held her chair for her, and after she sat I took her hand and squeezed it, just to say something like, 'I'm still here with you', and we ate our dinners. In total silence, at first. Every time she tried to talk about that day I stopped her, just looked over and put my finger to my lips. It was a pretty weird dinner, I guess, ten minutes of just eating without saying a word.

"Finally she said, 'so how did everything go in Milwaukee?' And I realized that she understood, that I just couldn't talk to her about what I'd seen in the back yard. So I told her about my trip, and how the project was going--a nice safe conversation about something else.