"I think you know why," he continued, "I was there today. I followed the cab the other night." It was silent on the other end, as if he wanted me to confess. Instead, I became angry.
"And?" The steel in my voice matched his.
"You're having an affair."
There were several ways I could respond to this. I could deny it, but he'd seen me fondling and kissing Alan all day. I could admit to it and beg his forgiveness, pleading insanity. Or I could be indignant that he had followed me. At any rate, these options would lead to disaster. So much for my nap.
"I'm sorry you had to see that." And boy, was I ever.
"Who is he?" The voice warmed up a notch. Did he really care?
"An old friend from the past. Pure chance that we both ended up here." Would Terry buy it?
He softened. "Truth is stranger than fiction." Apparently he believed me. "I'll bet you're kind of confused right now. Would it help to talk about it?"
I let out a sigh. It was as if I had been holding my breath since the first night, and it all came out with the truth.
"Actually, yes. It would help to talk about it." Why the hell did I say that? Because I recognized a desperate need to figure this out.
"Don't worry. You didn't tell Mike about the kiss. I won't tell him about this. Let me be a friend and lend an ear. What do you say?" It was tempting. So tempting that I felt an overwhelming urge to talk to him. Terry was a good guy. He was offering to listen. Inside I recognized that having someone outside of all this could help. Maybe he'd agree with me, or maybe he'd let me have it. Either way I craved feedback. But how could I do it with Alan and the kids around?
"I would like that." The more I thought about it—the worse the need got. Talking to Terry was no longer just an option. It was an emergency.
"I can pick you up in ten minutes."
"Fine. See you then." I hung up before I could change my mind. After leaving a note to Alan saying I went for a walk to get some fresh air, I lightly closed the door behind me and slipped away from the building. I had to take a different route so I wouldn't walk past the pool, but in a few minutes I managed to meet Terry in front of the hotel.
"So," he smiled, "where do you want to go?"
Climbing onto the back of his bike, I responded, "Someplace quiet."
Terry nodded his response, and I held on as we nearly flew out of the parking lot. He had offered me a helmet, but I refused. The wind in my hair and the sun on my face was a tonic. A mixture of warmth and coolness slid over my skin, and I closed my eyes to welcome it.
We rode in silence for a little while, when I noticed him turning down the same road we had visited the last time he took me for a ride. Well, it was quiet and isolated. I doubted that we would be interrupted.
The bike stopped down by the lake, next to a large, shady tree. Terry pulled a small blanket out of one of his saddlebags and spread it out. I sat beside him, and we didn't say anything for a moment. I wanted him to speak first, thinking it would be better to avoid getting into too much detail by just letting him admit to what he knew. I read Sherlock Holmes. I know what to do.
"How did it start?" Wow. Jump right in, Terry. I took a moment to collect my thoughts and then began the whole, sordid story. About Alan and me in college. About Mike's overzealousness at work and his multiple affairs. About Alan and me. I glossed over the sex. While it was unbelievable, I was afraid of talking about it with Terry. After all, it had been a year since we'd seen each other, and part of me just didn't want to go into that with him. I wrapped up with my fainting spell.
"So, there you have it. My Affair, the Cliffs Notes version." I leaned back against the tree trunk to give the story time to sink in. Terry had been very attentive the whole time. His eyes never left mine, and it was uncomfortable. I was baring my soul to a man I didn't really know, who may or may not have made a pass at me a few nights ago.
Terry leaned back against the tree also, his shoulder touching mine, "Unbelievable," was all he said.
"That's it?" I asked, "That's all you have to say?"
He smiled. "No, but it's a lot to think about." His hand accidentally brushed my leg as he reached to straighten the edge of the blanket. "Do you do this often?"
"Are you joking? Of course not!" I tried not to let my anger get the best of me.
"Alright, I believe you," he said as he held up his hands in protest. "Let's start with Mike. It sounds pretty bad. I mean, he wasn't a workaholic when I knew him, and I never thought he'd cheat on you."
"He was okay for most of our marriage. His priorities have changed."
Terry brushed a stray curl from my eyes. "But that's no excuse for him sleeping around. Do you still love him?"
"That's the $64,000 question, isn't it?" He nodded, and I continued, "Yes, I do. But more like an old friend than a husband." Was that true? Did I really feel like that? It must be true if I said it. My heart skipped a beat. The words began to penetrate my skin, surging through my veins and echoing in my mind. I wasn't in love with Mike anymore. How could that be? Pain filled my throat as I struggled to hold back the tears.
"Damn," Terry whispered, "what a goddamned fool he is."
"Maybe I'm the fool, Terry." My voice cracked under the stress of my own words. "I let it go on, unchecked. I avoided bringing it up because I knew how angry it made him. Perhaps I should've fought for my marriage when the seams started to burst."
"I guess you can't ever tell how someone is going to turn out." He turned to me, taking my hands in his and said, "I'm sorry, Laura."
Grief washed over me, and the tears began to slide. Terry wrapped his arms around me, holding me while I sobbed into his chest. I cried for a long time, and it felt good.
Finally, I pulled away and wiped my face, "So, I guess that's it then."
Terry handed me a handkerchief. "What about this Alan guy? Do you love him?"
I blew my nose, "I do. I just don't…" I paused, distracted by the light pressure of Terry's hand on my thigh. I did what any reasonable person would do—I panicked. Suddenly, everything about this felt horribly, horribly wrong.
"What is it?" Terry asked earnestly. His hand had begun a slow, sensuous track up my leg.
I scrambled backwards and fell, flat on my back. He was on me in a moment, his face just inches from mine, and I froze. Terry lay on top of me, his fingers twisting in my hair, eyes drilling into mine. And then he kissed me.
I tried to push him off, but he held fast, driving his tongue into my mouth. Before I could respond he rolled off me, lying beside me, his hands now exploring every curve of my body, his lips moving down my neck toward my chest.
"Terry!" I wanted to sound forceful but my voice sounded like an insignificant squeak. He quickly buried his lips in mine, his arms holding me down like steel bands.
"Oh Laura…" he moaned, "I've wanted you for years. You have no idea how much I wanted you…"
Fear gripped me as I struggled against him. Bringing my knees up to my chest, I forced a wedge between us and rolled away. As I tried to get to my feet he rushed me, pushing me down and pinning me to the grass.
His eye burned with determination, "I want you," was all he said as he slid his hand underneath my T-shirt. I knew he could feel my heart beating and was afraid he would mistake it for lust. As he moved on top of me, his other hand slipped beneath the waistline of my shorts.
"Terry! Stop!" I tried to shout but his mouth smothered mine, his hand started to roam all over me..
And that's when I did it. Swiftly bringing my right knee up, I connected with his testicles… hard. Terry curled up into a ball while I stood over him, stuffing my shirt back into my shorts.
"You son-of-a-bitch!" I shouted. He was supposed to be my therapy, not just some tool looking to get lucky.
He started to protest, but I stopped him with a swift kick to his rib cage. Terry returned to the fetal position.
"What the fuck is wrong with you?" I was really mad now. "I can't believe I fell for that." I was pacing alongs
ide his body now, raving like a lunatic, but I didn't care.
"You good-for-nothing bastard. I'll bet you thought I'd sleep with you so you wouldn't tell Mike, didn't you? Goddammit, Terry! What the hell is wrong with you?"
He rose to his hands and knees, panting, "I just thought…I just thought…"
"You just thought WHAT?" I resisted kicking him again, "That I would fall for some kind of blackmail? That I was easy since I'm sleeping with this other guy? Give me some credit, for Christ's sake!" I stopped pacing and loomed over him, my arms crossed over my chest.
"Alright, I made a mistake! Let's drop it…" He was panting, his face red with pain.
"Fuck you! That wasn't a mistake. That was sexual assault!"
The words struck him, and his eyes opened wide, "What's that supposed to mean?"
"It means, asshole," I said evenly, "that I could charge you with attempted rape."
To his credit, he didn't get angry, "I'll admit, I went too far. Are you going to call the police, Laura?"
I wanted to hit him. "I will if you don't take me back to the hotel right now."
Terry hung his head in defeat, then rose to his feet and dusted himself off, "You can't blame me for trying. After all, you seem to be giving it out to old friends lately."
"And you thought you could claim your share, is that it?"
He nodded as he folded the blanket and stuffed it into the knapsack, "Yeah, I did. Obviously I was wrong."
"Terry," I said as I climbed back onto his bike, "you have a fucked up way of dealing with women."
I knew he wouldn't tell Mike, because that might make me tell Mike my side of the story. The ride back was horrible. I wanted to throw him off the bike, not hold onto him. How could he actually think I would sleep with him? Maybe another woman would have. Maybe another woman would've called the police. In either case, that woman wasn't me.
We pulled up outside the lobby, next to the gift shop. I said nothing to him as I slid to the ground. He roared away without a word. In the gift shop window reflection, I could see that my hair was a mess, my clothes rumpled and covered in grass stains. My eyes shifted focus from my reflection to the inside of the store. On the other side of the glass I could see Alan and the kids, staring back. And oh, did he look mad.
All six of us walked back to the rooms together in silence. The kids seemed to know something was up and kept quiet. Once they were dressed and curled up in the beds in my room for a nap, I followed Alan into his room.
I wasn't prepared for the look on his face. I expected anger and confusion, but not the deep pain that registered in his eyes. My mouth went dry, and my limbs felt cold. My body was preparing for "fight or flight." Every atom inside me was screaming for me to run away. But I couldn't do that. I fucked up. It was time to face the music.
"Well," Alan's voice sounded like tempered steel, "are you going to tell me what the hell is going on?"
"Alan, I made a mistake, a horrible mistake…"
"It sure looks that way." He interrupted.
"Terry called me while I was resting," I started.
"And you thought, 'hey, since I'm screwing around on Mike I might as well screw around on Alan.'" His voice was low and dangerous.
Of course he thought this. Why wouldn't he? After all, it was true I was cheating on my husband. And I did arrive on the back of Terry's bike, completely disheveled, just a couple days after he'd made a pass at me. But was it necessary for him to think I was a total slut? In spite of the reasoning, I could feel my anger rising.
"That is completely unfair! I did NOT have sex with Terry!"
Alan glared at me, "How would I know that? You're lying to your husband…for the second time, I might add."
"Are you joking? You're also lying to your wife!" That's it, the gloves were off. Round 1. Ding, Ding, Ding!
"I guess that means we can't trust each other." Alan never once shouted, but I knew he was seriously pissed off. And his words shook through me like an earthquake. How could we trust each other? It had been so easy to lie to our spouses. Could a relationship built on deception stand a chance?
"Alan, please, we have to talk about this…"
"I don't see how it can do a damn bit of good!" he roared at last. "I left you here, took the kids so you could take a nap, and you pick up the phone and run off with the idiot who made a pass at you. How could you do that?"
"I didn't call him!"
"Do you have any willpower at all?" He sneered, and I saw him as ugly for the first time. No, not the first time. He had been jealous before, years ago. Alan used to accuse me of flirting with other guys while he was seeing another girl. Cold fear washed over me.
"I didn't call him," I began but my voice sounded very far away. Old memories were unspooling in my mind, "I told you that." My heart was no longer in this argument. I needed to get away, to think.
Alan watched me curiously, the anger still blazing in his eyes. "Even if he called you, you went."
I wanted him to hold me, to act as glue while I fell completely apart. I wanted everything to be alright. "Please…" I whispered as the tears emerged, "please give me a chance to explain."
He turned his head away, lifting his hands to shield himself from me. "I'm sorry Laura. I can't right now." He opened the door between the rooms, holding it for me while I collected my sleeping children, and then bolted the door behind us. I laid the kids down and covered them up.
They looked so innocent, so sweet. What the hell would I say to them when they woke up? I began to cry. Everything had fallen apart; my marriage, my affair, my life. The crying turned into sobbing, and I buried my face in a pillow so I wouldn't wake the kids. It was over, and there was no turning back. I felt worse than I did when we arrived. I could really do a vacation up right.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
I couldn't sleep. For an hour, I moved around the room like a condemned creature moments away from execution. Several times, I paused, about to knock on the adjoining door, but I didn't know what to say if Alan answered.
Over and over I turned my thoughts around. Everything felt upside down and inside out. My heart and head were not speaking to each other. I had no idea what I wanted anymore.
Desperation drove me back to the door again and again, but how could I explain something I didn't even understand? I really appeared guilty. And unlike my literary adulteresses, I was ten times worse. I had not only had an affair with Alan, but also with Nick. It was only too easy for me to jump into another man's bed and think I was falling in love with them. Either I was incredibly selfish or unbelievably naïve. The worst thing was that Alan knew about Nick and now he thought I had done the same thing with Terry. In his mind I was nothing more than a fickle, serial slut.
And what frightened me more than losing Mike and Alan was the idea that I might actually be a repeat offender. I slumped to the bed and fell back onto the mattress. My God. Why wouldn't Alan think I'd cheat on anyone, given the opportunity? At least Anna, Hester, and Lady Chatterley only had one illicit lover. Apparently, I was running up a tab.
My mind rewound to a conversation Alan and I had the second or third night. Something about me being a sex kitten and every man sensing that. Apparently he was right, and obviously any man who leered at me wound up between my legs. Now I was feeling worse.
My thesis on adultery popped into my head. They'd have to sew two enormous red A's on me now. At least that was better than Anna Karenina's suicide. I began to wonder how one would commit suicide at a theme park. Throw myself in front of the miniature train? Jump from the roller coaster? Climb out of the jeep at the safari ride and hope the lions are hungry?
I forced the thought from my mind. After all, there were only two men I'd cheated on my husband with. I was reaching for the life preserver that would pull me out of the whirlpool of my own self loathing. I sat up and spied the hotel notepad on the nightstand and wrote, I am not a slut, until I filled up a whole page. For some weird reason, I felt better. I flipped the first page over and did
what any sane person would do under these circumstances. I made a Pro's and Con's list.
I have always been a proponent of the Pro's and Con's list. The device had helped me make decisions for years. It's kind of the grown-up's version of the cootie catcher, Magic 8 Ball, or Ouija Board. I had to focus on the most important matter—whether or not to leave Mike. The key to the success of the Pro's and Con's list is to eventually destroy the evidence. It would not do to leave it lying around. Then it looks too pre-meditated.
So, I dragged a chair outside and took a deep breath. At the top of the tiny piece of paper I wrote: Stay with Mike and Leave Mike. Two columns. I began numbering.
On the next page, I wrote: Stay with Alan and Leave Alan. It seemed very important to distinguish between these two things. After all, I could end up leaving both men completely. For a moment I entertained the notion of becoming a lesbian and getting out of this entirely. But that would be impossible. There was no room for a third column.
Flipping the first page back, I pressed the pencil to the paper and began to write. It took another hour. I was thankful the kids still slept because the words poured from me. A few times, tears blurred my vision, but I continued. I had no idea if what I was writing had continuity; it just came out on its own. I filled ten pages with my thoughts (Of course, this is easy to do on paper that measures four inches by six inches.) before the door to my right opened.
Alan pulled up a chair, "Hey."
"Hey," I said weakly.
He looked at the pencil and paper in my hand and smiled. "Pro's and Con's?"
"I forgot that you knew that."
He nodded. "You did it all the time. I think it helped you, so I never said anything." To his credit, Alan looked at me, not the paper. "Did it help?"
"Alan, I wasn't lying to you."
"I know that. I was pretty hard on you."
I could feel the tears burning the back of my throat, but I wouldn't let them through, "Not really. I know how it all must have looked."
Sex, Lies, & Family Vacations Page 10