I think I'm going to cheat on my wife. It's the first time I've entertained the idea. We're having problems. The problems aren't new but this is the first time I've let my mind wander elsewhere. She lays next to me in bed, silently, and hopes that I won't notice she's awake. I can hear the way she's holding her breath. She's afraid I'll try something. Morning sex used to be our thing. I'd wake her up with kisses and then long, wet love. It's been a while since I tried that. She used to compare me to the dog. For a long time it was a joke but then it stopped being funny. A month ago I woke her with a gentle kiss on the shoulder. She told me to stop slobbering on her. She said the dog's breath smelled better than mine.
"You awake?" I ask.
She sits up in response to my question. "Yeah."
My indifference is as tangible as hers. "Better get the paper before the dog."
Her head tilts towards me with resentment. She picks up her robe from the floor and pulls it on. I used to think she was beautiful. Even in the morning she was smooth like a silk sheet. She isn't beautiful this morning. She's tight and folded like thick paper. When she looks in the mirror I see the creases the pillow left. Her hair is bent around her head. I wonder where all that beauty went.
I used to think we were different. Different than my parents and different than her parents. I still think we're different, but I know we're going the same place. We don't fight like they did. We talk instead. Long talks that keep us up all night. I used to go to work asleep after talking with her till dawn. We still talk but the words are so short. I hear myself packing all my unhappiness in just a few words.
Two days ago we found out we're pregnant. It will be our second. I wish it was a blessing, this new life, but instead I know it is a mistake. She was on the pill; we didn't mean it to happen. We don't touch often enough to worry about extra protection. We fought last night. A real fight, with yelling and mean words. She wants to keep it. I want a new car and a vacation.
I know it's cold, but this is real life. We have to make decisions based on facts instead of some romantic idea that another child will make things better. I love my son. He makes my life complete. At the same time, he costs twice as much as my wife and I together. Kids are expensive and I will not force poverty on a child of mine. I lived through poverty. My parents' love didn't make up for all the bad things my classmates said about my used sneakers or ratty backpack.
A part of me wishes this were about the baby. If the problems were about another child, I could compromise and feel good about making our marriage work. Arguing about a child is like arguing about the color of a car you can't afford. The problem goes much deeper than silver or maroon.
I don't know when my wife left me, exactly. I never thought you could be lonely in a marriage. In retrospect I see it. I never heard my mother say it but I suppose I saw her loneliness. She was so miserable. I swore I would never be unhappy like her. I thought it was the unhappiness that drove my father to other women. I see now that she wasn't the one to blame. Two people ruin a marriage. One can start the spiral but it takes two to hit the bottom.
So I lie in bed and think about that beautiful Japanese girl that used to baby-sit me. I think I was ten the first time she sat. She was hired to take care of my sister and I when mom decided to take on a second shift. As a child I naively thought the extra time my mother spent at her job that finally ended her marriage. One night, right after my twenty-fourth birthday, I remembered the truth. I think I was twelve when it happened. I snuck downstairs for a snack. I thought dad was at work. I heard something in the living room. My dad wasn't at work but my babysitter was.
All that dark hair spilled across his pants and onto the couch. I remember that her dark olive skin was beautiful in the half-light. Her top was off and I could see her bare back. I think it was fate that brought my mother home that instant. Fate was preparing me. I was in the hall, a plate in my hand, when she opened the door. My babysitter scrambled for her clothes as I watched my parents intercept.
They were opposing air currents in a storm. My father, cold and harsh, brought no apologies. My mother, hot and screaming, told him that his son would become just as much a bastard as he was. I think he said that "boys would be boys" and he would be damn proud if I didn't let a "cunt" like her ruin my life. He sent me a look right then. A secret, shared look. I just stared back. I didn't feel like we were sharing anything. He was a bastard, like mom said. He didn't notice my indifference until months later. Then he blamed it on my mother. As far as he was concerned, her poison brought on my cold shoulder.
I remember that phrase, "boys will be boys." It lived in my mother's heart. My sister was sweet and pure, but I was a boy. At the time I was just happy with the liberties she gave me. I was the youngest but I was unshackled. I could swear, smoke, and fuck without real punishment. My sister rebelled, became a lesbian, and took up the mantra that "men are bastards." My mother disapproved but didn't see the irony. My sister's words were her own.
That look baffled me for years. My father and I didn't share anything. I repeated that mantra to my wife, when we first met. She was also from a broken home. Her mother was insane. That was her father's excuse. My wife didn't think it was an excuse enough. Her father fucked his childhood sweetheart, abandoned his children, and then demanded their forgiveness. To this day her father was faithful to that home wrecker. I agreed with my wife. Marriage was forever; there was no excuse for ending it.
I lay in bed and wondered when I became suck a pathetic fuck. I bought it hook, line, and sinker. Marriage isn't forever. Love isn't everlasting. I'm not sure what love is, but it isn't forever. When the problems, the ever elusive issues that we now title "problems", first began in our marriage I made an effort. I paid for couples' counseling. I went to the "women friendly" sex shops and made another whack at romance. The things I tried gave me, at most, a couple months peace.
It would be a lie if I said I was the only one making an effort. She did too. We participated in couples oriented social groups and she went to "relationship" classes. We wasted all that time and there were no breakthroughs. We didn't get any closer. All that effort just brought back the status quo. It wasn't a good place to be. That place was only steps away from our problems. One stumble and we were back to square one.
My dick got hard when I thought of the moment I began to wonder if my father wasn't a bastard. It was at the company picnic, a month ago. My wife stayed home because she wasn't feeling well. I was a lone wolf at a party made up of old married couples. Everyone was watching this new executive. She was a real snake of a woman. In less than a month she'd made enough enemies to end her career and yet she was still on her way up the ladder. I'd heard the rumors. I heard she was open for business to anyone that could benefit her cause.
Up until the picnic, I thought they were just rumors. I'm not sure why she thought I could help her career. I'm a number cruncher, not an executive. She was so fucking hot, in her tight leather pants and little black business jacket. There was one button on that jacket and it sat squarely on the space of flesh where her unbound breasts met. The outfit was indecent without actually showing anything.
At the bar my drink was watered down and made a poor excuse for company. I felt her before I heard her voice in my ear. Warm breath spilled over my cheek and whispered all the naughty things she would do to me. When she was done fucking my ear, I turned to her.
"Sorry." I held up my ring-endowed hand. "Married."
"Honey, I know that." She leaned in close. I could see the top of her breasts underneath the jacket. "I just don't give a fuck."
She laughed at herself. It was a tittering, light laugh. There wasn't an inch of sincerity in the sound. "I suppose I do give a fuck. I was playen' with the idea of given' you some fuck."
"Your not anymore?" The unhappily married part of my mind was working overtime, trying to figure a way in which this conversation was not betraying my wife.
"I don't know." She tilted her head and bit her lip. "Wha'do you think?"
My mouth hung open. I looked like an idiot. For whatever reason, my blank stare didn't dissuade her advance. She pushed my mouth closed, leaned in even closer and said, "You think about it and get back t' me."
The memory sizzled through me. I was freshly excited, no less so than at the picnic. I sat up in bed. If my wife walked in on my imitation of a tent, it would be a field day for her derision. In the shower I released a little tension. It wasn't as satisfying as a good fuck, but it would have to do. As I washed, I wondered how I'd do it. The logistics of cheating on my wife was a foreign line of thought. I lied to her and I kept things from her but I had never actively deceived her before. Business trips weren't a part of my job, so I couldn't use that standby. Sometimes I worked late but my wife always called when I didn't come home on time.
As I walked down the hall, I had a smile of anticipation on my face. My smile was unpracticed but it felt good. A breakfast of cereal and juice was ready on the table. I sat down but didn't pick up the paper. My wife was lecturing my son. I wasn't paying attention to her harping until she turned on me.
"Maybe you should say something to him."
I picked up the paper. "About what?"
"Have you been listening to me at all?"
"No." I replied without lowering the paper.
She tore the paper out of my hands. "I almost killed myself because of his trucks in the hallway." She began to talk like a drill instructor, punctuating her words with sharp pauses. "He was up after bedtime...last night...playing with his trucks...in the hallway."
I looked at my son. His eight-year-old body was curled around the table edge. He looked as pained as I felt. My wife started ranting again but I didn't turn to her. I looked into my son's eyes and remembered myself at that age. My parents couldn't agree about me, either. They argued for hours about the little mistakes I'd made. I remember how I hated their arguments. Something flashed in my brain. I remembered something else as well. I remembered what it was like after my dad left.
I realized there was silence in the room. My wife was silent with rage. I looked at her, really looked, and saw a woman that was angry, lonely, and done with this marriage in the same ways I was. I watched the fight leave her as the bus honked. She gathered our son up and shuttled him out the door. A cold feeling of resolution seeped over me. This was the moment. I was my father. In my mind I had already fucked someone other than my wife. My vows were broken.
She walked back into the room and began to clear the breakfast table. I stood but didn't leave. There was something I wanted to ask her and now was the time to do it.
"Do you hate me?"
"What?" She gave me a tired look. "I don't have time for this." She swept a cloth across the table impatiently. "Could we have this out later?"
"There isn't a later. It's now."
She turned on me angrily, "Talking in circles isn't going to change my mind."
With calm resolute I said, "I'm not talking about the baby."
"Then what?" She demanded sharply.
"Do you hate me?"
"No." She replied tartly. "Alright?"
"Do you still love me?" I shook my head. That was wrong. Wrong words and wrong point. "No forget that. This isn't about love."
I took a deep breath and said the word we hadn't been saying, "Do you still want to be married to me?"
She stopped what she was doing. Her eyes folded inward with pain. "Are you talking about divorce?" It was like I hit her. She couldn't even process the pain. I knew what she was feeling. That pain was something we had in common. "I never..."
"No. Not divorce. I'm talking about marriage. Our marriage."
"Do I still want to be married to you?" She repeated my words cautiously.
"Yes."
There were tears on her face. "Yeah."
It was a small step but one that firmed my resolve. "Then come back to me."
"I haven't gone anywhere." I stared at her, unyielding. She trembled under my look. "What?"
"It's a lie. You left. I don't know when, but you left me. You stopped trying-"
The anger was back, "Don't-"
"-and then I stopped trying. I was getting ready to leave. Less than an hour ago, I was in bed, thinking about ways I could leave."
"Why didn't you?" She asked quietly as she wiped the tears from her eyes.
"Because..." It was the answer I hadn't been able to give myself earlier. I had the words, but they were hard words. "Because marriage isn't about love. It isn't about the times when it works. It's about all the times when it doesn't work and the fact that you get through it."
She chocked on her tears as she tried to speak, "I-I don't know if I can live with that."
My heart fell and my face-hardened. I could feel my father on my face. That stone mask, the one I hated, was there. It hurt so much to hear her deny my hope that I wanted to walk away. I wanted to find the snake woman from work and fuck her until I couldn't think about how much this moment hurt. I looked away. Her tears were worse than my pain. I looked down the hall and saw the door to my son's room.
I swallowed down the pain. This was the moment. It was the moment that proved I didn't share anything with my father. I was a man. To this day my father was a boy playing at adulthood. My son deserved a father that was fully grown. I would give him that, even if I couldn't give him a home that didn't break.
"I can't promise you perfection." My eyes burned as they stared into her. "I won't even try. If you want to be twenty again and freshly in love every day, I can't give you that."
"Then what can you give me?" There was derision in her voice but underneath I heard how lost she was. She was confused, just like me. No one taught her how to deal with this moment. No one taught me how to be a husband, any more than they taught her how to be a wife. Fucking and loving, those things we were shown in spades, but never the tools it took to make a marriage last.
"I can..." I stumbled on the words. I hadn't cried since my son was born. The tears clogged my throat. "I can give you forever."
Confusion clouded her face and then doubt. She whispered on a sigh, "What is forever?"
My words were hard and decisive. "I won't ever cheat you. I won't ever leave you. I will love our new baby, even though it will be hard. I will compromise and work on us, until we get it right."
The tears were on my face. Salty and hot, they slid down my cheeks. "I will marry you a million times again, if you will just come back to me."
"This won't fix it, you know." There was resignation in her voice. "As sweet as they are, words alone can't fix it."
"I know."
It wasn't with jubilation that she came to arms. There was no swell of music, as in the movies. There was silence. Tears and an empty silence. She trembled against my chest. Her tears wet my shirt and my tears soaked her hair. I wanted to touch her, to be intimate with her, but I knew that would hurt the moment. Sex wasn't the answer. I couldn't lure her back with orgasms. Something was brewing inside me. Perhaps it was understanding. She didn't want to fuck. She just wanted me to hold her until she wasn't scared anymore.
The odd thing was, I wanted that same thing.
The End.
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