Brisket Ch. 02

"Anyway, I just fell apart after all that, as I'm sure you remember. I felt lost, like I didn't even know what my life was for. I went through the motions--going to work, taking care of you and the girls--but I really wasn't in my right mind.

"And then in November, on a weekend you were in Tennessee hunting with Joe, I suddenly made up my mind to go out with Sandi (a divorced former neighbor of ours) and have a couple of drinks. I don't recall where the girls were, probably sleeping over at a friend's house.

"But I just had to get out, be on my own, do something different. We went to Pirozzi's and drank; and danced with some guys; and then it got late and one of the men we'd been dancing with offered to take Sandi home. I could see she wanted to sleep with the guy, and I'd driven us there, so I said okay.

"And then--" she stopped suddenly, and took a deep breath. Tears started to slide down her cheeks.

"And then a big, strong middle-aged man named Ted picked me up. Ted Archer, from Minneapolis. He chatted with me, got me to dance with him, bought me a couple more drinks--and I went to his hotel room with him.

"I can't explain it, Rob." She was looking steadily at me now, despite her tears.

"He was powerful and strong and self-assured, and somehow he brought out a submissive side of me that I didn't know I had. We went back to his room and he, he ... did whatever he wanted with me.

"Things I never agreed to with you, he just demanded--and I did them. He ... fucked me from behind until I came, and then he made me get down on my knees, suck him off and swallow him.

"It went on all night. He tied me to the bedposts and ... and licked me, until I was nearly screaming. He fucked me over and over, including anally. I did anything he wanted--I couldn't say no.

"And in the morning when I woke up I was horrified--just sick about what I'd done. I tried to get dressed quietly and sneak out of the room but he caught me and pulled me back to bed. He fucked me twice more before he let me leave.

"When I got home again I was hysterical--thank God you and the girls were still out! I showered over and over again, I threw my clothes away, I was beside myself. I couldn't understand how I could have betrayed you like that, and how Ted could have made me do things I told you I never wanted to do. I fell down on my knees and prayed to God to forgive me, to keep my secret and give me a chance to make it up to you.

"And that night--I can't imagine that you remember it now--I was clingy and affectionate and a little scared, as though we'd had a fight and I was sorry. I told you I didn't want to make love--because I was afraid you'd be able to tell what I'd been doing--but I clung to you and asked you to snuggle with me all night.

"And when I saw after a few days that my secret was safe, that you didn't realize what I'd done, I cried with relief and dedicated myself to making it up to you--to being the best, most perfect wife in the world. We even had more sex than usual for about a month, and I let you do it with me in a couple of positions you wanted to try, instead of refusing like I usually did."

She took a drink of her soda, looking at me with sorrow in her eyes. Her crying had stopped but she looked very sad--almost empty.

That's how it had started, she said. That one night with the guy from out of town. But the episode kept bothering her, it grew inside her mind until she was thinking about it all the time--wondering why she had let it happen, why that man's dominance had worked on her, and above all why the experience had been so exciting.

The desire for more of the same--more degrading, semi-forced sex--grew in her, a bit at a time. She fought it off for nearly two years, though she said she thought about it constantly; and then, when I was away visiting colleges with Linda and Ronnie, she did it again. She found a bar about half an hour out of town, got herself picked up, and spent the night with a truck driver being vigorously and repeatedly fucked.

"I can't begin to describe the shame to you Rob--or the excitement that went with it. I was horrified by what I was doing, truly horrified, I felt like a monster. And at the same time the sex was so exciting and the feelings were so powerful, so overwhelming, I just lost myself in them.

"I can see now, since I've been seeing Dr. Oliva, that the shame and the excitement fit together for me--almost like it HAD to be shameful and degrading for me to get pleasure like that out of sex.

"And also that my ... my sexual outbursts were a completely separate, completely compartmentalized part of my life. After the first couple of times, I started to build a little box in my head that held all the feelings about my ... my behavior.

"I still felt ashamed, even sickened, but the shame went into the box somehow, and it stayed apart from my everyday life."

She looked at you. "This must sound nuts to you. Or maybe just like a ridiculous self-justification, but it's not. I know that there is no justification for what I did, Rob.

"But it really did live in a little separate part of my brain, after a while. And with the rest of my brain I could go on loving you and the girls, and being a caterer and a housewife--and even continue being the repressed, resentful sexual partner who frustrated you so much."

After Helen's second one-night stand she stopped fighting her impulses so hard, and her hook-ups occurred more frequently, whenever the girls and I were away. "I think there were six of them altogether, or maybe seven, over two or three years. I've tried hard to remember but I'm not sure."

And then one of her customers at the catering business came on to her--forcefully, the way Ted Archer had--and she began an affair with him.

"It was like my night with Ted, except that it went on for nearly six months. We met once or sometimes twice a week, in the afternoons, and he just used me. He didn't beat me or hurt me, but he did whatever he wanted with me--anal, bondage, lots of blowjobs, sex in whatever position he wanted.

"And after that ended, I guess ... something changed. Maybe I should say something broke inside me, I don't know. But after that ... I went on to find another partner. And another after that."

Between the customer and her most recent playmate, Mark Malchek, there had been three other men over a couple of years, one of them our old friend Joe Olderman. And Helen found that she didn't need to be submissive; in fact she increasingly took the lead with each man in having sex the way she wanted to.

But it was always unbridled, unrestrained sex, just the kind I had wanted with her and that she had always denied me.

"I've thought about this a lot, Rob, and that must be the worst of all the ways I betrayed you. I am so sorry. Finding out that I'd ... been such a whore with Mark and Joe and the others, while I continued to be such an uptight bitch in bed with you....

"It can't possibly make sense to you, I guess, but the two worlds were totally separate in my head. There was Helen the wife--loving, devoted, responsible; and there was Helen the filthy slut, degrading herself and loving it.

"Because I never stopped feeling the shame; I always knew how inexcusable and destructive my behavior was. That was all part of its attraction, I guess, the whole reason for having that secret life in the first place."

*******************************

Helen stopped talking. She looked exhausted, drained. The day had clouded over and it was getting windy. She'd been speaking for nearly an hour and a half.

"Okay," I said after a bit. "Now what?" I didn't know what I was feeling. I was enraged, and saddened, and even a little bit sorry for her. How about that? But not as sorry for her as I was for me.

It was almost like she read my thoughts. She said, "I don't know, Rob. I can't even imagine how awful this is to you, and how angry I have made you."

She gave me a crooked sort of half-smile. "You're a really good man, you know that? Lots of guys would have simply killed me when they found out, not just thrown my ass out of the house."

She looked away, across the back yard, and said, "I sometimes almost wish you had. Except I wouldn't have wanted you to go to jail--not for what I had driven you to."

Turning back to me, she said, "the thing is, I know it's worse for you. I'm alone in a little apartment, without the only man I've ever loved, and I'm lonely and sad--but at least I deserve it. I look in the mirror and know that I brought this on myself.

"But you, Rob--I took our happy marriage and broke it into a million pieces, just like you did with that vase. And it's not your fault, there's nothing you did, and and nothing I can do to give it back to you.

"I would do anything--anything to atone for what I've done... But I know there's nothing I can do that would begin to make it up to you. I'm so sorry, honey."

Her head was down and she was crying steadily. I wanted to yell at her that she didn't have the right to call me "honey" anymore, but I didn't. I knew she knew that.

Helen cried for a few minutes, occasionally blowing her nose, and I watched her. I wondered why I didn't have a million questions for her--but I couldn't think of anything else I wanted to know. God knows I didn't need to hear any of the details of her adventures. What she had just told me and what I'd heard from Mark and Joe was more than enough.

"Why on earth did you pick Joe and Mark?" I suddenly burst out. "Two guys we know--one of them one of our oldest friends, for Christ's sake? What the fuck was that about?"

"I'm not sure," she said through her tears. "I've talked about that with Dr. Oliva. I guess it means I was getting even more out of control--so I wasn't being so careful any more about trying to keep my other life a safe distance from you and me.

"Maybe I was subconsciously trying to get found out--like I was so ashamed and so desperate about what I was doing, I knew the only way it would ever stop is if you caught me. So I ... I started fucking Joe, and when you didn't discover that I picked a guy who lived right around the corner.

"Pretty stupid, huh? It doesn't make much sense even to me." She kept crying, and I just sat there and watched her.

Finally she grew calm, and looked at me, managing a little smile. "Is there anything else you want to ask me, Rob? Or say to me? It's not too late to yell at me, to let me know what a disgusting whore I was, and how angry you are for everything I destroyed."

I got up and started to pace around the patio. "I don't really see the point, Helen. There's nothing I can say or do that will change anything. You took a fucking hand-grenade and threw it right into the middle of our marriage and blew it up. End of story.

"And now it's a year and a half later. Obviously I'm not angry the way I was at the time--just sad. And bitter, I guess.

"I hope that telling me the story was helpful to you--with your therapy. Frankly, it didn't do much for me. And I have to tell you that all that shit about two separate lives, and keeping one of them in a box--well, it sounds like elaborate psychological horseshit, to be honest."

She smiled. "I don't blame you. Dr. Oliva told me a lot about it--it's called 'schizoid sexuality', can you believe it actually has a name? But if it sounds like horseshit to you, that's fine.

"I wasn't trying to make excuses for what I did, Rob--there are no excuses. But I needed to own up to what I did--to you above all, the man I love, the person I hurt the most."

"Actually I do have another question," I said. "Why did you try to kill yourself?"

"After I got the divorce papers I just fell apart. I started drinking, and you know I don't hold my liquor very well. That Saturday night I went out to a bar, figuring to pick up a guy and--well, you can imagine. Let him use me.

"But the guy I went to a motel room with was so rough I got scared, and I tried to back out. He hit me and told me he was going to strangle me while he fucked me, and I started screaming. That made him back off for a minute and I ran out of the room.

"I got back to my car, jumped in it and drove away, the whole time just sobbing, scared out of my mind. And when I got back to the apartment I felt so ashamed--so horrified by what I had done. That night, and all the years before, with all those men....

"So I just swallowed the pills. At least I could make the pain stop, I thought. But after I'd done it I suddenly thought about the girls--I just couldn't do that to them. What I'd done to you was bad enough, but I couldn't deprive them of their mother. So I called Ronnie, and thank God she called 911 and--"

She shrugged. "They got me to hospital in time. I felt like such an awful person, lying there, while the nurses were all so nice to me. As if I weren't a selfish, cheating whore."

Helen sat there, just staring at the ground. Then she pulled herself together and stood up, looking at me seriously. "Thanks for letting me come talk to you--that was very generous of you."

She smiled again. "I guess the girls probably worked on you pretty hard, didn't they?" I nodded, and couldn't help but smile back.

"I will do anything I can to make amends, Rob, even though there's nothing in the world that can make up to you for what I've done. But I mean it--please--if there is ever anything, just let me know."

She headed around the garage towards her car; and when I started to follow she said, "no, don't come with me, okay? Just let me drive away." I could see that she was crying again. I let her go, just standing there in the back yard, and watched her disappear around the corner of the garage.

*******************************

I didn't know what I felt. I was angry and a little, I don't know, shaken up. Listening to Helen had brought back all the horrors of when I first found out about her and Mark--the rumpled bed, the smell of sex in our bedroom. All those visions I'd had of her being ridden by another man came back into my mind, and I couldn't chase them away.

I went inside and picked up the phone.

"Hey, Matilda? It's me. Listen, I know I was going to pick you up at 6:30 for the movie, but are you free right now?

"Great. Could you come over? I really need you.

"Terrific--see you in ten."

When Matilda arrived she could see I was upset; she gave me a big hug and looked at me carefully. "Conversation with Helen didn't go so well?"

I shook my head. "It was okay. A lot of fucking psychobabble, but nothing much I didn't expect. It's just ... I don't know, actually. I just don't feel very good."

She smiled and kissed me. "Poor baby--I have a couple of ideas about how to make you feel better."

She led me up to the bedroom, got our clothes off, and in no time we were kissing and stroking one another. I buried my face between her big tits and closed my eyes--it was like I needed to lose myself there.

When we were ready to fuck I pulled her up on her hands and knees and got behind her. I slid smoothly into her wet pussy and paused, as we both groaned. I started to stroke into her, slowly at first, and then I started to speed up.

"Baby?" I said. "I don't want to hurt you, but is it okay if ... if I fuck you really hard? I don't know why, but--"

"Sure, Rob," she said, smiling over her shoulder at me. "Just give it to me, hold onto my hips and give me a good ride. Really pound me!"

She put her shoulders down on the bed and braced herself, and I started fucking harder. Soon I was really slamming her, going as hard and as deep as I could. I felt angry and confused. I fucked her and fucked her, pulling her hips backwards to slam against me, aware of her moans, and then I was shouting and coming like crazy, shooting into her.

We collapsed together onto the bed, and Matilda turned over to hold me in her arms.

"Okay?" she asked, and suddenly I was crying, unable to stop--and she was holding my head on her shoulder, stroking my hair, whispering, "okay, baby, it's okay." She held me tenderly and I just kept crying.

Finally I was calm again, and I sat up against the headboard, still holding Matilda close.

"Shit," I said, looking at her. She smiled at me. "I have no idea what that was about."

"Doesn't matter," she said. "How do you feel now? Any chance we could do it again and still make the movie?"

I grinned at her. "Give me a few minutes of your fantastic mouth and I'll be ready to go."

"It's a deal!" she said. "And this time I'm gonna ride you until you beg for mercy."

*******************************

On Tuesday, three days later, there was a box by the front door when I came home from work. It had a note on it in Helen's handwriting. I just stared at it for a minute, then picked it up and took it inside, putting it on the kitchen table.

The box had a homemade apple pie in it. The note said

"Dear Rob:

Thank you for listening to me the other day. It was very generous of you--more than I deserved.

I know you always liked my apple pies, and I hope you'll enjoy this one.

Love, Helen"

I made myself some dinner and ate it, reading the paper, occasionally glancing at the pie. For some reason I wasn't sure I wanted to eat it. Finally I decided I was being ridiculous.

I went into the living room and turned the ballgame on. Then I went back into the kitchen, cut myself a piece of pie, got a glass of milk, and took them back to the living room.

The game was a snoozer, and I turned it off after a couple of innings; but the pie was fantastic. I had three pieces.

*******************************

Helen's apple pie left me even more mixed-up than I'd been on Saturday. I wanted to thank her, but I knew I didn't want to speak to her. So I waited until early afternoon when she'd be at work and then I called her apartment. It was the first time I'd ever called there; I didn't even have the number until Linda and Ronnie gave it to me ("just in case," they said).

When the machine picked up I said, "Helen? Hi, it's Rob. I, uh, wanted to thank you for the pie--it was delicious.

"So, uh, that's it I guess--thanks. Bye."

****************

It was lucky for me that, just at this time when seeing Helen got my head all twisted-up, I met a woman I wanted to date. At least I thought it was going to be lucky--turns out it wasn't so lucky after all.

Her name was Leanne, and I actually met her while working on a domestic violence case. Jim and I had hauled some jerkoff out of his house; he'd gotten drunk and slugged his wife a couple of times. The neighbors called the cops and when we got there she was locked in the bathroom--when she came out we could see the bruises on her face.

So the guy got to sleep it off in the cell at the station house, and the next day an attractive woman of about 40 showed up to bail him out. She was his sister and her name was Leanne. Tall and slim, dark hair, and divorced (as I learned later).

She didn't have much good to say about her brother--"but he's family," she said with a sigh. I nodded and said I knew what that was about. We chatted while she waited for the bail paperwork to go through; and then on a whim I asked her if I could buy her a cup of coffee.

She looked at me in surprise, then said, "I don't have time today--but I wouldn't mind having lunch sometime, if you like." We made a date for the next day, at a diner two blocks from the precinct. It turned out she worked in an office not far away.

Sounds great, right? We had lunch and we really hit it off. Leanne was cute, I liked her sense of humor, and she seemed interested in me. So I asked her out to the movies that Saturday.

Only when I told Matilda on Friday that I was busy the next night, and asked if we could get together on Sunday instead, she practically took my head off.

"You son of a bitch!" She hissed at me. We were in a quiet corner of the station house, so at least she kept her voice down. "I've been fucking your eyes out for nearly a year and a half, and now you've got a fuckin' DATE?"