I Hate Surprises Ch. 01

About two months after we first met Marlon Anderson, he had called Jennie. He knew about her real-estate job and said he was interested in steering some potential clients her way. For a couple of months they talked from time to time, always just about business. He did send her a number of clients, for which she was grateful; and he was always very charming but completely appropriate.

After she sold a house for one of his clients, making a nice commission, Anderson called to congratulate her and offered to take her to lunch to celebrate. Jennie was far too experienced with men making passes not to be alert, but a mid-day lunch at a downtown restaurant seemed perfectly safe to her. Besides, she confessed to me, she liked him. He was pleasant, and though a good deal older he was a very attractive man.

At lunch Anderson was again perfectly appropriate. He made a lot of flattering remarks to Jennie, but as many were about her real-estate talents as about her beauty. But he did subtly introduce the subject of my business trips. He wondered if she was feeling lonely, with me away so much; and he dropped a casual remark about how often men away on business stray from their wedding vows.

By the time of that lunch, of course, Anderson had spoken to me, and he knew I'd be away the following weekend. On the Friday he called Jennie, said he'd heard I was away, and asked her to dinner on Saturday night. "My wife is away too," he lied to her, "and we can be a couple of lonely spouses together".

The dinner led to dancing, and then to a hotel room (which Anderson had booked in advance). Jennie's account made clear that he was very smooth about it—it was obvious that he'd done this before. There was no crude groping, no obvious pass made. Just a dinner full of champagne and charm; an occasional remark to remind her that I was undoubtedly away screwing some other woman; and a steady stream of compliments and attention.

Jennie was honest with me, or so it seemed, about two things. First, she admitted that her adultery could not be blamed on alcohol. She was tipsy, but she knew what she was doing. And second, the actual sex was the least of it for her. As I have said, she is not a passionately sexual woman. What she loved about being with Anderson was all that charm and attention pressed on her, at a time when she was feeling the lack of it from me.

She as much as said that if she could have had all the attention without the sex, that would have been her preference. But she knows how desirable she is; and she understands that for men, the only culmination of a romantic evening of seduction is a night in bed.

As Jennie told the story, in a steady voice, I was unable to sit still, and I began to pace around the kitchen.

"Making ... having sex with him was nothing special, Brad. He's not bigger than you ... that way, I mean. And he's not such a great lover, not tender with me the way you are. There was nothing so great about it, for me at least. But I could tell he was very excited, and he ... we ... had sex twice that night. He wanted me to spend the whole night with him, but I had to get home for the babysitter.

"So that was the first time, a week ago. The second time was at the Commonwealth Hotel last Thursday, when you ... saw us. He invited me for a 'long lunch', but I knew what he had in mind.

"I'm trying so hard to be honest with you, Brad. The pleasure for me of being with ... with Marlon was the romance, the attention he gave me at lunch, the looks and the compliments. The sex was even less fun than the first time. He got very excited, and ... entered me without much foreplay. It didn't exactly hurt, but it wasn't fun for me. This time I only let him do it once. We rested, and when he wanted to ... do more I said I needed to pick up Diana.

"We were headed out the door of the hotel room when you saw us. How did you know we were there?"

"I was with a client and saw you two get into the elevator," I said in a strained voice. I was beside myself with anger, and with hurt feelings. My fists were clenched, and I couldn't stop pacing. But I didn't want to blow up—and I knew that keeping cool was the only way I could hear how she really felt.

"So what do you want now, Diana? Do you love him?"

"Oh my God no, Brad! How can you think that?"

I restrained myself from saying, "gee, honey, the fact that you've been fucking him might have led me to that hypothesis". Instead I just replied, "what do you want then?"

She looked straight into my eyes. "I want you back. I want our marriage back. I want to do whatever you tell me I need to do, to make up for this horrible, stupid ... thing I did. And I want you to come home." She had started to cry again. "I want to beg and crawl and plead, I want to love you and spoil you"—now she was sobbing, making it hard to speak—"and I want you to forgive me, and love me again, and hold me in your arms. I want our life back, Brad!"

The unstable mixture of love and anger, of tenderness and hurt, shifted within me. I knew the shift was just temporary, but I let it move me anyway. I stood, went around to her side of the table, and pulled her up into my arms. Holding her close, I stroked her back while she sobbed, her head on my shoulder, soaking my shirt with her tears.

I waited several minutes as she gradually calmed down, holding me fiercely the whole time. When she had stopped trembling I gently stepped away from her and looked into her eyes. I was about to speak when we both heard Diana's cry—she had wakened from her nap.

Without thinking we smiled at each other. Then I said, "why don't you get our big girl and bring her in? We can give her lunch, and then we'll talk some more."

Lunch with Diana was a good respite for both of us. She was delighted to see me—I hadn't been home in three days—and we laughed and played in the kitchen as we all had lunch. Then Diana wanted to go outside and play, but we let her watch a TV cartoon for a little while so Jennie and I could talk.

When we were alone I said, "I don't know what's going to happen, Jennie. I know that I still love you. And I know that a part of me wants to kill you—I'm so angry and hurt. I don't know if I will ever be able to trust you again."

She looked at me sadly, but said nothing. I went on.

"I'm prepared to give it a couple of months. I really miss Diana, so I'm coming home, but I'm sleeping in the guest room. You can have our big bed to yourself, and remember each night why you're alone in it.

"And we need to see a marriage counselor—maybe that will help each of us understand why this happened, and whether there's enough left between us to get over this."

Looking at me gravely, Jennie said, "thank you, Brad. If it takes a while for you to know what you want, just remember that I already know what I want. I want you, and Diana, and our loving home. I know I'm the one who messed that up, and I'm the one who has to make it right. And I'm going to try as hard as I know how!"

Her voice quavered, but this time she held off the tears.