I Love You, Too

Story edited by Todger65

*****

One of these days, I'm going to smash my fist down that bitch's throat. God do I ever hate her. I'll work for a man any day. A woman boss? They're too damn bitchy.

Traffic was a mess and it took me a good hour to go five miles. Traffic in Chicago during rush hour had turned the expressways into a parking lot. At last, I drove through the gates of Glenn More Hills. Our house was on the left about half a mile from the main road. I can't call it a home 'cause it's not. Jim, that's my husband, and I have been thinking of separating for some time. After six years, our marriage has disintegrated to the point where we're nothing but roommates.

Don't get me wrong, Jim has been an excellent provider. There are two high-end luxury cars in the garage as well as a new Land Rover and a Jeep, all brand new, and he's talking about a boat for Lake Michigan. I have everything I ever wanted, including a daughter. But I'm unhappy. I've eaten myself to the point I've got the onset of diabetes. My blood pressure is sky high. I look like a blimp in high heels.

The door opened and I kicked off my shoes. I worked for a law office and yes, I'm a lawyer. A good one, but I work for the queen bitch of lawyers, and we really butted heads today.

The cleaning staff is off, it's Wednesday, and there was no one here but me. I raid the refrigerator and stuffed a cold slice of pizza into my face. Who gives a shit if I gain another pound? I don't.

Down the hallway I saw what looks like a trail of toilet paper. I followed it and found that our cat had un-rolled most of the roll from the bathroom. There in a partially open hall closet, I found the cat sleeping in a nest of toilet paper. I shooed him away, and when I was about to leave and close the door, I noticed some old photo albums on the bottom shelf. I sat on the floor and began to flip through them.

There was Jim and I. We were in college when we met. Just look at me? My hair was almost to my waist. Now, it doesn't even cover my ears. I flipped another page and it was full of more photos of Jim and me. We were on a boat, and I stared at the photo of me. I can't wrap my mind around what I'm seeing. My stomach was as flat as a NFL cheerleader's, and I'm in a white string bikini. What happened? More photos. Jim and I were laughing together. We were kissing.

"What did I do with my life?"

I pounded my fists on the carpet. I began to bawl like I haven't since I was in grade school. I wanted Jim yet I didn't want him at the same time.

The last thing I remembered was the carpet on my face.

*****Chapter Two********

I woke up in a strange bed. One eye slowly scanned the room. Where was I? Where ever it was it had an odor. It smelled like industrial antiseptic cleaner. There was a plastic band around my left wrist. It said Laura Prescot. My feet swung out from the bed and they found the floor. It was cold. No sooner than I was about to stand, a cute young woman came in.

"Mrs. Prescot, nice to see you up."

"Where am I? Was I in an accident?"

"No accident. You're in University Hospital."

"Why?"

The girl sat next to me and took my hands into hers. For some reason I didn't pull them away. My skin went goose bumpy, and it felt like I had eaten a razor blade sandwich. My stomach churned.

"Why am I here?"

"You had a nervous breakdown. You have been here for two days."

"I don't remember."

"You were given some anti-anxiety drugs to calm you down. They make you sleep."

"Where is my husband, daughter?"

"They're both fine, but they won't be allowed to see you for a few days."

"Oh. Why?"

"We need to get you stabilized first."

"Did I? You know? Did I try and..."

She patted my hand. "No, Laura, you didn't try to take your life."

I felt relieved. I guess everyone at one time has thought about that, and I was at the bottom of the fish tank, that's how low I felt. I'm overweight, my marriage with Jim was disintegrating in front of me, and I absolutely hated my job.

Perhaps those photos of me when I was younger, trim, and laughing with Jim pushed me over the brink and landed me here.

I was so envious of the woman who sat on the bed with me. I used to look like her. Slim and trim. Long hair surrounded a cute face. I felt the tears coming and wept.

***********

The hospital ran all kinds of tests on me. I knew what the results would be before the first drop of blood was drawn. I had high blood pressure, early stage diabetes, and maybe a problem or two with my heart. One of the doctors told me I had the body of a sixty-year old woman.

I had to talk to a counselor, and I didn't look forward to that. I've been to them before, and I figured it would be the same shit. What I didn't plan on was Shelly Gaffke. When she walked into the office I was in, I could feel her presence. She was short and God, had to be touching seventy plus if she was a day. She wore black stockings and a matching skirt with a kinda gray blouse. There were beads of pearls around her neck along with a pair of glasses. Heavy makeup was caked on her face along with bright red lipstick. She reminded me of a corpse—one that walked—when I first met her.

She plopped down into the chair behind her desk and said, "Do you know why you are here?"

"Not really."

"I'll tell you why. You're a loser. A quitter."

Jesus Christ! Where in the hell did that come from?

"How dare you talk to me like that!"

"Does it bother you?"

"You're damn right it does!"

She pointed a nicotine stained finger at me and said, "Then what are you going to do about it?"

I pushed back into the chair.

"I don't know," I said.

"Then how are you going to fix your life. I can't do it for you. No one can except you."

For the next thirty minutes she took notes while I spit out my life to her. She came around her desk and sat beside me. Up close I could see into her eyes. They were the eyes of someone that cared about people. I couldn't help myself and the tears flowed. She put her arm around me and pulled me tight.

"I will be all right. Things have a habit of doing just that."

She returned to her desk and ruffled some papers in a brown folder. "So, Laura, what happened that caused you to end up here?"

I told her about my boss and how my marriage with Jim had been falling apart. How when we were younger we would stargaze on warm summer nights...travel to distant places for distant purposes...getting lost in beautiful music...yes, I remembered all of those things in that instant. I remembered how I lost it all.

She nodded a few times as she took more notes. All of a sudden she folded her hands on the desk and looked right into my eyes.

"Do you and your husband have a healthy sex life?"

I couldn't answer her.

"Well? That's either a yes or no?"

"We don't," I said.

"I see. And why is that?"

"My Mom, I guess in a way, sent me down the road I'm currently on. She pounded into my head from as early as I could remember how sex was dirty, and nice girls didn't do such disgusting things. A man wasn't supposed to touch a woman and a woman was absolutely never ever to touch a man. The only time you should spread your legs was to conceive a child."

"Your mother does not live in your bedroom."

Maybe it was those eyes of Shelly Gaffke? Like a bottle of stale beer I poured my guts out to Shelly about my Mom. How she nonstop preached about the evils of sex. I told her everything.

Shelly moved from around her desk once more. She pulled out a chair and sat in it. She looked at me for the longest time and then she said, "Laura, I've been doing this for probably too long of a time. I've heard it all, and in fact I doubt there isn't anything I haven't heard before. But I know, I feel, you're holding something back, something so terrible that you can't let it go. It's something so horrendous you can't tell anyone. Am I right?"

Shelly held my both of my hands in hers while I stared at the floor. Tears pooled in my eyes and they fell upon our hands. I looked up at Shelly.

"He raped me."

"Who? Your husband?"

"Toby Kaplan."

"Who's he?"

"He was the captain of the Lacrosse team at the college I went to."

"Did you report this?"

"No..."

"And why not?"

"His parents had money. Lots and lots of money. He told me they would make it go away. I'd be the one that everyone would point their fingers to. I would be made out to be a slut, a whore, and how it was a plan to blackmail Toby so I'd get money. It would be MY fault." I took a deep breath. "I was one of bad girls Mom told me I'd become."

"So he got away with the rape?"

"Yeah...he did. I thought a thousand times that perhaps it was my fault. Did I wear too much makeup? Perhaps my skirt was too short? Maybe if I —"

"Maybe my ass! Laura! Laura, look at me."

I raised my head and looked into those old brown eyes of Shelly.

"What you wore or didn't wear meant absolutely zero. Rape is a crime of control. It is not a sexual crime. It's a hate crime. You did nothing wrong except being at the wrong place at that time."

I felt my fingers being squeezed. "So, let me guess, between your mother and this incident, you decided that all men are shit and therefore you took it out on your husband."

"Yeah."

"Does he know?"

I shook my head. "I can't tell him. What will he think of me if he knows?"

"Maybe he'll think that you need his love and support." Shelly relaxed back into her chair. "I've seen this so many times. Let me take a stab at it. Between what your mother had pounded into your head, and this rape, the only thing you could control is your body. So you gained all this weight, and sport a hair cut most men would call too short for them. The idea is simple. To make yourself as unattractive as you can, and therefore, your husband won't ask for sex. Do I have that about right?"

I nodded.

"And how is that working for you?"

"Food became my drug. My addiction. When I had it rough at work, I'd eat. When Jim and I would fight over sex, I'd eat. When I felt good, I ate."

I looked down at the floor and said, "I guess you'll be putting me on a diet."

"Nope. The first three words in diet spell 'DIE' and that's not what we're going to do. You need to change your lifestyle."

I looked around the room. "So now what?"

"I would like to talk to your husband. He needs to know about the rape. Do you think that maybe he's wondering what's wrong with him and why you don't find him attractive enough, smart enough, or loving enough to sleep with him?"

"Must he know about...you know?"

"Your rape? Laura, you can say that word. You're not the first woman to be violated."

I looked around the room.

"Laura, let me ask you this. Do you love your husband?"

"I don't know."

*****Chapter Three********

Shelly set me up to talk to various counselors and even a rape crisis counselor. I've been here in the hospital now for week and I guess I'll have to leave and start over, soon.

I dread today. Jim and I will be together with Shelly. I know deep in my gut, that it's not going to be a good day. We had an appointment for eleven that morning and Shelly said if we ran over, it would only take up some lunchtime minutes.

Jim came in right on time. He hugged me, and all I could do was leave my arms limp by my sides. I didn't return Jim's hug. Shelly noticed it.

After the introductions, Jim sat beside me.

"So, Jim, may I call you Jim? What do you do for a living?"

"I'm an independent contractor. I fix things."

"Like a handyman?"

I snickered. "Not quite. If there is a problem on the International Space Station and NASA can't figure it out, they contact Jim."

"Oh my! I'm sorry," Shelly said.

"Don't be. It happens all the time."

"So, do you travel a lot?"

"Depends. I recently came back from several weeks in France. Ford had sent me out there to troubleshoot one of their new metal presses. You know the kind where a sheet of metal goes in and seconds later a complete car body comes out."

"So you can fix about anything then?"

Jim looked over at me. "Except for my marriage."

"What's wrong with your marriage?"

"We don't talk. If we do, it's usually simple things like what's on TV. We don't talk about us."

Jim let out a long sigh. "It's been years since Laura and I have had sex." He looked at me and I could see the distain in his eyes. "Other than some 'you show me yours and I'll show you mine' we simply don't have sex."

"Does your wife's weight bother you?"

"It didn't at first, but now... she's going to die an early death if she doesn't do something about it. I don't want her to die."

"Why?" Shelly asked.

"Because... Because I love her."

"Even without sex?"

I watched Jim shrug. "Maybe it's me? Maybe I don't excite her like I used to. Boy, back in our college days we were like high school kids on a first date. Sex was great and often. Then as though someone flipped a switch, right out of college, sex with Laura slowed and then stopped." Jim looked at me.

Shelly shot at glance at me with such intensity I had to turn my head.

"Anything else?" Shelly asked.

"When we were dating in college. Laura had the most beautiful head of hair. Oh, God, that was something. It came damn near down to her waist. All the other girls were so damn jealous of her. I could get lost in Laura's hair..."

"And now?"

Jim let out a long breath. "Now? Now she looks like a bull dyke."

I jumped out of my chair. "I DO NOT!"

"Please sit back down!" Shelley said.

I did and crossed my arms. "I'm not a bull dyke. I'm certainly not a lesbian."

I watched as Jim's nostrils flared. Soon the shit would be on.

He stood and pointed a finger at me. "When was the last time we had sex? One year ago? No, wait make that two years ago. When was the last time I've seen your breasts?

"My weight—"

"I can deal with that. But when you cut your hair back... It's like sleeping with my brother."

"So, Jim, how do you fix this?" Shelly asked.

"Fix it?" He looked at me. "I fixed it. Yeah, I fixed it all right. I was so damn tired of begging for some attention. I had my fill of excuses. My fix? I had an affair."

I stood and ran over to him. I began to pound on his chest. "You son-of-bitch! You son-of-bitch!" I collapsed onto the floor, cursing him between my breaths.

The air in the room seemed stale like there was no life in it. When Jim tried to pick me up off of the floor, I swung at him. Shelly came over and helped Jim get me back into a chair. After ten minutes of tears I looked over at Jim and said, "How could you do that to me?"

"The affair is over. It was a onetime thing. I simply wanted someone to talk to. I met her while working on a project in Cleveland. Her name is Gina. I worked with Gina for a month or so and when the project was done, we found ourselves in a hotel room.

"Do you know the strange part about all of this? There we were, butt naked and about to have sex, something you've denied me for years, and yet I couldn't get in bed with her. She was young and beautiful and I felt so damn disgusted being there. I told her this was wrong and that my wedding vows did mean the world to me, so I left her in the hotel and came back home."

"You want me to believe you didn't have sex with her?"

"I don't give a shit what you believe. I'm telling you what happened."

Jim walked over to the door.

"I'm truly sorry. I own this."

"Do you love Laura?" Shelly asked.

"That's the damnest thing. But, yeah, I still do. I guess I'll always love her."

Jim's hand turned the doorknob and when he was about to step out, I jumped out of my chair.

"He raped me. Toby Kaplan raped me!"

*****Chapter Four********

The next thing I remembered was waking up in a different part of the hospital. If you have to have a heart attack, the best place in the world is a hospital. They told me it was a minor one, but one none the less. I got my ass chewed out by every doctor that walked into my room about my weight and blood pressure.

It must have been around five or so that evening when there came a knock on the doorjamb of my room. I looked over and there stood Jim. I turned away. "Leave me alone."

"Hey," he said as he sat on the edge of my bed.

"Go away."

"Can't we talk for a little bit?"

"Talk about what?"

"Us?"

I rolled over and looked at him sitting there. I wanted to ask him 'how could you' but when I looked down toward my feet and couldn't see them, I answered my own question. I looked like a whale lying on that hospital bed.

Jim tried to touch my hand but I pulled it away. He shook his head.

"Do you want a divorce?" Jim asked.

"I don't know. Perhaps it would be the best thing."

"And Annie? What about her?" Jim asked.

I shrugged. "I don't know."

Jim stood and looked down at me for a few moments then sat back down.

"You don't know any of Annie's friends do you? Do you know the name of her teacher?"

I shook my head once more. I truly didn't know any of Annie's friends and certainly not the name of her teachers.

"You have disconnected from me and Annie. I thought we had something you and me. I guess I was wrong." Jim paused and I could see worry lines as they appeared on his forehead.

"I was wrong for having the affair. I'll admit that and I am deeply sorry it happened. It is over. I ended it a year ago. I told you about the affair because it was eating me alive from the inside out."

I didn't say anything back to him. Jim stood and went toward the door. He stopped and looked at me.

"I'll file the divorce papers."

Jim stepped though and he was gone.

*****Chapter Five********

Two days later a slim young man in an expensive looking suite came into my room. He asked me my name and then handed me an envelope. It was the divorce papers. Jim wasn't bluffing. All of a sudden this shit was real. Did I finally get what I wanted? What do I want? I guess I've been poking at a cornered animal and at last it stuck back. I tried desperately to get a hold of Jim. He never returned my calls.

Jim didn't pick me up at the hospital when I was discharged, and I had to have my mother drive me home. When we stopped by the house, it was locked, and my keys no longer worked. I peeked into a window and all the furniture had been removed. Inside the garage, the cars were all gone, too.

More importantly where was Annie?

My mother wanted to get the police involved. I told her that Jim would never do anything to harm Annie, and there had to be a reason why he did what he had done. That's the story I told Mom and the one I kept telling myself.

It was two days after I left the hospital when I at last received a call from Jim. He said he was working on a personal project and that Annie was with him. He was going to sell the house and the cars. He would be starting all over and he put my things into storage.

Jim went on to tell me that he wanted to live apart for forty-five days and when the time was up, if I still wanted a divorce, he'd split the proceeds from the cars and house and I would never have to see his face again. We would have joint custody of Annie.

As the days dropped off the calendar, I couldn't make up my mind. Do I leave him? Or try and fix what we have? Does he get it how much pain I carry around deep inside of me because of what Toby Kaplan did to me that cool autumn night.

Was there a tiny bit of love for Jim burning deep, deep, inside me? How could I love a man so much as to marry him and now those feelings seem like light years away.

Two days before my time was up, I called Jim and told him I'd give it another try.