Long after the Game Ch. 01

What Jim said did make sense, and it was reassuring to me that I wasn't still desperately in love with Deanna. Or maybe I was, but this wasn't a manifestation of it. Or maybe it was. Hell, I'm damned if I knew any more. I was just trying to get through the day most days.

So I also stopped trying to date. I figured if true love was going to strike again, it would, whether I was looking for it or not. Better to concentrate on the new business and the kids. Which is all just elaborate justification for the fact that I was demoralized, had self-image issues and couldn't take any more rejection, even when I was doing the rejecting.

So there I was; I hadn't really heard much from Deanna besides the contact we needed to have for the kids, despite all her protestations that she was 'coming for me', life was rolling on, we saw the first alpha build of the game – most of the art missing, but the game functional - and I was excited about that.

And then everything changed and shit happened. Unbeknownst to me, across town, in the sunny hamlet of Schaumburg (believe me, that's sarcasm), my life was being planned out for me.

*****

Deanna banged her hand on the coffee table and made some of the coffee cups jump.

"Ladies! Attention! The time has come."

The four other women arranged around the coffee table, stopped talking, and turned to Deanna, who was perched on the end of the long couch. One of them leaned forward and said, "Oh, you areso forcefuldear." Sarcasm dripped from her voice.

Deanna threw her a fast frown along with the visual equivalent of a single raised finger and cleared her throat.

"Right. It's time. I got the all clear from Jim this week. Operation Ryan is now in effect."

One of the other women picked up her cup and said, "You sure? Jim said it was all good?"

"Well, he didn't say it in so many words, no," replied Deanna, "but he did say I was ready to move on with my life and that we'd talked out most of what we could talk about. That I should be making plans and 'getting on with it'. I choose to take that as a blessing on my attempt to get Ryan back."

"It's not really a blessing though, is it?" the other woman shot back. Deanna sent another four-letter look at her.

"Look, you gonna help or what? Making smart-ass comments is not helping."

"Oh of course, dear. Just want to be sure that we are all the same page. You've been in therapy for a long time, trying to understand what you did and why. It's been a complicated journey. Frankly, when you petitioned to join our little group here, I was of two minds about you coming in. You obviously had baggage. But I think everyone needs a chance to get their shit together. I just want to be sure that before we embark on manipulating someone's life, we are doing it for the right reasons."

"It's not like that Gina. I'm not manipulating any body. I'm just trying to give Ryan reasons to give me another chance. I'm not the same person any more, who...did what I did. I need Ryan to look at me again, and to give me the chance to prove I can be trustworthy. That I can be the wife he needs me to be. It's not about manipulation. It's about getting that chance."

Gina sat back, the frown on her face evident. Gina was tall, athletic shaped, with arms that had obviously seen the inside of a gym. She was even wearing those comfortably tight work out clothes that seem so fashionable. The rest of the women couldn't decide if it was because she was truly off to the gym later, or because they were form fitting and displayed her fairly awesome body in very obvious ways. Gina could be abrasive, in your face, but she had a heart larger than her head, or even her boobs. She never shrank from saying what she thought, but she'd give you the shirt off her back if you needed it. If you could peel it off first. And washed it, because it was probably sweaty.

The women sitting round the table flicked their eyes at each other. They'd all sat in that spot and made similar pleas at one point in their lives, and they remembered their own desperation.

"Fine. We are all here for you Deanna. What's your plan?" said another of the women.

"Thank you Rhonda. Ok, so here's the deal. When I sent Ryan that video, he texted me and asked what I could possibly do to overcome the breach we had. I replied 'Anything', but honestly, that was the issue. I didn't know what I could do – and it wasn't fair to just ask him. He obviously didn't know either, or he wouldn't have sent me the text he did. SoIhave to come up with things I can do that will make Ryan open his heart to me again. I know that trust is something that comes over time, but you do actually have to be there for that trust to grow again. And right now, I'm not. What I need is the chance to show him I've changed. I need him to know I am willing to do anything. So, ladies, how do I do that?"

Rhonda sat back and glanced at the women next to her and said, "Mae, what do you think?"

Rhonda was blond – the kind of thin long blond hair that always needed a hairclip in it. She was average height, average weight, looked good in a sundress, as she was currently wearing. The most outstanding aspect of Rhonda was her accent – Rhonda was Finnish, hailing from Helsinki. She also tended to be blunt, and was, as a typical Finlander, very unconcerned with nudity and most the other taboos of North America. She had a twinkle in her eye, and was one of those women that tended to be disregarded, until she said something absolutely outrageous, in an innocent fashion, forcing you to re-evaluate her.

The older woman, Mae, pursed her lips, sucked in air through them and then said, "Well, I get where you are coming from, but this won't be easy. You need him to look at you in a different way, but also the same way. Your relationship has to be totally new but based on some of the same things you had in the past. You need to remind him of why you were so good together, without reminding him of why it ended. You can't ignore it, but it you can't lead with it either. It's a conundrum, that's for sure."

Mae was older, in her sixties. She looked good and could pass for fifty, in the right light. She'd let her hair go grey naturally, but on her it just looked good, rather than old. She dressed elegantly, and there was obviously some money behind her. Not ostentatious money, just that she had a nice Michael Kors handbag, a nice Skagen watch – all the subtle indicators of class and money without throwing it in other people's faces. She was also partially Texan, with a very slight southern states lilt to her voice.

"I have some ideas I want to pass by you guys, see what you think. But I want to wait for this secret weapon to arrive. See what's that's all about, ya know?" she said, easily.

The doorbell went and Deanna put down her coffee and went to answer it, saying, "That'll be it now!"

She opened the door to reveal a middle aged man, dressed in a suit and tie. He had sandy hair – a full head of it – and he was carrying a bottle. He smiled broadly at Deanna and proffered her the bottle.

"Oh! So nice! Thanks. We won't need it – teetotal for the operational planning – but the gesture is very sweet," said Deanna, taking the bottle and looking at it.

"Ah," said the man, hesitantly, "I didn't know if we'd need to bash it over the edge of the ship, so to speak."

Deanna laughed, and waved him in. "Come and meet the girls."

The man followed her in, closing the door behind her.

"Girls. This is the secret weapon I mentioned!" Deanna said in an excited tone, as she re-entered the room.

All the women sat silently, staring at the newcomer. Mae even put her coffee down. No one said a word – the women stared at the man and the man stared back, and the tension built.

Finally, realizing that the other women weren't as excited as she was, Deanna said, "Oh come on. He's just a guy. It's not like he's going to kill us and lick our bones."

Mae chuckled and suddenly the tension evaporated.

"Trey, these are the girls. That's Mae right there. This is Rhonda, that's Gina. As I said at lunch the other day, this is the Cracked Hearts Club. Girls, this is Trey Morrison. Trey and I dated a bit, but it didn't go anywhere, and now he's a confidante." She overly pronounced Con-fee-don-t, in an elaborate fashion.

Mae was watching Trey's eyes when she said that and saw them very slightly narrow, and filed that away for future discussion.

Trey tilted his head and said, "Ladies."

He then turned to Deanna and said, "I didn't honestly think you were completely serious? These ladies are going to help you get your husband back? How on earth did you guys come to hang out?"

Deanna rolled her lips, in the manner of one who is embarrassed by what they were about to say. "I found them on Craigslist."

Trey looked at all the women and then at Deanna and said, "Seriously?"

"Sure. Why not? The fact is, I was in therapy, my therapist suggested I find a support group. I was thinking of a book club or something, but I found this ad that said 'We help cheaters out of their holes.' I wrote an email, and a year ago got accepted as part of the group. We help each other out, do a sort of twelve-step program, advise each other, that sort of thing. And drink a lot of coffee. Every woman here screwed up her marriage by cheating and getting caught, so there's a lot of empathy and understanding here."

"And these ladies are going to help you?"

"Yes. They all know my story. Well, everyone knows the story – Ryan made sure of that. They all know what I want to do, and they are all willing to help – to be my Greek chorus, so to speak."

"And I'm here...?"

"For the male perspective. Look, let me get you a coffee, and then you can sit down and I'll explain it all to you."

Deanna busied herself off in the small kitchenette of the apartment she rented, off Roselle Road in Schaumburg. If she stood on tiptoe, she had a view of the Medieval Times dinner theater castle across I-90 from her complex.

When she came back in, Trey was perched on the arm of her couch, politely fielding questions from the group.

"...and that's what I do. It's not very exciting, but everyone needs insurance."

"Here's to that!" said Rhonda, raising her coffee cup in toast.

"Here you go, Trey," said Deanna, passing over the steaming cup, "white and no sugar, right?"

Trey smiled his acceptance.

"Right, since we are all here, we can begin," said Deanna, settling into the couch.

"I'll recap for Trey's benefit. He already knows the back-story, what happened, what I did, what Ryan did. We've met a few times and he knows most of this. What he doesn't know is what I plan to do next."

Deanna took a deep breath and launched into it. "Basically, I've been working on a plan. Something that will get Ryan to take me back. I've been waiting till my therapist gave me the all clear, but I've had it in mind the entire time. So here goes. I'm going to do a bunch of things, to try to get Ryan to give me a chance. Each of the ladies here is suggesting a course of action, and I'm going to do them all. We are going to tackle Ryan from every direction, to get him to understand how much I need him, and how much he – and the kids – need me."

Trey sat back, digesting this. Eventually he said, "And will he know this is a planned, concerted effort?"

Deanna glanced around at the other women, who looked back at her. "I hadn't really thought about it. I don't know..."

Trey interrupted, "Because if he finds out and you weren't up front with him, this is over before it's begun. This is all a trust issue here. You've betrayed his trust and now you need to rebuild it. I doubt whatever you have in mind will do that, but if there isanyhint of anything held back from him, it's done. The only way this has the barest way of succeeding is with total honesty. You being honest doesn't mean he'll run, just that he'll know this is a planned play."

"It makes sense Deanna," interjected Gina. "I mean, now that he's said it, it makes total sense. We should have seen that. Hell,youshould have seen that. You know the guy."

Deanna's face had clouded for a second, then she smiled mischievously. "Secret Weapon, see? I know what I'm doing. It's not a big deal, to tell him. I mean, task number one is...actually, why don't you guys go around and tell Trey what we've agreed the plan is? Gina? You want to start?"

Gina smiled, "Ok, so each of us came up with something that Deanna needs to do. For me, it's simple. She has to give Ryan her journals."

Trey looked enquiringly at Deanna, then Gina.

"Most of the time, when you go for therapy for this kind of thing, the therapist recommends you keep a journal. It helps you formalize your thoughts, and also gives you a record of how far you've come in understanding yourself and your actions. You are encouraged to re-read them every year or so. It's basically a record of the journey you've undertaken. And it's extremely personal – you write down every feeling you have, why you think you had it, and so on. It's really...very personal. But I figure that giving that to Ryan will help him understand the path that Deanna has set herself on, here, to get him back. All the things she's done to understand herself, understand what she did, her emotional state and so on. It gives Ryan the emotional backdrop to understand why Deanna is so dead set on getting him back.

"Plus, it frames their next meetings. Instead of Deanna pushing him to meet and talk, he'll do it himself. Inevitably he'll have questions based on what he reads – assuming he reads it – and that'll prompt the conversation, rather than Deanna desperately explaining herself yet again."

Trey nodded, giving the facial expression of a down turned mouth that you do if you are finding something plausible, from a point of view you've not seen before.

"I get it. Fair enough. What next?"

"Mae?" said Deanna.

Mae shifted in her seat and then said, "Well, I'm the family oriented girl. Well, we all are, but for me, family is everything. I'm telling Deanna that she has to convince Ryan to give her a weekend, with the kids. To pretend they are a family again, to act as though it never happened. Just a weekend, where they do family things and have dinner and go to the zoo and the movies. Like a regular family would. To show Ryan it can happen. That it can be the same. It's a hell of an ask but I think, done right, it would remind him of what has been lost."

"Rhonda?"

Rhonda smiled. "I'm the resident sex addict. So, my task is in the bedroom. Deanna needs to give Ryan the night – or weekend – of his life. Something he could never get anywhere else. Something that makes it obvious that she wants to give him something fantastic. We are going to send them away to Vegas, where Deanna is going to put on a show for him, and keep his dick hard for the whole weekend. Sorry for being crude, but that's effectively what I'm recommending. You can't have a relationship without sex, and she needs to wipe the memories he has clean and replace them with better ones."

Trey shook his head and said, "They are going to have to be pretty damn amazing ones to replace the last images he has of you having sex with that other guy. Frankly, I don't see it. But stranger things have happened, I guess."

"So, what about me? Do I get a task beyond 'being the token male.'?" Asked Trey, plaintively.

"So, we need to help out Ryan's fledgling business somehow. We know – and we aren't going to go into preciselyhowwe know, although my daughter features in that situation – that Ryan has built a start up and is developing some game on smart phones. We know it's costing everything he's got and it's a hell of a risk, so we need to help. Firstly, we'll be handling PR for the company, without them knowing it. And secondly, I'm going to be his girl Friday for a couple of weeks. I'm taking a break from the conference work I'm doing and basically going to be his front desk, HR, office manager, everything we can think of. I'm going to be full on, working for free, with Ryan every day. The whole point is to get Ryan to be aware of everything I can do for him that isnotfamily or sex related. What a true partner can help with. He already knows; we had it for years, but he needs to be reminded. And I could really use some help with that. I've not been in an actual office in years, and to be totally honest, I didn't pay that much attention when I was. Think you could help there?"

There was silence for a moment. Everyone looked at Trey expectantly.

"Well, that all seems very interesting," said Trey, still digesting. "I can probably help. Is that it?"

"No, there is one more task, at the end, that I've come up with. But it'll have to remain confidential right now. I don't know if I can bring it off, and I don't want to spoil it if I can. So, given what you've heard, what do you think? What does your male intuition say about it all? What pointers can you give us?"

There was silence for a moment while all the women stared at Trey.

"Wellllll.... Ok, well, I can only really go off of whatIthink of these ideas. I don't have his history, I don't know him and I don't know his emotional state. I can only really talk in broad terms, as a guy, rather than the specific guy in this situation. But having said that, some things do occur.

"So the journals thing. That's a good idea. It's a good start. But you'd better prime him on some of the things he's going to discover about you. I would imagine there is nothing worse than settling down for a good read, with a beer, to get inside your ex-wife's head, and finding she despised your little cock, or your baldhead, or whatever it is here that caused this. If there is shit that is going to cause him consternation, he needs to know that ahead of time."

The girls all sat there, nodding approvingly.

"Good call," said Gina.

"Incidentally, how do you know he's not out there, throwing his oats around? Or got someone new that he's dating? That would seem to put a bit of a crimp in your plans?"

"Nope. Single and not dating. My sources are infallible on that point," Deanna instantly jumped in. Trey just looked at her.

"We have kids together. My teenage daughter doesn't miss a thing. If he were dating, she'd know, and she'd say something. She couldn't not, not my little blabbermouth."

Trey just nodded.

"So, you need to give him time to read these and digest them. He needs to come back to you with questions. It might take a while; I doubt he'll instantly sit down and read them once you give them to him. I know I wouldn't; it would take the right state of mind."

There was more nodding from the group.

"See girls? Told you. Secret Weapon," gushed Deanna.

Trey took a sip of coffee and barely managed to disguise the look on his face as he did so. Rhonda noticed and had to contain a smile. She glanced at Gina who met her eyes. Deanna's coffee was legendary in how bad it was. They kept trying to suggest someone bring Starbucks, "so Deanna didn't have to try", but Deanna was dead set on being the complete hostess. So they had to grin and bear it. Trey had just joined the august club of those people subjected to the worst burnt coffee in the world. They were all one now.

Trey carefully put the coffee down, wondering how he could avoid drinking any more of it.

"The family thing. I think that would be great, but I think it's going to be strained. It's just not going to be the same. I get where you are coming from, but I think it would take all weekend just to get to the point of where he's relaxed enough to actually enjoy the time, if he gets there at all. But, given the angle of attack that you've chosen, I can't figure out how to make this work any better than the suggestion you've already given. Maybe make it a three-day weekend? Give yourself more time? Oh wait, what you need is an event. Something that canonlybe done as a family. Thanksgiving or something? Emphasize the family aspect.