Private Eyes

He just looked at me. A crowd had gathered around us. Everyone in the room was literally staring at us.

"Boy, I'm stupid," he said. "I know we just met, but I liked you. I thought maybe we could be friends. I've been kind of down on myself lately because it just doesn't seem like Helen is very happy with me. I was hoping you could give me some advice to make her love me again. What a sucker I am. She hired you didn't she?" I nodded slowly.

"I wanted to tell you," I said. "But you don't have to worry. Everything in our report will tell her how much you love her, you're clear." Even as they came out I knew that my words were just words and didn't mean anything. In fact they meant less than nothing. The worst part was when he said that he liked me. He said that he thought we could be friends. He'd been letting me inside his guard and that asshole had fucked it up.

The words from that God damned song were back in my head. "You play with words, you play with love. You can twist it around baby, that ain't enough. Cause girl, I'm gonna know. If you're letting me in, or letting me go. Don't lie, when you're hurting inside. You can't escape my Private eyes."

The hurting part was clearly the most painful. My heart literally hurt me, and I could tell as I watched him walk away, that I had shattered Chris as well.

He didn't trust many people at any rate, but he had just begun to let me inside his envelope of trust. Not only had I proven untrustworthy, I'd revealed the fact that he couldn't trust his wife either. And the fact that as much as he loved her, she still didn't trust him.

I was devastated, and I was in no mood to be fucked with. So, as I turned around and faced the bimbettes, common sense should have warned Amy, but blonds have never had very much of that.

"I thought we'd made our intentions clear to you yesterday," she said to me in a nasally voice. "I guess I don't have to warn you again, because you really fucked things up with him." She smiled a satisfied little smile in my face. She never actually saw the punch I knocked her down with. She just got up woozy and holding her mouth as her lips swelled up.

I grabbed Darryl's arm to try to rouse him. He was groggy and complaining about his neck being sore, so I took him to the emergency room.

Chapter 8: Chris

I had a rough couple of days. After the incident at breakfast when I'd discovered that Sarah wasn't really a friend, I'd immediately left and got on the first plane to fly home. I'd realized why Helen had been so short with me lately. She didn't trust me. Maybe someone had given her idea that I was cheating on her. I had to let her know that I never had and I never would. I loved her only. And I loved her more now than when I first fell in love with her at six years old.

I left the airport and got back into my beloved Black Mustang. I made short work of the drive from the airport to our suburb. The house felt strange as I left the garage and walked up my driveway to the door. Just before I put my key in the door, my next door neighbor, Ricky Ricardo came running up to me. "Chris," he said. It came out "Kdeese," his thick Cuban accent obscured my name. Ricky was a great musician and band leader but he simply murdered the English language. I couldn't make out a word he was saying.

Luckily for me his wife Lucy, came over and told me that Helen had been taken to the hospital. I drove right over here and had to wait for over an hour while they pumped her stomach. I had to fill out a whole bunch of medical forms and explain my whereabouts to the medical staff before I was allowed to see her.

I just knew that somehow it was my fault that my wife had tried to kill herself. I sat at her bedside with all kinds of questions running through my mind. Was her suicide attempt related to her thinking I was cheating on her? Had I somehow driven her to this?

When Helen finally woke up I got the whole tragic story from her. Helen still loved me, as much as ever she'd said. But we had a couple of issues hanging over our heads. The first was that she'd heard from a friend of hers that I'd been cheating on her. Since she was older than me she bought into the fact that I might be tired of her and ready for a younger, fresher woman. I thought it ironic that the only woman I'd ever looked at was the one she hired to spy on me.

She'd hired the private eyes to find out if I was. If I'd cheated on her, she'd be destroyed by it but she loved me too much not to fight for me. So she just wanted to know who she'd be fighting against. She would never let me go without a fight.

I determined right then that nothing would ever separate us. No matter what it might be, we'd be together.

Then there was a more serious problem. The first one could have simply been viewed as a misunderstanding. The second was far worse. Part of the reason that Helen had been acting so strangely lately was because she was keeping a secret from me. A Few weeks back, she'd been raped. She was so embarrassed by it that she never said anything to anyone about it. After a few days she'd become depressed and withdrawn into her shell. She was sorry that she'd shut me out, but she was just so ashamed.

She'd recently also discovered that she was pregnant and she just didn't see a way out of that. She was afraid to face me with the news that she was carrying someone else's child, especially when she'd put off having children of our own.

She saw no way out so she'd decided to take her own life.

It was a lot to process, in a short amount of time. I pulled her to me hugging her and told her that nothing would ever separate us. I also told her that loved her too much to let her go. We both cried and I held her until her nurse came in and told me that I could come back the following day, but I needed to go home.

The nurse also told me that. It would be a while before Helen could come home. She had to stay in the hospital for 72 hours for observation, and then she'd have to be evaluated by a therapist, before she would be released.

When I got home I went inside and sat down on my couch. Things were moving way too fast for me to process them.

Someone knocked on my door. I got up to answer it, and saw that it was Lucy Ricardo again. She handed me a sealed envelope with my name on it. She told me that a woman had knocked on her door and told her to give me the envelope. I thanked her and went back inside.

Lucy hadn't wanted to leave. I think her natural curiosity and penchant for getting into trouble, made her really want to know what was in the envelope.

Alone in my living room I opened the envelope and was shocked like never before as my world the way I knew it ended. Inside the envelope was a note with only thirteen words. The note was scrawled in crayon so no one would ever recognize the handwriting.

"Don't be a sucker. She's cheating on you. It's his baby. She's lying."

There were also a couple of really terrible pictures. One picture was a close-up of Helen's face. She had dried sperm all over her face especially around her mouth. The second picture showed Helen and some old guy, that I didn't recognize fucking on my sofa. He had his dick rammed up her ass, and from the expression on her face, she loved it. There was also an audio tape where Helen told some other woman the whole story.

By itself I'd have dismissed the note. The pictures could have been faked, but I recognized Helen's voice and together all three pieces of evidence were enough to rip my heart out.

I spent the evening curled up on my couch. After a while I realized that I was lying on the same couch that Helen had fucked that guy on, and I almost threw up.

I'd always thought that I would love Helen forever. I guess that deep down inside I still did love her. But I just couldn't wrap my head around the way she'd treated me. I had evidence that she'd cheated on me. At the same time she had so little trust in me that she'd had someone following me around to see if I was cheating on her. The worst part of all though was the way she'd calmly looked me in the eyes and lied about it all.

I didn't even know if she'd really tried to kill herself. Maybe she'd just done that to get my sympathy started so she could tell me her pack of lies.

The next morning I called my boss and told him I needed some time off, to take care of some personal issues. I guess most guys would have ran back to the hospital and thrown the papers and the pictures in Helen's face. They'd have demanded to know who the guy was and how long it had been going on.

My problem is that I'm simply not very confrontational. I was hurt very badly. But I just needed to get away from the source of my pain. Seeing Helen in my condition would only make things worse. I needed to go away to think about something other than my problems, so I could heal. I guess it sounds cowardly but let's face it we're all different. This was my way of dealing with it.

I signed up for one of those racing camps where they teach you how to drive your car better. I got a session that was due to start in two days and hit the road.

I didn't really think I needed to learn to drive better. It wasn't like I wanted to be a race car driver or anything, I just wanted to try something new and get away from my life. I called my lawyer from the car and had him start drawing up the papers for a divorce.

I guess here, I also deviated from conventional wisdom. How does a man love a woman so much that he can barely breathe without thinking about her one day, and the next day want nothing to do with her? It doesn't seem possible. But when that man over the course of a few short hours has been repeatedly lied to and deceived and begins to believe that the whole thing was done just to cover up the fact that the woman he loves thinks he's a fool and doesn't love him, It becomes very possible. I know that I still had very deep feelings for Helen. I also knew that despite her words to the contrary, Helen didn't love me.

I explained the situation, and the pictures and the note. I even played him part of the tape. He told me how sorry he was and agreed to take care of it for me.

The camp was in Arizona so I had a lot of time to think on the drive down there. Just before it got dark, my cell phone rang. I thought it was my lawyer but it was Helen. Apparently this was the first time they'd let her have the phone. She'd supposedly been frantic with worry all day.

"Where've you been honey?" she asked.

"Helen, maybe you've got me confused with Robert," I said coldly. "I think you dialed the wrong number by mistake. This isn't your honey. It's just your dumb assed husband who's loved you since he could barely walk." She stopped talking and I could hear her breathing but she didn't say anything.

"Over the past few days I've learned a lot about people Helen. Maybe I've been too trusting or just stupid, but that's over now," I said. "Please don't ever call me again. I've already instructed my lawyer how I want to handle the divorce. I'll give you until the end of the week to get everything you want out of my house. Then I'm putting it on the market."

"Please Chris, I know I fucked up," she said. "We need to talk about this. I think I'm going through a mid life crisis or something. I'll get Therapy. This doesn't have to be the end of us. We can get past this. I'll never see Robert again. I'll put the baby up for adoption or whatever you want. Don't leave me Chris. You can't leave me. You love me."

I hung up the phone. It rang again five minutes later. I looked at the caller ID and saw her number so I didn't bother to answer it. Over the next hour she left me fourteen messages all of which I deleted without listening to them.

Just after I'd settled in for the night in my motel room, my phone rang. I recognized the number, and quickly picked it up.

"Hi Chris, can I stay in your house tonight?" she asked.

"My house is your house," I said. "At least until I sell it."

"You're not really going to sell this place are you?" she asked. "It's so beautiful. And it took you guys so much time, and so much money to get it like this."

"There's too many memories there Jane," I told her. "And I'm not even sure how many of them are even real now."

"How long will it be until you get here, so we can talk?" she asked.

"Janey, I'm not even in Illinois right now. I'm about half way to where I'm going," I said. "So anything you want to talk about we should start on now."

"What really happened between you and my stupid sister?" she asked. "She called me crying her eyes out. She said you walked out on her over a misunderstanding and she got so depressed that she accidentally took too many sleeping pills."

I snorted when I heard that version of the situation. None of it was an outright lie, but none of it was exactly the truth either.

"I know that you wouldn't ever leave her over something silly," said Jane. "You love her too much. For years I was jealous of her because by all rights you should have been mine. You and I are far closer in age and in temperament than you and Helen are. Of course the problem is that you've spent most of your life following her around like a lost puppy. Have you ever even dated anyone else?"

"Nope," I replied. "I never wanted anyone else."

"Have you ever had sex with anyone else?" she asked. Before I could change the subject, she started laughing.

"Jane, Helen cheated on me, with some guy named Robert. She's pregnant with his baby. I have to move on with my life, so I've filed for a divorce," I said.

"You are not serious," she said. "There's no way she could be that stupid. If I'd known what this was about I wouldn't have come here to try and help her."

"Well Jane, now you know. You're welcome to stay in the house for as long as you need it. Please take some of Helen's things with you when you leave. It'll make packing easier for her," I said.

"Chris, I know that what Helen did was wrong. She fucked up big time. But she really does love you. Are you sure there's no possible way for you to ever get past this?"

"None that I can see," I said slowly."Good night Jane."

Almost as soon as I hung up, the phone rang again. Damn I was popular tonight. I didn't recognize the number.

"Hello," I said.

"Chris, where the hell, are you?" asked a female voice.

"Who is this?" I asked back.

"Your best friend," the voice said. Then I barely heard her say, "Gotcha." Then she hung up.

For the rest of the evening I didn't answer my phone. In fact after 2 more calls from Helen, I turned the ringer off. I didn't see any reason to speak to Helen ever again. We simply had nothing to talk about.

I felt like the biggest fool on earth. I had loved that woman since before most of my friends even liked girls. Actually I'd fallen in love with her before I even liked girls. When she first started babysitting me, I thought that girls were simply useless and strange. I saw no point in being friends with any of them. They weren't any good at baseball, they couldn't climb trees worth a damn, and they were afraid of frogs. What good were they?

On the other hand they liked things like dolls and absolutely silly games. They were just useless.

The first time Helen babysat me was a revelation. There was just something about the way she spoke to me and took interest in everything I said. I followed her around like a lovesick puppy and simply never grew out of it. She could get me to do things by asking me, that my parents either couldn't get me to do, or had to threaten to beat my ass to get done. There was nothing I wouldn't do for Helen.

On the other hand there was always mutual animosity between me and any boy that Helen dated. I simply could not abide any other man who wanted my girl. I remember when Helen turned 18 and started dating Jeremy Martin. I was only 8 at the time and Helen went into the kitchen to make my pre-bed snack. My parents never indulged me that way but Helen always gave me a snack and read me a story before I went to sleep. She also sat beside me and held my hand and gave me tiny little kisses on my forehead and cheeks until I fell asleep.

Anyway while Helen was getting my Oreos, I went back to the living room to get my favorite toy car. It was a Mustang naturally. Anyway, I heard that asshole telling a friend of his on the phone that as soon as she put the kid to bed, he was going to hit that pussy and dump her the next day.

He didn't really like her and she had no tits. He'd put up with her shit for long enough, without getting any from her. So, tonight was the end, and he wasn't going to take "no," for an answer.

I crept back to my room, angry. I didn't understand most of what Jeremy had been talking about, but I didn't like it. When Helen came into to my room, we both noticed each other. I noticed that Helen was wearing perfume. I didn't like it because it smelled like flowers, and flowers to me were as useless as girls. I liked Helen's natural scent.

Helen looked at me funny, because I guess it was the first time she'd ever seen me angry.

"Chris is there something wrong?" she asked.

"Helen, what are tits?" I asked.

"Chris you shouldn't say that word," she said gently. "It's not a nice word. But it's how crude people refer to a woman's breasts."

"What does hit that pussy and dump her mean?" I asked next. Helen was really shocked then.

"Chris where did you hear these things?" she snapped.

"That's what Jeremy was telling his friend on the phone while you were making my snack," I said.

"Don't worry about stupid Jeremy," she snapped. "He's not going to be hitting anyone's pussy around here. And we'll see who dumps who."

Helen left the room and in a few minutes I heard yelling and screaming coming from my living room. I got out of bed to see what was going on and when I looked in the room I saw Jeremy push Helen down on the sofa. He was loosening his belt and standing over her. Of course I know what he was going to do now, but back then my 8 year old mind thought he was going to try and give "my Helen," an ass whipping.

I got even angrier and grabbed my baseball off the dining room table. I threw the baseball across the room. It was the best fastball I ever threw. It slammed into the back of Jeremy's head like a rocket. He never saw it coming. He just folded up like a lawn chair. I can still remember Helen hugging me as I stood over him glowering.

Before he fully came to his senses Helen got him to his feet and out of the house. From that day on I was Helen's little hero. She always told me things, like when I was older she was going to marry me. To her they were just cute things to say that she never took seriously, but I believed her every time.

I didn't find out for years that I hadn't actually saved her from Jeremy, I'd only delayed it. Less than two weeks later Jeremy did fuck Helen and then dumped her right after he got done with her. He also passed her around to some of his friends. I guess that was what really started Helen down the path she was on. She had a deep seated need for a man who would abuse her. All the love I felt for her, and all the years I'd devoted myself to her meant nothing compared to that.

It was an addiction she couldn't kick. Like a man who gives up smoking. Sometimes they don't smoke for over ten years and then they hit a stressful situation, and they end up smoking all over again.

Anyway, I was done with Helen. She broke my heart, but I'd get over her. She could have half of everything I had, but she couldn't have my dignity. And she couldn't have my heart anymore either.

At the race camp, despite the fact that I thought I was a great driver, I learned so much that I didn't know. I learned about actually using the gears in my transmission instead of just going through them. I learned different techniques of shifting gears. I also learned about picking the best lines on a course to cut down on the distance I drove and improve my car's ability to get around a track. I was in love with driving my Mustang all over again. I decided that this wouldn't be a one-time thing, I'd be back, and I'd be back a lot.