Separate Lives Pt. 01

At home again, and after a couple cups of coffee, I got busy packing up my clothing and the few personal possessions I had brought to the marriage. There were even fewer items we'd bought together I wanted to keep. While one of my original goals had been to salvage some of the furniture for my own use, I found I didn't want anything more than the DVD player, a 25-inch TV, and a few music CDs. Nothing else caught my eye. I made a backup of everything on the computer, opened the case, and disconnected the backup hard drive. I put it in my briefcase. I'd buy another computer somewhere to put it in.

Before I left, I scattered a dozen prints of the pictures I'd taken last Friday night on the top of her dresser. I used the computer one final time to print my darling wife a short note in the biggest font I could use and still fit the whole text on the page.

ENJOY THE MEMORIES OF LAST NIGHT, DEAR!

THEY'RE THE LAST YOU'LL HAVE OF ME

This was the second childish thing I'd done in the last four days and I didn't get any good feelings from this one in the cold light of morning, as it were. But I'd worked hard last night for the opportunity to say this to her and I wasn't going to back down now.

Taping the message to the mirror, I turned around and left what had been our bedroom, down the hall and out the garage door. I didn't bother locking the place up. It was no longer my responsibility.

Chapter 4

I'd thought once divorce papers had been served on Sherrie, our attorney's would talk and work out the division of our property and other assets. Then, I figured we'd sign the paperwork, go before the judge and it would all be over with. Silly me. It seemed discussions between attorneys was necessarily a long, drawn out process that became negotiations about the most inconsequential of things.

For instance I know the lawyers spent one whole lunch hour—I paid for it, I'm sure—on the question of whether I should return the TV I'd taken with me or did it constitute my share of the electronic equipment in the house? Who gave a flyin'...? Well, anyway, it was taking forever.

What it finally all boiled down to was that the house and all the furnishings were to be sold and the proceeds divided equally—after the lawyers got their share, of course. Sherrie and I would identify any furniture or other things in the home that we particularly wanted and, if the other didn't protest, that item was theirs—up to a total value of five thousand dollars. I didn't care. I'd already made my selection. I told my attorney just to get on with it.

********

A few weeks after the petition for divorce was filed, but before our first court date, I went over to Cal and Melissa's house to see if I could get some answers to the question of how this whole thing started. Melissa had been Sherrie's best friend in college and I'd had known Cal slightly. Over the past few years, we had all become very close. Melissa had become as good a friend of mine as she was Sherrie's. I realized, belatedly, that Cal and Melissa had not come to our house, nor had they invited us to theirs, since the Vegas trip. Thinking of how Connie had spoken of Vegas, I wanted to see if Cal and Melissa could shed any light on the problem.

They were outside in the back yard when I arrived. When I rang the doorbell, Cal came around the side of the house and escorted me back, handing me a cold beer before having me sit in the shade of a big pecan tree that was growing in the far corner of their yard. We sat for a couple of awkward moments.

"So..." I said finally. Melissa burst into tears and got up to run in the house. Cal and I stared at the door through which she'd disappeared and then at each other.

"She's a little emotional sometimes," Cal muttered.

"I know," I said, smiling a little in spite of all the pain everyone was feeling. Melissa was up front in everything she did and I loved her for it. In many ways, she was closer to me than my deceased sister ever had been. I took a long swallow of Coors' finest.

"Ron..." Cal said at length, "Melissa and me are just as sorry as we can be that you and Sherrie are breaking up, but we didn't know what to do, you know?" I looked at him questioningly. I could see comprehension spreading across his face.

"You don't know," he said. I shook my head. He got two more beers from the ice chest beside him and handed one to me.

"We didn't know whether to tell you when we got back from Vegas or not," he remarked sadly. "We thought that surely Sherrie would tell you what happened—it couldn't be kept hidden—and, after a while it seemed she had and the two of you had everything all worked it out."

"Worked what out?" I asked quietly.

Cal took a deep breath and spent the next twenty minutes explaining how Sherrie had gotten sloppy drunk the first night in Vegas. Tired and mad because I'd had to cancel at the last minute, Sherrie had told the other two couples that if I wasn't going to be there when she needed me, she was going to find someone who would be. Sherrie spent the rest of the night gulping down hard liquor while dancing and flirting with every man who caught her eye. At some point, Sherrie and some blond guy managed to disappear even with both of the other couples trying hard to keep track of where Sherrie and the guy went in the casino. No one saw Sherrie until the next day.

That afternoon, Saturday, Melissa and Connie had gone to Sherrie's room and hammered on the door until Sherrie finally answered. She looked like she'd been rode hard and put up wet, according to what Melissa had told Cal. The blond guy had been in the bathroom, but had come out.

Sherrie had been defensive, but also drunk and defiant. The guy had acted completely unconcerned about the whole thing. He left eventually, but since Sherrie didn't join Melissa, Cal, Connie, and Tom that Saturday evening, they were pretty sure Sherrie and the unknown man had hooked up again.

Actually, other than that one meeting Saturday afternoon, none of the four saw Sherrie until late Sunday afternoon when she showed up at the airport to board the flight home. They hadn't seen how she got to the terminal so they couldn't say her boyfriend had brought her. They hadn't cared. I didn't blame them.

Melissa had come back outside wiping her eyes and was standing behind my chair with her hands on the tops of my shoulders. Every so often, she would pat me as one consoles an unhappy child. I'm not so sure that wasn't exactly what I was at that moment. When Cal finished, I sat looking into space.

"I wish you'd told me," I said after a while. "I don't know what good it would've done, but some of the lying and the cheating might not have occurred." I sighed and bit my lip. "But the damage had already been done, I guess. It wouldn't have made any difference in the long run."

"How did you find out about Vegas?" Melissa asked gently. I craned my neck back to look up at her.

"Ya'll just told me," I replied. She was confused.

"Well, howdid you find out, then," she asked. I took her hand in mine and patted it gently.

"I saw them in Sherrie's car on the street a few weeks ago and that blond guy had his hand up her skirt so far I knew he had to have his fingers inside her," I said tersely. Both their faces blanched; they winced in sympathy.

"Oh, you poor man," Melissa said. "What a horrible way to find out." I shrugged.

"I'm not sure there is agood way, 'Lissa," I said. "But it's over and done with now." I looked down at the grass about my feet so I wouldn't have to admit to the sting of tears that had suddenly rushed to my eyes.

Sherrie had evidently come over to tell them of the divorce a few days ago. Melissa said Sherrie had been mad as hell that Melissa wouldn't support her. It had been just a horrible mistake, according to Sherrie. When Melissa had called her a hussy and some other things, Sherrie had left in a huff. That was my Sherrie, all right. Blame everyone but the two people who committed the adultery.

Cal, Melissa, and I talked for another hour or so before I left. Their eighteen-month old baby needed attention and I wouldn't have been good company at dinner, though they tried hard to get me to stay.

********

Three and a half months into the "negotiations," the question of the pictures I'd taken of Sherrie and Blondie came up. Sherrie was afraid I was going to put them on the Internet. I thought their suggestion was a good one and I started to look for a website that would handle them. I offered to send copies to everyone at Sherrie's office and all her friends too. I didn't intend to do that, but it sure got the talks moving again.

There would have been some legal complications if I'd tried to do as I threatened. For one thing, there was the invasion of privacy thing since I'd taken the pics through the motel window and without permission from the motel or the participants. I told my attorney I'd go ahead and chance a law suit if something didn't nice happen real soon.

The next day, Sherrie's lawyer reopened the question of how to divide the house and offered me 60% of the sale price if I would turn over all copies of the pictures, but I refused. After a while, they offered 55% of the proceeds if I would agree to keep only one copy of the pictures and agree that I would never transmit them over the Internet in any way. And, oh by the way, Sherrie demanded a closed-door meeting between just the two of us. I made a counter offer of 60%, I'd keep only one set of prints, no digital copies, and a maximum of 30 minutes with her.

We eventually settled on the 60% of the house, two sets of the pictures (one for me and one, surprisingly, for Sherrie), no digital copies, and a one-hour closed-door meeting. They withdrew all of their motions before the court and agreed to a no-fault divorce at the earliest possible moment. A court order was obtained recognizing Sherrie and I were no longer living together as man and wife pending a final divorce decree. Texas does not have "legal separations" and this was as close as the attorney's could get to one. It was fine with me. The sale of the residence and furnishings could move forward, the mandatory wait time for the divorce would not be interrupted, and things would be over in another two months.

Meanwhile, I'd made a particularly strong effort to keep my divorce from affecting my job. In fact, I took refuge in my work. I was the first one to arrive in the morning and the last to leave that night. Maybe because he noticed my renewed dedication to the firm, the big boss made me the interim director for the R&D branch. He gave me all the problems to solve, but none of the pay increase for that position. I didn't care that much. I just made sure the disaster of my personal life never hurt my professional career.

*******

I got there about ten minutes early. I'd hoped the traffic would be heavy and make me late, but it was not to be. The meeting between Sherrie and me was to take place in a temporarily vacant office in my attorney's suite. I was hustled into that office and ushered me into the big chair behind the desk. That would have a considerable psychological impact on Sherrie, they said. It would put her at a disadvantage. One of my lawyer's legal aides, the young woman who'd been so sympathetic when I'd initiated the divorce papers, fussed over me for a few minutes, straightening my tie and brushing at some imaginary lint.

She leaned in very close to me as I sat there. I could smell her perfume and if I'd let my eyes fall from hers, I'd have had a superb view down her open-necked blouse. When everyone else had left the room to greet the arriving party with my wife, she impulsively kissed my forehead and told me to "hang in there," and squeezed my hand encouragingly. Standing, she turned and walked through the doorway, but she looked back and smiled before she disappeared.

When everyone was gone, I got up and moved to a seat at the short conference table that butted up against the front of the big desk. I didn't think I needed any props or artificial barriers. My wife had committed adultery, I caught her, and I was getting rid of her. I didn't see things as any more complicated than that.

When Sherrie came in, she found me sitting there calmly placing 5 X 7 prints on the table of her and her blond fuck toy hammering away at each other on the hotel bed. I was going for neat rows of six pictures in each row but the photos tended to slide on the slick tabletop. It was a lot of effort to make each line of pics to line up. I worked while Sherrie settled herself. When I looked up, there was a flush across her face.

She was an attractive woman—not beautiful in the classical sense, but more than just pretty. I knew that under the bulky sweater top and knee length, dark blue skirt, there was a very exciting body. I looked into the face I'd loved for the more than six years we'd been together—four of them as a married couple. She'd been so warm and affectionate through most of those six years. Looking at her now, I couldn't say when the woman I used to know had disappeared, or where she'd gone.

"You got me really good didn't you?" she said bitterly, interrupting my train of thought. Her face was twisted into a mask of irritation, something I'd come to expect from her more often than not lately. "I'll bet you're soooo proud of yourself, aren't you?"

I snorted. The puff of air moved three prints sideways and I urged them back into place with a fingernail.

"Nah," I said quietly. "You got yourself," I told her. I glanced up to see her still glaring at me. She opened her mouth to say something I figured would be spiteful. I beat her to the punch.

"And no...I am definitelynot proud of having caught a slut whore fucking around on me. I thought the woman I was married to would never,ever screw some strange man. Exactly why would you think I'd be proud to find out differently, huh?"

It took the wind out of her sails and she sat with a blank expression on her face for a time. I held up my left forearm and checked my watch in as ostentatiously as I could.

"I was told you wanted to talk to me...so talk. We've got just about fifty-five minutes left." I leaned back in my chair. I was tired of playing with the pictures. Sherrie made an effort to keep her eyes from straying to the pictures and look only at me. She took a deep breath.

"Ron, honey, I—"

"Whoa...huh uh...back up there!" I said quickly.

She pulled back, surprised at my vehemence.

"You don't have any right to call me "honey," "sugar," or "sweetheart" or anything else," I told her. "You gave that up when you started playing with your little fuck toy in Vegas." She flinched and swallowed hard. She couldn't meet my eyes, but she couldn't look at the pics either. The wall behind me was suddenly being given her complete attention.

"I didn't mean to...to step over any boundaries here," she said finally.

"Okay," I said, "just so we understand each other." She nodded.

"Ron..." she paused and looked at me, expecting me to object again, I guess.

"Ron," she continued, "first...I want to say I'm so sorry about all this. I never meant to hurt you, you've got to believe that."

"I don't have to believe any such thing," I retorted. "What the hell would make you think you could fuck around behind my back andnot have it hurt me?" She looked at me for a long moment.

"I never meant for you to find out," she said in a low voice. "And if you hadn't found out, you wouldn't have been hurt." I snorted again disbelievingly.

"What? No harm, no foul? Sherrie, eitheryou are pretty damn stupid...or you think I am. From what "our" friends are telling me, you were dry fucking this guy on the dance floor and in the casino. You went off somewhere; they couldn't find you and didn't manage to corner you until the next afternoon. Fuck toy was there in your room with you and you didn't even try to hide it. Just how the hell did you think you were going to keep me from finding out eventually?"

She sat looking at me without saying anything for a bit.

"Then why didn't you stop me?" she asked sharply.

"What?" I said. "I wasn'tthere, Sherrie." She shook her head.

"When we came back, why didn't you say something? Why didn't you stop me from seeing him again?" She was getting worked up but I couldn't understand what she was talking about. "Why didn't you fight for me? You're supposed to love me," she blurted. I shook my head in confusion. This was hard enough without her talking in riddles.

"Sherrie," I said wearily. I didn'tknow what you were doing. How could I stop you...read your mind?" Then it struck me.

"Oh—Sherrie, Melissa and Cal didn't tell me about Vegas until I'd already caught you with your fuck toy." She winced at my repeated description of the blond guy but I wasn't in any mood to be gentle. "You want to know how I caught you?" I asked challengingly. She nodded. There was a small tear at the corner of her left eye.

"I saw you and fuck toy while I was sitting in a van at a stop light," I said shortly. "He had his hand so far up your skirt, I'm surprised his fingers weren't coming out of your mouth," I told her. Her posture changed. From one that had been aggressive, she slumped into one of despair and pain. I waited. I'd said my piece.

"I amso sorry you saw that, Ron," she said finally. "I'm sorry I let him do it...I'm sorry all of this happened."

"You sure didn't look like you were sorry that day," I told her. "In fact, you looked like you were having a ball," I said, "no pun intended." She cringed in her seat before straightening up.

"I came here to be honest with you and I'm going to do it," she said. "Iwas enjoying it," she said. "God help me, I was...but no more than I would have if it were my fingers in there, or...uh...a dildo, Ron," she said.

"But theyweren't your fingers, Sherrie," I said softly, "it wasn't a dildo and they sure as hell weren'tmy fingers. They were his andhis had no damn business being there."

I slammed my hand down on the polished tabletop, my open palm making a loud, smacking thud echo off the law books in the shelves all around.

"I had an exclusive rights contract with you, Sherrie," I said. "It's called a marriage.Noone else in this whole world hadany right to put his hands down there except me, dammit to hell!"

I sat back, trembling with anger. I fought to keep my temper from exploding. The twenty-four pictures on the table had all skittered across the surface of the table. To occupy my hands and mind, I began picking them up and placing them in a neat stack in front of me.

"I'm sorry, Ron," she said after a while. "You're right. I should not have done anything with that man. I know that. I don't have any excuses at all—"

"For the first time today, I agree with you," I said, cutting off whatever she was going to say.

"Yeah..." she said, "I know." She took a deep breath.

"Ron, would it make any difference if I told you that the night you took all these pictures...that I told him I wasn't going to see him any more?" I glanced up from my pile of photos. She held my eyes with her own. I shrugged.

"No, not a hell of a lot," I said evenly. She was startled. She'd thought she had something important to throw into the mix.

"Sherrie, you cheated on me in Las Vegas, right in front of our friends. When you came home, you didn't come to me and tell me about it...and then you fucked him three, four, five...a dozen times more here in our town. You didn't stop when you came home.

"What's that saying? 'What goes on in Vegas, stays in Vegas?' Boy that sure didn't apply to you, did it? Not one damn bit! Hell, you were like that energizer bunny—you just kept going and going and going.