Silent Treatment

"He made a fool out of me, Steve! And I ... and I ... Oh, God, I can't believe what I've done!" All of a sudden she couldn't speak. She was sobbing, her face in her hands, her whole body heaving.

I felt the urge to go to Kate and comfort her, but it was overshadowed by a cold emptiness. Was she really that stupid? Or had our love gotten so lost that she was more than ready to fall for even the most preposterous of lines?

Then there was my rage at Adam. A guy I'd been friends with for fifteen years.

I sat, silent. Kate sobbed.

After five minutes or so I stood up. Kate watched me fearfully. I took her cell phone out of her purse and put it into my pocket, then I went to the bedroom and the kitchen and unplugged the two phones from their outlets and dropped them into a bag. With the bag under my arm, I got a six-pack of Sam Adams from the refrigerator and headed for the door.

Before I left I turned back to Kate and said, "I'll be back. Don't go anywhere. Don't talk to anyone." I spoke quietly, but she looked terrified as she nodded her agreement.

*** *** ***

On the drive over to Adam's I concentrated on my breathing. I needed to look calm and friendly.

When Adam opened his door he looked surprised and nervous, but I immediately said, "hey, dude, you up for a couple of beers? Maybe we could watch the Phillies. Kate is out at a meeting."

I could see him watching me carefully, but he put on an air of friendliness and said, "sure, come on in. I'm always happy to drink someone else's beer. How've you been, Steve?"

We sat in his living room, the game on, chatting amiably. I kept it light, and I could see Adam gradually relax, figuring this was just a random visit and that I was still in the dark. It took me a long time, more than an hour, to work the conversation around to sex.

I asked him about the ladies he was seeing. Again he looked nervous for a moment, but my blandly smiling face reassured him. He told me about a girl from work he'd been dating for a few weeks, and how fabulous her breasts were. "She never learned how to suck a dick, though—her blowjobs are awful."

I laughed. "Adam, even a bad blowjob is a great blowjob." He laughed too, and replied, "yeah, but a great blowjob is a really great blowjob!" We laughed again.

Then I said, casually, "I had a girlfriend in college that liked to talk a lot during sex. Drove me crazy, actually. It always got so distracting."

And Adam picked up the bait. "I know what you mean, man. I always like to just shut up and do it. All the sweet nothings are for before or after—when we're naked, it's all about the animal energy of it. I think dogs have the right idea!" he said, laughing again. Then, full of himself, he went on.

"And the thing is, that's how girls like it too. They may think they like the kisses on the neck and the 'oh honey, I love yous'—but when you just pin 'em down, or get behind 'em doggy-style, and pound it into 'em, they start coming like crazy.

"I've known so many girls who think they want it sweet and loving—then I show 'em they really want to be an animal with me. They really like it." He sighed, a self-satisfied smile all over his face.

I leaned a bit closer to him. "How about with Kate? How did she like it?"

He froze in shock, his eyes wide. After a long moment I hit him with a right hand to the side of his head, a roll of quarters wrapped in my fist. He fell off the chair like a sack of dirty laundry.

Adam was unconscious, as I'd anticipated, so I took my time. I stripped his clothes off, dragged him to a kitchen chair, propped him on it, and bound him tightly to the chair with electrical cords and duct tape from his closet. Then I stuck his boxers into his mouth, taped them in with some of the duct tape, and searched for a nice sharp pair of turkey shears.

When I was all set I poured a pot of cold water on his head, and he started awake. Almost instantly he realized he couldn't move; then he realized he couldn't speak either, and he began crying out loudly through the boxers, looking very alarmed. I stood there grinning at him.

"See these shears, Adam? They look more than sharp enough to cut your dick right off, don't you think?" He squirmed frantically.

"Here's what we're going to do. You're going to be nice and quiet, and then I'm going to take your shorts out of your mouth. And if you scream or yell, even once, I'm going to use these shears to circumcise you right down to the root, got it?"

He nodded again, his eyes wide. I smiled again, then yanked the tape off and pulled the shorts out of his mouth. He gulped the air but remained silent, looking at me fearfully.

"You were my friend, you cocksucking son of a bitch. Someone I thought I could trust—not someone who would lie to my wife so you could fuck her behind my back."

To my amazement, even in his fear he couldn't stop a shit-eating grin from starting to appear across his face. "Aw, c'mon, Steve, it's not really such a big deal, is it? She's just a woman ..." He trailed off, looking uncertainly at my face.

I stared at him, in utter disbelief. What a maggot! How had I ever been friends with this guy? Slowly, deliberately, I stood up, then gave him another blow to the side of the head, right where he was already starting to swell from my earlier punch.

He howled, then quickly grew quiet when I waved the shears in his face.

"That's better, you asshole. Now, we're going to have a little trim-and-talk session. I trim, you talk. You're going to tell me everything, and I mean EVERYTHING, about your little love game with Kate. I've already spoken to her, so if you lie to me about ANYTHING I'll know it.

"While you're talking, I'll be trimming. If you're lucky, it will only be the hair on your head. If you give me any shit—any shit at all—it'll be your chest hair, an inch off each of your fingernails, maybe even the last couple of inches off your dick. You got it?"

Wide-eyed, now truly afraid, Adam nodded at me.

"Start talking," I said, grabbing a hunk of his wavy brown hair and chopping it off with the shears. "If you're lucky, you'll only look like a dipshit from the neck up when I'm done."

As I continued lopping off his hair at odd angles, he told the story—and it was pretty much as Kate had said. He'd always been attracted to her, and he'd been flirting with her for months whenever he ran into her. He was between girlfriends one weekend when he ran into her in the supermarket, and he saw his opportunity. At first he thought he could just seduce her; but when it became clear there was no way she would cheat on me, he made up the story about my affair.

He got her so angry, and feeling so sorry for herself, that he had no trouble getting her into bed. They'd seen each other about five more times after that, always at his apartment.

To my amazement, he wasn't at all reluctant to talk about the sex. His eagerness to brag overcame even his fear of me with the shears in my hand.

"The first time wasn't so great, bro," he said, "because she was so upset about you and your affair, she was crying and all, but the next coupla times were fantastic. We did it just like I was talking about, no talking, just kissing and touching and fucking. It was like animals, and she really got into it." He saw my eyes, and suddenly, belatedly, stopped talking about how great it was.

By now I'd hacked his hair pretty much down to the roots all around—it looked totally bizarre, and I took a bit of pleasure from imagining him having to hide his head with hats for the next few weeks.

"Is it over?" I asked coldly. He hesitated a moment, and I grabbed a hunk of his chest hair and chopped it off. "Hey, man, cut that it out!" he cried.

"Yeah, it's over. Yesterday she caught me ... I couldn't remember the name of the chick I said you'd been fucking, and she started asking me questions and realized I'd made the whole thing up. She got angry and split."

Suddenly I was ready to be out of there. I could have pressed him for more details, but I just felt empty. I jammed his shorts back in his mouth, taped them to his face, grabbed a paper shopping bag and put it over his head.

"Well, Adam, you've been doing things with that dick that you shouldn't have been doing, so I guess it's time to hack it off."

He started to cry "no, no!" through the boxers and writhe around, but he couldn't move much. I bent down and put the sharp blades of the shears around his cock, a couple of inches up from the base, and started to squeeze. I didn't have the heart to really do it, but I thought I'd draw blood at least.

He was still moaning, terrified, and suddenly he pissed himself, urine spraying onto his thighs and dripping down onto the floor. I pulled the bag off his head and stood back to look at him. "Quite a sight, Adam," I said.

I went into his bedroom and emerged a moment later with Adam's digital camera. Stepping back, I took a series of shots, clearly showing the naked Adam, his demented haircut, part of his chest-hair missing, and the urine puddled beneath his chair.

"You and I are done, now, 'bro'," I said coldly. "You might be tempted to get back at me, but then you might have to explain to everyone you know why these pictures of you are on the Internet. So let's just agree there won't be any police, shall we?"

He just nodded, looking at me, more humiliated than angry. I pulled the boxers out of his mouth, and he said, "will you let me loose before you go?"

I smiled at him. Then I said, "the shears will be right out in the hall. I'll leave the apartment door open. You should be able to maneuver yourself out there in an hour or so."

I walked out without looking back, the camera under my arm.

*** *** ***

When I got back Kate was sitting on the couch in her bathrobe, her hair wet from the shower. She looked very frightened and unhappy.

I went through the apartment, putting the phones back in place, and then I came back and sat in a chair across from her. We looked at each other, but I said nothing.

Finally she said, "what did you do?"

I said, "Adam and I had a nice little talk. I didn't kill him or anything, but I don't think we'll be hearing from him any time soon."

She scowled and said, "I almost wish you had killed him, that bastard! Except he's not worth you getting in trouble for."

She gazed at me, a troubled look on her face, and said, "can we get past this, Steve? I can't believe what I've done. I was such an idiot! But I love you, and I know you love me. Please, please, can you forgive me?"

I looked at her for a long minute before I replied—by now saying very little with her had sort of become a habit. "I don't know," I said finally. And it was true.

She started to cry, and then she got up, came over to me and sat in my lap, throwing her arms around me and letting her heard fall onto my shoulders. I held her, sitting passively, while she shuddered and sobbed for several minutes.

Finally she calmed down, and, sitting back up, she blew her nose and wiped the tears from her face. She managed a little smile. Then she leaned her face close to mine and whispered, "sweetie, please make love to me? I need you so much right now!"

I didn't know what I wanted, but I let her lead me by the hand to the bedroom. She tossed her robe on a chair, and beneath it was another of her sexiest nighties.

The sex was about like the previous time. She was eager and energetic, which was a good thing because I didn't feel very interested. But even when you're mad, or numb, or hurt, a beautiful half-naked woman sucking your cock tends to produce an erection.

This time when we were ready to fuck I ignored her attempts to pull me down into the missionary position. Without a word I rolled her onto her stomach and put a pillow underneath her middle. Then I got off the bed and walked behind her. I entered her doggy-style, gently; and then I fucked the hell out of her.

It was cold, uninvolved, unloving sex. I didn't hurt her—in fact I think she liked it—but I simply used her for my pleasure. Never in the five years I'd known Kate had I ever had sex with her that was so cold and unfeeling. She might as well have been a stranger, or even a whore.

It's not that this was what I wanted—it was simply what happened. There was no warmth between us, no tenderness, not even a connection. That's when I knew we were done.

In the morning Kate ambled into the kitchen, blinking her eyes. I'd been up a couple of hours already, and she smiled at the breakfast and coffee waiting on the table. "Wow, baby, that looks delicious," she said, coming toward me for a kiss. Then she stopped short, catching sight of the two big suitcases standing by the door.

"Steve . . . what . . . you're not leaving, are you? Steve?" Tears came to her eyes.

I would love to have left without a word, just for the symmetry of it—silent to the end!—but I couldn't do it. I poured her a cup of coffee, and got her to sit at the table across from me.

"Kate, it's over. I don't know what happened, I don't know why, but it's over. We were so terrific together at first, but for at least a year now we haven't been. We've been impatient and snappish with each other, we fight all the time, and it seems so rarely that we get back to those times of warmth and affection.

"You fucking Adam isn't the whole reason I'm leaving, but . . . You know, you're simply not as stupid as a woman would have to be to have fallen for his line of bullshit. You never came to me and said, 'honey, is everything OK? Are you having an affair?' You let old Adam give you a marginally convincing story about me stepping out on you, and that was it: into the sack!

"Then you kept on doing it—and you all but told me you liked the way he fucked you better than the way I did. The woman that I married simply wouldn't have done any of those things. You must have been 7/8 ready to fall into someone else's bed or this never could have happened."

I stopped, and waited. She was crying quietly, holding her face in her hands. When I stopped talking she looked up at me, pleadingly. I gave her time to speak, to assure me I was wrong, to explain how we could get the love and affection back.

But she didn't. She just kept looking at me, and crying.

I went to the door. "Goodbye, Kate," I said. I picked up my suitcases and left.