Survivor's Remorse

Me explaining to the therapist that I just don't have anything to say to Wendy, didn't cut me any slack, so for the past week, I've been saying goodbye to her before I leave every morning. I also ask her how her day was when I come home every evening. And I tell her good night before I go to bed every night. The end result is that things have actually gotten worse.

She came into therapy last night on her high horse. Almost as soon as the therapist sat us down, Wendy gleefully attacked. She acted as if she was a hawk swooping down to scoop up a helpless mouse.

"So, Vee, can't we just cancel this whole silly divorce, since we're even," she said. Her eyes were gleaming and her smile told me that she was enjoying the whole thing. The look on her face told me that she thought she was about to score the winning touchdown in a hard fought game.

"I mean we all know that I had sex with Rick. I've apologized for it ad nauseum and we all know how sorry I am for it. But the fact of the matter is that you got your revenge for it when you went over and fucked his wife Janice.

You not only fucked her, but she sucked your dick and you fucked her ass too, didn't you Honey?" she asked. She just stood there while the room went silent. She was sure that she had me, but she had really fucked up.

"Wendy, we're not even," I said. "Far from it. In fact you throwing this out there actually makes things worse. First off, it was Janice who asked me to have sex with her. She wanted to do it to get revenge against Rick. And with the way I feel about Rick, I was only too happy to stick it to him again. I thought about it and weighed my options. Which would hurt him more ... Kicking him in the nuts again or fucking Janice. You obviously know which one I chose.

As I said the whole thing was Janice's idea. It was not meant to hurt you, Wendy. That's why I never told you about it. I figured that we have enough issues of our own to get through without muddying the waters any further.

There are three more things I want you to consider about this, Wendy. The first is that I only had sex with Wendy one time. How many times did you spread you legs for Rick before I caught you?"

"Vee, I'm sorry," she whined. "I'm desperate. I'm just trying anything I can to get you back ... This was a dumb idea."

"How many times, Wendy?" I yelled. She sat there looking stupid.

"Your first statement was that we were even, Wendy," I said. "How many times do I need to go out and screw someone before we're really even?"

She started crying but I wasn't ready to let her off the hook.

"The second thing we need to consider is that when I had sex with Janice," I considered our marriage over. I had already kicked you out of the house and told you that I was filing for divorce. So technically, I was free to do whatever the fuck I chose."

"Vee, I already told you, I was wrong for bringing it up," she whined. "If it makes you feel better you can go back and have sex with Janice again. I won't like it, but if it helps us to stay married ... I'll live with it."

"Wendy, I don't want to have sex with Janice," I told her. "I never wanted anyone except you. The third thing you have to realize is that neither Janice nor I was in our right minds at the time. She was so pissed at Rick that she wanted to do anything she could to hurt him. And I was a walking disaster. I was hurt and angry at you and suffering through this Damned depression at the same time. I never did anything to get any kind of revenge against you and Janice's revenge against you is that she ended your friendship. That alone should be a crime, Wendy. You guys have been friends for almost twenty years."

"She doesn't pick up the phone when I call her," said Wendy. "She doesn't come over any more either. At least I know why, now. I'm so sorry, baby."

"The last thing I have to say is that I want to ..." I began.

"What do you mean the last thing?" asked Wendy angrily. "We just got here. We're not going to do another session where I do all of the talking again, Vee. We're not. We are not starting all over again. It took weeks to get you to talk about anything. We cannot lose all of that progress just because you're angry at me because I made a mistake."

I ignored her completely. "The last thing I have to say is that I want to apologize to you, Doctor. I'm sorry for wasting your time. We're not really ready for this yet. Truthfully, I'm still having a lot of trouble accepting that I ruined my car in a really stupid, dangerous and totally thoughtless way. And Wendy, she's not ready either. She has no idea what I went through with the car. She also has no idea how badly what she did with Rick hurt me. All she wants to do is come here and keep score. She thinks we're playing some kind of fuckin' game where she gets points for coming up with ways to prove that this was all my fault and she's the victim." I turned to her then.

"So, Wendy, how many points do you need to come up with to win?" I asked. "And what do you get when you win the game?" I left the room with Wendy crying and calling for me to come back.

As I drove home, I felt something that I hadn't felt in a long time. It was a tingle in my hands as I gripped the Jeep's steering wheel. It was a flash of anger as I realized something. I knew exactly what I had to do. I made several phone calls the next morning at work.

Things only got worse at home. I began doing everything I could to totally avoid Wendy. I stopped having the little conversations with her. I started leaving any room she walked into. I didn't even try anymore. I also cancelled our next few therapy sessions. I told her that until she was ready to really try, I wasn't willing to waste my time or my money on them.

"Vee, what about saving our marriage?" she whined.

"If saving our marriage was really important, you would have spent you time doing that instead of spreading your legs for scumbags," I said.

"I don't give a fuck about Rick," she yelled. "I love you, Vee. I always have and I always will."

"No, you don't give a fuck ABOUT, Rick," I yelled right back at her. "You gave lots of fucks TO Rick. And if you loved me so God Damned much why the fuck didn't you realize that I was hurting. All you saw was that you weren't getting everything you wanted. My pain didn't mean shit. Fuck you, Wendy. You never really loved me at all. Maybe that's why I can't get over my car. At least the car made me feel like I fuckin' mattered. It's your world Wendy. The whole God Damned world is a movie about your fuckin' life and you're the star. Nobody else matters."

After that it just seemed like the only place where the tension eased up was at work. I truly loved my new job. With Darwin gone, we were much more efficient. It was more like a club than a company. Everyone wandered in and out of everyone else's space and asked for ideas and offered suggestions.

And then there was Saraya. She was a breath of fresh air after spending hours in a sewer. She made the whole place better. Everyone loved her. She and I worked together seamlessly. An unlike Darwin, she didn't put up barriers between us. She also pitched in and tried to learn about what we do.

She helped the secretaries with typing when they were overwhelmed. She helped the assistants do gopher type things. She offered opinions and criticism when needed and praise when it was deserved. She was amazing.

Saraya and I often ate lunch together. She was my sounding board when it came to Wendy and I was hers. Saraya was as Car crazy as I'd been. And that caused our first argument.

We were sitting at a table in the cafe across the street from our building. We were laughing and talking as usual, when a guy came up to us. He was polite and he seemed nice. He actually asked me if I minded if he spoke to her for a few minutes. I told him it was fine.

He was one of the delivery drivers for the company who shipped our packages. Saraya grabbed my arm and told me I didn't have to leave. He challenged her to race after work and she shrugged her shoulders and accepted. Things between us were kind of subdued after that. It took us a couple of days to get back to where we were.

The following week, I called my father in law. I asked him to come over to my house when I got home from work the next day. I asked Wendy to make us a nice dinner. She was overjoyed. She was sure that me speaking to her and asking her to make dinner was the beginning of another thaw between us.

She pulled out all of the stops. She made a dinner that made me think it was Thanksgiving or something. The table was piled high with food. I was sure she'd spent the entire day cooking.

"Okay. Let's sit down to eat," she said. "I didn't spend the whole day making this for nothing."

"I guess that's ..." I stopped myself. Her dad looked at me. "We'll talk after we eat," I said. "Things are going to get better around here. We're still in the dark, but the light at the end of the tunnel is getting closer."

We ate and made small talk for nearly an hour. And then the doorbell rang. I smiled and held up my greasy hands. "Can you get the door, please?" I asked Wendy. "I'm enjoying this wonderful meal."

"Oh Hi," I heard Wendy say. "I remember you."

I looked over at the doorway and saw a beautiful blond woman standing there. She had a brief case and appeared to be chewing something.

"I'm pretty sure I know why you're here," said Wendy. She had a huge smile on her face. I thought I was ready for almost any reaction, but I was wrong.

"You're the woman who delivered my divorce papers, right?" asked Wendy. The woman nodded her head. "So now you're here to give me the papers that cancel the divorce, right?"

"I have no idea what the papers I serve say Ma'am," said the woman. "I just serve them."

"Well serve 'em up," smiled Wendy. She took the packet of papers and closed the door behind the woman who'd given them to her.

She practically floated into the dining room on a cloud. She opened the envelope and took out the papers. It happened in stages. She looked at the papers and then stopped. I could hear the rusty gears in her mind working as she tried to figure out what she was looking at.

"Hey, these are divorce papers," she said stupidly. She looked over at me. Then she burst out smiling.

"I get it. I'm supposed to tear these up to end our divorce right?" she asked. "I shook my head.

"Okay, I don't get it," she said.

"The divorce is back on," I said, continuing to eat. "If you look at them you'll notice that I'm giving you less money this time. And I took you off of my health care plan. You can still keep your car, but you're going to have to handle the payments and maintenance yourself. If I were you I'd sell it and get a cheaper car ..."

"What the fuck is going on?" she asked. "We were working on things. We'd made a lot of progress. I know we had a setback, when I brought up Janice, but I apologized for that. Vee you have to give the therapy a chance to work."

"You mean like you have?" I said between bites of food. I finished my dinner and pushed the plate away from me.

"You screwed up the last time we went to therapy," I said.

"I already apologized for it," she said. "I should never have brought Janice into things."

"Exactly!" I said. "It got me to thinking. Janice has moved on. She's divorcing Rick. We have the same lawyer and she's taking him to the cleaners. You and she will never be friends again so she doesn't really care whether or not you knew about what we did. I already told you that we did it to hurt Rick, not you. So I wondered why she would tell you. I spoke to her on the phone and found out that she DIDN'T tell you. There were only three people who knew what we did.

That meant that you could only have found out from your fuck buddy, the one you claim you haven't spoken to." Her eyes got huge.

"I couldn't talk to Rick about it," I said. "Whenever he sees me, he gets really pissed, but after the ass kicking I gave him, he's afraid of me. So I can't get close enough to him to even ask him.

But you gave me a better idea anyway. Remember how you thought that I was cheating on you and you wanted to find out? I used our credit card statements and got the same PI you had following me to follow you."

"Vee, can I please explain?" she whined. I grabbed the remote from the table and turned on both the huge flat screen TV in our living room and the DVD player attached to it.

When the loud sounds of sex filled the room, her dad who'd tried to stay out of our discussion looked towards the 70 inch screen. At the sight of his daughter being fucked in a cheap motel room, he nearly threw up his dinner.

"Turn that off!" he screamed.

"Don't you want to see the parts where he begs her to fuck her ass?" I asked calmly. "She didn't let him, but promised that he could the next time."

"I was never going to let him," she sobbed. "I just wanted to keep running the string out."

"Wendy, why would you do that again?" Her father asked. "Why? The two of you are barely back together as it is."

"We aren't together," she spat. "All I am is a fucking maid. All I do is clean the house and do the laundry. Most of the time he doesn't even eat what I cook. In the six weeks that I've been back in the house, we have NEVER even slept together, let alone had sex. He hasn't even kissed me once. Shit, we haven't held hands.

I'm a full grown woman, Daddy. I need a lot of sex and I wasn't getting any at all. He's the one who started this. I was a virgin when Vee and I met." She turned to me then.

"Vee, I'm sorry. I swear to you that it was only sex. I have no feelings for Rick whatsoever. Can we p ...?"

"Nope," I said holding up my hand to keep her from saying anything. "This was the last straw, Wendy. I was jumping through all of those hoops and trying my ass off to work my way through this. But I just don't think it will work between us. Over the years we just grew apart."

"We did no such thing," she said. "The way you're acting is because of your depression. You clearly loved that car more than me."

"Wendy, that was never true," I said. "I also don't have the car anymore."

"Yeah well when your depression ends, you're gonna miss me a lot. You're gonna regret treating me like this and I'm gonna make you kiss my ass to get me back," she spat.

"Wendy, what I needed from you was some caring and consideration," I said. "I had no idea that I WAS depressed. If you don't know you're sick, you can't get treated to make it any better. But I know now. And I'm getting a little bit better every day. But you're wrong. When I am fully back to normal, I'm gonna remember what a whore you turned out to be and I'm not gonna miss you at all."

For a few moments she stood there and sobbed. She reached out to me so I could hug her, but I just looked at her, crazily.

"I guess I'm taking her home with me again, Huh?" asked her dad. I just nodded.

"Wendy, one last thing," I said. "As you've seen, I have video evidence of your cheating. And although the video won't be admissible in court, my lawyer assures me that she could make a motion to have the judge view it, in chambers. I also have a log and affidavits signed by the motel clerks that you and Rick were in those motels, as well as pictures of the two of you. So please listen carefully to what I'm about to say.

For everyone's good, you should sign the divorce papers and let this go through quickly. That way both of us can move on with our lives. For every day that you put off singing the papers, I'm taking a thousand dollars off of your total settlement amount. So the longer you take, the poorer you become.

There is also a limit of how little I can offer you. So once we get to that limit, I will simply change the reason for the divorce from irreconcilable differences to infidelity, which will allow me to give you less. But remember, besides hurting yourself, since court records are public documents and anyone in town could look them up and find out everything, you'd be hurting your family.

This isn't meant as a threat. But remember your mom, your dad and your sister all live here. Your dad's church is here too. You have to consider them as much as you consider your own wants."

"But I'm getting less money than you originally offered me," she whined.

"Because you went back to fucking Rick," I said calmly. "It's like algebra. It's an indirect proportion. Being a bigger whore gets you a smaller settlement. You've heard the expression "Less is more?" Right? Well in this case, "More means less."

"Vee, I love you," she sobbed. "I swear that I'll get you back with me. If it takes me the rest of my God damned life, I'll get you back."

"You're welcome to try," I said.

My lawyer called me at work the next day, well before lunch time. Saraya was in my office with me and pushed the button putting the call on speaker.

"Vee, I have your signed divorce papers here," my attorney told me. It was funny. There were a lot of emotions that I should have felt. I could have been happy to have Wendy out of my life. But I wasn't. I could have been sad that a ten year relationship had ended. But I wasn't. In fact, I still felt numb.

The odd thing was that seeing the glee on Saraya's face as she found out my divorce was going through actually registered. I was somehow pleased that she was happy that I was free.

In a perfect world, my emotions would have unlocked at that moment. The first emotional thing for me to feel would have been love. It would have made sense. After all I had just started taking a course of antidepressants that were supposed to help open up my emotions. But real life is not like a story and before things got better, they got really fucked up.

At first everything was going great. The first few weeks were magical. We had lunch together every day and soon that wasn't enough. Lunch spilled over to dinner several times a week and soon included us coming in to work early so we could have our morning coffee and donuts together.

There was even a fairly awkward dinner at her dad's house that I nervously made it through. One of the things that really stamped us as being together, at least to most people was at the annual company picnic.

Yep, I attended this year and we had a great time. I cheered for her when she raced a guy around the park. There were several brows raised, since racing on public roads was technically illegal. And most of those people had no idea what she was racing for.

All of that was brushed under the rug when she got out of her car and ran over and kissed me like there was no tomorrow. Her arms went around me and she pulled me into a lip lock that I could still feel days later.

The kiss even temporarily muted some of my own misgivings. When she let go of me and took hold of my hand and barely let it go for the rest of the afternoon, my heart started to beat faster. A few of my friends were even pointing out to me that they hadn't seen me smile in so long they'd forgotten that I knew how.

Things got really silly after that. Saraya and I were feeding each other from combined plates. It was the only way we could eat while still holding hands. Cutting the meat was a challenge. She clamped it down with her fork and I cut it into bite sized chunks with my knife. Then she picked up each chunk with her fork and placed it in either her mouth or mine.

Everyone laughed about the way we were eating until someone pointed out that our ability to come up with solutions to difficult problems and have fun while doing it was one of the reasons that we worked so well together.

Then everything went to hell. Someone pointed to a couple that were staring at us. I looked up and saw Wendy there, holding hands with Rick. Since neither one of them worked for our company, they were obviously only there to bother me.