Testing Relationships

I had no idea what I was doing there.

It seemed to be mandatory, though. We were a moderately attractive couple, Eva and Eric. We were young at 25 years, we didn't have kids, we were not rich by any means, but we had enough to get by. All of this seemed to result in one thing: we had to go out on Fridays and Saturdays, see people, be seen by people, impress people we didn't know and would never meet again. It was an unwritten rule, obviously. Not my rule, mind you. I had already chosen my partner for life and didn't need the excitement of the hunt, anymore. Said partner, namely my wife, Eva, had stated time and again that we were too young to be couch potatoes, that she wanted to have fun, to experience everything life had to offer. So, she dragged ol' reluctant me along every damn weekend.

I couldn't dance for shit. If it had been a tiny bit brighter in the damn club, everyone would have seen how run down and shabby the whole place was. If it had been a lot quieter, you would actually have been able to have rudimentary conversations without shouting out your lungs. If it had been a bit less packed in there, you wouldn't have been jostled by sweaty, smelly and drunken bodies all the time. If the prices had been a bit lower, you wouldn't have to sell a kidney to pay for a couple of drinks.

Unfortunately, it wasn't brighter, quieter, emptier or cheaper. This was the 08/15, the club you just HAD to be seen in these days. As a result, the queue at the entrance was as long as the scrutiny by the arrogant assholes at the door was humiliating. Of course, like always when the demand is high, things were shitty for the poor unlucky customer. If this was what life had to offer, I was not impressed.

None of that stopped my wife Eva from dragging me in there again and again. Why, oh why? I had no idea. None of her explanations made the remotest sense. Because everyone important was here, she said. I couldn't see anyone important, never could. Maybe the light was too dim, but all I could ever see was people like us, pretending to have a good time and honing their acting skills. Because we were having sooo much fun. I certainly wasn't.

I'm whining? It got worse. All of this was still annoying, but it was a sacrifice I was willing to make to please the woman I loved. The really hard part was NOT to get jealous. Jealousy was the one thing that drove my Eva totally mad. Was I a jealous guy? No. Never have been. Well, except when Eva was flirting like crazy, which happened only when we were out clubbing. When we were, it happened almost continuously.

Did I complain? I tried. Boy, did I try. It changed exactly nothing. She got angry, I sulked, she counter-sulked, the evening was ruined, and the temperature at home dropped to about one Kelvin, until we exploded into our hot makeup sex, usually Sunday evening. Did these confrontations change a damn thing? No. I had to trust her, I didn't own her and so on and so forth. Even after our makeup sex she was never open to any of my arguments. I knew that if I kept bringing the issue up, the only result would be a spoiled mood for both of us. I just couldn't help it. I did it anyway.

Eva and I lived an easy and mostly carefree life. I couldn't say that our love was burning hot, but we had lots of fun together. She was bouncy and bubbly, always willing to try new things, to experience all life had to offer. I was a bit slower, a bit more cautious, a bit shyer. She used to drag me along and improved my life by doing so. It always felt like she was dragging me upwards. Well, mostly, except for that damned club. Whenever her flirty and bubbly way didn't hurt me, at least.

I was sure she'd never really physically cheat, but having to watch her heavy-duty flirting was so damn disrespectful and humiliating. She didn't seem to mind one bit, and did it right in front of me, every single time we went out.

Did I retaliate by flirting with other women? No, that just wasn't my style, and it would only have justified her behavior. I'm a one-woman man and I don't need the attention of others.

Take that extremely beautiful woman last week, for example. She was way out of my league. Not just out of my league, she was playing a completely different ballgame. It's not that I'm ugly. About 95 percent of the female population doesn't even see me, the remaining five percent seems to find me irresistible. That's totally okay, I don't need to be the attention of more than one woman, anyway. Eva, on the other hand, seemed to attract almost every man, but on a rather moderate level. It wasn't the "Holy shit, she is hotter than hell" level, but the "Yeah, I'd do her, why not?" level.

Why then, was this knockout blonde hitting on me? As usual, Eva was dancing with some guy and seemed on a mission to simulate sex as realistically as possible while dressed. Well, if you could call wearing a skimpy top, a very short skirt and high heels without any underwear being dressed. I was watching them helplessly, unsuccessfully trying not to slip into my usual dark mood, when someone tapped me on the shoulder. I turned around and looked into the most beautiful face I had ever seen in real life. Long blonde hair, high cheek bones, in short, classically beautiful. Even though it was unlikely that I'd forget someone who looked like her, I had the unsettling feeling that I'd seen her before.

"Hi," she screamed at the top of her lungs, which was completely inappropriate. The universe was supposed to be quiet when this goddess in human form wanted to express herself. She still wasn't loud enough, but I could guess what she was saying. If I was right, she was trying to hit on me. I was confused. This princess was way too hot to hit on a lowly peon like me. Hell, she was way too hot to hit on anyone. The confused and disappointed group of guys who had followed her to the bar would certainly have agreed if someone had bothered to ask them.

Why would she do something like that? Even if she was going to act so far out of character as to hit on some guy, why me? There were a lot of way hotter guys than me present. Most members of her adoring male puppy group were hotter, actually. She could have her pick of them by crooking her little finger.

This, or she, was just what my battered ego needed. Wait. No. I am a man of honor. I think I am, anyway. It was important to keep that in mind, not to let the total hotness of this woman distract me, not to get lost in those big fantastic green eyes, not to be fascinated by those lips, teeth... No, stop, I had to shake off the hormonal fog that was wafting thickly through my brain. I was married, mostly even happily married. This was dangerous territory. I didn't want Eva to even see me with her. It would just give her an excuse to escalate her flirting, if such a thing was possible.

I did the hard, but right thing. I smiled apologetically and showed her my ring.

Did I mentally kick myself for being such a noble fool? Of course I did. This was a once in a lifetime chance. No, this was a never in a lifetime chance. Few guys would ever meet a woman like this, let alone be hit on by one.

She smiled sweetly, though a bit sadly, nodded, kissed me lightly on the cheek and turned around. I sighed as I watched her go. I couldn't help feeling I had made a big mistake, make that a terrible, enormous mistake. This feeling lasted for a few moments until it was replaced by an epiphany. I suddenly knew what this was about. There was no doubt, it all fit together just too perfectly. It was by far the most likely explanation, and according to Ockham, it was the only one.

Frank. Frank was the answer to many questions.

My damn asshole father in law. He cheated all the time and didn't even try to be discreet about it. He never realized how much he hurt his wife and daughter over all those years. They both loved him and avoided any confrontation about it. The resulting fake interactions in their family almost drove me mad. He acted like some wise patriarch, lecturing about the horrible lack of morals in the world after just having come home from some whore or bar fly. Eva had told me about his ways after extracting a firm promise from me never ever to talk about it in their presence. I had kept that promise, although it had nearly killed me.

Maybe because he was a cheating asshole himself, he seemed to assume that all men were bad. They weren't too bad to be his buddies, mind you, but too bad for his precious only child.

I, on the other hand, seemed to be too bad for anything. Frank probably wouldn't want to park his car on the ground I had just walked on, and I was definitely unworthy to marry his offspring. It took him just a fraction of a second to reject me after meeting me, and he was never shy about informing me and everybody else about his opinion. It led to an endless series of embarrassing situations for the whole family and many fights between him and Eva. This didn't bother him at all or keep him from stating that he would do everything he could to get me away from her. I never understood what I had done wrong, and he never bothered to explain. We mostly ignored each other, but I had never forgotten his threat to break us up one day.

Frank had finally hired one of those damn relationship testers, assuming I'd cheat just like he did. That damn hypocrite.

Everything about this situation was fishy.

A woman that hot, being alone in a club like this? Very unlikely. Women usually came with their partners or with at least one female sidekick.

Even if she was there alone, why would she reject all those handsome and well-off guys and hit on me, of all people? That was as unlikely as the Queen of England making her appearance as a go-go act.

This all led to one conclusion. She was being paid to do this. Frank was the only one with the money and motivation to hire her. QED. Yes, Eric, you've passed that trial. 'Take that, Frank, you sanctimonious asshole,' I smugly thought. I hoped she was expensive as hell. She definitely didn't look cheap.

I felt good for about ten seconds. It lasted until I turned my attention back to the dance floor where Eva was obviously trying to conceive a baby while fully clothed and moving vaguely to the rhythm. Shit. Visions of excessive violence entered my brain, but that was, of course, ridiculous. She was just dancing, wasn't she? No hands were touching any primary sexual characteristics, no clothes had been shed, there was no kissing going on, no bodily fluids were being exchanged. There was no doubt that this was some kind of mating ritual, but it was a socially accepted one. To go Neanderthal now would make me look like a fool.

My solution was to stop the mental torture by diverting my eyes from what I didn't want to see and look around in the dark sweaty cave that called itself a dance club. Most people, women and men, seemed to be looking in the same direction, so due to some kind of hard wired brain process I had no choice but to look at what they were looking at. Her.

It was weird. I looked at people who were looking at the same thing, which, as it turned out, was a person looking at me. I should have guessed who they were looking at.

Oddly, the beautiful relationship tester hadn't vanished after realizing that her mission had failed. Even more oddly, when our eyes met, she looked away as if she were shy or embarrassed. That didn't make sense. If she was embarrassed by what she was doing, she should go looking for another job. Maybe this was her first time? Not knowing what else to do, I soon became the only guy looking away from her. Now there were two women present at whom I didn't want to look. There sure was a lot of strange looking going on in the 08/15.

Short glances in the beautiful tester's direction confirmed that she stayed around for the rest of the evening and kept watching me from a distance. Maybe she was hoping that I would change my mind. She was tenacious, I had to give her that. Probably not used to not accomplishing her mission. No, it was more likely that Frank had offered her a bonus if she succeeded. After all, testing me under fair conditions certainly wasn't what he had in mind. His declared objective was to break up my marriage.

Eva was, of course, totally oblivious to this little drama, being lost in her mating rituals on the dance floor.

The mood on the ride home was freezing cold, as it usually was. I was refusing to just accept her disrespecting behavior, she was refusing to even talk about it. Mentioning it would set off a bomb, especially while she was still a little drunk.

We followed the usual routine with sulking on my side, acting like nothing had happened on hers, one explosive fight releasing the tension on Sunday afternoon and steamy make up sex, afterwards. After each of those seemingly unavoidable sequences, I felt a little worse, a little sadder and a little more distanced from her. Eva didn't seem to notice. She seemed happy with her life and oblivious to the slow deterioration of our love.

*****

Saturday again. The damn 08/15 again. Standing at that shitty bar again. The two arrogant male bar keepers on duty were totally busy. Yeah, they were busy ignoring the crowd of desperate customers. Sure, if a hot woman wanted something, they graced her with a minimal amount of attention. The drove of desperate men, having been ordered to fetch Proseccos or white wines for their women? Well, they could go fuck themselves.

Shouting was useless, the damn noise prevented any form of acoustic communication. After having nearly died of old age, I finally scavenged the elaborate cocktail Eva had requested and my beer. We even had a table, this time. Okay, just a bar table with two bar stools, but it was still a privileged position. A man was able to look a bit less useless at such a table while waiting for a woman to return from her dancing antics.

I returned to ours, having barely managed to protect our drinks against the attacks of various movement dyslexics, when I found my place already taken. No, Eva had not lost the whole table by visiting the restrooms and leaving it unattended. She was still there, but my half of the table was occupied by some guy.

That was new. The unwritten rule so far had been that she limited her flirting to the dance floor. Whenever she was with me, she was mine. Giving my seat away was a serious affront, and handling this situation required a bit of delicacy. I didn't want to look like the helpless frustrated idiot I felt like. I must play it cool, I thought, at least as long as that guy was present.

I placed the damn hard-earned drinks onto the table and just wanted to start saying, no screaming, something witty when that asshole had the audacity to try to grab my beer like I was some kind of servant. I put my hand on his, just slowly shook my head and pointed at myself, clearly mouthing "no, no, that's mine."

He frowned a bit, but put the beer back onto the table top. I looked at Eva and she seemed to have missed the whole thing. She was happy, giddy, excited, flirty, everything she hadn't been until she had found this asshat. That was another thing that drove me mad. Sure, she told me she loved me all the time. Still, she somehow was never quite as charming, alive and flirty when she was just with me.

Right then, she was in top form: playing with her hair, making small suggestive gestures, generally flirting like hell. That would have been perfect if I had been the recipient of her attention. What made things worse was that this guy was so damn handsome. I'm no midget at 1,78 m. I'm lean, fit and muscled, but I'm still slender, especially compared to this hunk. He seemed to be almost 2 meters tall, had wide shoulders, dark curly hair and a face made for an advertisement. I immediately hated him just for the way he looked. Why was it necessary that guys like this existed in the first place? Why was he flirting with my Eva anyway? She was pretty, but he was a total dream boat. He could have way hotter women, and as far as I was concerned, he should just go and get himself one of those.

My wife and the asshole were currently screaming flirty things at each other and she had a totally smitten look on her face. Shit. It was as if I didn't exist. Finally, I'd had enough. I tapped him on the shoulder and pointed at the stool, indicating that he was occupying my place. I wasn't surprised that he looked annoyed, but I was disappointed that Eva seemed to be just as dismayed.

With a fake smile, he surrendered the stool to me, using a theatrical gesture to make a big production out of it. To complete an already shitty situation, they even held their mobile phones close as their contact info was exchanged. My jaw literally dropped when I saw this, and I immediately got up and turned around to leave. Someone grabbed my shoulder; I turned around and saw an angry looking Eva. She moved her mouth and I guessed it was something like "where do you think you're going." I didn't give a shit, I just turned around again and continued on my way out. I wasn't sure if she was following me and I can't say I cared much. To be more precise, I didn't give a single shit.

The question about what Eva was saying was answered as soon as the noise level dropped below eardrum busting levels.

"...like a total immature asshole. I should leave with him, you know. At least he knows how a gentleman..."

"Shut up," I interrupted her. That was new territory. I had never once spoken like that to her and it immediately had the desired effect. She was genuinely shocked. "Go with him if you want to. As you've said time and again, I don't own you. But I won't stand being disrespected like that. Make up your mind who you want. Him or me."

"Eric," she answered, suddenly sounding a lot more conciliatory. "You're blowing this totally out of..."

"No," I interrupted her again, still full of steam. "I'm not blowing this out of anything. I just won't stand for that, understood? No way. If you plan to remain married to me, quit that shit."

"Okay, okay." She was still a bit shocked, obviously. "Calm down, okay? Maybe I wanted to tease you a bit, okay? I'm yours, honey. I love you. Let's go home, make love and forget this, okay?" She sounded very soft and soothing now, which was new. Maybe she thought she had finally found my limit.

"Hmmm." I was already mostly over my mad, but I wasn't willing to admit it yet. The makeup sex was terrific again. It annoyed me that the price for the really good sex was the fight beforehand, but I still enjoyed it.

*****

"What? Who's Max?"

"And his girlfriend. I want to invite them for a casual dinner. This Friday."

"Okay, I've got that part, but that wasn't what I asked. Who is Max?"

I was a bit confused, like I had forgotten something. Had I maybe met this dude at a party and totally forgotten about him afterwards? Was he one of her relatives or colleagues? I was reasonably certain that I knew no one with that name. I was still relaxed and unsuspecting, but that was about to change.

"That's the nice guy we met in the 08/15."

I knew immediately to whom she was referring. I was totally speechless. She couldn't possibly be that dumb, right?

"Before you blow up, this is really harmless. He'll bring his girlfriend along. We could use some new friends."

"You..." I was speechless for a few seconds. "What? You..." I just pointed with my finger at her, still unable to find the right words.

"Calm down, okay? I promise I'll be nice. I won't neglect or disappoint you in any way, and I think his girlfriend, Lena, is quite nice and beautiful."

"I... Ah, whatever...Do what you want," I said dejectedly. It was pointless anyway and I was tired.

*****

Eva turned out to be right, of course. Lena was rather attractive. Well, no runway model, but she really was quite nice. Fun to be with, too. Witty, great sense of humor. Meeting them at our door was a bit awkward, but Max really tried to be nice and he actually turned out to be a pleasant guy. His disturbingly good looks still bothered me a bit and made me feel insecure, but the evening went well, and after an hour or so we were chatting like the best friends ever. When we parted, we agreed to meet again soon and we really meant it.