The Art of Divorce

After all of that unloading and lugging heavy pieces around, it was time for a break. So I sat down to drink my coffee. I probably should have kept moving because as soon as I sat down my mind went back to Kathy. I imagined her doing all kinds of things with Smith that I was too dumb and countrified to know about. I remembered back when we first got to California, how I'd had to work for a contracting firm until I got my license and was barely able to keep food on our table, and pay Kath's tuition. For that first year, every time she took another class we ate tuna or bologna for a week or two, so we could buy her text books. She was becoming a success and leaving me behind. I didn't regret a single one of the things I'd done or given up for her. It just hurt so bad that she'd betray me like this. I couldn't help it, the thought of living the rest of my life without her, had me desolate. Before I could stop them the tears started rolling down my cheeks and I had to bite my lips hard to stifle the urge to just break down and really cry.

It was OK for a few stray tears to escape under situations of extremely high emotion, but to just sit here bawling, was just not manly. Since my daddy didn't raise no bitches, I wasn't going to start crying now. As I wiped the tears away, I swear I saw movement at the top of the stairs. When I got my eyes clear, there was no one there.

I went back out to the truck to get my tool belt, and strangely enough felt better after the emotional release. The vibration at my side scared the shit out of me, and I nearly jumped through the ceiling. It was only my cell phone. I looked at the display and saw that it was Kathy, so I didn't answer it. I needed to start preparing myself for the time when she'd no longer be in my life. I didn't let myself think about where she was, or what she'd be doing. I'd know everything she did and with whom by the end of the day anyway. The PI would give me daily reports until we had enough hard evidence to go to court with.

I started framing the rack in the living room. The way I designed it the rack would be able to support canvasses and framed pictures in almost any width or height. There'd be adjustment bars every 3 feet so two or more pieces of differing dimensions could be viewed or worked on next to each other. For the living room I thought I would do one rack on the west wall and one opposite it on the east wall. If I built them that way the racks wouldn't interfere with either the entry way or the fireplace. I started cutting the lengths of wood I'd need, then I drilled holes for the screws and bolts to assemble them.

I decided against cutting and drilling all of the wood at the same time, because I wanted to see how well the first one would work before I committed and possibly wasted all of my materials if the design was flawed. Also I started thinking that it might be good to have at least one rack complete just in case this guy got here early. Artists were known for being flaky so who knows what could happen.

By this time it was nearly lunch time and I knew where I wanted to go. Back to Burger Queen, damn those burgers were good.

So I got back in my truck, and headed over to the drive through, on the way over, I noticed Smith's car parked outside the motel again. This time in a fit of rage I stopped, I caught myself though as I remembered my lawyer's advice on doing anything stupid.

I crept slowly over to the expensive car, looking around to see if anyone was watching me. I removed a sharpened punch from my tool belt and punctured both rear tires. Then I went forward and flattened both of the front tires. I know it was childish, but boy did I feel better. Then taking the same punch I deeply scratched a line down the side of the car. I got back in my truck and drove off, feeling electrified.

I ordered my usual from the Queen, and decided that from now on I'd have to order less. Too many burgers and I'd have trouble replacing Kathy, when the time came.

While I was there another thought went through my head. The damage I'd done to Smith's car would affect him about as much, as having to drive out and buy these burgers had affected me. It was a bit of an inconvenience, but nothing more. This sobered me up, and knocked the wind back out of my sails.

I was trading in the girl I'd loved since the 1st grade, for a few scratches and tires.

By the time I got back to the apartment I was nearly in tears again. I went back in ready to eat my burgers, and it just kept hitting me. There had to be something wrong with me, for her to treat me this way. Obviously yesterday wasn't a one time thing. I now saw that they had only given me this job to keep track of my whereabouts during their time together. This could get really ugly really fast. There was really nothing I could do to save my marriage. Kathy had always been driven towards the good life. She wanted maybe even needed, things that I was never going to be able to provide. The fact that I loved her, and loved only her, didn't matter. And in Smith she'd found someone who could not only provide those things, but was the kind of person she really wanted. The only thing for me to do was get out of their way.

I really thought that I'd hit bottom about all of this yesterday, but here it was again only worse. There was no way I'd ever get her back. It was like someone had just backed up a dump truck full of concrete, and then just dropped the whole load on me. I fell to my knees and just sobbed.

Every emotion I'd ever felt just oozed out of me, it was the most desolate sadness I'd ever experienced. Time had no meaning, I was overcome. I'd heard people talk about wanting to die when a loved one passed or left them, and I now knew how that felt. It was as if everything moved in slow motion, every action, every thought required my consent, and I couldn't see a reason for any of it. Should I breathe in? Why? Why shouldn't I just stop breathing and let go of the pain. If I died maybe she'd understand why I just gave up on life and feel sorry. Maybe everything would start over again and she'd never hurt me like this again. Maybe she was just a cold hearted snake, who had never loved me and never would. She'd probably just laugh when she found out I was dead, because it would save her and Smith the trouble of having to get rid of me or divorce me. My death would be the last gift I'd give her.

It was about that time that I felt the hand on my shoulder. I'm a pretty big guy, but I have to admit that hand, though it was tiny, completely scared the shit out of me. I jumped nearly through the roof. My heart was beating so fast, I got light headed. When I turned around, I saw a girl. Well maybe she was a woman, she was just frigging tiny.

Kathy is small compared to me, but this woman was tiny. She was barely 5 feet tall, if that. She had curly brown hair that cascaded down her back, stopping where it was blocked by her shoulders and spilling over the front. It wasn't all of that hair that stopped me in my tracks though it was the expression on her face. I'd never seen so much concern in one expression. Her eyes were hard to describe, they were kind of a grayish green, that were piercing and inviting at the same time. They appeared to take in every detail of every thing they gazed at. The eyes didn't appear to form opinions, there was no right or wrong in her gaze, it only measured and compared details. As if after seeing someone this way she could easily, replicate any and all objects she saw. And right then she saw me.

As my brain reconnected with my mouth, and I realized that I could talk, words started coming out.

"Hey, who the hell are you, and why are you here?" I snapped.

"You are so sad," she said, with the thickest accented English, I'd ever heard.

"This is my house," she said. "You make my, how you say, picture stands. Only I think you do better job, with these, what you call them?"

I was speechless, and words simply would not come out.

"I was on the 2nd floor hiding and I smelled the food again," she said smiling.

"I was dying to just come down and eat with you. But no one is to know that I am here. I work day and night, but I have no ideas, only paintings with no, vision. I could do as well with a camera. This is not art."

"And as I watch, you are consumed by this sadness. It threatens to take you away. You must tell me about it, maybe I can help?"

"Come let us sit down, we will talk about it."

She led me over to the same table I'd been sitting at for a couple of days. All those times I'd thought I heard something, I guess I had.

She was again very tiny, and also obviously French. She was the person that Smith had rented the apartment for. So I guess technically that mad her, my employer's employer. Or basically, she was, my boss's boss.

She was nothing like that bastard Smith though, she seemed really nice. She was concerned and caring. Those were not the words I'd use to describe Smith. Well you could, because he was concerned with fucking my wife, and he cared enough about fucking her, to give me something to do, to keep me from busting his ass, when I found out about it.

She opened the bag and looked inside. Her little face lit up.

"Oh good," she said, "You have enough for two."

She busied herself spreading plates and silverware out, and ran back upstairs and came back with a bottle of wine of some sort. In a matter of minutes, the fast food looked like a sumptuous meal. It wouldn't have surprised me more if she'd whipped out candles and a violinist.

"Amanda Anderson," she said in that accent that I was beginning to like.

"That's not a very French sounding name," I said.

And you are?" she said with a smile.

"Raphe Jenkins," I said shaking her tiny outstretched hand.

Then we sat down and ate my Burger Queen. We talked about a lot over the next hour or so. We talked about her paintings. We talked about the fact that she loved my rack system, both for displaying her completed works and for painting the ones that were in progress. She swore me to secrecy, regarding the fact that she was already here. She wasn't supposed to arrive for almost a month. I promised her that I'd tell no one.

After a while it became obvious that we got along well. We also both had our own sadness. Neither of which we had yet seen fit to describe or talk about. I gathered that hers was about her work. I didn't have much to do with art or painting but I was sure she was good at it. I had to admit though, that I probably wouldn't know good art from bad.

By the time I paid any attention to the time, my cell phone was ringing, and I noticed that it was past the time I should have been leaving. I didn't know how the time had just slipped away, but I felt better than I had in days. Amanda wasn't Kathy, but she was a woman and a pretty one at that. If she didn't think I was worthless, maybe there was life after Kathy after all.

Kathy

By the time I got home, I was expecting Raphe to already be there. I'd taken the time to shower at the motel, to get Smith's smell off of me. It was kind of exciting doing this; I guess that the excitement was far better than the sex. Let's face it what woman, especially one who needed her sex, would rather have it with an over 50 balding vanilla man like Smith, when she had a hunky husband like my Raphe. A big part of it was also the fact that Smith just used me. Like he was paying for it, and it was his right, to do it. Raphe on the other hand loved me dearly, and wanted to please me.

Then of course there was the control factor, with Raphe I was the one in control. If I wanted him to do something, or get me something; or if I wanted him to stop doing something, I just rationed out the pussy until I got my way. With Smith, he just looked at his watch and said let's go. There was no debate; we didn't even have nice lunches any more. The nice treatment was obviously just to get into my pants. Now that he was there, I was simply his staff whore and that was it. He didn't introduce me to people any more, or try to teach me things. I didn't even get to go to meeting with him anymore. And the sex was the same as it had been the first few times. No foreplay before, no cuddling and romance after, he just stuck it in me, grunted a few times, squirted into his condom, rolled over and fell asleep, leaving me extremely frustrated.

He might've been a high class gentleman, in society, but in the bedroom he was a fucking caveman. These past few days had made me want Raphe like never before. There were so many things I'd taken for granted about him, like the way he ate my pussy for what seemed like hours. He also had this way of nibbling my back, when we did it doggie style. I couldn't wait for him to get home and erase these bad memories.

I decided to call him and hurry him along. After all he didn't get any last night either, so he had to be as horny as I was. Raphe didn't even have to be horny to want me, all it took usually was for him to see me, and he was ready. Smith had gotten me worked up, and the more I thought about wrapping my legs around Rape's neck, the hornier I got. But after that, I really needed for him to just pound me into submission, the way that Smith was apparently incapable of doing. I was rubbing my pussy raw, thinking about Rape.

I hit the #1 on my cell phone and it called him. His phone kept ringing and finally went to voice mail. He must be really busy for him not to take my call. I got up and decided to try and cook something. This would be an adventure because I really didn't know how to cook much. I looked in the refrigerator and saw a plate with several steaks marinating on it. This would be pretty easy; I'd just put them in the oven to broil, and microwave some kind of vegetable. I turned on the TV and found a cooking show. This was perfect, even though the old fat woman on the show was making chicken, she was broiling it, like I am. She was broiling baked potatoes with her chicken. I could do that as well. Then I'd just make a small salad and voila, dinner. Raphe would be so proud of me.

I couldn't believe I was doing this. My face was actually flush from the warmth of the oven. I felt like some kind of pioneer woman. About an hour later Raphe came in. He kind of half smiled at me and went into the bedroom. He was walking with kind of a limp and I had trouble reading the look on his face. I'd known that man all of his life and he wasn't that complicated, something was bothering him. When he looked at me, no matter what we were going through, all I ever saw on his face was love. When my daddy told him, that he was disappointed that I'd picked some ex jock/carpenter to spend my life with, and I hadn't said anything to defend him, Raphe looked a little sad, but I could still see the love for me in his eyes. It was always there, under even the worst conditions. But right now, when I looked at him all I could see, was pain, and sadness. In the back of my mind I knew something was wrong.

"Raphe honey, are you hungry?" I asked.

"I made us dinner" I said proudly.

"It smells good," he said quickly, "I hurt my back falling off the ladder."

"I had to go to the emergency room. They gave me some pills for the pain, they've got me so sleepy, and I almost couldn't drive home. I'm going to bed," he said. Then he disappeared into the bedroom and closed the door. I turned off the oven and didn't know what to do with the food, so I just left it on the table. Raphe would handle it later or tomorrow. We'd had sex under worse conditions, so I'd just wait for his pain to lessen then he'd want me.

I went into darkened bedroom and got under the covers. I could feel the warmth radiating from Raphe's body. I was starting to get wet already in anticipation. I turned to Raphe for a kiss and found myself staring not at his face, but at his feet. I shook him, and he screamed.

"Raphe what's wrong?" I asked.

"Any movement hurts my back," he said.

"Well why are you lying that way?" I asked.

"I'm using the pillows to elevate my feet over my head to promote blood flow," he said.

"Do you want me to get on top?" I asked

"I'm tired," he yawned, "The pain pills have knocked me out."

I just laid there for a while, part of me was so frustrated that I thought about going out and getting my self off, the other part sensed that something was wrong.

Finally when I was almost asleep I said "Good night Raphe, I love you." The next thing I knew I was wide awake. For most of my life, Raphe had always told me he loved me. He was the first of us to say it. And on the rare occasions that I did say it first, and believe me there weren't that many, he always said it back within microseconds.

This time he just mumbled something that was almost unintelligible. Though my conscious mind couldn't really make out the words, my subconscious picked up on it and was wide awake. Raphe's mumbled reply sounded a lot like, "Tell it to Smith."

All of a sudden, my mind was firing on all 8 cylinders. There were 2 possibilities here. One was that Raphe was getting more than a little jealous of the time I spent with Smith, and was avoiding me and sulking, like the little boy he'd always been. The 2nd and worse scenario was that Raphe knew about me and Smith.

I couldn't get to sleep; my mind just kept going over all of the facts that I had. I flipped over and turned my head near his. I tried to snuggle with him as gently as I could and as soon as my hand touched him he jerked away from me. I dozed off for a second and when I woke up he was gone. He couldn't have gone to work, it was only 3 a.m.

I finally found him stretched out on the sofa in the living room. I went back to bed, but set the alarm to wake me early in the morning. I woke at 6 a.m. to find that he was already gone. I still didn't know whether or not he knew, but he was definitely avoiding me, and it didn't feel good.

I went back to sleep and woke up at my usual time so I could be in the office at 9 a.m. When Smith arrived at 10, I took him his morning Latte and scones and waited to talk to him. Smith drank his coffee and scanned the financial pages, I was supposed to simply wait for him to finish. This was another thing I didn't like about him, his needs were so much more important than any one else's. Was this the way I treated Raphe?

I'd never realized before now how much he must love me to put up with it.

"Is there something we need to discuss, my sweet," he said.

"I think Raphe knows about us," I said quickly.

"Good," he said, "That should help to speed things up considerably."

"What?" I said

"Yes, that means you can divorce him when it's time and be with me. You and I are alike in so many ways," he said.

"We both enjoy the finer things in life. We both are motivated to excel. We are compatible in everyway, we belong together," he said.

"You've outgrown the hay seed carpenter. He simply can't do the things that I can for you. He isn't my equal anywhere," he continued. I was shocked, so I started nodding my head as if I agreed with him, while I walked back to my desk. I needed to think about this. What Smith had said would have pleased my father, and up until yesterday me, to no end. My father had always thought that Raphe was beneath me. But Raphe had never shown me anything except love. He had constantly sacrificed to be with me. Smith on the other hand kept me around as a convenience. I was Raphe's entire reason for living, his world revolved around me. Smith's world was centered on himself, and he occasionally found time to fuck me.

Raphe never failed to curl my toes up, he made getting me off a priority when we had sex, and until a few days ago, our sex life was everything I wanted. Smith had yet to satisfy me. Raphe constantly told me how much he loved me; he'd do anything for me. Smith had never told me even once that he liked me or that I was pretty even. Even this morning all he said was that we belonged together. As if it was a merger of companies, to ensure both of better revenue.