Trust is Earned, Not Given

Indeed, because when Brayden calls to tell her that he'll be flying to Cleveland for a two-day medical conference, she almost does cartwheels. "I'll make the time," she says when he asks if she can get away. Of course, it will require the sort of stealth she didn't need in Washington. They'll have lunch or dinner, perhaps even visit the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame between trysts in his hotel room at the downtown Hilton. He'll be free after about three in the afternoon, he tells her. "Perfect for a late lunch or early dinner," she says, "and then I expect you to make love to me in your usual erotic manner."

She's got plenty of leave time culled from all that overtime she puts in. She thinks the late lunch-late afternoon delight idea is the best option. Telling Conrad that she'll be working late in the office sounds so corny, so cliché. This way, she'll be home in time for dinner, with her husband none the wiser. Better yet, Brayden learns that he can get away even earlier. She treats him to lunch at the Blue Point Grille, one of Cleveland's classiest eateries, a place with atmosphere (exposed brick, huge picture windows, Greek columns, brass chandeliers, white linen tablecloths) as well as excellent cuisine. She doesn't tell Brayden that she and Conrad sometimes come here for their anniversary. That wouldn't be cool. Nor is it cool holding hands and exchanging light kisses over the table with a man who isn't her husband. Regardless, that's what she does between bites of grilled tuna and sips of wine, Chardonnay, naturally.

She's all over him in the elevator on the way up to his room in the Hilton. They're alone, of course. Excited as she is to see him, she wouldn't be lifting her skirt and letting him feel her butt in an elevator full of people. "I can't believe you're here, on my home turf," she gushes when she enters his room. "Just like old times."

Well, not quite, because Brayden's got a new twist up his sleeve that gets her even more excited. Nothing too kinky. It's a fantasy skit where she plays an injured athlete seeking medical help from—who else?—an orthopedist. His exam begins routinely enough and morphs into something not prescribed in legitimate medical journals. Porn sites feature lots of this kind of stuff, actors playing parts. Brayden, of course, is the real deal, attending to a "patient" curious as to why she needs to strip down to panties and bra for him to examine her torn ACL. He says something about the body being a vast network where everything is connected. So it might not be just her ACL, he says, but other things that need examining. The "patient," his ditsy female jock, doesn't quite buy it but goes along. As his exam proceeds, she begins to doubt his legitimacy. Not even her gynecologist goes this far, kissing her nipples and brushing aside the crotch of her pink lace panties, then stabbing his tongue in, under, around and through. However, it doesn't matter, because he's driving her mad with pleasure. She becomes the aggressor in the exam's final phase, performing oral and then demanding that he enter her doggy style.

Role play it might be, but there's nothing fake about Jenny's reaction, her moans and squeals, her near pass out when she climaxes. It's only when she returns to earth, when she's lying in Brayden's arms, that she's hit by flashbacks of the night she returned from Washington, when Conrad also humped her doggy style as if they hadn't made love for a year. Then she's hit by something else, the same nagging guilt she always feels when she's with Brayden, tugging at her like an angry dog clamping its fangs into her skin, refusing to let go. Somehow it's more intense this time, perhaps because she's no longer out of state: Conrad, loyal, loving Conrad, is relatively close by.

She keeps these feelings to herself when it's time for her to leave the Hilton (preceded by a shower to erase the pungent aroma of sex). "See you in Washington. Soon, I hope," he says. She nods, kisses him farewell, and then collects her car from a parking garage for the rush hour, forty-five minute ride home. The drive gives her time to think. 'What the fuck am I doing and how long can I keep doing it?' She's got needs and desires, and she's also got a loving husband who doesn't deserve her betrayal. She's beginning to wake up to the fact that she's not one of these people who can have their cake and eat it too and not lose five minutes sleep over it. She's got a conscience, a keen sense of right and wrong, and no rationalization she's tried is changing that. Her pain of conflict brings her to tears on the bumper-to-bumper expressway. She does a primal scream, grabs a clump of her hair, shakes her head. Inexplicably, she suddenly feels horny. All that sex with Brayden and she's ready for more. "Jesus, my panties are wet again," she whines. She laughs, more a masquerade for crying.

She greets Conrad as if the afternoon didn't happen. She hugs and kisses him, makes love to him later on, and enjoys every minute of it. No skits this time, just good, "conventional" sex with her loyal husband—guilt-driven, in part, but also driven by Conrad's loving affection. As usual, he's on the rough side, and that's okay because tonight she's in the mood for rough, even in the mood for some guilt-purging slaps to her face. Conrad would just laugh if she tells him that. An S and M type guy he's not. She makes do with shouts of "That's it! Pound my pussy, Connie, fuck me seven ways to Sunday." So he does, oh, how he does and oh, does she eat it up.

On her morning drive to work, she thinks about how she might end things with Brayden. All day, she's close to calling him, then rethinks it. She'll give it more time, another day or two. Working overtime, it's just after seven when she returns home in the evening. Conrad, for reasons she can't fathom, is cold to her. He barely says a word to her through dinner. Then, when the kids are in bed, he says, "We need to talk."

This must be serious. 'We need to talk' is hardly one of Conrad's pet lines. He's more a doer than a talker. Now changed into shorts and pull-over blouse, her casual house duds, she follows him to the family room, a cozy twelve by fourteen space off the dining room. A barefoot Conrad wears jeans and a white T-shirt on his body, a grim and confused expression on his face. She sits on the edge of the sofa, legs pressed together, hands clasped around her knees. Conrad stands, arms folded against his chest. "I got a call today from Jordon Snow," he reveals. Jenny nods. Jordon and his wife Kathy are good friends of theirs. "Did you see Jordon and one of his business partners in the Blue Point yesterday?"

She wants to throw up. "Um, no. Why?"

"Because he saw you, saw you with some dude, saw you do things that looked to him like no ordinary business meeting."

She swallows hard, rubs her sweaty palms together. "Okay."

"Okay what?"

"Okay, I admit I was there. With a man. With a man who's not a co-worker."

"Then who the hell is he, Jen?" His dark eyes bore into her like hot drills. "Who were you going all romance with, all kissy face and shit like that. And where we go for anniversary of all places. Huh?"

She knows that the moment of hideous truth has arrived. She could lie, or at least attempt to. But it wouldn't work. She'd look even worse in his eyes. "He's an orthopedist I met in Washington some weeks back. He was in town for a medical conference." She stays determined to keep looking him in the eye. If she's going down it won't be like some cowardly sheep.

"You're having an affair with this doctor, aren't you?"

She nods. "Yes." Tears begin to fall. "I'm so sorry, Connie."

He shakes his head, then kicks the leg of a rocking chair. It makes her flinch. "Why, Jen, why? Don't I give you enough?"

She knows that Conrad would become even more enraged if she told him that it isn't just the sex, that it's a certain level of communication that she and Brayden share, communication she's never been able to share with her husband. "It's something that we both just fell into. Beyond that, I can't fully explain it. There's no excuse for what I did. Again, I'm—"

"You're fucking right there's no excuse!" he snaps. "So you fucked him when he was in town?"

"Yes."

"Tonight you mean? Is that why you got home late?"

"No, I really did work overtime tonight. It was last night. Well, yesterday afternoon."

"Yesterday?! Are you kidding me? So then you come home and fuck me as if you hadn't been fucked in years?"

"I still love you, Connie. I realize how hollow that sounds in light of all this."

"You got that right! It's—what's that ten cent word you dropped on me once—in, incon..."

"Incongruous?"

"Yeah, that's the one, incongruous. Wives who love their husbands don't have affairs, Jen. It's IN-CON-GRU-OUS."

She maintains her contrite calm even as Conrad yells. "You're right, most of them probably don't. But I DO love you, Connie. I just...screwed up."

He shakes his head, starts to pace the floor. "Is he married?"

"Separated."

"You in love with him?"

Is she? Nah. Infatuated maybe. But even that's too strong a word to use in Conrad's volatile state. "No, I'm not in love with him."

"No. So what is he, your boy toy or something? Or is it that he makes big bucks, college educated, a doctor and all that shit?"

She doesn't know how to answer because she's not quite sure what "category" Brayden falls into. She does know what a thrill it is to be in his company, in and out of bed. More important, she still isn't sure if she's ready to break things off. Shrugging, she says, "He is what he is, Connie. At the moment, that's the best I can come up with. Sorry."

He plops onto the sofa and gets in her face. "Really? Well, you better come up with something better than that. You cheated on me, jeopardizing not only our marriage but your relationship with the kids. How the fuck could you do this to Junior and Olivia? It seems to me that this guy means more to you than you're letting on."

She slides a few inches away. Conrad's never hit her but he looks like he wants to now. His fists are clenched—he looks coiled to strike. "You want me to leave?"

"Is that your plan, to leave and move in with him?"

"Hardly. He lives in South Carolina."

"But you would if he lived close by, right?"

She blows out a big breath. "Not even close, Connie. He asked me if I'd consider leaving our marriage. I told him no way."

He stares at her awhile, trying to digest what she said. Then, in a pleading, gentler voice, he says, "Jen, what am I not doing that made you do this? Okay, so I don't work, can't work because of this damn arthritis. You're the big bread winner. Corporate fast climber and all that. But I do my part around here and you know it."

"I do know it, Connie. I've never thrown your disability up to you. Never have and never will. You're a good husband and a great dad."

"Well, something sure as hell must be missing for you to do this."

"Nothing's missing, Connie. What started out as innocent bar talk at the Hyatt escalated into something that should never have happened. I acted selfishly, almost impulsively. There's no way I can defend my actions. There's no way I can even try."

He gets up and glances out the window opposite the sofa before turning back to her. "Okay, so now what? You still plan on seeing this guy?"

"I almost called him today to break it off."

"What do you mean by almost? Why didn't you?"

"Because I wanted to give myself more time. But even if I do, you'll never trust me again, and I can't blame you."

"Never say never, Jen. True, my trust is all fucked to hell, but that doesn't mean you can't win it back. I'll never forget, though I might forgive...depending. First off, you need to break things off with this doctor. Or do you need MORE TIME?"

Does she? She knows there can be no middle ground. Either she cuts romantic ties with Brayden or she moves out. Divorce would mean heavy alimony and child support. She knows that without even consulting with an attorney. Worse, she'd be the non-custodial parent with visitation rights limited by whatever she and Conrad decide or what a court decides. That's if little Conrad and Olivia would even want to see her. There's little doubt in her mind that they'd be furious over all this. Is an interstate romance worth all that? Sure, she'd miss Brayden, terribly at times, and perhaps wonder what might have been or could have been. Should have been? No, because she SHOULDN'T have got herself into this mess in the first place. Her next move is as clear to her as fine crystal.

"Okay, Connie, I want you to stay here by the phone. Don't pick it up until I give the word. I'll be in the kitchen." She refers to the landline phones they still use as well as their cells. "I hope this can be the first step in winning back your trust."

After she dials Brayden's cell from the kitchen, she yells for Conrad to pick up. She struggles to steady her nerves. "Hey Brayden, it's me."

"Hi Jen, I was just thinking of calling you. Everything okay? You sound...strange."

She takes a deep breath. Then: "Look, there's no way to sugarcoat this, so I'll get right to the point. I've called to tell you goodbye. As I've said before, my husband and kids mean too much to me to carry on with you, not to mention my self-respect, which is lower than it's ever been in my entire life." Silence. "Still there, Brayden? Brayden?"

"Still here and shocked. We were together just forty-eight hours ago. Had a great time and looking forward to many more. What the hell brought this on, this sudden change of heart? Did Conrad threaten you in any way?"

She begins to answer, when Conrad breaks in. "I've never threatened her in my life, pal. Like she said, she puts her family first."

"Damn, Jen, it DOES sound like he's threatening you, like he has a gun to your head or something."

This angers her. "Not even close, Brayden. It's a case of getting my priorities straight. It's a case of loving my husband and my kids and not wanting to lose them. Trading them for carrying on with you would be an incredibly dumb and lopsided trade."

After a moment of silence, Brayden says, "Jen, I can't believe this, can't fucking believe this. Talk about the unexpected. I'm not sure what to say."

"Thanks for the memories and so long will do nicely," she says.

"Just like that, huh."

"Just like that."

"This is a huge punch to my gut, Jen. I fell hard for you. You were just what I needed after what Toni did to me."

Her eyes mist up. "I understand and I'm sorry, I really am. You're a terrific guy who needs to find someone who isn't married."

His tone goes from wounded to bitter. "Now you tell me. Not once did you say that when we were together, when we were in the throes of passion, when you played the sexy jock with the torn ACL. YA HEAR THAT, CONRAD?"

She squeezes the receiver and grits her teeth. "You know what? You've just made this a whole lot easier for me, you vindictive bastard. Guess I didn't really know you after all, doctor Walberg."

She slams down the phone. Then, emotionally drained from this whole rancid chapter in her life, she breaks down, sobbing uninhibitedly, letting her emotions pour out of her. When Conrad comes into the kitchen, she reaches out to him. He hesitates, then takes her into his arms, holds her tight as she sobs against his chest. "I'm so sorry, Connie, so sorry I betrayed you. Kick me out, do with me what you will."

"If I didn't love you so much, that's exactly what I'd do," he says, rubbing her back. "And if you ever do this again..." He shakes his head. "By the way, what's this sexy jock torn ACL thing he mentioned?"

She manages to laugh through her sobs. "Oh, some fantasy role play thing we did when he was in town. I'd love to do some of that with you, Connie. That is, if you can ever forgive me, if you can ever trust me again."

He continues to hold her, plants a kiss on her ear. "Your job takes you out of town, frequently to Washington. I can see myself losing sleep when you're away, thinking about all those doctor Walbergs out there. Trust is earned, Jen, not given, especially after this."

She nods, sniffling now more than crying. "And I want more than anything to earn back your trust. Undeserving as I am, I beg you to please give me the chance."

He combs his fingers through her hair, brushes away her tears. Then he kisses her tenderly on the mouth. "We'll see. We'll take it one day at a time. That's all I can promise."

"Thanks. That's all I can ask."