Visiting Richard Gronier

"Are you going to get a divorce, dad?" Kristina chimed in. The two of them sat very still, looking at me seriously.

"No, we're not," I said almost at once. It was a lie. I had no idea whether we'd be divorcing. But I realized the true answer—maybe—would only have made their concern worse. If we divorced, we divorced; they'd have to deal with that soon enough. No reason to upset them further now.

"Then why the Cold War, dad? What's going on?" Karlie asked. She'd been taking 20th Century European History—I was impressed by the analogy.

"Sometimes ... sometimes marriages go through rough patches, Karl. This is a rough one for your mom and me, I won't deny it. But we're working on it, and we'll keep working on it until we've got it sorted out."

"But how come you're so furious and she's crying all the time?"

"Honey—girls—I'm not going to talk to you about the details of this. They're between your mom and me."

I got up and walked around my desk, squatting down in between the chairs, putting on a hand on each of their shoulders.

"I'm sorry that Mom and I are ... not getting along so well, and I'm even more sorry that it's worrying you. But you have to have a little faith in us.

"We both love you, completely, and ...." I stopped. I was going to say, "...and we'll both be there for you, whatever happens," but that was the wrong message.

"... and we're going to work this out, she and I. You may just have to be patient with us for a little while."

Kristina said, "dad, just tell us what happened. We know you love mom, so it has to be something pretty big for you to be this angry for so long."

I smiled and stood up slowly—my knees were killing me. "Sorry, Kris. No details."

I grabbed her arm and pulled her up into a hug. "But I will take you both across the street to Starbucks and buy you one of those disgusting giant mocha-latte-frappacinissimos you love so much! And then I'll knock off early and we can drive home together, so you don't need to wait for the bus from downtown."

I quickly saved the files I was working on, grabbed my briefcase, and cheerfully hustled my girls out of the office. All the while hoping I'd reassured them, and wondering whether anything I'd told them was true.

****************

Week five with Sebastian.

"Liz, what do you want? What are you hoping to accomplish from our work together?"

"I want Alan back," she said simply. "I want our marriage back. The happy, loving marriage we had in the beginning—and then again for nearly eight years now."

She turned to me. "But I don't have any idea at all how to get there. Or even how to reach you, Alan, or what you want from me."

"And you, Alan?" Sebastian was looking at me steadily.

"I .... I don't know. In my head, it's easy: I want to get past all this mess, just reconcile with Liz and be happy again.

"But it's just not happening, Sebastian, and I don't know how to make it happen. I'm angry and hurt—betrayed and furious, and it's not getting better."

He looked thoughtful for a minute. "If you could forgive her back then, when the pain was so fresh, then why not now?

"After all, Alan, you've gotten what you hoped for. As you yourself told me, she's come back to you, demonstrated over and over that she loves you and is committed to you.

"And you haven't cheated again, have you Liz?"

"Absolutely not. I haven't even looked at another man since ... Richard." Her voice was firm, and she looked straight at Sebastian, and then at me. I believed her.

I sighed. "I don't know, Sebastian. I've certainly thought about it enough. And everything you say is true. Only...

"Only, because of this problem with Tom Bernardo, I had to re-live it all. It was safely in the past, I thought, and then all that pain came crashing down on top of me again. Like having been tortured, and then having to undergo it again years later."

I was silent a moment. "I once read a memoir by a guy who had actually been tortured a couple of times. He was a former CIA spy. The first time it went on for six days and he never gave in—never revealed anything. He'd been trained to resist torture, and despite the incredible pain he handled it.

"But then about four years later he was captured and tortured a second time. And he didn't last more than about two hours before he was revealing secrets. He said that having been through it once and knowing what the coming days would bring—he just couldn't face it, couldn't stand up to it a second time.

"I think ... I guess it just feels something like that to me. The second time, with Bernardo, when I thought she was cheating again ... I just couldn't keep it together, having to go through it again."

Jesus, how melodramatic that sounded. But that's really how it felt to me at that moment.

"Does Liz need to make it up to you somehow? Are you waiting for an apology that she hasn't delivered yet? Or for some kind of atonement? Does she deserve more punishment than she's received?"

"No, I .... I know she's suffering. I even feel sorry for her sometimes, and want to comfort her. But then I get so FURIOUS! She did this to us, she's the one who fucked someone else—why the hell is it up to me to make her feel better?"

Liz sat beside me, dry-eyed but looking very sad. Her head was down; she didn't even glance at me.

"Okay, forget her for a minute, Alan. What about you?"

He leaned forward in his seat. "When you imagine your life a year from now, what does it look like? Are you and Liz together? Are things good? Or are you divorced?"

"That one's easy. I see her with me, with the girls. All of us together and happy, pretty much the way we've been for a while now, up until the last couple of months."

"And is that what you want? Is that the picture you want to come true?"

I nodded, slowly.

"Then I'll ask you again—what has to happen? What does Liz need to do? What do you need to do?"

I shook my head, feeling thoroughly miserable. "I have absolutely no idea."

****************

Early Saturday morning, and another long shower. I'd gotten up and made the coffee but didn't feel like breakfast. Liz was still in bed; the girls would be asleep for hours.

I wasn't angry this morning, just sad and confused. The water pounded down on me, and my mind was empty of thoughts.

There was a sudden draft as the shower door opened and closed behind me. I turned and saw Liz, naked, her face covered with tears, reaching for me.

"Liz, no, I..."

"Alan!" I had my hands out to keep her away, but she pushed them aside and threw her arms around me, clinging to me tightly. She wouldn't let me go.

She was sobbing, and at first I couldn't understand the words she kept repeating in my ear.

"Take me back, please take me back." She was whispering, gasping for breath, crying, frantically holding onto me like a drowning swimmer to a piece of driftwood. She was shivering, and without thinking I moved us both under the hot water, returning her embraces, running my hands up and down her back, murmuring "shh" into her hair.

We swayed slowly together, as her shivering and her sobs gradually eased, as her whispering quieted. I held her and stroked her wet body, feeling her becoming warmer. When she seemed calm I pulled my head away far enough to smile at her, as she looked at me uncertainly. Then I kissed her.

She responded passionately, and we shared long, intense kisses, the water still beating down on us. When I pulled away again, smiling, she burst into tears once more, holding me tighter than ever.

I turned the water off, got us both out of the shower and dried off without a word, Liz still clinging to me. Then I was carrying her back to bed, lying down next to her, kissing her breasts, stroking her pussy while she moaned into my ear.

I rolled her onto her back and mounted her, sliding inside her. She was soaked. In no time we were banging away at each other, wild, moaning, kissing and sucking each other's tongues. It was mindless, and incredibly exciting. I felt the cum build up and then rocket out of me, while Liz and I pounded against one another. An amazing orgasm.

When we were done, when our breathing slowed, I rolled to one side, pulling her with me so I could stay inside her until my cock softened and fell out. We smiled at each other and I kissed her gently on the lips, holding her close to me.

Liz started to speak and I stopped her, putting my finger on her lips.

"Tonight," I said. "Like that, again—and every day, for as long as we can manage it."

She looked at me for a moment, then nodded eagerly, a big grin on her face, and we kissed some more. After a few minutes we fell asleep in each other's arms.

****************

"Sebastian," I said to his answering machine, "it's Alan Hendricks, on Sunday evening. Liz and I are going to cancel this week's appointments. I'm sure we'll want to come in again, but I don't know when. If you don't mind, I'll give you another call when we're ready to see you. Thanks."

The previous night had been wild. After a quick pizza dinner with us, Karlie and Kristina went to the movies, and Liz and I headed for the bedroom without a word.

We undressed quickly and began kissing and caressing each other. While she stroked my cock I sucked on her nipples until she groaned. I could tell she was very turned-on.

I sat up and said, "I want you to do something."

She nodded and I said, "will you masturbate for me? And let me watch?"

She looked shy, reluctant at first; then she said, "would you turn the overhead light off, and leave just the night table light on?"

When I'd done that she arranged herself comfortably on her back and began to touch herself, slowly, smiling at me as I sat at the end of the bed. She caressed her nipples with one hand and circled her pussy lips with the other. I stroked my cock while I watched, making sure she could see me doing it too.

Her breathing quickened, and the hand on her pussy narrowed its focus to her clit, which she stroked faster and faster, staring at my hand on my cock. I was rock-hard, watching her face, and she began to convulse in an orgasm, her hips bouncing up and down on the bed.

"Oh! Ohh! Oh, it's ..." Her voice trailed off, her fingers slowed, and she smiled up at me dreamily. "Oh, it was ... come here!"

She reached for me and I was on top of her in an instant, plunging into her hard. I was very aroused, and we fucked hard for just a few minutes before I shot my cum into her, lost in my own pleasure, vaguely aware that I was groaning into her neck.

We lay together for a while, maybe a half hour, not talking, barely moving. Then I started running my hands all over Liz's body, gently exploring, and in no time I began to feel excited again.

I crawled down between her legs and started licking her, moving from the crease where her thigh met her torso towards her center, up and down her lips. She murmured, "Alan! I'm all ...", but she didn't stop me. I licked up her juices and mine, aware that I hadn't eaten her after sex in years, probably since the first year of our marriage.

I licked and sucked on her while she groaned gently, rolling her hips at me to get my mouth where she wanted it. When she was very close to coming I pulled back and said, "ride me?"

She rode me—hard, for nearly ten minutes, sometimes bucking up and down, sometimes leaning forward to let me suckle her. Twice I bit her nipple hard, and both times she came, her pussy squeezing tight around my cock. When I finally exploded into her, I cried out so loud I was relieved the girls were out of the house.

It was the hottest night we'd had since our honeymoon. Liz was out like a light; I went to wash up, and managed to stay awake until the girls came home.

****************

And that's how we fixed it, strangely enough. The next night was more of the same, though much more quietly, with the girls in their bedrooms. Liz stripped me and sat me at the edge of the bed, then kneeled and gave me a loving blow-job, looking up into my eyes the whole time. I tried to pull away when I was ready to come but she held on to me, pressing me into her mouth with her hands on my ass, until I blasted my cum down her throat.

Then she lay on the bed and I ate her, slowly and teasingly, to three orgasms.

The next evening Liz teased me all through dinner, slipping a foot out of her shoe and rubbing my thigh with it while she asked the girls about their days, a sly look on her face whenever she glanced over at me. That night in our room we had the longest fuck of our marriage—we went on for more than half an hour in about five different positions, ending with me slapping my hips hard against her ass doggie-style, pulling her back against me by her shoulders.

We had sex at least once a day for the next eleven days, taking a day off only when Liz's period came. She offered to go down on me but I told her, with a smile, that I was ready for a break!

On about the fifth day, lying in my arms in bed after we'd made love, Liz looked up and me and asked, "baby—should we be talking? about ... about it? my affair?"

I smiled and shook my head. "Sebastian's great, but I don't feel the need to talk any more. Maybe at some point ....

"But this feels like what I need, Liz. Putting us back together this way—without words."

She smiled and nodded, then kissed my chest and snuggled into me, closing her eyes.

****************

I picked up Kristina and a couple of her girl-friends at the mall one Saturday; Karlie had her license and was off driving somewhere with Andy, her current boyfriend. After we'd dropped off each of Kristina's friends and were headed home, she said, "you and mom seem to have worked it out."

I smiled at her. "Things seem better?"

She rolled her eyes. "Are you kidding, dad? You touch each other all the time, you give each other these mushy looks all through dinner—it's like, jeez, get a room!"

She laughed. "I guess you've already got a room, don't you?"

I laughed along with her, and said, "yes, I guess things are better.

"Marriage is work, Kris. There are tough times sometimes, and it's hard work to

get through them, but it seems like mom and I are getting there."

With sarcastic exaggeration she said, "thank you for the life-lesson, my Master. I'll be sure to write that one down in my Book of Wise Sayings!"

Then she laughed again—but I could tell she was relieved.

****************

When we did go back to see Sebastian one final time, he was surprised and impressed. It was about six weeks later.

"Well, something's certainly been going well! Want to tell me about it?"

I just smiled. Liz blushed a little and said, "we've ... been having a lot of sex. Nearly every day for a couple of weeks, and it's still at least 4-5 times a week.

"God, it's like we're back on our honeymoon! Alan is ... it's been great. Loving and fun. Somehow it feels like the pressure is off and we're just enjoying one another."

He turned to me and said, "I can see the difference in both of you. Liz is practically glowing, and you just look more relaxed. Younger, actually—like there's a weight off your shoulders."

I shrugged. "The last time we were here, you asked me what had to happen to make things better between me and Liz. And I had no idea. It turns out it had nothing to do with words—there had been too many words, I guess, too much thinking and ...

"I don't know—not enough fucking—excuse me, Sebastian."

He smiled. "I've heard the word before."

Then he said, "so it feels okay? No need to go back to what we were doing?"

Liz and I looked at each other. She shook her head and said, "I don't think so. It just feels like ... like we're in a good place right now, with each other."

She reached over to take my hand, and I clasped hers gently.

"We know we can always come back again," I said, "but right now it doesn't feel like we'll need to."

At the door he gave me a firm handshake and Liz a kiss on the cheek.

"Good luck," he said. "I have a good feeling about this."

"Thanks," I said. "I guess I do too."