Words

There are times when you can get through to someone, but usually it takes someone they absolutely respect, the right words and at the right time, and it's all too easy to get wrong. And if they deeply are in denial - as I was witnessing here - well, you might as well fart in a hurricane.

In Kristi's case, she was smart enough to know it was wrong. And she knew I wasn't wrong in what I said. She'd have real trouble facing that reality in her mind, once attention was drawn to it. I was doing the same thing I had tried to do earlier, where I pointed out how responsible she was for how I was feeling. With limited success, I thought. But that was OK. Making someone understand what they've done is often a long process that they have to come to themselves. Almost no one gets it on being shown the first time. They have to process it over time, on their own.

"You may not have set out to do this, but you sure didn't stop it, did you? That's cheating Kristi. Every act in there is emotional cheating, even before the sordid little fuck fest I'm sure this turned into. And you know it."

More light drawn on the subject. I knew she'd be thinking about this for days.

Next step then.

"So, your justification here is that I wasn't lacking anything then? That's it?"

Just a stare back. She was starting to get an idea of what I was doing and she was frightened. Words can be a powerful thing when you know how to use them, and she knew I did.

"I see. So, at no point did it occur to you that if you had all this love left over for numb thumb here, then by definition you weren't giving it to me? You've somehow established some local amount of love that I'm supposed to get, and any left over is free for you to bestow as you see fit, is that it?"

She replied, "You can love children and still love your spouse. Did your mother love you any less because there were six children?"

That was a surprise. She was fighting back.

The thought crossed my mind that they'd coached each other. They'd tried to forestall some of my inevitable arguments. In some ways, you had to admire their planning. Shame.

"Oh yes, that's true. And since you bring it up, yeah, I didn't get my full share. At all. And you know that. But we aren't talking about kids, are we, Kristi? We are talking about a marriage." I spat the last word and she flinched. Good.

"I'm so glad you managed to put a number on how much I'm supposed to get. Please, you should write a paper on it. I'm sure there are lots of other couples out there who would like to know what that number is. Just enough so he doesn't notice any shortfall, is that it?"

More stares, with a pale face around the eyes. She knew damn well I was going to destroy her now.

I said, "What do you think your sister would say about this? Have you thought about that at all? Just idly curious."

Kristi lifted her head and jutted out her jaw, a sure sign she was heading down the obstinate path.

"I think they wouldn't approve, but if I got to explain it to them, to explain how I didn't want this to happen, that it just did, that I want to be happy, and this is my path to it, they'd understand. You know they want what is best for me."

That was true. They did. Although I think Kristi didn't understand that they were under no illusions about what she would do to get there.

I'd been personally 'talked to' by her brother on our wedding day about that. He'd advised me 'not to put up with her shit. She burns hot but she burns fast. Stand your ground and she'll come around.' He'd also explained that she carried some 'strange idea's but when you come across them, just laugh at them and eventually she'll get the message'. I don't think she'd get quite the reception she thought she would.

"Yeah, I think that's wishful thinking on your part. I think the moment you explain you fucked around on me - and that's what you've done, lets not dress it up. You've been another man's whore slut and then come home to me and lied through your teeth about it, no two ways about it. There is nothing you can do or say that will change that. Then, I think they'll have something to say about it. Don't you? Think your brother will 'approve' or 'understand' there Kristi?"

I made air quotes around "approve" and "understand".

She cast her eyes down and then back up and said, softly, "They'll understand. I know they will."

"Like you knew I'd find a way to accept this eh? Zero for two so far, babe. Not a great result."

She sobbed once, and rubbed her eyes.

I wasn't about to let up though.

"You know, even after I ask you to leave, you'll take up with this turd." I glanced at James, who was looking at me with hate on his face now. Even he'd picked up on what I was doing.

"Le...leave?" she interjected, weakly.

"You do, after all, love him, right? You did say so. So when I say go, where are you going to go? Don't tell me this hasn't come up in your planning. I know it would have. You aren't stupid. You knew there was a chance I wouldn't go for this, and in the way it's been couched so far, giving it up wasn't an option, so out you'd go. Have you already moved some of your stuff to his place? I would look but I don't want to get up."

Her voice came from very far away. "We... we thought... I thought, that you might need some time...to come to terms with the new..." she faltered, then tried a new track, ignoring the one she didn't want to answer. "I'm not going to give up. Even if you make me leave. You are mine and I am yours. I'll always be there. You know it."

More and more interesting. She was doing her best to fight me on my ground. Try and play on my own emotional entanglements. She knew I would always find the best solution in my professional life, and she was sure she was offering me the best one here.

"So, your plan was to live with a man who willingly and knowingly goes after another man's wife. A man who doesn't respect someone else's relationships in any way. A man of such stellar quality that he sits on my couch, drinking my beer, laying claim to someone else's wife. That man then? That's who you are tying your emotional life to? That's what your standards are these days? Wow!"

That one hit home and I saw her steal a glance at James, who looked back at her, shaking his head and smiling in that 'don't listen to this guy' way.

"Babe, I..." he got out before I leaned forward.

As menacingly as I could, in as low voice as I could, I said, "Last warning, James. Or they'll be calling you one Jimmy One Ball. Got it?"

"And he's tying himself to you, too," I continued. "An established cheater. Once a cheater, always a cheater, right? Well, you do deserve each other, that's for sure. And I'm sure it'll be great to start with. Lots of sex unhindered by guilt, at least on your part. I doubt there ever was, on his. But when it gets boring - and you know it will. It always does - what happens when he's late home from work? Or you are? What then? You both know what each other are capable of now. How will that work? Who will be suspicious of who I wonder?"

She glanced again at James, who shook his head, making a weak smile and a 'this is garbage' face.

But the damage was done. Kristi prided herself on her ability to read people. She prided herself on her own ethics. They'd already taken a battering tonight, and she was smart enough to know the truth of my statements. And worse still, they'd been said now. It was out there. It couldn't just be ignored. When this occurred, - and we all knew it would,- it would now be the first thing that would come to mind. In an emotionally charged situation like this, how could it not be the first thing?

And in doing so, that relationship was doomed before it had even begun. That suspicion was now out there, foisted, and it wasn't going to go away. In a way, their whole relationship was built on that lie, something that was slowly dawning on her, now I was drawing attention to it.

Kristi turned and looked at me, eyes wide. She knew what I had said, and I knew it had penetrated her. Only surface deep right now, but it would work its way down deeper over time.

She'd gotten away with it with me because I'd trusted her. She knew he never would, not in the same way, and I'd just highlighted it. Good. Another flesh wound. I still wanted my pound of flesh.

Time to deliver the coup de grace, then.

I took another drag of beer, emptying the can this time. I even belched. It was nonchalantly done and came out just at the right moment.

"You know what though? The one thing that has really hit home?"

More tearful staring. For a situation where they were supposed to be explaining the new reality to me, she sure wasn't saying a lot.

"You are quite an evil person deep down."

That one also went to the quick. Whatever else Kristi thought she was, she deeply believed she was a good person. She had sayings about it - how some people were good people who just did a bad thing. How almost no one was basically evil. Most people had bad situations and only saw one way out, or they were forced into the situation. I'd never really taken much time to think about it before, but I had very recently come to the realization that Kristi was a bleeding heart liberal. She was one of the kind of people who never pushed responsibility on others.

Now, I'm a liberal, too. I believe in socialized medicine, in caring for all parts of the social spectrum and all the rest of it. But I also believe in personal responsibility. You might have reasons for what you've done, and I might have empathy for those reasons, but in my book that does not absolve you of the responsibility for actually doing those things. You may not have had a girl friend, and women may have teased you, but that doesn't make you taking a gun into a bar and shooting cheerleaders OK. Nothing does. You did it, for whatever reasons, and those people are just as dead as they were five minutes ago. Me understanding your reasons doesn't suddenly make those people alive again.

She deeply believed that she was a good person, who might do something bad, but that was OK because she'd feel terrible about it afterwards.

The thing is, when someone you love deeply says things like this to you, when you desperately don't want to believe them, but deep down know there is validity to it, it goes right past your conscious defenses. You know it to be true, even if it's really not. I was one of the people she trusted most in the world and I was declaring her 'evil', and I obviously meant it. And given the light I'd shone on her carefully constructed self-delusion, she knew I had cause to believe it. Which meant she almost certainly would, too. That was the worst kind of self-doubt to feel - one that is supported by someone you value and trust.

The fact that I had a vested interest in saying it would be ignored. It was something I was banking on. She'd believe it, and there's nothing more powerful that a belief you foster on yourself.

Well OK, then. Time to make her really feel terrible.

"The fact is, Kristi, every time you look yourself in the mirror, you are going to remember this day. What you've said, what you've done, the acts you've perpetrated. The hurt and personal destruction you've caused. All because 'you didn't mean to fall in love'. Well fuck that. I will not and do not buy it. It was all an effort of will on your part. Why, I can't begin to guess, and I don't think you know, either. But that is neither here nor there. You did it and this is the result. I'm going to ask you to leave in a second, and if you know what is good for you, you'll go. I've never hit a woman before, and god knows I love you, but if you stay here, I might not be able to control myself. I certainly won't where this dick shiner here is concerned. So take with you the knowledge that you are an evil person - that everything you've done here has been evil incarnate, and understand that everyone one of our friends, and your family will know it. You know I can explain it so they will understand, just like you have. Think on that. Think on the results of your little sordid fling. You've killed the one thing in your life you could depend on, and there is no one - NO ONE - you can blame but yourself. You are, without doubt, a truly evil human being - one of the worst kind, who does damage to others then seeks to minimize their own responsibility for those acts by denigrating the damage done. The kind of person that will, I hope, die alone and in pain.

"If it were me, I'd seek professional help. Too late for this occasion, but I'd probably want to know why, so I don't do it again. So off you go, with your serial adulterer in arms, and have a great life, wondering where each other are all the time, and I'll just sit here and drink myself to death and wonder what the hell I didn't do. I hope the sex makes up for all you've lost. Off you go now."

I just sat there and stared at her and she stared back.

She was about to say something, stopped, then started to blurt out, "This is my house too..."

I lost it. I stood up, as threateningly as I knew how and shouted, "Get the FUCK OUT, YOU FUCKING WHORE." And threw the empty beer can at the wall, where it tinkled. Not quite the effect I had been hoping for, but I was too angry to care.

She wilted and James got to his feet, looking at my expression. He looked away, and gathered a visibly scared Kristi up in his arms, hustling her to the door.

"Wait," I said, having one last thing to do. It literally occurred to me that second - a fitting tribute to the evening.

I approached, and she cringed away from me. I grabbed her left hand and forced the little fist she made into a flat hand. I swiped both her engagement and wedding ring off her finger before she could stop me, then I stepped back, looking at the rings. Then I took mine off as well, and, bunching them up in one fist, said, "Wait right here."

I walked to the toilet by the front door, right off the kitchen, and opened the door leaving it open. Looking back at her ashen face, I dropped all the rings into the toilet, and then, not looking at it, flushed it.

"Seems appropriate. You flushed our marriage down the pan, so down go the rings too."

I knew this would hurt. She loved those rings. She'd spent three months looking for the right rings, and had had them made from metal reclaimed from her fathers ring. I took no pleasure in the act, but it was symbolic, and right then, I honestly just wanted to hurt her. I don't feel good about that now, but I have to be honest in what I was feeling at the precise moment.

She moaned at what I did, murmuring, "No, no, no, I didn't want this..." in a very small voice.

"One more thing." I said, and in the middle of saying 'Thing", I punched James, right in the face. I put a lot into it, and his nose crunched under my fist. Blood went everywhere and he fell back on the floor. Kristi just looked at him, then back at me.

I rubbed my fist and grimaced at her.

"Now you can go. I'll have the locks changed tomorrow. Expect to be served."

She was done. We were done. She knew it and I knew it. She'd not be able to look herself in the mirror again without seeing this scene. She'd not be able to look her friends in the face, and she'd spend forever regretting the events today, what led up to it, and what she'd done to our relationship and what she imagined herself to be. And right then, I had zero sympathy. I'd been abused, betrayed, cuckolded and by fuck I was angry and I was going to have my pound of flesh.

It did cross my mind that she might even do something drastic, but at that precise moment, I'm ashamed to say that I just didn't care. Again, hardly the right feeling to have any time, but I was so devastated that at that moment, I could have cared less. Makes me look a dick, but like I said, I'm not the easiest to live with - because of moments like this.

She knelt down next to him, fussing, and I literally picked him up by his hair.

And with that I opened the condo door and without a word, pushed him out of it, blood dripping on the hardwood floor, Kristi following in shock, and once they were out the door, I retreated inside and slammed the door in their faces.

I stood there for a moment, shaking, then turned and went back into the living room, grabbing the bottle of peach flavored vodka on the kitchen counter.

I knew what I had said, but I had no intention of drinking myself to death - although I was going to require a healthy couple of slugs right now to calm myself. Life was for the victor and by god I wasn't going to be the victim, even though I really was.

I'd just have to find a way forward.

Tomorrow is another day.