He nodded and left. His clove scent lingered.
As I packed up my things, Lance swiveled around in his chair and I became aware that he was trying to get my attention.
“Well, that was awkward!” he said, snickering with a wink.
My heart rate soared. I wasn’t sure what he meant, but it couldn’t be good.
I turned to him, a questioning look on my face, as I struggled to hide my panic and breathe normally.
“Don’t worry,” he said in a comforting voice. “You handled it well. I’ve been there. Poor kid’s obviously got it bad for you. You could hear it in his voice. I get why you were trying to nudge him to take a different section of the class. You were subtle about it though. I don’t think he picked up on what was really going on.”
My breathing started to slow and I silently thanked God for the fact that Lance was the one who didn’t pick up on what was really going on.
“SO WHAT DO YOU
think Rick’s reaction will be when he finds out you let Dave stay in your class? And when do you plan on telling him?” Jill asked. She seemed genuinely concerned but also a little distracted.
I popped a slice of mediocre avocado roll into my mouth before answering. The sushi place ten minutes away was so much better, but Jill and I wanted to walk to dinner so we could drink as much as we wanted. Unlimited alcohol was always a dangerous yet appealing proposition for me.
“I’ll tell him in our next session with Carly. That way he can’t go crazy and start threatening physical violence against Dave. She knows how to talk him down when he gets like that.”
Jill sipped her plum wine so I followed suit, trying not to reveal my distaste for the syrupy sweet pink beverage. I couldn’t fool her though. She called the server over and ordered two sakes, which was fine with me. The strong bitter taste of fermented rice sounded much better.
“I don’t want to talk about me anymore. I’m sure you have much more interesting stories to share,” I said, placing special emphasis on the word “interesting.”
She smiled and nodded slowly, as if to say, “Oh yeah, I’ve got stories that’ll knock your socks off,” but again, her expression was tinged with something that didn’t fit, worry or maybe stress over something.
The sakes arrived and the first sip caused a powerful burning sensation, so I quickly took another to get acclimated.
“Have you heard of The Purple Room in Vegas?” she asked, as if she actually thought I might have. My dumbfounded expression must have provided the answer.
She tossed her long hair over her shoulder, revealing her ample cleavage. I was well endowed myself, but hers were enormous, and with the rest of her body being so petite, I couldn’t help but doubt that they were the work of Mother Nature. All of her clothes seemed carefully selected to draw attention to them, like the high-waisted, short, pink and yellow summer dress she wore that night. I took another sip of sake and reminded myself to keep eating, as the familiar fuzzy feeling started to take hold.
“It’s a sex club,” she blurted out.
Then she laughed at my expression, but I wasn’t quite sure why. Apparently, I was no longer doing a good job of controlling my reactions.
“Only couples or single women can get in, no single men are allowed.”
I prepared myself for a new type of education.
“Max and I went for the first time last weekend. It was… quite an experience. We actually ran into another couple we know there. You know them too, but we all swore each other to secrecy.”
The faces of every couple in our neighborhood ran through my mind. I couldn’t imagine who it could be. I had to know.
“Come on, I swear I can keep a secret. Just tell me, Jill!”
“Sorry. I really can’t. We honor the anonymity of our community.”
So she does have a code of ethics, I thought. Too bad it allowed for almost anything except telling me what couple she ran into in a sex club in Vegas.
“Fine, but I’ll keep trying to get it out of you. I don’t give up that easy,” I said, sipping my sake. “Tell me about the club.”
She sat up a little, proud to be the teacher of her friend the teacher.
“There are all different rooms. You have the couples’ room, which has dim lighting and is filled with couches, beds, and private nooks that are easy to peek into. You can just do your own thing together, with the added thrill of having people watch. But sometimes in the couples’ room, people swap. At first we didn’t want to do that since it was our first time there. We wanted to check everything out, knowing we’d be back sometime soon.”
I closed my eyes and tried to picture the couples’ room. I didn’t like the fact that what came to mind instead were the sweet little faces of Henry and James, Jill’s sons. I worked hard not to think of them as she went on.
“After watching in the couples’ room for a while, we went to check out the hot tub area. Bathing suits are forbidden, of course. It was pretty sexy but the thought of all that must happen in those hot tubs every night was a little disgusting. We ended up spending a long time in the strip club room, which is where we ran into, um, I’ll call them Jane and John Doe.”
Damn, I thought. Maybe if she has enough sake, she’ll tell me.
I nodded and waited.
“It was so much fun to pretend I was a stripper. That pole is a great workout too. They have pole dance classes at my gym, you know. You and I should go sometime.”
“Uh huh, sure. So back to the story…”
She giggled and drank her sake. But then she looked down at the floor and seemed to go somewhere else. I focused my gaze in the direction of the spot she appeared to be studying so intently, finding nothing there, which seemed to snap her back into the moment.
“Sorry. Anyway, I was having fun doing my striptease as the crowd grew, and just after I threw my bra off the stage, Jane and John walked in. I couldn’t believe it. After all I’ve seen these past few months you would think nothing could shock me.”
I winced as a too big gulp of sake burned my throat. My wide eyes begged Jill to continue.
“I know it must seem like I’m so uninhibited that I don’t care what anyone thinks, Beth. But the truth is that all the hookups we’ve arranged through our online group have been in other towns. I didn’t want to end up running into Henry’s teacher or something God-awful like that.”
I pictured Sam’s third grade teacher at our local public school, with her frumpy dresses and orthopedic shoes, and wondered what Henry’s private school third grade teacher looked like. But now was not the time for conversational digressions. I kept silent.
“So I didn’t know how to feel when I saw… this couple that we know.”
I slammed my ceramic sake cup onto the table in annoyance.
“At least tell me if you think they’re attractive.”
She squinted her eyes and surveyed me with what seemed to be a question about if I actually wanted to hear everything. I had to prove my worthiness.
“Jill, my aunt taught me how to give a blow job when I was ten. I was only fifteen when I first had sex. And I did my fair share of experimenting before I met Rick in college. You can tell me anything.”
She nodded.
“Okay, but you’ll have to tell me more about your
experimenting
period sometime then.”
“I’d be happy to. Now go on!” I demanded.
She rubbed her index finger along her lower lip before continuing.
“The truth is I’ve always had a thing for her.”
“Her? Not him?” I immediately regretted articulating the question, for so many reasons.
“You see. You weren’t expecting that, were you?” she asked.
I wasn’t. I knew Jill’s swinging involved sexual activity with women, but I assumed it was mostly for the pleasure it gave the men to watch their wives together. Frustrated with myself for this ridiculous naiveté on my part, I jumped to my own flimsy defense.
“Are you kidding me? I can’t tell you how many times I’ve tried to explain to my students that sexuality exists on a continuum, that thinking people can only be either straight or gay is archaic.”
She smiled and seemed convinced. “Exactly. To be honest, I can get just as turned on by a woman as I can by a man. It’s more about the energy between us than what body parts we have.”
I couldn’t help but wonder if she had ever felt attracted to me. Then I reminded myself what homophobic nonsense it is to think that because someone is attracted to the same sex, they’re automatically attracted to everyone of that sex.
My internal dialogue was spinning out of control so I switched from sake to ice water to help me focus. I looked into her eyes to show I was eagerly awaiting more.
“As soon as, uhhh… Jane saw me she joined me on the stage without missing a beat. We started dancing together. It felt a little silly at first, but we finally got in sync and then she took her bra off too so we were both topless. Before we knew it, the room was packed.”
I couldn’t stand not knowing who the woman was. I could see Jill topless in this strip club room gyrating with some other woman as half naked couples watched and touched, but I wanted to see the face of this mystery partner.
“We moved our bodies together and everyone watching went wild, cheering and throwing dollar bills at us. She has these adorable little perky boobs and when she rubbed them up against mine… it felt so good.”
Aha! I thought. That narrows it down. Jane Doe has small breasts. I tucked that tidbit away for further consideration later and felt hopeful that if Jill dropped enough clues I could eventually solve the puzzle.
She turned in the direction of the sushi bar and stared at the chef as he diced some type of fish, and I noticed a wistful look in her eyes that didn’t make sense to me.
“So keep going, Jill, tell me more! What happened then?”
She shook her head.
“I can’t… I don’t want to. It’s just… it was different for me this time and it doesn’t feel right to make it like something you read in Penthouse.”
I made a note to pick up an issue of Penthouse soon. I’d just have to keep it well hidden from Sam.
I felt for her. She was struggling, but I didn’t understand why.
“Just tell me. You know I won’t judge. Whatever it is, you can talk to me.”
“I guess… all the other times it was just for fun, it didn’t mean anything, but there’s something different about her. I felt…”
She sighed and pushed away her plate, having barely touched her food.
“After the dance, we went into the couples’ room and she and I were, we were, you know, together. We did everything to each other. It was incredible. The way she touched me… I can’t describe it. I haven’t felt that way about someone since, well since Kent, really.”
I nodded, grasping the situation a little more.
“It wasn’t just physical. Because we’ve talked… we’ve spent time together. I like her. A lot. We’ve even flirted a little before, so it was unreal that she would be there.”
I stopped nodding and sat still as a statue.
“Even though our husbands were watching and there were other people around, I was able to tune it all out. Time stood still. It was just the two of us. The way she kissed me, I could have sworn it meant more to her too. But I can’t be sure.”
Swallowing hard, I pictured myself sitting in the front row at Jill’s lesbian wedding, years down the road, our four sons running around in suits and ties. I realized I couldn’t ask anything else about her encounter. There was something different about it now. I wasn’t hungry for tawdry details anymore. There was emotional bonding involved. There were feelings of attachment. This swinging thing is a very dangerous business, I thought.
“Jill, I have to ask… how much did you have to drink that night? I don’t mean to be… it’s just, I know from experience how it can intensify things and make you think and feel things that aren’t really…”
I cut myself off because now she looked as if she was truly suffering and that somehow my question was a nail in a coffin of sorts.
“That’s just it. I didn’t have anything to drink. Not a drop. Every time we’ve been with other couples, I drank a lot because it helped me relax and ease into everything. But not this time.”
She stared off again, but not at anything in particular. I thought her eyes might be filling up.
“So how did things end?” I asked, trying to convey compassion.
“Well, it seems she and I lost track of time so our husbands eventually tried to join in after we had been, you know, getting to know each other in a new way for too long. As she and I were kissing, her husband started to caress my leg and I flinched at his touch.”
I shifted in my seat and crossed my legs, feeling put off by the idea of the intrusion of husbands as these two women shared such an intimate moment. But they were in a sex club, I told myself. Still, I ached for Jill, and somehow it all reminded me of the guilt-tinged moments of ecstasy I shared with Dave.
She took a deep breath and went on.
“I pretended I didn’t feel well, that I felt a migraine coming on. How cliché, right? But after being with her, I didn’t want anyone else to touch me. Not even Connor. I never expected to feel this way again. I didn’t ask for this. I wanted to make things work with Connor and I thought swinging would fill the void in our marriage. But now…”
“Oh, Jill, I’m sorry. This is a tough one. I mean, you really have strong feelings for her don’t you?”
A tear slid down her cheek.
“I’ve been trying not to think about it, but after telling you and reliving the whole night… oh God, Beth, I need to see her again, soon. I need to know if she feels the same way.”
WE WERE ALMOST NEVER
ALONE
in Carly’s waiting room. I liked to think that spoke to the caliber of her and her colleagues. When others were called in before us, Rick and I would sometimes whisper stories we made up about what they were in therapy for. Somehow it seemed to lighten the mood, though on occasion I felt guilty for finding humor in people’s potential troubles. On this particular Wednesday evening, we tried not to be obvious as we studied a mother and her teenage son, the tension between them so thick I imagined having difficulty slicing through it even with my favorite super-sharp Cutco knife.
When we first arrived, there weren’t two open seats next to each other, so Rick sat on one side of the room and I sat on the other. This meant he could see the mother-son duo from the corner of his eye while I was directly facing them.
She tapped one foot on the floor in a frenetic, anxious manner as she flipped through a Psychology Today magazine. He hung his head back and stared at the ceiling, a blank expression on his face.
Rick tried to catch my eye but I didn’t acknowledge him. I thought I would die if he made me laugh at these poor people right in front of them. He knew I couldn’t control myself once he set off one of my laughing fits.
He edged toward the front of his seat, staring at me and craning his neck forward to show me again that he wanted me to look his way. After another check on the two strangers, I was convinced they were completely oblivious to our existence. Still, I didn’t want to embarrass myself or anyone else.
I pursed my lips together as I looked at Rick to let him know I was not going to play.
He nodded his head twice in the direction of the teenager and lifted his thumb and index finger to his mouth, silently inhaling an imaginary puff of marijuana. My eyes grew wide and I turned away from him, suppressing the chuckle bubbling up in my throat. Our waiting room mates didn’t seem to notice a thing.
I picked up a magazine without looking at what it was and opened it to an advertisement for some audio program that teaches you how to make your child behave. Yeah right, I thought.
I couldn’t help but look back at Rick, warning with the tilt of my head for him to stop. But now he pointed ever so slightly at the woman with his index finger and pantomimed the face and hand motions of an angry motherly lecture, presumably on the dangers of illegal drug use.
It shouldn’t be funny. I felt awful for being so inappropriate, but a strange chortling noise mixed with a snort crept out and I pretended to start coughing to cover it up.
“Excuse me,” I said to no one. No one responded.
I put my hands on my hips and inhaled loudly, pretending to stretch back but hoping Rick would take it as a sign that I was serious.
He went on with his little act and I watched as he rolled his eyes in her direction before pretending to bring a bottle to his lips and perform the angry mother act again, but this time a swaying, drunken version, complete with almost falling off his chair.
The woman shifted and crossed her legs and I thought she might have seen him, but she just kept reading.
Now Rick lifted his elbow toward the young man and leaned his head back, mimicking him exactly, adding exaggerated eye rolling and a facial expression that said, “I am so bored. This sucks. I can’t believe I have to be here with my mom.”
A loud laugh came pouring out of me before I could stop myself. The woman looked up at me with her eyebrows knitted as if to remind me that we were in a therapy waiting room, not a mental ward. I covered my mouth and looked down at the blurry words on my lap.
“Oh, um, oh, this article here. It’s so funny,” I said looking at her for a brief moment, then standing up and walking toward Rick. “Such a funny article, honey, you should read this,” I said as I whacked his leg hard with the magazine. He looked so pleased by the results of his efforts I could hardly hold a grudge.
As we entered Carly’s office and settled onto the couch, the giddy mood stayed with us. I finally let out the laughter I had been stifling.
“You are so bad!” I said, punching his shoulder.
“You know you love it,” he said with pride. “Remember the time I hung toilet paper out of the back of my pants and walked around Target pretending I didn’t know? You watched everyone’s reactions and laughed so hard you almost didn’t make it to the bathroom in time.”
More laughter. Carly studied us and now she was smiling too. Her face beamed in a way I had never seen before.
“It’s wonderful to see you two like this.”
Somehow her statement and her expression brought me back down to earth. She had never seen us happy together. And the reason was that those moments were rare. That’s why we were there with her. It was time to get back to business.
She wanted to hear more about what put us in such a good mood, but I was eager to move into the tough stuff, to use our precious and pricey time together more productively.
Carly picked up on my transition, which probably wasn’t as smooth as I was trying for.
She inhaled through her nose and straightened her back before speaking.
“Okay, kids,” I actually liked when she called us “kids” because it made me remember that we were still relatively young and had a lot of life still ahead of us. She went on. “Last week there was a lot going on. Beth, you were dealing with the new knowledge about Rick’s affair with a coworker a long time ago. And Rick, you were waiting for Beth to resolve the issue of Dave being in her class.”
Rick turned to me, a look of shock on his face, but shock directed at himself. His happy mood was short circuited that instant.
I looked into his eyes and nodded.
“I know, you forgot,” I said to him, trying not to sound disappointed or upset about it.
He lowered his head and scratched his scalp with both hands, as if to stimulate the slumbering brain cells that had failed him.
Carly shook her head and I could see she didn’t understand.
“He forgot to ask me what happened after class Tuesday night. After all the time we talked about it here and at home, he forgot that I would see Dave on Tuesday and that I had to ask him to drop my class.”
He shook his head. Carly looked confused.
“Why do you think you forgot, Rick?”
He felt ganged up on, I knew it, and I wanted to jump to his defense.
“This happens sometimes. It’s a weird thing. He doesn’t mean… it’s not intentional. It happens when things are difficult. He can tune out a situation, even something that’s been eating away at him. I don’t know. It’s like some strange form of denial or something.”
He nodded. “Yeah, she’s right. I did it when I was a kid. My parents used to have these horrible fights. I would cower under my bed while they screamed and sometimes threw things at each other. But then, a week later, if they acted like everything was okay, I could too. I would forget about the fight, sometimes I wouldn’t remember it again until months later.”
He looked at me and exhaled for a long time. Then he spoke to Carly.
“I forget about things even when they’re important to me. I was so mad at that jerk for taking her class and I was nervous about how she’d handle it. But somehow when Tuesday came around, I… I completely forgot to ask.”
Carly gave us her long, slow nod that says, “Ahh, this… it seems odd to you, but I’ve read all about this in my psychology books.”
I knew I should have let her talk more, but her look confirmed everything for us. I wanted to make it clear that this was not a one-time thing.
“It felt similar to when I was, you know, well… involved with Dave. There were so many signs. There were even times when it felt like he was suspicious, but then he would just ignore it and act like there was nothing wrong.”
He kept nodding.
It was one of those therapy moments when I felt I was winning, though I knew I wasn’t supposed to look at it as a competition. When we started our work with Carly, I was the cheating wife and he was the perfect husband. As skeleton after skeleton had meandered out of our personal and extended family closets, things appeared to be evening out. Now we knew that Rick had also broken our vow to “forsake all others,” which actually made me feel more vindicated than wronged. On top of that, he was admitting to his tendency to check out, to forget important things, to be distant and uninvolved at times about the very same things that enraged him on other occasions. I couldn’t help it if a little part of me felt victorious hearing Rick admit to his part in the descent of our marriage, testifying to the fact that I did not act alone and unprovoked.
But Carly turned the tables, as I should have known she would.
“Beth, can you tell us why you didn’t initiate the conversation with Rick about what happened Tuesday when you got home from work?”
My self-righteousness evaporated. I wrung my hands and sighed.
“I know. I should have. Two reasons, really. One, I was annoyed that he didn’t remember. I wanted to test him because it’s a perfect example of something I’ve tried to explain to him in the past.”
Rick and Carly both kept their expressions neutral as I went on.
“But the main thing is I was afraid.”
Rick took my hand. He was humbled by the revelation of his neglect but I knew that was about to change.
He stroked my fingers and smiled at me with his eyes. “Why would you be afraid? I know this is difficult for you. I can’t imagine how hard it was to tell him he had to drop your class.”
I pulled my hand away from his, not wanting him to be the one to do it after I said what I had to say.
We stayed facing each other, which we knew Carly liked. In the heat of battle we would usually turn to her to referee and she always encouraged us to try to keep talking to one another instead, saying she’d decide when it was time for her to step in.
Yank off the Band-Aid, Beth
, I thought.
“He’s staying in my class. I have to let him. He needs the class to graduate this May and there are no other sections available.”
Rick’s jaw fell. Carly was silent and still, carefully considering the situation before saying anything.
He stood up and walked toward the window. I went back to our first time in that room, to the moment before Rick agreed not to give up on our marriage despite what I had done. Things seemed to shift into slow motion again. Would this finally be the last straw for him?
Carly waited. I waited.
He leaned down and put his face up close to mine.
“How am I supposed to react to this? How am I supposed to feel? He’s staying in your class? Are you serious?”
“I can handle it. I need you to trust me. It’s only twelve weeks. We have no choice. I love you. Haven’t I shown you that I want to be with you, not him?”
He huffed a hot breath and seemed to consider the possibility.
My eyes begged Carly to help me. I sat down and put my head in my hands to let her take over.
“Rick, it seems there wasn’t much Beth could do about the situation. It’s certainly not ideal. But if you put yourself in her shoes, can you see the dilemma from her perspective?”
“Of course I can!” he shouted. “I always have to try to see things from her perspective. I always have to try to stay calm and not get angry no matter what she does, right?”
“I didn’t say that.” Carly’s tone was so even. “It’s understandable that you’d be angry.”
Hot tears started to well up and I blinked them back.
“What was I supposed to do?” I asked as the tears disobeyed my command and fell onto my cheeks.
“I don’t want him. I don’t want him in my class. I don’t want him in my life. I didn’t ask for this. I want you. I want us, our family.” It seemed like the only thing to say and I believed it in that moment.
Rick nodded and we both took our time settling back onto the couch.
“How can we make this work?” I asked. “I’ll do anything you want.”
“Only class. You don’t see or speak to him outside of class. If he emails you, I want to read it to make sure there’s nothing personal.”
I bobbed my head up and down with great enthusiasm, feeling like a child who thought she was about to be grounded for a month learning that she’d only be getting a slap on the wrist.
I looked into his eyes, sending the message that I would be happy to agree to any other terms he demanded.
“And every Tuesday, when you get home, I want you to tell me if he spoke to you after class, if he looked at you… you know, that way. I want to know if there’s any hint of anything going on, and if there is, I’ll report him to the school for sexual harassment.”
The thought of that scenario sent a shiver down my spine. Dave was no sexual predator. I was the one fourteen years his senior. I was also the one who kissed him first because he was trying so hard to hold back. But this wasn’t the time to think about any of that. I had to stay the course now.
“Absolutely. A full report every Tuesday, I promise.”
We rehashed the problem for a while longer and, with Carly’s assistance, firmed up the terms of our agreement about how to make it work. When the topic, Rick, and I were all exhausted, I threw out something I had been thinking about earlier that day.
“You know what would be really good for us? To help us move on and connect even more?”
They both looked at me with a mix of curiosity and suspicion. I directed my proposal to Rick.
“Well, our ten year anniversary is coming up in just a couple of weeks. I think we should go away for the whole weekend. The kids can sleep at your mom’s on Friday night and stay at my parents’ place Saturday night and Sunday.”
Rick and Carly seemed pleased with the idea.
“Where would we go?” Rick asked.
“How about Vegas?” It just popped out. I didn’t even know where it came from, but I tried to go with it. “We used to have so much fun when we went there before we had the kids. We can play some slots, see a show, go dancing… anything you want.”
Rick’s face beamed. “Would you even let me play a little poker?”
I leaned into him and kissed him on the cheek.