Chapter 5 - Early September "This isn't getting us anywhere," Steve complained. "We've been doing this counseling thing for five weeks now and we're just going round and round in circles." He was looking at Mr. Houston and ignoring Barbara as much as he could. "But I told you. I understand now that I should never have agreed to meet with Chad…even if it was just to say good-bye," Barbara protested. "I admit it! It was wrong, but I can't go back and change it now. Previous Part: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 Next - Click here for a bio and to find more submissions by Longhorn__07. - Tell a friend about this story, click here. - Report problems with this story, click here. - Send instant anonymous feedback to the author. Home | Stories | Webcams | Forum | Adult Store Literotica Toy Store ADULT TOY & DVD STORE FAST & DISCREET Literotica XXX Webcams 24/7 LIVE CAMS - FREE PREVIEW W/AUDIO! Literotica Adult Movies STREAMING ADULT MOVIES PAY PER MINUTE All contents c Copyright 1998-2005. Literotica is a trademark. No part may be reproduced in any form without explicit written permission. Hot Wives on Webcam 24/7 LIVE GIRL VIDEO CHAT 100+ ACTIVE CAMS FREE PREVIEW W/AUDIO! literoticacams.com Streaming Hot Wife Movies HORNY HOUSEWIVES DO EVERYTHING 20,000+ PAY PER MINUTE TITLES SEARCHABLE CATEGORIES www.literoticavod.com index : Loving Wives : Requital Requital by Longhorn__07 c "I don't have a clue what you're talking about," Steve said. "When was I ever not nice to you?" "Well…like…you wanted to go over to that guy's house for Thanksgiving," she said resentfully. "You made me go and I'd already promised Mom and Dad we would be there and I had to call and tell them we were going somewhere else." "No, I didn't," Steve shot back. "Don't you remember? We agreed we'd already spent three Thanksgivings in a row at your Mom's, right? We decided it would be good to do something different…maybe have Thanksgiving dinner somewhere else and go over to your Mom's afterward to visit for a while." Barbara looked at him uncertainly. A vague memory stirred at the back of her mind. "Well, maybe so…" she said reluctantly. "But when we got there, it was such a grubby little house…and that guy's mousy little wife…and--" "The "grubby little house" was spic and span inside and out," Steve shot back. "It needed painting, but they didn't have enough money to get it done. Big deal. "That guy, Greg, saved my life five years ago when a two-ton girder got loose while being hoisted up nine stories. It would have smashed me flatter than a pancake," Steve said quietly. "I owe that guy absolutely everything and he won't take a thing from me." Barbara gaped at her husband. She hadn't known. "And that mousy wife of his has a name. Hers is Tanya and when she and her husband were teenagers out in west Texas, she held a rabid dog off her boyfriend for fifteen minutes when he couldn't defend himself. Greg had fallen and hit his head on a rock. Brenda held that dog off with just a stick until Greg recovered enough to shoot the beast with his rifle." Steve bent at the waist, leaning toward Barbara. "That mousy wife adores her husband. They've been together since they were in sixth grade. Tanya could not do what you've done to me. It would kill her just to think about it. I can't even think about Greg without feeling completely and totally envious." Steve straightened up in his chair. He looked straight ahead, his jaw tight. "Okay…you're right…I guess," Barbara said tiredly. "I do remember we decided to go to their house now. It's just that…back when…Jimmie-boy started coming on to me, I just felt like you were pulling away from me and not listening to me," she said. Steve glanced at her in surprise. For his wife, this was a major concession. "And Raphael, "the Thunderbird Man" Porter?" he asked sarcastically. Barbara was ready for the question. "You took that long trip and left me alone," she said. "I needed you with me and you weren't there." She was defiant. "Rafe came into the building to take care of some things with one of the accountant supervisors and saw me crying outside the restroom door. I didn't know it would get so crazy…I didn't mean for anything to happen at all…I just needed someone to talk to and he happened to be there." Steve looked in his wife's eyes. She held his gaze steadily. "I had to go on that trip," Steve said unemotionally. "We talked about that too…and it's not like I take that many business trips. That was the only one this year, darn it. How could you have needed me so much you went to another man so damned quick? And we'd been getting along a lot better just before that too. How could you do that?" "It just happened," Barbara said after a moment. "I didn't plan it. I didn't want it. It just happened." Steve looked away in disgust. "I know bullshit when I hear it, Barbara," he said. "You are supposed to be answering my questions honestly here…that's what we both agreed to do, if you remember right…we were going to be truthful and--" "I had a miscarriage!" Barbara blurted. Both men stared at her in amazement. "What?" Steve asked. "What are you talking about?" "While you were gone," Barbara said in flat tones. "Three days after you left, I started bleeding and had to go to the hospital. I didn't even know I was pregnant and…" Barbara waved her hands helplessly. Steve's mind was whirling. Barbara had lost a baby? He hadn't known. She said she hadn't known she was even going to have one. "But…how could you have gone into the hospital with something that bad and nobody knew…how long were you there?" Steve asked. "A week…more." "More than a week? But…but why didn't you tell me? Why didn't you call me? I'd have dropped everything and come home," Steve said. His voice showed his concern, and his confusion. "I didn't tell anyone," Barbara said quietly. "Not Mom or Dad either…I would only call them at night when everything was quiet in the hospital ward. When I went home, it was easy to pretend I just needed time to myself. All I wanted to do was sleep. I couldn't eat. I lost twenty pounds…you said yourself I looked like I was starving when you got back." "Why?" Steve demanded. "Why did you hide it from me? Why did you keep something that important to both of us from me?" Barbara opened her mouth…but no words came. She suddenly knew she had no reply. She didn't know why she had kept her loss a secret. "I don't know," she said woodenly. "I don't know." Without warning, tears welled up and streaked down her face. "Oh, God," she sobbed. "I lost my baby…I lost my baby." Steve reflexively turned his body toward his wife. He almost left his seat to take her in his arms. At the last moment, he remembered. He remembered all the other excuses his wife had used in other counseling sessions. He made himself settle back. This changed nothing. ******** "So last week we talked about your miscarriage, Barbara," Mr. Houston said quietly. The revelation had ended the session the week before. Barbara had been unable to continue. Barbara nodded at the counselor. To Steve, she looked more composed than he'd seen her in a long time. She turned to face him directly. "Steve," she said softly, "I'm so sorry I hid it from you. Mr. Houston and I talked about it in our individual counseling but I still don't know why I did it. All I can tell you is that I felt ashamed. I think I felt like it was my fault because I didn't even know about being pregnant. I can't tell you why I felt that way. I can't tell you why I couldn't share the paid with you, but I just couldn't. Someday…when I know, I'll tell you why, but for right now I just don't understand it either." Steve looked at her. She met his eyes unflinchingly. He decided his wife was telling the truth for once. He shrugged. "Okay…you'll tell me," he said simply. "Since you're being so truthful and open today, maybe you can let me in on another secret," he said. "Anything," Barbara answered. "How many times did you fuck Raphael Porter?" Steve asked. Barbara's eyes flicked away. "I never had sex with him," she said. "You're lying," Steve remarked. "And you're not very good at hiding it." He turned to the counselor. "That's it for me tonight," he said calmly. "Until my wife is ready to tell me the truth, there's no sense in talking." He got up, turned, and walked out the door without saying another word. ******** "How many times?" Steve demanded. Tonight, two weeks later, Barbara had promised she wouldn't try to evade Steve's questions. It had been a precondition for Steve to return to the couple's counseling sessions. If she lied again, Steve was ready to walk out. October was just around the corner for Pete's sake. Nothing was getting any better. Barbara took a deep breath. "Twice," she said quickly. "But it wasn't exactly sex like you think," she added. Steve slumped in his seat. He let his eyes roll upward beseechingly. Suddenly, he jumped up from the chair and walked quickly to the window beside Mr. Houston's desk. Pulling hard on the cord to raise the Venetian blinds to the top, he stared wildly into the night, putting his cheek close to the glass to look as high up into the sky as he could. He shook his head, raced to the window directly behind Mr. Houston, and repeated what he'd done at the other one. Verne Houston watched his client apparently going mad with professional detachment. He wondered if he would be able to drag the deranged man back inside if he tried to leap out of one of the windows. Steve was a pretty big guy. "Hmmmmmm…I don't see it, Barb," Steve complained. "Maybe it's not coming tonight, you reckon?" Mr. Houston coughed delicately. "Ah…what isn't coming tonight, Mr. Curtis?" he asked gently. "The mother ship, of course" Steve replied. "My wife has obviously been abducted by aliens who think sex isn't exactly like sex. That's what she said, right? Well, her alien friends will be back to pick her up pretty soon…but I don't see the mother ship so maybe it won't be tonight." He sat back down. He'd had fun with the facetious little drama. Mr. Houston hadn't enjoyed it nearly as much, though Steve thought he saw a small grin just before a falling blind cut off Verne's reflection in the glass. Houston lowered the other window covering before sitting back down. Barbara hadn't said anything during Steve's antics. Her only reaction had been an embarrassed flush that spread relentlessly up her neck to color her ears. "If I could go on…?" she asked, directing her question to the counselor. Mr. Houston nodded. "By all means," Steve interjected. Barbara gave him a distracted look. This was hard for her. Steve's sarcasm and sardonic performance were largely wasted on her because she was concentrating so hard on what she had to say that she gave the byplay only marginal attention. "What I meant was that Mr. Porter would just…he would only…he just wanted me to masturbate him," Barbara said in a low voice. Her head was down. She didn't want to look at anyone. "And I only did it through his pants," she added. "I never really touched him…and he never touched my…me…uh…my vagina or my breasts or anything like that." Steve didn't say a word. He sat watching his wife. Barbara blushed deeper and looked steadfastly at the top-front corner of Mr. Houston's desk. Abruptly Steve snorted contemptuously. "If that's true, you have got to be the saddest excuse for an adulteress on the face of the planet," Steve remarked. "And Raphael must be whatever the exact opposite of a stud is if he couldn't get more from you than that." Steve added. "All that sneaking around, all the deception and lies, and…all the other crap and all he got was a couple of hand jobs? That's got to be the most pitiful affair on record," he said disgustedly. Barbara wouldn't meet his eyes. "Nah…that's just too much. I don't believe you," Steve said distinctly. "You're trying to bullshit me again. You're lying." Barbara's head jerked around. "It's true!" she retorted hotly. Her face was a fiery red from his scathing comments. She averted her eyes again. Steve took that as another evasion. He shook his head and stood up. "See y'all when she's ready to tell the truth," he said, looking at Mr. Houston. "I've got better things to do than waste time with a liar and a cheat." He walked out, shutting the door quietly behind him. ******** "So you admitted to Steve you really were sexing it up with that Porter guy?" Lydia asked. "Yeah," Barbara said resentfully, "but he didn't believe me. He said it was pitiful." Lydia chuckled. She quit out of deference to her granddaughter, but she more than half agreed with Steve. "Well, honey, it's not the most…exciting thing I've ever heard of," Lydia remarked. She watched as Barbara's face colored. "Baby, you got to get used to it. Whatever you did with that man, you shouldn't have been doing it. You had no right to share anything like even what you say with anyone but your husband." "But Nony, it wasn't really sex. I did all that in high school and it--" Barbara cut herself off before she further embarrassed herself. She wasn't used to talking with her grandmother about such things. A sardonic grin quirked Lydia's lips before she could control it. "Barbara…let me put it this way. If Steve was sitting right over there…" Lydia motioned to the couch, "and this Porter guy was standing right in front of you, would you play with that man's prick…even through his pants?" Lydia watched with interest as Barbara's face flushed even redder. "Of course not!" Barbara protested. Lydia nodded. She waited a moment. She looked at her granddaughter expectantly until she Barbara was only staring straight ahead stony faced. "Okay, would you have let Rafe squeeze your butt…and shove his hand up your skirt…and kiss you like a lover does? Would you have done any of that, like in those pictures, in front of your husband." Barbara's face went from dark red to ashen in the space of two heartbeats. She closed her eyes. "No," she said in a small voice. Lydia let the silence continue for a while. Her granddaughter was finally facing something she'd been avoiding for a long time. "You're beginning to see why Steve is having a wee, small problem with the way you've been acting?" Lydia suggested. "Barbie…dear, if you can't do it in front of your husband…sugar, it's wrong." Barbara let a sour expression spread across her features. "Oh…I've known all along, I guess," Barbara said wearily. "But you make it sound so…awful and dirty, Nony." "It was awful and it was dirty," Lydia said indignantly. "It was the most shameful thing I've ever heard of you doing, Barbara. How could you do something like that? Didn't you understand how hurtful it was going to be to Steve?" "But…Nony…it was like…it was like it didn't have anything to do with Steve. I wasn't thinking about him and me." Barbara stopped, her face twisted with frustration. "I don't know how to describe it…It's like I was in another world when I was around Rafe, and it wasn't quite real. I never thought of talking or kissing, or even…uh…touching Rafe was connected to me being married. "I mean…I see it was wrong now…but I just wasn't thinking about any consequences when I was with Rafe. Everything with him was just for the moment…nothing else…just that moment," Barbara said wonderingly. "I don't understand that, Nony," she said. "Why was I like that?" she asked her grandmother. Her tone was that of a hurt child. "Do you really want to find out, baby?" she asked. Barbara nodded. Her eyes were swimming in tears. "Then you talk about it with Verne Houston. Don't try to sugarcoat it, you hear? Just tell him what you were feeling and answer all his questions without trying to make yourself look better, baby girl. That's absolutely the only thing you can do. If you don't do that, nobody can help you, understand?" Barbara nodded. Lydia perched her hip on the edge of the big easy chair and slipped her arms around her granddaughter. "It'll be all right, Barbie…it'll be all right. No matter what happens you'll come out okay on the other end." "But, Nony, I don't think Steve loves me anymore," Barbara sobbed. "I don't know what to do." She cried on her grandmother's shoulder for a long while. Lydia patted the younger woman's back until she quieted a little. "Do you love Steve?" Lydia asked. Barbara nodded. Lydia felt the motion. "You know Steve doesn't see it that way?" she asked her granddaughter. "He can't see how you could possibly love him and do what you've done to him." Barbara sighed. "I know…but I never quit loving him," Barbara said emphatically. "I did some stupid things but I never wanted to hurt him. I don't know how I thought it wouldn't…I thought he'd never know about it. I'm so confused Nony," she said. The tears began welling up again. "But you still love Steve and you want to keep him?" Lydia said, refusing to be sidetracked by the tears. "No…don't answer right away. Think about it for a minute. Your husband doesn't love you right now…and he might not ever again, honey. Are you prepared to deal with that?" Barbara didn't answer immediately. She took the time her grandmother suggested. "Nony," she said quietly, touching a tissue to the corner of her eyes, "I'm a stupid fool and I let myself do things I knew were wrong…but I'm not that stupid…I'm not an idiot. Steve is the best thing I've ever had happen to me. I know that. I always knew it…I didn't think about it for a while…but I've always known it. I want him to love me again like he loved me before and I'll do anything to get him back." "That's not going to happen," Lydia said sharply. "What?" "Honey, you're not the same person he married. He was in love with the woman he married…he's not in love with who you are now. He doesn't even know who you are. "You took the innocence right out of your marriage and made it something dirty and ugly. Steve's an angry man right now…and he's not going to change anytime soon. Can you handle that, baby? Can you take the nastiness, the harsh words, the rudeness and cussing he's going to throw at you until he gets it all out of his system? Can you?" Barbara digested what her grandmother had said. She heard the challenge in Lydia's question. She nodded her head determinedly. "I want my husband back," she said firmly. "I want him back so bad I'll do anything to make him see I'm his woman and I won't ever make a fool out of myself again." She looked out the window at the children across the street for a moment. "But what do I do, Nony," she asked. "If he doesn't love me anymore, what do I do?" Lydia laughed. "Why, that's the simplest thing in the world, child…you make him fall in love with you again, that's what." ******* Monday - Individual Counseling Session "Total, complete honesty…that's the key," Mr. Houston said firmly. "I cannot emphasize that strongly enough, Barbara. If there's to be any chance of reconciling with Steve, he must see that you are an open book. No evasions, no fudging, no covering up something because it's embarrassing…or you're ashamed about it…no nothing!" Mr. Houston was a little miffed with his client. Here it was the third week in September --coming up on two months into the couple's counseling and one of his clients had only last week admitted to having had sex with a man outside the marriage. This was the umpteenth session with Mrs. Curtis. He'd much rather something like this come out in the second or third. "I must say you're coming awfully late to the table here," he told her. "I have to tell you your husband is probably at the end of his rope and I doubt he would believe you if you said day is light and night is dark right now." "I know, Mr. Houston," Barbara said quietly. "I've been a fool and I know it. I wa hoping this would just go away if I kept denying I had had any kind of sex with Rafe. I've been ashamed of what I did, so I tried to hide it. But my grandmother has talked to me a lot and I admit it...I was being stupid, and selfish, trying to do that. I apologize to you and I will to Steve too when I see him." The counselor sat back and looked at his client for a long while. Finally, he sighed to himself. There was no doubt Mrs. Curtis was sincere in what she'd just told him. She was calm and self-possessed this afternoon. Her eyes were cool and she faced him directly. Her hands sat quietly in her lap instead of twisting about each other as she tried to find ways to excuse her conduct or dodge a question. He'd just have to see what could be salvaged here. "Okay, Barbara. I warn you, for a long time to come, you are going to think that Steve is paying me to beat you up pretty good when I talk to you. You will despise me. You will hate it when I open my mouth to speak. We've tried going at this slowly and easing our way through it. That's over. "From now on, I will not let you get away with trying to sidestep an issue or a question. I'm not going to pull any punches from now on, do you understand that? No more nice phrases and wrapping up delicate concepts in flowery words. It's too late for that." Previous Part: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 Next - Click here for a bio and to find more submissions by Longhorn__07. - Tell a friend about this story, click here. - Report problems with this story, click here. - Send instant anonymous feedback to the author. Home | Stories | Webcams | Forum | Adult Store Literotica Toy Store ADULT TOY & DVD STORE FAST & DISCREET Literotica XXX Webcams 24/7 LIVE CAMS - FREE PREVIEW W/AUDIO! Literotica Adult Movies STREAMING ADULT MOVIES PAY PER MINUTE All contents c Copyright 1998-2005. Literotica is a trademark. No part may be reproduced in any form without explicit written permission. Hot Wives on Webcam 24/7 LIVE GIRL VIDEO CHAT 100+ ACTIVE CAMS FREE PREVIEW W/AUDIO! literoticacams.com Streaming Hot Wife Movies HORNY HOUSEWIVES DO EVERYTHING 20,000+ PAY PER MINUTE TITLES SEARCHABLE CATEGORIES www.literoticavod.com index : Loving Wives : Requital Requital by Longhorn__07 c Barbara nodded. "I'm late, but I hope I'm not too late," she said softly. "We'll have to see," Mr. Houston said in a neutral voice. "Now…ah…okay. Mrs. Curtis, I don't know of any legitimate counselor, whether a psychologist or not, who disagrees with what I'm going to say next. I warn you, this isn't going to be something you want to hear but you have to understand it…not just hear it…you have to understand and accept it." Barbara nodded. "Okay, Barbara, I need you see that from your husband's point of view, what you have done is the single most destructive, selfish, hateful thing you could ever do to him. He feels, though he's never told this to me, like you took something clean and crystal bright, something pristine and wonderful, and you dirtied it. You sullied it and made everything that has happened since the day he met you a charade and a lie. He cannot stand himself; he can't stand you and he can't stand the marriage. He's lost the anchor he thought he could rely on in anything that came his way. "The way Steve looks at it, you've been taking little breaks from the marriage every so often to check out other men so you can compare them to Steve as a lover, a friend, and a companion. He feels like he's in competition with those other men and, frankly, Mrs. Curtis, he thought all the competition ended when he married you. "He had every right to think that way, Barbara. A wife is not supposed to put a man through constant cycles of comparison and choosing. A husband will always lose those contests, Barbara. So will a wife when a husband does it to her. The friction of day to day living with someone rubs off the shiny newness one feels with a new lover. "Worse, he doesn't understand what he's done wrong. He's ruthlessly looked at everything in his relationship with you, trying to figure out what he did that was so bad you went to other men for consolation and he can't see what he did. From what I can tell, Steve can't identify anything significant at all and it's eating him alive. He's begun to doubt himself as a man because it's the only thing he can think of where he might have failed you." The counselor looked away from the anguish on Barbara's face. He figured he knew what Steve was feeling because he gone through it himself twenty years ago, but he also knew what Barbara was feeling. It was his job to observe people and interpret what their emotions from their facial expressions and the way their body moved. He could see the pain she felt at the realization of how her infidelity affected her husband. "Mr. Houston?" Barbara asked, almost timidly. "Yes?" "Would a good way to start be to prove to Steve that there really were only two times I did anything with Rafe Porter? Would that give him a little bit of stability…enough to build on?" "Sure…maybe," he said. "But, Barbara, he wouldn't believe Mr. Porter if he swore to only two episodes on a stack of Bibles, if that's what you're thinking of." "No," Barbara said, "but he'd believe it if I took a lie detector test, wouldn't he? If you were to arrange for it, not me?" The counselor considered it. He pursed his lips. It couldn't hurt. He consulted a card file, picked up the phone and quickly dialed a number. "Miles…Verne, how ya doin'?" he said when a connection was made. "Listen, I need a big favor…" ******** Wednesday ? Individual Counseling Session "Do you know what the five stages of grieving are, Steve?" "Well, in a very general way, I guess I do. I've read an article or two, but nothing very detailed," Steve answered. "Okay, let me run them down for you," Verne said. "They are "denial," where someone who's experienced a loss says No, not me…it couldn't happen to me. Next…there is "anger" and resentment. The one left behind asks why? Why me? "After that comes "bargaining," where a grieving person might promise God to be better if God will just return the loved one to the living. Once through that stage, there is depression, where a grief-stricken person acknowledges the loved one is never going to return. Finally, there is acceptance, where survivors work at getting on with their lives." "All right," Steve answered neutrally. "You see any resemblance to losing a loved one to a death and losing a loved spouse because of infidelity?" The counselor's question was blunt. "Sure," Steve replied carelessly. "It's pretty obvious, even to a layman like me, isn't it?" "You'd be surprised," Mr. Houston responded with a snort. "Some people would rather see the man in the moon than see themselves in those five descriptions." Steve showed the counselor a faint smile. "So where do you fit me into that," Steve asked. "That's not for me to say. We've talked about this…kind of tangentially before. Where would you say you are in that progression?" Steve shook his head and snorted. "Well, I am angry--I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to change anytime soon," Steve said. "But at the same time, I've already accepted the fact that my marriage is dead, so I'm already at the end of the "grieving," Mr. Houston. "All I want to do is to get on with the rest of my life but I'm stuck in this never-ending chain of counseling sessions where we talk and talk and talk about everything under the sun." Steve looked at the counselor. The counselor saw desperation in the man's eyes. "I went through the denial phase a long time ago," Steve said harshly, "when I saw Barbara with her old boyfriend, I got mad and dumped her. I should never have taken her back because all it's done is dump me into depression twice more. I bargained with her, not God, believing twice that she would be a better person and wouldn't betray my confidence in her again. "Now, Mr. Houston, I'm in a state where I'm pissed off part of the time, depressed almost to the extent of being suicidal part of the time, resentful all of the time and I am totally comfortable with accepting the inevitability of divorcing my cheating, lying wife behind. I will not bargain with her or anyone else for any reason." The counselor's face grew longer as Steve spoke. When an infidelity occurs, there is only a small window of opportunity to coax a betrayed spouse into working with a repentant betrayer to save the marriage. Verne Houston was afraid Steve and Barbara might have already passed through the critical time frame. It wasn't looking good. Steve was solidly entrenched in his position and showed no sign of bending. Houston sighed to himself in disappointment. He realized he had been doing that a lot lately. He would have to work on it. "How about we work on the "lying" part, Steve?" Mr. Houston asked quietly. Steve shrugged. "What's to work on?" he said. "I'm not the one who is lying. I haven't told you, or Barbara anything untrue since we got into this." "Well…what if I could offer you positive, unimpeachable proof that Barbara was telling you the truth about there being only two sexual…ah…encounters and they were as she described last Thursday?" Steve looked interested…a little incredulous, but interested. "How?" Steve asked. "Barbara asked me when she was here on Monday to arrange for a polygraph examination, Steve. I am a part-time counselor for the Sheriff's Department, they work with the FBI, and the FBI has a use for any number of consultants, experts in that field…if you're still with me. I pulled a couple of strings and got a friend of a friend of an acquaintance who dropped everything he was doing and came over to my office this morning. "Steve, the examination showed that there was no deception in questioning about the number or…uh…type of sexual encounters." Steve went over that for a moment or two. His face showed nothing of what he was thinking. "You could have fooled me," Steve said finally. "It's hard to believe that she only gave Dipshit a couple of hand jobs, but if that's what the machine said, I guess I can accept it." "But…if you think that changes anything, I can't see it," Steve said after a bit. "If it had only been once--or if there had never been any sex--the fact is, she still was seeing another man and having a good laugh at my expense, Mr. Houston. I want you to remember this was the third time this has happened to one degree or another. I got past two…you won't find one man in a million who would say I should have excused her even twice. I was stupid enough to do that, but I won't make a third mistake." "She told the truth…finally, I admit," Houston said. "She committed herself to me on Monday to telling the truth and not trying to hide anything." Steve's lips thinned to a narrow line. "It would have been much nicer if she'd commit to telling me the truth, don't you think?" Steve said resentfully. "I think she did that last Thursday, Steve. It just needed a little…verification, shall we say?" Steve shrugged an assent. "It's a start, Steve," Mr. Houston said. He carefully kept a pleading note from invading his tone. If he did that, Steve Curtis would pick up on it and react negatively. There'd be no hope then. "Steve, you and Barbara have three very hurtful, very damaging incidents in your relationship that we have to deal with. But that leaves a lot of time in the early years of your marriage and after reconciling from the dating period, right?" Steve nodded shortly. "Steve, do you really want to throw those years away if there is the slightest chance you and Barbara might…might be able to find a way to come back together?" Steve eyed the counselor balefully. "So you are bargaining with me, is that it, Mr. Houston," he asked. You are asking me to deny all of this has happened? You want me to set aside my anger and to ignore my depression at the way this marriage has gone? You think there is a good reason to interrupt the process of suppressing all my feelings so I can accept a miniscule possibility my wife might turn out to be worthwhile all this bullshit?" In his mind, Mr. Houston went over what Steve had said. "Yep, that's about it," he said. "Have you been rehearsing that speech?" he asked Steve suspiciously. "Nah," Steve replied. "The past couple of years I've had to give oral reports to some awfully high ranking folks in the city and state government, as well as my own bosses. I've just learned to tap dance my way through things pretty well." He paused. "Okay," he added. "Pardon?" the counselor replied. "I've gotten used to running down here into the middle of town every Wednesday afternoon for an individual "counseling" and every Thursday night to listen to my wife spin new stories," Steve said. "I'll keep it up a while longer…but…there will come a day when the new job being held over my head won't be enough to blackmail me into continuing with something that isn't going anywhere. You read me, Mr. Houston?" "Perfectly, Mr. Curtis. If you're willing to keep coming, there is still hope. But Steve, if you come, I will be asking you to participate. If you won't do that, don't bother coming to the sessions." He studied his client for a moment. "I believe we understand each other?" "I think we do, yes," Steve answered. ******** Thursday - Couple's Counseling "Steve, I want to apologize to you…I mean it with all my heart. I have hurt you, I have deceived you, I have been dishonest with you for a long time, and I will be forever sorry I did those things. I don't think you can accept that right now. I've driven you too far away, I know. "I've been saying let's get on with things, without understanding what I've done to you and to our marriage. I'm sorry for that too. It's taken a catastrophe like this to get it through my skull that I can't be a selfish little schoolgirl any longer. I can't expect to always gets my way and have people set aside their desires and needs so that I get mine met." The session had been underway for nearly half an hour. Steve had fired questions at Barbara for most of that period and he'd been taken aback at the way Barbara had fielded them all, answering most without hesitation. Some things she couldn't remember and said so. She reminded Steve she hadn't been keeping a journal or anything to remind her of certain specific events and some things simply hadn't made enough of an impression on her to be able to recall it this much later. Steve accepted the explanation but asked her to try to remember and tell him later. Barbara jotted down notes and promised she would. For the first time, she told everything about the day Steve caught her with Porter. She'd taken her bra off in the car on the way to the park, she said. She could do that without unbuttoning more than one button on her blouse. She reminded Steve he'd seen her do it a number of times. It was no big secret how she managed it. She knew it was the time and place, and who she was with that made it wrong. She confessed that while she had not planned to have sex with Rafe Porter that afternoon, when it came down to it, she almost certainly would have. She'd been excited. She'd felt sexy and naughty to be braless and later without her panties in public, as it were. Those emotions added to the spice of being with a man she shouldn't have been associating with. When Rafe made his move, she acknowledged she would have been caught up in the moment and given in to him. Rafe hadn't yet, she maintained, made any such move up to the time Steve crumpled the Thunderbird's rear end and pushed it into the water. He'd been rubbing himself and had unzipped his pants, but had not asked Barbara to touch him. She had been furious, then horrified when she realized it was Steve who had interrupted the tryst. It had been, figuratively and literally, a splash of cold water to the face. She'd looked down at herself, muddy, filthy and drenched and suddenly realized she had screwed up her world and she didn't know how to put it back together. "How do you unscramble an egg?" Steve contributed. Barbara said she couldn't. All she could do was find a way not to break all the other eggs in the carton. Her candid reply kept Steve quiet for a while. She didn't know exactly why she'd let herself get involved with Porter. She knew she was depressed and lonely after the miscarriage. She'd felt alone and hurt because there was no one she could confide in…but she didn't know why she'd felt that way. She was going to try to find an answer through therapeutic counseling with a psychologist. Whatever she found out, she would share with Steve whether they were still together or not. As for why she let another man become so close to her…why she rationalized away increasingly inappropriate, absolutely wrong contacts with him…why she kept modifying her values to excuse herself…she didn't know the answer to those yet either, but she'd share those too when she got a handle on them. The only thing she knew right now was that she'd felt much less of a woman after she lost the baby as well as very unattractive and unwanted because of the weight loss. Rafe had complimented her. He'd been ready to listen to her and one thing led to another over a period of several months. "I wouldn't listen to you?" Steve interrupted. "I didn't tell you how beautiful you were, how much I loved you?" Barbara took a long breath and exhaled before replying. "It's so petty of me, Steve. It isn't the way things really were, I know, but I felt…I didn't think about it…I most certainly didn't reason it through…but I felt like you had to do those things because you were my husband." "Huh? That doesn't make sense," Steve shot back. "I told you it didn't," Barbara said calmly. "I know it doesn't, but at the time and place, I didn't examine it, I just accepted it. "You're saying you committed adultery because a man flattered you and because he talked nice to you? That's baloney." "No, actually, Steve, thirty to forty percent of women who have an affair do it because of self-esteem reasons," the counselor said quickly. He wanted to defuse the building confrontation. Steve looked at Houston resentfully. He accepted the man's expertise, but this was such a bullshit excuse for a woman to cheat. "Steve," Verne said softly, "men and women have different reasons for doing the things they do. What makes "sense" for you and me, as men, doesn't necessarily mean the same thing to a woman. "I'm not saying you would see another woman outside your marriage because you were down on yourself…for instance, if you were having a medical problem…but a woman most assuredly might." Steve ground his jaws in frustration. He wanted a reason, something he could cut into and examine as a reason his wife had cheated, something he could fix. This was too insubstantial. "Steve," Barbara said with a troubled voice. "I don't know the words to tell you how sorry I am. I know I've hurt you terribly. What I did was wrong. I'm so ashamed of what I did, I can't stand it. I know what you're feeling and I want to make it up to you…and…" "No!" Steve interrupted. "You don't have a clue what I'm feeling. You can't possibly." He leaned back in his chair, letting his head fall back while he stared at the ceiling. "Before I met you," he said in a neutral tone, "I lived next door to a young woman who got raped one night coming home from the bar where she worked. I broke my ankle right about the same time so the two of us wound up spending a lot of time together we wouldn't have otherwise. "Debbie told me the physical part of being raped was bad enough. There was pain in her vulva and vagina from the roughness with which the man forced himself inside her. But she said that what was even worse was the feeling that a deep invasion of her privacy had taken place. She said what the rapist had taken from her was her sense of self…whatever it was that made her strong, self-confident, and unique. He'd taken away that special something that made her a person. "I told her I understood, because I comprehended her words…but I really didn't. I didn't even know back then how little I recognized of her pain. She knew I didn't, but I think she took what comfort she could from me because she saw how bad I felt for her." He was quiet for a moment. "I really didn't understand," Steve repeated. "I couldn't…but I think I have an inkling now, Barbara. What I'm feeling has to be like what she felt." He shrugged. "On second thought, probably not. The two experiences have some really basic differences and I appreciate that. But I do comprehend what she said to me so much better now. I've had a long time to think about it. I understand her sense of loss a lot better now. "I'll tell you something else. I know Debbie would understand what I'm feeling. She knows exactly what it's like to have your whole world turned upside down. "I feel like my core…everything that I am…has been ripped out of me, butchered, and thrown aside like garbage. I don't know if I'll ever be whole again, Barbara. There's a horrible ache in my gut and an icy coldness in my chest that that won't go away. It hurts. It's an awful pain, but I have to keep it close to me, Barbara. It's the only thing I feel anymore. Otherwise I feel dead, Barbara…just…dead. Steve got to his feet and walked slowly to the door. He turned and looked at his wife and the counselor. "You don't have any idea how I feel, Barbara, but maybe someday you will. Someday, someone might do to you what you've done to me…and then you'll know." He turned away and walked out the door like a man fifty years older than he was. Chapter 6 - Early October