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Visiting Richard Gronier

By: ohio



[Author's Note: When this story was nearly completed I realized that parts of it have a very strong resemblance to certain scenes in H. Jekyll's wonderful story, "Truth and Marriage". Thanks and apologies to H. Jekyll for the unintentional borrowings.]




It was Wednesday, October 22nd.

I stood in the shower, letting the hot water pour over my head. I'd been doing this a lot lately—taking longer showers, spending time just standing or leaning against the wall while the hot water coursed over my body. Often I'd been crying. For some reason the tears tended to come while I was in the shower. Come to think of it, the shower was really the only private place I could cry, except while driving the car, which wasn't very practical.

Over the past few weeks my showers had gotten longer, with my bouts of tears sometimes adding an additional ten minutes to my routine. I wondered if Liz had noticed how long my showers were taking—then again, she didn't seem to be noticing much about me lately. I was the one who had noticed things, things she didn't seem to realize I was aware of.

But this morning I wasn't crying. This morning I was going to see Richard Gronier. Today things were going to start changing dramatically—though I wasn't all that sure that what was to come would be any less painful than what had happened already.

As I toweled off in the quiet house—Karlie and Kristina were already at school, and Liz had left for work—I thought about my conversation two days earlier with Ernie Mattazollo.

Ernie had a very unprepossessing office, in a rundown section of Cincinnati far from the upscale department stores. But he'd been recommended to me as a guy who knew his business.

"Okay, Mr. H.," he said when we sat down together at the table in his tiny office. "I did it just like you wanted, though I've never had a client ask me to handle it this way before."

I nodded, and he went on.

"I didn't do any video, because you said you didn't want none. I've got audio from three of their times together; I put it on this CD for you and sealed it up, like you said. You sure you don't want to hear any of it?"

I shook my head. "As I told you, Ernie, if there's any chance at all for me and Liz I can't be carrying around in my head the sounds of the two of them together. Just summarize for me, all right?"

"Well, there's nothin' special goin' on. It's just fuc ... I mean, it's just sex. They don't talk too much, and certainly nothin' lovey-dovey, like 'if only we could be together' or 'when I've gotten a divorce' or anything like that."

"Do they talk about me at all?" I asked. "Or Gronier's wife?"

He thought a moment. "Gronier never mentions his wife at all. A couple of times he brought up your name, like 'I'll bet your husband can't make you come like that', but she always tells him to stop. She never lets him put you down or nothin', and she doesn't ever talk about you herself."

"What DO they say to each other?"

"At the beginning it's mostly just horny stuff, ya know, like 'oh look how hard it is' or 'you feel so good' or 'ooh yeah, like that'." I must have winced, because Ernie stopped for a second, gazing at me. "You okay, Mr. H?"

"Yes," I said. "Please go on."

"That's pretty much it. Then at the end, as they're showerin' and gettin' dressed, it's just figurin' out when's the next time they can get together."

"Does Liz love him?"

"Not that I can hear," Ernie said. "I guess some affairs are like that, but most of 'em are more like this one. Two people gettin' together to boff their brains out. Uh, sorry I put it that way, Mr. H.

"What I mean is that it sounds like they're hot for each other, but there's nothin' more to it than that."

"And are they doing anything special? In bed, I mean?"

"I don't think so. I didn't hear nothin' about anal, or any weird positions or anything. She's certainly suckin' his ... I mean they're certainly doin' oral sex, but I guess most people do that."

We sat in silence for a few minutes. It wasn't any worse than I had feared. It was unspeakable—it was crushing—but it wasn't any worse than what I had imagined. In fact it was not quite as bad. She didn't love him; they weren't planning to run away together; they weren't working their way through the Kama Sutra.

She was just fucking him. Just an affair, just an ordinary affair with a man who wasn't her husband. With a man who wasn't me.

"Okay, Ernie," I said finally. "Thanks for everything. What do I owe you?"

I wrote him a check, nearly $8000, without a second thought, and he pulled out the three manila envelopes.

"Like you said you wanted 'em. This first one has about a dozen shots of the two of 'em goin' in and out the door of one of the motels they used. The ones of 'em doin' the down-an-dirty, about four dozen or so, are in this big envelope, all sealed up with tape like you asked. I've got the negatives tucked away, along with a copy of the audio CD.

"And this third envelope, like you asked, has one of the down-an-dirty photos."

"Just one, right? And both their faces are clear?"

"Yeah," he said. "

"Thank you, Ernie," I said again, and got up to leave. "Wait," I said, "I almost forgot. What did you find out about Gronier?"

Ernie smiled a hard smile. "A pussy-hound, like you figgered. Betsy, the assistant of mine I told you about? She spoke to 5-6 people in his firm, and it sounds like he's the number-one skirt chaser in the whole place. 

"He seems to be somewhat careful about it, though. Seems his wife is some kinda heiress, worth like $80 million, and he doesn't want to fall off the ol' gravy train."

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

On the drive to Gronier's office I thought back over the past few months. The earliest sign of trouble I'd detected had been at the beginning of August, about three months ago.

We'd been through an exhausting, difficult and frightening year. Karlie had been diagnosed with leukemia just before Halloween the year before, and we'd been plunged into a nightmare of doctors, hospitals, chemotherapy drugs, and nights sleepless with worry.

Our little girl was only eight, and she bore the pain and fear and disruption with unbelievable courage and patience. Kristina, two years younger, was her constant companion and support. Needless to say Liz and I put everything else in our lives aside to care for Karlie, doing just the bare minimum at our jobs and abandoning all thoughts of our social life or our own relationship.

By last summer, thank God, Karlie was in remission. She was regaining her strength and growing her hair back again, and the odds were at least 90% that she was completely cured. We'd gotten the good news in mid-June, and celebrated with a week at Disney World. Almost crazed with exhaustion and relief, Liz and I had let the kids do whatever they want, ride all the rides and eat all the food and stay up as late as they could. It was a memory I would always cherish.

But the ordeal took its toll, above all on Liz's and my relationship. As things began returning to normal, I plunged back into my work as an economic analyst (I worked in the Cincinnati office of one of the big New York banks). My colleagues had covered for me for months, and I was frantic to get back up to speed and start pulling my weight again.

Liz's job was less demanding—she was Assistant Director of Human Resources at the University of Cincinnati Medical Center—but she too was eager to get caught up, and we were both exhausted from months of worry and fear. In retrospect, I could see that neither of us had been paying enough attention to our marriage.

The first I heard of Richard Gronier was quite innocent—in early July, Liz had to give a deposition in a lawsuit against the Medical Center, and Gronier was the Center's attorney. The evening of the deposition Liz told me all about it over dinner, and casually mentioned that Gronier was impressive—tall, very good-looking, and extremely effective in the legal wrangling that surrounded Liz's testimony.

I heard about two further meetings with Gronier over the following couple of weeks, ostensibly to go over some of the details in her testimony—and then nothing. She stopped saying anything about him, and I assumed he was finished with her.

Not a very accurate assumption! Liz was still seeing him, but as their meetings started turning from legal maneuvering into something else, she simply stopped telling me anything about them.

We took our usual two-week vacation in August up to a cabin on Lake Michigan. It was always a relaxed and romantic time for us—the girls would play hard all day long, and after they were asleep Liz and I would catch up on a lot of the love-making that we hadn't had time for during our busy year.

But this vacation was different—noticeably so, though it was hard to put my finger on exactly how. It wasn't that we made love less, or that Liz was less interested, at least not on the surface. She was still affectionate, and certainly not reluctant.

But she was less "present"—both when we made love and at other times. She was abstracted, off in a world of her own, in a way that concerned me. I had no idea what was up, but I knew something was going on. But the few times I asked her about it, she pulled her attention back to me and said it was "nothing—I guess I'm just still recovering from the past year, honey", or something like that.

I was frustrated. I missed my wife, and I could tell that she simply wasn't all there with me. But her explanation seemed convincing; God knows both of us were emotionally wrung-out after Karlie's battle with cancer, and I just figured things would gradually return to normal.

But by mid-September things were worse, not better. Liz seemed strained all the time, and uneasy around me. I occasionally saw her with a haunted look on her face, gazing out the window at nothing, when she didn't see me looking at her. She was more forgetful than usual, sometimes not remembering to be home in time to cook dinner when it was her day (we alternated doing the cooking), or going out on a Saturday to do some errands and coming home without the dry cleaning she'd intended to pick up.

By then I was seriously worried—I spent a lot of time thinking about her behavior and what it might mean. Of course "affair" arose as one of the possibilities, though it seemed crazy to me. Certainly our sex life had not diminished—we still managed sex a couple of times a week, which was about average for us since the girls had been born.

And on a couple of evenings Liz was more enthusiastic than usual, even a little wild and demanding. I loved those nights at the time, but when I thought about them they only added to my concern. Did something make her extra-horny? Or guilty? What was going on?

I certainly asked her from time to time whether something was bothering her—was there a crisis at work, did she feel all right physically, had I done something to upset her? But her invariable reply was a tight 'oh no, honey, I'm fine, really! Maybe just a little tired.' And this was delivered in an elaborately casual way, followed by a hug and kiss that were meant to reassure me but had just the opposite effect.

On September 26—I'll never forget the date, because it was Kristina's birthday and we'd had ten of her friends over for a party—I happened to ask Liz about the hospital law suit, and whether she was still in touch with Richard Gronier. 

"Who?" she replied, looking suddenly a little pale.

I stared at her in some disbelief, and she said, "oh, of course! that lawyer who handled my deposition for the lawsuit last summer—how stupid of me! No, I haven't spoken to him in a couple of months, I guess. We ... we met a couple of times after the deposition, but I think he must be all done with me." 

She turned back to the dishes, and neither of us said anything else for a moment. Then she started asking me about our gutters, and whether I'd called our yard guy yet about cleaning them out.

It was a startlingly unconvincing change of subject, and it shook me up quite a bit. But I didn't push it. Her pretending to forget who Gronier was was so alarming that I had to think about how to proceed.

That night when she was asleep I found her purse and looked carefully through it. I didn't find anything damning, but there was one mystery. Her cell phone's list of made and received calls didn't show anything unusual—I specifically looked for Gronier's office number and didn't find it. In her datebook there was a time and place written down for the deposition on July 8th, and I found two further notations for meetings with Gronier. 

Then no more about him. But there were three places, two in August and one in early September, where things she'd written down had been painstakingly erased—it was impossible to figure out what had been written there. Since then, nothing out of the ordinary.

I'd lain awake until nearly 4 am that night, unable to sleep, full of worry. The next morning I got a recommendation from a friend and went to see Ernie Mattazollo.

He called me on October 3rd, and he didn't mince any words. "She's havin' an affair. With a guy named Gronier, he's a lawyer."

It hadn't surprised me. But it had shattered me.

After about an hour, I called him back and told him to stay with it. "I'd like you to record two or three of their little get-togethers. Just audio, no video. And some photos—some of the two of them going in and out of the motel or wherever they're meeting, and then some of the ... the actual sex, if you can get it."

"I can get it," he said flatly, and then we discussed the timing of it, and his fee.

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

Richard Gronier worked on the sixteenth floor of a fancy office building downtown, and his young, bosomy blond secretary took great pleasure in informing me that, unless I had an appointment, he was far too busy this morning to see me.

I smiled at her, then took a business card out of my wallet. On the back I wrote "on my way to show some photos to your wife—I'll wait 5 minutes".

I gave the card to Ms. Blonde and said, "please do me the favor of giving him this. I'll wait here."

Not more than two minutes later she came back to me, her face doing a rather bad job of concealing her annoyance, and said, "Mr. Gronier will see you now."

I didn't know how he'd play it, but at first he treated me with easy affability. Came out from behind his desk, big smile, hearty handshake.

"Mr. Hendricks, how are you? Please come in and have a seat."

I'd never seen him before, but he matched Liz's description from so many months before. He was probably 6'2" or so, and unusually handsome. He was in his mid-30s, about the same age as Liz and me, and had a strong well-tanned face and piercing blue eyes.

It wasn't hard to see how women would fall for him, though that hardly provided me consolation at that moment.

I sat in silence, waiting to see him start to look nervous. He covered it pretty well—maintained his smile, no tapping or nervous mannerisms—but after about 30 seconds he couldn't wait any longer.

"Well, Mr. Hendricks, how can I help you?"

"Mr. Gronier," I said quietly, "my wife is Liz Hendricks. And right now I have your balls in my hand. How hard I squeeze them is entirely up to you."

He was silent, but this time he couldn't stop his fingers from jiggling a little. He said, as calmly as he could, "I'm afraid I don't understand...."

"You've been fucking Liz," I said, still very quietly. "I have pictures. And I'm pretty sure that the pictures could cost you this nice office, your job, and access to your wife's trust fund."

He glanced in alarm at the manila envelopes in my lap, but blustered, "I'm sorry, I don't know what you're talking about."

This was turning out to be more fun than I'd hoped! I sat for a long moment, then silently passed him the first envelope.

When he opened it and glanced at the pictures he nearly sagged in relief, and the blood rushed back into his face. Smiling broadly he said, "but these don't show anything beyond Liz and myself going in and out of a meeting room."

"A motel," I said. "The Chesterton Motor Court, on Route 52 in Riverview Heights. Kind of cheap of you not to spring for something classier, don't you think?"

He stood up, hoping to get rid of me. "These pictures are not proof of anything, Mr. Hendricks. I'll have to ask you ..."

Without rising I passed him another envelope. When he opened this one he pulled out the single photograph and looked at it for a long time. Then he slid it back into the envelope, sat back in his chair, and ran a hand through his hair. He looked very unhappy.

"I've got several dozen more just like that one," I said. "With copies in a number of safe places."

We sat in silence. I watched him, while he gazed aimlessly at the wall behind me, working through it in his mind.

"What do you want?" he said finally.

"How long has it been going on?" I said. "And why?"

He laughed without amusement. "The why is easy—your wife is a babe, man, in case you hadn't noticed! I saw her and I wanted her. You ever seen my wife?"

I shook my head, and he continued. "She must be 250 pounds, and she sweats! She's...well, you get the picture. Liz is gorgeous, much more my cup of tea."

"How long?"

"About a month. Took me forever to get in her pants, if you want to know the truth. I worked on her all through the summer—nice and slow, very subtle, just professional at first. She fought it hard, kept telling me she loved you, the usual thing.

"They all say that, you know, but usually they give it up a lot faster than she did. It probably wasn't until nearly the end of September that she..."

"Stop," I said. "You've answered my question."

Despite his predicament he couldn't keep a smug grin entirely off his face. It must have been fun for him, sitting across the desk from the poor cuckolded husband. I wondered whether that was part of the pleasure for him, not just the sex but putting one over on clueless guys like me.

"All right. Call her, right now, and break it off. It's been fun, she's wonderful etc. etc., but the time has come to move on. I imagine you've done it before."

He eyed me. "And what happens after that?"

"I walk out of here. And if you're lucky, I don't take my photos to the managing partner of your law firm, or to your wife."

"Hey man, if I call her you've got to give me the photos."

I smiled, nastily. "No luck, Rich. You've got just two options here. You break it off with Liz, you've got a chance your whole life won't blow up in your face. You don't break it off with Liz, the happy life of Richard Gronier ends in the next couple of hours."

He sat and looked at me—angry and unhappy. Then he picked up the phone.

"I'd like to speak to Ms. Hendricks, please—this is Richard Gronier, from Parker & Medoff."

He spun in his chair, turning away from me as he waited for Liz to pick up the call.

"Hey baby, it's me ... yes, I know", laughing lightly, "you too. I guess we were both unbelievable!

"Listen, I ... no, I can't ... no, it's not that—just listen, Liz, okay? This has been fantastic, and you are so fuckin' gorgeous, but, y'know, we knew there would come a time, and this is it.

"No, no, don't say that! It's nothing about you, baby, it's just that ... well, these things have a life of their own, y'know, and ... like in that song, 'our love was too hot not to cool down'.

"Now, now, don't be like that! We both knew it wouldn't ... listen, Liz, don't cry, all right? We both knew it was a matter of time.

"Of course there isn't anybody else! What kind of sleazy jerk do you ... hang on now, it took two of us! I didn't put handcuffs on you and drag you into bed that first time...

"Listen baby, there's no need to yell. We both..."

After a moment he put the phone back in its cradle. "She hung up on me," he said.


Visiting Richard Gronier



His face was serious now, all traces of that disgusting smugness gone.

"How long would it have lasted?" I asked. "I'm assuming this isn't the first time for you."

"A couple more months—two or three, maybe. She was..."

"Shut up—I don't need to hear any more."

We gazed at one another in silence. I knew he was eager to get rid of me, but also at my mercy—he didn't dare just try to throw me out.

"Needless to say, you are not to contact Liz ever again. No phone calls, no email, no letters, no personal visits—nothing. Is that clear?"

He nodded, watching me narrowly.

"If she writes you, you throw the letters away. If she emails you, you delete the messages. If she calls, you don't speak to her. If she comes here, you don't see her."

He nodded again.

"Forever, Richard. I am NOT kidding about this."

"And the pictures?" he asked.

"You'll have to count on my benevolence," I said, and got up out of my chair.

He stood up too. As I started to turn away I said, "oh, one more thing."

I stepped back towards him and smashed him hard with my fist, right in the nuts.

He groaned and fell to the floor behind his desk. I walked around and looked at him, lying on his side with his legs pulled up, gasping in pain, his face contorted.

I waited several minutes, until the pain seemed to be easing and his breathing started to return to normal. Then I kicked him, right in the nuts again, and turned and left the office. 

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

GETTING OVER RICHARD GRONIER

It was Liz's night to make dinner, and when I came into the kitchen she was bustling about, setting the table and playing with three pots on the stove. I gave her the usual hug and said, "hi, honey—how's everything?"

She said, "oh, fine. Bit of a long day. The girls are watching cartoons or something God-awful. You want a glass of wine?"

Her face looked tired, sad. I think she'd been crying, judging from the redness of her eyes, but she'd done a careful job washing her face and reapplying her make-up. If I hadn't been looking closely I wouldn't have noticed it.

Dinner was normal—astonishingly so, considering what my day had been like and what her day had undoubtedly been like. The girls chattered away as always, which helped to make things go smoothly: which teachers they hated, how the boys always hogged the playground during recess, when the next friend's birthday party was.

It was impossible to be unhappy around my daughters. Even for the past horrible month, when it felt as though my entire life was falling down around me, I couldn't help but smile at them, laugh with them, hug them to me. Thank God Karlie was healthy again! Despite everything, I felt lucky.

Liz and I helped them with their baths, read them stories, got them into bed, listened to their excited chatter about Halloween costumes for the following week. It was all the usual.

But once they were asleep Liz didn't know what to do with herself. I don't think she was aware of how closely I was watching, but she couldn't sit still. She turned on the TV, went around the channels, and turned it off again. She picked up her current book, tried reading a few pages, and gave up. I listened from upstairs as she wandered around the kitchen, straightening things, unloading the dishwasher.

When she came back upstairs I said, "honey, is everything all right?" I wasn't trying to trip her up. On the contrary, I had no intention of letting her know what I knew about her and Richard Gronier, and what I had done that day. But if I had ignored her restlessness it might have seemed odd to her.

"Yes, it's nothing," she replied, moving past me into the bathroom with her nightie. "Some nuisance-y things at work, I guess I'm just a little preoccupied."

I let it go. We turned off the light, she offered me a quick peck of a kiss, then rolled away from me. I wondered which of us would find it harder to fall asleep that night. I turned out to be me—within just a few minutes I could hear her even breathing. It felt like another hour before I was finally able to sleep.

Over the next days and weeks I watched Liz carefully. I knew what I wanted: I wanted her to come back to me. I wanted her to realize what she had—with me and the girls—to realize what a dreadful mistake she'd made, and how lucky she was that it was over and her marriage was still intact. I wanted her to love me again, completely, the way she did before Gronier, before Karlie's leukemia, before our lives started to fall apart.

But I didn't know what I'd get. 

Despite my careful watching I didn't see anything special, anything different in Liz right away. She still seemed pre-occupied, still gazed aimlessly out the window. The same feeling of unhappiness emanated from her at times, though she always insisted it was nothing if I asked about it.

We made love a couple of times that first week, and the only thing different I noticed was that when we screwed in missionary position, Liz kept her eyes tight shut the whole time—she didn't smile up at me like she usually did. I wondered if she was afraid her face would give something away—or whether with her eyes closed she could pretend I was Richard Gronier.

The Friday nine days after my visit to Gronier was Halloween, and the girls were wild with excitement. They could barely eat dinner before dragging me out and down the street for trick-or-treating. As we always did, I went along with them, while Liz handed out the candy to trick-or-treaters at our house.

Between the excitement of the holiday and all the sugar they consumed, the girls were awake until almost 11 pm—thank goodness it was the weekend. Liz and I grinned at one another as we finally got them settled down and into bed.

I was reading in bed when she climbed in beside me. As I turned off the light she said, "Alan? I'm not really in the mood for sex tonight, but could we just ... snuggle together?"

"Of course," I said, and she pulled herself tightly to me, burying her face against my neck. We lay there quietly, comfortably. I thought she might want to fall asleep this way, but after several minutes she raised her head and said, quietly, "Alan, I'm so sorry."

"For what?" I replied, a little surprised.

"I don't know, for everything. For having been so ... distant, the last couple of months. We had the whole nightmare of Karlie's leukemia, and by last summer we were all just exhausted. And then ... I don't know, but I know I haven't been all here for you lately. And I'm sorry."

I was silent, taking in this all-too-partial apology. I knew Liz, and I knew she meant it. Yet I also knew that the reason she'd been so distant was precisely what she wasn't mentioning: her affair with Gronier.

"Thank you, Liz," I said finally. "I have missed you, you know. And wondered if it was something I did..."

"No, no!" she cried, interrupting me. "You've been wonderful. Patient, kind, supportive...." She pulled me closer. "You deserve better, honey. And I'm going to make it up to you."

It felt like a test. To tell the truth, every moment of being around Liz felt like a test: was I going to give in to my rage, to my humiliation and anguish, or was I going to stay on the path I'd carefully chosen? I knew I had to—it was the only alternative to the end of the marriage. It was hard as hell, but I managed it.

"That sounds pretty good to me," I said, and found her mouth in the darkness for a gentle kiss. I didn't dare say anything else—I didn't trust myself to find the right words.

The next night we did make love. It was sweet, but oddly tentative—different from how it had been for months. Liz seemed unsure of herself, eager to please me but somehow afraid, too. It was almost as though we didn't know one another that well, and were worried about doing something wrong.

But Liz was more and more relaxed around me during the day. The humor that was one of the highlights of our relationship—the jokes, the gentle teasing that had been our way of relating almost since we first started dating—began to reappear. And

two weeks after Halloween we had the hottest sex we'd had in perhaps two years.

I'd gotten pretty sweaty raking leaves and cleaning the yard, so after the girls were asleep I jumped into the shower to clean up. To my surprise, Liz joined me. She washed my hair, then dropped to her knees and gave me a fantastic blow job right there in the shower, looking up at me as she took my seed into her mouth. She hadn't done anything like this since the first years of our marriage—it was very exciting.

Afterwards we dried off quickly, then continued to play in the bedroom. I licked between her legs for a while, making her squirm and whimper. Then she pulled me around into a 69, and when I was hard again she rode me cowgirl-style until she'd come several times and I'd shot up into her, gasping with pleasure.

Over the next few months different parts of our relationship seemed to return to normal at different rates. Being parents together came back first, because we didn't have that much fixing to do. Even during the height of her affair, when Liz was distant and abstracted with me, she remained fully involved with the kids—perhaps even a little more so, as if to atone for what she was doing.

Next was probably our sex life. During her affair the frequency of our sex hadn't dropped off very much, no doubt because Liz was being very careful to make sure it didn't. But her interest and involvement in love-making clearly waned. She continued to make herself available, and at times to take the initiative and reach for me in bed. 

For me, though, suspecting and then knowing about what she was doing with Gronier, it was easy to see that she was emotionally removed from our fucking. It didn't feel like love-making, like the intimate connection between us that I cherished so much. It felt like casual fucking; and at least some of the time Liz's orgasms were exaggerated, if not faked. She was keeping me happy (and unaware, she thought!), but not enjoying sex with me very much.

After Halloween, her genuine interest in sex with me began to return. If at first it was at least partly about "making it up to me", it gradually became clear that Liz was once again as involved in the love-making as she had been before her affair. She took the lead a bit more—I think she was consciously reaching back to some of the great fucks we'd had in the early, pre-children days and trying to repeat them. But she wasn't just putting on a show to please me—she was active and passionate, and her excitement was real, not faked.

Between November and about February we probably had sex three or even four times a week, before it gradually subsided to the twice a week that had been our norm for years. But—thank God, thank God—it was real love-making. Liz was all there in bed with me, giving me herself as fully as ever. I hadn't been sure we would ever get that back, but we did.

Interestingly, our day-to-day intimacy as husband and wife took longer to re-establish fully than our love-making. No doubt this was more about me—my anger and hurt and suspicion—than it was about Liz. With each passing day that we did okay, her confidence increased that her affair with Gronier was safely in the past and that her marriage would survive. And she was more able to be fully my wife again, fully at ease with me as before.

Even when we were pretty much "back", though—perhaps six months after the end of the affair—I was still wrestling almost daily with my rage and humiliation, my anguish and even hatred. There were very few days when I didn't have at least a moment of wanting to kill her—just wrap my fingers around her cheating, lying throat and squeeze the life out of her.

How could she have given herself to that slimeball, not once but over and over, for weeks? How could she sweat up the sheets with him, then come home and smile at me and kiss me—and fuck me—like the loving wife she was only pretending to be? How could she lie and lie and lie—how could she take the vows of our marriage ceremony so lightly? And on and on.

But I'd made my choice. I knew what I wanted, and I believed that the course I was pursuing was my best chance of getting it. So I swallowed hard; I occasionally cried in the shower; and I went on about my life.

And I want to be fair to Liz: it got better. Slowly, it got better. I had my old loving wife back long before I began to trust that she really WAS back, but eventually my feelings caught up to the reality. I knew she loved me, knew that she wanted to be with me, knew that her sexual desire for me was real.

Maybe eight months or so after I'd confronted Gronier, we were the happy loving couple we'd been years earlier—before Karlie's cancer, before Liz's affair. And perhaps two years or so after that, I woke up one morning and realized that I was happy. That I felt safe in my marriage again.

So it took a long time; and it wasn't very much fun. But it seemed I had gotten what I wanted.

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

DESTROYING RICHARD GRONIER

It was a Sunday in April. I was idly turning the pages of the "Style" section of the Cincinnati Enquirer when I saw it. "Local Lawyer to be Named 'Man of the Year'." Damned if it wasn't a picture of Richard Gronier.

Liz was outside in the yards, gardening with the girls, so I had time to read the article carefully. The Ladies' Auxiliary of the Jaycees Foundation was going to honor Gronier for his numerous contributions to charitable organizations in the Cincinnati area. There was going to be a $250-a-head fund-raising dinner in his honor at the end of May, with the proceeds going to the local Boys' & Girls' Club, one of Gronier's apparent charitable interests.

I hadn't thought much about that prick in some time, but my reaction to the article made it clear that I wasn't done with him. I folded up the Style section and put it in the trash—no point in letting Liz see the article—and made a note to myself to give Ernie Mattazollo a call.

"I don't get it, Mr. H.," he said. "You got all the photos you need of that guy with your wife—why do you want to waste your money getting' more?"

"Because, Ernie, I'm going to blow up this guy's life once and for all. I want to send photos and audio to his wife, maybe even to his law firm. There'll be a big public scandal, with any luck, and I don't want my wife's name in the middle of it."

He sighed. "Well, Mr. H., I'm happy to take your money, but I think you're nuts."

It took him less than three weeks. He came up with some marvelous shots of Gronier in the sack with Mrs. Athena Wallace, the handsome, fortyish wife of City Councilman Bernard Wallace. Even better, they'd met when his firm represented the Wallaces in a law-suit involving a commercial property they owned, so Gronier had committed a violation of legal ethics by fucking her.

I've never been happier about spending $6000 in my life. I had Ernie send photos and audio to the heavyweight Mrs. Gronier; to Mr. Wallace; to the managing partner of Gronier's law firm; and to the Cincinnati Enquirer. The results were beyond all my hopes.

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

Cincinnati Enquirer, May 5th: "Charitable Fund-raiser Cancelled". For reasons never given in the article, the Ladies' Auxiliary had pulled the plug on Gronier's dinner.

Cincinnati Enquirer, May 11th: "Prominent Cincinnati Firm faces Suit". Mr. Bernard Wallace, Cincinnati City Councilman, had filed a suit for legal misconduct against the firm of Parker & Medoff. No details were given, and the firm refused to comment.

Cincinnati Enquirer, August 18th: "City Councilman Wallace Seeks Divorce: Local Lawyer Cited". Bernard Wallace was divorcing his wife, and guess which prominent local lawyer was mentioned in the article as her alleged lover?

Cincinnati Enquirer, September 10th: "Gronier Dismissed from Firm". Parker & Medoff announced the firing of Richard Gronier, citing "improper conduct". No further details were given. Gronier could not be reached for comment.

Cincinnati Enquirer, November 11th: "Councilman Settles with Law-Firm". Parker & Medoff reached a financial settlement with Bernard Wallace in his law suit against the firm. Neither side would reveal any of the details, but an anonymous source suggested that the amount of the payment to Wallace exceeded $2.4 million.

Cincinnati Enquirer, December 2nd: "City Council Bars Firms from Contracts". A bill introduced by Councilman Bernard Wallace passed the Council unanimously; it banned the law firm of Parker & Medoff from doing any work for the city for a period of five years. Gronier's alleged misconduct was mentioned in the third paragraph.

Cincinnati Enquirer, December 29th: "Lawyer to Leave Area: Was Involved in Parker & Medoff Scandal". Anonymous sources said that Richard Gronier, facing a disciplinary hearing and possible disbarment, was moving to California. The article mentioned his recently-concluded divorce from Mrs. Elizabeth Gronier, a descendant of the wealthy Vanderbilt family.

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

I resisted all temptation to leave the newspapers out on the kitchen table, folded to any of these articles. Liz didn't read the paper every day, but that wasn't the point anyway. My aim was not to rub Liz's affair in her face; it was to destroy the son-of-a-bitch who had seduced her. I imagine that she must have heard or read something about him, because a number of the articles were on the front page, but neither she nor I ever mentioned it to one another.

And after the final article, there was no more news about Richard Gronier. I'd had my revenge, and it was pretty damn sweet.

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

RE-VISITING RICHARD GRONIER

Life was great, and it stayed pretty great until the girls were 17 and 15. There'd been no recurrence of Karlie's leukemia; in fact both girls were healthy and athletic, stars on their soccer and basketball teams. They got good grades, generally told us where they were going and when they'd be back, and all in all were terrific kids. Liz and I regularly told one another how blessed we were.

In April a guy named Tom K. Bernardo joined the staff of the Medical Center, and for a few weeks I heard a lot about him from Liz.

She told me laughingly that "he seems to think he's God's gift to women. He's already come on to Marcia, asked Alexa out on a date three times, and flirted with all the secretaries in my office."

"What's he like?" I asked, instantly a little uneasy. My absolute trust in Liz had been lost a long time ago, and it wasn't ever coming back.

"Good-looking enough, I guess. Rugged, sort of, with a strong jaw and dark eyes. But honestly, he's so conceited and aggressive! He acts like he expects to glance at a woman and have her fall into his arms. Several of the senior staff are already a little ticked at him."

For the next four weeks or so I heard an occasional story about Tom K. Bernardo—"not just Tom," my wife said, "he insists on being 'Tom K.', can you believe it?"

Apparently his aggressive attitude towards the women he worked with was becoming a problem—not so much a joke as an increasing annoyance.

And then Liz just stopped mentioning Bernardo at all. When I asked her about him once, she just waved a hand vaguely and said, "oh, he's still around. I don't seem him so much these days—we're not on the same Compensation Working Group anymore." And when I persisted, asking whether he was still bothering women on staff, she said only, "not that I've heard."

She was clearly eager to drop the subject, so I let it go. But I didn't stop wondering, and worrying.

The phrase "once burned, twice shy" certainly applied in my case. I watched every move Liz made, and it seemed to me she was falling into the same sort of preoccupied, distant manner that had characterized the weeks of her seduction by Richard Gronier.

She clearly had something on her mind—even the girls noticed at dinner a couple of times, and teased their mom about being so absent-minded. Karlie joked to me, "maybe a little Alzheimer's, dad? Should we find mom an assisted-living facility?"




Visiting Richard Gronier



Karlie and Kristina both laughed, and Liz managed a pained smile. But I knew that something was up, and it wasn't Alzheimer's.

Over the next few weeks Liz became a bit distant from me, though not less affectionate. We still made love regularly, and at least some of the time she seemed as passionate as ever. She was still interested in my work, in what the girls were up to, and in the life of our family generally, same as always.

But.

But there were occasional late meetings that kept her out until 8 pm. Occasional phone calls that she took privately in the den with the door closed. Once or twice they were calls from women colleagues—I knew this because I'd answer the phone—but I have no idea who the other callers might have been.

After one of her evening meetings she came into the house with a distracted, worried look on her face. I stood up to give her a hug and she said, "let me get a shower first, okay Alan? I'm tired and grubby."

Ignoring her protests I swept her into my arms, holding her tight and smelling her hair. She clearly hadn't showered since morning; on the other hand she didn't smell like sex, or a man, or like anything but herself. I let her go, and she headed for the bedroom.

Later, sitting with her in the kitchen while she made herself a sandwich, I said, "listen, Liz, is something going on that's bothering you? You've not been yourself lately, and I kind of miss you. Do we need to talk?"

She looked at me, alarmed, and said, "no, honey, really—work has gotten a little intense lately, but nothing special is going on. I could do without these late meetings, but when the Director or the Assistant Director says we all have to be there, there's not much I can do!"

She smiled at me, clearly trying to see whether I was mollified, and I pretended I was. But after she'd gone to bed that night I sat up in the living room until after 2 am, musing. Was it time to call Ernie Mattazollo again?

I knew one thing with absolute, perfect certainty. If Liz were cheating on me again, our marriage was over. It was with that thought in my head that I finally went up to bed.

Four days later it all blew up, in a way I'd never imagined. On her way out of the house after breakfast on Monday Liz said, "oh sweetie, turns out I've got another damn meeting tonight. I may not be home until 9 or so—is it all right if you feed yourself and the kids?" And without waiting for my reply she blew me a kiss and headed for her car in the garage.

Something snapped, and I rushed after her. As she got into her mini-van I jumped into the passenger seat and glared at her, while she looked at me in surprise.

"No it's NOT all right! Something's going on that you're not telling me about, and I want to know what the hell it is!"

"Alan," she said with elaborate, sarcastic calm, "it's just a late meeting of the Senior Staff. I really don't see what you're so upset about."

"Maybe you don't realize how many 'late meetings' you've been to recently, or how distracted you've been with me and the kids. You're not being straight with me, Liz!"

She didn't even try to disguise her anger. "For Christ's sake, Alan—when have I ever given you reason not to trust me?"

At that moment it happened. Her question exploded inside my head, and all my years of self-control vanished in an angry instant.

"When you spread your legs for Richard Gronier!" I shouted at her. "And if you're spreading 'em again for this Bernardo asshole, you can kiss our marriage goodbye!"

Utterly furious, I climbed out of the car and slammed the door. As I looked back through the window I saw Liz's face. It was absolutely white, stunned and frozen, her mouth hanging half open. She didn't make a sound as I stormed back into the house.

I stomped around the kitchen, blood pumping with fury, my head full of righteous indignation. The nerve of her—lying and cheating on me all over again!

It took more than twenty minutes before I was calm enough to begin to realize what I'd done. I'd revealed the secret that had allowed Liz and me to put our marriage back together. I'd undone all my own hard work and self-control, all my determination to find a way through the nightmare of her affair with Gronier and get my life back.

I dragged myself to work without much enthusiasm. All day I had trouble concentrating, my mind obsessively scrolling through the unhappy scenes in my immediate future. Was I going to lose everything, now, after so much time had passed? Were Karlie and Kristina going to have to live through a divorce?

Partly I was just sad. Sad for my girls, sad for myself, even a little bit sad for Liz. But mostly—and increasingly as the day wore on—I was furious. That fucking bitch! I had acted with unbelievable self-restraint, absolutely fucking KILLED myself trying to keep our marriage together, and she goes and does it again!

By late afternoon I realized I simply couldn't go home. I could not face her, could not look at her and talk civilly to her. I called and gave Kristina the message that I'd be out late and they should have dinner without me.

I drove over to the Hyatt, checked into a room, ordered a sandwich and a beer from room service, and sat gloomily watching a series of dumb movies until nearly midnight. 

Then I went home, quietly packed a suitcase with my toiletries and a few days worth of clothes, and headed back to the hotel. Fortunately Liz was a heavy sleeper—she didn't stir at all while I moved silently around the darkened bedroom. It was all I could do not to shake her awake and shout at her.

The next day at work was even worse. It seemed that with every passing hour I got more angry, less able to concentrate. My cell phone was off and I switched my office phone to go straight to voice-mail; by 4 pm I had seven messages. Three of them were from Liz, and I made myself listen to the first one.

In a quavery voice she said, "honey? Are you all right? I'm so ... so very sorry about ... Richard. I never knew you knew about that. But I swear, there's nothing going on with Tom Bernardo, or with anyone else. Please, you've got to believe me!

"Honey, please come home so we can talk. I'm so .... [a heavy sob] I'm so sorry, so very sorry... Please, please come home!"

The other two messages were more of the same. I cursed as I deleted them. She was so, so sorry! How fucking nice for me!

It was my night to cook, and I realized I couldn't leave the girls without dinner. I picked up a couple of pizzas and a big Greek salad at Giovanni's and took them home around 5:30, when I knew Liz wouldn't be home yet. I spent a few minutes hurriedly eating and joking around with the girls, then told them I had to go back in to work and left the house. I spent another angry, lonely night at the Hyatt.

The next day was my third away from the house, and there were five more messages from Liz by the end of the day, all of them tearful and apologetic, all of them swearing she wasn't screwing around with Bernardo.

I just didn't want to talk to her. I didn't want to listen to her, see her face, even fucking think about her. So I sent her a text message that said, "oh really? and I'm supposed to believe you why, exactly?" And I turned my cell phone off and headed back to the Hyatt. This time I didn't even bother to call the girls—let Liz have to explain why daddy wasn't coming home!

By Thursday, Day Four of my absence from the house, I could see that something had to be done. I was over-tired and emotionally raw. I missed my daughters like crazy, but I felt as though if I had to face Liz I'd just explode. I wondered about picking up the girls and taking them out for dinner, without Liz.

Then at about 2:30 a middle-aged man I vaguely recognized came into my office.

"Mr. Hendricks?" he said. "I'm Peter Danielson, a lawyer at the Medical Center. We've met once or twice before."

I did remember him, from a couple of social gatherings with Liz's colleagues, and I invited him to sit.

"May I close the door?" he asked, and I nodded, waiting while he returned to his chair.

"I know I have no legally binding way to do this," he began, "but I'm going to request that you keep our conversation confidential. I hope that once we've talked you'll see why I'm making that request of you.

"Your wife asked me to come speak to you," he continued, and when I started to respond he put up his hand to stop me.

"There's a very ... touchy situation at the Medical Center right now having to do with Tom K. Bernardo, and she indicated to me that ... that, well, you may have gotten the wrong impression. If you don't mind, I'm going to fill you in on the circumstances—and as I say I will respectfully ask that you keep this totally confidential."

The story he told me came as quite a surprise. Bernardo had sexually harassed several women at the hospital (and in one case committed sexual battery—fondling her breasts without warning and against her will). Danielson was working with the women, two of whom reported to Liz, as they carefully built the case against Bernardo. It appeared, based on some discreet research, that Bernardo had left a previous job under the cloud of similar accusations.

The trouble was that he was the nephew of the junior senator from Indiana, and everybody was afraid of the potential shit-storm that his uncle could raise if the situation weren't handled right. So Peter and his legal staff were proceeding very carefully and quietly to get all the affidavits and evidence lined up before calling in the police. That's what Liz's late meetings had been about, and that's why she'd been so pre-occupied and distant for several weeks.

When Danielson was finished with his story I sat quietly for a few moments. At first I was relieved and elated: thank God she wasn't cheating on me again! Maybe we could really work things out after all.

But my elation didn't last long. Why the fuck couldn't she have told me this story, or at least a little bit of it? Didn't she trust me enough to keep my mouth shut? For that matter, how did I know that Danielson wasn't blowing smoke up my ass? He and Liz worked together and knew each other well—was it possible he was just doing her a favor by spinning a tall tale for my benefit?

"Why didn't Liz tell me this?" I asked him. "Or some of it, at least."

He half-smiled apologetically. "That was at my request, Mr. Hendricks. We were all a little ... well, paranoid, frankly. So I asked that no one breathe a word about this, even to spouses, until it was made public."

"And when will that be?" I asked sardonically.

"Next Monday," he said earnestly. "We've finally gotten everything in place, and the arrest will probably be made by Monday afternoon."

There wasn't much more to say. I thought a bit more, then told him I was willing to keep the matter confidential.

"Thank you," he said, rising from his chair. "And I'm sincerely sorry if this ... situation has caused a problem between you and your wife. She's ... been under a lot of strain about it. Several of the victims are close friends of hers. I know we'll all be glad when the matter is in the hands of the police and Bernardo is removed from the working environment." 

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

When I came in the front door that evening Liz was standing in the front hall, wearing an apron and looking very nervous. There were dark circles under her eyes, and I could see the tension in her whole body. I imagined I looked much the same.

"Hi Alan," she said, coming forward to hug me; but the look on my face must have changed her mind, because she stopped, stricken, and just gazed at me.

"Hello Liz." I moved past her to hang up my coat in the closet. "Are the girls home?"

"They're upstairs at their computers," she said, as I walked into the kitchen. Dinner was simmering away on the stove, and the table was already set. I got myself a beer and sat down at the counter.

"Did Peter Danielson reach you?" she asked, sounding a little nervous.

"Yeah, he came and spoke to me today."

There was a silence. Liz stirred the pasta on the stove, apparently waiting for me to say more.

"Honey, I hope—I hope that he reassured you. About Bernardo, I mean. That there is absolutely nothing going on between us. I'm so sorry I didn't tell you!"

"Yeah, well, I heard his story. As for reassured ... let's just say that the jury is still out."

She looked shocked. "I don't understand. Didn't he explain about the ... sexual harassment, and the delicate case?"

"Yes," I said evenly. "A very convincing story. It might even turn out to be true, I guess. But let's just say I'll be waiting until I see it all in the papers."

Liz opened her mouth, then closed it. I could see she was astonished by my skepticism, but I didn't particularly give a fuck!

After more than a minute of silence she said, "are ... will you ... are you coming back home?"

"I'm back, for now. My suitcase is in my trunk—I'll get it later, when the girls are in bed. How are they doing, by the way—what do they think is going on?"

"I told them you were working on a big project and needed to stay several nights late at the office, but I don't imagine they believed me. I just ... didn't want to get into it, at least not until we had talked a little bit."

She turned to me imploringly, and I could see the tracks of tears on her cheeks.

"Alan, please—I know we have a lot to talk about. About ... Richard Gronier, and all that. I am so, so sorry. I never dreamed that you knew anything about it. I am so ashamed!" She broke off, and cried quietly into her hands for a minute.

Then she looked back up at me and said, "but I never—never!—did anything with Tom Bernardo, or with any other man. I swear it!"

I looked at her and shrugged. I wasn't feeling particularly convinced.

Dinner was strange, and oddly amusing. The girls were delighted to see me and full of curiosity about what was going on. But, being teenagers, they didn't express either emotion directly. They teased me more than usual—I was looking old, my tie was horrible, why didn't I exercise more—and I reveled in it, understanding that it was their way of reconnecting with me.

Their energy and high spirits also made it easier to conceal the fact that I had nothing to say to Liz. I could pretty much ignore her without it being obvious to the girls, who were busy with their own stories and their teasing.

After dinner I spent some time with each of the girls, catching up on their school situations and social issues, and just reveling in the joy of my two wonderful daughters. And when they'd headed for their rooms I retrieved my suitcase, unpacked, undressed and went straight to bed. I did all this without a word to Liz, who was standing in the bathroom in her nightie, brushing out her hair.

She watched me warily, and when I was about to turn out the light she said, "Alan—can we talk?"

"I don't think there's anything to talk about," I said, rolling on my side away from her.

"But honey, we—"

"When I see Tom Bernardo's face in the newspaper," I interrupted her brusquely, "and I read all about how he's been arrested, then I'll be ready to talk to you. Until then, I'm back because I missed the girls."

And with that I turned out the light. Just before sleep overwhelmed me, I heard her crying quietly.

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

For the next day, Friday, and through the weekend and the following Monday, I tried as hard as I could to be my normal self around Karlie and Kristina. I think I succeeded pretty well, though they couldn't possibly have failed to notice the strain between Liz and me.

As for Liz, my anger and suspicion threatened to boil over whenever she spoke to me. I was cold and distant, responding to her questions with a minimum of words, making clear in my body language that I didn't want to be around her. Her face wore a look of helpless misery; but instead of drawing my sympathy it only made me angrier. You bitch, I thought, you earned this! You've got a husband who doesn't trust you one inch, and you're the one who made it happen!

On Tuesday morning I was standing in the kitchen in my bathrobe, making coffee, when Liz came in from the front porch with the Cincinnati Enquirer in her hand. Without a word she handed it to me, holding the front page so I could see the headline:

"Medical Center Administrator Arrested"

There in black and white was a picture of Bernardo, obviously a file photo. I took the paper and read the story carefully. Sexual harassment and sexual battery, four alleged victims, nine charges filed. He'd been suspended from the hospital; he'd hired Granato & Greevey, one of Cincinnati's most prominent law firms, to defend him. He declared his complete innocence, claiming that it was all "just a misunderstanding". Anonymous quotes from hospital colleagues professed shock and dismay: he was such a nice guy, no one would have expected it, blah blah blah.

I put the paper down and regarded Liz, who was watching me expectantly.

"I guess it's true," I said slowly. "The guy sounds like a total scumbag. Can you tell me who the victims were, and how they're doing?"

To my surprise, her face sagged and she started to cry. She covered her face with her hands, and within moments I heard heaving, wracking sobs.

For a moment tenderness broke through my wall of anger and resentment; I moved to the chair next to Liz and gently pulled her into my arms, letting her rest her head on my shoulder as she wept noisily for several minutes.

Finally she calmed down enough to look up at me, wet-faced. "I was so afraid you'd never talk to me again! I just didn't know what to do."

She blew her nose, then wiped her streaming eyes with a napkin. Sitting up straight, she looked right into my eyes and said solemnly, "Alan, I had nothing to do with Bernardo—nothing! I swear it. Except helping Alexa and Diane and the others when that son-of-a-bitch harassed them. They've been wrecks, especially Diane. And that's what all the meetings have been about, and why I've been so pre-occupied."

"I know. I wish to hell you'd told me about it, but I know Danielson asked you not to."

There was a silence. The tender mood seemed to slip away, silently, and the room was full of tension again.

She said, "but ... there's the other ... my ... my affair."

I said nothing, just watched her try to hold my gaze. She couldn't do it, and looked down at the table.

"Alan, I am so sorry. So ashamed. I had no idea you knew, and I ...

"When it ... ended, I ... it was like, within a few days, I started to wake up again. Like I'd been in some kind of dream. And I was so full of horror at what I'd done! So angry at myself—just furious.

"And then I realized I was the luckiest woman on earth. I'd done this ... this terrible, unforgivable thing. But it was over, and you didn't know, and I still had my marriage and my children. It was like crashing my car, horribly, because I was reckless, and walking away without a scratch.

"So I realized that there was only one thing..."

Liz was interrupted by the sounds of the girls pounding down the stairs into the kitchen, late for the school bus as usual. For a few minutes the room was full of frenzy and laughter, as they grabbed for a muffin and a glass of juice, shouted their after-school plans to us, gave us each a hug and kiss and sprinted out the door.

When they were gone we grinned at one another, the room seemingly still resounding with their noise and energy. "We're so lucky," I said, and Liz nodded.

"They're terrific girls," she said. "And it isn't all just luck, either—we've been pretty good parents all these years."

We smiled a moment longer, and Liz took my hand in hers. But then she leaned toward me and said, "Alan, how did you know—about ... about my affair? And why didn't you say anything?"

"No!" I said harshly. I was instantly furious, as though a switch had been thrown. All the tenderness and closeness of that morning had vanished. I dropped her hand and stood up from the table.




Visiting Richard Gronier



"We did just fine for eight years not talking about it, and I'm not going to talk about it now."

"But honey, we ... "

"What part of 'No' did you not understand, Liz? I have to get ready for work."

Without a look back, I stomped up the stairs to shave and dress.

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

GETTING PAST RICHARD GRONIER?

The next three weeks were a misery. For me and Liz, and probably for the girls as well. They must have grown more and more mystified as their parents treated them lovingly but barely spoke to one another. And it was surely clear that Liz was sad and beseeching towards me, while I was cold and distant. 

I simply couldn't help myself. When I was away from Liz, at work or at the gym, I could be rational. Her one and only affair had been years earlier—I'd suffered then, dealt with it then, managed to keep it together while waiting for her to come back to me. And she had—she loved me, and I knew it, and for years now we'd been happy again.

But when I saw her, and above all when she attempted any sort of intimacy or connection with me, rage just surged through me. In my mind's eye I saw all the horrible pictures I hadn't imagined in years: her with Gronier in bed, writhing in excitement and pleasure. Her arms wrapped around him, sharing deep kisses, his tongue buried in her mouth. Humping up at him in missionary position, panting out her excitement; or riding him, or kneeling before him sucking his cock, licking his balls, smiling up at him....

I couldn't talk civilly to her, unless it was some routine conversation about work or the house or the girls. Whenever she tried to discuss the affair, or her feelings or mine, I felt an explosion coming and I cut her off—or just left the room.

I was back to taking long showers again—not crying so much any more as fuming with anger, cursing her and under my breath, revisiting my elaborate fantasies of revenge. Packing up the girls and just disappearing, leaving her penniless, never letting her see any of us again—that sort of thing.

As for sex? Don't make me laugh. The very idea of touching Liz brought all my anger and jealousy to a boil; just thinking about it infuriated me.

She could tell I didn't want to talk to her—I made that amply clear. So on a couple of evenings as we got into bed, she gently reached for my arm and stroked it, a familiar kind of unspoken invitation whose meaning was very clear. During our happy years I had always been thrilled when she indicated an interest in sex; I was glad that it wasn't always me taking the lead, that she also felt desire for me.

But now I just said, "no, Liz," without even turning around. She withdrew her hand and lay down beside me without a word.

A couple of nights after one of these rejections she waited in bed for me, and when I came out of the bathroom she began speaking before I could climb into bed and turn out the light.

"Alan, I love you and miss you and I want to make love. Can we, please?"

I was caught by surprise. I sat down on the side of the bed and thought for a minute.

"No," I said finally, "I don't want to. I can't even think about sex with you without my mind being filled with images of you and him. It makes me furious—and I don't even want to touch you."

"But Alan," Liz said, starting to cry, "that was YEARS ago! We've been so happy together since then. Please! Won't you let me make it up to you?"

I just shook my head, not looking at her, and listened to her cry quietly. After a few minutes she got up, took her bathrobe from the closet and left the room. I climbed into bed; and to my amazement, fell quickly asleep.

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

The following day at about 6:30 I walked into a quiet house, with Liz waiting for me at the kitchen table. She looked tired and sad, her face drawn, the bags under her eyes deeper than I remembered.

"Karlie and Kristina walked over to eat at Chinese Garden. I need to talk to you alone, Alan."

"Okay." I sat down across from her.

"I'm at my wit's end," she said quietly. "I love you, and I'm sorry, and I don't know how to make it right or even how to reach you.

"When I did that terrible thing, when I ... got involved with Gronier, you must have been so angry! And you never said a word. And now here we are eight years later and it's as though I've lost you. I just don't know what to do."

I didn't have an answer for her, so I just shrugged.

"Alan, can we see a counselor? I could get a recommendation from Sarah at the hospital, without telling her who it's for. She knows who all the good people are—she's been in her job for years now."

I had thought about this possibility as well. "All right. But it has to be a man, okay? I want to talk to somebody who can maybe understand how I feel, being in the position I'm in."

"That's fine with me, honey," she said, obviously relieved. "I'll talk to her tomorrow." She reached over and took my hand, and I let her hold it. "Thank you." 

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

Sebastian McElroney was cheerful, fiftyish, and fat. Not just chubby—the guy looked like a beachball. He had a ruddy complexion and big jowls that jiggled whenever he laughed or chuckled. But somehow I could tell within five minutes that he was smart and that he knew his business. Something about the watchfulness of his eyes and how carefully he listened. I knew that he was taking it all in.

After the usual welcoming chit-chat, he asked us why we were there, and Liz answered first.

"I ... had an affair. Eight years ago. I thought my husband never knew about it, and it ended and our marriage has been wonderful since then. I've been really happy—I think we both have. Then a couple of months ago he thought I was having another affair—which I wasn't—and he told me he knew about the first one—sorry, I mean the only one, the one from eight years ago.

"And since then Alan's been angry and distant. He won't talk to me about his feelings, doesn't want to let me apologize or explain or tell him how I'm feeling. And he won't ... be with me at all, sexually I mean.

"I love him and miss him, and I feel guilty as hell and I don't know what to do." She sat back, and dabbed at her eyes with a tissue.

"Alan?" Sebastian said. "Is that about how you see it?"

"Pretty much. I ... I managed to handle my anger back then; I decided on a strategy to deal with Liz's affair and I stuck to it, and it worked out okay. But now... Ever since I told her I knew about her and Richard Gronier—that's the guy's name—all the old anger has come back. I just can't control it, and I'm mad at Liz all the time."

"Okay," he said after a minute. "Liz, could you tell me about the affair, how and why you think it happened? We don't need the uh, specific details. And Alan, I'll ask you not to comment until she's done, then you'll get your turn."

Liz gave the background: the terrible year of Karlie's leukemia, our exhaustion and desperation, then the unbelievable relief of her cure. How Liz and I had tried to get our work-lives back on track and had lost touch with one another a little. All this was familiar, and she told the story pretty much the way I would have.

But the seduction story was new to me, of course. Gronier had been very smooth. He'd taken it slow, become her friend, listened to her talk about Karlie's illness, the toll it had taken on our family, how she and I had drifted apart. He'd been subtle about insinuating himself between Liz and me: making her feel like he was the one she could confide in, he was the one who understood what she was going through, not her distant, emotionally unavailable husband.

"How long did it last?" Sebastian asked her gently.

"The ... physical part didn't start for a long time. But ... about six weeks or so, I guess. We first, ah, first touched ..." she turned to me and said, "I'm sorry, Alan.

"He first touched me sometime in September. And then ... well, it ended near the end of October."

"What happened?" Sebastian prompted her.

"He broke it off. Just called me in the middle of a work-day and said hey, it's been great, you've been fun, but it's over. He was brutal. I felt like I'd been punched in the gut. And then, over the next few days, like I'd been the biggest fool in the world."

She glanced at me.

"It took a few days before I started to come out of it, and realize exactly how big an idiot I'd been, and how lucky I was to still have a husband. It was like recovering from a bad fever—slowly, gradually feeling better, feeling more like yourself, you know?

"And then I started to come back to myself, and see that Alan and the girls had been there the whole time, kind of waiting for me—even though they didn't know anything about it, or so I thought."

She stopped speaking, suddenly, and shrugged her shoulders.

"Can you say a little more about how you were feeling? During the affair, and then after it ended?" Sebastian's words were gentle, his manner serious but welcoming.

"While it was going on, I was ... I was sort of hypnotized, almost. I was two different people, or in two different worlds or something.

"When I was with Richard, I.... Well, he was skillful. As a lover, I mean. And at first it was very exciting, the way sex is with someone new. So when we were together..."

She glanced at me, to see how I was taking it. I sat unmoving, looking at her blankly. I felt empty.

"When you were together..." Sebastian encouraged her.

"During the seduction—" she grimaced, then went on, "I was swept away, I guess. I mean, I thought about being with him all the time, I replayed the sex in my mind. He'd managed to make himself into my lover, somehow—as though he understood me, he was my confidant, my savior almost."

She turned to face me. "I would never have jumped into bed with him just for the sex, Alan—not with him or anyone. It wasn't about the sex for me, although I could see later that it was only about that for him. 

"The first few times we ... had sex, he was gentle and attentive, the way a lover is. But after that it pretty quickly turned into something else—into pure fucking. I didn't realize it at the time; but when I thought about it afterwards, I saw that in his mind I was just some slut to fuck, like a whore he didn't have to pay."

She looked at the floor. "I was such a fool." We waited for her to continue.

"And when I was away from him I was numb. Unhappy and preoccupied. I couldn't figure out why I was cheating on Alan. I still loved him, and I knew what I was doing was terrible—but it was like there was a cloud between me and my feelings, like being under Novocain or something. I knew it was wrong, but I didn't feel anything.

"And when he ... when he asked me what was bothering me, or said he was worried that we were growing apart, I—I just didn't want to deal with it. So I made excuses about being tired, or busy at work. I just pushed everything away. I never allowed myself to really think about what I was doing with Richard, or what the consequences might be."

More silence. I realized I'd folded my arms tightly across my chest, and that I was trembling a little.

"And afterwards? Once the affair ended?" Sebastian prompted.

"Well, like I said, it was like coming out of a fever—like a fog lifting, and within a couple of weeks I could feel things again.

"What I felt most of all was shame. I loved Alan! And I wasn't the kind of woman who cheated on her husband, who risked her happy marriage and the welfare of her kids for some sleazy love-affair.

"But along with that, as time went on I just felt lucky. I'd done this horrendous thing and somehow NOT ruined my marriage and my life. With each day that passed I felt more and more thankful, and more determined to make it up to Alan. I just wanted to love him, and ... make love with him, and be the wife that he deserved. He'd been so patient and kind with me!

"So I..." she looked at me again, "I came back to myself, I guess. I made more time for me and Alan, we made love more, I looked for ways to show him how much he meant to me...

"We were happy, I thought. I still think that—we've been happy. For eight years now. And I've felt happy, and lucky as hell. Until...until a couple of months ago."

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

We went and sat in Sebastian's office twice a week, always in the same chairs, me on the left, and told our stories. When it was my turn I didn't have to talk about Karlie's illness or its aftermath, but I told him about Liz's increasingly distant and abstracted manner, and her occasional evasiveness.

Then I told him about the day she pretended not to know who Richard Gronier was, and how much that had frightened me.

"So I hired a Private Investigator—and he got me what I asked for. Photos and audio."

Liz gasped, and I turned to her. Her face was horrified, staring.

"I never listened to the tapes," I said, "and I never looked at the photos. I knew I couldn't—somehow I knew I'd never be able to get past it if I did."

I turned back to Sebastian. "Just imagining was bad enough. The anger was...

"It was like nothing I'd ever experienced in my life. I took extra-long showers, just to have some time alone. I cried, leaning against the wall. Or I fantasized: about killing them both, maybe stabbing or strangling them; or about catching them in the hotel room and dragging them naked out into the parking lot. About confronting Liz and making her confess, right in front of the children—or at Thanksgiving dinner in front of her parents."

Next to me Liz was as white as a sheet.

Quietly Sebastian said, "it must have been an awful time for you. But you didn't confront her, didn't ask for a divorce. Did you think about it?"

I laughed. "Of course! I even thought about packing up the kids and just disappearing, moving to another state. But I lived through a divorce—my parents split up when I was ten, and it was awful. Frightening. They were both so angry, they couldn't manage to be parents to me and my brother and sister any more. They behaved like two children, and we three were caught in the middle.

"And some years ago my brother and his wife divorced, and I watched their children go through the same thing. I just didn't want to do that to Karlie and Kristina. How could I? And after Karlie being so sick....

"So I decided I'd try as hard as I could to save the marriage."

"But you could have gone to Liz and told her you knew—insisted she end the affair," he said.

"I ... I just didn't think that would work. I wasn't sure I could control my anger. I imagined weeks, months of her being all guilty, trying to make it up to me, and me being so furious I couldn't even speak to her."

I smiled ironically. "Sort of like where we are now.

"Plus," I continued, "I knew I wouldn't be able to believe a word she said. If she told me she loved me, or pulled me into bed, how I could I trust her? How could I know she really wanted me, as opposed to just hoping I wouldn't throw her out on her ass?

"I knew that I'd have to see what she did—after the affair, I mean. I'd have to see if, all on her own, she still loved me and wanted me.

"So I faked it. I played the loving husband and kept my anger and despair inside me. Except in the shower. I went to work, came home and cooked dinner, took care of the kids—even had sex with Liz from time to time, though I wouldn't call it making love."

Next to me Liz sat quietly, looking pale and devastated.

"And your plan was to wait it out, just put up with it, until Liz's affair ended?"

Honesty time. Was I going to tell the truth?

"No," I said. "I went to see Gronier, showed him one of the photos, and threatened him. I made him call Liz and end it. I was in the room when he did it."

"Oh my God," Liz said quietly, and started to cry.

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

"Here are a few things I think," Sebastian said. We'd been seeing him for three weeks.

"First, there's no doubt that Richard Gronier was an experienced and skillful seducer. He knew what he was doing, and he'd undoubtedly done it a number of times before. He was patient and subtle and he got behind Liz's defenses. I didn't hear a word in her story to suggest that she was out there looking to cheat on her husband."

I started to interrupt and he put up a hand to me. "That doesn't mean, Alan, that Liz is off the hook—not at all. Adultery is adultery. But if you two are going to move forward, you're both best off seeing things in their full context and understanding them as completely as possible.

"He wanted sex with her—and he became her friend and confidant first, to lure her into the sexual relationship.

"Now—on your side. You did something really heroic, Alan. You managed to see past your own pain to consider what your children needed and put them first. I'm not sure your strategy was the best, but it was what felt right to you at the time.

"And from the sound of things, it really worked. You've both said that the last few years of the marriage have been very good.

"However, Alan, your plan restored the balance of power to you, in a way you may not have been aware of.

"Part of the pain of the situation you were in, being cheated on, is learning that someone you love and trust has kept a hugely important secret from you. Doing what you did allowed you to one-up Liz: you took the power of her secret away and established one of your own. Now SHE was in the dark, since you knew about the affair and she didn't know you knew."

I nodded. I had sort of known that, though never quite as clearly as Sebastian had just outlined it.

He said, "my guess is that, during the incredibly painful time of her affair and its aftermath, part of what sustained you was the power you felt you had over her, your own secret knowledge."

He leaned forward a little. "Again, there's nothing wrong with that. Instead of the affair tearing your family apart, you found a way to keep your marriage alive. It was brave, and kind of shrewd, actually.

"But neither of you has told me about what happened two months ago. What changed, Alan—why did you reveal your secret to Liz after so many years?"

I told him about the situation with Tom K. Bernardo, the weeks of Liz being distant and pre-occupied, and how worried I'd become that she was cheating on me again.

"I still wouldn't have said anything, though," I told him. "But I complained to her one morning about all her so-called late meetings and we got into an argument. And she said something and I just snapped—in an instant."

I shook my head. "Eight years of self-restraint, and it all vanished in a single moment."

Sebastian said quietly, "what did she say?"

" 'When have I ever given you reason not to trust me?' "

There was a long silence in the room. I could hear the air conditioning whirring quietly through the ducts.

Then Liz said, "I remember that now. I'd forgotten the words. But when I said them, in the split second before you replied, I realized what I'd said and I felt ashamed."

"I couldn't stop myself," I said. "I hit her with it, with Gronier—and told her that if she was doing it again, with Bernardo, our marriage was over. Then I just got the hell out of there."

I shrugged. "That's pretty much the whole story."

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

At 4:08 on a Tuesday afternoon I raised my head as my office door opened and was shocked to see Karlie and Kristina coming into the room, carrying their bookbags.

"Hey dad—got a minute for a couple of relatives?"

"Of course, sweetie! Come and sit down!" I kissed them both, and they flopped into my office chairs.

"To what do I owe the pleasure?" I said happily. They almost never bothered to come down to my office—my work was not of much interest to them.

They exchanged a look—then Kristina got back up and closed the door. Karlie said quietly, "what's going on with you and mom?"

"Going on?"

Karlie rolled her eyes at me. "Get real, dad. We're not nine years old anymore. It's been almost two months now. You're both fine with us, but you hardly talk to each other. You seem angry and mom is just sad. A couple of times at night we've heard her crying downstairs in the living room. I mean, duh!"




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."