WHEN WERE MARRIED - BOOK ONE - THE LONG FALL

FOUR LITTLE WORDS Part 13

I forced myself to keep reading. There weren't many incriminating messages after that last one. Then I found one from Deb to her Lancelot dated two weeks ago.

Deb: "I'm sorry I didn't come by for lunch today, Lance. I meant to call and give you some lie about being busy or something coming up at the last minute, but then I found I just couldn't lie to you like that. We've become TOO good friends. You deserve the truth.

"I've decided we need to cool it, back up a bit. I know that you consider me a friend, but I also know you're sexually attracted to me. That's flattering. You're a hunk, a beautiful young hunk, and you have no idea how much you've flattered my ego by flirting with me. But I always made it clear that I was a married woman – a faithful married woman.

"Notice I didn't say a happily married woman. You know me too well for me to say that. I've been a lot more honest with you about my marriage and the problems we're having than I should have been, than I would have been with anybody else.

"The worst of it is, I feel so much closer to you than I do to Bill. He's my husband, but he doesn't even know our marriage is dying slowly. He's clueless. Such a smart, smart man, so skillful in the courtroom, but in real life, in our marriage, he's a loser. He's lost my lust, and my respect and slowly he's losing my love.

"I feel like an animal caught in a trap. I've tried a thousand times to think of some way to start breathing life back into our relationship, our marriage. I've thought about trying to invigorate our sexual life. But...dammit, I'm not that good an actress. I fake orgasms all the time, but I can't fake excitement. And he doesn't excite me any more.

"He's gone to pot and his dick doesn't feel or look as big and hard as it was. He doesn't get anywhere near as excited as I remember. He used to strip me and throw me down and fuck me hard. Now, he squeezes my breasts, licks me and then rolls on and pumps for a little while, gets off, and rolls over.

"It doesn't matter how smart he is, or how good an attorney, as a man, a male animal, he is not satisfying me anymore. And hasn't for a long long time. I wonder sometimes, if he even misses the hot sex we used to have. I think maybe he's content to be a father and a successful attorney and climb off and on me once or twice a month and get his rocks off.

"I always knew he was – sedate – dull I guess. He wasn't a party animal in college, and I used to love dancing and partying, the more the better. But it's gotten worse as he's gotten older. He has to be dragged to parties and he only goes when there's some political reason to be seen there. He doesn't dance, or doesn't like to.

"I've made a life without him. A lot of times when I tell him I'm at a faculty meeting, I'm out with some girls from school, or girls and guys like the times we've gone out dancing. I haven't done anything wrong, but I want to be someone other than a wife and mother for a few hours. I want to have men look at me and admire me. I wish to God I wanted him to be one of those men, but I really don't care anymore. I don't think of him that way.

"I can't fake being excited in bed and I can't tell him I've been going out and partying without him, even though I haven't done anything wrong with men, because what do I say when he asks me why I lied about where I was going? Do I tell him I'm happier when he's not around? It's the truth, but it would go over like a lead balloon.

"Anyway, Dear Friend, I didn't mean to write a novel here. I just wanted to let off some steam and let you know why we won't be having lunch or seeing each other much anymore. Somehow, somehow I feel like things are getting ready to explode, to change. I don't know how. I don't know what I might do. But I don't think I can go on much longer like this.

"And if – if the worst, or best, happens and I'm not married in a few months or more, I don't want you to be anywhere near the wreckage. I don't want anybody, Bill or my kids, or our friends, to suspect that our relationship, our friendship, had anything to do with my marriage ending.

"Because it didn't. You've been a gentleman and a friend when I needed a friend. You will always have a piece of my heart and if I – somehow – work things out with Bill, I will never forget you and I hope you go on to have a happy life. Your friend always, Debbie."

I must have sat there for hours because the next thing I knew, the quality of the light coming in from outside had changed. I glanced at the clock. It was 6 p.m. I don't even know what I'd been thinking about during those hours. I think I must have been envisioning the way my life was going to turn out.

I wondered what it would be like coming home to an empty house or apartment when Debbie was with another man. What it would be like to see my kids only occasionally and I wasn't even sure that would happen. What would it be like to lie in a bed and for the first time in half my life, lie there alone and not hear her breathing beside me? What would it be like not to be able to put a hand out and rest it on the soft skin of her arm or shoulder. How would I shop for groceries for just me?

Little things, but after 20 years, they were as important as the sex. She had been a part of my entire life, and losing her was going to be like having a part of my body torn out and ripped away.

Because I had no doubt now, there wasn't going to be an 'us' in the future. There wouldn't be a Maitland family living in a comfortable Mandarin home. That was history. And now I knew why in her mind our marriage was already a part of her past.

Somehow I made myself come alive again. I batch printed out copies of all emails to and from her for the last six months, including the pertinent emails to and from Lance. Not that I needed them for any legal reason.

Adultery isn't a factor in divorces today, at least not in Florida where no-fault divorces have been the law of the land for over a generation and she could even claim that she hadn't even been having an emotional affair with another man. I could argue it was an affair, but so what. She apparently hadn't slept with the guy, hadn't fucked him, maybe kissed him a few times. It didn't make any difference.

I knew I should confront her with the emails. Make her admit that she had fallen in love with the guy, or least had fallen out of love with me. But again, so what? If she admitted it, what difference would it make? I'd lost her.

Oh, I could fight to force us into counseling, try to slow things down enough to give me a chance to woo her again.

But who was I kidding? With what I knew now, counseling wouldn't make a difference. And I thought she'd just laugh if I tried to play the stud in bed. Every time I was with her I'd see that mental image of her lusting over Lance's flat abs and comparing them to my old man's belly. And if I could work up a decent erection, I'd lose it at that point.

By 8 p.m. neither Bill Jr. nor Kelly had shown. I called the homes where they were staying and was told their mother had picked them up. She'd obviously taken them to her parents to spend the weekend. Great. I'd have the place to myself.

I sat in front of the dark TV from Hell and tried to think of what I wanted to do. I felt like a turtle that little boys had picked up and placed on its back. I could spin around, but I couldn't move, couldn't advance and couldn't retreat.

When I did start moving, I amazed myself. I found myself going up to our bedroom, pulling two suitcases out of a closet and then systematically putting in enough pants, shirts, shoes, coats, and miscellaneous clothing items to go a couple of weeks without having to wear the same items twice.

I filled the back of the Escalade and then went back in and got miscellaneous court files and computer discs. I did a second mass print of all Debbie's emails to make sure I didn't miss any and to have a copy in case anything happened to the first set, then wiped them off with a scrubber program that left no copies that anybody would ever be able to recreate.

I thought about scrubbing Bill Jr.'s and Kelly's, but she would have expected me to be monitoring their computer use. I didn't think she'd ever expect me to be monitoring her, and if it hadn't been for the events of the last few days, I never would have looked at hers.

I would have been much happier if I'd never looked at them, of course, but I don't think anything would really have changed in the long run, except she probably would have completely blindsided me when she left and it would have hurt me even more.