Obsolution ✔

Chapter 7

While tucking Helia into bed, it occurred to Ty how little time he had spent with his daughter. Samantha had been the one to take her to the doctor earlier in the week, finally removing the cast from her finger.

Ty planned to take Helia to the park the next morning. Jennifer wouldn't go, even if he asked her along.

If only Jennifer was a completely terrible mother, it would be easier for Ty to hate her. When he saw her reciting the alphabet with Helia, tickling to prompt her along, his love for his wife felt right. A few hours later, she bathed Helia and handed her off to Ty.

"Girls' night. Be back late."

"Wasn't that last night?" Ty asked.

And the night before?

"Bye-bye Mama." Helia waved.

At that moment, Ty's love weighted him like an anchor.

~*~

Jennifer snuck back into the house in the pre-hours of the morning. Samantha sat in judgment from the living room couch. She glared as Jennifer breezed past, her glare receding to appreciation when she eyed the tight fit of Jennifer's mini skirt.

She remembered running her hands all over that body. Jennifer had always been very responsive, arching into Sam's touch. A stone skipped across her memory, ceasing her fantasy.

She's not your wife. She never arched into your touch, a voice told her.

But I remember her, Samantha thought. I love her.

How would you fuck? Would you scissor, or just cuddle? The question was cruel, and she pushed it aside.

"Dressed pretty hot for a girls' night, aren't ya?" Samantha inquired.

Jennifer half-turned, half-drunkenly swayed in Samantha's direction. "Whaddya mean?"

"Just sayin', what you're wearin' right now...I'd fuck ya." Jenn started, and Sam smiled. "Haven't ever considered being with a woman?"

"Sure." This time, it was Samantha who was startled. "I've even done it a couple times."

Then she did the most shocking thing of all by kissing Samantha. Not a soft kiss, but a sloppy, drunken kiss, full of intent. Samantha ignored the warning in her brain, and ran her hands up and down Jennifer's back. A swelling occurred, different from the swelling Sam rememebered happening in similiar situations, but a swelling all the same. Something inside of her was opening, parting, and she wanted to put something inside of the opening. She wanted Jennifer to come inside of her. The thought stopped her cold with how disgusuting it was. Not natural at all. Then, Jennifer cupped her breasts, and she nearly moaned out, Jenn.

The lush broke off the kiss first. "But that doesn't mean I want to do it again, or that I want to with you. Goodnight."

The clarity of Jennifer's words were balanced out by her actions: a full regurgitation onto the carpet.

Sam lost her hard-on after seeing that.

~*~

The next day, Sam recounted the night's events while she and Ty watched Helia chase squirrels at the park. Ty absorbed what he felt was the more important part of the story:

"You propositioned my wife?"

Sam shot Ty a measured look before answering. "That's what bothers you most? Not the fact that your wife came stumbling in at 5am for the billionth time, but that I had a millisecond of lust for the one woman I can remember loving?"

Sam wasn't just his twin; she was him, he reminded himself. Of course it would be natural for her to be attracted to Jennifer, but it was Ty's ingrained response to view her attraction as unnatural.

"At least she came home." He couldn't say the words and look at Sam.

She immediately guessed at the reason for his shame. "You had sex with her this morning, didn't you?"

Ty kept his eye on Helia. "Don't throw sticks at the squirrels, sweetheart!'

"Fuckin' dirty dog." Sam grinned, though her eyes were cold. "It's why you didn't care that she skipping our outing to the park. She paid her dues, huh?"

Hearing the truth laid out once again cut Ty. He loved his wife, but he could admit (privately) her sexual advances helped him to forgive her transgressions. It wasn't so much forgiveness as it was temporary amnesia, and he told Sam what it meant.

"When we're intimate--"

"When you're fucking," Sam clarified.

"When we're intimate," Ty stressed the words, "a reset goes off in my brain. Later, my need to fix us is gone. I don't get the feeling back until the next time she comes home drunk."

There, he stopped. Ty had never vocalized his problems, and hearing it made him understand: the unhealthy cycle his marriage went through was somewhat perpetuated by him. With Ty rested the power to stop the lies, the drinking, the neglect, but it had continued for years, partly because he couldn't resist Jennifer's lavish blow jobs.

She made a prostitute of herself, and you paid her, a nasty voice whispered.

Ty hit himself in the head, trying to knock loose what he had learned about himself. He felt a hand on his shoulder, and he assumed it was Sam's. Instead, he met with Helia's big brown eyes.

"Daddy!" She kissed him.

Your mother and I are frauds. We are exposing you to a twisted relationship, and it may damage your psyche, your ability to trust in people.

For a trembling moment, the words threatened to tumble from Ty's mouth, but he bit them back.

"What is it, sweet pea?" he asked instead.

Helia held up a leaf. "Look!"

"Very pretty." She had one hand behind her back, and Ty took the bait. "What else did you find?"

"Chocolate." She put out her other hand, revealing a shriveled piece of dog shit.

Sam let out a whooping laugh. Ty joined in. Between laughs, he instructed Helia to put down the feces. She giggled, repeating the word "feces" to perfection.

As he watched Helia fling the chocolate away, he thought of how much he loved her, and how he would never regret his part in creating such a human being. Ty didn't linger on how he felt about his latest human creation sitting next to him.

His next thoughts were much darker in coloring. Ty knew he couldn't allow his perverted marriage to continue.

He had to end it.

After almost ten years with the same person, Ty didn't know how he should begin the end.

~*~