Gold for Plastic Ch. 01

"This is unbelievable."

"Matt, couples do this all the time."

"Maybe, but as far as I'm concerned, those kind of people really aren't committed to each other, aren't even really married. You know that. You know that I don't 'get' the whole open marriage thing. In fact, you pretty much thought the same thing once upon a time..."

"I'm not talking about an open marriage where we go around and fuck whoever we want...."

"You could have fooled me, 'cause I'm pretty sure I just saw you fucking around with Palmer."

"I don't want to sleep around. I just want a relationship with Palmer and with you. I want to be your wife and his....his...."

"His what? His slut? His party girl? What?"

She bit her lip, thinking. "I don't know......his....his mistress, I guess. I want to be your wife and his mistress. That's the way things have been the last month or so and that's what I want going forward."

I was speechless, staring at her with my mouth and eyes wide open in surprise and disbelief. Finally, I found a few words. "His mistress? You want to be his mistress? You know Meg, this isn't the 18th century and we don't live in Versailles and Palmer isn't some kind of a lord."

I was standing now and I took a step toward her, and pointed to myself. "And you know what else? I'm not some kind of a wimpy assed dandy that is willing to put up with this shit. I'm not going to flush my self-respect down the toilet just so you can play at being Marie Antoinette or whoever the hell you want to be."

At this point I was so angry and confused and frustrated that I felt completely out of control. I couldn't take any more and knew that if I kept arguing with Meg, things would probably get worse. For the first time ever, I understood how a man could strike a woman, and I didn't want to cross that line.

"You know what Meg," I finally said, moving toward the door. "I'm out of here."

I stormed out of the house, got in my car and started driving around aimlessly. Eventually, I stopped at a bar and had a few drinks but my mood only got worse. By now it was well past 2 a.m. and my mind was virtually torturing me with replays of the fight I'd had with Meg. At this point, I really wanted to stop thinking about it and somehow, someway, I knew I had to get some sleep. Benadryl always throws me for a loop, so I picked some up at a drugstore and checked into a motel. With the help of the liquor and the late hour and the Benadryl, I finally managed to drift off to sleep in spite of myself.

I woke up around noon the next day and it took a few minutes to get oriented. It was Saturday. I didn't have to go to work. I was in a motel because I'd had a fight with Meg. The fight was because she wanted to keep sleeping with her lover. I felt a wave of nausea wash over me, my heart sank and my mind was instantly on fire again.

Feeling a terrible sense of loneliness and rejection, I tried vainly to make any kind of sense out of my situation. Nearly beside myself with anxiety, I realized that I was in desperate need of perspective and counsel. I needed a friend. Like a robot, I drove over to Bill and Sue's.

When I got there, they could tell immediately that something was very wrong. I looked and sounded like a wreck, which seemed about right because that's pretty much the way I felt. Bill got me a beer and we sat down together in the living room. Even though the fight with Meg was dominating my mind, it still took me a while to get the story out to Bill. It hurt to tell what had happened. It hurt my pride. It hurt to admit that the woman I loved was so very different than I thought she was. It hurt to admit that another man had managed to get a claim on her.

Bill listened carefully to the story. He didn't rush me or ask many questions, but kept shaking his head in disbelief through my whole discourse. I was on the verge of tears and had to stop to get myself together a couple of times.

"How are you feeling now? Are you going to be ok tonight?"

"I don't know Bill. Honestly. I feel like shit, I guess, but I think I'll be able to keep it together."

"How do you feel about Meg, though? Frustrated? Homicidal? Conciliatory? What?"

I thought about that for a minute. "Lots of things I guess. I'm furious what she's done. I guess I'm sort of humiliated too. I mean, she knows I'm not going to put up with her having a lover. She knows that. So, I guess it feels like she's really just left me for some other guy...."

Bill shook his head. "She didn't leave you Matt. She left herself. She left behind what she used to be and became someone else. She hasn't been the same for a while. I think so, Ted thinks so and the girls do too. The current Meg really isn't the woman you married. "

That made a lot of sense to me and I nodded as I considered what he'd said.

Bill patted my knee, stood up and said "Hold on a second." He went to the kitchen and came back with a card and handed it to me. It was the business card for a lawyer named Charles Taylor. "Look, I don't know if this is necessary, but I think you need to at least think about some of the legal stuff. This guy's pretty good." Bill explained. "He helped with my brother in law's divorce and I think he'll be fine for you. As far as I can tell, if it comes to divorce, you two shouldn't have a whole lot of things to squabble about, so you might not even need a lawyer. But, if her boyfriend is a lawyer, I think you'd better call someone like this guy to even things up just in case."

What he was saying made sense to me and I told him I'd give Taylor a call Monday morning.

I hung out at Bill and Sue's almost until midnight and, after turning down an invitation to spend the night, drove back to the motel and sacked out there.

The next morning I went home in order to get some clothes and stuff. Meg wasn't there and had left a note explaining that she tried to get hold of me but couldn't because I'd left my cell phone at the house. She asked me to call her and said that she had taken her things and moved out so that I wouldn't have to. She spent half a page apologizing about how I found out and tried to explain, again, how she really thought we could make our marriage work even if she had a relationship with Palmer. She promised that I'd get all the attention and love I needed. Finally she asked me to call her so that we could talk some more.

I thought about what she'd written. I thought about what she'd become. I thought about her request to talk but I couldn't see the point. I didn't call. I didn't answer my cell. I stared at the TV without comprehending what I was watching, I listened to some music, I curled up in a ball and tried not to cry. Eventually I was able to get some sleep and put the worst weekend of my life behind me.

As planned I called Charles Taylor Monday morning. I was able to get an appointment a few days later and took a couple of hours off work to meet with him. Fortunately, his office was fairly close so it was easy to get there and back without missing much work. Taylor mostly did divorce cases and, from what I'd heard, usually did fairly well for his client. He wasn't a scorched earth kind of a guy, but he had a reputation for protecting his client's interests without starting a war. I was mad, for sure, but I guess if I was going to start exploring legal remedies, I wanted to make sure I didn't burn any bridges in case Meg came to her senses and I changed my mind.

We went over the facts of the marriage. How long we'd been married, what we had in the bank, what I was making, what Meg was making, what we owned. He told me it really didn't matter much why we were getting divorced, especially since there were no kids. I could be a meth addicted Satan worshipper or she could be a prostitute that liked to bring any number of STDs home and it wouldn't really change the outcome substantially. Still though, he wanted to hear my story. I wasn't sure if he was just curious or if he thought the background would help him decide how he ought to represent me.

So, I took my time and told him about the events of the last couple of months. He listened pretty carefully and nodded or shook his head to show his agreement or distaste for what I was saying. When I mentioned Palmer's name, a look of recognition came over his face.

"Are you talking about Palmer Atkinson?"

"Yeah, that's the guy. You know him? He's a lawyer I think."

"Sure, we were in law school together, same class in fact. " He paused a minute, maybe deciding if he should give out any more information. "You know, his name is really Peter. He goes by Palmer because he thinks it sounds more sophisticated or something."

"No shit." I laughed a little. "I guess it's all about appearances with him."

"Yeah, mostly. He's not exactly a 'shoulder to the wheel' kind of a guy. I'm pretty sure he finished right near the bottom of our class and I really doubt he ever passed the bar. From what I hear, he never really got around to practice law."

I was a little surprised to hear that. "He seems to live the high life, nice clothes, nice car. What does he do for cash?"

"Yeah, well, his wife is some sort of an heiress so I guess he hit the marriage lottery, so to speak."

I was stunned. "His wife? He's married? Really? What the hell?"

Taylor frowned. "Sorry, I figured you knew about that. Yeah, I'm pretty sure he's married. Or at least I'm sure he has been. " He sat back. "You think it will make a difference to Megan if she doesn't know?"

"It might. But then, her being married didn't make much of difference to her, so maybe not."

Now I had one more thing to think about. If she didn't know, would it matter to Megan that he was married? If it did, would it matter to me if she wanted to come back at this point? I had my doubts about either question until some of her words from our confrontation came back to me:Couples do this all the time.She knew. She knew and it didn't bother her.

I spent the next few days in continued, self-enforced, isolation. I kept my cell phone off and refused to answer the home phone. Megan left half a dozen messages about how 'we needed to talk' and asked me to call, but I just really didn't see the point.

I did read the e-mails she sent. She wrote, long, complicated, meandering notes trying to get me to see things from her point of view, painting a picture of how our life together wouldn't be so different if she developed some 'outside interests' and how I would be free to do the things I enjoyed without her interference. She mentioned that she saw her relationship with Palmer as being self-limited, that it was something she needed 'for a while' but that she couldn't know how long, exactly, it would last. I continued to be incredulous, writing that having sex with another guy wasn't an outside interest of a hobby like a knitting club and was a behavior that few married men would consider. She completely dismissed what other couples did, claiming we shouldn't be slaves to convention and writing, again, about how her relationship with Palmer wouldn't take anything away from 'us'. She tried to compare her 'physical relationship' with Palmer to a whole body massage I'd arranged for her during a vacation we'd had about a year after we married, saying that it was 'different' than what we shared, no better and no worse. She went on to point out that he had some common interests with her, like travel, and cultural things, that I didn't share and that her relationship with him helped her to satisfy those interests. She claimed, somehow, that her relationship with him was similar in some ways to the one I had with Bill or Greg because we had a common interest in sports that she couldn't share with me. At that point, I was so frustrated I stopped responding, and, as with her phone calls, began ignoring her e-mails also. I felt I had to, it seemed like we were speaking different languages.

About a week after my visit with Charles Taylor, Theresa came by. She showed up just after I'd gotten home from work, dressed casually in jeans and a winter jacket, sunglasses perched on a knit cap. I decided not to invite her in.

"What do you want, Theresa?" I asked flatly.

She gave me a look of controlled hostility. "Why aren't you talking with Megan?"

"I think we've pretty much said all there is to say, Theresa. I've got all the information I need at this point and I frankly don't want to hear any more about her relationship with Palmer or how she wants to be his slut or how I should be super excited to put up with that shit. I have to wonder what the hell kind of a woman Palmer's wife is to go along with this crap." I was using a purposefully harsh tone, trying to make it clear to Theresa that I was hurt and angry and not in a mood to 'make nice' in any way. She wasn't fazed.

"You know, Megan's actually met his wife, Matt. They get along ok. In fact they understand each other very well because she's had a couple of boyfriends herself. She lets Palmer do what he wants to be happy and she gets the same consideration. She just isn't a possessive ass like you are." Theresa let that sink in for a second, and then softened her voice a little. "Look Matt, Meg loves you and you love her and just because she has some interest in another guy, you're letting your ego get in the way and you're trying to trash a perfectly good relationship. Nobody is going to be happy if you keep this up."

"Really Theresa? Is that the best you can do? That's pretty much the same argument Megan used last week so I guess I'm a little curious. Are you using her words, or was she using yours? " I actually really wanted to know the answer to that question. How much of this came from Theresa's influence and how much was some sort of a latent fantasy that Megan always had but I just wasn't aware of. Had Megan been mutated into another Theresa, or was this alternate persona always there, just waiting to come out under the right circumstances. I got no hint from Theresa, though, because she completely deflected the question.

"What difference does it make who's using whose words? The fact is that just because you can't handle that Megan has some needs that you can't fill, you're willing to torpedo your entire relationship. It's pitiful really."

I knew she was trying to hurt me when she said I couldn't fill Meg's needs and, the truth is, she did. Sex with me evidently wasn't enough to keep her physically satisfied and my social skills weren't enough to pass muster either. But to describe my objection to her affair as pitiful was really too much. Anger and frustration had been welling up inside me the whole time we talked and it all erupted like a red hot geyser as I launched into a diatribe in a rush of bitter and resentful words. "Pitiful? The fact that I expect fidelity from my wife is pitiful? Seriously? How about this, Theresa, how about the idea that someone who can't stay faithful to their wedding vows is pitiful? How about the idea that the real way to torpedo a supposedly loving relationship is to have sex with someone outside of it?"

Theresa looked like she wanted to respond, but I was on a roll now. "And speaking of needs, what if Megan develops a need that neither the shithead Palmer or I can fill? What then Theresa? Does she pick up a 3rd lover? And if he isn't quite enough, does she get a 4th? Hell, maybe she should just fucking put her 'needs' on Craig's List and hookup with the perfect asshole to fill each one. How about that Theresa? She could get one guy to fuck her ass really hard and another guy who's really romantic to dote on her and some rich guy to buy her all kinds of expensive stuff and another guy with a really long tongue to give her oral sex......"

Theresa finally interrupted. "Leave it to you to take this to some ridiculous extreme. Why can't you just deal with the current reality and address what she wants right now?" She seemed like she was trying to calm me down by sounding reasonable or sophisticated, but I wasn't buying.

"Sorry, but Megan crossed the 'extreme' line when she decided she needed to have 2 men and expected me to be ok with it. It's not right Theresa. It's just not right." I stopped and fumed while I caught my breath for a second and when Theresa didn't respond, I launched in again. "And....and, what about my 'needs'? What about the fact that one of my 'needs' is to have a faithful wife who is devoted to me enough to....uh....not fuck other guys? How am I going to get that 'need' filled in this little relationship you envisioned for Meg and me?"

By the end of my second tirade, Theresa was visibly frustrated. "Again, Matt, what the hell has changed for you personally if Megan spends some time with another guy other than a blow to your pride? Are you really going to force Megan to choose? Because I really don't think you can make her give up Palmer right now, and even if you could, she's going to be pissed at you forever and she might end up seeing him or someone like him anyway. Why force her to make that choice? Why can't you be happy with what you've got now....with what you've had for the last couple of months? Have you really been that miserable?"

I was tired of arguing and sick of Theresa, and, as I thought about what she had been saying, I realized neither she or Meg had any understanding of where my mind was at. Suddenly my choices seemed clear and I shook my head and with a resigned voice saying, "I'm not going to make Megan choose."

"You're not?" She seemed slightly puzzled, maybe a little hopeful that she'd gotten through to me.

"No, I'm not." I motioned toward the kitchen. "Hold on a second, I've got something I want you to take back to Megan." I walked quickly to the kitchen, grabbed Charles Taylor's business card and returned to Theresa at the door.

"Here, give this to Megan. It's my lawyer's card. If she goes to his office in the next couple of days, she can start signing off on the divorce without having to be served at work. It'll save embarrassment."

Theresa stared at the card incredulously. "Wait, what is this? I thought you just said you weren't going to try and force Megan to give up Palmer."

I shook my head in mock disbelief. "You and Meg just don't get it, do you Theresa? No, I'm not going to make her choose because there is no choice any more. I guess you both seem to think that there is some sort of negotiation going on, but there isn't. The marriage is over, and I think that pretty much happened when she shacked up with Palmer. And, honestly, if that hadn't done it, when I saw how much she disrespected me by thinking that I'd be willing to go along with it, well, that pretty much made it absolutely final."

Theresa's look of surprise faded to one of understanding and maybe a little fear. "You're not even going to fight for your marriage? People work this sort of thing out....."

I actually laughed at that point. "As far as I'm concerned, there's no marriage to fight for. Understand this, Theresa, the marriage is over and there are no choices or negotiations anymore. Please be sure to make that clear to Megan, because, frankly, I don't really want to talk to her any more than I have to."

Theresa looked stunned as I slowly closed the door in her face.