Looking Back - Karen's Story

We both knew what we went to his car for and he got his and I got mine. It was fun, he scratched an itch, and that's about it. I would have felt the same way after using a vibrator.

For most of our life together making love to Doug always left me in an emotional state. We'd lie together and just enjoy being there. With Mat in the back of the car it was just over and all I wanted to do was get dressed and go home.

That was the week before Doug found me with him in the bar. I know you and Doug will not believe this when I tell you but I was not going to fuck Mat again. Yes he got me off with his fingers but that was unplanned and there wasn't going to be a trip to his car or anywhere else.

That night when I felt the tugging on my ring finger and came back to the real world I at first thought that Mat was trying to steal my wedding ring.

When I opened my eyes and saw Doug slip the ring into his pocket before slipping his own gold band off and bouncing it across the table it was like the whole world crashed around me. I couldn't seem to register what was actually happening. My mind just could not accept what was going on right in front of me.

The last look I saw on Doug's face was one of utter pain. I've heard the term grief stricken all my life but that was the only time I ever saw it happen. I cannot un-see it happen now no matter what else happens in my life. That moment will haunt me forever.

I somehow found my senses enough to find Doug's ring and get myself out of the booth and on the way out of the bar. Rachel stopped me on the way out and tried to talk to me. She wanted me to try and calm down a little before I got in the car and killed myself or someone else driving in a rush to get home.

I couldn't hold it together anymore and just dropped into my car and cried. I don't know how long I sat there but it was too long. Every second I sat there was time I lost trying to get to Doug.

By the time I tried to call him all I got was his voice mail. I don't know how many times I called, or sent a text message that night. I'm not even sure what I said or wrote when I did.

Then when he called I did what had to be the dumbest thing I ever did in my life, and coming from a dumb bitch that got caught getting fingered in a bar by her husband it would have to be pretty dumb right. Well somewhere along the path to my fall I had repeated all those stale justifications to myself enough times that when I had a chance to throw myself at his feet and just beg for another chance I instead parroted back the those lines to him.

I knew that man as well as anyone could, I knew how he thought about things, and I knew or at least should have that I had only one chance to try to explain or accept the blame for my behavior. Instead I recited the fallen woman's handbook to him.

I knew it was over for us after the first stupid answer to his question, but I just couldn't grasp the reality of how badly I had destroyed us.

You know how it all ended so there's no need to retell it all. Again looking back he was right we ended a long time before that fateful night. We ended when it became all about me.

My Third Face

To the outside world it's no different than my second face. I hate it, I hate what it represents, I hate what it shows me in my reflection.

Doug would wee the irony here. I finally have the face and body I wanted and yet the reflection I see is the ugliest thing possible. I see a shallow, vain, and deceitful person that used the man that loved her to get what she always wanted.

The ironic part is all I want is what I so easily threw away. I want him to look at me and tell me I'm pretty, and that he loves me. But when he looks at me there is nothing there now. At first he'd look pained and then often he would leave wherever we were when we saw each other. Now he just seems to look right through me. I'm no more than a ghost to him.

Do you have any idea what that is like? I would rather have him angry and hurt me than to just look through me. A physical beating would be better than the emotional slap in the face every time he doesn't even react to me being there.

This is the face that still gets compliments, still turns some guy's heads, and still makes women hate me. But they don't know what happens every time a guy tells me I'm pretty or makes a clumsy pass at me.

Every compliment, every drink sent my way, every pass, every little bit of attention is like a slap in the face. Every one of them makes me remember what I did to him. Every one of them reminds me of the shallow vain creature inside the pretty mask.

I don't go out anymore, I can't do it. Last time I got so drunk I don't remember leaving the bar or getting home. I just remember hearing myself crying as my eyes regained their focus. I was in my own bathroom naked from the waist up and leaning over the sink. The thing that really got my attention was the straight razor poised to slash my cheek.

I remember thinking that I should be as ugly on the outside as I was on the inside and that I planned to cut my face to stop the stupid compliments, that was just before I fainted.

Waking up on a cold tile floor is never a good thing. Seeing the cold steel of the razor still out of it protective mother of pearl handle is pretty fucked up. I didn't end up cutting myself but I had a nice little bruise from hitting the floor.

So this is life now. I go to work, I come home and I try to live. I don't go out and do much because I cannot stand to have anyone look at me. Either they don't know me and they try to be flirty with me, or they do know me and look at me like something stuck to their shoe.

Why did I do it all? I don't know yet. I've asked my therapist and she just said "that's the sixty four thousand dollar question!" I hope she's just quoting that old line and not an actual price.

I don't know all the answers yet but I can tell you this, Vanity and Stupidity are real high up on the list.