The Bridge - A Little More

This was depressing and throwing her off her game plan - thinking this way.

She needed to NOT think about the past anymore - just the future, now...

Finally dinner arrived and both focused primarily on eating. The food was good but had somehow lost some of the flavor for both diners that had once made this place a favorite. A lot of things in Gloria's life now especially, weren't quite as much fun, nice, or pleasurable as they once were. She was beginning to think her life had reached it's absolute pinnacle - zenith - one Memorial Day weekend not even a year ago from now, and it was definitely all going to be downhill, and just less, from now on. And yet, somehow she wasn't getting that same feeling about Lyle.

Again, this was hard for her to understand. She was as beautiful (outwardly) as she had ever been - and she dressed better and oozed a new vitality and sexuality that certainly attracted all the men - and all the "Princes" kind of men - that she could ever have hoped for. She was only 38 years old and could easily pass for 28 - well, at least at night in a bar or restaurant. And she was smart and educated - not some Bimbo. She was a real catch now and knew it. So why didn't Lyle know that or admit it? Lyle was still just wimpy old boring Lyle. And Lyle couldn't know that her own dating forays weren't turning out so well, after all...

Except, maybe Lyle was not so wimpy now - and a close look at his new expensively casual clothes and more careful grooming and the casual confidence he exuded to all around - especially the wait staff, and the way THEY treated him with such respect - why, it almost seemed like HE was some kind of dominant Alpha male - of equal or even greater social status than she had. But that couldn't be right? Could it?

Well, if he WAS that way now, she had made him and he owed her! He just needed to realize and accept her back - for the good of all. It would be good for their children and for each other and it would absolutely be the best for Lyle himself. OK - time to get to it.

"Lyle, honey - I am so glad we could get together and have this pleasant dinner tonight. If we can both somehow just remain on even pretend friendly terms, that will be a real good thing for our children. This is me as a child psychologist talking but also as their mother and to you as their Dad, of course."

"I am just so very, very sorry that I kind of went all crazy last year - some stupid early onset midlife crisis I don't even understand - and above all else I am so sorry that I tried to hurt you so cruelly. I really think I am past all that now. Believe me I have learned a harsh lesson. I honestly explained all that I had done to you to my own parents and they could not believe it. It was so painful and humiliating to have to admit all that to them. But you deserved that they know our problems were my fault and stemming from my own actions and not yours, at all. I have actually started therapy to try and find out exactly what my problem was. One thing we have determined for sure. It wasn't you. It was never you."

"I know it is too late for us as a married couple, but I have not had sex with anyone since that weekend and I was just kind of hoping, maybe - that you might want to consider me as a "friend with benefits" at some point? Please?"

"I don't know if you have had sex with anyone since that weekend. I kind of hope not only so that you might really be more than a tad horny yourself right now. Right this minute. Maybe? I can't help but think back to that wonderful sex life we had together all those years before I just threw it away. You ALWAYS satisfied me - and in ways you can't even understand. The truth is sex IS different for men and women. Different but just as important in physical and mental and emotional ways. We HAD "become one" sexually as man and wife - and I just somehow forgot that. What I told you last Christmas Eve was all true - as far as I knew then. Therapy is helping me uncover some more, of course."

"So, what do you think? I know this is quite a bit and maybe surprising. Take your time."

They sat quietly for several minutes sipping their drinks. Lyle was on a second Bloody Mary but Gloria was still on her first glass of wine. Gloria had a hopeful small (and attractive she hoped) smile on her face. Lyle just looked not happy.

Finally, Lyle sighed.

"Maybe I need some therapy myself. I have thought a whole lot about what happened and how it happened that weekend and then our discussion last Christmas Eve. From what I observed, what you then said merely further confirmed my feelings and thoughts from that terrible (for me, at any rate) Saturday."

"Basically, bottom line is - I think you despised me, as a man, as a husband, and by direct inference, as a father."

Gloria gasped "No, that's not right..."

"Wait" Lyle said, raising his hand, "Please hear me out now without interrupting. Or else. The else is I just get up and leave and we will NEVER have this or any other personal conversation again. Ever. Understand?"

"OK" she almost whispered.

"OK. My problem and confusion then was WHY you despised me and how come it was I never noticed before? Not once in 16 years. Maybe that banality was really the first clue. Last Christmas Eve you made it very clear. You said, "you aren't a Prince now, and you certainly weren't one back then". That had the ring of truth in it - and suddenly I "grokked" it. You WANTED to marry a Prince 16 years ago. And I wasn't a Prince to you. So you married someone you really didn't want to - and did not love as you would have loved a real man - a Prince of your dreams. So, for 16 years you have despised me because YOU chose me and married me - but it was still then ME that got in the way of your fantasy true love ever coming along. Your Prince was a fantasy - but then your loyalty to THAT fantasy made our own marriage just a fantasy as well."

"What happened last Memorial Day weekend wasn't you "going crazy" but your real nature finally escaping the prison you had constructed for it 16 years ago. What released 'you' was a combination of your running and outward beauty changes, the brain hormones released by your own recognition of "increased pecking order status" increased even more by a feedback loop of Gabe's (and other men you undoubtedly considered "Prince" class) paying attention to you and basically courting you, and finally the increased alcohol, MJ, and possibly other "recreational" drugs you started taking at that time. Yes - I've been doing a little psychological reading research on my own the last several months. I have plenty of time for such, now."

"But why did you rub my nose in it? Became the next question for me. That is actually an EXCELLENT metaphorical question in this case. Because basically I was much more a "pet" or dog to you than a man throughout our whole marriage. Maybe more subconsciously than not - but the evidence is still all there. You, the real "you", thought I would always be nothing but a loyal and faithful dog - that you could beat me however you wanted, and I would always crawl back to you and lick your hand. Because you were the Master - and I was the dog. You even trained me very well, didn't you? You also rewarded me lavishly with sex and other incentives - but you never, ever thought of us really as equals. You were smarter. You chose me. You trained me. And you owned me. But you were a good and kind Master and how could I really ever complain?"

"Except that I am not a dog. I AM a man and even a rather high pecking order status man in so many social strata you never noticed or knew about. It is all such a shame. You basically wasted 16 years of your own life AND mine for a foolish fantasy - and you are otherwise such an intelligent and smart woman. Did you really earn that Ph.D. or did you merely sleep with many of your Profs to get it? Sorry - had to ask that hypothetical - it's so hard to understand how a psychologist can miss so much - about herself and her husband. Unless you never actually viewed me as a real husband. A real man. A Prince."

"But I always viewed you as my Princess - my real Princess - and that you were ALWAYS beautiful to me, and smart, and just nice, But a dog would think that about his Master, eh?"

"And my problem now is that I see you as you really are. More beautiful than ever on the outside but shallow - so shallow. No longer any kind of Princess to me. Ugly on the inside, and stupid, and mean. So very sadistically mean. And just so "superior" and sure I would come crawling back to you..."

"So - you and me friends with benefits? Not a chance. Not for a long time. At least 16 years worth of you finally acknowledging and treating me ONLY as a man. Got it?"

Gloria was crying - "But it's not true. None of it. You just twisted a few things and made all that up. I DID love you as a man, my lover, father of my children. I never despised you at all - Gabe said some crazy shit that you would LIKE seeing us together and in my craziness I just went along with it. And I was drinking more and taking some drugs in that period. How did you guess that?"

"Sadly, I wasn't guessing. You are STILL lying to me and trying to manipulate and control me. Gabe confronted me when he first discovered all that missing money and said, "you are a nobody who can't satisfy your own wife and she LOVED me fucking her and I will tap that from now on whenever I want". And he did. He sent me the videos of every time he tapped your ass - including videos of that weekend and even the times you met him BEFORE that weekend. He always had one or more hidden cameras for all his conquests. And he ALWAYS sent them to the husbands, I am guessing. And I saw you taking the cocaine or pills - ecstasy maybe? - and/or smoking grass whenever he fucked you. And you ALWAYS orgasmed in ways that could NOT be faking it. Well, you were FINALLY fucking a real Prince. A real man. And not just your pet. A real shallow asshole just like you always were but hid so well. And now the really sad thing is I am becoming just such a rich shallow asshole Alpha man, myself, now. I have fucked all kinds of women the last 3 months - so I don't need your "benefits" at all. Though I wish you continued success with your "therapist" who seems to have missed a lot. And I hope our further contacts and strictly impersonal meetings and talks henceforth concern nothing but the welfare of our poor abused children. Conceived in a sham of a marriage from the very beginning."

And Lyle got up and left her there - in almost catatonic shock.

How could it have all gone so wrong? The only thought circulating in her brain. I am just so much smarter than him...