The Rusty Wheel

In the corner of her eye, she saw Danny and Jamie approaching the building. Her treterous sex warmed at the sight, but her heart sank deep into the quicksand of real horror.

Then, the panic became overwhelming. She shooed them away, the look on her face inducing both concern and confusion as they stood fifty feet away.

"Leave! You have to leave! I'm sorry!" She blurted out at last, and hurried inside.

Tom was extremely concerned. "Are you okay?" He put his arms around her. "What's going on?"

She shook her head, and couldn't stop crying.

It was their anniversary. He'd brought her here to dance. She saw the dance instructors watching her from across the room, and talking with the bartender. Would he recognize her? Would he tell? She had to get out...

"Honey?" Tom asked. it was so hot in here. It was so cold. "Honey?"

Danny came through the door, irritable confusion on his face. The bartender frowned and shook his head disapprovingly. Tom touched her forehead tenderly...

Stephanie threw up on the tablecloth.

-

Believe it or not, vomiting on a table at a crowded restaurant has its benefits.

Tom, for example, took it on faith that she was sick. This allowed her to grieve for her self respect and self worth in peace.

She didn't have to have sex, for another.

In fact Stephanie spent five days in bed, hating herself and seeing no path towards happiness. She made calls when Tom was at work...telling Anne and Danny that she didn't want to see them ever again (Danny's indifferent response stung...she had to admit that)...and imagined all the times her husband would be telling the funny story twenty years later of how she had barfed at their anniversary dinner. A lifetime of that story...of them each remembering two very different events.

Of watching him smile in his naive, faithful innocence.

Eventually, she sucked it up and "got better," just in time for their cruise. What else could she do?

But the cruise. Jesus.

They made love every night. She owed him that. And she took showers afterwards so she could masturbate, doing for herself what he no longer could. She drank and drank, hiding it as best she could but probably failing. And, although she couldn't quite say why, Tom seemed quiet and increasingly upset and concerned.

When they got home, Stephanie put an increased effort into righting the marriage she'd broken. She had been right to think that her love for Tom would grow back. In fact, it was stronger than ever. But the joy of that love stopped in the door to their bedroom. She felt nothing when he touched her intimately, and like a liar when he treated her gently. At night, she struggled to sleep. So she drank. And drank.

Unwelcomed half-formed thoughts of suicide flickered around her, like deadly blips on a radar. She became fascinated by people who engage in dangerous behaviors...reading or watching shows about everything from rock climbing to meth addiction. Sometimes they died, and she felt jealousy and horror In equal measure.

And she drank.

Over time, Tom's loving concern withdrew into silent worry. This only ate at her more. Not only had she ruined their marriage, but she couldn't pull herself together enough to protect him from the fallout. She drank more.

Then, one night, he sat her down and begged her to stop. So she yelled and screamed and slammed the bedroom door. And she drank.

Then, he broke down and cried as she opened a bottle of wine. So she cried with him, and stopped.

Really stopped.

It took time. It hurt to lose that numbing power to push the bad thoughts away. But she did control her drinking, and found it easier to force her smiles, and eventually she couldn't even tell which ones were real and which were forced.

It was strange, and rarely pleasant, to genuinely not know your own lies from the truth. not even the ones as small as a smile. But the one time she knew she was happy...genuinely happy...was when Tom would take her dancing.

He sure knew how to dance.

One night they ran into a younger coworker of his at the bar. He reminded her of Danny and she felt a forgotten urge, but excused herself away and let the boys talk.

Later that night she eavesdropped on their conversation, and was surprised to discover it was about sex. The younger man was describing a recent partner, and some of the dirtier things she did with him.

Tom just laughed. "Kid, I'm married. If we have sex twice in the same week, that's a pretty exciting week."

"I'd go crazy," the kid shrugged.

"If you're lucky, one day you will indeed be crazy enough to fall in love. Consequences be damned."

The kid sighed. "But surely you get wild, you know?"

"I wish. I do. But she likes what she likes, so that's what I get."

It was like a horse kicked her in the gut. He was wrong...what he got was so much less than what it ought to be.

She ran to the bathroom, and stared at the woman in the mirror.

Would that woman ever be someone she could love? Ever again?

She didn't know. But Tom was going to get a lot more joy out of her, starting tonight.

And maybe someday, she would find some joy in herself, as well. When that happened, perhaps, the pleasure would come back into the world.