Tunnel of Love Pt. 02

"Sorry. It was hard to take, you know? And after a while...especially after the second time we woke Mike up...well, I just shut it down. Since then, like I told you last week, there just hasn't been a time...or a place...and...well, I'm scared to death."

It was risky, but Dr. Seymour hazarded an observation.

"Mike, I need you not to shoot the messenger now, okay? What you've said so far...well, of course it's terribly disturbing. But on the scale of what I deal with day in and day out, a little kissing and touching while in an extremely disturbed and emotional state—look, of course it's beyond inappropriate, but maybe not a marriage-breaker?"

Mike closed his eyes again. His face and body tightened, as if he were wrestling to get something inside him under control. Dr. Seymour could almost hear a growl.

"But there's something more, isn't there?" she asked.

"Yeah. She swore that they never...never had sex. Never fooled around or kissed before that night. Never saw each other except at the gym or the hospital. That they were just friends."

"But you don't believe that?"

Mike snickered.

"At some point...again, this is all a jumble to me...she admitted that she'd been attracted to him. She kept insisting, though, that she didn't intend for anything to happen, that they were just friends, and that nothing did happen...until that night." "You don't sound convinced."

He looked Dr. Seymour directly in the eyes.

He's wondering if I'm convinced.

"I'm not stupid. I was blind, maybe...but not anymore. Here's the thing: She lied to me! She lied to me about who got her involved with the hospital. She lied to me about the hospital's rules, to keep me away. She never said anything about this guy, not once. And as for not having sex..."

It seemed to take tremendous effort on Mike's part to finish the sentence without breaking down. His eyes were closed, and the level of his voice dropped to a whisper.

"...when she came...when she came home that night...she...she ran upstairs and took a damn shower!"

The plot thickens. Disturbing stuff, certainly. But he's still holding something back.

"Mike, your suspicions are natural. I'm not saying they're correct—just understandable. But there's still something else bothering you, yes?"

Mike shrugged.

"Mike, you haven't said much about him."

Mike's eyes shot open. In them, Dr. Seymour saw a flash of light.

Reflected light, almost. Like the eyes of a cat...in the dark.

"I just thought I was done with it a long time ago. You know, you marry someone, you think she loves you, the years go by..."

"Done with what?"

"Competing. Especially...with guys like him. Players."

Lots of overtones in his voice there...

"I mean, come on. This wasn't some accidental thing. It wasn't a misunderstanding on his part."

"What do you mean?"

"This guy...he chats her up, gets her to notice him, invites her to join him in a worthy cause...don't tell me all that was innocent. No, the guy wanted to get into her pants. Even though she has a ring on her finger! The asshole...

"But look, he's not the issue. I mean, I could clobber the guy—maybe I should—but Jennifer, she...she's the one wearing the ring! Did she forget that? Doesn't that mean anything to her anymore?

"Okay, so this guy put some moves on her, but she fell for it! No, I take it back—she went for it! My wife, my so-called loving wife...sneaking around on me with another man, going out for a drink with him... Kissing him! Letting him paw at her! Maybe more, oh god... After all this time, when I thought I was safe..."

"Safe?"

A long pause. Mike seemed to be reflecting.

"Well...I wasn't exactly 'lucky with love' before Jennifer. I was that guy that girls liked as a friend but...you know. Jennifer wasn't the first girl I fell hard for, but she was the first girl I fell hard for who was willing to go out with me—at least, to keep going out with me.

"And I was always so...terrified...that it was going to end. Jennifer was, well, the kind of girl I thought was out of my league. Even when we steady, hell even once we were engaged, I couldn't shake this feeling that it wouldn't last...that some player would come along and..."

There's that word again. And that's your baggage, isn't it, Mr. Chancey? No wonder why Jennifer's actions, though tame by my frame of reference, have hit you so hard. You thought you had the perfect life, but now you're that teenager or college kid again, brimming with insecurity.

Agitated, Mike had stopped talking. He shrugged and looked towards the window. Dr. Seymour knew what was coming. Silence reigned for several minutes. Then, somewhat recomposed, Mike asked the question she'd been waiting for.

"So, what do I do?"

Always that question.

"I wish I could just tell you, Mike. I will give you an opinion—when I have one—but I don't yet. I need to hear from Jennifer. Then, we need to meet together again; the two of you have to talk. Hopefully, I'll be able to give you some advice on how to move forward. But understand, it will just be advice."

Mike looked disappointed, but only slightly—as if he'd expected her response.

"Let me ask you this," she added. "Have you thought about what you want? The fact that you are here tells me that you want to move forward."

Mike closed his eyes and took several deep breaths. He seemed to be fighting back tears again. Just barely, he won; but he did not open his eyes or speak.

Let's try a more specific question.

"Are you still sleeping in the spare bedroom?"

Mike nodded affirmatively. He opened his eyes.

"I've got all my clothes in there now, too. Funny, we've used that room for out of town guests, occasionally. For a while, it was...well, in case we'd had another baby."

He sighed deeply and shook his head.

"I never thought it would become my room."

"Mike, have you thought about how long you can go on like this? Living in the same house but sleeping apart? And, I imagine, starting to live separate lives?"

"Yes...so far, the...um...cover story is working with Mikey. It's not a big deal to him. But he's not going to be ten years old forever. Someday...who knows, it could be any day...he's going to figure out that something's wrong."

"I'm hearing you say 'forever' and 'someday.' You seem to have contemplated...well, digging in for the long haul."

Mike chewed on that statement, then shrugged his shoulders.

"If it weren't for Mikey, I don't...I can't say I would still be living in that house. I didn't want to go home that night, after...things came to light. And I didn't want to stay at home, after she confirmed...

"Mikey's my only ray of sunshine right now. You know, that night, I could have ended up in some crazy place...or done something crazy...but I thought of Mikey, and I just barely held on. It—he—was the one bit of certitude I had left about anything. I'm his dad, and I'll always be his dad. If Jennifer wants to fuck other—"

Mike caught himself.

"Sorry. The point is, I could have run out on Jennifer, or maybe even kicked her out, but I couldn't do either one to Mikey. I just focused on him, and that's what I've been doing ever since."

"Mike," Dr. Seymour said soothingly. "I commend you for keeping your child in your heart and mind despite what you're going through. Some men are unable to do that. I've seen it many times.

"But let's go back to my earlier question. Have you thought about what you want? Staying together with Jennifer—at least, keeping up appearances—for Mikey's sake may not be a viable long-term strategy."

Mike's eyes bulged.

"Long-term strategy?"

He made a sound that was somewhere between a laugh and a sneer.

"Long-term strategy? I just try to get through the damn day, Doctor! And the nights...the nights are worse... But one thing's for sure. I will never, ever quit on Mikey. As long as he's there, and as long as Jennifer doesn't...do it again, I will stay in that house and be Mikey's father, one hundred percent. Maybe you're right, Doctor; maybe that can't last. He's growing up so fast. Maybe we can't fool him forever. Sometimes I think he already suspects something..."

Probably. Never underestimate the perceptiveness of a child.

"Mike, what about you and Jennifer? Are you telling me that you see your relationship as being one of convenience—or necessity—now?"

Mike chewed on that question for a long time.

"Here's the thing. I don't understand why this happened. I don't know how I could ever...it's not about loving her, I still do...I think. It's about wanting to love her. Right now, I don't want to love her..."

He paused, as if struck by what he'd said. Dr. Seymour noticed.

Your first insight! Good. Not a pleasant insight, of course, but an important one. To clear a hurdle, you have to see it. Now for some encouragement.

"Mike, couples survive these things. Not all the time, but sometimes. I don't know any more about what happened than you do, but from what I've heard so far...let's just say that other couples have recovered from far worse infidelities than your apparent situation.

"One thing I can tell you, though, is that if the two of you are going to recover from this, both of you are going to have to want it. You're the one who's been wronged, but you can't just be along for the ride in this. Somehow—and I'll help you try to figure out how—you're going to have to contribute."

Mike tensed and fidgeted. When he finally relaxed, he nodded.

"Believe me," he said, "I've thought about that. I've wracked my brains as to how it could have come to this."

That wasn't what I meant, but I was going to go there eventually...let him talk.

"It's hard," he continued, "but I've tried to be objective. I'm a software engineer, right? When something goes wrong, we don't just cry about it or get mad, we fix it. Fixing it usually means finding out where we made a mistake.

"When I lie awake at night, sometimes the...despair and anger...passes and I find...well, sort of an eye in the hurricane. And that's when...when I think about whether there's something I did to cause this to happen. I've asked myself that many times.

"I'm not...you know, God's gift to humanity. People call me a boy scout, but I've made mistakes in life, and I haven't always...recognized them right away. If somehow I pushed her towards this...or let her drift because of something I wasn't doing...I'll take my lumps. I'll fix it.

"The odd thing is, no matter how angry I've gotten about all this; no matter how...ashamed, how humiliated I've felt...at times I've sort of hoped something could be traced back to me. It's weird, isn't it?"

"Mike," Dr. Seymour answered, shaking her head. "I'm not hearing anything I haven't heard before. Blaming yourself is not a perverse instinct. In fact, from what I've learned about you so far, I'm surprised it hasn't consumed you."

Time for a little push. I promised him an opinion sometime.

"Here's my opinion—and it's just an opinion, right? You deal with software. Okay. Jennifer's like a trusted old—whatever you call it, program—that has suddenly behaved in a completely unexpected manner. I guess you might say it 'crashed.' Part of you wants to throw it out. Take the whole damn computer and drop it out a window. Yes?

"Um, yeah...that's...yeah."

"But when those hard feelings leave you alone for a moment, you realize you want to get that program working again! Except it's not going to be enough just to get it working—you want to trust it again. And you can't trust it if you haven't figured out the problem and fixed it. Am I close?"

"That's...yeah...I think that's it."

"Then here's the rest of it. You're humble enough to be able to admit a mistake. That's good. But what troubles you here is that you can't find one. If you could, you could fix it...and have some confidence that the problem wouldn't repeat. What do you call that?"

"Um...'stability'...the program is supposed to be stable. And yeah, I see where you're going with this."

Time to shut up. Let him take it from here.

"If I'm to blame in any degree for what happened...well, maybe it would be easier to forgive her. Moreover...I might be able to change things. Change myself. Then, I might be able to believe that it wouldn't happen again. You see, forgiving her is one thing...but trusting? It just seems...impossible right now.

"And I heard what you said about contributing. About being part of the solution. I'll admit, I haven't given her a break since this all started. Not one...I'm...ashamed to say. It's just that...well, those moments of clarity I have? I have them in the dark. When I'm alone.

"Then, every time I see her...when I'm around her...it's like a poke in the eye. A knife in the gut. Given that, am I supposed to...supposed to go up to her and ask her if I did something wrong?"

He shook his head.

"No. No way. We're married, right? If I let her down, somehow...okay, I'm not perfect. But she should have told me! You don't just...I mean, what could I have done that was so bad to make her lie to me? To have an affair?"

The moment of clarity was over. Mike was out of the eye and back into the hurricane.

"She said she kissed him! That they 'made out!' And oh Jesus can that really have been all that happened...that night...all those weeks..."

Damn it, I let this go too far. I hope he'll still listen to this last bit.

"Mike, I'm back to 'what do you want?' I think what I'm hearing is that you want to know why. That's perfectly natural. Sometimes, it's necessary. But I have to warn you...sometimes it doesn't help. Sometimes it just makes things worse. I want you to think about that between now and our next session, okay?"

Tears forming under his closed eyes, Mike nodded in agreement.

"Also, I need to warn you that there isn't always a logical explanation for everything we do. You're used to dealing with programs. Something goes wrong, maybe the reason is hard to find—but there is a reason, somewhere. If you're smart enough—if you work hard enough—you find it. Right?"

Another affirmative nod.

"Well, people aren't always like programs. I'm trained almost to treat them like such, and in some ways what I do is like what you do—engineer things. Reverse-engineer things, I should say. I'd be pretty useless if it never worked, and I think in your case, we will find some reasons. But I want you to think about the possibility that there was no reason—at least, none that will ever make sense to you."

Opening his eyes, Mike looked at her questioningly.

"Finally, to get to the why, we might have to go over the how and what. You suspect that Jennifer hasn't told you the whole story. What you know is already killing you; are you sure you want to know more? What if there is more? Is it really going to do you any good to know? Or is it just going to set you back...maybe too far?"

Mike sighed, "Doctor...I'm hoping you can tell me."

"Mike, I will give opinions...and advice. But what I've found is, few people do anything—or stick to anything—just because I tell them to. You need to bring your own insights to the table. I need your help as much as you need mine. So think about these questions I've asked you, and I'll see you in two weeks."

"Okay...will do," he said, and departed.

* * *

Dr. Seymour took a deep breath. Before leaving the office and her work persona—and hopefully, her work—behind, she jotted down a few notes about her session with Mike.

After two interviews, no sign of previous strain in the relationship. No indication of past dalliances on her part—or his—or other circumstances that led to her indiscretion with third party. Husband is probably correct that he has not been told the whole story, but whole story could be pretty unremarkable.

Still, recovery will be a challenge. Husband has high moral standards, believes in discipline and self-control. Wife's actions, even if no worse than what he's learned so far, already put her well out of bounds by his rules. Add to the mix his deep-seated insecurity, erupting now like a volcano that had been dormant...

Let's just hope there isn't more to the wife's story.

On the drive home, Dr. Seymour went through her mental ritual of letting go of the day and turning into Gayle. It was a strange and not very stable or satisfactory dual life, but it was a work in progress, and one that she had to keep up. She needed to protect her professional life at all costs.

All costs? I hardly have a personal life anymore. And what I have, I'm ashamed of.

Though drive time was supposed to be "letting go" time, she couldn't help but think about her new case—especially, Mike. After her own failed marriage and her somewhat sordid experiences with men since, Gayle couldn't imagine squandering a relationship with someone like Mike.

Maybe there's something I don't know yet. But if they were even half the happy couple they described, if he's even half as legit as he seems—how could she blow that? Was this James really that enthralling? Or, did I nail it too well with my metaphor—is Jennifer unstable? Has some sort of disorder? Needs a psychiatrist, not just a relationship counselor?

Gayle was still willing to bet that when all was revealed, this would be just another case of boredom, lack of attention and vulnerability combining with infatuation, resulting in a tame and short-lived dalliance. Yet, there still seemed to be a promise of something more.

Mike did well tonight. Better than most. I hope, for his sake, this is a molehill and not a mountain. Problem is, even a molehill will seem like a mountain to him.

It's too bad he wasn't able to catch it and nip it in the bud. He missed so many clues! To me, the signs would have been obvious. But I'm so jaded from everything I've experienced myself and everything I've experienced vicariously through my clients. Here's a man full of love and trust and completely devoid of guile. He never saw it coming.

Gayle's thoughts started to slip into a dangerous zone.

It's sad. I can't remember the last time I had a male client who seemed so innocent and undeserving of what his wife did. If I had man like that...stable, reliable... Not heart-stopping handsome, but pretty cute...eager to please...

Gayle snapped out of her internal monologue. This was out of bounds. Farther out of bounds than she'd been in a long time.

At home, she managed to avoid thinking about her new case, but her nightly reading drifted decidedly in its direction. Avoiding the usual adultery stories about cheating wives, Gayle read several stories about vulnerable husbands being seduced by "other women." Women with excellent grasps of male psychology and sexuality.

When she climaxed in bed that night, Gayle was imagining herself riding the hard dick of a man who was moaning her name. He bore no physical resemblance to Mike Chancey. But the concept of a Mike Chancey—well, perhaps that had something to do with the intensity of her orgasm.

* * *

"Hello, Jennifer, welcome back."

Jennifer was well-dressed. Her hair and make-up were nicely done.

She wants to impress. With her appearance!

"How have things been since our first meeting?"

"Um...a little better. Some ups and downs, I guess...but Mike's made a few gestures. Especially since you talked to him last week. Thank you."

"Jennifer, I'd like to think I'm going to help both of you, but I didn't tell Mike to do anything in particular. Now, we have a lot to talk about tonight, and I'm afraid it's going to be tough stuff. Are you okay with that?"

"Um...yes."

Not very convincing, but good enough.

"Okay. What I want to do first is confirm some things Mike told me. The things you told him about what you did."