Egos and Effects

After All

By Henry Jekyll

This story began as a brief epilogue to "On the Fragile Male Ego" but it became a fuller story of the two main protagonists (or antagonists). I imagine it can stand alone, but it will make more sense if you read the other first. That one took place in a single evening. This one takes place on a later afternoon, over drinks.

Nothing to see here, people. It's just an extended conversation. Keep walking unless you want to find out what might happen with Linda and Casey. The original commentariat disagreed about whether Casey would go through with the divorce (I have a reputation). Retribution people wereafraidhe wouldn't. Reconciliation peoplehopedhe wouldn't. But, he did. You'll see that in the first sentence. This follows what comes afterwards.

I thank Stev2244, Hooked1957, NickTee, and Bruce1971 for comments and discussion, and, yes, disagreements.

As always, I accept all comments, including negative ones, even insulting ones often posted anonymously. If you post a comment under your Literotica account, I will try to reply to you directly (be patient).

There's no sex in the story. Sorry. Not.

*****

After All

They hadn't talked since the divorce, almost not at all since he'd told her he knew. That's not accurate. They'd talked. They were co-parenting so they talked all the time, almost every week, and over the fourteen months since the split was finalized that may easily have been fifty or sixty times. But what is a talk, really, and what is a conversation? They discussed when he would get the kids, where the handoff would be, when she would need them back, and should she pick them up or would he bring them to what was now "her" house? So much talk and so little conversation.

Well.

In the beginning there was mostly silence because he could hardly stand to be in the same room as her and wouldn't address her unless he absolutely had to.

Then he'd moved out.

There was, of course, the court-ordered counseling, which didn't go well. He'd address the counselor, not his soon-to-be-ex wife, and when the counselor asked him to respond to something the missus had said, he'd answer as briefly and dismissively as possible. He didn't curse. He didn't use snark. In fact he was always courteous to the counselor herself. He simply wouldn't engage with his wife.

"Please, Casey. Let me apologize. I'm sorry."

"Apology accepted." It was the first thing Casey had said directly to Linda the entire session. He turned to the counselor, stopped himself, and turned back to his wife. "But that doesn't change anything. And piling on extra apologies doesn'taddanything."

After awhile she stopped apologizing.

When she tried to explain herself, he told her to cut it out. He addressed the counselor.

"I don't want to hear all of Linda's justifications and excuses and elaborations. Nothing she says is new or particularly interesting or even necessarily honest. It's just words, words, words." Casey liked Hamlet's famous line.

"How do you expect Linda to communicate without words, Casey?"

Linda had looked away and was wiping her eyes.

"Okay. If she'll say this I might listen. Tell me exactly when and how they started, how many times they got together, how many times they sexed during each session, exactly what sexual acts they did with each other, and what they said about me and about Jane.Especiallywhat they said about us." When the counselor tried to interject he waved a hand and said. "There's more! How often did she come? What's his penis like? Factual, concrete things."

Yes, he knew he was asking for pornographic details and that she'd never comply. It would shut her up.

"One other thing. Would sheeverhave stopped if I hadn't discovered her little secret?" He parodied Hamlet. "Everything, everything, everything. And no evasions." At that point he turned to Linda and spoke to her again. "Don't hold anything back to make yourself seem less culpable, and don't be condescending, and Christ almighty, don't apologize!"

That effectively ended the first joint session.

The counselor thought he was almost eloquent. She didn't know how much time he'd spent memorizing the list. After an individual session with each of them, and a second joint session, she told the judge the marriage was irretrievably broken. Linda never responded to the list.

Linda got the house and the children, some alimony, and child support. About what Casey had expected. Casey got visitation rights and their smaller car and this and that. He didn't live in abject poverty. He had a one-bedroom, furnished apartment. He paid extra for the bedroom so there would be a place for the kids to sleep when he had them. Those nights he slept in the living room.

Don't think Linda lived high on the hog, either. Divorce usually hurts both sides, and they were no different. But he made his payments on time, in fact had the funds transferred directly into her checking account, and she never tried to stiff him about visitation. The divorce was perfectly "amicable," you'd think, as long as they didn't converse.

Until today.

*****

"I'm glad to have a chance to really talk," Linda said. That was almost the first thing either had said after they'd exchanged hellos and ordered drinks. They sat at a round, glass table, shaded by an immense umbrella. Behind her were the clubhouse and the pool where the children played birthday games. You could hear snippets of nearby conversations and the sounds of tennis matches at three active courts. The same waiter who'd brought them linen napkins and silverware brought her a Long Island Iced Tea, and him a Sazerac. It turned out they wouldn't eat, but the drinks? They were a different matter.

"We talk all the time," he replied.

"Not really. I meantalktalk."

"Well. What would we talk about? Not about 'it.'"

"No." She looked away. "Youwouldn't."

"And won't."

"I know. You were so angry during the counseling."

"Change the subject, Linda."

But she pushed on.

"It surprised me."

"All right."Get it over with."How so?"

"Well... that first night, when you told me you knew... You were furious with me, but you were also... so..." She thought about it, and as she did that a tennis ball hit a fence and someone shouted "Love, forty." She looked away again. "You were so gentle."

"Gentle? You mean such a pussy?"

"No! Stop that. You were gentle with me."

"Yeah. I let my faithless wife cry on my shoulder."

From the pool, children were yelling "Marco" and "Polo" and there was a loud splash. A cloud blocked the sun for a moment. Her next statement came with the sun.

"Yes. You did. I was afraid because I knew how angry you had to be, but you were... you were kind."

"It's because I wasn't that angry yet."

"Not angry?"

"Oh I was angry. And devastated. And whatever else I could feel. But mainly I was sad. Christ. I was as low as a person could get. But you. You were crying so much that I decided you were sad too."

"Too?"

"I wasn't sure if your crying was phony." He sighed. "You know. To win my sympathy. But I did what I always did with you. I comforted you." He sighed again. "Shit. Later on I kicked myself for it."

"It was real. My crying was."

Casey raised his eyebrows.

"And how would I knowthat?"

"It was. And you were sweet to me."

"'Sweet?' That's a strange substitute for 'stupid'."

They were quiet yet again. There was more splashing and laughing and the sounds of tennis balls and racquets and some birds. A car stopped in front of the clubhouse and the driver honked. They each adjusted their chairs to avoid the sun better. Neither knew where to take the conversation, but Linda felt she had to push it.

"You can call it 'stupid' if you want to. But you certainly weren't 'stupid,' afterwards."

"No. By then I was completely hateful."

"Because you were going to get raped in the divorce?"

"'Raped in the divorce'? That sounds like something from a romance novel. No. I didn't care about the money. I knew what was coming. No. Everyone talks about that like it's the main thing. Bill Foreman... you know, my attorney... warned me how much a divorce would 'hurt' me. He played with the 'it's-cheaper-to-keep-her' idea. Well, he was just doing his job. But me? I considered the money a small price to pay to get away from you."

"Oh!"

She exclaimed it so loudly that people at a nearby table glanced over at them. She closed a hand and pressed her knuckles to her mouth and briefly breathed through her nose. She removed her hand and looked at her knuckles and wiped them on a napkin.

"I didn't know that," followed by a large sip of Long Island Iced Tea. "After the settlement, you didn't seem that angry anymore. So, I thought... I thought maybe you were... you know... getting over it."

"Really? Gettingoverit? So now you're a mind reader? Then tell me. What am I thinking?"

"I don't understand."

"Here we are, having this nice, civilized conversation. Right?"

Linda nodded, but she knew something was coming.

"So, what am I thinking right now?"

"I don't know."

"Guess."

"I told you! I don't know."

"What I'm thinking right now is that I'd like to lean over the table and slap you!"

She jerked back in her chair.

"That's what I'm thinking."

Again, no one said anything, and this time the silence stretched. It was quiet enough that you could hear the breeze sift through the trees and you could make out nearby conversations clearly, the voices, the laughs, the sounds of glasses clinking on table tops, chairs scraping on the patterned patio floor. Everything conspired to fill the empty space of their conversation.

"Oh. Umm." She didn't know how to respond. "If you wanted to do that, it would... I don't know... I guess... I guess it would be okay."

Casey smiled and then laughed.

"Jesus, Lin! You don't have a clue. It doesn't work if the person knows it's coming and accepts it. It has to be a surprise, out of the blue, and she has to be shocked. Shocked I say!"

He got the last line from "Casablanca," and Linda recognized it. She smiled, not her first one but the first one she hadn't pasted on.

"Well, I don't want to be slapped, and if you waited until I was thinking about something else, I promise it would shock me."

Casey laughed again, but after a few seconds he shook his head and looked mournful.

"God, I loved you."

*****

Linda was on her second Long Island Iced Tea. Casey hadn't finished his Sazerac but he'd ordered a double Espresso and was taking little sips.

"Do you want to know how I became so hateful?"

It took Linda a moment to nod.

"It's simple. It was because Jane took Harvey back." This time she simply stared. "You don't get it? Here, the motherfucker gets to play with your naked body, over and over, and ruins my marriage and my family." Linda physically quaked when he said "naked body."

"And me. Jesus! He fucked you but he fucked me over. And then she just lets himstrollback in. She cooks for him, he gets to fuck her, he has his kids right there, and economically he's fine. The whole nine yards! As though nothing much had happened."

There was another of those long pauses before Linda said it, in a very small voice, almost quavering.

"You could have done that. I'd have made it up to you."

"Hah!Well,thatcertainly wasn't going to happen!" He took a breath. There was a lot of taking of breaths going on. "Look. I said we shouldn't bring it up. Give me a minute."

He took several more breaths.

"Here's the thing. Icouldn'tdo that."

He let it hang there.

"I couldn't let you get away with it. I couldn't let you have your fling and then just go on like we were fine. Knowing... hell... knowing that every time I'd want you I'd see that son of a bitch Harvey Milstead playing with you and fucking you, and you loving it." That word, "fuck," in all its variations. She tensed every time he used it. "Knowing you'd still be doing him if I hadn't found out. Maybe you'd get 'therapy' or something, too, and think that made up for everything."

He made air quotes and rolled his eyes and emphasized the word "therapy."

"Maybe you'd play goody housewife, too, but I'd know you wanted somebody else, and I'd know who it was. And I'd know what you are capable of. No. We were done. We had to be done."

"I still loved you. I still do."

"Not nearly enough." He waited. "Just be honest. When it all hit the fan, if Harvey had asked you, you'd have gone with him, wouldn't you?"

"No." He scoffed at her and she put her hands up, palms out. "Iwouldn't,Casey! Not if you'd take me back."

"And I should believe that... why? Really, try the honesty route. It couldn't hurt. It's not like we're going to becomemoredivorced."

"Iambeing honest. I'll admit I was infatuated with him."

"'Infatuated'?"

"I had a crush. He was... you know what he was like. All the girls fantasized about him. We'd joke about taking him away from Jane, but I let it build and he knew it and played with it."

Casey started to retort.

"No, Case. I'm not claiming it was all him. It was all him and all me and, yes, I wanted it and I did it. Are you happy now?"

And I think to myself, what a wonderful world.

The lyric came from somewhere and he murmured it, half to himself, and he wondered if Louis Armstrong could have sung it with a broken heart. Linda stopped at his murmuring, thinking he was saying something to her, but he wasn't, so she went on.

"But I told the truth that I didn't know it would happen until it did. And I never,everthought of leaving you. I'd be with him and then I'd feel completely guilty. Like you called me. Your faithless wife. I'd swear to myself it was over. I was like... like... like the alcoholic who wakes up feeling like crap, or the smoker who throws the last butt from a pack into the gutter, or the fat lady who sees her reflection as she's leaving the all-you-can-eat diner. That was me. I was done. Until the next time."

Casey stared at Linda and his cheeks inflated as though he were playing Satchmo's trumpet, then he blew the air out slowly, and when he spoke his voice was soft.

"And you couldn't stop."

"No. I couldn't. Or I didn't. I don't know when it might have ended. When you told me you knew... oh God, you were so clever! Doing it so that the girls and I all knew that you were accusing me, without actually saying so. I was terrified. And humiliated, because I knew everyone was reading the tea leaves. But part of me was glad, because now it reallywasover, and maybe... just maybe... we could work to remake our marriage."

"Remake a farce."

"Remake our marriage! When you were so gentle with me, I thought maybe we could. That's why I went with you to tell Jane. I didn't want to, but I thought if I came completely clean, maybe you'd keep me."

"A lot of 'maybes' there. But telling Jane. Nowthatwas a farce, wasn't it?" He smiled again.

"God! From the moment she opened the door and saw us."

"And she gasped and yelled 'Not Harvey!'" Casey chuckled. "And then she chased you out of the house and down the block. What a sight! Well. We talked about it after you were gone. She had wondered about my accusation. Was I right? And who could the guy be? Was it anyone she knew? She'd planned on calling you, you know. BFFs and all that. And thenboom!"

"And thenboom.But her taking Harvey back was the best thing she ever did for me."

"Because?"

"Because one of her conditions for reconciling was that he never see or talk to me again. Never!"

"So he was out of the picture."

"As if! He called me thesameday. He said he wanted to come over to 'talk.'"

"The same day, eh? He'd both see youandtalk. What a shit."

"It was worse than that. He came over, and what he wanted to talk about was our getting back together. He said it would be so much easier withyouout of the picture." Linda grimaced and shook her head. "That son of a bitch! It was only then that I realized what he was. And I lost you and my marriage for him. Everything." She shook her head again. "I'm so sorry."

She was wiping her eyes.

"Stick with the ground rules, Lin. No more apologies."

"Iamsorry. I am. I don't care what you say. I'll always be sorry, and not because you caught me, but because of what I did and what I did to you."

"Okay. All right. Be sorry if you want. I can't stop you. But what about Harvey Asshole. Did you let Jane know?"

"No. I told Harvey to go to hell, and that was it."

"Haven't you ever talked with her?"

"Are you kidding? I saw her in Meijer's, once, and I turned around and left before she noticed me."

*****

Linda was already more than halfway through her second drink, and Casey was wondering if she should drive the kids home. Linda took a long pull, then stared morosely into her glass. The pool noises had almost abated, and the sound of children singing "Happy Birthday" came from inside the clubhouse. Casey broke the silence.

"I hear you're dating."

"What? I... uh... yes. A few times. And... are you checking on me?" She had a look of shock mixed with anger. Something like that.

"No. The kids tell me things, so I was curious."

"Well, what am I supposed to do? Sit at home alone every night?"

"Whoa! Linda! Whoa." He had his hands up. "I'm sorry. I was just making conversation."

"I'm sorry, Case. I guess I'm a little sensitive. There's a guy. We've gone out a few times, but I don't think it's going anywhere." She pasted on another smile. "But, I hearyou'rein the dating scene."

That was when he understood why she'd wanted this conversation.

"So that's what the kids told you?" He laughed. "Oh, my! Bless them, your little informants. But they have it wrong. She's an NP at IU Health. A good-looking, fifty-six year old who is tired of going to concerts alone. I've accompanied her to a few. Don't tell anyone because it could get her in trouble." Linda tilted her head and looked puzzled. "Because she partners with my primary care doc and everything is supposed to stay professional. Anyway, she's definitely not looking for a commitment..." he stopped to chuckle, "...because her husband, who hates classical music, wouldnotapprove. We all go to dinner together and then he goes off and does something else. I promise to get her home at a reasonable hour and we'll have a drink."

"Oh." Linda looked away and wiped something from an eye with her napkin.

"So, no. Not really dating. There isn't anyone. I don't want to take the chance of anyone's feelings getting hurt. Maybe down the road... well, we'll see."

The kids' party was ending, and they'd have to gather theirs up soon.

"But what about your gang? Do you see any of them?"

"Mostly not. They had to choose between Jane and me, and it was an easy choice for them. I still see Beth sometimes. We meet at Starbucks in Fishers, far enough away that she doesn't worry any of them will know we're still friends."

"Wow."

"It's part of my penance."

"Your penance? Well, I'm sorry."

"You'resorry?"

"What? I can't feel sorry for you? Sure, I wanted to slap you, but it's not that simple."

"I don't understand."

"Nothing is simple. When I think of you and him I still get angry. So damned angry. And... ahh... let's not get into it, okay?"

"What?"

"Drop it."

"Tell me, Case. I'm a big girl."

"I get depressed. Okay? I get angry and depressed all over again. Shit. You know I'd planned to beat Harvey? To put him in the hospital? I've had fantasies about shooting him, too. But I couldn't, because I'd go to jail and lose visitation with the kids. So Harvey Motherfucking Milstead gets not only his wife and his family and his memories, but a complete walk. Anyway... this is about you. I get angry and depressed about you, but it's not like you're a hardened criminal or something, so I've practiced letting it go. Trying to. I meditate. Don't look like that. It helps. Sometimes it helps a lot. And... look. I know you don't think I can feel sorry for you, but I can. I hope it works out with you and this guy. Or with someone. Really. You need to have a full life again."

After All

Discussion(0)