Cheryl's Secret (Two Stories Series) (20 page)

“She’ll go back to Japan, and Akira will go to jail. We did the right thing.
Besides, as evil as Akiko is, and as awkward as that was for me, she’s also a beautiful Japanese woman that any man would still want to...”

“Thank you
,” Cheryl interrupted as she embraced Mark, whispering in his ear “I’m
also
a beautiful Japanese woman.”

“No doubt, but we really need to talk, Cheryl
,” Mark responded as he gently pulled away from her embrace.

They ordered their drinks, and Mark’s attention gradually shifted off his encounter with Akiko, and
back to Cheryl, who was smiling at him while nibbling her breadsticks. She offered one to Mark, which he happily ate.

“Can I have a sip of your wine, Mark?”

He handed the glass to her. She took a small sip. He took it back and continued to drink. Cheryl was pleased by this. She winked and then smiled. As they spoke, she touched him often, and Mark touched back. She moved in closer, looked up and offered him her lips, which Mark softly kissed. The moment passed…

“I told Tanya
everything,”
he blurted out.

Cheryl
spat her water out, looked around to see if anyone noticed, wiped it up, and regained her composure.

“I’m surprised that you and Tanya stayed together.”

“Well, we didn’t really date. We just gave the appearance of it. Sound familiar?” Mark said with a smile.

Cheryl looked away and then back to Mark.

“But you still had sex, right?” Cheryl asked, puzzled.

“Only a couple times right before she left.”

“Even though
you and I
did it?” asked Cheryl, even more puzzled.

“We
ll, Tanya and I both have our suspicions about that. Now that you and I are talking, I have to ask you Cheryl, did you sleep with me out of love, or did you just need a friend to fuck while waiting for Richard to come around?” Mark was inflamed, but tried not to show it.

“I’m
not
like my sister! I don’t just ‘fuck’ some guy!”

“In that case
, what exactly
did
happen with Akira?”

Secrets have a way of coming out at inconvenient times, yet Cheryl wanted closure.
After all, when the lies have been told to no avail, all that’s left is the truth.

“I learned those sex techniques from my sister.”

“I know, you two do it the same way.”

Great, he’s probably fading off into some sex
fantasy about me and my sister,
thought Cheryl to her self.

“Hey, get your
head out of the gutter. I got a
real
sex story to tell you, O.K.?”

“Please proceed
,” Mark said, regaining his focus.

“The three of us had our own ‘training session’. Akiko and I took turns with him as she demonstrated her technique
. He did
more
than just touch me ‘there’. We were all consenting adults. But...”

Mark chimed in
“But after that, Akira assumed he had sexual rights to you, and that’s why at the barbecue he…”

“Yes, that’s right Mark.
It was worse than what I told you. I… couldn’t tell you everything that happened in the kitchen that night. I was so afraid what happened would become known to you, and to my family.”

“Cheryl, did
he…”

“No, he didn’t get it in.
But if he’d had less wine that night, and I’d had more, well…”

A tear rolled down Cheryl’s eye. Mark comforted her as
well as possible.

“Cheryl, Akira’s going to jail. Immigration in New York is on it right now.”

Cheryl smiled at Mark. “You have no idea how grateful I am, Mark.”

In a mix of joy and
sorrow, she kissed him again. The moment passed, and they broke away to continue.

“Cheryl, I won’t judge you for what happened.
In addition, I know how strongly Akiko influenced you. I think I can see what was going on. But I have to know, were you preparing for me, or Richard?”

Sometimes the truth is too complicated to
show all at once, and simplicity is best. She could only say…

“Yes.”

“Yes, that’s it? You’re going to have to be more specific than that.”

“Mark, I’ll explain all about Richard before we fin
ish. As for now, I want to know… Why’d you and Tanya…”

“Keep dating after you and I slept together?
Yes, we did go off on a tangent there. I didn’t fully answer your question. Well, for starters, it wasn’t exactly a ‘booty call’. You see, what happened in this odd affair that went on with, let’s see, between me, you, Tanya, Akiko, her husband and of course Richard. That makes SIX PEOPLE! I’ve heard of lover’s triangles, but this is ridiculous…”

Amber was now serving drinks at the bar.
She didn’t see the two, but the two saw her.

“Mark, you
didn’t mention her. Was Amber a
seventh
person? I
saw
the way she looked at you when we were out together.”

Mark
only closed his eyes and shook his head.

“I don’t have any room to judge, but what in
the world
happened with you and Tanya?” Asked Cheryl.

“It’s like this: Akiko and her husband were t
raining you on sex techniques. I was training you on how to handle your crush on Richard. You were training me on what to do with Tanya, or maybe you were training me on how to be
your
boyfriend? Who were
you
intending to wind up with, Richard, or me?”

Cheryl once again avoiding complexities, could only say “Yes”.

“That’s all you can say? Fine, but we’re still sorting that out later. Anyway, Tanya gave me some training too. When I told her about
us
, she got curious about the sex techniques you taught me. She didn’t, however, want to have sex with me again until some of my issues with women and relationships were handled, so she didn’t bring it up right away. She taught me what’s important in a relationship, and how to meet and choose women without losing my mind. This really helped because I
really did
lose my mind, and Tanya could see that.”

“But you never lost your
heart
. I could
see
that. No matter how crazy we got, and no matter how awkward we were together, you always had your heart. You have my heart too. I love you.”

“Y
ou can’t love me
and
Richard! Completely aside from the morality of it, you just don’t have enough attention for us both,” Mark asserted, remembering what Tanya taught him about giving and receiving attention.

“I can love you, Mark.” Cheryl paused carefully choosing her words.
“I can love you Richard,” she said as she looked down to the floor as if Richard was hiding in the basement.

Is she just drilling saying “
I love you?” Now there’s a training session taken too far.
Or maybe she’s just saying both to herself, to see which one she believes.

Mark respected her thought processes, silently letting her be.
After all, he put on his profile that he could let a woman be herself. It was time to live up to those words.

Cheryl
struggled with her thoughts. She wanted desperately to tell Mark the truth without sounding like a psychotic idiot. Her only hope was that adage “The truth will set you free”.

“I wasn’t ever going to bring
up Richard. I only did because you said ‘Tanya’ on our first kiss. So I said
his
name to get even, but
also
to express my affections. Don’t worry, this will all make sense soon, just let me talk,” Cheryl said sensing Mark was about to interrupt.

“Richard was never a threat to our relationship.
He never could be. I kept mentioning him because you mentioned Tanya. You see, I wanted us to focus on
helping each other
rather than
on each other
because the ‘each other’ of you and me
doesn’t work
as long as your mind is on Tanya. In simpler terms, you had your distraction, so I kept my distraction there too. These so-called distractions, ironically, became our common goal.”

We were looking at the same painting. Thanks, Tanya.

“Tanya told me about your date while she showed me your profile. But she wasn’t sure about you, and wanted to see some more men. She found you a little too forward. So I grabbed the opportunity. I
like
forwardness in a man.”

“What about getting Tanya to call me?” Mark asked with rapt attention.

“I was nearly certain she wouldn’t, and saw it as pointless.”

“B
ecause
you
wanted me, right?”

“
Akiko
wanted you. She accidentally used my account to email you, so I at least owed her an introduction. Surprisingly, you refused her. So with the events that followed, in so many words…”

“You wanted me for yourself
,” Mark said, understanding.

“Yes, I did.”

“So, all this time you were just using Richard to make me jealous?”

“No, that’s not it at all.
I don’t expect you to understand yet. I’m getting to it, don’t worry. For now, I want to know, did you feel
anything
for me when we were
training? Did you, Mark?”

“Yes, I did.”

“Well, those feelings weren’t an accident. Think about it. I held you. I kissed you. I got you emotionally involved with me, asking you to help me with Richard, all the while telling you that you absolutely could NOT have sex with me.”

Mark reeled from this.
He gathered himself and although still hurt, still spoke.

“Cheryl, all this sounds like you never really liked me.”

“I was pissed because you said ‘Tanya’ when we kissed! What was next, saying her name in bed? But here’s the
real
bugger of it. My feelings changed. You respected our boundaries when I trained you. You didn’t go for my sister. When I drove you home from the barbecue, you showed how much you cared, and on top of that,
finally
apologized to me!”

Cheryl’s anger subsided. The
warmer heart took over.

“
Those things were hard to ignore. Besides, I always thought you were
hot
, regardless of anything else I felt,” Cheryl said with a smile and a wink, lightening the mood.

“Look Mark, Akiko is out of the picture, and so is Tanya.
But that doesn’t necessarily mean you’ve chosen me now, does it?”

This was
not
hypothetical, and Mark knew it. He responded “I choose you, at least now I do. We have a lot of healing and forgiving to do, but I do choose you. But what’s keeping you from giving me up for Richard?”

On the path to
the truth, you can run into strange things that are put there to hide it. Maybe this is why some philosophies come off as contradictory jibber-jabber. This moment exemplified that as Cheryl spoke nonsense.

“Mark, I could give Richard up for you, but I couldn’t give you up for Richard, at least
not now. I’d have to start over,” Cheryl tried explaining.

“
Make sense of this now, please! Who is Richard?”

“A few months ago, I went to this seminar, “
How To Attain Prosperity Through Visualization”.
I came up with the qualifications for my ideal man. They are as follows:

He is a good looking man, artistic, intelligent and funny

Honest

Clean and neat

Can handle a woman with finesse

He’ll listen to what I say, and care about how I feel.

He can resist my sister.

Comforts me when I’m distressed.

Can satisfy a woman in bed.

“I even gave him a name: Richard.”

“So, all this time I’ve been competing with some imaginary guy?”

Cheryl was never braver than when she
told Mark the words he would always remember, rivaling any given time she’d say “I love you.”

“No Honey,
you
are
Richard.”

EPILOGUE

Dear Journal,

   
I feel bad that I’ve taken so long to write this month, but it’s been a busy one. I met HER. But I nearly missed my opportunity.

If only I had known what was really on her mind. Why did I have to find out the hard way, allowing myself to be so misled by circumstance, so buried in myself?