Folie à Deux (26 page)

Two more hits each, then we banter aimlessly, attempting to kill another uncomfortable silence. It could be the crest of the paranoia but I think I’m coherent enough to realize I’ve made a bad decision. I just backed myself into a corner from which I have no escape. She breaks the silence and my concentration when she whips her head around and sticks her tongue in my mouth. I hear little moans escape her not from anything that I’m doing but just from the sheer desire that she is exuding as we play out this unspoken part of our plan.

Because the porch is mostly glass and it’s the middle of summer it’s uncomfortably hot, we move inside. I think walking to the bedroom is too presumptuous and what remains of my conscience reminds me that it is the bed my wife and I share so I sit down in the middle of the couch. She straddles immediately. I allow her to dictate the pace. I gently place my hands on her hips and kiss her only as hungrily as she kisses me. She moves her hips in a rhythm as she kisses harder while I move my hands to massage her back because that’s what feels safe. Everything is calculated to make sure that there is no misinterpretation that I’m pushing.

We kiss for hours. I make sure that when my hands move to her side she doesn’t flinch. Her head moves to my ear and she nibbles it a notch harder than I would like. I grab her and she grinds harder. Her short shorts ride up even higher on her thigh allowing me to feel her tense muscles. She stops for just a second and I wonder if it’s me or because she has lost her capacity to
concentrate. The ensuing audible sigh lets me know it’s the latter. I move my hands up the back of her thighs to the center of her body and feel stubble. It excites me but I am also aware of her reaction. She is unwavering.

As time passes, I become weary, more scared, she asks hurriedly, “Are you ok?”

When I answer, “Yes,” she throws all of her energy back into her hips. I judge our time together by how badly my jaw hurts from my mouth being opened. My legs have fallen asleep from being in the same position and my wrist also is sore although she is showing no signs of tiring. Her arousal only increases.

Without warning and suddenly enough to startle me, she pulls back, takes a deep breath that borders on a sigh and says, “Let’s go play miniature golf.”

It’s somewhat forced and isn’t exactly what she wants as much as contrived. Despite her abrupt interjection, I honor her request without inquiry. I corral her toward the door and walk to the car, my head on a swivel. Thankfully, no neighbors.

After I close the passenger door and walk around to my side, I say through the open window, “Oops, I forgot something inside. I’ll be right back.”

I walk back inside to put all the toys and kid’s books back on the floor. In the event that we don’t return I need to leave the house as Dana last saw to avoid suspicion. I return to the car, hop in and start it. She says nothing, just sits next to me with a grin that looks as if she’s in a stupor. I wonder if I look as incoherent. I’m awake enough to drive but still pensive.

It’s unlike Dana to not have called by now. She has always been clingy and a bit claustrophobic but that is largely my fault. I only know how to keep secrets and am adept at existing behind a constant shroud of concealment. I play everything close to my
chest and without ever trying, have become an unknowable person to everyone around me, especially my wife.

One night, two years ago I was awoken at two a. m. by the overhead light being turned on and Dana screaming, “How could you do this to me? How could you embarrass me like this?”

“What are you talking about?” is all I could mumble.

“I went into your email and read about your little dalliances with Jackie, and Lourdes and Stephanie, and Brittney. You make me sick Jim, you really do.”

I could not fathom what she was talking about, I had no dalliances. I recognized the names as former students with whom I occasionally corresponded but not as a source of necessary suspicion. Some of them inquired about getting together when home for semester break and although taken with a grain of salt I did not tell them, “No,” and that is what upset her. Dana was angry because I had led them to think that time alone with me was acceptable while putting her in the position to look foolish.

I saw nothing wrong with these correspondences, enough in control that if an e-mail was misconstrued I would be able to quell the desire. This is the naïveté with which I live my life and I cannot avoid feeling the pain that it causes Dana. Sadly, I find neither the empowerment nor the ability to change my behavior.

As Natalia and I are driving to play miniature golf, Dana calls. I turn down the radio and shush Natalia, hoping her presence is hidden.

“How are you feeling hon? Headache any better?” Dana asks with genuine sympathy. Her kindness and concern hurt me for her.

“Eh, so so. Ya know,” I reply, trying to say as little as possible for my benefit as well as Natalia’s.

“What have you been doing? I hope you are resting,” she says softly.

“I am,” choosing only to answer the latter question because the former is an impossibility.

“I feel ok, I guess. A little bit better,” I think of Ferris Bueller’s Day Off as I speak these words, amazingly finding another channel of functionality.

“Do you want me to bring anything home with me?” I feel my pulse increase but before I can react she continues, “Do you need me to come home now to take care of you? I can tell Sr. Karen that I need to go.”

I delay my answer to not seem panicked, “No, I’ll be ok, I’m just resting so there is nothing that you could do anyway. But thanks for offering.”

“Ok, well I hope you feel better and I’ll keep my phone near me just in case, I’ll call you on my way home. I love you Jim. Bye,” she ends.

I want to say something to alleviate the tension in the car but don’t know what. “So obviously my reason for playing hooky today was that I was sick,” I say with a chuckle that sounds more embarrassed than apologetic.

“Yeah, I figured that,” she says apathetically as she looks out her window. Since the look on her face already displays that the moment in unpalatable I decide to broach a conversation I’ve been delaying.

Dana is the only other person with whom I’ve ever discussed Carla. When our relationship began to blossom I told her out of the same guilt I feel now and her reaction shocked me. She felt that it wasn’t a shared responsibility, rather, “How fucked up it was that someone could do that to a teenager.” At the moment that Dana began to ask questions I became defensive, distraught
over the conflict I felt to justify that chapter of my life. I opened up to let her into my world, yet felt angry that she was attacking Carla. I felt it was my responsibility to the person that Carla was in my life to explain why her behavior was acceptable. I didn’t fight to make anything tolerable, just tried to make Dana understand that it wasn’t all bad. Carla had her reasons, which I neither understood nor agreed with, but they existed, nonetheless and were therefore valid.

I was so upset with Dana and her vicarious defense of my childhood that I had to stop the conversation. I withheld the rest of my details and hurried to the end searching for a futile segue. I ended by asking, “Do you think less of me for what I just told you?” petrified of the answer but amazed to hear an assault on Carla for which I was unprepared.

“Are you crazy Jim? How could I think less of you? I feel so sorry for you. How could an adult in a position of authority allow that to happen?” she followed with renewed venom. I had never felt sorry for myself and didn’t think anyone else would either. This conversation uncomfortably changed that perception.

Her incredulous questions kept coming, “You don’t really believe that she was a virgin do you?” and “You realize that you never truly married her right?”

I took immediate offense and defended the details upon which Carla insisted. With each answer I detached further, my only validation being, “That’s what Carla told me,” therefore it had to be true. The possibility that Carla was not a virgin steals the breath immediately from my lungs but I do not let Dana see. My only coping skill is to chase the reality immediately from my mind and agree. I walk away, into the same bathroom where I masturbated endlessly in the shower and sit on the edge of the
tub, rubbing my temples, repeating, “Carla did not lie to me. She loved me. I was her first.”

“So there is something that I have to tell you,” I begin to Natalia, “When I was in high school I had a long term, sexual relationship with my French teacher.”

I thought about how I was going to broach this for weeks. I came up with nothing that seemed to make sense so I speak extemporaneously. I didn’t intend to convey a unique coincidence but as I speak the words they ring like I’m informing her of one more thing we have in common, instead of a straight line connection between two sets of offenses. With my tone of voice and fancy wording I manipulate the conversation, omitting the grievance.

I don’t even have the consciousness to fear Natalia jumping to that conclusion herself. “Do you still see her? Was she pretty? Did you end it with her or did she end it with you?” are her only questions. They are teenage concerns that appeal only to her immediate perception. I respond and wait for how she processes my responses.

Her next words are, “I’m hungry. Can we stop for something to eat?”

I’m relieved, happy as always to disassociate from the reality right in front of me.

Miniature golf is a farce because I’m still stoned. Every time Talia brushes up against me I feel arousal, immediately followed by a dirty sensation. Luckily for my conscience the hierarchy of immorality operates on a sliding scale. As if being in public makes my choices any worse than sitting on my couch.

The later it becomes the more paranoia grips my every thought. I fear Talia’s mother finding out where her daughter is or Dana taking it upon herself to come home out of concern. If
she does, my plan is useless because she would avoid bothering me. She may simply call her dad to fix the battery, or a friend.

I begin to feel an unnamed dread that occupies my entire mind until Natalia asks with a sad face, “Why are you so quiet?”

“Oh, it’s nothing. I’m just starting to come down,” which is the truth but I need to show her more attention so she doesn’t feel slighted. I regret this whole day now, realizing how close I am to being caught compounded by lamenting my choices because Dana is a good person who cares about me. Her offer to come home makes me feel loved, a feeling I have so desperately wanted from her for so long. Despite Dana’s ignorance of my need to be desired, I fear we have drifted irreparably apart. All these thoughts interrupt any attempt to exist in the ugly reality I’ve created.

Natalia and I arrive back at my house and sit on the couch simultaneously. Immediately she kisses me hard as though the three hours spent without our mouths locked have exponentially built her arousal. My mind races. I think about taking her home and being back before Dana arrives. What if Natalia’s mother is looking for her? Do I have any incriminating receipts in my pockets? I need to spray the porch again to make sure the smell is gone.

After kissing for much less time than earlier, I say, “We should really be going.”

“Oh, do we have to?” she whines and puts her head on my shoulder, nibbling my ear at the same time.

“Yeah, we really should,” nervous she may put up a fight. After a few more exchanges varying in playfulness, we reach the car. In my haste, I’m much less cautious, having almost forgotten the potential for neighbors to see us. As she slowly walks to the passenger’s side, horrid premonitions of Dana’s minivan pulling
down the street flash in my mind. I have literally and figuratively trapped myself in this decision.

Conversation is pleasant during the ride to her house. “I had a great day with you,” she tells me with a cute smile, accentuating her dimples.

“When can we do it again?”

Feeling the full weight of accumulated stress, “Real soon, I hope,” I fake through my best smile.

Five minutes before we reach Natalia’s house Dana calls. With exasperation she explains, “My car won’t start, Jim. I think it’s the battery. What can I do?”

Panic and pot wiped that part of my plan from memory. More specifically, I detached myself from that step once checked off of my list this morning. As I’m about to speak I hear her ask someone for help. I don’t know and don’t ask who but after more background noise the car starts.

She barks out of frustration, “Ok. I’ll be home soon,” and hangs up.

I drop Natalia off with neither discussion nor ceremony. As far as her mother knows Natalia was home all day so she cannot arouse any suspicion otherwise. We kiss goodbye at the red light before her development which serves as our farewell.

When I pull in front of her house she simply says, “Ok, I love you. Bye,” and hops out of the car. Her calm demeanor is exactly the opposite of the fright that envelops me. Before she even turns her back to walk away I begin the mad dash driven by speculative horror if I arrive home after Dana. I look at the clock and do quick math to figure out two different scenarios, one with the traffic lights on my side and one against.

My breath is shallow and accelerated until I pull on my block and see an empty driveway. I bound up the steps, three at a time
taking another sweep everywhere to make sure that there are no traces of my day. I left the sun porch windows open and sprayed half of a bottle of Febreeze to kill the lingering smell of depravity.

Dana and my children arrive five minutes afterward and the second I see them I feel the tight, nauseas knot in my stomach. I don’t know what causes it but it’s a vaguely familiar feeling that hurts increasingly worse as I resume normal life. This sensation washes over me the way I imagine anesthesia grips a person. Except instead of numbing, this is acclimation to feeling again. It’s an allover pain that makes focusing difficult.

All day I have detached from the truth, yet at the sight of my family, I return. My stomach aches of regret. Sadly, my remorse is fleeting because I will text Talia tonight. I will entertain future plans. I will discuss what a great day we had, joking and laughing about mini-golf and getting stoned. I will trivialize so much of my distorted realism unable to foresee worse deeds than today.