Let's Mae a Deal

Author's note:

This is part of a long story. No part of it is intended to stand alone. I suggest starting with

Part 1

In revising the whole story, I've corrected errors, but also filled in a lot. This has inevitably made it all even longer. My apologies to anyone who read it in the original form and now finds it changed for the worse.

If you're looking mostly for explicit sex, this probably is not the story for you, so why don't you just go on to something else? There is explicit sex in some parts, but even there it's not the focus.

Also, some parts contain religious discussions which will offend some people and bore others. If you're one of those people, again, why not go on to something else?

46.

The Shadow of the Past

Scott did get up when he needed to in the morning. He tried not to disturb Lynda. If she woke, and he thought maybe she did, she didn't let on, and he was sure she'd be sound asleep in no time. He showered and shaved and dressed. He rummaged in the cupboards and got himself a bowl of cereal, and after eating he brushed his teeth, collected his gear and left.

When he got back, he helped Martha get lunch while Lynda got the laundry started. After they ate, they sat around the table for a while, just talking. Scott went to get a paring knife from the drawer, to cut up an apple. He said, "Martha, it's no big deal, but I'm glad for the way you have that drawer organized. All the kitchen knives in their own separate section, each knife with a sheath of some kind." Martha looked at him questioningly. "Oh, it just reminded me. Chris insisted on keeping paring knives in a little box, but also put can openers, potato peelers, other stuff like that, in the same box. I always felt I had to go slow and be extra careful every time I wanted any of those things. Sharp knives mixed in with all this other stuff, and I had to rummage around to find what I wanted."

He saw that Lynda had sat up very straight and was looking feisty. He looked inquiringly at her.

"Scott, I don't know how to say this without hurting your feelings. I know very well that you loved her, but I'm really starting to resent Chris. There must have been a lot more to her, but from everything you've said she sounds to me like a Class A bitch. I don't know how else to put it."

He drew a deep breath. It did hurt, but her take on it was understandable. "Lynda, and probably you too, Martha. I see why you might think that, but it's not the way things were. When I bring her up, it's always to explain or illustrate something. And, given the situation, it's almost always something about sex.

"Now, Chris could be a bitch at times, but not often, and she certainly was no worse than I was. I think you haven't seen me get really upset and take it out on someone. That's good, because it probably means I've gotten better at not doing it, a lot better, and I know that if Chris were still alive she'd have grown up some too.

"But sex was by far the area where we had the most problems, I think, and I was to blame at least as much as she was, and the underlying issue wasn't anyone's fault. You, by the way, are benefiting from what I learned the hard way from being married to her. The real issue was that we were just plain out of sync. Um. If we think of this relationship as a marriage of sorts, we're still in the newlyweds-just-back-from-honeymoon stage, where this seems more natural, but by now you've had a chance to figure out that I'm above average in sexual desire and drive. I've seen statistics saying that by my age, most couples average sex once or twice a week, if that, for many once or twice a month. Or even less than that. Just imagine me in my early twenties! (Lynda, you haven't had a chance yet to experience this first hand, but those things really do go down some as you get older.) Chris wasn't really uninterested in sex, but her interest in it was at a much lower level, and needed to be stirred up, especially by other things in the relationship. I didn't understand that—I just assumed she wanted me the way I wanted her, all the time—and so I kind of stomped all over her feelings in this regard. Of course, that made her even less interested, so I would wind up feeling very deprived and mistreated myself. We hurt each other badly.

"I don't mean she didn't try. She did. It felt to her like I was demanding that she be a different person, and it hurt her, but she did try. I can give you an analogy. I've known I think three people who were way too thin, enough that their doctors told them they needed to put on weight. There may have been something deep down, but it sure didn't look like anorexia or anything. It's just that after a few bites they'd feel full. They'd feel like they were stuffing themselves, eating high-calorie foods, too, and they just couldn't gain weight and have it stay on. I think sex was like that for Chris.

"Probably if sex had worked better—if she had wanted me more, and responded more—some other things would have worked better, too. But—sex probably would have worked better if I'd been better for her in other ways. I—" he felt himself starting to choke up "—I had, and still sometimes have, real problems with anger, and I took them out on her. And I was so clueless about what she wanted, in lots of areas, and all that affected her sexual desires, too. And it got to be a pattern, and—"

And he just ran out of ability to go on. He was back to the feelings of loss and loneliness and vain regrets that had plagued him so after Chris had died, for a long time. Tears began running down his cheeks, and then he was sobbing helplessly, unable to stop.

Suddenly the table was pulled back, and Lynda sat down in his lap. She had brought a kleenex box with her from somewhere, and she handed him a kleenex, and put her arms around him. She didn't say anything, just pulled him close against her. They sat that way for a long time, until he began to run down.

"Lynda, honey, I'm sorry. I loved her so much, and I still miss her more than I can say. I'm sorry I broke down this way."

She pulled back from him and looked him squarely in the face. "Scott, I remember someone holding me in his lap, just about like this in fact, and telling me I should never, ever apologize for crying from honest emotion. So how is it that you are apologizing to me for crying?"

He closed his eyes and breathed deeply a few times. Finally, he said, "You're right, of course. It feels different when it's me. My sinful pride. Again."

She told him, "I'm the one who needs to apologize. I shouldn't have said what I did, not that way. And of course you loved her, and still do. This one, the blame is all mine, and I hope you'll forgive me."

"Of course. You're right, the things I tell you about her are almost always problems of some kind. And I feel guilty about remembering them so clearly, when so many of the good things have faded unless something reminds me.

"Anyway. Outside of that, there were other areas where we were just put together differently, but for the most part I couldn't have asked for a sweeter and more compatible partner for my life. I was much harder on her than she was on me. There were areas where she did drive me up the wall, of course. She was way too casual about allowing enough time for things, especially allowing time for things to go wrong, so we were often late to things. And especially dinnertime. But I did things that bugged her at least as much. And I failed her much more than she did me.

"And, and, regarding the paring knives, I need to say: I could have insisted that she do it my way. But look. I gave her responsibility for the kitchen and meals, pretty much leaving all those decisions to her. I don't think it would have been fair for me to then overrule her on something like that, without a much better reason. She already sometimes resented me for being what she considered controlling."

Martha came over and hugged him. "Scott, I'm afraid this will hurt more, but I think I should ask. Did you by any chance have a fight with Chris shortly before she was killed?"

Scott was by now too drained even to feel amazement. "Yes. How did you know?"

"You're feeling guilty way beyond what's reasonable. It showed all over you when you were talking, and that seemed likely to be why. Scott, you haven't really told us how Chris came to be killed. 'Killed by a drunk driver' leaves lots of possibilities open. But if you seriously thought you were to blame, you would have told us about it. I know you! So stop trying to make yourself feel guilty. I know you can't just stop it, but you can remind yourself of the truth. And if you need to talk to someone else about it, either or both of us will listen."

She hugged him again. "I'm not sorry this came up. It's plain enough that you have been burying this mass of pain and feelings of guilt inside you for fifteen years and more, and it seems likely we're the only ones you'll tell about it. But I'm as sorry as I can be that it had to come up this way, and that it hurts you so much, and that there's not a lot we can do about it except listen, well, and make love to you, and I hope that doesn't just make you feel guiltier."

He said, "She had to go out and run some errands. A while before that, we had a huge argument, and I was raking her over the coals in the worst way. I think she left when she did to get away from me. And so she was upset enough that she probably wasn't paying enough attention. She wasn't the best driver, anyway, and I always worried about her. The bozo ran a red light and plowed into her. There probably was nothing she could have done to avoid it anyway, but if there were she probably was crying too hard to recognize it. And she didn't kiss me goodbye, with good reason, and the last words I said to her, I was shouting at her about something that didn't really matter in the least." He was crying again, not as hard but he still couldn't stop.

Martha told him, "Look. I'm really not entitled, or qualified either, to say this to you, but you need to hear it, and so I guess it's up to me. You know I'm not a Christian, but that doesn't mean I'm totally ignorant, either. You believe that no sin is too big for God to forgive you, right? For that matter, there are lots of worse sins for you to have committed, but I know that's irrelevant. But I know when you hold onto feeling guilty, you're denying what you believe. You need to confess it, whatever in there you did that actually was wrong, and trust that you are forgiven. Isn't that right? It sounds to me like you also need to confess to unbelief right now, a whole lot more than anything you may have done fifteen years and more ago, but you'd know better than I would about that."

He just closed his eyes and cried quietly for a few minutes. He could feel Lynda in his lap and against his body, and her arms and Martha's, both, holding him. Finally he said, "You're exactly right. I don't know that I can do it, but nothing you said was wrong at all."

They just stayed like that for a long time more. He ran dry eventually. They talked about other things, and finally turned to some tasks that needed doing.

Later on, when they were making love, Lynda told him, "I'm trying to imagine seeing you as controlling. I just can't. I hate to keep bringing this up, but look at us. We promised to do whatever you wanted, in return for Martha's job. And you defer to us pretty much every time."

"Well, it's pretty different. And I am a lot older, and I do occasionally learn from my mistakes. You and Martha don't have to be married to me, for which you probably should be thankful. And Martha in particular has a household which she's been in charge of for years, and in which I am, face it, a guest. I wouldn't tell her how to run her own house, which is not my house. But if you want an example, I'm insisting that Martha talk to her doctor about this sleep issue. What right do I have to insist on something like that? I'm not her husband or even her boyfriend, even though we're going to tell her doctor I am, to explain why I know and care about this sleep issue. Now, Martha's not complaining, probably because she's concerned about it, too. But multiply this by a few different issues a week for a few years, and she might feel that I was trying to control everything, too."

"And you've said that we haven't really seen you get mad and take it out on someone. But we have, really, only it's you. You're always beating up on yourself."

He could see that she wasn't convinced but had merely given up on arguing about it. Nonetheless, he thought the whole conversation was kind of a burden on sex with Lynda that day. It was fine for him, except that he cared about her enjoyment. He consoled himself that there would be other occasions.

47.

Wachet auf, ruft uns die Stimme

Martha's doctor was booked pretty solid, but to Scott's surprise spoke with her on the phone briefly after Martha had described the problem to the receptionist. She referred her to a sleep specialist, emailing her the referral form. Martha called and made an appointment at the first opportunity, around three weeks later for the sleep lab visit and a week after that to talk to the doctor and get the results. Scott felt concerned at the delay, but reminded himself that Martha had been living with this for many years.

When they went in for the lab test, he wasn't allowed to sit in the room where she was, but he was seated next to the technician on the other side of a window, which would be one-way glass when the lights were turned out in there. He watched her being very thoroughly wired to a big machine, which had lights and other indicators, but the tech pointed out to him the readouts in their observation room.

It took her a little while to get to sleep, which the tech said was very normal. The situation would feel very artificial to the patient, he said, and most people had some trouble relaxing enough. Eventually, he said she was asleep. They let her go through several sleep stage cycles before the tech's assistant—or the other tech, Scott never really was sure—went in to wake her up. They seemed very surprised at how hard it was to wake Martha up. The tech continued to watch his readouts closely, but Scott felt free to look instead into the other room.

After a couple of minutes, the tech said, "Well, it's real clear why you came in. Does she fall asleep at inappropriate times, or show other signs of too much sleepiness?"

Scott said that he had never seen her do that. He said that the one time they'd actually slept together all night, he'd been kind of scared when he couldn't wake her, and that she used a really painfully loud alarm, running for a long time before she woke enough to turn it off. At that point she'd seemed still very sleepy, but in a while, maybe fifteen minutes or more, she'd seemed fully awake. He told the tech that she didn't act that sleepy in the evenings, sitting down, which would start him yawning if he was tired, and that lying down in bed for sex in the evening didn't make her seem sleepy either, before or after.

The other tech did finally get Martha to wake up. She was still groggy when she went off to the bathroom to get dressed. Scott was very glad to be there to drive her home. She was a little more awake by the time they reached the house, but still sleepy. She said, "Scott, thank you so much. I hope some good comes of that, but thank you for offering to pose as my boyfriend so I didn't have to drive home like this in the middle of the night. Would it be too awful if I just went back to sleep, if I can, without making love to you?"

Scott had assumed that he'd be going home. He hadn't expected it to be during the wee hours. He said, "Of course! I wasn't expecting sex tonight, really! But since it's so late, is it OK if I sleep here after all?"

"As far as I'm concerned, you can sleep here any and every night, unless something's happening like company being here. Certainly tonight."

"Do you want me to sleep in the guest room, or in your bed?"

"I think I can go back to sleep OK either way, but probably easier if you're not with me. But which would you want?"

"Bed next to you will be awfully distracting, much as I love it, so I vote for the guest room myself."

So that's how they set him up. He saw Martha to bed, kissing her goodnight very gently. He thought that she'd have trouble getting up after this. And so would he. She'd at least gotten a couple of hours he'd missed. He prayed briefly, then tucked himself in, to his surprise (in the morning) going to sleep almost instantly.

The morning was really hard, what with so little sleep. Lynda was the only one feeling and acting fresh. She got them breakfast while Scott was shaving and Martha was still trying to get underway. Before they left for work, both women gave him hugs and kisses to say thanks for doing this for Martha. He told her, "I hope they turn up something that will help, when we talk to the doctor. The techs seemed pretty surprised. I gather that there are lots of people who have trouble waking up, if maybe not quite that much trouble, but that normally they show signs of excessive sleepiness at other times, too, and mostly they have much more trouble getting to sleep at a reasonable hour. Or else just can't stay awake at all." They headed off, in two separate cars. They were quite a bit later arriving than normal.

When they got in, Martha followed Scott into his office. As soon as he turned off the camera, she came into his arms and kissed him. He tried to cut it a bit short without hurting her feelings. He gave her another, very quick kiss, and said, "I have some things I need to get to pretty quickly, and I think you do too." She looked at him. She said, "Scott, I really appreciate everything about last night, you going with me, then getting me home and letting me get back to sleep. I wish I could think of something I could do that would say how much, and thank you enough. Sex of some kind comes to mind, but after all you're already entitled to that. I can't think of anything. But will you please come for dinner and at least a quickie tonight?" He agreed, eagerly enough that he hoped it showed. When she left he quickly turned to the things he'd postponed the afternoon before. He would normally have expected to work into the evening finishing them up.

48.

Oh, most lame and impotent conclusion!

The next week, Scott went along with Martha to get the results from the lab testing. This, at least, was at a sane hour, though it was taking them both away from work for most of the afternoon. The doctor asked Martha questions she'd already answered on her questionnaire, and also listened carefully as Scott told what he'd observed. Scott emphasized that Martha wasn't much of a drinker, and that on the day and night in question alcohol and drugs certainly had not been involved.

The doctor seemed sceptical at first, probing hard. Scott deduced that the doctor often saw people who swore they hadn't had anything at all to drink, and then it would turn out that they thought that the bottle of wine or three or four beers they'd had somehow didn't count. Scott spoke very definitely. He himself didn't drink at all, ever, and he had been with Martha all that day and night and she hadn't had anything alcoholic. He had seen her, once or twice, have a small glass of wine with dinner, but never more than that, and not anywhere near the night he'd observed her.

The doctor seemed very impressed by Martha's symptoms. He said, "We see this kind of thing frequently enough, but normally there are other symptoms, too. Some people have trouble staying awake almost all the time. Others seem to have circadian rhythms that they just can't adjust, so that they just can't sleep at night unless they are completely exhausted. At night, or whenever their schedule requires, that is—at some other point they just can't stay awake when they need to.