Author's Note: This is the second installment and I strongly suggest you read the first chapter of this story before continuing further. I don't recap last week's episode. I hope you enjoy my story. ~MLE
Chapter Two - The Dark Place
My wife, Kara, could barely contain her excitement. "Oh! This is going to be so much fun," she'd already decided. "I'm going to find the perfect costume for you, don't worry."
"It's just another Halloween party," I reminded her, but I had to admit that I found her happy mood just a tad contagious.
That's a good thing, too. The two of us had been going through a bit of a rough patch and I'd been somewhat depressed of late. Kara as well, I think, although I always thought she was much better at controlling her emotions...er, usually. At the moment, my beautiful blonde spouse could barely sit still as we perused Halloween costumes together on the sofa. Luckily, I was holding the laptop and she was the one scrolling rapidly through the catalogue with the tips of her fingers. She was so impatient that one finger just wouldn't do!
"Whoa! Slow down, baby," I said, chuckling. "You're not playing the banjo here."
"I'm looking for the good stuff," she retorted. "Turn it a little more. I can't even see what I'm doing."
I took a deep breath and obeyed her command. It's what I seemed to be doing more and more, but I suppose that's normal for any married couple. We'd been together for three years, ever since meeting at the start of my sophomore year of college. Kara had already graduated the year previously and been accepted into a post graduate program. Ten months later we'd had a June wedding in her father's backyard. They were divorced, her parents, but the day had gone off without a hitch.
Of course, people wondered why a grown woman of twenty-three would be hitching her wagon to a twenty-year-old boy who couldn't even drink champagne at his own wedding reception. The answer to that was a very simple one: We were deeply, madly, hopelessly in love with each other. Everyone says we make a good looking couple, but our mutual attraction runs much deeper than just the physical. We complement each other, like two pieces of a whole. Kara is more outgoing, for example, somewhat adventurous and given to spontaneity at times, while I'm content to follow her lead and play the straight man when her audience requires one.
And she does have an audience. Kara has the classic girl-next-door beauty, with her thick blonde hair and baby blue eyes, and a fresh, innocent face that Norman Rockwell would have been quite happy to put on the cover of the Saturday Evening Post. My wife has always drawn a lot of attention when we go out on the town. She pretends not to notice, but I know her well enough to know that she's pleased with the effect she has on most men, and a few women, for that matter. But what woman doesn't want to feel desirable? And it wasn't as if I didn't enjoy showing her off myself.
My god, I loved my wife.
What never failed to surprise me was that if you asked Kara about me, she would probably say something very similar. I knew I was a decent enough looking man, but I didn't think I was anything special in the looks department. Girls had always liked me, some of them anyway, and I'd always liked them right back. But I never had an ego. I hadn't been the Homecoming King or anything special. I was just me and I never really paid attention to whether or not anyone was checking me out, but my wife did, apparently.
"I'm really going to have to watch you at this party," she said, pausing at a male vampire costume just long enough to say, "That one sucks."
"Watch me?" I grinned. "What do you mean?"
"Remember the last Halloween party we went to, honey?" Kara was smiling sweetly, but her eyes were a little less than kind.
"Uhhh..." I tried to think. I remembered the party well enough, but I didn't recall anything particularly special about it.
"That senior mixer last year?" she hinted, and when I didn't answer right away: "I caught you in the bedroom with the Wicked Witch of the West."
"What?" I laughed. "There were twenty people in that bedroom!"
"Yeah, but she was hanging all over you, lover boy."
"Noooo..." I rolled my eyes, and I'd gotten a bit drunk that night, so I didn't remember everything, but the only thing that witch had done was ask for my phone number. I'd wiggled my wedding ring in front of her nose and pointed her towards one of my buddies.
"Just remember, I'll be watching!"
"Don't worry, I'm not going to leave your side all night," I assured her. "Some of those guys I work with..."
"Oh?" Kara narrowed her eyes. "What about them?"
"Just, you know..." I shrugged. "They're guys."
My wife laughed. "Well, it's not the guys I'm worried about."
"You don't have to worry about the gals either," I said, glancing down at my crotch without thinking. I wished I hadn't and immediately felt my face growing warm with humiliation.
"We just have to give it time," Kara said, softly. She leaned close and put her arms around me. "It's only been a couple weeks. We don't even have all the test results back yet."
"I know."
"We'll get through this, okay?" She kissed my cheek. "Look at me...Look at me, John."
I turned my head, but I just couldn't look into her eyes. I'd been impotent for a month already. I'd seen a general practitioner at the clinic and he'd run a half-dozen tests, so far with negative results. That news was both good and bad, but there were other tests and other results we were still waiting on. Something like prostate cancer hadn't been entirely ruled out as yet, but my PSA was normal, so...
"I love you," she said, kissing my mouth this time. "We're going to relax and have fun at this party. I'm finally going to meet your friends and we're going to drink, dance, and remember that our lives don't always revolve around your penis."
"Uh..." I blinked, not quite expecting her to say that!
"I know you think otherwise, but it's time to face the truth, darling." She was trying hard not to giggle. "I have the pussy."
Shoot, she'd made me smile, but I really wanted to pout a little longer.
"We could always stay home," I suggested, but I knew that was wrong as soon as the words fell from my mouth.
We'd moved to this city about six months before and Kara had made a few friends. She went to the gym three times a week and then we went together on Saturday mornings, and so she'd met some women there and seemed to be enjoying herself. I'd invited a couple of married guys from work over, like my boss and his wife, just because that seemed like a good idea. But this would be the first time we really socialized with my coworkers and I knew Kara wanted to be more involved. She wanted me to share more with her than just ten minute anecdotes over the dinner table. I spent 40 hours a week with these people and naturally, she wanted to know them.
"Do you want to stay home?" Her voice had taken a slight edge, and it was my fault. Everything seemed to be my fault these days.
"No, I didn't mean..."
"Because if you really don't want to go to this party, I'll go by myself," she said. "It would be awkward, but I'll do it and you know I will, don't you?"
"Yeah." I nodded quickly. "I'm sorry."
"In fact, I might just go by myself anyway," she said, pursing her lips as if thinking hard.
"Alright, alright..." I sighed. "I said I was sorry. I'm just not feeling much like a party, you know?"
"I do know, and I understand completely, but you have to realize that you're not going to start feeling better about yourself until you start actually doing something."
"I know."
"Look at me," she said. "Do you think I don't wonder what I'm doing wrong? Why can't my husband make love to me anymore? What's wrong with me?"
