POST MARRIAGE BLUES
In this final chapter Paula struggles to define herself as she dips her toes in the dating pool, her affairs become increasingly erratic until finally an old girlfriend steps in with her own solution.
*****
You would think that after all the affairs I'd had over the years that breaking up with my husband would be like a breath of fresh air but in true style I went the opposite way. I mean I had the kids to consider and then there was a real need to stop the endless affairs and find myself. The affairs had started as a way of getting back at Robert but somewhere along the way I became addicted to the thrill of deceit. Admittedly in the end it was an open secret though, he knew damn well that I was going behind his back although he was somewhat surprised and relieved to discover that I was doing it with women. In his eyes that absolved him of blame because I was probably that way inclined in the first place.
For the first three months I was trying to sell the house because we'd agreed to sell it and divide the proceeds equally and for that I have to admit I admire Robert. Despite his faults he didn't want to come to blows over property and so he moved in with his current girlfriend, Amy and I stayed in Essendon until the place was sold.
After it was sold I moved back into the Eastern suburbs nearer to my parents and started working full time, but that was only because mum was now my chief babysitter. However, where hair and makeup had been my preferred vocation I was finding it incredibly boring and so I started casting my net further afield and wound up in a solicitor's office doing filing and front desk work.
My love life had been put on the back burner for quite a while and I was carefully checking out the best of both worlds without making it too obvious. I still found men attractive but having spent so many years chasing women I inevitably drifted towards gay women.
My first fling was some nine months after we'd separated, her name was Judy and she came into the office to arrange a divorce settlement. She was a good ten years younger than me and we gravitated towards each other because we'd both been married. Judy had just signed on as a sex worker at a local brothel and yes, that was the second thing we talked about because I really wanted to know more about brothels. I'd always imagined prostitutes to be big bosomed, loose women but Judy was incredibly moral and disciplined. For her it was just a job and the hours were quite reasonable with only two late shifts a month.
In contrast I discovered that in the state of Victoria, sex workers are required by law to get tested every month, condoms were mandatory and brothels had their own security staff to enforce this rule if a client declined to 'wear the raincoat.' Legalising prostitution has done more to clean up the industry than draconian laws, drawing it out into the open where it could be regulated. Judy was also funding her part time university course through prostitution and fully intended to become a counsellor when she graduated.
It was somewhat bizarre that my first sexual encounter after I broke up with Robert was with a prostitute, he'd used them for years whenever he was working interstate, although in my defence I wasn't a client and it was her first time with a woman. She candidly admitted that while men were attracted to her, once they discovered she was a sex worker you could divide them into two very distinct camps.
"There's the kind of guy who thinks I'm a prostitute twenty four seven and wants to bring another woman around for a threesome and then there's the guy who can't stand the thought of another man touching me. Why can't I find a guy who just accepts that this is what I do for a few hours a day? It's just a job that involves extra attention to customer service, if he wants you to dress up like a schoolgirl then you change into a schoolgirl uniform. It takes skill and practice to be a prostitute because you've got to pay attention to the little tells."
Judy and I only had a one night stand but remained friends nonetheless, I guess she felt a little weird about it and I was distracted by rumblings on another front. Tina, one of my old school friends who I've mentioned in a previous story had hit a brick wall with her partner, Gary. They'd been living together for quite a few years but a few months before my marriage ended they got married, he for the first time and Tina for the second.
I've got a theory about getting married once you've been living together for a while, if you're not falling out over who squeezes the toothpaste in the middle and you can still look at the other person and think they're the hottest thing on two legs then don't get married. Honestly, I know it's only one day, a very special day I might add but I've seen so many couples with good relationships who go down that track and wind up divorced a few years later. I'm not saying it always happens by the way, it's just something I've observed over the years and I can't even say why because the reasons for divorce are so varied. Suffice it to say that Tina had come to the conclusion that she and Gary would be better off divorced.
"It's like that wedding ring has changed him, I call it the curse of the ring," she complained one day as we pushed our trolleys down a supermarket aisle.
"Before we took the plunge he was so easy going, we actually thought we were married and even told people we were married but once we had this ceremony it was like he suddenly decided that he had to be this perfect husband," she picked up a tray of minced lamb.
"He was a supervisor at this factory for years, he quite liked his job but after we got married he told me he was going to move up in the world and at first I encouraged him. He got an office job, but the hours are longer, he comes home tired, too tired for me and the kids. He falls asleep in front of the telly and I wind up falling asleep in bed only to wake up when he comes to bed."
"Have you tried talking to him about it."
"That's the part that pisses me off the most," she muttered, "we used to talk all the time, I thought he was this nice, sensitive guy but since he got this new job it's like now he's on another plane of existence. Okay, he earns more money than me but that doesn't give him the right to treat me like a paid housekeeper and last week he raised the possibility of having another child. For fuck's sake we've got kids, but he wants me to produce another just because we're married? That was never an issue before I put this bloody ring on my finger."
"So, have an affair or at least threaten to have an affair, it usually brings men out of their caves," I nudged her playfully.
"Now there's a thought," she murmured, "maybe I'll root my best friend," she bumped her hip against mine.
"Stop it, now you're turning me on," I picked up a zucchini.
"Likewise," she wrapped her hand around it and moved it up and down the vegetable.
I burst out laughing, not just at her actions but the look on another woman's face a few feet away, she winced and frowned and that just made it all the more amusing. However that chance remark did lead to a hot and steamy session between the covers at my place a few weeks later.
The arrangement Robert and I had worked out was remarkably generous, we had joint custody of the children. He took them for every second weekend and one week a month, he'd even moved into the eastern suburbs to make it easier to run them to school. I never actually specified that kind of arrangement but I sure as hell wasn't arguing.
One weekend he rang me on Sunday morning to ask if they could stay overnight to catch a night football match and I said okay and just as I hung up Tina called to ask if she could come over.
"I need to get out of here for a few hours."
"Sure, no worries," I stared out the window, "you okay?"
"No, I need space."
"So why don't we head up the Dandenongs? We can grab a light lunch and you can talk and I'll listen."
"I'm not sure about the hills," she sighed, "I have to be back here for five."
"It's eleven in the morning, we'll be back here before you know it. Go on, get changed, put on your face and come up the hills with your lesbian girlfriend. What can go wrong?"
She chuckled at that and promised to do her best, but when she finally came around I had to take a step back to rethink things. She'd done herself up quite nicely and sported a nice white blouse that was open to her cleavage, tucked into tight blue jeans and accessorised with a black belt and boots, and a black waistcoat.
