Izzy and I made small talk for a few moments, catching up on the small details of each other's lives. It had really been less than a month since we had spoken, but that's a long time for us. It goes that way though, sometimes talking several times in a week when I have access to a phone, and other times we will go several weeks between calls. We always know that we can call, though, if we need a friend.
I needed one now, and Izzy sensed that.
"So, Adam, it's always great to hear your voice, but what's really on your mind?"
I proceeded to tell her of the events that had been twisting up my life, leaving out nothing. Things that would be too painful or embarrassing to speak of to anyone else just flowed when speaking to her, and she listened, mostly in silence. She would occasionally stop me to ask a question, clarifying some point I had failed to include, and occasionally she would lend me what moral support she could, usually with a simple, sympathetic "Oh, Adam!" during the most painful parts. For example, when I had discovered Kristi with another man.
I spoke for close to an hour, and finished wrung out and hoarse, but strangely cleansed and at peace. When I stopped talking she waited a few seconds, perhaps to see if there was more still to come, then asked "So, what are you going to do?"
"Jeez Izz, I don't know. I was hoping maybe you'd tell me."
She laughed. "You dipshit, you know it doesn't work that way."
I laughed too, and it felt good. Her calling me dipshit always made me smile. That's been what she has always called me when I say something silly or stupid, intentionally or otherwise, probably since we were about five years old. She had picked it up from an older brother, I think, and had been scolded for it countless times before everyone gave up.
"No, I know Izz, I'm just kidding. I'm just so confused and hurt, I guess. All my best laid plans for Kristi and me seem kind of worthless right now, since I don't know if I can live by her rules. I just don't know. Tell me what you think."
"What I think? Adam, what I think is that I've never, ever, seen you as happy as you have been with Kristi. After Lisa I was afraid you were ruined forever, you were so depressed, and then you just drifted until Kristi came along, and then boom, you were the same old happy, easy-going, lovable guy I grew up with. She's good for you, and you know it."
She was right, but still, the cheating and fucking around... "I don't know Izz, I'm not sure I can take the fooling around and all."
She thought for awhile, and we were silent. "Try it Adam."
"Try it? What the hell Izzy, it's not like buying shoes or test driving a car, it's watching the woman I love have sex with another man! I can't just try it!"
"I know honey, I know, but what does it hurt? You can walk away now, and always wonder if you did the right thing, if maybe you should have stayed with this woman that so amazes and captivates you, or you can do as she wants and watch her have sex and see if you can tolerate it. Or maybe even enjoy it. If it's too bad you can always walk away later."
"Enjoy it. Yeah, right Izz. Now who's the dipshit?"
"Give it a chance Adam. You said it makes you horny to think about it, and from the pictures you've shown me she's stunning. What's wrong with watching a beautiful woman have sex? I though all guys liked that. Hell Adam, she's so pretty I'd like to watch her!"
"Gosh Izz, I did not know that about you! You always seemed so straight."
"Funny man. You know what I mean. Anyhow, aren't you being a little hypocritical?"
I knew what she meant. She meant her and I, our ongoing affair which Kristi knew nothing about, and the fact that I had fathered a child. That aspect, the child more than the affair, is what had kept me from telling Kristi about us. We had told each other early on that neither of us had any kids, and had decided that we wanted some together, something special that just the two of us could share in, and I was afraid that would hurt her the most, finding out I had already fathered one child.
"I know Izz. Kori has told me several times to fess up to Kristi about you, but I haven't found the right moment."
"Listen to Kori, Adam, she's a smart lady. She loves you guys."
"But what if part of Kristi's conditions for staying together mean giving you up Izz? I can't do that, ever. You know that."
"Don't buy trouble Adam. Move forward and deal with what comes up when it does. You're such a worrier!"
"I know Izz. So that's your advice, basically just do it? I could have gotten that from a Nike commercial."
"I'm not giving you advice Adam, we don't do that. I'm just doing what we always do, helping you see what you already know."
She was right, of course, but I had a ways to go still. I changed the subject. "Hey, you've got a birthday coming up!"
"What an odd coincidence, so do you!"
"Yeah, Izz, but you're way older than me."
"Four whole days, you big jerk. But I look way younger."
She was right about that, she was still a gorgeous woman with her busty but trim little body, raven hair, and dark, sparkling eyes. I laughed at our ritual. "You've got me there. What do you want for your birthday this year?"
She grew very quiet. "Adam, Paul and I would like to try one more time for a little girl. Will you help us again?"
That moved me deeply. "Isabel, I would be very honored to try to help you. I need to figure out this whole deal first, and if Kristi and I are going to be together, well, she needs to know first."
"Adam what if she says no?"
"Then Kristi and I will part ways, Izz. You know I'd never let you down."
"Oh Adam, I don't want to be responsible for that."
"What was it you said? Don't buy trouble, Izzy. We'll deal with it."
"Adam, I love you. Are you coming to the convention again this year, in November?"
I attended an industry convention and seminar in Houston, her hometown, every year. It was one of our semi-annual weekends together, following the convention.
"Planning to, why?"
"Because I think the timing will be about right, if it works out."
"It'll work out Izz. I love you too. Thanks for listening, you've been a big help, as always. Give Paul and the boys a big hug for me."
"Anytime, Adam. Do what you always do Adam, the right thing."
"Bye Izz."
"Bye Adam."
So, it was easy. All I had to do was figure out the right thing.
I sat there for a few secomds, just thinking about what Izzy had said, and enjoying the warm feelings I always had after talking to her. It just felt good to me, and I know she felt the same.
You might wonder how it is that we had known each other since birth, loved each other dearly, and had wound up not marrying each other. I've wondered that too, many times, and never more so than when my marriage to Lisa had crashed and burned. But she was married to Paul by then, and that's probably a good thing or there's no telling where the rebound might have taken us.
The truth is that we had somehow known, even as dumb teenagers, that marrying each other would be a great way to fuck up an incredible friendship. We could love each other, we could support each other, we could even have an amazing physical realtionship, but we could not be responsible for each other's happiness, it just wouldn't work.
We had been each other's first everything; first playmate, first friend, first "play doctor, you-show-me-yours and I'll-show-you-mine" partners, experiencing all the growth and changes we each went through together right on up through our teens. We had explored our world, experienced family life and love and tragedy together, pushed boundaries, and become totally dependent on each other as yin and yang, as I mentioned earlier.
I'll give you a couple of examples, hopefully brief, of the type of things that brought us so close:
The first one, kind of funny in retrospect, had occurred when we were out ice skating. Where we grew up, near Chicago, we used to skate every winter on the river that ran near our homes, and could go several miles up or downstream. We knew the couple of spots where the current made the ice thin, and avoided those. Although in the heart of civilization, the river seemed like a wilderness with the banks lined with trees and the stillness of winter settled over it, and in many places no homes or roads were visible, and no traffic sounds could be heard.
On that day Izzy and I were out skating together, as we often did. I think we were about 10 years old that winter, maybe 11, and we would skate until our toes and fingers grew numb from the cold and our laces were so iced up they were impossible to untie, then recover our shoes from where we'd left them on the bank and put the guards back over our blades and walk home in our skates (to either of our homes) for hot chocolate.
Way up river, about an hour or so into our skate, I was suffering the usual bursting bladder from the cold and had to stop to pee. We were used to this, and comfortable with each other's bodies by then, so it was no big deal. Izzy decided she'd take advantage of the stop as well, and stepped into the snow near the bank, by some bushes, and dropped her pants to squat down. I stayed at the edge of the ice and just peed onto the snowy bank, my fingers savagely cold on my little dick, but at least I could keep my pants up. I felt bad for Izz, having to expose her whole butt and all, but that's the way it is, and I was clowning around and writing my name in the snow, as young boys will do.
Izzy had started first, and finished first, and came back and stood and watched me pee, and write.
"What are you doing?"
