Part Two of Two
Facing the mistake
After exhausting her remaining vacation with six straight days of crying, Paula reluctantly returned to work. Her fuck-buddy, Bart, surely would be angry. She had not answered his dozens of calls, texts and emails. He did not know where she lived. And, of course, he had no idea what had happened.
His back was to the open doorway when she stepped into his office. "We're done," she declared. Her voice was soft but firm. Wounded soft, not sexy soft. As he spun in his chair, she spouted out answers before he had a chance to ask questions.
"It was a mistake. A stupid fling. I don't love you. I don't want you. I know the office is so small that I still have to work for you. But I'm sending out applications this week, and you'd damned well better give me a good reference."
Silence hung for a while before Bart responded, "He knows?"
Paula turned away, partly to hide her tears and partly to enforce the promise she had made to herself not to humiliate Bic by discussing him in any way with her lover. Well, now her ex-lover.
"Does he know who I am? Is he mad? Should I be scared?"
Paula looked back, sizing him up in disbelief that she threw away her perfect life for this.
"I don't know exactly what he knows, or exactly how he feels. We haven't talked. I'm sure he must know who you are. I'm not saying you should be scared. But if you knew who he was, you would be."
"So who is he?" Bart asked with urgent concern.
"None of your business."
"That's not fair. He knows who I am but I don't now who he is? How do I defend myself?"
"You don't, asshole," Paula said as she began moving back toward the door. "What I did was my fault and I accept the blame for it. But seducing married women - and you did know I was a married woman - is dangerous business. I have just one piece of advice for you, and you should listen to it very carefully: There are no coincidences."
Waiting and waiting
At home, Paula spent what felt like hours every day checking and rechecking her cellphone for texts or emails. When it would ring, she lunged for it. But there was nothing from Bic. Wickerhaus and Lankersham provided no insight, and seemed to barely tolerate her calls. She must have left a dozen messages on the FBI emergency contact line. The operator accepted them dutifully, but without result.
Paula was eating tuna out of a can in her kitchen, imagining that Bic was baking pork chops for dinner, when the daydream was interrupted by knocking on her front door. Bic wouldn't knock. Would he? The stranger on the stoop handed her a large envelope. Her heart pounded as she expected to hear the words, "You've been served." But the man departed without uttering a syllable.
Her hand trembling, Paula dumped the contents onto the kitchen table: Assorted financial documents and a note in Bic's handwriting. It read, "This will be helpful to you. The bank account and credit cards are still open. My paycheck will still be directly deposited. I will withdraw $3,000 for living expenses on the 15th of each month."
There was no signature. No emotion. No mention of her betrayal, nor of a divorce, nor of forgiveness. No address or phone number. No indication when or whether he might come home. The detective's wife did spy one clue. There were maybe a dozen little oval wrinkles on the page, each about the size of a teardrop. Paula added about a dozen of her own.
Insights on an ego fuck
Her life slowly regained a semblance of structure, in that she was working, eating and achieving occasional success with sleep. But the unrelenting weight of her situation was crushing. Sometimes almost literally. At random moments she might find herself struggling just to catch a deep breath.
Food had no taste. Music had no beat. When she tried to watch TV, the show she saw on every channel was the same: a fuzzy review of the collapse of her life, played over and over in bleak black and white.
She felt no urge to reach out to others for comfort. Not to her mother, 500 miles east, nor her brother, half that far south. Not to friends, who had once openly admired Paula's obvious marital bliss. None of them had known her secret. Nobody but Bart. And her feelings about him were dead. Not love. She never was never remotely close to in love with him. But not hate either. He might be a pig, but she knew that she had willingly, even eagerly, joined him in the slop.
Bart had been just a thrill, an ego fuck that any new cock might have provided. Yet there was no thrill in the memory. Two weeks into her despair, facing the prospect of another lonely night, Paula let her fingertips wander under the elastic of her panties in search of release. She knew from experience that even vigorous rubbing would be futile without engaging her imagination. Not until reaching a small climax - the only kind available - did it occur to Paula that with no conscious consideration whatsoever, she had chosen to imagine herself writhing under Bic. It seemed that Bart, so recently the subject of her tawdry fantasies, had metaphorically left the building.
As if her circumstances were not bad enough, a police spouse begins each day with the real possibility of ending it widowed. The risk may be recognized with an extra embrace or a long good-by kiss on the way to the door. But for Paula there were no more embraces, no more kisses. Just the fear that Bic could die today without knowing how sorry she was. How much she loved him. Only him. And without an opportunity for her to seek absolution.
That fear, more than everything else, led Paula to seek counseling. It was not with the police psychologist, but a woman that he had recommended. Twice a week Paula met with her for an hour. Absent the husband, the counselor could hardly assess the prospects for the only thing now driving Paula's heart: a reconciliation.
