Helena quit. She ghosted everyone at the studio and found a therapist.
At the time she hadn't thought it would be long before she saw him.
A few months
, she'd thought,
and we'll be back together
. She was single-minded in her pursuit. "If you can become a decent human being," Charles had said, "maybe, we can talk."
She dutifully obeyed his order not to contact him, and to get professional help. She couldn't afford the city of London and so moved to Croydon. It was from there that she sent Charles a lone text message, so he'd know how to get in touch if he had to -- or if he changed his mind. He replied with his new address, nothing more.
"What do you want out of this?" her therapist asked at their first meeting.
"I want to learn to be a better person. I want my husband to take me back."
She worked at it intensely. She met with the therapist twice per week and had assignments. She did all of them. She made lists of important life events that might help explain how she could have done what she did. She produced a detailed timeline of her relationship with Charles and another one of the period in which Jules had seduced her.
Ah, Jules, her genie of the arts, who would take her there -- where? -- in exchange for her body. Jules would take her off topic while she was creating her timeline. Or memories of him would. Remember. That was the assignment. Remember what? Remember that dinner when she'd coyly displayed her nipples through her blouse. She'd gotten so charged up that she'd half-raped Charles afterwards, thinking about Jules the entire time.
Memories of what destroyed her marriage kept butting in, those wonderful, destructive things. It was toward the end of her time with Jules, when her guilt was already consuming her, that she'd let him tie her and blindfold her and give her such sweet torment that it sweetly pushed Charles away. It pushed everything away.
Don't think of that! Think of Charlie, of lovemaking with Charlie, of everything about Charlie. We were so happy before Jules and the arts ruined us. Before I ruined us.
Helena talked with other people who knew her well, about how they understood her personality. She avoided Jules completely --
Don't think of him! Stop thinking of him!
-- and worked to cultivate new friends. She would sit at home in the evening, going through her photos and Charles' hand-written love letters.
*****
A few weeks on, a friend told Helena about a social media post of Charles confronting Jules. A video montage. Jules was dining in some restaurant in Paris, with an entourage. Of
course
there was an entourage. A man walked up to him and said, "Hello Jules." Jules looked up and maybe he hesitated. Maybe not. There were some quick edits to the video, and you couldn't be sure. He started to rise, to offer his hand. "Hello, Charlie."
Charles hit him in the face, completely sucker-punched him, knocked him over his chair and onto his back on the floor, then stood over him as people screamed. One of Jules' legs was draped across the overturned chair. "You're finished with my wife, Jules," Charles said, "but I'm not done with you." Someone tried to drag Charles away, but he shrugged the person off. "Keep looking over your shoulder. You won't know when or where, but I'll be there, me or some other husband.
Ta vie va se transformer en merde
." Parts of it were caught on three different cell phones, and someone had spliced everything together.
A TikTok account reported that Jules had a broken jaw and had lost two teeth. His Web site denied it, but he'd hired bodyguards. That much was certain. All Helena could think, though, was
You called me your wife!
*****
She thought she was making progress, but in her fourth week her therapist asked her point blank, "Is it your hope that as an end result of our sessions, you will be able to win Charles back?"
Yes, it was! But the therapist pulled that rug out from under her.
"You face two problems. First, if you are successful here, it does
not
mean that he will take that path. It may be too late for that. Forgiveness is Charles' to give or withhold."
He has to. He has to!
"The second is a greater problem." The therapist took a sip of tea while Helena waited. When she spoke, it was coldly. "You are not close to reaching the goal of therapy. You're seeking insight under false pretenses, to look acceptable to him,
rather
than to become a more thoughtful and empathetic person. You're destined to fail."
Helena went home and cried away the rest of the day, lying on her bed, prostrate, unable to do the slightest thing.
I'm just a self-centered bitch!
Her therapy was set back weeks. Weeks became months. One month dragging the chain followed another. What was Charles doing?
She went to her old church, her parents' church, the one she had abandoned long ago. She thought she might find -- something. It was the Church of England, but was it the Church of Helena? There she stumbled onto a twelve-step group that focused on infidelities. They talked about 'sex addiction.' Perhaps God would help, however she envisioned Him, the way He was supposed to help alcoholics. See seemed helpless on her own.
It was still longer before her therapist suggested she ask Charles to accompany her to a session.
But.
When he answered the door, a woman was with him.
"Hello, Helena. This is my friend Sara. Sara, this is Helena." Sara was silent, but she looked like she wanted to attack Helena. Worse, Helena could tell they were a couple. She couldn't say anything. "I take it you're here because you got the application?" asked Charles. For the divorce. There was little other conversation, nothing really. Helena left without asking about the therapy session. She went home to mope away the rest of the day and found the divorce application in the post.
*****
She couldn't bring herself to contest the divorce. Between the therapist and the church group, she'd made enough progress to truly hate herself, so she had to let him go. He'd started the legal process in May, and by late autumn it was done.
Sometime later, a mutual acquaintance told her that Charles and Sara had married. There was also a romantic story about how the couple had met her, which Helena both wanted and didn't want to hear.
Oh, my Charlie! At least you're free of me.
She'd stood to tell her twelve-step group, "My ex-husband remarried. I'm trying to let it go. I think I'm happy for him, but it's been a hard week." Her mentor and two other women from the group took her out to dinner and let her cry and tell her story once again and let her know that things would get better.
She didn't believe them. "I had hoped, as a dream, my wildest dream, that he'd ultimately take me back."
Her mentor urged her to see him, to let him know she was letting go and wished them well. She tried but couldn't do it, so she sent a card. She never heard back.
*****
Where does life go when it goes on? Helena had a new life, a little one. She'd opened a tiny shop, and there were her therapist and her church group. She sold jewelry and other items, much of which she crafted. One weekend she was selling jewelry from a cart at Portobello Road Market, and she saw Charles and Sara. Charles was pushing a pram. Helena hid behind a delivery van. She leaned against it and covered her eyes and tried to catch her breath. It was a long time before she could bring herself to see if they were gone, and she stayed away from Portobello Road for the next month.
For the longest time Helena didn't date. She finally grew so lonely that she did see some men, and she had sex off and on, which was pleasant enough, but guilt kept her from being enthusiastic. Mostly she sucked cocks, because she didn't have to pretend to come, and the men liked it. She developed a sore throat, which turned out to be chlamydia and led to a week on doxycycline, after which she put dating on pause.
It was at the Portobello Road Market that Helena met a man; a customer whose date loved a brooch Helena had made. His name, too, was Charles, Charles Stuart of all things, and he came back the next week by himself. He wanted to talk and, yes, to ask her out. They were soon seeing each other. She always called him Charles, never 'Charlie,' and thought of him as Charles the Second, her own Restoration King. She told him early on how she'd destroyed her marriage, because she wouldn't let secrets come between them, and he fell for her. She loved him and was proud to have found a man like that. They became exclusive. He wanted a marriage and children, and at some point they decided to make a life together, and she moved in with him. Afterwards, she became brave enough to visit Charles and Sara, to tell them she had found someone. To clear the air. To make peace. Maybe to prove to herself that she
