Keeping within the San Diego City speed limits, I drove my cheating wife to the airport. She was flying out to Mexico to meet with her lover of the last three months. As I drove, Connie commented on how much she liked the bay and the sea.
She chattered all the way, dizzy and ditsy as usual, with everything all about I, I, I... Me, Me, Me... I want, I want, I want... fuck-me, fuck-me, fuck-me... with no thoughts as to the consequences of her affair.
That wasn't the girl I married, 6 years ago, but she'd 'devolved' over the last 3 years of our marriage, as she picked up attitudes from her pack of divorced and swinging friends, plus stuff derived from her courses in Women's Studies at the University.
First she went into rationalizations, justifications and excuses mode:
She said, not looking at me, "Oh, Mike, I'm so sorry, I never meant you to find out about Jorje."
[Pronounce his name as 'Hore-Hay']
I growled, "Kinda hard to ignore, what with you and Jorje fucking all over the house, especially in the bedroom, every moment I was away on business. There was that time, 3 days ago, just before he flew back to Mexico. I caught you both in bed, fucking, and he didn't even stop humping into you. Plus he was waving a pistol, shooting a hole in the wall and calling me 'bendajo,' which I believe means 'fool' or 'asshole' or 'wimp' and 'mericon' which means 'queer'. Not armed and not wanting to risk a gunfight, I had to walk away from you both, as he continued to screw you bareback in our bed."
Bitterly, I added, "I'm only taking you to the airport to stop the constant talk of 'Jorje-this' and 'Jorje-that.' It's long past time for a 'good-bye,' Connie.
Still wound up still in herself, Connie said, "Mike, I never thought you were a wimp or queer, just sort-of too submissive to me, too 'vanilla'. You were always trying to please me, so I had to break away from you for a little sexy vacation; you can understand that.
And.
"The Wedding Certificate, oh, it's just a piece of paper. Wedding vows, just empty words that no one remembers now."
And.
"It was all just flirting and sexy talk, until he slipped his finger in my pussy and I went a little crazy and then..."
And.
"I have to get this little fling out of my system, that's all. It's just some recreational sex, honey."
And.
"He had such a big cock, and it went in so far, deep into my womb, so I just had to fuck him, you can understand that, can't you?"
And.
"He was so huge and romantic and sexy, I had to have him inside. It was like a big, dark cloud came over me."
And.
"I love you, but right now, I'm not in love with you!"
Then Connie shifted into modern feminist marriage-destruction mode:
"After all, it's my body, and I can decide to use it anyway I please."
And.
"My body, my choice. I need to re-connect with my inner sexual female Goddess, you can recognize that, can't you?"
And.
"I need to 'find myself.' "
And.
"I deserve a little excitement, a little danger in my boring suburban life, you can see that."
And.
"Monogamy is a relatively modern concept. A woman's body is designed to please several men, not just one."
And.
"No one man can totally satisfy me, now that I know I'm truly liberated from obsolete conventional social mores."
And.
"This will spice-up our married life, you'll see."
And.
She twisted the 'knife'—the one embedded in my heart—a little more, as she said, "When this 'fling' is all over, in a few months—a year at most—I'll come back home and we can just forget about it and get on with our lives."
I'm not sure she even heard me, as I quietly said, "No, Connie. There is no 'home' now. No 'coming back' or 'forgetting'. This is forever."
I added, sadly, "Your mind and spirit are on a different planet. You're being used and you don't even know it."
How a college-educated, early-middle-aged woman, soon to be an ex-wife, believed that she could say and do such things and still have a wedded relationship, a home and a loving husband is beyond my comprehension. Self-delusion at it's most blatant.
I pulled up at the terminal to AeroMexico flights. Getting her bags out of the car, I give her the copy of Cosmopolitan magazine, the most recent one she'd not read yet. I said, "Here is something to read on the flight, Connie. I've put an envelope at one of the articles. It's got some other important information for you to read on the plane."
It hardly made an impression, as she stuffed the magazine-and-envelope in her carry-on bag, then fumbled with her suitcase and purse. I got a chaste, fleeting kiss on the cheek as she turned to make her way into the terminal.
I knew she wouldn't look at her magazine or the documents in the envelope until she was well on her way to Guadalajara, Mexico.
I drove away from the terminal, then up Harbor Drive and into Roseville, below Point Loma. Entering the post office there, I mailed the dated-for-today, pre-notarized application for Dissolution of Marriage, Non-Respondent, along with a postal money order for the required fee. While it would probably take up to a year to process, I was effectively a free, single man the moment my cheating, new-liberated wife had taken off from the Lindbergh Airport Terminal in San Diego, California, USA.
Connie's copy of the divorce application was in the envelope I left, stuck in a random article of the magazine I'd given her, along with the other documents. I knew that Connie wouldn't find it or the other items for another couple of hours, until well into her flight. Nor could she fight it or even respond to it from her unknown location in Mexico.
Four hours or so later, she'd be in the arms of her lover, Jorje Martinez (a mid-level drug dealer, within a Mexican cartel) and beginning the first stage in her up-coming journey to 'find herself' and seek 'a little danger, a little excitement' in her so-boring suburban American life.
I didn't wish her well. Nor did I wish her evil. I didn't wish anything about her at all, as I started on my no-longer-married life.