Hildy Part 1 husband's trial
Our troubles started at the wedding reception, but I didn't know it then.
My wife Hildy and I were in the wedding party and we both had a whole lot too much Champaign. So as mad as she was, she knew she was polluted and kept it inside before she said something she didn't really mean. That turned out to be a very bad thing, because she slept on it. And she woke up with a hell of a hangover; the kind that clouds your mind, keeps you from thinking clearly though you don't recognize it.
The wedding was Bob and Beverly's. They were the second pair of our college clique to get married, Hildy and I being the first. We had been married two years ago, the June we graduated, and now Bob and Beverly were joining us with a June wedding.
In college there were a couple dozen of us hanging together, boys and girls. Over the years it was just natural for the group to split up into couples. Some of the gang had wandered away, moved for a job, got interested in other things; but there were still eleven of us left that partied together. Sometimes we even took our vacations together.
The eleventh, the odd man out so to speak, was Jonas. Jonas was a big, loud-mouthed guy with a wicked and really offbeat sense of humor. Jonas didn't cause my trouble, but he nurtured it. He profited from it, but god damn it I saw to it that he eventually shared the pain.
Long term, I like to think his share of pain was far greater than ours. Some might say he got off easy, but what he lost went to his whole way of life.
At the wedding reception a bunch of the women were whooping it up in the ladies room. Which is something I've never understood, having a major gab session in the john. But my buddies sure were. We could hear them over the band.
Anyway, one of the gals mentioned that the bachelor party the night before had gotten out of hand. She'd heard a woman had been hired to be the entertainment, and had been very entertaining indeed. According to her, the groom had held out, refusing to trade juices with her, so to speak. But she claimed the rest at the party hadn't been so careful. Since I was one of the ushers I was at the party, would have been there in any case, these were my best friends. My wife's math is too good to miss the implication that I had sampled the woman's favors.
Now the story had some truth to it. There was a woman there and she tried her damndest to get the groom into the sack. Bob had to fight her off to keep from getting a blowjob. I understood there was a bonus in it for her if she did. She was a whole lot more successful with the rest of the party and she was "tipped" pretty heavily by the guys she serviced. Not every one else took her up on her offer. Me, I stayed in the background and managed not even to be solicited. There were several others too, but all the empty liquor bottles obscured our vision and I couldn't tell you who had and hadn't accepted, except for the groom and myself. I was positive about those two.
Hildy quietly asked around and those who had been at the bachelor party confirmed the woman's presence, and her activities. No one could tell her I had succumbed, but then none of them were willing to confirm that I had stayed celibate, either. As I said, I stayed in the background and I doubt if any of them really knew.
Except Jonas.
If she had been sober I like to believe she wouldn't have let her personal insecurity fuel jealousy and an almost blind rage.
Except for Jonas.
Jonas got very drunk at the reception, and for some reason his twisted sense of humor thought it would be fun to get the old married couple to fight at the wedding. He told her he was pretty sure I was one of those that went into the back bedroom with the woman. He planned to yell April Fool before the fight got out of hand. Except he was disappointed.
Hildy didn't blow up at the party. She kept it inside and brooded and stewed about it all night long. I like to think that if she had been sober she wouldn't have allowed her own personal insecurities to fuel a blind jealousy and towering rage. But it did; the worst kind, cold, silent and unthinking. Instead of taking the issue openly to me she was thinking up ways to get even the next morning while she nursed her Champaign hangover and brooded over my supposed infidelity as her head burst and her stomach heaved.
Sometime about mid-afternoon the next day I had finally almost returned to the living. Enough anyway to recognize Hildy's remoteness. She was always one of the most effervescent women I had ever met, and to see her quiet, sitting in a corner staring at me was unnatural, and kind of unnerving. I jumped to the immediate conclusion that she wasn't feeling well.
When I asked her what was wrong she just told me to wait, that we would talk about it later. I think she wanted to get me worried after my lapse from my marriage vows. She expected my conscience to really start bugging me.
As I had done nothing wrong, my conscience was very quiet. Since Hildy, accepting the rumor and Jonas' verification as proven truth she jumped to the conclusion I found nothing upsetting about my supposed infidelities. Which got her thinking and she made the conclusion my conscience wasn't bothering me because I was used to such activities. It never occurred to her that her informants were wrong.
The first time I knew something was seriously wrong was as we were about to go to bed. Hildy told me to choose which bed to sleep in, the one in the master bedroom or the one in the guest room. They were both made up, she informed me.
Not being aware of any problems, I jumped to the conclusion she wanted to have some kind of kinky party. As tired as I was this didn't really excite me, but I was willing to try. After all, she had always been a good sport when I asked her to scratch my itch so it was only fair I fulfill my husbandly duties. I ogled her frame, and asked which one she wanted us to use. She shocked me when she chose the Master bedroom, then put my pajamas in the guestroom and told me I could use the bathroom in the hall in the morning.
There I stood with my jaw hanging down as she marched into our bedroom to pick up a shopping bag with my things in it, stood in the door to the guest bedroom and tossed it onto the bed. Then my bride, the woman I was willing to die for, stormed into our bedroom, slammed the door and I heard the click as she locked the door.
No amount of pleading or cajoling brought more than a promise to talk in the morning, which was a Sunday. I had never seen her behave like this. After thinking it over I decided I had better find out what was going on before I broke the door down. I wasn't exactly sure she hadn't gone completely over the bend, but she seemed in no danger of harming herself, so I decided to wait for morning.
I had a very bad nights sleep and from the looks of Hildy the next morning, she had enjoyed the same. Still, I held my tongue and kept the peace, or what there was of it. After a very tense breakfast and cleaning up we sat down at the kitchen table to talk.
After a short silence, with Hildy unwilling to meet my eyes, she told me she knew about my philandering, I hurt my cause badly by snorting in disbelief and making some kind of little joke. She blew up in my face.
When I finally understood she was actually accusing me of fooling around I denied it of course. After all, I was innocent. We had kept no secrets from one another in marriage but now she was convinced I was lying to her, perhaps had been for the entire marriage. It took me some time, but finally I understood she would not take my word for it being daytime, unless she could see the sun and had a witness to verify it.
Things got hot and heavy about then. I was pissed that she refused to take me at my word. She was getting more and more upset that I thought her such a fool that stonewalling would get me out of the soup. Finally she told me the only way she could see to keep us together was to show me how she was feeling after my poking around on her.
After warning her not to do anything foolish, I took a lot of deep breaths and calmed myself down. Recognizing our yelling at one another wasn't accomplishing anything I went outside and busied myself with yard chores the rest of the day. When I came in for lunch I found sandwiches on the table, and the same thing at suppertime. I could hear Hildy busy in the house, but she never came into a room I was for the rest of the day.
Before I went back to the guestroom that night, I tried talking through our bedroom door again. The only way I knew she was in there was that I heard her quietly crying. She never said a word.
Finally giving up, I had my Sunday evening snack in front of the TV, then went to bed early as I was feeling unusually tired. Only natural with the little sleep I'd had the night before, then working very hard in the yard all day long. Particularly as upset as I was with the chasm opening between Hildy and myself. I soon fell into a dreamless sleep.
- - - - - -
When I woke up it was very strange, my body felt stiff and didn't want to respond to my signals. My arms and legs didn't seem to want to function. And it was so dark I couldn't see. As I began coming awake it felt as if my mouth was full of cotton and was very dry. When I felt my legs cramping up, I tried to move them again and couldn't and started to panic.
