Ben lifted his fingers from the arms of his favorite chair when he realized he was feeling the foam stuffing beneath the tips. From both hands. Quick glances told him what he already knew; his pathological need to grip what he thought was solid had done some real damage in the form of torn upholstery. It was telling that the feel of the innards of his refuge registered with him before the pain of incredibly cramping finger muscles. Probably because it was physical, and right then, physical pain was a joke.
Gingerly, he raised his hands and forced himself to exert some control, placing his palms flat on the arms and keeping them there, still. He actually smiled then, considering the exercise to be good practice for what was coming. Well, maybe not good. That really couldn't exist. Adequate practice, he supposed. Better than nothing.
As it was, those couple of seconds would have to do, because they were all he got before his front door finally creaked open, and the golden rays of the morning sun streamed in from the outside, around the trim form of the woman standing there, key in hand, with a look on her pale, lovely face like she was turning herself in to begin a prison sentence.
Barbara's green eyes shimmered, and she brushed a lock of her fiery red hair away from them absently and without care. The tresses easily stayed in the new position behind her ear because they were still damp. They were still damp because she'd recently showered, Ben had absolutely no doubt, just as he had no doubt as to why.
"Where are the girls?" Barbara flicked her stunning eyes past her husband to the stairs, and the question came out hushed, in something a bare sliver above a whisper. Absently, unknowingly, one hand had begun fiddling with the curve-hugging black dress curvedly hugging those huggable curves, like she was subconsciously trying to undo the evidence of the abuse it had recently taken. Pointless, but she didn't stop.
"Where are the girls?" Ben grasped on to the false calm hard enough that it should have made his armrests envious. "You sure that's what you want to ask? Not,
do they know what I did?"
He saw it then, in her face. It was easy, after twenty years of a conjoined life, to read his wife and tell that she'd actually held out hope that
he'd
not known what she did. He watched that laughable spark die. Seemed fitting.
"They're sleeping." Ben was magnanimous. He'd deign to answer her question, merciful like no one else in history. "
They
went to bed thinking you had too much to drink and crashed at Cynthia's, since she's always a designated driver, and her place is a lot closer to the venue." He grunted. "I'm guessing... half right? I mean, the drinking half. The site of your crash..." He turned his palms to the ceiling and shrugged his shoulders. "A studio apartment draped in leopard print velvet?"
"You know I hate it when you're this sarcas--" Barbara pursed her lips and looked away from him, flushing with guilt. "Sorry. I... I didn't mean to snap. This... it's hard. I don't know how to... what to say."
Ben realized then, neither did he. What could be said? The English language was rich, varied, and full of contextual goodness, so he just let the first thing that could find its way into his mouth come right out. "Was it worth it?"
Barbara staggered like she was still drunk over to a chair normally meant for guests, plopping down bonelessly and putting her face in her hand. Without looking up, she just mumbled. "I want to ask what the price is."
Oh wow, was that the wrong answer.
"Goddamn it, Barb!" Ben barely managed to keep his exclamation to a furious hiss rather than the bellowing shout it deserved. His children were still upstairs, sleeping. Oblivious. Protected... for the moment. He did lean forward though, doing what he could to make sure his wife didn't miss one single iota of what was inside him. "You're saying it
might
be worth it? That you getting dicked by a horny party planner
might
be okay... if... if what? If you can keep your happy lie of a life intact?"
"God no, Ben that came out..." Barbara was looking at him again, but her earnest, emotional plea was aborted suddenly. "Lie? What do you mean,
lie?
I... I was...
am
happy. With my life." She leaned forward then. "With you."
"Bull. Shit." Ben sank back in his chair once more, away from her outstretched, questing hand. "Happy people don't do what you did, my dear. Content wives don't flirt shamelessly with fashionable gym-rats for weeks, then tell their husbands they're crazy for being wary." He was on his feet then, and he didn't remember doing it. "Hell, Barb, when I first came around to see how your pet project was going, you know...
supporting my loving wife...
you tried to tell me he was gay!"
Barbara flushed and looked away. "You don't have to... I remember..."
"Yeah? Do you remember me actually, physically taking his hand off you? That it had to happen twice before you gave up
that
lie, and switched to warning me against assaulting him because he's the type that would definitely call the cops?"
She sniffled then. "Yes. Ben, honey..."
He narrowed his eyes and took a step towards her. "Good. Exam passed. Your brain still works. Leaves me with whole mess of new questions though. We'll start with this; why the ultimatum?"
"Ultimatum?" She sounded genuinely confused.
"When I told you it was done. Yours and Cynthia's charity ball. When I said that what I saw was too much and I wasn't an idiot..." Ben looked at the ceiling, gathering himself, before he fixed her with his glare. "And you said that I
was
an idiot, and that if I ever
forbade
you anything again, you'd show me just how much.
That
ultimatum. The one you gave a day before you walked out last night while informing me I wasn't welcome to accompany you. So... why? Best defense is a good offense?"
Barbara had her fingers woven together in her lap and was studying them intently. "What was I supposed to say? The truth? That another man was getting in my head, was staying there, no matter how hard I was trying to evict him? That I was struggling... losing... because I didn't know how to play the game? That I was feeling things about a man I hadn't since college, because you and I are so intertwined that it's not... an adventure anymore?"
She finally looked up, and Ben was actually surprised at the earnestness he saw there. "I forgot, Ben. I forgot what was true. I forgot
you
, even with you right in front of me." She sniffed again, and real tears began to pool. "You're a victim of your own success, my eternal love. You're... good. Too good. I've never been tested before, because you make me happy, my life easy, and my soul content. Todd..." She bit her bottom lip briefly because of something she saw in him. "...
he
... he was, like, the one-in-a-million guy who was in the right place at the right time..." She rolled her shoulders. "I don't even know the word. He... flipped me."
"Flipped?"
She shook her head. "I dunno... yeah. Flipped. He figured out a way to put me upside down and rattle me... crap, I mean..."
The red in her cheeks showed Ben that a sudden, recent memory was matching her words a little too closely, and then he was somehow sharing the visual without having been anywhere near his wife and her night of gymnastics.
Naked asses taking turns pile-driving, bent spines and fingers curled to claws...
"I'm leaving." His coat was somehow off the hook and in his hand, and he was one foot towards the still-open front door before Barbara was on her own feet.
"Leaving? Wha... why... where..." She swallowed, trying to regain control. "Ben, stay with me. Please, please, I need--"
"
You
need." Ben stopped, but didn't turn his back from her. "That's the problem, isn't it?" He rotated his head just enough to catch her with the corner of his eye. "You know what? I'll tell you where I'm going, since I just now figured it out." He looked down at his watch. "It's Sunday morning, Seven O'clock. I'm gonna let myself into the office, and since no one will be there, I'll have the privacy to look at the employee registry and get Candace Tennen's address."
"Dandy Candy?" Barbra sounded fully horrified. "With the fake... Ben... Ben, no."
He laughed then, shocked he had it in him, even if it was laced with malice. "No, huh? You're
forbidding
me? Interesting. You should think on that a bit. Anyway, I'll have you know, I was given a standing invitation over a year ago. I've shot her down so much, I'm sure me showing up will be a real surprise. But hey, surprises are supposed to fun, so why should you and I hog them all?"
The last thing he heard before he was out of earshot was a kind of warbling squawk. It should have been comical, and was anything but. As he tore out of his driveway though, he managed to look on the bright side; for a forty-three year old man--no, for anyone--he was in great shape. That was good, because knowing Dandy Candy, she of the best body money could buy, he'd need all the stamina he could get.
__________
Barbara lifted her fingers from the arms of her favorite chair when it dawned on her that the house was nearly completely dark, and she could barely see a thing inside it. That her home was lost to her. The cumbersome poetry of it all was also lost to her since there was no room for it in her lovely, tempest-tossed head.
She figured her daughters would be turning on lights and making all the noise preteen girls were wont to do... if they'd been there. As it was, she'd shuffled them off to Cynthia's within an hour of their waking up, telling them that she and their dad had special plans, and needed time to work on it without distraction. It was flimsy, and yet another lie, but Barbara had nothing else by then, and her kids were trusting. They were trusting because they were good, and they were good because they'd been raised right by a fantastic father.
And a mother who didn't know which way was up.
After that, she'd come back home and settled in, waiting. Barbara knew she had time. Probably all day, because she knew Ben better than she knew herself. She knew he was doing exactly what he'd said, and was doing it to the best of his ability.
Fucking Dandy Candy.
Fucking
