By Likegoodwinecopyrighted February 2011
Your votes and constructive comments are appreciated, as they will help me grow.
Thanks to grogers for his very, very patient editing
Friends and family used to call me "The elephant". Am I that big? Not at all! I'm average height and weight at 5'10" and 172 lbs. No, I was called "The elephant" because I have the uncanny ability to remember almost everything. My name is Peter Marchand, and I am a freak of nature.
I'm not that great with math, but ask me what our family phone number was in 1982 at Camp Grayling, and I can tell you. That's no mean feat, as I was an army brat and we changed posting every two or three years. I can also give you the exact address: street number, street name and zip code.
My life as a teenager can be summarized in the question: "Peter, what's auntie Marge's new phone number again?" I swear my parents, as well as my brothers and sisters, saved thousands of dollars by never using pencil or paper to write down a number. Just ask it out loud while I was around.
That was useful... for them. And they appreciated it.
What they didn't like as much was the fact that I also remembered everything that was said, going back as far as 2 or 3 years. Longer than that, I wasn't as good with the verbatim but I still remembered the gist of things.
"I told you that we had a party to attend at the McGregor's! Peter, didn't I tell your mom about the party at the McGregor's?"
"Yes Dad, you told her last Saturday during the hockey game in the second period. But, Mom, you didn't know for sure if you all could go and, you said 'I'll check to see if we can find babysitter and get back to you'".
Well, guess who didn't get a nice hug from either Dad or Mom that night.
I had been taken advantage of like that my whole childhood. As early as my teenage years, I realized that it would be better for me to keep this ability to myself. It was too late with my family, but at least it was possible with my new friends when we moved again, and again, and again.
I made it a habit to ask my friends things such as "What's the number again?" or "Was it Saturday or Sunday they will face the Jets?" just to appear to be a normal forgetful human being.
However, I still took advantage of my ability to memorize everything. In 12th grade, when interviewed by the school career advisor, I asked him what would be the most lucrative careers. When I had to choose between head of a mafia family in New Jersey, an arms dealer in Colorado, a plastic surgeon in Hollywood or a criminal lawyer anywhere in the world, I choose the less despicable one. I became a lawyer. Not a flashy criminal trial lawyer by any stretch, but one who remembers every single statute and every court ruling I ever read or heard of.
I am not a highly publicized criminal trial lawyer; I am simply a tax lawyer who deals with income and expenses and knows all the ways to reduce the tax burden for all the hard working citizens, including the richest: the head of a mafia family in New Jersey, an arms dealer in Colorado and many plastic surgeons in Hollywood. I know all the loopholes, and given a chance, I could know all the fake boobs joyfully bouncing around in LA.
Everybody's following so far? Ok, now comes the rest of the story.
Fresh out of law school, I met Annabelle, an MBA student, two years my senior. She was witty, cute and really outgoing. She was a magnet to my dull, average looking, demure guy. Opposites attract the saying goes -- and that was true with us.
While dating me, she was also seeing others, and she was forthright about it. She even joked about the excuses she made when she was unavailable: visiting friends, family emergencies, group class work.
Over the next six months of dating she did a wonderful job breaking me out of my shell. I was still average looking, but I was leaving behind all the complexes I developed during my childhood. I even became a humorous guy. It's easy when you remember all the jokes you ever heard -- and the timing necessary to really make people laugh.
As a result, we grew very fond of each other. I was fond enough of Annabelle to ask if she would consider going out with me on an exclusive basis. She took a few days to consider it, then agreed to the new terms of our relationship. I was officially her boyfriend.
It lasted for six months and ten days: Since September of that year, Annabelle's sister had been planning a ski vacation in British Columbia for January 15 to 17. One day, Annabelle let the cat out of the bag when she told me that she was planning to visit her sister that same weekend. I let her go, following the principle that some people, given enough rope, will hang themselves. And she did just that.
Annabelle phoned me the following Monday.
"How was your weekend?" I asked.
"It was marvelous," she said, "we spent a whole weekend shopping and catching up, you know, sister stuff."
"And how were the ski conditions in Whistler? Any good?" I asked.
"I don't know what you mean," she replied, "How would I know such a thing?"
Well, if she had paid attention to what her sister was telling her for the last few months...
"How would you know? Your sister spent the weekend skiing in Whistler -- that's how," I replied dryly.
There was a long silence over the line.
"Shit! I forgot!" she finally said.
"Well, you better forget my phone number too!" I said, and hung up on her.
That was it! I've heard a lot of stories about people getting lost in their web of lies, and Annabelle was lost right from the start.
The next week I got a letter from Annabelle saying how sorry she was, explaining that she wasn't really ready for an exclusive relationship at her age and shouldn't have misled me. I threw the letter in the recycling bin.
I spent the next two years mostly involved with my new job with a local law firm. I did date a bit but nothing serious. First, I had to put in a lot of hours to prove myself, and there wasn't that much time to lay the groundwork for a real relationship. Second, the episode with Annabelle left me wary of any emotional involvement. So for two years, I looked mostly for pleasurable female companionship, nothing else.
One day, I was sent to a new account that needed legal advice handling their tax return with regard to some investments they made over the last fiscal year. I was to meet with the CEO and the vice-president of finance.
When I was ushered into the conference room, a familiar face was at the table: Annabelle. The meeting went smoothly, and I ended up with a very pleased new client. As the meeting ended, Annabelle came up to me.
"Hello stranger! Fancy meeting you here!" Annabelle said.
"Hi Annabelle!" I said simply, focusing on the delicate task of putting all my papers back into my briefcase.
"Say, it's almost lunch time! What about we go for lunch and catch up a bit?" she said in a friendly manner.
I didn't want to, but at the same time, I was curious. And she was still very cute.
Did we have lunch? Sure! But right after lunch, we ended up at Annabelle's apartment for some serious fucking.
Bad memories, memories are bad! Good fucking, fucking is so good!
And that's the way, as two professionals, that Annabelle and I got reacquainted.
She wasn't involved with anybody at the time, and I was still single. We started dating again.
Over the next two years, I never suspected that Annabelle was still the two-timer that she used to be. That was enough for me. Forget (that's such a weird concept) what happened before and let bygones be bygones.
We were soon married.
We lived happily for 63 months, 2 weeks and 6 days. We shared many things together, but I always kept my ability to recall everything to myself. I must have still been a bit wary of Annabelle to keep this secret.
Over the last two months, Annabelle had regularly came home late from work with justifications such as visiting friends, family emergencies or working late. These reasons sounded way too familiar to me, as they were her usual explanations when she was two-timing me many years ago.
But they could also be the truth, and I decided to let it pass.
However, one week I had to travel out of town for a couple of days to meet with an accounting firm that was conducting an independent audit of one of my clients who was in the process of selling his company.
Back at home on Friday night, Annabelle and I made love. She was a tiger in bed. Soon after, I got up and headed to the small half-bath next to the bedroom. Annabelle never uses it because the mirror is too small and the lighting too low.
The toilet seat was up!
I recalled perfectly the last time I had used it: I had put the seat down, just before flossing and brushing my teeth. The seat wasn't up following a cleaning either, as there was a faint yellow stain on the rim of the bowl, a shade darker than last week.
I already told you that I am not the smartest guy around, but there is a limit to how dense I can be.
A man used this washroom to take a leak within the last week. The only door to the washroom being in the master bedroom, he had to have been there.
Remembering Annabelle's past behavior, and her recent string of suspiciously late homecomings, I had a sinking feeling that she was cheating on me. I had to find out.
I had two choices: Just wait and catch her in an obvious lie or be proactive and dig out the hard facts. I choose the latter because it would probably give faster results.
The weekend was painful. I didn't feel very loving and caring while Annabelle was the opposite. Well if it worked for my mom, it would work for me: I had a splitting headache all weekend long. I played the part so well that Annabelle convinced me to see a doctor on Monday.