Trish got back from her mother's home late Friday night and she was ringing my doorbell first thing Saturday morning. She started talking as she walked through the front door.
"I can't believe it. You were ready to fuck him and he wouldn't do it?"
"No he wouldn't," I said. "But for your purposes I didn't need to. You wanted him to know he could get a hard on and when I reached down and felt it he obviously knew he could get it up. He knew what that psychiatrist had been telling him was true. His impotence was all in his head caused by finding out you fucked those two guys while he was trying to put out the fire at his business."
"Yeah," she said. "But what does that make me? Like I said on the phone I'm a whore married to a God damned saint. What do I do now Lois? I love this guy. I really do. Fix me a bloody Mary, will you? And let's talk."
We went in the kitchen and I fiddled around with the ingredients wondering whether to tell Trish how I was beginning to feel about her husband. I decided to keep it to myself. No reason to add that to an already complex situation. I needed to get one thing out on the table though so I asked Trish directly.
"You keep calling yourself a whore. Were Lenny and Ralph the only guys you fucked after you married Art?"
Trish looked shocked at my question. Then she shook her head no and looking down at the kitchen floor she spoke softly and told a sad story.
"Three years ago I fucked a guy at a party. Art was traveling and I went to a party at a friend's house. I drank too much and smoked some grass and the next thing I knew this guy I didn't even know had me out in the back yard doing me doggie. I don't even remember his name. Nobody saw us and I left right away. But from that time on I never got drunk and stoned unless Art was around."
"So you thought it was safe at the party to drink and smoke?" I said.
"Yeah. I thought it was safe."
"Well you paid a high price for that learning experience."
We sat down in the living room sipping our drinks.
"What was Art like last night when you got home?" I asked.
"Friendly, affectionate and impotent!" Trish said with disgust in her voice.
"He tried to fuck you?"
"Yes he did," she said. "And his dick was as floppy as a wet dishrag. He apologized as usual. I tell you Lois, his dick knows I'm a whore!"
"Well at least he knows he can get it up," I said. "We don't need to do anything stupid again like me trying to fuck him."
Trish got a far away look in her eye as if deep in thought. "Maybe the two of us could get him drunk and ... oh shit! Then he really would think I'm a whore. It's ME he can't fuck! HE knows that as well as I do."
"I'm sorry Trish, but I'm all out of ideas. Lets have dinner at the club and keep our friendship going."
That night Phil picked me up and we met Art and Trish at the club. It was a beautiful evening with good food and good conversation and after dinner we danced to the little band the club always had on weekends. I danced with Art and Phil and the second time I danced with Phil this very sensitive twenty-three old kid surprised me again with his reservoir of mature understanding.
"You should see yourself," Phil said. "It's like you're with Don again. The way you look at Art and even the way you dance with him -- it's like when you were with Don. Be careful honey, he's a lot like Don and you need to remind yourself that he's Art, not Don."
"What do you mean?" I asked. What had Phil seen that I had not?
"Art talks like Don -- that slow, dominant voice -- and he even reminds ME of Don. The way you're acting it's almost like you're falling in love with him."
Oh my God I thought. Am I that obvious? I hope only to Phil. This is so damn confusing. Am I falling in love or just finding my former husband again? I hope Trish hasn't noticed anything. She told me to be nice to him so maybe she hasn't noticed what Phil saw. I've gotta watch myself and be careful.
The next day my phone rang. It was Art. He invited me to lunch on Monday. Of course I said yes but what was this all about I wondered. The last thing he said before he hung up was not to tell Trish. Oh shit! This could be very bad!
I worried all day about my problem. Was I falling in love with Art or seeing him as Don? Phil was right. Many of his gestures and mannerisms reminded me of Don. On the other hand I enjoyed just being with him and talking to him. It felt so right somehow. I felt like I was fourteen again -- confused and nervous and frightened.
I met Art for lunch at a new restaurant I had never been to before. We had a delightful quiche and he had ordered a nice white wine and when he poured the last of it he settled in as though he was ready for a serious talk.
"I'm taking another look at my marriage," he said, leaning across the table intimately.
"Trish is my very best friend in the world," I said.
"I know and that makes this very difficult," he smiled painfully.
"She loves you very much," I said.
"She told you what happened?""
"Yes she did. She was so drunk and stoned that she was helpless," I said. Repeating what I knew Trish had told him about that night.
"A woman is what she is, drunk or sober," he said almost like pronouncing a sentence.
"That's nonsense!" I responded. "Alcohol and drugs change us to what we are NOT. And Trish is not a whore."
"YOU wouldn't fuck two guys in the guest room."
"You don't know and I don't know what I'd do after all that booze and grass and powder!"
"Okay, okay," he said. "But what do I do with the way I'm starting to feel about you?"
"Feel about me? What do you mean by that?" Shit! I thought. Is he starting to feel about me the way I'm feeling about him?
"Look Lois. You're a real woman. A woman a man could love. I wanted to have lunch with you today to tell you that I'm starting to feel very special about you."
"Art, you must understand that Trish is not just my best friend since high school. She is a friend who helped me through the most difficult time a wife can ever possibly face -- the death of my husband. I owe her my life! I will NEVER betray that friendship. Not even for love. Hear me Art. NOT EVEN FOR LOVE!"
"I guess I understand," he said. "You're telling me that there can never be any chance for us?"
"Never," I said.
And as I said it I realized that I was cutting off any chance of happiness with a man so much like my Don that my skin crawled with pleasure as I thought of making love to him. Was it love or was it a pathetic attempt to recapture a memory that can never be? Maybe I will never know. But it is done now. Finished!
"Then, help me love my wife again," he said softly, almost pathetically.
I will never know whether I love this man or see my former husband in him. But I cannot betray the woman who gave my husband dignity in his last days alive. I will help her get him back. He is a gentleman. He respects women. He cannot fuck a whore and Trish has become a whore in his eyes. How do I deal with that? How do I help him learn to fuck a whore?
"I'll try," I said softly.
That night my brother came over for a drink and a light supper. I told him about my lunch with Art. I needed his help. It pisses me off. I'm his older sister! I know more than he does. How the hell can I ask him what to do? But I have to!
"What the fuck do I do?" I yelled at him in frustration.
Phil laughed.
"You can't steal her husband! It would haunt you the rest of your life."
"Okay I know that but what do I do?"
"You help her get him back," he said simply.
"How the hell do I do that?" I asked, completely frustrated.
"Step one was letting him know you could never be in love with him," Phil said. "I don't think he was falling in love with you anyway. He just saw you as a virtuous woman compared to his wife. And I don't think you were falling in love with him. I think you found Don in him. Somehow you have to get him down off that pedestal he's put himself on."
My little brother was wise for his age. Art HAD put himself on a pedestal, I thought. He's got to stop thinking that women are either saints or whores. He's got to realize that women are ... well ... just women.
"But honey," Phil said softly, "You need to get along with your own life."
"I've been thinking about that," I said. "There's a young surgeon just starting practice and he's looking for a part time receptionist. I'm thinking about applying for the job."
"I know him. I don't want you working for him," Phil said forcefully.
"Why not?" I asked. My younger brother was NOT going to run my life.
Phil paused in thought and then spoke out loudly.
"People say that I'm fucking half the gals in town? Well he's fuckin the other half. Gals think he's a doll and I don't want my sister near him."
