Splashdown

My awed congratulations if you've stuck with this project this far. If we were having a countdown this would be "three" of "three, two, one" Only two chapters after this. Just like for Gary, there is light at the end of the tunnel for all of us!

I can't thank you enough for reading and especially for those who have offered ways to improve. Let's get to it.

Splashdown Chapter Nine

At her request I visited Kathy at her place the next afternoon. Kathy had just asked me the paramount question: was I back with Peggy?

She saw me set my jaw and shake my head. To my relief her expression changed immediately. She looked at me with an open face encouraging me to let it out.

Kathy shifted me from being disgusted with my life to being happy to have an ally. I smiled, "It's just funny. Life keeps throwing pies in my face. Hell, recently I guess they've been cream pies." That elicited a chortle from Kathy. "All these questions for a guy whose purpose is to find answers. This damn situation makes me wait, makes me play the long game, with the only real promise at the end being the aforementioned pie in the face.

"I had to wait six months to see if Peg would fall. Then I had to wait the better part of a week more after she set us on fire. I knew what transpired, but you know me, I had to hear it from her. So, there was yet another week. Then I don't get any details -- like I really wanted to hear them -- until last night. Then I have to deal with a woman coming apart from remorse. I gave solace. Is that back together? No, that's one more penance paid when I still don't know what crime I commented."

Kathy started to apologize, I stopped her.

"No. I actually get where you're coming from. I think your perspective is right. You're like me that way. It's just I don't have an answer for you. Life hasn't brought me to the answer yet. Peg hasn't finished her entire confession, although I have the gritty details and hope we can now brush them away."

Kathy looked at me in a happy odd sort of way. She was happy I was odd. She didn't understand how I could throw away the specific details of my wife's ... what to call it? It wasn't an affair and Peg refused to call it a rape. Politely we could call it an infidelity, but that sounded too damn polite for me seeing it coming from the get-go. I needed to explain to Kathy that my problem was with Peg and her decisions, not how she executed them. Kathy thought I was ignoring the big sin, while refusing to look away from the smaller sins. To me it was the reverse. Peg had decided to slap me. I dealt with the slap; I didn't care much about her follow through. My real concern wasn't even the wind up, it was the decision to slap me.

Kathy was letting me vent so I did. "Here I am on pins and needles and have been for months. You're reasonable and rational and see a timeline for two professionally minded individuals capable of critical thinking. Except this is personal and not professional, and that makes it muddy and emotional. To my horror I see it took almost eleven months to reach this point, and it's not going to be an overnight fix. All despite my never wanting this trouble in the first place, and wanting it gone right now."

I was silent for a moment. "You know Kath, to me this comes down to a discussion of a very quick decision, the examination of which will give me my fate. Peg brought it up, but as if it held no particularly special significance. It was just part of a litany of things she'd done that were wrong for her husband and supposed best friend. She has to come back to that decision, and I don't know how long it's going to take to get there."

Kathy's desire to know her own fate was postponed. She nodded, turned and came back with my NASA mug already half full, and half empty, of coffee. I smiled and tipped the glass in salute before I drank.

"Kath, all I can be is honest. I admit I hated losing my job as Peggy's protector, lover, and friend. I was effectively fired, and undeservedly, so I wanted the job back. Now that I have it back, I have to ask myself if I want to stay with this job and the employer who didn't treat me right in the first place. I don't know the answer yet, Kath. And I don't think I'm going to find the answer today.

There are a lot of issues. Some I don't know if I have to redress or not. I don't even know what to think of some of them yet, little less what action to take concerning them.

I suddenly looked stricken. Kathy's mouth opened at the change. "Kath, Peg was so proud that she got her work done up there with everything that was going on in her head ..."

"And elsewhere," Kathy injected hoping to lighten the mood. I loved that she dove right at the worst parts of the problem. It seemed to air them out, making them less potent. After the sting faded that is.

I didn't take the playful bait. Kathy was almost my sole outlet for laughter now, which I appreciated. Except I was answering a question that had a lot to do with her; I took it very seriously.

"Think about it, Kath: everything that was going on and THAT was her shining accomplishment? Doesn't that tell the tale?"

Kathy sighed. I could tell she was about to do her best for me though it tread against her own desires. God bless her!

"I don't believe you're thinking it through Gary. What other accomplishments does Peg have? She got the job done that she was sent to do. In that way, mission accomplished. At least she didn't fail NASA. But she said she let down everyone, the space agency, her country, her family, and you. Getting the original mission right is her one bright spot. That IS the list Gary, and now she has to live with it."

"Why say that to me then? What does that say when coupled with her failing me: all her work got done? Her work was important enough that she could hold off her lust; she simply couldn't let down NASA? Then as soon as she's off NASA's clock and back on mine, every other guy but me goes to the front of the line? Doesn't that say her work was important enough to defend, but not me?" I calmed down a little, even though it didn't feel like this sort of venting was doing me any good.

"Gary, you were proud of her. You told her so over and over. When her spacewalk blew up you reiterated that you were proud of her and her mission. You wanted Peggy to succeed at her mission. She has no other offering to lay at your feet. She made you suffer for her mission long before that spacewalk, then found a couple of, er, pies to throw in your face that day. You didn't blow up, you didn't yell or destroy the day for her, you rallied to her defense and were the only one to do so initially. You told her you wanted to share her accomplishments with her. It's all she has and she's trying. You called this whole thing including her response."

I felt like doing something stupid like punching a tree. I had had it with rationality. "But she didn't share, Kath. Maybe I could be more empathetic if I didn't call exactly this damnable situation. Never, not once, did she consider not going. I played her supporter so she could play mine, that's how relationships a lot less important than marriage and love are supposed to work. Except she didn't defend me. We both pushed her over the finish line, then she left me behind."

Kathy hugged me, cradling my head in her arms.

"Wait, let me amend what I said. I am not that big of a jerk. I'm upset that neither Peg nor her employer looked out for me. But right as I lost my confidant and best friend, another emerged. You looked out for me, Kath. I know that. I can't tell you what it means to me." I raised my face to hers and pushed my fingers though Kathy's hair as she trembled.

"Gary?" It was not a question or a statement. It was something to say when something needed to be said and nothing seemed appropriate. Her eyes grew wide as she practically fell into mine. "Oh Gary, c-can you protect me too? I know what I want. I've never had feet of clay; I just can't seem to feel them right now."

"Yes, I will." Instead of pressing my lips to hers I pulled her into a close embrace.

She was both elated and miserable. I was making a commitment to her though she wanted more. Having it right now spelled agonizing trouble.

Kathy said from her cradled position, "You're good at this, you know?"

"What Kath?"

"Protecting people. You put your all into it, I guess that's why you do it so well." She felt that take the wind from my sails.

"Protecting my wife blew up in my face. Protecting you, though I love it, has me frustrated and feeling like a fool. My aegis to protect others at large has been rescinded. If this is being good at it, I'm cooked," I relayed with a smile.

Kathy gave me a wavering smile, "See? I'm no good at it at all. I didn't mean to broadside you there, Gary. Was my negligent discharge below the waterline?"

"No, no, Kathy it wasn't, there are just so many pieces to pick up. I guess I have to set my course first. It's not like me to procrastinate. Forgive me, I don't want to think about the future right now. For years I've looked to the grand horizon until I found the ground had sunk beneath my feet. Forgive me again Kath: for this brief moment I'm right where I need to be. I just want to lose myself in this moment."

Kathy knew allowing me to pause did not allow her to set a direction either, she admitted the current rest stop was a destination all its own. She enjoyed our embrace. She really didn't know if it should be that of a friend or a lover. I wasn't aware of it at the time, but she was wondering if she had to be that honest with me.

* * * * *

I let Peg sleep in the next day. Her body clock needed to adopt a new rhythm and she desperately needed the rest. She had time off from work now, we had time to sort our marriage out.

There would still be some more quick debriefings, and news was slowly leaking that something had gone wrong. The "quarantine" in Russia was strange, that had to have folks talking. The rumor mill was going to get ahold of the sex, it was just a matter of time, the fuse had been lit. Would they say it was rape, or would they say it was an affair? Depending on which interpretation, how would it spin and twist from there?

It didn't surprise me that the powers that be got Peggy the heck away from the flight facility, not that she wasn't due some R and R after six months steady on the job. She was good press for them now except her actual presence crying and distraught painted the wrong image. The narrative that would spring from that display neither NASA nor Peggy and I wanted to face. Time away was in everyone's best interest.

I was still on a forced furlough from work. I had no idea when it would end, the longer it went the more likely it would end badly.

I spent hours with Peggy. It was the day after she brought up her transgressions again. I wasn't sure if I had asked for this or not. I wasn't sure if she was trying to purify her soul by baring it, or if she really felt I had to be made aware of what she had done. I wanted to know what happened, I'm an analyst after all. I digest facts and data; I subsist on them. However, it was hard keeping the revelations as data points and not manufacturing pictures in my mind of my beautiful beloved Peggy balling and balling that Russian asshat. At times it seemed like Peggy was bringing up what she knew would be painful to me, and in a way that didn't seem conducive to "getting past it".

Peg had basically recounted everything I knew, and then launched into new details. I just hoped my lunch didn't launch in response. I didn't see why we needed to review it. I understood if she needed to vent but there were therapists that could do a better job for her. I would have thought the last thing she wanted to do was reinforce or further paint a picture of her and another man in my mind.

"So, Alexi came down from orbit with me. He was all over me in isolation. I don't mean having sex, I mean trying to have sex. I had held out, yet I was exhausted, gravity is hard on you after six months too. I held out because soon I would be with you. I felt guilty enough already. After the additional delay was announced I was an emotional wreck, I went to pieces. The next day after my complete exhaustion emotionally he made his conquest. And... I let him, there was no rape.

"He came in the room and I knew, and then so did he, that it was going to happen this time. The best I could do was roll over at the last minute, so I did not have to see his face as he took me.

"I fell in the morning that day, it was mercifully brief. But I fell again that evening and it was not brief. I fell the next day. Then again, the next day. The second and third time you need to know I was letting my body take charge. I was enthusiastic. I was very energetic and into it. I never kissed him or blew him, I never bumped or pumped. I did ... ride him the third time. I sat on him, and he pumped up into me. Damn my eyes, I thought if I rode him that way, I could make him cum, and then it would be over like the first two times, the madness would be gone. So, I rode him and posed and spoke dirty to him, and all to beat the band. And once I started, if there had been an actual band, I probably would have fucked them all." Peggy put her head in her hands. She was mortified to tell me. I already knew the basics with some detail why revisit this? Why do this if she was mortified. Yet she was, I had no doubt.

"By the end of the third fall I was a doll, simply exhausted, just exhausted. That third time was in some ways the worst, though I remember the second time that way. He just rolled me or posed me and took me. if he had wanted to take my mouth or throat, he could have forced the issue. Maybe he thought I'd bite him. I don't know. Maybe he wanted to knock me up, I don't know. It seemed he was trying to make a point. What point I don't know."

That flipped a switch for me. that was exactly how I felt about how Peggy was conducting this. Like she was trying to make a point, and that I didn't understand what the point was or why it was being made.

Peggy continued, "As soon as I had energy, I was hot. I tried to manipulate the game and make him cum ... in me." She looked down shaking her head in bitter defeat. "The fucking was almost constant. I was the perfect mark, the perfect fool. No, he wasn't some sex god that never lost an erection, though he probably had pharmaceutical help keeping the one he had. While he recharged, I fought it all, but I was in a lather, I-I did myself. It's horrible, I know it's horrible.

"I never wanted you to lose me. I never wanted you to stop loving me. This is such an ugly way for you to stop loving me."

Peggy tried to regroup.

"The fourth time lasted only a fraction of the last two, I was much more in control and not as desperate or needy. I knew then I would be strong enough to withstand him completely the next time. He knew if he came at me again when I was myself, that I would kill him or die rather than submit. I think that's why he suddenly had an exam or meeting the next day. Now that I know I was a target I think they were strategizing what to do now that the date rape drugs were wearing off.

"So that's how it happened Gary. You know your best friend betrayed you four months before the launch and that is how you ended up married to a bitch. Then your wife abandoned you for six months. Then your lover cheated on you after that. And that is how you ended up married to a slut.

"And let's not forget that without thinking I signed up to hitch a ride on a Russian Soyuz capsule to get home and thereby a "quarantine" at a Russian site, which turns out to be how I earned my trip into space. I guess so that's how you ended up married to a whore."

Peggy continued to spit venom at herself.

"Oh yes, I forgot the honorable mention that somehow, I picked a time up there when it was me and three Russians, and not an Indian, a Japanese, or an Italian. I mean the Russians are only your mortal enemies, which I completely forgot. Maybe I'm not that bad after all: I only let one of them fuck me, right? And only four sessions, and only time after time for three of those. So, I'm not all bad, I mean the Russian might think I'm pretty good."

Peggy was shaking in rage at herself. She was working herself over far worse than I would have.

"I didn't do a thing for his pleasure, but what does he care? He didn't even have to waste a bottle of vodka on me. I wanted it! I couldn't have cared less about him.

"Gary, my friend, you chose your spouse pretty poorly. She's hit the bad wife trifecta. When I'm alone and old, I guess I should know: of the three chapters of my betrayal: the four months, the six months, or the cheating, which one was the main driver in the divorce?"

Peggy seethed, "I don't know how to apologize enough, Gary. Everywhere I look I see my betrayal. I want to yell that there was no deceit, to scream that there was never a plan to betray you, or to put me over you in importance. However, those sins are so thorough and so continual that it's hard not to think it was planned. I would think that if our roles were reversed."

She was all over the place, crying hitting the floor, pounding her hands and feet like a little child. Sure, her confession and self-immolation could have been simple guilt but there was an extra element. At times Peggy said she hoped I could keep her but most of the time she said she was sure I couldn't forgive her. She seemed to be making a case and driving it home that she betrayed me and that I couldn't, not wouldn't, forgive her. When I didn't divorce her on the spot, she always looked at me in confused amazement, and yet she was overjoyed! Right as I would come to a very unfortunate conclusion, she would pull that rug out from under me too. I got the idea I was supposed to think a certain way but Peggy kept my brain in too much of a blender to make any decision.

I didn't want to touch her. I could be the bigger man, the hero, and comfort her; she really did need to vent some of this off, but I had feelings too and her "being honest with me" was ripping my heart out. To be honest I really wanted to piss on her, turnabout being fair play, but I was never going to do that. And I still didn't want to sully her dreams or career. As mentioned, she was doing a better job of telling herself off than I could. As much as I wanted to go to her, I also wanted to walk away. I couldn't do either. At the very least I had loved her once. I was confused as to what I felt now. I wanted to beat the hell out of the Russian and throw up more than any other feelings that came to me.

I sat down beside my wayward wife. I wanted her to know that if we didn't make it, I wasn't going to leave her like this. She needed help, she needed counseling, but she had to look at the actual facts first, not the peripherals. If it came to it, she would have her feet on the ground as mine walked out the door.

Considerations of a life apart slowly wafted through my mind. I liked the house more than her, though I didn't want it with the bad memories. And we bought it because it was close to her work, not mine. That was all fallout: practical considerations to be settled if need be. I'd loved her: I'd make sure that even dissolution wouldn't be scorched earth for her. Dealing with our emotion, the pain, deciding what we wanted and what we needed and making it all fit together: that was the messy reality we had yet to reach. Right now it was about trying to make sense from chaos.

I couldn't figure it out, my feelings about her were jumbled. Every time I tried to calm myself with the phrase "I loved her" I tied up in knots inside.

"You're staying, Gary?"

"Yeah."

"For how long?"

"Who knows? Are you leaving me?"

"God no! I'm staying as long as you'll have me. You are my anti Kryptonite: I take strength from you. You're like water to my Godzilla. I guess I really was a monster too."