Landing at the San Francisco airport was very strange. The airport, and San Francisco, was shrouded in heavy dense fog. It was as if the City-by-the-Bay was protected by the low-to-earth bubble of cool comfort or had suddenly vanished. Coupled with the late afternoon winds San Francisco had rightfully earned the description that it is the coldest place to spend a summer.
The drive to Sacramento would take Jenny and me a couple of hours once we made it to highway 101 and across the Bay Bridge to highway 80. It was a drive marked by silent and personal contemplation. I have always been the king of person who becomes introspective when confronted with life changing situations. My introspectiveness was much like the Buddhist Monk who chants, the same chant, over-and-over until his mind sees and hears nothing at all. An unintended consequence of this kind of meditation is the ability to not remember much about our drive to Sacramento.
Jenny seemed relaxed and dozed in the passenger seat for much of the trip. I was too full of my own thoughts and questions. As it was my "introspection", also known as daydreaming, was a distraction that had me drifting off onto the road's shoulder. The feel of gravel jarred me back to the task of driving. When this happened Jenny put her hand on my arm and asked if I was okay.
Okay as compared to what? Compared to a week ago, yes, I was okay. Okay did not mean great, it simply met I had no reason to complain about simply being alive. If that was the case then why did my chest feel constricted when I breathed? Where had my sense of humor gone and why did I feel tense? If I was drifting between these emotions, was Margo, my wife, my love, also experiencing these same things? I was experiencing what I call early-onset-loss due to depression associated with loss of a loved one. I was simply sad as I anticipated the death of my marriage.
"Any last words of advice?" We were in front of Jenny's apartments and I'd just sat her single bag in front of her.
"Matthew, your heart is all the direction you need. Just pay attention to your heart and know I will always be here for you . . . as a friend and shoulder to lean on." Jenny then kissed me, picked up her bag and disappeared into her apartment. Jenny could never be just a friend. I held no illusions about Jenny. There was no way I would ever turn to her again so long as my marriage was intact, even if it was on life support.
By the time I pulled into the driveway of my home, the house I shared with Margo, the only thing I could do was tell myself to breathe and be as fair as possible. I wanted to be as fair as possible for all of the wonderful years we have shared with one another.
When I opened the front door and walked in, I noticed music coming from our family room, where Margot spent most of our time when home. It was a part of the house that was comfortable and safe. Everything there we shared from photographs to the flat screen TV. There was no "mine" or "yours". The den was where I found Margot, wearing a pair of loose fitting jeans, an un-buttoned flannel shirt (one of mine) covering a spaghetti-strap held purple tank top.
Margot was reading a very thick paperback.
I stood watching her, waiting for her to see me, waiting. When she looked up from her book, more as if she was stopping to reflect about something she was reading, she saw me standing there.
"Matthew!" Margot tossed the book to the tiled floor, jumped off of the leather couch and ran to me, literally jumping into my arms. She didn't say anything else as she threw her arms around my neck and proceeded to kiss me long and hard. "God, I've missed you so much!" Then she was kissing me again with the passion of a woman who was greeting her first lover, her only lover.
We never made it to the bedroom. Margot had my clothes and her clothes off with practiced speed that I think I was dizzy. Yet, even as I let my body make love to Margot there was something I held in reserve, a hesitancy. I wasn't blaming Margot or anyone else, I had simply changed. My outlook on life had grown into something I didn't really recognize, at first.
Margot noticed my hesitancy but didn't say anything. I was home and that was all that seemed to matter.
We hadn't really talked since I'd walked in the door. Like a dog that hasn't eaten in several days feeding is the first thing that needs to be addressed. We'd just fed each other, sex. Now we could get on with the unraveling, the analysis of what had happened and why. The time for testing our commitment to one another was, now, whether Margo thought that way or not.
"Matthew, can you ever forgive me for being so stupid?" We were both arm-in-arm, naked, basking in the after-glow of satisfying sex. Margot was asking me about forgiveness as my cum seeped out of her.
"For being stupid, yes, but . . ." We all do stupid things. So I felt I didn't need to finish my thought.
"But what?" Margot was probably right about following up with her question. From this day forward there could be no room for misunderstanding.
"What you did was not just stupid; it was cold and thought through very carefully. You even had to time things just right so I would be walking in the door as you were lip-locked with Ted. It is easy to forgive stupidity but you knew I was picking you at noon that day. You shattered my belief that we had, as close as humanly possible, a perfect marriage where love and trust were not an issue." Margot did not respond as she put her hand on my chest and laid her head on my shoulder.
I was also distracted by how good her body felt against me. I could feel her hard nipples jutting into me with all of the natural pleading of a young lover. In the past feeling Margot next to me would be enough for me to believe we were the only people on earth. Now, well now I'd shared my bed with Jenny. Now I realized that "perfect love" had nothing to do with ownership, commitment and honoring one's vows. Now, I believed all of the psychological reports that indicated men and women see their relationships very differently.
"Oh Matthew what can I do to convince you we do have a perfect marriage, that I love you and want to have your babies." Margot, as she had done a thousand times before, began to caress my balls and penis in a way that was almost absent minded and without thought. It was natural and often leads to a second round of sex. It felt good and made me feel like I was important and cared for. There was still a little bird chirping in my ear that loving me wasn't enough for Margot. Saying she wanted my babies made me feel good, like a peacock ruffling his feathers and cawing with delight. After ruffling my feathers and cawing what was left?
If she wanted to "convince" me of the depths of her love it would mean a good dose of anal sex. I would soon know just how far she would go to "convince" me of her fidelity and her love. Fidelity and love are, of course, two different things but fit together nicely.
I'd read a journal article some years back about how mothers who displayed their love for their infants would caress and massage their testicles after a bath or changing their diapers. Margot often did this on those rare occasions when we showered together or sank into the recesses of a hot bath. Was Margot doing this to comfort me, to make me feel safe and loved?
"Margot, I won't lie to you but I believe something has changed between us." It was almost a stupid statement. A lot had changed between us. "What we had was, in my eyes, perfect to the point of being sacred. I never had any reason to question you about anything . . . so long as I knew our love was safe. Don't misunderstand, the sex we just shared was "comfortable", felt wonderful, but I no longer feel the security, the safety, I did before last week. As a result the passion seems to have fallen by the way side. You played it "comfortable" rather than letting your passion drive you."
It is as if the beautiful innocence of what we had is somehow sullied. The depth of our passion now had the seasoning of hesitation, doubt and fear. Maybe I was also learning, gaining a bit of insight and wisdom?
Stopping to let us both reflect on my words I focused on how Margot continued to scratch my chest and pull my chest hair slightly. Caressing my balls and scratching my chest hair were gestures she'd done naturally ever since I'd known her. I was getting upset with myself for beginning to analyze every little thing Margot said or did, and the analysis of our loving actions was enough to harm our marriage, which was a strange feeling."
"Matthew, I don't know what else I can do." Was she really saying she didn't know what would happen once I knew the truth? If the truth was different from what Margo was telling me? Her lips and mouth, her wet sex, were powerful forms of distraction and misinformation. She had a way of making me believe I was the only one who had ever been in her life and for Margo, this may have been exactly how she felt. I was now questioning, in my mind, everything.
"Nothing, Margo. If we've made mistakes we need to learn from them move on. I also know we need to speak clearly to one another in order to communicate thoughts, feelings, and desires. And, on this one, I can't tell you what to do to make things right and full of passion. For more than 6 years I've believed our marriage to be full of love and passion. All of that is now in jeopardy, isn't it?" I didn't need an answer to the rhetorical question. Margo took the question as just that, rhetorical and not requiring an answer.
"In the meantime my plan is to fuck you like a silly rabbit, whenever, however and wherever you want." I was still her silly rabbit? In that moment I realized being her silly rabbit, though endearing, was a way to minimize her in my eyes. It was a thought that didn't make much sense but resonated. Rabbits take, in average, 17 second to orgasm and move on. When they do copulate they recover almost immediately to fuck again.
The image of rabbits running fast, and then stopping for a second to turn and run in another direction, for apparently no reason, came to mind. Rabbits looked silly starting and stopping then starting to run again. Did Margo see me as a 17-second fuck? It wasn't at all true but I wondered.
Margo took her silly rabbit statement as a cue to move her chin off of my chest and let her tongue slickly slide over my skin to engulf my slightly recovering cock. Her warm wet mouth seemed especially hot as Margo began to give me one of her mind-bending blow jobs. I loved the feel of her mouth but the feel of her touch was not the nerve-tingling mind-bending source of love and passion it had once been. What she was doing felt good but it was somehow, mechanical?
