This is my second installment on my first submission. I hope you enjoy.
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I walked out of the office thinking my life was out of control. I already had second thoughts about asking Mary for the name of her divorce lawyer. I had not even confronted my wife about her affair, and Mary was probably blabbing throughout the office that I was already getting a divorce. Everything was just going too fast for me right now, and I needed to figure out a way to put on the brakes.
I had this dreadful feeling that I was being set up. I didn't know who was pulling my strings, but I just felt like a puppet going through the motions. I left the office thinking I needed to do something deliberate and decisive. The question "Is this a setup?" kept coming back to me, and who the hell is this Ben guy?
It's just that Tonya's voice didn't seem like Tonya when she said "Hello, Ben. Yeah, it' Tonya." It almost seemed like an act. She didn't talk to me in that manner, at all. What if the setup was that she faked the affair? What if she saw the red light on the recorder and this was just an act to get back at me for spying on her? THAT would have explained her foul mood this morning! She was expecting me to listen to the recording and confront her about her infidelity!
I needed more facts. I was swimming in questions, and nothing seemed to fit into the world that I knew two days ago. I was getting real near my goal, to start a family, to have a wife who would raise our children at home, but it was slipping away from me. Maybe I was trying to live my life to some bizarre standard that I had been raised to think was the perfect life, but I thought I was on track to a happy home and a happy family.
I know things don't always do the way you want. Was I doing what I thought I was studying for in college? Hell No! I graduated in with a degree in graphic design. I was going to make art that would move people to buy things. I had talent; in fact, my drawings were what made Tonya notice me. She was a dancer, and I started drawing her. She became my muse, and gave life to my drawings. When Tonya looked at my drawings, she saw a vision to strive for. That's how this whole thing started.
Somehow, that budding graphic designer was hired into a sales group and started at the bottom proofing and correcting things, and never got out. I had an eye for detail, and I started making sure the images and copy were correct. Soon, I was checking everyone's work, and not producing anything of my own. When I asked to try to take on an account, I was always told, "Paul, this one's too important, maybe on the next account". That's how I ended up doing contracts all the time.
Tonya didn't fair much better. She was an amazing modern dancer, with nuances that others would kill for. Tonya had several auditions with touring dance troops, but she didn't want to travel. She did perform in some local venues, which got her the part time job as a drill team dance choreographer. She ended up getting a teaching certificate in English and getting a full time job, and she was waiting until her real break came. But, then....her girls started winning awards for their routines, and she gave up on dancing herself and traded it for being a choreographer and coach. She traded her nuances of that gave her performances such individuality, for simple canned movements that she could train 36 amateurs to do in sync with each other.
I never stopped drawing, but the passion and flow of my drawings left me when Tonya stopped dancing. My muse and her wonderful movements died. I tried sculpting for a while, and then started making glass art, as a hobby. Molten glass has movement that is unpredictable, and in a way, it's alive. The trick is to freeze the movement at just the right time, and capture the motion. It's then, that the glass has life and power.
I stopped by in front of my car in the parking lot and pulled out my recorder. I located the bookmark I had made and pressed play. I wanted to listen to what happened after Tonya called Ben, or if she really did fake it. There may have been others in the parking lot, going to and coming back from lunch, but I didn't see them. I was frozen in front of my car as I listened to my recorder. I heard the Tonya humming. I heard the doorbell. I heard her go down the stairs, and two people come back up. The doorbell was the clincher, she if this was faked, she would have to silently go downstairs and ring the doorbell, and then silently go back up the stairs again. Once I heard Ben's voice, I started remember who he was. Ben was a teacher, teaching at the same school as Tonya.
Wait, they may be faking it still! She could have seen the red light on the recorder and told Ben to come over for a fake love session to teach me a lesson. She would be pissed off that I didn't trust her, and that I was spying on her while I was at the banquet. She would want to rub my nose in it. I listened for a show, and quickly became bored with what I was hearing.
I can't say that a recording of two people making love is very interesting. My eyes looked down at the grill of my car as I listened on. My vision blurred as I tried to gather every nuance from what I was hearing. Tonya and Ben mostly got out grunts and gasps, and a few phrases like:
"Oh yeah, just like that"
"More! More!"
"Oh, Fuck! Oh, Fuck!"
"Slow down, I want this to last!"
If this was a fake, I would have expected to hear more that would get me riled up, but they were just into each other. I would have expected Tonya to say "Oh, Ben, Paul never gets me going at much as you do." I never heard any taunting or comparisons; it was just two people pleasing each other.
So, it is true, this is real. Tonya was having an affair. As a muse, she was already dead, and now she had turned to someone else to inspire. I was shocked at my indifference at this point. The idea of Sherri going to another man for a sperm donation had incensed me more than a man pegging my own wife. My goal was to have a child, but I no longer cared about the mother at all. I had obviously checked out of my marriage a while back, and was just going through the motions. It was possible that if I had got Tonya pregnant, that I would re-connect with her. But right now, it Tonya and Sherri were drowning, I would absolutely rescue Sherri first.
What I was hearing lacks the passion and fire of our lovemaking, but Ben was doing his best. It seemed like Ben was in control, and that every time he would get close to orgasm, he would change rhythm or positions. They changed positions every few minutes and finally, Tonya came. It was a slow song of sensual passages, and Tonya was the instrument that he was playing. She was an instrument! I completely remembered who Ben was, he was the band director!
I pressed the stop button and pointed my eyes towards the sky. All I could see was big glasses, buck teeth and curls. That spindly freak was banging my wife. I wondered if he had those big glasses on while he mounted my wife. How could she? It would only take one hit, just one little punch to the face or gut, and Ben would be out for the count. I could sit there and take a few jabs from those stringy arms before I even decided to make my more. I tried to visualize punching Ben in those buck teeth of his, and I started to laugh at the clouds. I couldn't even imagine trying to have a fight with this guy over my wife. Tonya wasn't even worth a night in jail to me, she was just old trash.
