The Doctor Is: In

Author's Note: Before you read this particular one, I would suggest going back to "The Traject" and familiarize yourselves with the characters of this particular story. Like all the other stories I have written, there really isn't a great need to know the background, however, it would greatly help to fully understand the entire story.

I am going to take a wild guess here and assume that there is a few readers that have stayed with the story from "Long Road" all the way into "Family" that are pissed off at me at the ending of the latter. These next few stories will help wrap up the world that I have created with the many characters that have come and gone in the previous stories. Not all of them will be under the Loving Wives category, if you have added me as a Favorite Author then keep an eye on the submissions.

I am writing this section before "Family Ch. 4" comes out, and I am far too lazy to come back here and update this but I can take a few safe guesses and perhaps field a few questions, complaints, and whatnot that will certainly come out from that story:

No, the Life of D is not completed. Yes, that story is kind of fucked up. Yes, each chapter does not follow the "Loving Wives" description of a cheating wife, even though there is a cheating wife in the open, right smack in the middle of the story. Yes the story is long and I use a lot of words. Sorry to see you go, maybe one day you'll stumble on these stories down the road and will appreciate the work I put into them. Yes, I take a while to submit stories mainly because I tend to finish the entire thing then I go back and break it down into chapters, send it to others for approval, edit any changes, then wait for the approval process once I submit the story.

No, I don't "delete the negative remarks," or "the low scores," so far I have only had to report three comments, all were extremely derogatory and borderline racist. It doesn't bother me if you hate my style, the characters, the flow of the story, or even how I label my stories. Even if I was made out of gold, someone would still prefer silver.

Much love,

aka_Mike

...

I sat on the dirty motel bed for what would be the tenth time this month, even as tears filled my eyes from the pangs of regret, I knew that if he called I would be here again. My name is Barbara Cargill, and this if the fourth affair I've had over the last fifteen years of marriage. As I gather my clothes, the stench of betrayal pungent in my nostrils, I went about the usual dance I had with my thoughts after each session with this man/boy. I had every excuse in the books, I was lonely, I was growing older, I was... hell I was bored. But if I was being honest with myself, I was doing this for one single purpose: I needed to get his face out of my mind.

It was wrong of me, of course I knew that, but there was an instant attraction to him from the second I walked up to him. He looked haggard, to the point where I had confused him for one of the many drunks that hung about the building where both my husband and I practice our respective career fields. My husband is a forensic psychologist, one of the best in the country; I am a trauma social worker with certifications in dealing with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. That is what led him to our office, one of my husband's friends personally referred this patient to us, he thought we could help.

I am sure that the type of help he was requesting was not the type that he got, in only a short few days I was in his bed. I struggled with it, but even as I played hard to get, and I was merely playing, I felt that my reservations would have broken apart like a dam had he just taken me. But even with his extensive background as a soldier, and later as a private military contractor, there was gentleness to his heart. His eyes actively reflected his moods, from his passion when we were together to his extreme anger and heartbreak when it ended. He was my first affair, with him I took a step that I had never considered taking throughout the years of marriage, and it was him that had put me on this road.

I guess its not really fair to blame him, its not like he was holding a pistol to my head and forced me to take lover after lover, to dirty mattress after mattress in countless motels. But I needed to forget that hurt in his eyes. I knew the cut had been deep as my husband, Bill, shared with me his opinion of the undoing of all the work that he had put in to try to become a more active member of society. My own diagnosis of him should have warned me against taking such a chance with him; he saw himself as being in the world but not part of it. He was an outsider merely existing, and my actions had pushed him further away. Even now, years after that awful night when I told him that I was married, I could still see the heartbreak in those brown eyes.

It was after that day, I knew that for sure, that I decided to fuck my way into forgetting him. But after so many romps in the bed, I am no closer to forgetting that pain I caused him than I was that day he unceremoniously told me to leave his apartment. I was surprised that he had not called Bill, for months after our last encounter I feared that any call that came through would be from him. I feared what Bill, with his controlled demeanor, would do and what the result of those actions would have on our already fragile marriage. I hoped that he would never find out about any of my affairs, but I knew that the more I carried on the higher the odds were stacking against me. If he did find out, I hoped that his love for me would give him cause to forgive me.

I made my way out of the seedy motel that I had chosen this time around, I had learned to ignore the smirks of the managers as I booked the room and returned the keys merely hours after, but I could not risk staying there any longer than absolutely necessary. I would take care of any personal cleaning before I would make the drive to either the office or home. I set my husband's schedule and never dared to take these chances while he was in town, but even with those few precautions I still did not dare risk going to his home in an unclean state. With each mile that I put between me and that motel, my guilt dissipated and no matter how many times I would tell myself that this was the last of the strings of affairs, by the time I pulled into the driveway I knew that I would do it again.

...

I couldn't understand her. She was an intelligent woman, there was no doubt about that as the many certificates and diplomas that hung on the walls of my office could attest. Had this been the first time, maybe I would have forgiven her, I knew that there are multiple reasons that can drive a spouse to stray from their marriage. But this hadn't been the first time, nor the first man. There was a line of those already; I did not read the PI report any further than that. I knew that if I had seen the pictures, heard the recordings, or even watched the videos, that any respect that I held for that woman as a professional would certainly disappear completely. That is all that kept me from destroying her life, if I was being honest, I knew that her work with the patients was sublime. But I had nothing left for that woman other than professional consideration.

"What are you going to do about her?" Stacy had started working for me a few months ago, her husband was one of the managers of the motels that Barbara had frequented with her vast array of lovers. It had taken her a few days to confront me with those news because we had grown a friendship in a small amount of time. She had made her husband, Ed, come to work with her that day, I remember it vividly.

"Bill," he had said, scratching his head in a nervous gesture, "look man there is really no easy way to say this, but I saw Barbara down at the Starlight Motel last weekend. Bill, she was not alone."

"I'm so sorry, Bill" Stacy reached out and hugged me, it was her arms that kept me from folding like a broken accordion. The tears did not come, I knew that my brain was trying to logically dismiss the information that it had received as some type of falsehood, a case of mistaken identity.

"I flattened her tire," Ed said, "hoping that she would have to call you in order to get it fixed. But I guess she found another way around it if this is the first time you've heard about it." I remember Barbara mentioning that she had to buy a new tire after she had hit a nail; one of her friend's boyfriends had helped her change the tire.

"What do I do?" My voice revealed the depths of pain that her betrayal had caused, while I tried to keep it together for the sake of avoiding any awkwardness, even I couldn't lie that well.

"That is going to be up to you, bud," Ed replied, "you can confront her now and see what she has to say about it, or you can try to find out more details and then figure out if you can forgive her." He handed me a business card, "I asked a buddy of mine that has gone through this before," he explained, "that was his advice. This is the people he used, from what he said they do fine work. He also told me to tell you that no matter how much it hurts now, the pain is only going to get worse before it gets better."

I hired the PI firm and within a few days they had a preliminary report for me, pictures, and a voice recording. It was all I would need for a speedy divorce, the detective had assured me, but he also said that he was under the impression that this had not been the first time Barbara had done this. So I asked him to dig deeper, to find out as much information as he could. I reassured him that I would not do anything stupid, that I would maintain my professional demeanor. He assured me that within a month I would have all the information that I wanted, but warned me against looking at it. If he was right in his assessment, looking at the evidence would only destroy me. When I saw him again after a few weeks, he sadly revealed that his gut had been correct while handing me three separate envelopes. The first one contained his typed reports including dates, times, names, and locations, but it also included the more innocent of the pictures. The second one was sealed, and he told me that it had a variety of pictures in very compromising positions that left very little to the imagination. The third he called it the nuclear option, inside it were discs containing the voice recordings, video surveillance, and a digital library of all pictures that he and his team had taken and acquired.

For three long months I held on to all this evidence, I don't even think that Barbara had noticed that we had not done so much as held hands in all that time. I managed to take work with me and worked long into the night to avoid spending any time with her, but within a few days I noticed that she had not even paid attention to the fact that I went to bed after she was asleep and woke up before she did. In the blink of an eye, a year had passed since that day, I knew that she had continued her affairs, but I had stopped caring a long time ago. During that entire time, we had not shared a bed as lovers or touched each other in any way. Again, she did not notice.

"How long are you going to keep this up?" Stacy asked me, "I can see that its killing you, Bill. Please, you have to confront her, you have to set yourself free of her."

"You still got a few years left, bud," Ed said, "you can still rebuild a life if you want to, but you're only making yourself miserable."

I knew they were both right, I knew that I was only spinning the wheels in a dead situation, but I honestly had no idea what to do, even after all that time. I knew the answer was to divorce her, to try to get my pound of flesh from her, to reassure myself that I was a man through whatever means it would take. I had always compartmentalized my problems and approached them in the most logical way possible. Since I did not know what to do in this situation, I simply reacted. While I had continued to attend all my required medical conferences and paid the necessary bills to maintain my insurances for private practice, I began to take a close look at myself.

I was nearing my 45

th

birthday, by today's standards I was still a young man and like Ed had said, I still had time to rebuild my life after Barbara. I had sought out a few lawyers for advice at my friends' insistence. We did not have any children, the house was mine since before we had gotten married, and my business was well protected as I also had it before Barbara and I had met. She had a great career and would be able to find work easily, so any fears of spousal support were easily dismissed. We each owned our own vehicles, and save for our bank accounts, everything was neatly packaged as his and hers, throughout our entire marriage this was the first time that I had noticed this fact. Lawyer after lawyer told me the same thing, assured me in the same ways, and offered me the same fake condolences while making sure that I took one of their business cards. I accepted each of them, not just the ones from my city, but from every lawyer I met during the stateside conferences, with each meeting the word divorce became more and more like another series of letters. A year and a half after the day, as I had begun to call it, Barbara had still not noticed the lack of intimacy in our relationship.

I had the PI continue with his written reports, with more dates and times and only a single series of pictures whenever she took a new lover. Just like the previous photos, I kept them in their sealed envelope without once glancing at them. Slowly, I began to notice other women around the world, and where once everywhere I looked I saw nothing more than shades of grey, now new colors were beginning to take hold. I smelled fragrances in the air that I had not realized that I had missed, the smell of lavender lotion became a favorite of mine. I became a fanatic of wines, never overindulging but knowing the differences between the vast variety of reds and whites. I had several offers for dates, for overnight relief, for emotional support from a variety of women, and on a few occasions men, but even though Barbara had destroyed our marriage my vows still existed.

I had decided to attend one of Ed and Stacy's pool parties when everything changed, well it was the beginning of the change. Change came to me in the form of a long black haired, deep black eyes, full lipped woman with an attitude that could make celebrities seem shy. Everywhere she looked, and every person she spoke to immediately lit up when she gave them as little as a wave. It was as if I was seeing an angel walking on the grounds of this earth, she moved without need to take steps, defying gravity and physics itself. As she embraced Stacy and turned to look at me with one of those smiles that could melt an iceberg, I saw that behind her followed a man that I had become familiar with not more than a few days before.

"This is my brother-in-law..." began Stacy as the man had stretched his hand in order for me to shake it, but after seeing the look that had plastered itself on my face she was frozen. Time moved painfully slow as his right hand moved up with all fingers open and extended, his left hand wrapped around Tracy's waist. I had never been a violent man, but my patient load had forced me to take a few self-defense classes, more often than not taught by those same patients. I was by no means a black belt in any practice or discipline, but I had a year and a half of pent up anger ready to explode.

"Troy," I finished the sentence for her, as my fist collided with the man's face. As he stumbled backward, I was on him faster than anyone could react. My fist had pistoled into his face at least three times before I could feel Ed's arms around me, trying to pull me off this man. Tracy moved to her husband's side, like a lioness, she was trying to protect him from an unknown danger that she truly did not understand.

"Jesus Christ, Bill," Ed shouted, struggling to keep me restrained, "what the hell just got into you? What the hell did he say?"

"He didn't say anything," Tracy shouted just as her husband began to regain his senses, "this maniac just punched him in the face while Troy was trying to shake his hand like a gentleman."

"I don't remember him being such a gentleman while he was fucking my wife" I shouted, my anger completely consumed me at that moment. I must have looked like a feral beast, as surely the shock of my actions was in no way nearly as surprising as my words.

...

The latest session with the new clients had gone as well as Barbara could have hoped for; these were all battle tested veterans and she knew that they would find more comfort being around fellow warriors than with a doctor with a shiny certificate. She felt good to be able to help these men and women overcome some of the darkest points in their lives. But if she was being honest with herself, she immersed more into her work to avoid thinking about Him, to avoid thinking about her marriage. The thought alone caused no small amount of pain, but she knew that her Bill loved her more than anything in the world.

As the room emptied, Barbara allowed herself to escape into her fantasies, into the daydreams of the many encounters she had over the past years. A smile covered her lips as she allowed herself to escape once more into that pleasure filled world within her fantasies. As she finished her notes for the day and prepared to make her way home, she realized that she had not seen her husband that morning as she got ready for work. As she thought about it, she had not seen him for at least a week, perhaps it had been longer. She quietly admonished herself for her carelessness and for her calloused attitude toward her husband. She knew that she had neglected him, but was oblivious to the extent of her neglect.

At the same time she tried to remember the last time she had spoken to Troy, it had been just as long. While she knew that her latest affair was beginning to run its course, she felt the need to see him one more time; she felt that she owed Troy at least the courtesy of breaking things off with him face to face. As she drove toward her home, she carefully fished her phone out of her large purse and pressed the speed dial button assigned to Troy. She had not heard a single ring before his voicemail picked up. That would be the first time that she would have heard the voicemail, he often eagerly picked up when her number showed up on his display. He was always like a kid in a candy store, always eager to drop everything and find whatever motel room they had selected for that particular encounter.

How would she be able to burn off the fire growing within her being? The thoughts that had consumed her had added lust to the already vast array of emotions flooding her brain. As she pulled into the driveway she realized yet another area where she had been careless. She had a man at home that would be more than willing to douse those flames within her, as she allowed herself a smile she tried to remember why she had begun that sordid affair. She had a perfectly good man at home, one who loved her and cared for her, and who... It was at that moment when her guilt swallowed her whole. When was the last time she had offered herself to her husband? Ashamed that she could not remember, panic replaced guilt. When was the last time he had made any advances on her? Panic became terror. As she saw the darkened home, terror became anguish. She bolted from her vehicle, not bothering to grab her paperwork or computer as she desperately tried to open the door. She needed to get to her husband, she needed to make it up to him, somehow she needed to convince him that she was still his devoted wife and lover.