Thanks to LordSlamdawgg for beta reading this and to sbrooks103x and Crkcppr for editing and improving the story.
xx
Sarah was my absolute dream woman. Pretty, great sense of humor, easy to be with. At the time, the complete package seemed almost too good to be true. But as it usually is the case, there was one fly in the ointment. A big, black, hairy, ugly fly. That specific fly even had a name - Martin. Okay, admittedly, Martin wasn't big. He wasn't even particularly hairy. Nor was he black. But to me, he felt like the biggest, most pesky and irritating insect in the whole world.
The thing was - Martin was her ex. Whatever that meant in this case. Not her ex-husband and even the opinions whether he had been some kind of steady boyfriend were quite contradictory. He seemed to think that they were soulmates that were made for each other and their inevitable marriage was just postponed due to unfortunate circumstances (namely me), whereas she claimed that they had just been good friends with rare and unsatisfying benefits. I had no idea which version came nearer to the truth as I hadn't been around at the time to witness the events in question.
But I had been around later. I had been around a lot, mainly because we were married. Unfortunately, Martin was also around a lot; too much as far as I was concerned. He always hung around wherever she was, following her like a shadow. At first it was a bit funny until it soon got old. He had no pride when it came to Sarah and was totally immune to subtle hints to give us a bit more privacy. He hung around stubbornly until he was physically thrown out or at least rudely commanded to finally leave us the hell alone. The problem is, whenever someone actually did this, Sarah felt immediately sorry for him.
Still, he was just some kind of minor nuisance in the beginning, an oddity I could easily live with. I didn't really know his true self back then and regarded him as some kind of harmless loony. I think, like me, most people underestimated him and he used that to his advantage. That was a mistake I surely wasn't about to repeat after he was almost successful in driving a huge wedge between my wife and me.
The problem was that Sarah's mother seemed to like him and they met from time to time. Beats me why anyone could like a guy like him, but she did, maybe feeling sorry for him. Anyway, one day he caught me when Sarah wasn't around.
"Hey, Eric. Can you spare me a moment?"
"Sure, what's up?" I didn't know him as well at the time and although I didn't overly like him, I had no real reason to distrust him.
"You know that I talk a lot with Sarah's mother Anne, right?"
"Sure," I said, wondering what this was all about.
"Please don't tell her about this, Anne told me this in confidence." It was a bit ridiculous, he was acting like some kind of secret agent.
"Okay, so what's the matter?"
"Please take this with a grain of salt, but it seems Sarah has confided to Anne that she can't envision a long-term relationship with you. She thinks that you're too immature and selfish," he said in a concerned and amicable voice.
"WHAT?" Damn, that was bad news. I was disappointed and angry, she always had suggested that she saw us growing old together.
"Hey, don't shoot the messenger, okay? I just thought you might want to know. I would if I was in your shoes."
"Yeah, okay. Thanks for the heads-up."
"No problem, Eric. That's what friends are for."
To say I was mad would have been an understatement. Too immature? Selfish? I did everything for this woman. How dare she? And to top things off, it seems that everybody knew about it before she had the grace to talk to me about it. Boy, was I hot under my collar. But I decided to wait things out. If she wanted to dump me, she would have to address it.
It seemed that he told Sarah a similar story about me telling my friend Michael the same thing about her. Of course, all of it was complete nonsense. We spent two days quietly sulking until we managed to clarify what had happened. Sarah, bless her benevolent nature, soon forgave him. She regarded him as some kind of crazy puppy that she had to take care of and couldn't hold a grudge against him for too long. For her, this whole episode was as serious as a dog caught chewing on a favorite pair of shoes. She was sure mad at him, but he knew which buttons to press and she soon forgave him and forgot the whole thing. But I never did.
From then on I was more aware of what he was doing and watched him very closely. I can't say that I liked what I saw. My feelings towards him developed from the initial annoyance to a serious frown to active dislike and went beyond that. It got steadily worse the longer and closer I watched him. It was like watching an insect through a microscope. The closer you look, the more details you see, the uglier the thing gets. In the end, I didn't just simply dislike him. I felt actively repulsed by him. Just the thought of breathing the same oxygen molecules that had previously been inside his lungs made me sick. He wasn't unpleasant to look at, he was a nice enough conversationalist if he wanted to be. He displayed an exaggerated, oily friendliness if he needed something. It was almost fascinating to watch him switching it on and off from one second to the other. He never missed an opportunity to slander anyone except Sarah. It wasn't below him to lie, to intrigue, to start false rumors either to achieve something or just for his personal entertainment. More than once I witnessed people getting into trouble because of this, which never seemed to bother him in the least. He just stood on the sidelines, watching in smug amusement. In short - it was plain to see that Martin had an ugly character. That he was dirty, unclean somehow, even if he was freshly showered. His inner ugliness was so overwhelming in my eyes that I felt like it had to be rubbing off onto the people around him.
While some seemed to more or less secretly share this view, I was surprised that others didn't seem to. As I've said, he could be charming and funny if the situation held the promise of some advantage for him. One of the people not seeing his true self unfortunately was Sarah. And of course, he had one big fan. And that person was Martin himself; the man was devoid of any kind of self-doubt. And while he held himself highly, he always seemed to think that other people, especially men, didn't quite measure up to him. He always was a bit condescending, always had a smug smile on his face, always felt compelled to utter a slighting remark. To be honest, if his goal was to drive me nuts, he completely succeeded, he knew it and he reveled in it. I tried to ignore him whenever I could, but it was damn near impossible. I hated him too much too ignore him, it was as impossible as ignoring a root canal treatment. His ugly grin always let me know that he was aware of how much I despised him, that the feeling was completely mutual and that he enjoyed annoying me with his presence.
My problem was that whereas he didn't stick to other people that much, to me he was like shit mixed with super glue. He was always around and impossible to get rid of. Why did he do that? Because Sarah was always around me. How did he manage to do that? Because Sarah wanted it this way. She had this strange protective streak when it came to him. I never learned why they split up or even if they had enough of a relationship to do something resembling a split-up. But one thing was clear, he seemed determined to get her back, to worm himself back into her life, seeing himself as her true soulmate. Of course, being the asshole that he is, he wasn't shy about doing everything he could to soil her opinion of me. I thought that strategy was quite transparent, I tried to warn her, but she chided me as being childish and was totally oblivious of what was happening. My numerous attempts to tell her what was happening and to force her to get rid of him fell on deaf ears. I was making things up, I was paranoid, he was just an old friend, he was totally harmless. You get the idea. It drove me insane.
And then there was this promotion at work. That was really the worst that could have happened. I was one happy bugger in my old job - I enjoyed it and I excelled at it. Why did my bosses think that someone who does a job well has to do something else, just because it's located at a higher position in the corporate food chain? And I couldn't really refuse because we needed the money. The new job was okay, but unfortunately it also included some travel. Two or three days at a time would have been okay, but I had to travel to China twice per year for four full weeks. Sure, they gave me plenty of pain and suffering money for it. But this was just not what I had envisioned for my life.
The events I'm describing began when I was at the airport, about to leave for China.
xx
"Ah, honey?"
"Yeah, Sarah?" I was checking the departure board again. The flight seemed to be on time.
"You know that Martin has split up with Tina?"
"Oh, I didn't even know he was in a relationship." 'Who is this Tina anyway,' I thought? But I didn't dare to ask because I had probably met her at some time and Sarah surely knew exactly when and where.
"Well, he was. They were even living together."
"Okay." I wasn't particularly interested in details about this asshole's life. I couldn't have cared less and I hoped my tone showed this clearly. She was unperturbed though.
"He has to live in a hotel now."
"Hmm. The flight seems to be on time."
"He can't really afford it, you know?"
"I just hope the connecting flight in Shanghai won't be delayed."
"He doesn't know where to stay. He's really in trouble."
"They have a driver waiting in Chengdu." I refused to talk about Martin, but she stayed on track like a damn railroad engine.
"You see, our guest room..."
"No!"
"Eric..."
"Don't Eric me... I hate the bastard. I seriously hate him with all my heart."
"He will be gone when you return."
"I doubt it."
"I promise."
"And even if he's gone by then, you want me to accept him living with you for weeks?"
"Why not?" She seemed honestly surprised about the question.
"I've got news for you, he's got the hots for you, my dear Sarah. And he will use the time to get near you. To drive a wedge between us. To denigrate me."
"Oh, come on..." But her smile made me wonder if she knew this and was secretly flattered with the attention.
"Be honest, please."
"You can trust me, Eric. I know how to handle him."
"So how would you react if I wanted to live with Laura for a few weeks?"
