Marital Aid

"Clea?" The sound of Bruna's voice brought Clea back to herself. "You're supposed to be spotting for me, babe."

"Right." Clea shook her head, blushing a little. "Sorry."

"Hold on."

Bruna strained and groaned as she lifted the monstrously heavy bar up over her head and placed it back onto the rack. She sat up on the exercise bench, and Clea apologetically offered her a sweat towel to wipe her forehead off with. Clea was a little jealous of just how good her friend looked when she was working out; Bruna had the kind of muscular figure that made other girls drool, and her deep brown, Brazilian skin always glistened appealingly when she was flushed and sweating from exertion. Clea couldn't relate.

"OK," Bruna said, after taking a swig of water. "What's on your mind? Out with it."

Clea sighed and sat down on the bench next to her. Unfortunately, Bruna knew her too well. The two of them had been gym buddies for a long time, and friends for longer.

"It's..." Clea didn't know where to begin. It was far too embarrassing.

"It's her, isn't it?" Bruna asked sympathetically.

"Yeah." Clea planted her head in her hands. "Yeah. It is."

She didn't need to explain who 'her' was. They both knew.

Isabella.

"Oh, girl." Bruna threw one of her big, strong arms across Clea's shoulder. "You're down seriously bad."

Clea groaned and leaned in. She didn't need Bruna to tell her that. Isabella consumed her every waking thought. The reason she'd been zoning out when she was supposed to be spotting for Bruna was because she'd been caught up in picturing Isabella's smiling face. She'd reached schoolgirl levels of hopeless infatuation.

And there were two massive problems with it.

Firstly, Isabella was her boss. Clea was pretty sure that falling in love with the woman she worked for wasn't part of a personal secretary's job description. Workplace romances like that never worked out, and she was sure Isabella was too much of a stickler to ever consider it. There was also an accompanying age gap - Clea was in her mid-twenties while Isabella was in her thirties. That didn't bother her so much, especially since Clea had such a fondness for older women, but it was yet another obstacle.

The second, much bigger problem was that Isabella was both straight and married.

"Falling for a straight girl." Clea sighed again, heavier. "She's amazing, don't get me wrong, but sometimes I wish I could just forget about all these feelings and move on. It's so hard, having to be near her, day after day, never being able to act on them."

"I bet," Bruna said soothingly. She reached up and started stroking Clea's long, red hair.

"And the worst part is seeing that she's not happy!" Clea vented. "Her pig of a husband makes her miserable, I can just tell. Why couldn't it be me instead? I'd treat her the way she deserves. I'd treat her like a queen."

"I know you would," Bruna assured her. She paused for a moment and then turned to look closely at Clea, a cunning smile on her face. "You know, babe, you do have a way of making that happen."

Clea threw a sharp look up at her. "I don't even know if it works."

"Oh, it works," Bruna told her, grinning. "I was going to tell you afterward. I tested it very thoroughly. I have all the data you said you'd need to make the final calibrations."

"Yeah, I bet you were thorough," Clea snorted. "I heard a few rumors about what you've been up to with that heiress girl."

"Now, now. I don't kiss and tell." Bruna's grin took on a cocky, swaggering quality. Clea's friend loved to kiss and tell. "Anyway, the point is: it's amazing! I can't believe my friend knows how to mind-control people. It's like you're a supervillain or something."

At that, Clea laughed. "It's just a hobby," she retorted. "I've always liked audio mixing and video editing. It started with music videos, but then I got really curious about how different kinds of sounds and different frequencies can affect the human mind. And, uh, I guess one thing lead to another."

The 'another', in this case, was a suite of software and a set of techniques that allowed her to create audio and video files that had a potent, hypnotic effect on the listener. Clea could almost literally reprogram them with whatever commands she chose - at least, within reason and with enough exposure. Clea objected to the idea that she was some kind of supervillain, but admittedly, the description wasn't too far off.

"So," Bruna pressed, "why not put all that work to good use?"

"You mean... with Isabella?" Clea frowned. "No. In fact, I don't even want that experimental data. I don't want to think about it."

"Why not? Just think about it! No more yearning, no more heartache. You could have her."

Clea felt a definite, stirring pang, but looked away. "It's not that simple."

"Of course it is," Bruna countered.

"I-it wouldn't be right."

"From what you said about her husband, it sounds like she'd be happier with you," Bruna pointed out. "Why not think of it as giving her a little push towards a happy ending? You can't tell me that's not part of what this was all for. The testing. Your little hobby."

"It just..." Clea stood up, shrugging off Bruna's arm, and started to pace. "I don't know. It wouldn't feel right. Not with her."

"Why not?" Bruna asked again, a touch exasperated.

"Because I care about her, Bruna," Clea replied. "She's not just a pretty girl I'm looking to get into bed. It's more than that. I want her to be happy."

"You could make her happy," Bruna pointed out. "That's what I'm saying."

"Maybe she's happy right now," Clea shot back. "Maybe that's why she's still with him. I don't know. That's the point. I can't just decide that for her. What if I'm wrong? What if I make it worse?"

"Wow, babe," Bruna said, raising an eyebrow. "You really are down bad."

Clea sank back down miserably onto the bench. "Yeah. I know."

Bruna squeezed her shoulder. "Well, here's what we're gonna do," she said. "We're going to keep working out until you're so exhausted you can barely think. Then we're gonna go back to my bar and get drunk until you definitely can't think. Sound good?"

"God yes," Clea sighed.

"Atta girl." Clea stood up, allowing Bruna to lie back down along the exercise bench, and rest her hands back on the barbell. As she did, she threw Clea one last look. "But just remember: you ever change your mind, and the data's yours. Just give me a call."

***

The next evening, Clea's head was still throbbing from the hangover. Bruna drank hard, and her bar was well-stocked. The headache was a welcome pain. A welcome distraction. To take her mind off of it, and off of everything else, she was preparing a nice, big pot of stew. It would take the edge off her hangover, and give her some welcome nourishment for the week to come. The stew was still simmering on her stovetop, however, when Clea found herself much, much more distracted by a message she'd just received.

Can I come over?

It was from Isabella.

Clea's boss, the woman she was hopelessly head-over-heels for, had just texted her on a Sunday evening to ask to come over to her apartment. Maybe she should have replied with 'no', or 'I'm busy, sorry'. Maybe she should even have left her on read. There were reasons to. Refusing would have helped maintain professional boundaries, and would have helped Clea stop torturing herself about a doomed romance.

Instead, she had replied 'yes' right away.

And now, as she waited for Isabella to arrive, Clea was left with nothing to do but watch her stew simmer and wonder about what, exactly, had happened. She and Isabella had a friendly and warm relationship at work, to be sure. Sometimes they even confided in one another a little - that was how Clea had caught a hint of her marital issues. But suddenly dropping in to visit Clea at her apartment? That was completely unprecedented.

Clea desperately wanted to know why. But with Isabella already on her way, there was nothing for her to do except keep pacing back and forward across her kitchen restlessly, wondering, trying to stop herself from giving in to needless speculation or fruitless hope. Occasionally, she couldn't help dashing over to the mirror in her bathroom to make sure that she looked presentable. Part of her wanted to put on some makeup, but the knowledge that she'd look like she'd gotten all dolled up on a Sunday night just to stay home and cook held her back.

Eventually, mercifully, the buzzer for her apartment rang.

Clea rushed down and opened the door as quickly as she could, and let out a mourning gasp when she laid eyes on her boss.

Isabella had been crying. That much was obvious from the way her eyes were red from tears and wide with worry. It pained Clea to see her beauty marred by such sadness. She was still beautiful, though. Clea was struck by that every single time she saw her boss.

Isabella Chase was aging more than gracefully into her thirties. Put simply, she had a figure to die for, and looked just as killer in the t-shirt and jeans she was currently wearing as she did in the smart, well-tailored business wear Clea was used to seeing on her. She had a slender, pretty face, with high, arched, sharp cheekbones that somehow became rounded and full when she laughed and smiled, lighting up her whole face. Her short, black, shoulder-length hair framed her features perfectly, and her tanned, brown skin took on a thousand tones in a different light. Clea never got tired of looking at her. She just hoped her boss hadn't noticed the way she stared. Especially since Isabella did know that Clea was a lesbian.

"Hey," Clea said awkwardly. "What's wrong?"

As soon as she saw Clea, Isabella sagged. "I'm sorry," she said heavily. "I shouldn't have come."

"What? No!" Clea replied urgently. "Don't say that. You're more than welcome."

Isabella just sniffled and shook her head miserably. "It's not appropriate. I'm your boss. You shouldn't have to..."

"Just come in." Clea reached out and touched Isabella on the shoulder, lightly. "Please?"

Isabella nodded, just as miserably, but allowed Clea to guide her inside and upstairs into her apartment. Once there, Clea immediately set to fussing over her boss. She got her seated comfortably on the couch, and then went to make tea for the both of them. When she returned, two steaming mugs in hand, she sat down next to Isabella. A worried frown was carving lines into her face.

"I shouldn't have come," Isabella repeated, although she seemed more settled than before. "I'm your boss. You put up with me enough at work."

"Nonsense," Clea told her firmly. "You put up with me just as much. We can call it even."

That made Isabella smile, which made Clea smile.

"I just didn't know where else to go, I suppose," Isabella explained apologetically, sipping tentatively at her tea. "I guess I didn't really want my friends to see me like this. So I just started driving around, and then I was in the neighborhood, and I remembered your address, and... well, you're just so easy to talk to, at work. So I just..."

"I'm glad you did," Clea said. "Really. It's not an imposition. But you do have to tell me what's going on. That's the only condition."

Isabella laughed, sniffled again, and nodded. "Well, it's... it's him. Again. Robert. My husband."

A furious shiver raced down Clea's spine. It was just as she'd suspected. Her husband was the only thing she'd ever seen get anything close to this far under Isabella's skin.

"What did he do now?" Clea's voice approached a growl.

"He didn't..." Isabella started to say in instinctive defensiveness, before sagging again. "It's not like that, exactly. We just had another fight."

"I see," Clea said tersely.

"I want kids," Isabella said. Now that she was unburdening herself, it came out easy. She wasn't looking at the expression on Clea's face. "I want a family. I do. And I thought he wanted that too. I mean, we always said... but now I don't know. Every time I try to talk to him about it, he gets so..."

Clea worried for all the unspoken things she could hear in Isabella's voice. "Do you mean..."

"No," Isabella told her. "Not like that. But he gets so closed off about it. So short-tempered. It's like... it's like me, and what I want, are just annoyances to him. You know?"

"Yeah." Clea had to fight not to grind her teeth. "I know what you mean."

"It's at the point where I just don't know what to do," Isabella went on. "I just assumed we'd work on it, over time, together, but it's starting to seem like it isn't going to get better. I don't know what to do anymore. Today, when I tried to talk to him, we ended up arguing. And when he started yelling at me, I just... I had to get out of there, Clea."

"Get out of there?" Hope, tinged by guilt, started to swell in Clea's bosom. "Like-"

"I mean, how am I supposed to go back to him now, after running out like that?" The words kept flowing out of Isabella. She was starting to tear up again. "Sometimes I feel like I just can't take it anymore."

Clea paused for a long moment to gather her courage before saying: "Maybe... you don't have to. Go back, I mean."

Isabella looked up at her. "What do you mean?"

"I mean that you're better than him, Isabella!" Clea cried. "It's obvious. He doesn't deserve you. You're amazing. You're beautiful, you're kind, you work hard and support yourself and others. If you want a family, you deserve one. You deserve someone who wants to have that with you."

Her boss let out a sound that was half a laugh, half a sob. "That's... a nice thought, Clea."

"I'm serious!" Clea insisted fiercely. "I know it's a cliche, but there are so many other people out there who could make you happy. You shouldn't have to devote your life to someone who doesn't even care enough to talk to you about what you want!"

"It's not that easy." Isabella seemed to tense up. "I can't just walk out on him like that."

"Why not?" Clea couldn't bring herself to hold back now. "You don't need him, Isabella. And you said so yourself - it seems like it isn't going to get better. So what are you staying with him for?"

"I... I guess I don't really have a good answer to that," Isabella admitted. "But I do know one thing. I'm not a quitter. That's how I've made it this far, right?"

"Isabella..." Clea slumped back against the couch cushion, defeated. She could hear the resolve in her boss's voice, and she recognized all too well the kind of self-defeating logic Isabella was trapping herself in.

"Maybe it's a little silly," Isabella said, smiling sadly to herself. "But I really meant all those things I said at the altar. The promises. In sickness and in health, stuff like that. I... I know you mean well, Clea. I just think I need to see this through properly."

There was nothing for Clea to do but look down and sigh. "I understand," she said, even though she didn't.

It took all the strength she had not to blurt out that it should have been her. That she was the one who could make Isabella happy that way. That she would be overjoyed to give Isabella the family her husband wouldn't.

But of course, her words would have fallen on deaf ears. Isabella was straight, and that was that.

Before Clea knew it, the two of them had lapsed into uncomfortable silence. The only sound in the apartment was the occasional noise of each of them sipping at their tea. Clea knew she had to fix it.

"Hey," she said abruptly, planting as bright a smile as she could muster on her face. "Well, if you want to stay here, just for tonight, you'd be more than welcome. I mean it. We can have a girls' night. This couch folds out, and it's actually not as bad as it-"

The sound of Isabella's phone lighting up with a text message interrupted her.

Her boss snatched at her phone like a drowning woman at a life ring. The expression of manic, desperate hope on her face as she read the message tore Clea's heart in two, and immeasurable dread washed over her. She knew exactly what was happening.

"Thank you," Isabella said to Clea, already gathering herself. "That's such a kind offer. B-but I need to go now, actually." She gestured to her phone. "He's worried about me, and he wants to talk."

She was smiling as she said it, although Clea knew even Isabella didn't really believe in whatever platitudes her husband was offering. She was just forcing herself to, because it was the only way she could keep going. Isabella's smile was as fragile as glass, and Clea couldn't bring herself to be the one that broke it.

"Sure." Clea desperately hoped her own smile didn't look too fake or forced. "Of course. I understand. And, anytime. I promise."

She walked Isabella out of the building and the two of them said their goodbyes. But the whole time, Clea could only think about how disgustingly false this all was. She'd met Isabella's husband two or three times, at various work-related social functions. She knew what a boor he was. She knew he wasn't going to change. But, clearly, he was willing to keep stringing Isabella along with false hope and false kindnesses until it ground her into dust.

Dwelling on it left a pit of nausea in Clea's stomach. It wasn't right. She couldn't let this happen. Not to Isabella.

And there was something she could do about it.

Once Clea got back up to her apartment, she reached for her phone and messaged Bruna.

I need the data.

***

The next morning, it took Clea quite some time to gather her courage before she could bring herself to head into Isabella's office and bring her boss her morning coffee. Her anxiety was twofold. First, she was afraid that the atmosphere between them would be heavy with the weight of what had happened the day before; with Isabella's unexpected vulnerability, and Clea's unwelcome advice. And second, she was afraid that Isabella would see how nervous she was, and somehow sense what she was about to do.

Her first fear, at least, was dispelled from the first moment she knocked and pushed open the door. Isabella was already behind her desk, hard at work, but she rose to greet Clea with a broad grin.

"Clea! Good morning," she gushed. "Oh, is that my latte? I seriously need it."

"Of course," Clea replied. "Same as ever."

She placed the cup holder on Isabella's desk, but she must have seemed a touch awkward because Isabella quickly reached out for her hand.

"Hey, um," Isabella began, "I wanted to say, about yesterday... I'm sorry. Not for turning up - you made it clear that you were happy to help, and I appreciate that a lot. You're amazing, honestly. The best secretary I could ever ask for."

Clea's cheeks started to burn and glow from the praise.

"Instead, I'm sorry for putting you square in the middle of my marital, uh, issues," Isabella said. "I'm sure that was really, really awkward."

"No," Clea replied. "Um, actually, I'm glad you felt like you could confide in me. And... actually, I'm sorry too. I went way too far."

"Nonsense," Isabella told her firmly, smiling. "You don't have anything to be sorry for. You were just trying to help. To be honest, the advice you gave is exactly what I'd probably give to any of my friends if they were in the same position."

That acknowledgment brought forth another heavy sigh that piqued Clea's curiosity.

"May... I ask how it went?" Clea ventured cautiously.

"Good." Isabella nodded firmly. "At least, I think it was good. We talked, and maybe we didn't fix our problems yet, but we're going to keep talking. What more can you ask for, right?"

She was trying to sound brave and sure, and it almost worked. Almost. But Clea knew her boss better than most. Better than her own husband, she'd guess. She saw Isabella every single day at work, and she knew when she was merely putting a brave face on something.

Looking deeper, Clea could see the signs. Under her eyes, she was using a little too much makeup to try and conceal some dark circles. Her eyes themselves were still tinged red. Her hair was a little messier and less lustrous than usual; probably, she'd gone to bed without doing her routine. And, most tellingly of all, her shoulders were sagged slightly in exhaustion and defeat, the way they only usually were on a Friday evening after a truly hellish week.