Author's Note:
Breaking Jen was a story that I posted a year or two ago under another name. I always wanted to go back to it and perhaps fix a few details, however that minor fix turned into a massive re-write. I didn't want to replace that first story because it was liked by so many people...so...I decided to submit this 'redux' version under my new author name. Hopefully that way everyone will be happy.
Why the re-write? Well....this newer version doesn't really stray all that much from the actual events. I think that when I wrote the original story I embellished quite a few details. I guess I just didn't think that the real experience was interesting enough....I realise now how insane that thinking was.
When I recall what actually happened I know that it was far from ordinary.
Almost too much of it is autobiographical. The things that happened to me and the things that I did are real. I was worried that everyone who reads it would know too much about me.
Some of you will have read other stories of mine like 'At The mercy Of a Stranger' or 'A Night In Valhalla'. Many of you will recognise one or two elements or ideas from those stories.
My answer to that is that I used my experiences from this night and others and blended them into those submissions.
The events in 'At The Mercy Of A Stranger' happened.
The events in this story, 'Breaking Jen Redux.' also happened.
Writing down what Jen's (not her real name but it's very close) infidelities did to me was also all too real.
I don't mind telling you that it was not pleasant to go back to that place. Those are not memories that I want to rekindle at all. They represent the worst time in my life and the most pain I have ever felt.
Anyway....now you know, and with that knowledge, I hope you enjoy this 'redux' version of 'Breaking Jen'.
Peace and Love....
William.
(Aka Dimachaerus)
*****
I want people to know that I'm not a spiteful person by nature and I don't believe in holding onto past hurt.
I remember hearing a certain quote once that seemed to resonate with me. I honestly don't recall who said it, or even where I heard it anymore, but despite all that, I can still recount it word for word.
'Holding a grudge is like swallowing poison and expecting the other person to die'.
That sentiment seemed to connect with me on the deepest of levels. I tried every day to live by its message. But to tell the truth, I was an utter failure in achieving that aim.
As hard as I tried, I wasn't capable of in living a grudge-free life. There was always one exception, and one person, that I just couldn't shake.
Jen.
Jen was supposed to be the girl I was going to marry one day.
She was always the one......the missing part of me.
I was incomplete without her.
Have you ever been in love with someone so deeply that you would literally step in front of a bus for them? I'm not speaking metaphorically here. I mean you would actually trade your life for theirs if it ever came down to it.
I would have given my life to save hers in a heart-beat. It was that kind of love. Perhaps I should have been more careful about whom I gave my heart to, but I think that love tends to trump good judgement. That's been the story of my life.
Deep down we all know how a love like that always ends. The truly ironic part of it all is that knowing this still makes no difference at all.
You never see the end coming until it's much too late.
We do it to ourselves over and over again, each time thinking 'this time will be different'. But it never is.
The world I thought I knew, ended for me in a single day.
Sometimes there are clues and warnings, but sometimes you just get blind-sided by life.
Perhaps if I paint you a nice little metaphorical picture of what happened you will better understand. To lay it all down in plain language would almost seem crass to me. (In much the same way that describing a fatal auto crash would.)
Imagine you are standing beside a deserted highway. It's surrounded by nothing but barren and lifeless country-side. Quite suddenly, out of the corner of your eye, you spot a beautiful wild flower growing out of the dirt on the other side of that lonely road.
It distracts you, and you think to yourself 'how could something so beautiful be living in this desolate place?'
You look right and left and see nothing but empty highway before crossing the road to get a closer look.
You never saw the huge truck that appeared out of nowhere until it hit you. You were so focussed on that flower that you couldn't see the danger until it was far too late.
To say it broke my heart when the truth about Jen finally came out doesn't convey the feeling. Words can't express what I felt. That's the dilemma I have in writing this. I'm trying to use words to describe to you something that words cannot express.
No. Saying it simply broke my heart doesn't come close. It would be more accurate to say that it destroyed me.
When I look back on that twenty-four hour period now, I realise what was happening to me. It took the separation of time for me to fully understand it.
Within the space of a day my happy, perfect world had collapsed around me. It was like living through a horror movie that I couldn't switch off.
I can only think back on that time just so far before my mind disconnects. I can recall the events just fine but as soon as I start to remember how it all felt, then everything seems to shut down. I know it's my mind's way of preventing me from feeling that pain ever again.
I was a strong confident and happy person, but before that day was out, I would be in the middle of a very real and very painful nervous breakdown.
A lot of you may think that isn't possible, but many of you reading this will know that all it takes is the right combination of events to change a life instantly and forever.
By now maybe you're realising that this is no simple story or work of fiction. While much of what you're about to read is fabrication there is a very high percentage that is drawn from pure fact. Do not doubt that the pain was real.
I will blur the lines of reality in some areas, but I think we all do that in our own way. Our own emotions often colour our memories making the truth subjective to our own experience.
I have no delusions about myself. I know what I am. I know that I am damaged. I know that my past has made me almost unable to trust or to connect with someone on a truly personal level. That inability caused me to seek other ways to deal with people.
It actually saddens me that these new ways turned out to be infinitely more effective.
The kindest of acts are not appreciated fully without first showing cruelty. I wish that were not true, but knowing that was a kind of revelation. It made me into the kind of man I never wanted to be, but also able to function as I do now.
It is okay if you wish to stop reading now. Many of you were probably expecting a light erotic adventure and not a dose of reality. The events I describe hereafter will be gratifying on the most sensual and erotic levels, but, it may require a journey into darkness that may not sit well with you. It may unsettle. It may stay with you longer than you would like.
So knowing that, I offer you your first escape. I will offer it again one more time at another key juncture. I assume if you continue now, and at that moment, then you will be prepared for what comes after.
So....welcome to the journey, by sharing it with me you honour me with your trust. In return I will shelter you from the worst of it, I will protect you like you were my own.
I remember feeling physically sick when I first discovered the truth about Jen.
The realisation that I wasn't the only man in her life, there were many. Knowing, that what I had cherished the most in life, had been.........a lie.
Knowing then that I was truly worthless.
Jen had worked for a law firm but she was not a lawyer. She planned events. She organised the conferences and travelled to all the cities where they were held. She was good at it. A true multi-tasker in every sense of the word.
She was skilled at manipulating people and situations to her own benefit. I knew that from the outset, but in my stupidity I had assumed that I was somehow special, that her manipulations did not extend to me. I believed in my heart that she loved me.
A natural flirt who used the attention she got to her own ends.
Maybe it was my own stupid male pride that was my undoing. Like having a tiger on a leash, you start to think it's tame until the day it bites you.
I had been made a fool of for years.
While attending conferences in other cities she had regularly taken her flirtations to the next level. I don't even know how many times that must have happened or how many other guys she had fucked over the two years we were together.
I do know that some of them were men she would see regularly when she was in certain cities, and some of them even knew about me.
She had a great thing going. A stunning and gifted liar. I really do have to give her that.
I totally was oblivious to it all, and when the truth finally came, it did not arrive in small easily digestible portions, but all at once.
That very morning I had actually been wrestling with a dilemma that now seems laughable. I had been considering the best way to propose to Jen. It all just seems so tragically pathetic.
I was definitely the marrying kind before all this, but not now.
I will never marry. It is a resolution and a gift to myself that I will always uphold.
Maybe some of you will understand now. You don't bounce back from something like that. It changes you. It changed me.....forever.
It was as if that experience broke me and then re-made me on an almost daily basis.
You go through stages that repeat and recycle over and over again. Each time is just a little less painful than the last. Sometimes you go through those stages many times in one day.
You get to experience every negative emotion. Humiliation turns to anger. Shame to depression. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat.
The down-ward spiral.