The Botched Marriage Ch. 08

CHAPTER 8. THE UGLY TRUTH.

He took quite a bit of time in the bathroom. Our powder room is not that private, so I felt bad that I had heard all of it. The vomiting. The sobbing.

I prayed half the time he was there. Prayed to God to ease his pain, to help us, maybe just to strike me down. Would the pain really be less? If I was gone, wouldn't his life be better, given what I had done. I knew it was a sin, but I couldn't help but wonder. It would be a loving act. A rational act, even.

"Just shut up, you fucking whore! You are not brave enough or selfless enough to do that. Just shut the fuck up and stop fantasizing you will do a single noble thing in your whole life. All you have done is leeched onto Danny and sucked the life out of him for decades. And now you've destroyed him. And you will not do a fucking thing about it other than cheat and manipulate and connive in order to make it go your way in the end. And if you need to you will spread your legs for whoever you need to. And that's what you have to offer, at least for now. It won't last long. You are 30 now. You are about to find out how quick your beauty will fade without Danny by your side to give you a cushy life. Then you'll really get to see what life is all about. And you're gonna deserve every bit of it. Whore!"

I walked around a bit. That was certainly not pleasant. But was it true?

I needed to fix this. I needed to fix Danny and then start making it up to him. But so far, I'd gotten jack shit done and it was almost 6 pm.

Plenty of time.

"Not if he spends it all hiding in the bathroom, vomiting every time he's reminded of your disgusting skank whore ass."

He opened the door then. He looked like a zombie movie extra.

He served himself a glass of water and sat in the kitchen table, signaling for me to join him.

"Sorry about that, Carrie. Not sure what came over me. Maybe here we can have a more civilized conversation. I'm sorry I've been so nasty to you. I just need to finish this discussion soon before it kills me. I feel like my chest is going to explode. "

That worried me, but I could take one look at him and see it was true.

"How can I help you finish this conversation, Danny? I've certainly said everything I need to say. Hopefully you know where I stand, but just to be very clear."

I used my fingers in both hands to count the nine main things I needed him to hear.

"I love you, you are the love of my life."

"I am sorry, I accept full responsibility for this catastrophe, and I will do anything you ask to make things better."

"I will never, ever, ask to be with another man again. Never."

"I am not granting you a divorce, not until a court forces one on me. Even then I might just abduct you and flee to Mexico. But I won't go down easy. I'm not a proud woman Danny, not when it comes to you."

"I know in this state I can ask for marital counseling. If you are thinking of divorcing quickly, forget about it. We are at least one year of counseling away from that."

"I think there is something wrong with you. I get it I have fucked you over. But what happened last night has broken you somehow. The stuff you are saying is more than anger. Its... insane. I want you or us to look into that. I'm really scared."

"If I disgust you or if you can't stand to be around me for now, then leave. Stay at your parent's place. I know the little basement apartment is not being used. Go use it. I will take care of the home and the kids until you are well enough."

"Go revenge fuck some girls. It will kill me but that will feel good because I deserve it. You have my blessing. I will NEVER ask. That's not even a down payment on my apology later, by the way. It's just a freebie I'm throwing in until we get to that place. I swear I'm not kidding."

"I'm in no hurry to get done with this process. I just care that we keep at it. If it takes 20 years, then that's just proof of how badly I fucked up."

I stopped then. I looked at him and he looked like nothing I had said had hit. What else could I say or do?

"That's all I wanted to say Danny. Now I'm all yours. If you want to finish talking about the video, lets do it. As I said, I will do anything."

"Thanks Carrie."

He fidgeted for a minute and then shook his head. "I am sorry this has all gotten so fucked up. You had the best night of your life last night and instead of celebrating it, I've been torturing you ever since. I've been punishing you with my suffering and my insecurity and my selfishness. You don't deserve any of that. I'm sorry."

I tried to remain calm. "Danny, I hear the words you are saying and I disagree with all of them. But I can't seem to be able to reach you, so other than to argue with you, not sure what else to do. I don't want to argue anymore tonight, particularly after you told me you feel like your chest is going to explode. So I will just say I totally disagree and leave it at that."

"You don't believe it was the best night of your life?"

"The best night of my life was our wedding night, when I waxed my pussy bald and had no birth control and you fucked me over and over and over, and then nine months later to the day our baby Marie was born. That's the best night of my life, nothing else comes close, knowing that I was unprotected and that the love of my life was impregnating me, on our wedding night. I wept in your arms that night. Not sure if you know -- because you were just making love to me all night like a mad man, but every time you filled me I wept with joy."

Keep calm, Carrie. Don't spin off. I just kept repeating to myself.

"The second, third and fourth best were bringing our babies home from the hospital. The fifth was the night you proposed to me. The sixth was our first night together. The seventh was the night when you first kissed me under the stars, in the park. I can go on and on. Last night was like 200th but then we fought and it fell down quite a bit. Currently, it ranks as the worst night of my life, by a lot. I'm sure it will rank dead last until my parents die, which hopefully is many decades from now."

"You are lying to yourself, Carrie."

I jumped out of my seat. I forgot about everything I had been saying to myself about remaining calm, keeping it together. All I saw was red rage in my vision.

"Fuck you! Fuck you, Danny Miller!! Why don't you call me a whore instead. Go ahead and call me a worthless, disgusting, despicable whore. That would be accurate at least. I won't argue with you if you do. I will gladly paint it on my forehead for you. But don't fucking tell me what the best night of my life was!! I know! I know what it was!!!"

Not proud of what happened next, but I picked up my chair, and flung it across the kitchen. It put a small dent in the wall, bounced into the hallway, knocked down a lamp, and rattled into the den.

"Can you sit down, Carrie," pointing to the spot where my chair had been. "So we can finish talking?"

"FUCK YOU!!!!"

I was furious. I walked to the den, picked up the stupid chair, and defiantly slammed it down at its original place by the kitchen table. But I had obviously broken it. It wobbled in place under my glare.

I picked it up again and this time I smashed it violently against the floor. And again. And a third time, until it flew into pieces in every direction.

Then, with all the dignity I could muster I placed the last remaining piece down on the floor, grabbed another chair (there were four, now there are only three), and sat back down exactly where he had pointed for me to sit.

Funny thing, even then, in the middle of my uncontrolled fury, I always obeyed Danny. Always. Why hadn't he just said no four days ago? Told me to never ask about this idea again, ever, under the most severe penalty he could concoct? Why?

He ran my life to perfection for everything that didn't matter, but when it came to the biggest decision of my life, he treated me like an adult.

"Carrie, I'm sorry. I don't mean to torture you. Let's call it a night soon. It has been a difficult day already and we started out exhausted. I just want to touch one more point. I really just need to close this one loop. It's torturing me. And then I can get out of your hair."

"Get out of my hair?"

"I can go to my parents, the basement apartment, as you suggested. That will give you some space to think. And you have the house without the kids tonight. If I sleep in the guest bedroom, I will be worried all night that you will invite Tyson over, try to cuckold me again, or that you are sitting in our bedroom exchanging romantic messages with him. I just don't have the strength to be around that again. I'm sorry."

"Danny, what the fuck are you saying? What in the world? Where would that idea even come from?"

He looked at me like I was speaking gibberish. "Lets just finish talking about the video so I can leave you alone."

I jumped up. "No!! No. Danny, do you really think I would fuck a man in our bed? In our house? Is that really what you think of me?"

"You fucked a man, Carrie. You fucked him with your wedding rings on, in front of me, enthusiastically and unapologetically. You already did all that. What difference could it possibly make where you fuck him, so long as you are giving yourself to someone else and loving it?"

"Danny, I would never do that! And I will never, ever fuck anyone other than you ever again. But, our bed is sacred. Our home is sacred."

"Our marriage was sacred, Carrie. Our vows were sacred. That's the promise we made to God. Not to honor and respect our fucking bed, or some house. It was us. That was it. That's the promise we broke."

I was so ashamed right then, it hurt like a literal knife in my chest. He said it was sacred. Was our marriage sacred no longer? Is that what I had done?

"Carrie, you say these things now but 2 hours from now, when I'm not around to bring you down and make you sad, you are going to remember last night and get horny. I bet you've already been horny a couple of times today thinking about last night."

I will with everything in my being to look him in the eye and I couldn't. I looked down. He knew. He knew.

The rage in his face flashed over, but only for a second, replaced so fast by his own shame.

"You have. You might be horny right now, Carrie. Under all the tears and the sadness for all that you will need to give up. Soon, you are going to call him. And he's going to ask you to come over here or for you to go over there. And where it happens will not matter one bit to you then, because it really doesn't make any fucking difference where you do it."

"Danny, then stay. Then just stay and you won't have to wonder."

"Stay up all night watching over you?"

"Or take my phone. Then you will know I'm not talking to anyone."

"You can contact Tyson through those websites. That's how you found him. You are a smart girl, Carrie. You will find a way."

I slammed my hands on the table so hard it hurt. "THEN TIE ME TO THE FUCKING BED!!"

"For how long? Forever?"

I was consumed by fury again. I was red all over and trembling with anger.

It would have been funny if it had not been so tragic, because he stood up and moved to block me from the other chairs. "We need three chairs in here, Carrie. We have three children."

I collapsed then. All the strength zapped right out of my body. I knew it disgusted him, but I was sobbing and crawling towards his feet again. For some reason he didn't step away. He let me wrap my body around his leg and cry, and then beg.

"Danny, I know I said you could leave. You can. I want you to be comfortable. But you can't leave if you think even for a second that I will call a man to come here when you leave. I can't bear you thinking that. Leave because I disgust you. Leave because you can't stand my sobbing and my petulance and my entitlement. Leave because you hate me right now. But please, Danny, we can't take any more hits. If you spend a whole night thinking I'm with someone else, that is just going to hurt our chances more. Please don't do it. I will let you sleep. Lock me up in the basement with no cell phone and I will sleep there. Please Danny I promise that is better."

"Carrie, you are going to give in to your needs eventually. Now that you have tasted your true passion, your true nature, you are not going to be able to resist it. I will have to get used to it one way or another, whether as a cuck or as a divorced man. It will be torture for me either way, but that's my future. Last night was everything you've ever secretly wanted. And there's nothing I can do to be that for you. I just have to learn to live with it and I don't want you rubbing my nose in it. It will be better for me if I'm as far aways as possible."

"Danny, it was not. It was not everything I ever wanted. You are everything I have ever wanted. You Danny. You have lost your mind. Please listen to me."

"You say that," Danny said, "but it doesn't change what I saw. What I've been watching in my head ever since. What I saw was a woman who had been pretending to be mine for a decade, finally stepping into a version of herself that made sense."

"Danny, I don't want anyone else."

"You already had someone else. And you didn't just fuck him. You--" He stopped, jaw clenching. "I could have maybe survived watching you have sex with him. Maybe. But that wasn't what killed me."

He looked down at me intently then. "Do you know what truly broke me?"

I shook my head, already bracing.

He looked straight through me. "The last twenty minutes of the night."

He pulled his leg away from me and sat back down, like he wasn't strong enough to stand anymore.

"You saw the last two minutes of the video, but that was just my cut. The actual time you two were in the bed as far away as you could get from me, locked together like you were the only two lovers in the world, it was some 20 minutes long."

He swallowed and it was like it tasted bitter to him. I thought he might need to throw up again.

"I couldn't hear what you were saying. Same as in the video. You could see the whispering, but you couldn't quite make it out. But I was there for all of it. Twenty minutes of you holding him. Kissing him. Whimpering into his mouth. Coming over and over. Like you weren't just fucking. Like you were... like he was your whole life, your true love, your home."

My stomach sank. I knew it was true. Or at the very least, I knew that's what it had looked like.

"You thought I couldn't hear you. And honestly? You weren't whispering for me. You were whispering for him. I was just an inconvenience then. An obstacle to the most intimate moment of your life."

He looked at me then. His eyes filled with tears. He looked so broken, so tortured.

"I need to know, Carrie. It was not fair. To bring me there and to share that moment with him, just beyond my reach but in full view. He said my name, several times. You said yes to him at least three times. If you have any respect for me at all, you will tell me. What did you say? What did he say to you?"

I wiped my face. I was covered in sweat and tears. My voice came out as a rasp. "I--I can't remember all of it."

Danny leaned forward. "Try."

I looked up at him, terrified. If I said all of it, I knew I very well might lose him forever. Why had that even happened? Why had I allowed that moment to occur? Why?

"It wasn't... it wasn't like we meant for it to happen that way. The night had been just so--so intense. We weren't trying to hide anything. But by the end, we were both so..."

Danny waited. I wanted to die. Anything to escape this moment. But there was no way out.

"He told me I shouldn't settle."

Danny's face barely moved, but the light in his eyes dimmed further.

"He said I deserved to live in that kind of pleasure all the time. That I shouldn't waste my body on a man who couldn't give me that."

Danny looked away.

I went on, whispering now. "He said... that women like me were made for men like him. And I--I didn't say yes. I didn't agree. But I didn't argue, either. I just held him. And I told him he made me feel like I was finally... real."

Silence stretched. I was trying not to sob, but I felt like my heart really would explode then. It was all over. I felt like I was putting my whole life out of its misery then.

"That's not all, Carrie. I know it's hard, but I need to know all of it. What you have said so far is true. It matches the cadence of what I heard, but there was more. I know he said my name twice. And you said yes, three times."

I was weeping softly, shaking my head no. Please God, no.

"Just finish it. It's almost done."

My throat hurt. I felt nauseous. I was surrendering. Why was I surrendering? I felt like I had been holding on to the ledge of an abyss and now, just letting go.

"He said real was not the whole truth. That's when I said yes."

He knew what was coming. I could feel it. But he wanted me to say it. To confess to it.

"He then said, my whole life, I had faked being complete. That I had gotten used to acting like I was fully satisfied, pretending that was all there was. And in that moment, he said, I didn't have to pretend. What I felt was real and therefore I felt like a real person for the first time in my life."

He nodded. "That was the second yes. You climaxed. That yes, after he spoke quietly for a bit and said my name the first time, it was very clear. Because you hissed as you said yes. You were convulsing as you said it. It was not a whisper at all."

He swallowed again. Several times. He was barely holding on. I felt dizzy. I felt like I could throw up at any moment. I was drenched in sweat, like a cornered rat.

"Keep going, Carrie. That was the second yes. He mentioned my name again, and the word OK at least twice. And that was when you offered the last yes. It was the loudest one -- the orgasm that finished the 20 minutes because it was so strong, he finished too. Then it was over. You both shook and trembled and you cried and moaned into his kisses for several long minutes, but that was afterglow. What was the last exchange Carrie, the one that made you both explode?"

I shook my head. "Danny please no more."

"I'm proud of you Carrie. You have been truthful. You have done the right thing. You have almost told me the whole truth. Now say the last piece and we can be done. Don't fall short now."

I tried to breathe through my sobs. He was right. It was too late to turn back now.

"He said it was OK to still love you, like it was his fucking place to give me permission. I know it pissed me off. That it was OK to still be married to you. That it was OK to still raise your children. But that after that night, my true inner soul was his. That only he could access it. That only he could tap into it."

"And that was your final yes. You were angry but you agree in the end. Because it was true even though he was crossing a line he shouldn't have. Do you know it was more like a chant?"

I shook my head no, but I did. I remembered it then. I had been chanting.

He ignored my lie. What difference did it make now, I guess. He pushed on. "You hissed it so loud. I could clearly make out the word: yes! At the time I thought it was just an orgasm. You know, people sometimes say yes during an orgasm. But on editing the video, it was very clear it was not just an orgasm. It was an answer to that question. And you were chanting yes. Chanting it as you climaxed over and over. Chanting that yes, that your true inner soul belonged to him now. That it is his alone to access."

Danny was shaking, but he somehow remained seated.

"Was there anything else, Carrie?"

I shook my head no.

I just sat on the floor, broken, drained. The clock in the hallway was so loud then. Like a steel drum keeping beat.

Finally, he started getting up. "Thank you. I needed to hear the truth."

His voice was almost tender. "You were brave to let me hear all of it. Believe it or not, I appreciate it. I am thankful to not have to guess."

"Danny. I'm sorry. None of it is real. It's a fantasy. I was just caught up_"

"No Carrie. That's enough of that."

He shook his head. "And don't apologize for the truth. You were being brutally honest in that moment. That's more than most people are in their whole lives. You should be thankful to him, that he brought you to that place of total, unrestrained truth. I should thank him too, if I were strong enough."

He walked out of the kitchen then, and up the stairs.

I didn't have any more strength to argue, to follow him, to beg. What could I say?

It didn't last long, but for a few moments, I felt like I had made my peace with letting Danny go. What right did I have to fight for us now? What right did I have to still call myself his wife?

I crawled up into the chair he'd been using and waited for him to be done packing. The chair was warm. I thought I had no more tears, but I started weeping again when I felt the warmth of the seat. For how long would I still be able to sense Danny's warmth in my life after he was gone?

He didn't take long. Three bags. Ms. Marie had left her keys in the car. He threw the bags in the back and came back for a couple of more random things. He didn't seem to be crying then. Just determined.

I said one last thing right before he left.

"Danny?"

He paused at the door. "Yes, love of my life?"

"Do you remember Ronnie White?"

"I do."

"We never talked about it back then, and in some weird way, I feel like we have never talked about it at all."

"It's true."

"Well, since we never talked about it, I never got a chance to say thank you. We got back together and just moved forward. We never looked back. I never got to say how much it meant to me that you allowed me to get close to you again, that you forgave me, that you gave me a second chance."

He nodded.

"Danny, our whole world was on fire back then. My world. The neighborhood. There was so much anger, a lot of it at me. I was truly a pariah then. Do you remember?"

"Of course."

"But you took me back anyway. I know other boys must have made fun of you. I know people told you to stay away from that slut. I know even Father Anthony was upset with you and told you I was trouble."

"Yes. They all did. They all told me I was a fool for love."

"But you ignored all of them. You gave me a second chance even though you had to pick me up out of the gutter to do it. You had to clean me up and take all those slings and arrows for me. You were a star and you had to lower yourself to take my hand and carry me into the light again."

He didn't acknowledge any of it. He just stared at me.

"It was really brave, Danny. It was... heroic. Like a fairy tale where the hero is willing to sacrifice everything for love."

His eyes were shining again, but he just stared at me.

"I just wanted to thank you. I've never done so because it was painful to go back to that time. I know it was painful for me. The 18 months we were apart were the worst of my life. I was a wreck, in every way. I almost didn't graduate middle school. I'm sure everyone knew too. I'm sure everyone was rooting for me to fail."

"I did hear. It's a small community. Everyone always knew everything."

"You saved me Danny."

He shook his head. Who knows why it was hard for him to admit that. I didn't push him.

"It's OK. It's hard for a man like you to take too much praise. I have always known that. I have always tried to just show you sexually, honestly, because you are so bashful about it any other way. But you did.

You sacrificed your social standing, your time, your resources, your pride, for me. And you saved me. And I have never said thank you. And this moment, well it's so painful, that it feels like I couldn't possibly make it worse by dredging up the past.

So, I am taking this chance to let you know. I can never repay what you did for me. My whole life is built on that one act of kindness and love and loyalty. None of which I deserved."

He nodded one final time. "It was my pleasure, Carrie. I would have walked to the ends of the earth and past the gates of hell itself for you."

Then he walked out and disappeared into the night.

SURVEILLANCE.

I broke into tears again after he walked out. All the tension of holding it together for Danny, all the self-loathing, all the shame just bursting out of me like a literal river for close to an hour.

But I didn't let it consume me. I had stuff to do. I had to solve a big problem, and it needed to get done immediately. I could make sure Danny knew I was not fucking anyone.

Not a huge accomplishment for me a week ago, when Danny trusted me unconditionally, but now things had changed. I had downgraded myself from the woman who could go on girl's night out with her phone turned off, arrive at 3 am totally trashed, and get fucked to sleep by her adoring husband without a single question about where I had been, to a woman who could not be trusted to be in the next room by herself. Well done, Carrie.

The clock said 8:32 p. m. Not too late to call in a couple of favors. I picked up my phone and dialed Mia. She always answered.

"Mia, babe, I need a huge favor."

"Uh oh."

"No no--it's nothing like that. I just--I found out I have a stalker. And Danny is out of town. I think he stalked me from my online job. He's been commenting on old photos, DMing me with these creepy jokes. I blocked him but he made another account."

"Oh my god, Carrie. Are you okay?"

"I will be. But I need cameras. Inside and out. And I need them recording everything. You know, just in case something happens, just until Danny gets back. Can you help?"

"Of course. Do you want me to come over? I can spare two or maybe three cameras."

"Yes. Please. And if Sarah's free, can she come too? She helped her brother with that Airbnb project, remember? She knows how to wire everything."

In less than an hour, I had three girlfriends and their three husbands/fiancées/boyfriends installing stuff, two half-finished bottles of wine going, and a half-eaten tray of lemon bars on my counter.

We soon had cameras watching every entrance. Living room, kitchen, hallway, front porch, backyard, and, importantly, one pointed at the master bedroom door. They laughed at my paranoia. I didn't care. I laughed too. Played the scared woman just well enough that nobody questioned why I looked like I had spent the whole day crying.

By 11 pm, it was done. The apps were synced. Everything live-streaming to the cloud.

"Okay," Sarah said. "You're officially the most surveilled woman in the county."

"Good," I said, smiling too wide. "That's exactly what I want."

They left before midnight. I poured myself half a glass of wine and sat on the couch. I pulled up the feed on my iPad. A six-way split screen. My house, inside and out, frozen in quiet frames.

If Danny ever asked me if Tyson had been over, I could hand him this.

Proof. No lies. No gaslighting. No crawling on the fucking floor crying like I had been doing for the past day. Just hard, digital proof.

My first small win in what felt like a lifetime by now.

THE LAST YES.

Of course, once all the lights were off and the house locked up, I had to face my bed. Alone. Alone with my thoughts, my shame, my guilt, my regret.

I didn't even dare crawl under the covers. Not by myself.

And I just couldn't stop thinking about that fucking chant.

I hate that word--chant--but it's what Danny said, and I know he's right. It wasn't a moan, or a cry. Though I had done plenty of that. But the chant was a response. A surrender.

Yes, you are right, you are right, you are right. That's what it said. Let's me at least be honest to myself.

I chanted yes to another man while he whispered things that should have horrified me. And I didn't argue. I agreed.

And that was all bad enough but it's much worse. The word real--that wasn't his. That was all mine. He didn't coax it out of me. I said it. I gave it to him.

"I told him," I had confessed to Danny, "that he made me feel like I was finally... real."

That's how it started. That's how all of it started. And of course, it had destroyed Danny. How could it not?

All Tyson did was say it back to me--said it more clearly, more cruelly, more confidently--but the seed came from me. And when he told me that no man could ever make me feel that way again. No, that Danny specifically could never make me feel that way again, that only he could reach that place in me, I didn't stop him. I said yes. Again. And again. And again. And I think, in that moment, I believed every word.

What does that say about my life with Danny?

Was I never real with him? Was I always performing, even in our most intimate moments? The question was like a pounding headache. It felt physical in my head -- I needed to know. I needed to be honest with myself.

Over the last 24 hours I have sworn on everything in this world that last night would never happen again, that it was a mistake I wish I could erase, forever, and never look back.

That NEEDS to be the truth. It must be the only truth. It can't share space with anything else.

Because four things can never be true if the fourth truth is that I want to see Tyson again. That Tyson holds a key to a part of me that is critical, irreplaceable, transcendental.

It sure as fuck felt transcendental. Fuck me.

Yet, Danny and I had good sex. I know we did. I'm not imagining it -- I remember it. I can review my text history with Dan going back months. And half of it is me enticing him into sex, flirting with him about it, hinting at it, thanking him for it.

There is no way I was faking all that. It was real, I know it was real.

Half my friends were having sex with their husbands once a week, once a month even. If it had all been fake, I could have resorted to that. Instead, I had dedicated myself to a three-year project to convince Danny that there was absolutely nothing gay about letting his wife suck on his sweet butthole. A successful project, I might add.

Why was I even asking myself this -- I knew this was true. Dan had always satisfied me sexually. Always. I could not have been with him otherwise.

Fuck, I taught Danny how to make love. I taught him. How could he not be perfect for me when I built the fucking man from the ground up.

And last night did not change any of that. I'm sore as hell and emotionally devastated but if Danny texted me and said he would come home as long as I offered a blowjob and then a fuck, I would accept instantly. Heck I would take that offer if he said he would only do it in the garage and then go back to the apartment again. Who am I kidding, I would drive over there to do it and then walk home, barefoot.

"And if Tyson texted you?"

And there was the rub. Because I would say no. I would say no just as instantly as I would say yes to Danny.

But a part of me would want to say yes.

There it was. More truth. A part of me would want to say yes.

And maybe not even a small part. Possibly, I would want to say yes with all my body and soul.

And I think it goes back to that moment with Tyson. That total loss of control as a wife, when I forgot about Danny. Lets face it, that's what happened. I forgot he was there, or lost awareness of him.

Forgot that I had a life outside that hotel room I had to go back to.

My body responded like it had been waiting years to finally speak that word, too. Like somewhere deep inside I knew I had not been truly real. I had not been truly -- untied, discovered, opened -- and it was dying for that moment to arrive. Like that version of me had always been there, waiting.

So now the question isn't whether I love Danny. I do. With every breath in me.

The question is: can I love him without lying to him? Because that chant was more than an orgasm, even more than a truth I finally got to say out loud, it's a version of me I'm afraid I can't put back in the bottle.

Can I look Danny in the eye and say I'm still his, if part of me knows someone else reached a part of me he never has?

I know the question I posed to Danny earlier was true. That those three things can indeed co-exist: That I love Danny with all my heart. That we've had a great sex life. That what happened with Tyson accessed something deeper than I ever knew existed.

And I guess the fourth thing is for me alone. Can I live without ever seeing Tyson again. That's what I have promised and is the central pre-requisite for reconciliation. Even if the first three items coexist, they can only coexist if I never see Tyson again.

And if Danny even knew I was thinking about it, our marriage would be over too.

TERMS OF SURRENDER. (DANNY'S VOICE)

It was almost midnight when I finally sat down. The crying had stopped an hour ago. The tears hadn't helped. They never do, not with this kind of pain.

The basement apartment was clean enough. Mom had left clean sheets, folded towels, a box of my favorite snacks.

And now I had time to think. Time to start asking the question that's going to devour me for the rest of my life: What the hell am I supposed to do now?

I know what I feel. That part's easy.

I feel disgust. Still. Every time I close my eyes. Nausea. Revulsion. Not just from the images I saw, but from how she sounded. And the chant--Jesus. That yes chant.

It plays on a loop now. A metronome of misery.

What does it mean when your wife says another man made her feel "real"? When she says she's never felt that before?

Was I a fraud? Was she? Was I a placeholder? The father of her children, but not the man who owns her soul?

I can't live like that. I won't live like that.

And what does this truth mean, right now? Right now, as I lay here. I know Carrie is at home.

Even if she's being truthful. Even if she really makes no attempt to reach out to Tyson, tonight or ever. Is she fantasizing about him? She must be. Its inevitable. Carrie is a sexual being. She loves sex too much not to crave more of that experience.

The thought was devastating. It hit me like a gut punch. Just like that, I was crying all over again.

This was hell. This truly is hell on earth.

I love her more than anything, yet she's probably, right now, fantasizing about another man. Even knowing I'm here suffering, she is probably thinking of him. She cant' help it. She couldn't help it in the hotel room, when I was right there in front of her, dying.

Why would she stop herself now, when I'm not anywhere near her? When she can just deny it? I'm sitting here dying for Carrie and shes sitting there pining for him. For this stranger who in just a few hours accessed her deepest, true self, where no other man has been before.

Am I willing to live with the knowledge that I was never enough--not really?

Am I willing to live with the knowledge that I am not first in her heart anymore?

Yet those were the only options. I could learn to live with it, or I could divorce her. And lets face it, hell on earth would continue either way. Divorce would not spare me from having to think of those moans, those eyes. To remember the whispers that play like a loop in min mind now.

So my options are hell on earth with divorce, or hell on earth as a cuckold.

Or the third option, which truly sounded most appealing. But what would it do to the children?

For that matter, what would divorce do to the children?