Three Tuesdays

I told Margaret I was willing to see Anne but not willing to drop adultery. Eventually we agreed that I'd give Anne a chance to persuade me—if she could do so, we'd change it to "irreconcilable differences", that old standby.

In a weird way I was looking forward to hearing what Anne had to say. Maybe I'm a masochist—but I'd loved her for ten years, and I couldn't really imagine simply walking away without one final conversation.

When I got there Anne was sitting in the conference room, wearing a blue dress she knew I'd always loved. Her hair was shorter and it looked great. She was pale, but she was the same beautiful woman I had loved for so long.

"Okay, Anne, it's your meeting," I said neutrally. My heart was pounding, but I tried to look calm. "Just two things, all right? Please don't tell me how much you love me, and don't tell me 'it was just sex'."

She flushed, and I could see tears welling up in her eyes. "Will, I'm so sorry! But how can I not say those things? I screwed up—plain and simple. I was selfish and thoughtless and I hurt you. But it WAS just sex, nothing but a stupid, stupid impulse I gave into. You can't imagine how much I've gone over it and over it—how many times I wished I had never done it!"

"Yes, well...but you did do it, didn't you?" I had no intention of making this easy for her. Just being in the same room with her, knowing that we were about to separate for good—and why—broke my heart all over again.

I went to the window and gazed out, unwilling to let her see my stricken face. Behind me I could hear her crying softly.

"Baby, it was...it didn't mean anything. You know? It was the dumbest, most hurtful thing I could ever have done to you, I know that! But it meant nothing to me, it has nothing to do with how much I love you!"

I let her talk a bit more, listening to the pleading tone, the sweet voice I had always loved, but not hearing a single word that I couldn't have predicted. She had nothing to say to me that I didn't already know, and nothing that made a damn bit of difference.

After a while I turned around and came back to the table, sitting down directly across from her.

"Anne, just so you know—I still love you. Very much. But it's over between us."

She started to cry again.

"You took from me, from us, the most precious thing we had together, aside from our love: the bond of trust between us.

"How could I ever make love to you again, wondering if it was me you were thinking about or Marion and his freak-show dick? How would I know whether you were loving me, or missing him?

"And how could I live with you, wondering where you were every time you were ten minutes late coming home? Wondering what you were doing on your lunch hour? Wondering whether you'd found another big cock to play around with?"

I waited, but she had no reply to make. Finally, between the sobs, she said, "please, baby, please...couldn't you give me one more chance?"

"Anne, I'll give you a few minutes to think about this one: what if I had met some bimbo with fantastic big tits, and started balling her on the side for a few weeks? Nobody I liked or respected, just a sexy girl who was a fantastic lay, who gave me a degree of pure physical pleasure that I never got from you?

"And then you found out about it. Could you stay with me? Could you get past the feelings of hurt, the sense of total betrayal? Could you overcome the doubts you'd have about your own attractiveness, the fears that you weren't ever going to be the one I really wanted?"

She looked up at me, with the saddest eyes I had ever seen. "Will—I don't have to think about it. I've thought about it for weeks now: could I forgive you, could I take you back if it were the other way around?

"And the answer is: No, I couldn't. I just couldn't handle those feelings; I know that. So I'm asking you to do something I couldn't do, to be a braver, stronger person than I could ever be.

"And to give me a chance to make it up to you, a lifetime to show you how sorry I am and how much I love you."

There was silence. A minute, two minutes, as we looked at one another. Both of us thinking about all we had meant to one another, and how we had arrived at this point.

I stood up, slowly. Hating myself, and hating her—for cheating on me, and now, for throwing it all back on me.

"I don't know whether I can't do it, or won't do it. But I'm not that braver, stronger person you want me to be.

"Goodbye, Anne."

I waited by the open door for a moment, looking back, giving her a chance for the last word. She had her head down, crying. She didn't say anything else.

Margaret was waiting for me down the hall, a surprisingly sympathetic look on her hard face.

"Let her have irreconcilable differences", I growled, "it doesn't make a damn bit of difference to me."

Part Three: Moving On?

Dave and I sat at my kitchen table. We'd had a few, but we weren't drunk.

"Listen," I said, "I've made some plans."

He nodded, and I went on.

"After the lawyers' fees I still have nearly $800 thousand from that settlement. I've invested all but $50 thousand of it in some nice safe places, so there will be a lovely nest-egg for when we're old and feeble.

"But the last $50 grand has been designated the "Will and Dave Harris Recovery Fund", and we're going to start spending some of it. I've rented us four weeks at a two-bedroom condo in Cancun, starting two weeks from now. Go tell your office you're taking some time off.

"We are going to be a pair of fun-loving bachelors, two 'gay divorcés' if you know what I mean."

He just raised an eyebrow, and I laughed. "No, asshole, 'gay' as in 'cheerful'! We've done enough moping around, telling each other how badly we've been fucked over."

Cancun was a blast, or at least as much of one as it can be for two guys recovering from broken hearts. We got a lot of sun, played a lot of tennis, swam a lot, and drank a lot (though we kept one another from going off the deep end). With each passing day we got tanner, a little fitter, and slightly further from the nightmare we'd just lived through.

And, let me say, God bless my charismatic and charming brother! Despite the blow to his self-confidence that Shelley had laid on him, he got his old groove back, and we had a lot of female companionship.

His favorite stunt—and damned if it didn't succeed 75% of the time!—was to spot two attractive women sitting together. He'd drag me straight over to their table, smile winningly, and say, "pardon me, ladies. I'm sure you wouldn't be comfortable letting a stranger buy you a drink. So let me introduce my brother, Will Harris."

Then it was up to me, the shyer one, to say, "delighted to meet you both. This is my brother, Dave Harris."

Then he would step back in: "Whew, glad that's taken care of! Now, may we buy you a drink?"

By this time the women were usually at least grinning, if not laughing, and we'd mostly find ourselves with female companionship for the evening. Sometimes, the companionship lasted until breakfast. After all, unattached women in Cancun were as eager for fun as we were.

I had maybe six different women in my bed over those four weeks, and I imagine Dave's number was a little higher. Mostly it was fun, just laughter and pleasure and keeping it light. The first couple of times I made love to a woman I was tentative, distracted by thoughts of Marion and his huge dick even though both he and Anne were thousands of miles away. It was hard to compete with what I knew he had done to her.

But the women didn't seem to notice, and being with someone new got easier each time. One-night stands may not be for everyone, or for every stage in a person's life, but they seemed to be what Dave and I needed.

Only one of the women was different: Shannon, a tall Irish redhead a year younger than I was. We did all the same things—had some drinks, laughed a lot, went for dinner, did some dancing, and back to my place to bed. She was sexy and responsive, as eager to be with me as I was to be with her. We had a lot of fun.

When it got different was later, around 3am. For some reason I woke up, and just lay in bed, Shannon softly breathing in sleep beside me. Thoughts of Anne filled my head: Anne, and all that we had had together, and how it had been taken from me.

I started crying, very quietly, and before I knew it Shannon was kneeling beside me, holding me in her arms, saying, "let it out, baby, it's OK."

I was embarrassed, but I couldn't stop. She kept soothing me, and finally in response to her urgings I told her the whole story. By the time I was done, the sun was rising.

We shuffled into the kitchen and I made breakfast for us while she told me her own story. Also a divorce—no cheating, just a husband who grew ever more distant, ever more driven and career-oriented, until there was just no marriage left. She'd been on her own for nearly two years.

After we ate, we found our way back to the bedroom without a word spoken and made love. The night before had been fucking—fun, exciting, friendly, but just sex. This time we looked in one another's eyes, murmured tenderly to one another, and found a very different level of intimacy.

My one-night stand with Shannon turned into four wonderful nights, and the afternoon she left my brother Dave was a little worried about me, I think.

"Come on, bro, time to meet some new ladies," he urged.

"That one was special," I said quietly.

"I believe you," he said. "I liked her too. But she's gone home now, Will, and we have ten more days to spend down here. I'm not ready to stop having fun yet."

He dragged me off to the tennis court, then the pool, and by that evening we were chatting with two secretaries from San Francisco, on their very first trip outside the United States. That night they slept in their own hotel room; but the next afternoon Barbara joined me in my room for her first-ever sex on foreign soil.

*** *** *** ***

Dave and I went out for dinner, at a steak place we both liked. It had been eight months since Cancun. Dave had long since found a terrific apartment he liked, but we still spent a lot of time together.

Just after we ordered, Dave leaned forward and said quietly, "don't turn around, okay? Across the room two couples just sat down. One of them is Anne and some guy."

I was glad for the warning. My heart was suddenly thumping, and I wouldn't have wanted my reaction to show. I waited a few seconds, then casually turned and looked across the dance floor. Anne had spotted us already, and was looking steadily over at me.

I gave her a friendly, noncommital smile and a wave, and she smiled back at me. Then I forced myself to turn around and chat some more with my brother.

"This is the first time you've seen her, isn't it?" he asked. "Since the divorce."

I nodded. "I didn't think I'd have this much of a reaction. But I guess the surprise has something to do with it."

"Just do me a favor," I said. "Let's enjoy our dinner—don't tell me anything about what she's doing over there, how she looks. I don't want to know."

"That's fine, Will," he replied, and launched into a funny story about a co-worker who'd been flirting with him for a couple of weeks. He wasn't terribly interested in her, but was enjoying the game.

We were sitting over our coffees, idly watching the dancing couples, when I felt a hand on my shoulder, and that familiar voice said, "how are you, Will?"

I stood up and looked into Anne's eyes, her smiling face. "Hello again, Anne," I managed, again taken by surprise.

"How about a dance for old times' sake?" she asked, and I said, "of course—I'd be delighted."

How good she felt in my arms! How beautiful she looked! And how much I remembered happier times with her.

We talked banalities at first: her job, my job, wasn't it cold for this time of year. Then we fell silent. I was lost in the sensations of having her in my arms again, and all the times we had danced together, and how we wouldn't be doing that any more. Or anything else.

Towards the end of the dance Anne pulled back enough to look into my eyes. "How are you, Will, really?"

I wanted to be honest, though I certainly didn't owe her anything. "I'm all right—pretty good, I guess. Some days are better than others. Seeing you tonight, dancing with you—it's very powerful. I didn't know I would feel this much."

She looked at me very seriously. "Well, I'm not so all right. I miss you—every day. I don't think you can imagine what being in your arms again does to me."

I didn't know how to respond, so I was silent. The last chords of the music sounded, but Anne wasn't ready to let me go.

"Have you ever wondered if you made the right decision, Will?"

"I'll be completely honest, Anne, okay? I still think about you and me all the time. But I usually don't get much past wondering why you made the wrong decision."

When I dropped Dave off he said, "are you sure you're OK, Will?"

I sighed. "Yeah. It was a shock, but it was bound to happen sooner or later—this isn't such a big town.

"Are we still on for tennis after work tomorrow?"

Dave said yes, and I headed home.

I stood in the dark bedroom and undressed as quietly as I could; but when I climbed into bed she rolled over towards me. "How was the evening with Dave?"

"It was nice. Strange. Actually, maybe it was a good thing you were tired tonight, because I ran into Anne at the restaurant."

"Probably just as well I didn't come, I might have scratched her eyes out."

"Do me a favor, okay Shannon? Could you just hold me for a few minutes?"

I saw her loving smile, her teeth white in the darkness. "I'll do better than that, baby—come on over here and let me make it all better."

I smelled her delicious scent as we embraced, and felt her gentle kisses along the side of my neck.