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I boarded my flight to Portland with a small overnight bag and a newfound confidence. No more feeling second best. I was confronting my fears head on.
Cameron left last night for a supposed academic conference. I told Jess I wanted to surprise him with a passionate night alone and showed her the new white lace lingerie I was taking with me. She loved the idea and agreed to take all three of my kids for a sleepover at her place.
With a quick phone call, I had already verified Cameron’s exact location. He was staying at some generic mid-priced hotel that offered a questionable swimming pool and a continental breakfast in the lobby each morning. According to Google Images, there was no back door on any of the rooms for a guilty lover to escape. I would rent a car when the plane landed, drive straight to his hotel, knock on the door, and insist he answer.
The jet engine roared at takeoff, pushing us all back in our seats. I tightened my lap belt and plugged my nose, trying to clear my ears before they filled with painful pressure.
The irony that my marriage could come to blows in Portland was not lost on me. It was the city my father had moved to before completely severing ties with my mom and me. It’s where he built a new family and discarded us for good.
Toward the end of the flight, I pulled out my handbag and touched up my lipstick. The flight attendant stopped by to pick up any last minute trash and make sure all tray tables were up. I told myself Portland was just another place, another overcast town with too much rain. Whatever happened here, it could be fixed and forgotten. I had no intention of losing my husband to some frivolous fling.
A rectangular sign, glowing a dim orange in the darkened cabin, reminded us to keep our belts fastened a little longer. I pushed up the window cover and put my seat in the upright position, looking out at an inky night sky and waiting for impact.
The drive to the hotel was easy. Traffic was minimal and my directions were dead on. Thanks to the clueless receptionist who gave me his room number, I knocked on Cameron’s door somewhere around nine o’clock. From the other side of the bolted door, a low voice asked a muffled question and then a voice that sounded like Cameron’s stammered out something in return.
Shifting the weight from my left leg to the right and wrapping my bare arms around myself to ward off the chill settling into the night air, I bit hard into the tip of my tongue.
“Can I help you?” Cameron asked through the closed door.
I had briefly contemplated responding to this very question in a high-pitched voice, claiming to be the housekeeping service. Realizing this was an undignified approach, I opted for the truth.
“Cameron, it’s Samantha. Your wife.”
A man in a cheap business suit scooted behind me in the narrow outdoor breezeway. He gave me a nod with a stiff polite smile. I could practically hear him thinking that some poor sucker was about to get caught.
“Sam?”
“Yes.”
“What are you doing here?” Cameron asked.
I set down my Anthropology overnight bag. “Perhaps this conversation would be easier if you opened the door.” I doubted that was completely true. Judging by his hesitation, Cameron was weighing his options. None of them were going to be easy.
I heard some rustling around and then the latch unlocked. The air inside his hotel room smelled musky and damp. A small knot in my lower back stiffened.
“Sam, I wish you wouldn’t have come here.”
Dressed in a familiar pair of dark, fitted jeans along with a tight San Diego Padres T-shirt I didn’t recognize, Cameron looked at me like he had just been told his mother didn’t love him anymore.
His sadness came as a surprise and I forgot whatever lines I had rehearsed.
“Come inside.” He opened the door wider.
I dropped my purse and bag on the floor by the door and sat on the edge of a rigid chair, facing his rumpled queen sized bed. “Looks like you have company,” I said, eyeing the discarded pillows and lonely comforter abandoned on the floor.
He sat on the naked mattress and looked back at me. “This isn’t how I wanted to tell you.”
“How did you want to tell me?”
A tear slipped down my cheek and I knew ugly red splotches were forming on my neck. Coming here was a mistake. I wasn’t ready to hear whatever it was he had to say.
“I didn’t.” He cleared his throat. “I didn’t have a plan. I’m glad you came though, Sam. I swear, keeping this secret from you was going to give me cancer. You’re my best friend and I’ve felt so alone in this.”
I bit my lip. Cameron’s crumpled face and slumped shoulders reminded me of a broken Ken doll. This wasn’t how it was supposed to go down. I expected to catch him in the act. The girl would hang her head in humiliation and Cameron would beg for my forgiveness. He would promise to put everything right. In my worst case scenario, the woman wouldn’t back down and Cameron would claim to be in love with her. He’d tell me that the two of us were over and I would have to set aside my pride and convince him to change his mind.
This, whatever this was, was far worse.
“What’s going on Cameron?”
He placed his hands on his lap and looked at me. “I’m gay.”
“Don’t fuck with me. You think this is funny? You think this makes it better?” I stood from my chair. “Where is she?” I charged at the bathroom door ready for a full blown war. I twisted the handle, and sure enough, it was locked. “Open the goddamned door you little slut.” I kicked at the cheap plywood blocking my path, too numb to feel the force against my toes. “Open the fucking door!”
The air pressure in the room thundered in my eardrums. Why was he doing this to me? Why was I doing this to myself? I felt like lighting the place on fire.
“You can come out, David,” Cameron said, coming up behind me and putting a hand on my trembling shoulder. “It’s okay.”
The door opened.
A handsome young boy, college age, in boxers and nothing more, stood facing me with his eyes cast to the floor. With his tousled dark brown hair and trim build, he looked like a twenty-year-old version of our son Gavin. “Sorry ma’am,” he said, rubbing salt to the wound.
My husband’s lover called me ma’am.
“You dirty fucker,” I glared at Cameron. “I hope whoever was in charge here wore a condom.”
He shook his head. “That’s what I love about you, Sam. You always have your priorities straight.”
I pushed past them both and slammed the battered door, shutting them out behind me. Dry heaving into the bathtub, I assured myself this was not happening. I was slipping down the rabbit hole. This had to be some altered reality. I placed my forehead on the rim of the cool porcelain tub, hoping it would soothe the pounding in my head or at the very least ease my trembling.
Earlier on in our marriage, I did a search through our internet history and found sites for gay porn. When I mentioned it to Cameron he acted clueless. Dozens of times in the past year, Cameron had led me to believe he was one place, only to find out he hadn’t been there at all. He never flirted with my girlfriends, or turned his head when a pretty girl walked by. So many signs I had written off or ignored. I had told myself the porn must have been an accident. Who would want to admit they clicked the wrong button and ended up on an ass-fucking website? He loved and respected me too much to ever show interest in other women.
How could I have been so stupid? How was he able to have sex with me three times a week? I couldn’t even imagine making love to a woman on a regular basis and pretending I liked it. Once or twice sure, but for all of these years? I felt a sliver of hope. Maybe Cameron was bisexual.
After touching up my smudged mascara and running a comb through my hair, I mustered the courage to walk out of the bathroom. His lover had already made a swift exit.
I looked at Cameron sitting on the bed, his head hung in shame. “How long has this been going on?” I asked, crossing my arms while standing over him and waiting for an answer.
“With David? I met him a few semesters ago, but this,” he waved his hand around the room alluding to his affair. “This hasn’t been going on for long.”
I didn’t believe him. “How long have you known you wanted to fuck men?”
“I didn’t set out to deceive you Sam. I wanted you. I loved you from the beginning. You were everything I hoped for in a woman.”
“In a woman,” I deadpanned. “But you didn’t want a woman.”
“I wanted you. I knew if it could work with anyone, it would be you.” He looked up at me with genuine affection. “You could stop a room with your smile. I really do love you. You’re passionate and opinionated, and I always have fun with you. I’ve done a good job as a husband, haven’t I?”
So he wasn’t bisexual. He’d been faking it all along, trying to make both of us believe it was true. “You used me.” I began to pace the room. “This is like every cliché in the book. You’re good looking, kind, intelligent, love children. You worshipped the beautiful, well dressed blonde any straight man would desire.”
Cameron patted the space beside him, but I ignored his invitation.
Pushing the hair out of my eyes, I continued my pacing. “I should have known.”
“How could you have guessed? I couldn’t even admit it to myself. This isn’t what I wanted. I didn’t choose to be this way.”
When I met Cameron at that bar in San Francisco twenty years ago, I was out on the dance floor letting off some steam, enjoying the attention of the hot guys who frequented the place. I was a recent college dropout with no clear plan for my future. Cameron was a tall, handsome, eligible guy, full of confidence and dressed in expensive clothes. He was two years older than me and had just begun his first year at Stanford grad school.
He was everything I had ever hoped for—a man who put me on a pedestal and worshipped me. I was his princess and he was the real deal, my honest to goodness, I’ll-never-leave-you-in-the-middle-of-the-night-for-something-better, Prince Charming.
Of course he was gay. How could I have not seen it?
Another wave of sadness thawed my anger. I collapsed down on the bed next to him, sitting my body close to his. “Why is this happening Cameron? I don’t deserve this,” I said, wishing he was mine again. “All the good ones are taken or gay, right? I was the perfect beard.”
“You weren’t a beard.”
“I was. I was the ideal woman your oh-so-important family would accept and that you could tolerate as a life partner—the next best thing to a penis.”
His warm breath caressed the top of my head as he rubbed my back. “That first time I saw you, I fell in love with you. I knew you were the only woman I could ever be with. That’s why I pursued you the way I did. There was no need to look around, or think things over. You were the only one. I wanted the life I could make with you.”
“God, Cameron,” I laced my fingers through his, craving the familiar touch of his soft hand. “I want to hate you right now.”
My husband wrapped a comforting arm around me like he often did when I needed him most. I tried to ignore the thoughts racing through my head, the ones that asked how I was going to manage three kids on my own. How would it feel not to wait for Cameron to come home from work or to sit without him at family dinners?
I was a fragile, shattered child who had just lost her very best friend. Cameron held me close and let me weep in his arms. I was going to end up like my mother—alone.