The End and the Beginning
It was a beautiful spring day when Tracy's secret world came crashing down around her. She had spent a pleasant hour picking out the perfect bouquet for Paul's birthday, with a card to be signed, "Your secret admirer." She was going to call the florist back tomorrow with the address to his office, as soon as she got it from Paul's receptionist, and have the flowers sent. She smiled as she imagined his surprise and delight when he got them.
There was still a trace of a smile on her face when Tracy opened the door to her home. Tonight, Kyle had gotten there before her, and at once she knew something was up. He was there to meet her at the door, something he never did, and his expression was grim. "What's the matter, Kyle, you look like you've seen a ghost."
"You could say that," he said, enigmatically, his voice flat.
"What are you talking about?" Tracy asked, as she dropped her suit jacket over a chair and slipped out of her uncomfortable pumps with a little sigh of relief.
"This is what I'm talking about." He led her into the living room, where her laptop sat, its little lid hanging by one hinge, several of the keys smashed out, and the power source ripped from its socket.
"What the hell…" Tracy trailed off. At first she thought they'd been robbed, but that didn't make sense. They would have taken it, not destroyed it. Then she knew, and a cold sick feeling flooded her gut, making her want to either pass out or throw up.
"That's what I want to know, Tracy," Kyle said, his voice cold.
"You ruined my laptop!"
"You've ruined my life."
"What?" She was stalling for time and knew that he knew it.
"Cut the shit, Tracy. I got in there. I read all yourfucking emails to thatfucking Paul person. I know about him. And about all the sick twisted shit you're into. You disgusting bitch! You slut! You cunt! " His voice got louder and louder as he loomed over her, all 6'5" menacingly poised in a fighter's stance, his fists clenched in rage. Tracy took a step back, adrenaline flooding through her body like ice blasts.
"How could you? Oh God, how could you?" Kyle's voice slipped and broke into sobs, as he collapsed on the floor beside the chair.
Tracy reached out to him, even as her gut still clenched in terror. "Oh, Kyle," she whispered, fear shutting her mind down, his tears breaking her heart.
"How could you, Tracy, after all our years together? How could you betray me like this?"
Tracy looked over at her destroyed computer, and thought with fledgling rage and indignation that Kyle had read her personal letters, her secret thoughts and dreams that she'd never felt safe sharing with him. It felt like a rape, not the sexy dream sequence rapes of her fantasies, but a violation, pure and simple.
"Me? What about you, Kyle? What about all those months of coming home late, pretending you were at meetings when you weren't even at the hospital? Where the fuck were you then, Kyle? Where were you?"
Kyle's tears stopped abruptly and he looked up her, his expression sheepish. "Oh, Tracy." He sounded almost apologetic, but his expression clouded again. "So you were spying on me then, huh? It seems like I don't know you at all. The simple sweet girl I married never existed."
"Don't turn it around like you always do, Kyle, answer my question."
"Fine. I was seeing someone. But it's over. It's been over for a long time now. And there certainly wasn't any question of love. None of that disgusting blather you and your online boyfriend were puking all over each other. And that filth! All those talks of whippings and slaves and torture. And that Guy whoever he is! That you met at some sleazy hotel downtown. You make me sick. I'm physically ill over this. God, I don't even know you!"
Tracy barely heard him, focusing on her own shock, though of course it shouldn't have been a shock at all. "Seeing someone?" she said, her voice trembling. Of course she'd suspected, known even, but having him admit it point blank, threw her off balance, broke off another piece of their crumbling marriage.
"Jesus Christ, it was just a release, since you're so cold and ungiving in bed. Damn it, a man has to have his needs met, and God knows, you've never met them!"
Tracy was stung by his remarks. After all she did to placate and accommodate his constant need to rut, for that's what it was in her mind, and he had the gall to say she didn't meet his needs! What about her needs? What the fuck about her? She was ready to fight back; to respond in kind, but Kyle crumpled on the floor again, leaving her helpless.
She'd only seen him cry once before, years ago when his grandmother died. It had been a gentle thing then, where she could take him in her arms and soothe him. But this out and out sobbing – raucous and uncontrolled – frightened Tracy. She knelt awkwardly, trying to put her arms around him.
"Oh, Kyle, I'm sorry. I'm so, so sorry. I never meant to hurt you. Never."
"Don't you love me, Tracy?" Kyle whispered brokenly through his tears. He'd said her name, at last, but in such a heartbreaking way, she felt tears pricking her own eyelids, sliding down her cheeks.
"Yes, oh, yes, I do," she promised, no longer sure in her own mind what she felt about anyone at all, most especially herself.
"Don't cry, Kyle. Please, please don't cry." Together they sobbed on the floor, arms around each other, hearts breaking along the myriad of cracks they'd been hammering into each other for so long.
***
"You have to close all the doors, Tracy. All the doors and windows. No Exit. That's the sign you need to see in your head."
The marriage counselor she agreed to see with Kyle was a youngish man, not much older than she or Kyle. She found him, actually, a Rational Emotive Therapist, remembering Paul's recommendation early on in their relationship, before love had entered the equation.
Of course, she hadn't told Kyle how she found him, but told him she had asked a friend who had had success with this professional. She secretly felt Kyle would feel less threatened by a man than a woman counselor. Despite his protestations to the contrary, he was a closet chauvinist.
As the counselor spoke, a big red NO EXIT sign flashed in her brain.
He was referring, of course, to Paul. Kyle filled him in when they entered the room, explaining that they were there to try and save their marriage after Tracy had been having an extended online affair with a sex pervert named Paul.
Tracy didn't bother to add the detail of his own physical affair. She felt too tired, too drained to even bother.
The counselor listened to Kyle's tirade, his expression bland, then turned to Tracy. "It's your turn, Tracy. And Kyle," he looked meaningfully at him, "please don't interrupt your wife while she's speaking. Let her have her full say as well." Kyle nodded, as if offended that he would even suggest such a thing, but it was a relief to Tracy to know she had a few moments to try and get her thoughts in order.
Gently the counselor said, "And you, Tracy? Why are you here?"
"To save our marriage, I guess. If it can be saved." Kyle started to interrupt, but a raised hand from the counselor silenced him.
"What do you mean? Don't you think it can be saved?"
Tracy sighed, not really knowing herself what she meant. Surely, she owed it to Kyle, and their relationship, to try and make it work. All these years together had to mean something. To just throw it away…
It's what she'd told Paul on the phone yesterday, as she tried, tearfully, to explain that Kyle had found their emails and read them all, including things she'd thought she'd deleted, but he somehow knew how to recover.
"I was afraid that might happen sometime, Tracy," Paul had said quietly. "Are you safe? Is he threatening you in any way?" Ah, darling Paul, thinking at once, as he always did, of her safety, her wellbeing.
"I'm safe, Paul. Kyle would never hurt me, not physically." Even as she spoke, the image of her smashed laptop, lid dangling by its hinges flitted through her mind, juxtaposed against her husband, crumpled and sobbing on the floor. Swallowing, not yet ready to admit the horrible details of that evening she said, "He's never raised a hand to me. No, it's not that. It's," she paused, nervous, wondering how to tell Paul what she had to tell him.
"It's just, you see, I've, um, promised him to,"just say it and get it over with, she urged herself, "to try and work it out. To see a marriage counselor. To, um, take a break from you."
Silence.
"Paul?"
"Yes."
"Did you hear me?"
"Of course I heard you."
"Well, so, I can't call you for a while, or go online. I promised him. Two months, I promised I'd give it two months."
"Good luck, Tracy," was all he said, his voice cracking.
"Are you crying?" Tracy felt her heart tear with a ragged pain at that moment.
"None of your damn business," and he was gone.
***
Tracy tried to focus on the counselor's words, tried to mentally shut the door on her darling Paul. "I want to try. To try and, um, close those doors and work on the relationship. On what we have."
"Ok, then, we can get somewhere. Tell me about when you first met Kyle. What made you fall in love with him?"
Tracy talked, and Kyle didn't interrupt, and then he talked, and she listened. Remembering them as they were at the beginning, the sweetness, the shyness, the need and love they had felt for each other, helped Tracy recapture some of those earlier feelings. When they left after that first session, she felt closer to him than she had in a long time. He must have felt the same way, because he asked her, almost shyly, if she'd like to have dinner somewhere quiet. It'd been a long time since they'd gone out together.
She nodded and tried to not pull away when he took her hand under the table while they ate a fine French meal with lots of red wine. Later that night, in the shower, Tracy wept, big silent tears coursing down her cheeks. She thought of the flowers that would go undelivered to the man who still held her heart firmly in his hands, even if she desperately tried to pretend otherwise.
***
Tracy meant to keep her promise to Kyle that she'd give it two months. She had no idea if it'd work or not, but she was serious in her promise to at least try. To Kyle's credit, he was solicitous and gentle with her, almost as if they were courting again. He seemed especially attentive when they made love, and he actually engaged in foreplay, getting Tracy 'ready' before he plunged in. Tracy tried to focus on him, and not close her eyes and dream of someone and something else, as she always used to do.
Kyle admitted that maybe he hadn't paid her the attention she deserved, and she must have felt terribly lonely to have to seek attention from another man. He promised that would change.
He still emphatically didn't understand, or forgive, her submissive urges and needs, even when she tried to get him to read the articles that argued it was just a sexual orientation, like being gay. "Don't feed me that shit, Tracy. That's just rationalization, pure and simple, for people to indulge in whatever perversions they want to. And I'm sorry, but to think you have those sick little fantasies, it just grosses me out. How can you be like that?"
His underlying message was that she better cut it out, if things were going to work out between them, but she couldn't do that – not any more. It would be like cutting off a piece of herself. She could no longer deny such a significant part of who and what she was.
Her first reaction to his 'disgust' of her was embarrassment. She was embarrassed and ashamed that he had 'caught her out' as it were, with her dirty little secrets. Until just a few months ago, she had agreed with him, at least on some level.
Instinctively, she had never shared those 'dirty little secrets' with him, no doubt expecting just such a reaction. Through her recent months of reading and talking with so many people, not the least of whom was Paul, she came to accept that she wasn't sick, wasn't perverted, and had nothing to be ashamed of.
The only shame here, she thought, was that she had never been allowed to experience who she really was. She married at the age of 21 to a boy, the same age, who was as sexually repressed as she was. They had never dared explore anything other than standard intercourse and oral sex.
Her second reaction was anger. How dare he judge her like that? She actually voiced this anger, something she wouldn't have dared to do before counseling, but the counselor had encouraged her to express herself, without fear of repercussion. He assured them both, over and over, that they should feel safe, while in these sessions, to express themselves honestly and openly.
"If the two of you are serious about this, absolute honesty is the only way."
Kyle had nodded to the therapist as if they two were the consulting physicians on this difficult case of patient Tracy. She had literally squirmed with discomfort and annoyance in her chair as Kyle started to lecture in his calm 'psychiatrist' voice. He explained in a gentle tone that Tracy was going through a difficult time, developmentally. He admitted that he, Kyle, had been so busy in his studies for his medical matriculations, he hadn't had the time to devote to his wife, who was immature, sexually speaking. She had found the need to go outside the marriage, first with little emails, then actually meeting on the sly with some slimy colleague to experiment in their shared perversion. She hadn't felt herself able to come to him for counseling and support. He had, he admitted magnanimously, failed her in that way. He was willing to forgive her and try to start again. He loved her that much, he explained.
Dr. Pearson listened impassively, and Tracy found herself wildly irritated that he seemed to buy this bullshit. No longer able to keep silent, she burst out, "You said you wanted total honesty. Then let me just lay it out there. Let meelucidate whatDr. Becker is skirting around." Both the counselor's and Kyle's eyes turned toward her, the former curious, the latter's, sliding over her nervously.
"We've never really been open with you about the nature of my little emails, as Kyle calls them, or myperversions."
"Oh, Tracy, that isn't necessary," Kyle interjected, "We don't have to share every sordid detail with Dr. Pearson. That isn't what he meant by being honest."
"Don't interrupt, Kyle," Tracy shot back at him, maybe for the first time in her life. He shut up and she went on, "I want to tell him. I want him to know what so horrified and astounded you. Why you think I'm such a sick bitch, to paraphrase."
"I never said," Kyle began, appealing to the counselor.
"No, you're right. Your exact words were, let me see, 'sick, twisted, disgusting bitch, slut. Oh, and total cunt. Have I missed anything? I'm sure I've blocked some of it out."
Kyle sat back, crossing his arms over his chest, his expression saying, 'it's your funeral, have at it.'
The counselor pursed his lips, but said nothing, waiting for Tracy to continue.
"Kyle's horror is over the fact that I'm submissive. My fantasies lean toward bondage and discipline. S amp;M. You know, slave girl in chains, that kind of thing."
Tracy couldn't believe she was saying this out loud, but like the disenfranchised homosexuals of the fifties and sixties, she felt a certain exhilaration at 'coming out' like this. It was one thing to share it with others of like mind, like Paul and even Guy, but here she was admitting it to a practical stranger, in front of her deeply disapproving husband. If she weren't so nervous, she would have laughed with pleasure at what a release it was.
Dr. Pearson's hands didn't fly to his mouth in horror. He didn't scream or run from the room. He didn't pull out a scarlet letter to attach to her bosom. He just nodded and turned to Kyle. "You're a psychiatrist?" he asked, his voice neutral.
"I am," Kyle nodded back, looking self-important.
"And yet you still harbor these beliefs that a particular sexual orientation is morally wrong, evil as it were?"
Kyle looked surprised and spluttered, "Well, I, that is, yes. I mean, this isn't covered in the standard diagnoses. This is outside the realm of psychiatric treatment. It's just, shit, man, it's sick!"
Dr. Pearson nodded thoughtfully, and turned to Tracy. "And how does it make you feel, to know he feels this way about your sexual orientation?"
"Lonely," Tracy whispered, and started to cry.
***
Tracy called in sick the next day. She wasn't really ill, but she felt sick at heart. Her yearning for Paul was almost physical, and she realized she had to admit to herself at least, that she hadn't closed any doors. Since Kyle had destroyed her computer, Tracy went over to his and logged on.
Anger spurred her on, as she recalled his numerous self-sex marathons, pants around his ankles, cock pumping purple and turgid in his hand, while he typed away to his sex buddies online. But this was ok – this was just masculine release, don't you know.
Typing rapidly, before she changed her mind, Tracy logged on to the Palace and waited impatiently as the letters scrolled across the stick drawing of a palace, indicating she was 'in'. She scrolled slowly through the list of people on the board and her heart sank when the names jumped from SexyGirl to SMKing, with no Sir Stephen in between.
Halfheartedly she scrolled through a few of the newer articles about 'the life' and then suddenly, at the bottom of her screen, the words, "Sir Stephen invites you to join him in his chat room 102." Oh god! He was there. And he wanted to talk to her. She longed to call him on the telephone, but didn't have the nerve, after their last heartbreaking call.
Quickly she typed the words to accept his invitation, and entered the room.
"Hi," she typed.
"Hi," he typed back.
"What are you doing on here?" she asked. It was, after all, the middle of the workday.
"I could ask you the same thing," he typed back.
"I'm sick. Took a sick day."
He didn't respond. She typed another line, her heart in her throat. "Can I call you?"
"You know the number."
***
When he answered Tracy's heart squeezed so tightly, she could barely breathe for a moment.
"Oh, Paul! Oh, Paul, I've missed you so much!"
"Me too, Tracy. Are you ok? I've been so worried about you."
"God, I'm sorry, Paul." Softly she began to cry.
"Tracy. Stop that. What is it? Why are you crying? I knew the deal going in. I knew you were married. I knew this could happen, would happen really, if you're to stay married. I was never good at picking women." He laughed ruefully.
"No, it's not that." Tracy sniffed loudly and said, "It's your flowers. You didn't get your flowers. Your birthday."
"Oh, stop. I'm glad I didn't get flowers. I hate my birthday. No one even knows I have a birthday around here. Good thing you didn't ruin it." His voice was teasing and kind. Tracy laughed in spite of herself and sniffed back her tears.
"Seriously, Tracy, how's it going?"
"Not so good, Paul. I'm trying, but it just isn't working. Kyle's ashamed of me, basically. He doesn't understand me. I think he's willing to forgive and forget, as long as I forgive and forget his little affair, but he wants me to change. He's willing to love me, he says, in spite of my 'peculiarities', if I can control myself. Frankly, I don't think I can."
"Do you want to?"
"No."
It was that simple, wasn't it? She didn't have to think it over, to make a decision; it was already made. She was who she was, and Kyle was never going to accept that. It was too much to face at that precise moment so Tracy changed the subject, saying, "Wasn't it amazing that we both logged on to the Palace at almost the same time? What are the odds of that?"
"No kidding, that was amazing," Paul agreed, not telling her that he had been logging on every day, sometimes ten or twenty times in a single day, since she had told him it was over those three weeks ago. Each time he logged on, he would hope against hope to 'see' his 'Beloved', his Tracy there.
Each day he told himself he was being an ass, and today would be the last day to do this, but the next day he would be logging on, over and over, hope springing eternal, even as he cursed himself for his stupidity.
When he'd seen her name in the 'logged on' list he'd actually whooped with joy, sitting there alone in his office. His fingers flew over the keys as he hurried to invite her to a chat room before she disappeared.
And what did it mean now, that she had broken her 'promise' and called him before the two months were up? Would things go on as before? Could they, now that secrets had been split open and bared to the harsh light of 'real life'? The questions hung, unspoken and unanswered, between them.
***
Tracy and Kyle sat opposite one another in Dr. Pearson office. They had come in separate cars, as he had suggested.
"Why do we need two cars?" Kyle had asked, his tone anxious.
"Because some of the issues we are going to deal with might leave one or both of you feeling, uh, a little vulnerable. You might want to be alone. You might not want to ride together. I'm not predicting the future, just trying to give you options so you don't feel trapped by anything. This is standard at this stage in your marriage therapy.
"We've gotten some real issues out there, and we are going to dive right in next time."
And that's what they did. Since Tracy had broken her promise, and was secretly again communicating with Paul, the last few therapy sessions felt like an exercise in futility.
Tracy was finally able to admit to herself that what she had so wanted to be the 'perfect marriage' was a constant series of compromises, primarily on her part. She had spent most of her adult life trying to conform to another person's idea of what she should be. She seemed to have lost something of herself in the process, or more accurately, let it atrophy, like a useless, withered appendage. The reawakening of her sexual self, of her independent self, instead of being easy and joyous, was sometimes painful and frightening.
She realized there was no place in their marriage for this 'different' Tracy, the one who didn't always concede to whatever Dr. Becker felt was best. She could no longer push her own dreams and desires into some tidy box to occasionally take out and sigh over. She was close to admitting to herself that there was no point in continuing with the therapy, or the marriage, but she was terrified to admit this to either Dr. Pearson or Kyle.
She and Kyle had spent nine years together, seven of them married. Divorce was something she never considered, though she wasn't always happy. From the beginning, her parents had predicted divorce, because Kyle and Tracy were so young when they got married. Tracy had been determined to prove them wrong. Both her older sisters had divorced, but she would be the one to 'show them' what a happy, loving relationship was.
She and Kyle had grown up together, but now, she sadly admitted, they had grown apart. She remembered the final time he had broken up with her, just before they married. He once told her then that he was no longer sure what was love and what was obligation between. Now, ironically, she found she completely understood what he had meant. More than that, she found she didn't respect Kyle in the same way she had once. In fairness to him, what she had done for so many years of their relationship was to put him on a pedestal. She admired him completely, and felt that his opinions automatically superceded her own. She didn't give him a chance to be fallible; to be human.
In fact, Kyle was as deeply insecure as his wife, probably more so, and had come to require her constant admiration and their mutual subtle 'put down' of Tracy in order to make himself feel less vulnerable and less worthless. When she began this newfound discovery of herself, gaining confidence and tentatively voicing her own opinions and desires, the very fabric of what their relationship had been based upon had begun to unravel.
She hadn't only been dabbling with sex outside the marriage; she had been eroding the very foundation of the life they had built together. A harsh light shone on what she had always idealized in her mind as a 'perfect love', and it was badly tarnished. On some basic level they both realized it, but like so many people caught in prisons of their own making, they were terrified at the prospect of unlocking the gates.
And so Tracy continued with the charade, until that final therapy session when Dr. Pearson suddenly turned to her and asked, "Why are you here, Tracy?"
"Excuse me?" She didn't expect the question, feeling put on the spot.
"I asked, why are you here? What do you hope to get out of this? You've been coming for several weeks now, twice a week, like a 'good girl'," his fingers marked the air with imaginary quotation marks. "And you promised, at the beginning, to close the doors, remember? To seal off the exits and really give this relationship your full attention.
"But it doesn't seem to me that's what's happening here. You don't seem to be 'present' any longer." She looked at him, her eyes full of fear. Her knuckles, white with tension, clutched the arms of her chair.
Dr. Pearson continued. "I'm going to ask you a question, Tracy, and please answer it honestly. You won't do Kyle or yourself a bit of good if you give me the answer you think I want to hear, or that you think is expected of you. I've been in this business long enough to know that you can't will a marriage to work. You have to want it; to long for it and be willing to give it one hundred percent of yourself to rebuild it.
"So listen hard, Tracy, and take your time responding. You're safe here. My question is this. Do you want to continue to work on this marriage, or do you want to work on how to say goodbye? There is no right answer. It's a matter of the heart, and you can't force your heart to feel something it doesn't feel."
The room seemed to close in on her, and she felt as if she might faint. It was as if she were in a movie, and the camera had just zoomed in for a close up of her face. Sounds were muffled and the world seemed to slow to a standstill as they all, even she, waited for her response.
"I want to work on saying goodbye," she finally managed to croak, her voice little more than a whisper.
Suddenly the world flicked back on and she could hear again, her breathing audible in her ears. She saw Kyle stiffen in his seat, as his large thin hands gripped the arms of his chair. She felt the heat in her face and neck and a curious lightness in her body. What had she done? She finally admitted what had been lurking in her heart, hiding even from herself. She wanted out. She wanted to be free.
***
"I can't stay here anymore. I can't stand to be around you," Kyle announced a few days later. He had stormed out of the counselor's office, the tires of his fancy late model Aurora screeching, leaving his wife and Dr. Pearson staring at each other. Dr. Pearson remained calm as always, but Tracy was stunned, as if she'd been sucker punched.
She'd left the office soon after, unable to listen to the therapist's calm advice. For the next few days, she and Kyle continued to share the same space in the same house, but the marriage was broken and neither of them had the slightest idea how to fix it.
Kyle stood in front of the breakfast table, holding his garment bag and a large duffel. Tracy was relieved. At least something was happening. "It's over between us, Tracy. I should never have married you. We were never suited. Knowing what I know now, that you were never committed to me or to our marriage – it just sickens me."
Tracy started to protest, but Kyle held up a hand, his whole countenance forbidding her from speaking. "Please," he intoned, determined to continue what was probably a carefully prepared speech. "I don't want to hear your feeble protestations. You've made your bed, as they say, now go lie in it. Even if we'd continued that counseling, I could see from the beginning it was a waste of time. I was just trying to give you the benefit of the doubt, to see if you were willing to put that immature sexual deviance behind you and behave like a mature adult woman. I was willing to give you another chance; to love you in spite of all you've done to me.
"But I can see now what you really are; what you've always been, hiding behind that timid little facade of yours. You're a slut, Tracy, pure and simple. A pig. And for every pig, there's a pig fucker, but it sure isn't me." He left the room. "You'll be hearing from my lawyer," he called back to her. His words were punctuated by the front door slamming.
Tracy sat in her chair, completely still for some minutes. The scathing remark about pigs and pig fuckers had shamed her, making her ears burn scarlet with a blossoming rage.
She let out a long, deep sigh, and said aloud, "Well. That's that then." Tracy realized with a little spark of excitement that she was getting out, and she didn't have to run to do it. Kyle sprang the trap for them both. He had unlocked the prison door and taken off. Tentatively, she put a foot over the threshold, then stepped out herself, feeling the shackles of a lifetime fall from her shoulders.