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
