and he felt a bit adulterous. It had everything to do with his thinking he was called to a higher life than average men, her being virginal, their previous therapeutic relationship.
In the face of all that, they continued to meet for dinner at her apartment at least once every other week. Familiarity, like everything else in their relationship, grew gradually, slowly. Rather than remaining seated at the table after eating, they sat on the couch-a sofabed-frequently holding hands. At parting, they kissed on the lips, but as brother and sister might.
It happened, as it most certainly had to happen. One evening he talked freely and openly about his marriage, painting it as considerably less intimate than it actually was. Her heart went out to him in his self-described isolation. They kissed passionately. She invited him to disrobe her. He protested that he did not know how he could stop at that point. The invitation was not withdrawn.
All he could think of was what a waste it had been to cover that body with so much clothing for so many years. He had never even imagined breasts being such perfectly molded mounds of flesh.
He was right: He could not stop.
The barrier had fallen, never again to be rebuilt. They felt guilt, deep and abiding guilt. But, simply, their passion far outweighed the guilt.
They met no more frequently than they had before. But now there was no pretense that the evenings were mere dinner parties with small talk. They were trysts pure and simple. David had his cake and ate it too. Pamela joyfully anticipated their times together. Yet both knew that for her this was a dead-end trip. David made it clear that for both personal and career considerations, he could not, would not, leave Martha. Pamela insisted she understood.
But how happy can anyone be traveling an avenue that leads nowhere?
Pamela’s plight added guilt to David’s still sensitive conscience. When enough guilt accumulated, he phoned for an appointment to see Father Alfred Massey, a universally respected older clergyman who had been one of David’s seminary instructors.
After a substantial dinner prepared and served by Mrs. Massey, the two clergymen retired into the rector’s study where they would not be interrupted.
“Well, my boy,” Massey opened as he filled his pipe, “what’s on your mind?”
“It’s been a long time since I visited with you and Sara.” Benbow was beginning to feel ill at ease.
Massey chuckled noiselessly. “Since you were a student. Yes, I’d say that qualified as a long time. And I’d say there’s something on your mind.”
Benbow tried to smile but it wouldn’t come. “What I. .we. . say tonight, it will be held confidential?”
Massey nodded. “Of course, if that’s the way you want it. I’m not the type that runs off at the mouth in any case. Now, what is it, my boy?”
David told the tale: the therapy sessions monitored by an instructor; the friendship that grew from and extended beyond the professional relationship; finally, the affair that continued to this moment.
When he finished, he felt a decided sense of relief. He hadn’t anticipated the sensation but he should have. From his own experience of listening to the problems of others, in and out of the confessional, he’d experienced at least vicariously the miracle of the talking cure. But now he circled his emotional defenses closer, waiting for the unknown, namely Canon Massey’s reaction to an open-and-shut case of adultery.
Massey relit his pipe, puffing until his head nearly disappeared in the clouds of smoke. “How’s Martha?”
The question clearly surprised Benbow. “She’s. . fine. Working hard as a realtor.”
“Yes, she always was a hard worker. . put you through school, if memory serves. . no?”
“Yes.”
“Does working hard mean what I think it means? That you seldom see each other?”
Benbow nodded.
“I see. May I ask, in general, about your marital relationship?”
Benbow would not lie, as he did with Pamela. Not now, not to Massey. “If you overlook the fact that we have to schedule almost all our intimate times together, it is not bad. Not bad at all.”
Massey’s eyes narrowed as if trying to see through the smoke, to understand. “Well, I know that you and Martha are still young, and that spontaneity in marriage is important at your stage. But if your sexual activity with her is as satisfactory as you indicate, then why. .?”
Benbow pulled at his earlobe, turning his head from direct eye contact. “I’m not sure. I haven’t actually faced that question until just this moment. Maybe it’s man’s hunger for variety.”
“But surely more. .?”
“Before we were married?” Benbow smiled. “Before I married Martha, there was no one, no wild oats. We were both virgins when we married. I’ve come to think that’s both good and bad news. Good news on the virtue scale. Saving oneself for one’s life companion. No sins of fornication or adultery, and all that. But bad news in the long run, I fear. Always the curiosity about what it might be like with someone else. Whether the experience could be different, better, more exciting.”
“And. .?”
“And?”
“Did you find it all that much different? Better? More exciting with. .?”
“Pamela.”
“Yes, Pamela?”
Benbow thought for several moments. “Yes, as a matter of fact. If I can state this without embarrassing either of us. It’s a difference-a vast difference as it turns out-in personalities.”
In spite of himself and despite the gravity of the matter, Benbow couldn’t help smiling. “Martha surprised me from the start. I thought all women were like this. She had no experience. She acted instinctively. The same sort of drive, of get-up-and-go that has brought her so much success in real estate. . well. . it’s the same in everything, including bed.” He looked thoughtful. “In marriage counseling, a problem frequently arises because the husband doesn’t bother satisfying his wife. That’s never been a consideration with Martha. Sometimes she gets concerned about whether I’m having a satisfactory orgasm. She. . has no problem in that area.
“Pamela. . well. . Pam was-is-different. The two are diametrically opposed personalities. Martha does. Pam is done to. She’s utterly, completely passive. I find that attractive, stimulating, erotic, a turn-on.”
“You could get one of those life-sized dolls,” Massey muttered.
“I beg your pardon. What was that?”
“Nothing.” Massey tapped the dottle out of his pipe, selected a fresh pipe from the rack, and began the ritual anew. “Well, David, we are now faced with a number of predictable, hypothetical, rhetorical questions. I don’t feel we need to get into it too deeply. You know what you must do.”
It was a rhetorical question in the form of a statement. Yet David was unsure of his response. Still, he couldn’t help being frank. Not now. Not after he’d opened himself so candidly to his respected colleague. “Not really,” he said. “It seems there are at least two, maybe three alternatives. I could maintain the status quo. Martha is not aware of anything. I’m slightly more than fulfilled with two women almost programmed to fit my moods.”
Massey’s mouth was a tight line. “David! I want to remain as nonjudgmental as possible. But really. .!”
“No, no, I understand,” David interrupted. “I know in my heart that’s not a viable alternative. It’s completely unfair to Pamela. And I feel guilty as hell about it. That’s why I’m here. But even though it’s not going to solve anything, I had to mention it as an alternative.
“Then there’s breaking up with Pam. It would tear me apart. Her too. But that’s the obvious, ‘moral’ choice no matter how much pain is involved, isn’t it?”
Massey continued to puff wordlessly.
“But there’s a third possibility. What if I confessed the affair to Martha and offered her the choice of divorcing me? Uncontested. That would let me marry Pam and we’d be happy. Of course, it would shatter Martha. But, I think, only for the moment. She would promptly get so reinvolved with her real estate, that after a short while she’d wonder who was that person who once shared her life.
“So, Father, I don’t find the future as cut and dried, as rhetorical, as it might seem.”
Massey removed the pipe from his mouth and shook his head. “David, David. . the alternatives to what you correctly called the ‘moral’ situation don’t exist for you.”
“Don’t exist?”
