Irene kissed me gently on the lips to wake me up. It had been two weeks that I had been living with her and sleeping in her marital bed. It felt right and good. Irene was an amazing woman, gorgeous, sweet, and kind. She had taken me in and treated me like a king and I treated her as the queen she was. Yes, she was married to Oscar, but he was a vapor. Something that appeared every few weeks for a fleeting moment, then would disappear as quickly as he appeared. Oscar did not deserve Irene she was too good for him.
As I became fully awake, I pulled Irene into bed with me. I told her I had a serious question for her. She propped herself up on one arm and looked at me quizzically. I stammered for a minute but then spit it out. I asked Irene if she would ever divorce Oscar. Irene reacted in a way I did not expect. She became very upset and flustered. She blurted out, "no, never, he is my husband, I could never do that to him." My heart sank. In our brief time together, I had fallen hard for Irene. For me it was love. Did she not feel the same for me? She had been so kind and sweet to me. She had asked me to move in with her. We had made mad passionate love every day for weeks. The meals, the snuggles, the soft kisses, the wild passionate sex. Was I just imagining this?
Irene saw the hurt in my eyes and began to sputter. She said that she had very strong feelings for me. In fact, feelings stronger than she had ever had for any man including Oscar. Irene said that she wanted to spend the rest of her life in my arms. I responded quickly and told her to divorce Oscar and we can be together forever. Irene sat up, looked at me and began to cry. I propped myself up and wiped away her tears and asked her why she was crying. She said I would not understand. I told her to make me understand.
It took her forever to start speaking, but once she did, she did not stop. She said she had met Oscar in Barcelona. She was twenty-two and he was a young strapping military truck driver in the US Army. She was living at home with her family. Her father was an alcoholic and beat her and her siblings to within inches of their lives daily. Her mother was distant and was afraid to get involved as her father would beat her too. The day Irene graduated from a small, local college she ran away and ended up living on the streets. She had not thought it through and quickly found herself cold and hungry. Irene looked down and stared into the bed and said that she had done things she was not proud of in desperation. Men would seem kind at first and offer to help but it would only lead to one thing, whether she wanted it or not.