BRENT: [To waitress] Thank you. [To Garrett] I'm sure it's complicated. But even complicated things have rules that govern them. In fact, we need hard boundaries even more when things are complicated.
GARRETT: If you're gonna moralize at me about this then-
BRENT: No, no. Don't misunderstand me here. I'm sorry man, I'm just talking too much. The floor is yours. How did it start?
GARRETT: Well, she was always there in the background, always my niece, one of Marissa's kids. I never thought much of it until she got older. It was kind of day and night really. I went on a job in Saudi for a while like usual and when I came back I saw her at Nathan's seventh birthday party and I had to... I had to look away. Like, it felt like it was wrong just to see her, just to have her in my field of view. Even though she was wearing normal teenager clothes it felt like there was something almost pornographic about her. It was that strong.
I kept trying to do the opposite of what I kept wanting to do, which was to be near her, to talk to her. But eventually I was playing some game with the kids, just threatening to catch them like I'm a monster, and Marion joined in and suddenly we were teamed up, chasing around a bunch of six, seven year olds in the backyard. And it was fun. And then... then she stepped on the nail. It was, it was a piece of the old shed that I took down the year before, just a bit of wood with a bent rusty nail sticking out of it that I somehow missed when I cleared all the debris away. It went through her shoe and stabbed her foot.
BRENT: Ouch.
GARRETT: Erica called Marissa and she was almost a hundred miles away in Louisiana for work. She told us to take Marion to urgent care. And, c'mon, between Erica and me, she's the only one who realistically should manage all those kids. So I drove her. And that's when it all started. We got to the urgent care and she was limping and hopping on one foot. So I put an arm under her shoulder and helped her walk.
We sat in the waiting room and she propped her foot up on my lap and I thought I was gonna pop a woody just from that. I had to reposition myself, you know? And we started talking and all this stuff about her ex boyfriend came out and how she was still a little angry and sad about him going away to college. I tried to comfort her. I'm shitty at helping women through things - Erica will tell you that - but I was even shittier that day because I was so distracted. I kept telling myself, "This is your niece; this is your sister-in-law's kid." But I felt like I was getting sucked toward her, like I was circling a whirlpool. Every part of my body was screaming at me to touch her.
BRENT: And did you?
GARRETT: Not that day. But she called me a few days later and we met up at a taco place a few blocks away. Just innocent stuff, just me buying Marion lunch and talking. But if it was innocent I would have told Erica. And I didn't. And Marion didn't tell her mom.
BRENT: I see.
GARRETT: So how much detail do you want me to go into here? Because this story gets kind of... graphic.
BRENT: Gimme the whole picture.
~ ~ ~
MARISSA: It was a hair. One single hair that tipped Erica off. She told me she found it in the bed. She's blonde, and both her husband Garrett and their boys have short hair, men hair. But there it was in the bed, down under the sheets. A long black hair. A woman's hair. It's so cliche.
AGGIE: These things become cliches for a reason.
MARISSA: Yeah. So she sat there for days stewing about it. Erica was suffering, full of doubt and anxiety, but I didn't find that out until later. Then she called me one day and told me to swing by the house to grab something for her. At a time when she knew Garrett would be free and might be meeting up with his girlfriend, if he had one. But she didn't warn me about any of that. As far as I knew I was just doing her a favor, getting something, you know. I was miffed at her about that for a little while.
But anyway I walked into the house and right away I heard it. They were loud, Aggie, I'm not kidding. Especially her. And Garrett must have been just slamming away because there was this bang bang bang sound from the headboard hitting the wall over and over again. The house felt like it was shaking; not even an exaggeration. I wanted to run out of there. But it's my sister, you know? If her husband was having an affair I felt like I had to find out more. And honestly I was curious. I had a morbid fascination, I suppose. Like watching a train wreck and not being able to look away. So I didn't leave. I went upstairs and made my way to the bedroom.
I opened the door and my timing was so bad, so so bad. By then she was on top, straddling him, and he was coming inside her right as I walked in. Just groaning so loud, pushing up into her. I can see it now. And she was moving in a way I couldn't even imagine, just... undulating. Flowing, everything from her shoulders to her pelvis moving in waves while she finished him off. Oh Aggie it was...
AGGIE: That must have been traumatizing.
MARISSA: Maybe. I definitely feel traumatized by it. But honestly, what's been most traumatizing was how I felt about it. Especially right in the moment. It's so horrible. You're going to think I'm so sick.
AGGIE: I promise you whatever you're feeling, your emotions and impressions are welcome in this office. And completely confidential.
MARISSA: Aggie, It was hot. It was the hottest thing I'd ever seen. It made me jealous. Like, I was accidentally witnessing sex better than I could even imagine, sex better than I've ever had in my own life. And I wanted it. I didn't want him; I didn't want her; I just wanted what they had together right in that moment. And it was Marion who had it. It was my own daughter. I had seen her naked of course, but not for a long time at that point, and never like... like that. It was shocking, just a complete shock to the system how... oh my God, how sexy she was. I was in literal awe. I felt like I was in the presence of a goddess, a sex goddess. How fucked up is that?
AGGIE: It's a terrible situation to find yourself in. And there's absolutely nothing wrong with you or your emotional reactions to the circumstance of discovering them. You were confused and alarmed. But I just want to clarify a few points here. This was your brother in law?
MARISSA: Yes.
AGGIE: And he is her uncle, and was having an intimate relationship with her for how long?
MARISSA: We don't know. Probably at least a few weeks by that point.
AGGIE: What happened next?
MARISSA: I screamed. I swore at them. They both turned toward me but they were still having their orgasms. Oh my God Aggie. Their expressions. They were looking at me in terror but they were also still coming, and it was all over their faces. Mouths open, eyes so far away.
I went insane. Just out of my mind. I jumped at her and tried to pull her off of him, but even then, even though the jig was up and they were caught in the act, they didn't want to be parted. He was still holding onto her like I was trying to steal her from him. I started hitting him, calling him the worst names I could think of. And finally he let go. Marion ran into the bathroom and slammed the door, and I left to call Erica and tell her what I'd found.
The next few months were hard on everybody, most of all Erica and Garrett's boys. We tried to find some way to get him charged with a crime, but apparently because he's her uncle by marriage and not by blood then it wasn't technically illegal in this State. Just absolutely lovely that Erica and I had to learn that fact.
AGGIE: It's all so very unfortunate. A real violation of so many people's trust.
MARISSA: I hate him, Aggie. And I don't understand it. Not at all. If he wanted to cheat on my sister, fine, that's his business. But why did he have to do it with my daughter? Why did he hurt our family so deeply? To this day I am still waiting for an explanation.
~ ~ ~
GARRETT: I tried to explain it to them, to Erica and Marissa. I tried to tell them this story but it was always either they shut me out or I shut myself down because I couldn't find a way to phrase it so that they'd understand. They wouldn't have understood anyway. I didn't mean to fall into it. I didn't groom her or target her or anything like that. I just happened to collide with Marion at a time in her life when she was just really really in need of someone to hold her and raise her up. To make her feel wanted. And sure, there were plenty of boys who could have done that for her, but what made the thing we had so much more special to her was that it was forbidden. I wanted her despite the whole world telling me not to. The fact that my wanting for her was so strong that it could break through all of that interference made it something special for Marion. I had to defy the world for her, and that meant something.
BRENT: I get that.
GARRETT: But like I said, we didn't plan on it, or at least I didn't. I could have done more to prevent it. We met up maybe two or three times before we started having sex, and I could have just told her no. But I didn't. I told myself I was resisting it because I hadn't touched her during those first few meetups. But I was just letting us edge closer and closer to it. I needed her so much. It's important that you understand this part. I felt like if I didn't have her I was going to die. I knew it. In my bones, I felt like I was dying, and the only way to save myself was to have her.
They kept asking me what was wrong in my marriage to Erica and there was just nothing wrong. I love Erica. Sex with her was great, our life together was fine. Better than fine. But as soon as Marion... I think the best word for it is "bloom". As soon as Marion bloomed, changed, became, whatever you want to call it, as soon as it happened I needed to have her or I would die. It's the primary function of being a man. To provide our bodies to a woman in need. And Brent, she was in so much need.
BRENT: How did it happen, the first time?
GARRETT: We were at my house. Erica was at work, the boys were at school. Marion came over and we were talking and she started showing me these short videos from her social media of girls doing this dance. It was a meme, you know? A funny little dance, kind of sexy, kind of ridiculous. She wanted to make a version of it to post, and she had me take the video. So I held her phone up and she starts in on this little dance. She was wearing a pair of short shorts, waggling her ass at me and spinning around and twirling her hips. You know how her ass is.
