Julius and I returned home about a week later, firm in our conviction that his parents' reunion was permanent. Julius had spent several nights alone with his mom, and I was happy to have Henry all to myself on those occasions. Mother, father, and son had definitely restored their bonds of affection.
But something strange happened almost immediately after Julius and I came back to my house. By this time I was resolved to quit my job and follow my lover to Chicago. Hopefully there would be wedding bells at some point in the future, but I didn't even care about that anymore. I just wanted to be with him--I
needed
to be with him.
But, two days later, as I was idling in my office (I was not teaching summer school, so I really didn't have much to do), I received an unexpected caller.
It was my husband, Mark Stephens.
I will be honest with you: he always looked good. As a trial lawyer, he was a natural performer; and he knew how to dress well and how to look fit and in control. From his shock of deliberately untidy straight black hair to his broad shoulders to his muscular chest to his slender waist to his powerful thighs and calves, he looked like a man who combined brain with brawn--and he did.
Of course, he wasn't quite in Julius's league where physique was concerned, but he was no slouch.
But what was different now was that his usual robust self-confidence--bordering on know-it-all arrogance--had given way to an utterly unexpected shyness and mortification, as he slid hesitantly into the chair next to my desk and muttered, "Hello, Sandra."
I wasn't at all interested in conversational pleasantries. "What the hell are you doing here?" I said sharply.
He winced as if I'd struck him. What a laugh! When, in years past, he'd plow into me with a vigor that came close on violence, I would in fact strike him--pounding his back as a way of demonstrating that I was no shrinking violet. It was all a game, and we'd had loads of fun in bed--but now he'd slunk off with that young floozie who'd tempted him away from me, and our whole married life had come to seem like an illusion, a fantasy.
"Gee, Sandra," he whined, "I just thought we could talk a little."
"Talk? We have nothing to talk about."
Well, of course that wasn't true. One urgent thing I wanted to talk about was:
When are we going to get a divorce so I can marry Julius Welker?
I inwardly guffawed as I thought of his stupefied reaction when he learned I was bedding down with a star athlete--one who was even younger than that silly airhead he'd shacked up with.
But my amusement vanished at once when he said, "Sandra, I met your man yesterday. You know, Julius."
I staggered into my own chair, feeling suddenly weak in the knees. "You--you met Julius?"
"I should say he met me. He came to my office."
I was almost dizzy with confusion. "But--why?"
He have a mirthless little laugh. "He thinks we should get back together."
I don't think I have ever been closer to passing out than at that moment. My vision blurred as I felt my whole world--or, rather, the world I had fondly been picturing for myself--seemed to crumble all around me.
"Why does he think that?" I manage to croak.
"I guess he thinks you still love me. I told him you didn't, but he's convinced of it. And he thinks I should leave my girlfriend and go back to you. I can still hear him in that deep baritone voice of his: 'She's your wife, guy.'
"One thing I can say," Mark went on, looking at his hands. "I still love you."
That got me riled up. "Oh, you do, do you? Well, it seems that sly little tart didn't have to wiggle her tits or her butt very much to get you to dump me. Or are you just passing that off as a midlife crisis?"
"I don't know what it was!" he cried plaintively. "All I know now is that I made a mistake--and I want to come back. Is there no hope for us?"
The expression he was giving me--like a little lost boy yearning for his mother--wrung my heart. I had to stand up and retreat to a corner of my tiny office, as a desperate way of putting some physical and emotional distance between us. My head was spinning and I was hardly aware of my surroundings. I felt utterly at sea.
"I--I just don't know, Mark," I said. All of a sudden the eight years of our marriage came flooding back into my mind. They were good years, by God! We were madly in love at the beginning, and even toward the end I felt we were in good shape. His desertion of me had come like a bolt from the blue, and I was still baffled by it.
"Please, Sandra," Mark said, "let's give it another shot."
"Mark, you must know I want to be with Julius." I had to cling to the hope that that extraordinary young man still wanted me.
"Yes, I sense that. That's okay--I won't mind if I have just a part of you."
"So what are you suggesting? Some kind of
ménage à trois?"
"If that's what it takes to get you back--or get me into your life somehow. I don't care if I'm just second fiddle to him. He seems like an incredible guy, and I don't wonder that you"--he had to swallow hard before he could say the words--"love him."
"I do love him," I said grimly. "And he wants me."
"He does want you. But I'm still married to you. If you really want a divorce, I'll give you one. But I want you just as much as he does--and we have a lot more history in our relationship than you and he do."
I covered my face with my hands. I just couldn't deal with this anymore. The stuff that had happened these last few weeks--from meeting Julius after being fucked by two dozen guys in that gangbang, to that foursome with Tricia and Dontae, to bedding down with my own parents, to bedding down with Julius's parents, and now to this imbroglio--was getting to be too much for me.
"Look, Mark," I said desperately, "I'll have to think about this. Maybe we can make this work somehow--but maybe not. I can't promise anything. The first thing I have to do is talk to Julius."
"Okay, fair enough," he said, getting up slowly. "You know how to reach me."
