Chapter 12

As she opened the drapes, the bright light penetrated the thin layer of skin that covered Gordon's blue eyes. God, he was so handsome, she thought, as she watched him slowly wake up. His mused hair made him look more like a little boy than a powerful attorney as he stretched and rubbed the sleep from his eyes. "Good morning," she said.

"How long have you been up?" He asked, suppressing a yawn as he scooted back and sat up against the padded headboard. "What time is it?" "I've been up for maybe, oh, half an hour or so. It's 12:30," she told him. "Shall I order coffee from room service?" "That would be great," he said as he slipped out of bed and walked naked into the bathroom. He didn't bother to close the door as he lifted the toilet seat and let loose a yellow stream that splashed into the porcelain bowl.

As she saw him shake off the last drop, Barbara wondered if he was so carefree and comfortable when Marlene had visited him in this same hotel. She hoped he wasn't, as she dialed room service and ordered coffee and rolls for two. The Carlyle was famous for its room service and she was promised that it would be there in ten minutes or less. The Carlyle kept its promise.

As she sipped from the steaming cup she said, "Gordon, I guess we have a lot to talk about, don't we?" "I guess we do." He looked at her and didn't see the woman that he was with last night at Le Trapeze. The woman he saw was his wife, the mother of their daughter, the woman who worked tirelessly to put him through law school He saw the woman who worked in the garden at home and, who recently, had the discipline and determination to regain control of her life. But he also saw a woman as beautiful as any he had ever seen, one who was sexy and sexual beyond description. As he starred at the naked body curled up in the big club chair he was surprised that there were no visible outward signs of her time at the club. No hickeys, bruises or scratches. But there was a glow, a radiance and a hidden secret, he detected, behind her hooded eye lids.

He would wait for her to begin, like the good lawyer he was trained to be.

"Where should we begin?" She asked.

"Where do you think we should begin?" Sometimes it's better to answer a question with a question, he thought.

Barbara had lived with him long enough to know what he was doing. "No you don't. We need to have a conversation and that takes at least two people. We need to talk about last night and I need to understand how you felt about the year when you were screwing Marlene and the others. I guess, most importantly, we need to talk about our future." He didn't like the ominous tone. "Barbara, I told you all about Marlene when we were at the club..." "No you didn't. All you told me was that one night, when you were here, you were horny and lonely because I was big and fat and didn't turn you on anymore..." "That's not fair," Gordon said. "I never said anything like that. I admitted that I had screwed up and that I had been with her several times after the first time. I told you everything, Barbara." "Yeah, you sure did screw up and got screwed in the process," she said.

"Honey I don't want to fight." "Neither do I but I need to get in touch with my feelings. I don't want to feel jealous, or angry or worried about our future and I wouldn't blame you, after last night, if you wanted a divorce," she said.

"Are you crazy? I was the one who strayed. I was the one who suggested that we go to the club. For a long time I thought we needed to do something that would put a spark back in our marriage and I don't mean you losing the weight. I knew what might happen at the club and, in some way that I don't completely understand, I wanted what happened to happen. At least a part of me did." "I don't understand." "Well, after that first night with Marlene, I couldn't help but think about you with another man. For some reason I found the idea extremely exciting. Then after the first time I was at the club and Ron introduced me to his wife, I wondered how I would feel if I saw you climbing the stairs with another man. I don't have to wonder anymore." "How do you feel?" "A little jealous. A lot excited. Thrilled beyond what I could have imagined." "Do you feel threatened?" Barbara asked.

"Should I?" "No, I don't think what you did with Marlene and the others or what I did last night needs to endanger our life together, our marriage.

What happened to each of us was physical. What we have is, I believe, more than that... I sure hope we have more than just the physical." "That's how I feel too," said Gordon somewhat relieved.

"But I do have a problem... now, I feel dirty, cheap, confused. My self-respect seems to be on vacation too..." "There's no need for you to feel..." "Please let me finish, Gordon. As I was about to say, for my whole life I've thought that saving it for the man that I married was something special. I actually looked down on those girls who had a reputation in high school and college, those who slept around and didn't care who knew it. I was proud that I had held out, maybe not until my wedding night, but at least I had waited for the man that I would eventually marry, I waited for you honey. Later, when I would hear of a married woman that I knew who was having an affair, inevitably, I thought less of her. When we found out about Susan and how she had been sowing wild oats, that probably should have been sowed earlier, if at all, that's when the confusion about this subject seriously began to set in for me. I knew she was still the same person but somehow, in some way, I thought that she had become my moral inferior. Does that make any sense?" "Sure it does. I felt the same way," he said as he finished his coffee and placed the empty cup on the coffee table. "But maybe we were both wrong about Susan and what she was doing." Barbara remembered almost every discussion that she had on the subject of sex with her mother, at church and in sex education classes in high school. Every lecture was the same. Good girls didn't, bad girls did. If you did it, it was almost a certainty that you would get pregnant, catch some horrible disease or have your reputation ruined.