Chapter 8: Late October

Thursday - Couple's Counseling

He was relaxed. He felt good, for the most part. He still hated what he'd done to the Montgomery's but there'd been a purpose to it. He'd seen the open use of hard drugs in the videos and Kim had excused herself any number of times in the two weekends she'd spent with him and gone to the restroom for extended periods. When she came back from one of these, she was invariably bright-eyed, flushed, and ready for sex. It didn't take a genius to figure out she had a stash inside his house and was using.

After she left last Sunday, he'd found a small kit crammed behind the commode. There was only a little residue in a small baggie inside, but he took everything and threw it in the fireplace. He rarely built a fire there--there was almost never a good excuse for one in South Texas--there was a reason that day.

He knew also that Kimberly's apparent addiction to porn and making porno movies herself was dangerous. He hoped Lloyd and Diane would be able to get their daughter some help. He hoped it wasn't too late.

Verne Houston didn't know the reasons for Steve's new serenity but he was happy to see it. In recent weeks, Steve Curtis had been combative in both individual and couple's counseling and it had been getting worse. If the truth were told, Verne was about ready to throw in the towel on this pair. No technique of counseling he'd ever heard of, and none any of his colleagues could recommend, seemed to work.

When Steve stepped out to sit with Mr. Houston's secretary for a moment and bring the billing account up to date, Verne watched with slitted eyes. Suddenly, he was suspicious.

He wasn't a psychologist, but he'd been at this for a long time. A distraught person who suddenly turns peaceful, and one who starts tying up loose ends... those were warning signs sometimes. Verne licked suddenly dry lips. He needed to know more.

Steve sat back down in the chair before Mr. Houston's desk. He'd dropped his ass in this seat every Wednesday afternoon and Thursday evening for many months. He looked around, seemingly examining every feature of the room and committing it to memory. This might be the last time he'd ever have to come here. He relished the thought.

Steve lounged back in the chair, extending his legs and parking his right ankle over his left. There was a half-grin on his lips. He'd almost forgotten what it was like to feel good.

"I don't know how long we'll have to wait for Barbara," Mr. Houston ventured. "Did she say anything to you about being late tonight?" It was already ten minutes past the time the sessions normally began.

Steve shook his head.

"Nah... I haven't talked to her in a long while," Steve said. "But I doubt very seriously that she'll be coming tonight," he added carelessly. "I think she's convinced now that the marriage is over. I think she's seen the light," he added with a tight smile. He stretched both legs out in front of him and crossed his hands across his belly.

Both men were startled by a sudden noise in the outer office. Steve jerked his body erect in his chair. A door had been opened suddenly, allowing in a loud conversation from two passersby before it closed again. There was a murmur of voices, a pause, and the inner door suddenly opened. Barbara came inside and pushed the door shut. Without glancing to either side, she walked to the chair she usually occupied and sat down determinedly.

Steve watched her come in and sit down. He hadn't expected her to be there. More to the point, he'd expected she would not show up. He stared at her in disbelief. He slowly settled back to his seat.

"Sorry I'm late," Barbara said quietly, "I called and made a reservation for a taxi but it still didn't come on time."

"What... what's wrong with your car," Steve asked. His voice was thick with shock. He hadn't intended to ask the question. It came out as if pulled.

"Nothing," Barbara told him, "I just thought it best to use a cab tonight."

Steve shook his head in consternation. The woman shouldn't be here. She should be so enraged by what he'd done with her sister that she would never consider being in the same room with him ever again. She shouldn't be speaking with him. It just wasn't right.

"What are you doing here?" he demanded. "Why aren't you--?"

"At home with my Mom and Dad... and my sister?" Barbara continued. She looked at him for the first time. Her face was blank where he wanted anger.

"Yeah," Steve replied. "Why are you here?"

"Where else would I be?" Barbara returned pleasantly. "I belong with my husband, don't you think? I belong with the man I married... for better or for worse, right?"

Steve looked away and folded himself back into the chair's cushions.

"None of the other things you said that day seemed to matter to you," he muttered.

His heart wasn't in it though. This wasn't working out the way he'd planned. He was surprised to see Barbara nod her head.

"I screwed up big time," she said, agreeing with him. "But you've paid me back for that, haven't you?" she added in a calm voice. "Now we can work this all out and get back to being husband and wife, right?"

Steve was struck dumb. He literally couldn't speak. Considering the weekends he spent screwing his wife's sister, this woman should be ready to use a bullwhip on him, not speak softly about working things out. He'd thought the pain was over... but his wife was right. Their pain was equal now, assuming she felt any.

She did. He could see it. She was keeping her feelings under control, but the hurt was in her eyes, down turned mouth, and the creases on her forehead.

A polite cough from behind the big desk reminded Steve and Barbara they weren't alone. Both turned to face the counselor.

"May I inquire... ?"

"Oh, didn't my husband tell you?" Barbara asked. "Steve's spent the past couple of weekends screwing my baby sister," she said bluntly.

Steve winced. It didn't sound good coming out that way. Mr. Houston sat up in his chair. He was alarmed.

"How old is your sister?" he asked Barbara.

"Nineteen next Friday," Barbara answered. "Nineteen whole years old," she repeated.

Mr. Houston was hard put to not scowl at Steve.

"Mr. Curtis," he said sternly, "this is not helpful at all. We talked about revenge. Retaliation is never the answer... we agreed on that specific point, Mr. Curtis. I don't understand this at all."

"She picked me," Steve protested weakly, "not the other way around."

"That hardly matters, Mr. Houston," Verne continued. "You're an adult and you know quite well that you shouldn't engage in such things with young, impressionable women, and--"

"Actually..." Barbara interjected, "impressionable, and if you're implying "innocent," aren't... uh... factors in what Steve did with my sister." Mr. Houston blinked. He didn't know what to make of that.

"Kimberly is addicted to cocaine and two different prescription drugs. She's also dabbled with some heroin," Barbara continued smoothly, "and she admits to having been with seventy-six boys and men over the past four years that she can remember and somewhere between sixteen and twenty women and other girls her age."

Mr. Houston gaped at Barbara. In spite of nearly three decades of family counseling, he had no idea what to say next.

"And Steve is right." Barbara added. "She deliberately went after him. She told me she's wanted to have sex with him since she was fourteen years old and she figured this was the time."

Steve stared at his wife. He'd had no idea Kimberly had had any such desire. He'd thought it a case of puppy love.

"She told me that yesterday," Barbara said in conclusion.

"Is she... is she... uh... ?" Steve said hesitantly.

Barbara nodded, understanding the unspoken question.

"She's in a treatment center up in Dallas," Barbara said. "She's going to get clean and a lot of psychiatric counseling to figure out why she is so... promiscuous... as well as getting her drug dependency taken care of."

Steve nodded. It made him feel a little better. His face brightened a little. He was getting some self-control back. That Barbara had come to the counseling session wasn't that much of a catastrophe. It didn't change the fact that he'd set up a way out of the mess he was in.

Verne Houston had been thinking furiously during the married couple's exchange. A crisis in the effort to get this couple back together had arrived unannounced and unanticipated. He wasn't prepared for this, but events weren't going to wait for him to dot all the "i's and cross all the "t's." He cleared his throat.

"Remember when we started meeting together?" he asked. "We agreed that either of you could say anything to the other that you needed to get out, right? This was to be a forum where either, or both, of you could say whatever you felt necessary." He let the silence continue for a moment while both of his clients nodded. Mr. Houston turned to Barbara.

"Mrs. Curtis," he said formally, "what do you have to say to your husband about the events that have transpired over the past week?"

Barbara looked speculatively at him, and then at Steve. She was quiet for a long moment. Then she let the dam on her emotions break wide open.

"How could you?" she cried. "How could you do that to me?"

Steve didn't bother to deny part of what he'd done had been directed at her. He had no interest in disguising his motives at all.

"Because you couldn't hear me when I said you did not understand the hurt and the empty feeling in my gut," he explained. "You kept saying you did, but you didn't," he said scornfully. "Anything you were feeling was damned trivial beside what I was having to deal with... but you kept at me. Every day it was the same thing. You, or your Mom, or your Dad... someone was always telling me I was overreacting, that it wasn't all that serious, that I was making too much of it.

"Well, now you do know," Steve said harshly. "Now you know how it feels to have someone so beautiful, wholesome, and so incredibly precious taken from you. Now you know what it's like to have an exquisitely wonderful image like that shattered, don't you, Barbara?"

He leaned back in his seat breathing hard. His fingers were dancing on the chair arm in agitation.

Mr. Houston and Barbara were silent. They looked at him, each with their own thoughts.

"You didn't have to have sex with her," Barbara said more calmly. "You could have just brought Dad the videos. That would have been enough." Steve nodded in agreement.

"You're absolutely right, I could have," he said. "But you needed to lose something more in all this, dear. I lost my wife, Kimberly lost her innocence, and now... for at least a couple of weekends... you lost your husband to your baby sister," Steve said bitterly. "Now we're all even," he told her. "Everybody's hurt and nobody's a winner."

Barbara stared at him. She didn't know Steve had been capable of saying such cruel things. A stray thought ran through her mind. She wondered if he had been capable of such harshness before he'd caught her with Rafe. She didn't like that thought.

"Besides," Steve continued unexpectedly, "the sex was the least part of the whole thing with your sister... I was just one more guy sticking a dick into her in a long line of guys doing the same thing and for me, it was just a way of getting out of all this."

Barbara looked at him questioningly, though she didn't ask him what he meant.

"Don't you get it, Barbara?" Steve said softly. "Did you watch all those videos?" he asked. Barbara's face instantly turned a bright pink.

"Only one," she said.

"You saw enough," Steve assured her. "You saw your little sister fucking all those guys in every way she could, right?"

Barbara nodded. She was embarrassed by the memory of the video and by Steve's language. She didn't want to extend the embarrassment by objecting to the words he chose to use.

"You saw her taking them all on, one at a time and in groups... and all the guys were doing it "bareback" the whole time, right?" Her face flushed even redder, Barbara nodded shortly.

"Do you think I wasn't doing the same thing? You know I hate the feel of condoms on me, right?"

Barbara nodded sharply. Steve waited but his wife said nothing.

"Don't you get it, Barbara?" he asked. "Kimberly had no clue about safe sex. She's probably got every sexually transmitted disease known to mankind... and she gave them all to me." He waited again.

"Barbara... Barbara," he said reprovingly, "you know my medical history... I'm violently allergic to penicillin and every drug that is a derivative of it. I seriously doubt the docs will be able to cure what I've got churning around inside my body now... and if she's HIV positive... if she gave me AIDS... there's no hope at all, is there?"

Barbara looked at her husband in horror. She had forgotten. She knew Steve had almost died as a baby when a shot of penicillin had been administered for a much less serious ailment.

"Why?" she whispered. "You didn't have to do that." Steve shrugged wearily.

"Because I was tired of hurting all the time, Barbara. Because you wouldn't let me be. I couldn't get away and let any healing start. You kept the pain front and center in my mind all the time."

"If it's any consolation, I'm not sure I feel that way anymore. I wish I hadn't had sex with Kim... I'm ashamed of having done it. But when the opportunity happened, I was so damned depressed I couldn't see a way out."

Steve sat up in the chair and glanced at the counselor. Mr. Houston was looking back at him with something of the same shock his wife was showing. Steve got up and walked slowly to the door. He turned back just before pulling the door shut.

"I told you a long time back, Mr. Houston. I told you I was having some ideas about suicide, didn't I? You know I did. You scribbled down some notes when I said it.

"Well, I don't know for sure if I've killed myself by having sex with my wife's sister, but at the time Kim was with me, I just didn't care," he said again.

"It's too late now, Barbara," he said, looking at his wife. "But for what it's worth, I'm sorry."

He closed the door gently, but firmly, and walked away.

Barbara caught up with him in the parking lot outside. Steve was surprised, but it was a small one beside the earlier one of Barbara's arrival.

"Steve! Wait!"

He turned around to see his wife walking quickly through the double doors that led from the ground floor to the parking lot. She had a look of determination on her face. She was also more than a little mad. She clutched at his arm when she came up to him.

"Are you through feeling sorry for yourself now?" Barbara demanded.

For a moment, Steve was tempted to throw her anger back at her. He was quiet while he got his temper under control. He gave his wife a half-smile.

"Yeah... I think I am," he said quietly.

He had been disturbed to find something of that within himself just this afternoon. He'd quashed the "poor me" feelings down to nothing, making himself face what he'd done in a fit of deep depression with Kimberly.

He was more than a little sorry he'd done it. He wished he hadn't exposed himself to all the STD's he expected Kim had, but there was nothing he could do about it at this late date.

Barbara's eyes flicked from one feature to another across his face, searching for some reassurance her husband was on an even keel. To hear that he had considered suicide... that he might have effectively done so... was enormously disconcerting. She didn't know what to do about it. She'd not considered it before hand and wasn't prepared to deal with it. She decided to just go ahead and do what she'd planned to do tonight anyway.

"Coffee!" she said emphatically, pointing at the Denny's across the street.

Steve looked at the brightly lit restaurant and shrugged his shoulders. He didn't have a problem with drinking a cup with his wife. In passing, though, he wondered if he could have done it with her three weeks ago. Clearing the air, so to speak, by having unprotected sex with Kim and then admitting... well, it might have been just what he needed... so to speak.

He was calm again, though the deep peace he'd felt before the session began was gone. He surprised himself. Somewhere along the line, a confidence in himself he'd thought he'd lost forever was beginning to reassert itself. He didn't mind dealing with Barbara.

"I want to come home," Barbara told him without any preliminaries.

They'd barely been seated at a booth in the corner. Steve was caught by surprise. It was becoming a trend.

"I don't think that's a good idea," he said finally. "Nothing's changed, Barbara."

"The hell it hasn't," Barbara retorted. "You've fucked my sister six ways from Sunday, Steve. That wipes out the piddling little hand jobs I gave Mr. Raphael and then some, Mister. Now's a real good time for us to reevaluate some things, don't you think?"

The waitress brought them two steaming cups of coffee. Steve smiled and thanked her. He took a moment to stir two teaspoons of sugar into the coffee. Finally, he couldn't think of a way he could stall any longer. He looked up at Barbara.

"It doesn't, you know," he said. "What I did doesn't wipe out anything you did. When I was with your sister, you'd already broken our wedding vows. So far as I'm concerned, the marriage was null and void as of the first minute of the first day you were alone with that asshole."

Barbara leaned closer across the table. She whispered but Steve had no problem understanding her.

"I have already apologized to you a thousand times for all of that," she said, tapping her fingernail on the hard plastic tabletop. "I've told you I understand how wrong I was so many times I can't count them, and I've admitted I was stupid and that I do not have any excuse for what I did.

"I can't be any sorrier than I am, Steve. I can't submerge myself any deeper in remorse, and I've done everything I can think of to get it through to you that I want to make it up to you by being the woman you want for the rest of our lives. That's all I can do, Steve! Can't you see that?" She paused. She saw the indecision on her husband's face.

"Damn you, Steve, we had some good years together," Barbara said angrily. "Are you so damned sure of yourself that you can throw it all away because of a few dumb shit things that make even me sick to my stomach? Can't you see I could never force myself to do them ever again?"

Steve rocked back in the hard bench seat looking intently at his wife. There was no deceit in her eyes... but he'd been fooled before. He started to speak, stopped before he began, cleared his throat with a low cough, and began again.

"No," he admitted, "I'm not sure of much of anything anymore except that I can't stand the thought of you sharing yourself with another man. I'm not just talking about the sex, Barbara, that was pretty... uh, strange and... uninteresting... I guess is the right word.

"I'm also talking about the evenings when you sat like a lump on the other end of the sofa looking off into space while you thought about Raphael or whoever. I'm talking about the kisses I didn't get, the little smiles, the touches... I'm talking about every tiny thing you did for another man when you could have been doing them with me."

Barbara's eyes glistened wetly. She bent low to retrieve her purse from the floor at her feet. She pulled out the tissue every woman has in her purse and dabbed at the corner of her eyes.

"I know," she said in a husky voice. "I was a fool. I loved sharing those kind of things with you and I miss them badly. But you've withdrawn yourself from me over the past few months. This time, it's been you who made it impossible for those little kisses... the smiles and touches. But I'm not interested in whether we're equal now, Steve. I just want to get those times back, Steve. All you've got to do is give me a chance."

Steve watched as she put the tissue away. She put her purse on the seat beside her this time.

"Oh... I don't know, Barbara. I--"

His wife cut him off.

"What've you got to lose?" Barbara asked quietly. Steve frowned at her, baffled and thrown off balance for the umpteenth time this evening. He swallowed some coffee. It was still too hot and he burned his tongue. Setting the cup down hurriedly made some spill on the table and he used a napkin to wipe it up.