Chapter 2

"He's just staying married until the kids are old enough to handle a divorce," Tabby insisted. They'd had this discussion before. "I would have never gotten involved with him if he were happily married. You know that, don't you?"

"Yes," he said. "I know you wouldn't try to break up someone's marriage, of course, but..."

"He and his wife don't even sleep in the same bedroom anymore. They haven't for almost two years now. They haven't had sex for almost three years. She's a total bitch, always demeaning him in front of other people, always trying to turn the kids against him, always spending all of his money. He said he thinks she might actually be cheating on him."

"Cheating on him?" Scott asked. "That's outrageous."

"Isn't it though?" she replied, completely missing his gentle sarcasm. "I can't wait until he finally leaves that bitch."

"Has it ever occurred to you, Tabby," Scott said softly, "that maybe his wife isn't the bitch he makes her out to be?"

She looked up at him, suspicion in her eyes. "What do you mean?" she asked. "Of course she's a bitch. Why else would he be... you know... planning to leave her?"

Scott took a deep breath. Was she really this dumb, he wondered, or was she just pretending to be in order to assuage her own conscience? Surely, on some subconscious level at the very least, she had to suspect that her good doctor was really nothing more than a lecherous cheater trying to maintain an affair with a hot blonde, didn't she?

"Let's start with this," Scott said. "How do you know his wife is a bitch?"

"Because he's told me hundreds of stories about how much of a bitch she is," Tabby replied.

"Have you ever heard that she was a bitch from anyone else?" he asked. "The other people who work in your office, for instance? The other doctors that hang out with him?"

"No," she said, "that's because he pretends like he's happy in front of all of them. They all think she's this nice, proper doctor's wife who takes care of their home and works with all these charities and the PTA and cooks dinner for him every night. I'm the only one he tells the real story to."

"I see," Scott said. "And has it ever occurred to you that maybe you're the one being lied to, Tabby? That maybe she really is a nice, proper doctor's wife?"

Her brow furrowed and she glared at him. "Lied to me? That doesn't make sense. Why would he tell me she's a bitch if she's not?"

Scott shook his head in frustration. "Never mind, Tabby," he said. "Forget I said anything."

"No, tell me what you're thinking," she said. "If you know something I want to know."

"I don't know anything," he said. "I'm just speculating, just trying to get you to think a little. It seems obvious that you don't want to though, so why don't we just drop it?"

"Tell me," she insisted.

"You're just going to get mad at me and not believe what I have to say. Let's drop it and talk about something else until it's time to put the presents together."

They sat in silence for a few minutes, both staring at the fire again. Finally Tabby said softly, "You think he's just using me?"

"I know he's just using you, Tabby," Scott said. "And I think you know it too, you just don't want to admit it to yourself."

"But he told me he loves me," she said. "He told me that we would be married as soon as his divorce is final."

"The divorce he's been talking about for the past year but that he's never filed for?" Scott asked.

Her eyes widened a little. "You really think he's lying?" she asked.

"Look, Tabby," Scott said, "I'm a man and I know how men think, how men are. We're assholes, most of us, capable of doing and saying anything in order to get sex from someone. I don't think most women realize the depth of the conceit men can pull off in the name of getting their rocks off. I don't think most women realize that happily married men cheat on their wives all the time."

"Happily married men?" she asked. "If they're happy, why would they cheat?"

"This is a foreign concept for some women," Scott said. "Men cheat just because we like having sex with as many women as we can get away with. We all have this urge. The scrupulous among us suppress it when we're in a committed relationship but it never goes away. The unscrupulous among us simply pursue the urge to varying degrees even if married. Some men only have short flings while out of town or something like that. Others, like your good doctor, will actually pursue long-term relationships with another woman. This is where the lies come in."

Her face was expressionless as she stared at him. "Go on," she said.

"Are you sure you want me to?"

She nodded. "Yes. Please do."

"Okay," he said. "Men like to joke about how they don't know how women think, but that's another lie. We may not know everything about what motivates you and some men really are clueless, as I'm sure you've encountered in your life, but when it comes to women's attitudes about sex and relationships, we know much more than we generally let on."

She obviously wasn't buying this concept. "Oh really?" she said, her voice tinged with the slightest hint of anger.

"Really," he confirmed. "We know, for instance, that most single women would never dream of sleeping with a happily married man. Am I wrong?"

"Well... no," she said. "Then you would be a homewrecker. No one wants to do that."

"Not consciously anyway. And since the sorts of happily married men who like to cheat tend to know this, they a use a pretty standardized set of lies and half-truths in order to convince their prey — that would be you, Tabby — to submit to their desires. Women like you have to believe that the man they are considering sleeping with is in a troubled marriage, that the wife is a bitch, that he's unhappy. It's sets this whole game in motion, the game of putting off the woman in question as long as possible while continuing to reap the rewards of the relationship — said rewards being extramarital sex."

"So you're saying that I mean nothing to him other than sex?" she asked.

"It's not necessarily that black and white," Scott said. "I'm sure he's fond of you and has some genuine feelings of affection for you — after all, you are a sweetheart — but sex is the basis of his connection with you and it will probably never be anything else."

She shook her head as if trying to ward off the unpleasant thoughts he was planting in there. "I can't accept that," she said. "I'm more to him than just some blonde bimbo he gets to tear a piece off of."

"What is it that the two of you do whenever you manage to get together?" Scott asked.

She cast her eyes downward. "We have sex," she said.

"Does he ever come over just to hang out with you and watch a movie?"

"No," she said.

"Does he ever take you to the movies? Does he ever take you out to dinner? Does he ever take you to the art museum or the theater?"

"No," she said. "He doesn't."

"And what did he get you for a Christmas present?"

"Lingerie," she said blankly, still refusing to take her eyes off the carpet in front of her.

"And what is lingerie generally associated with?"

"Sex," she said, a tear slipping from her eye and dropping to the floor.

Scott scooted a little closer to her and put his arm around her shoulder. He pulled her against him. She stiffened at first but finally allowed herself to merge with his body. "I'm sorry, Tabby," he said. "I didn't mean to upset you. I was just trying to get you to face a few facts about your Dr. Wonderful. I could be wrong about him, but I don't think I am. And I'm tired of seeing you hurt all the time."

She started crying in earnest now, burying her face in his shoulder. She sobbed and bawled for the better part of ten minutes before she finally lifted her face free.

"I feel like such an idiot," she said. "He has been using me, hasn't he?"

Scott nodded, brushing a smear of mascara away from her cheek. "It seems he's one of the experts."

"Yeah," she said bitterly. "It would seem so."

They sat like that for a while, not talking, both lost in their own thoughts. Scott enjoyed the feeling of her soft body cuddled against his but he was more elated with the fact that it seemed he had actually gotten through to her. She had actually acknowledged that Dr. Williams was using her for her body, that he was, in all likelihood, feeding her a bunch of bullshit day in and day out. Could it be that she would finally dump his ass? Could it be that she would finally free herself and that maybe, just maybe, he, Scott, the man who had pined after her ever since that first day she'd introduced herself to him as he was moving his boxes into the duplex, would actually get a shot? Would she finally see the good thing that had been sitting under her nose all this time?