Chapter 17

For all of the success that the Gang was having with the young people, things had not gone as well with Dan. Actually, Dan had undergone some important changes. It was his marriage that refused to be transformed.

The pile of money being spent on therapy was not completely wasted. After the first session with both of them and the counsellor, the counsellor had decided to work with just Arlene. She had come to the place where she understood and admitted that she was way outside the norm where intercourse was concerned. She was beginning to understand exactly what she had done to Dan all those years.

There were two significant results from her increased understanding. First of all, it drove her into a serious depression. She did not want to be a bad wife. The fact that she had been cruel to Dan was almost more than she could bear. She was medicated almost all the time.

The second result was a violent split with her mother, Naomi. Arlene laid the blame for the disaster of her life completely on her mother. That meant two generations on constant medication for depression. As the animosity with her mother grew, Arlene lost her closeness to her sister, as well. Her sister's husband had apparently given in and accepted the same sexless life that Dan was now rejecting. The sister, Maureen, could not understand the rift between Arlene and Naomi.

Understanding, remorse, anguish, depression; none of those things were enough to bring about resolution of the core problem. Arlene could barely tolerate intercourse and that had not changed.

Her refusal to consider the only really hopeful treatment gave some insight into the roots of her aversion. She flatly refused to consider a course of hypno-therapy. Apparently, surrendering control of her feelings and emotions was something she just could not do.

The relationship between Sarah and Arlene was as messed up as everything else about the family. Basically, Arlene was happy that Sarah was at Julie's. Over the first three weeks since the blow-up, she never even called Julie.

Rebecca, now acting as Dan's counsellor despite her ethical concerns, postulated some reasons for Arlene distancing herself from her daughter. The first was guilt. She had treated Sarah as badly as she had Dan and now seemed to be realizing and/or admitting that.

Equally important, though, was that Sarah was the one who brought the ugly secret to light. Somewhere in her mind, Arlene must have always known what she was and what she was doing to Sarah and Dan. However, as long as no one talked about it, admitted it, it was not really there. Sarah's blast on the scheduled morning of the vacation trip destroyed all of the cover-up and pretense.

Another possible factor was jealousy. Arlene felt that Sarah now owned Dan's heart, rather than her, his wife.

Probably the biggest factor of all, though, was the one that was emerging as a key factor in Arlene's life - control. Her need to control herself and her environment was extreme. She was not mean, abusive, or dominant about it, and in fact it was connected to some of her more desirable attributes. It did, however, affect everything that she did.

All mothers want to control their children. In infancy, it is essential that they do so, but infancy does not last forever. The struggle of children to free themselves from their parents', usually their mothers', control is universal. The skill and sensitivity with which mothers cede that control as the child matures has much to do with the quality of the life-long relationship.

Arlene's unwillingness to yield even reasonable control to Sarah had probably ruined any chance for a close relationship as adults. Sarah had already declared, in an angry outburst, that when she was eighteen she would be living with Dan.

A strong control drive often manifests itself as obsessive-compulsive tendencies. Housekeeping, personal grooming, household finances; Arlene did all of those things marvelously well, and without seeming obsessive, either. In her mind, she had also done a wonderful job of mothering Sarah. Suddenly, she no longer had control, meaning to her that she was failing her mothering responsibility. It was better if she did not have to face the failure, so having Sarah live at Julie's was a good solution.

In a whole family of victims, Dan was not spared. He was a man who believed in his wedding vows. It bothered him greatly that he felt his great love for Arlene eroding. Her anguished question about why he had let things go this long haunted him. Julie, Carole, and Naomi had asked the same thing, and he knew he was wrong not to have terminated the marriage immediately after the wedding.

But without the marriage, there would be no Sarah, and Dan loved his daughter deeply. Like many fathers, he was frightened by the intensity of that love and the sexual undertones, but he knew he would never do anything wrong with her.

Having not filed for divorce yet, Dan was reconciled to the fact that it would be quite a while. He hated the thought of 'piling on' when Arlene was in such a distraught state. A big part of him wanted to see her pain stop, even to the point of just forgetting about divorce. Rationally, though, he knew that the marriage could not be put back the way it was.

The Gang talked endlessly about Dan's situation. With all of the good things they had seen happen with the people close to them, including Sarah's 'liberation', the one stubborn failure bothered them all. They had to constantly encourage Julie not to let herself go because of her family's turmoil.

Claire, of course, had a number of pithy comments to make about Arlene. "Why can't we just grab the bitch, tie her up, and make her come for twelve hours straight? That would fix her frigidity."

"And if it didn't, we might not even all get to be in the same cell block," Carole snorted.

"There is that," Claire admitted. "But she's got a great man and the perfect way to control him. Why can't she figure that out? She seems hell-bent to keep control of everything else."

Julie gasped at Claire's comment and the others noticed. "Control is the key, isn't it?" Nancy asked. "Why hasn't her shrink pointed out that her pussy is the perfect control device."

"I don't know if Dan would be any better off getting sex because she wanted to control him," Julie objected.

"Come on, Girl!" Claire rebutted. "We all do that to our men. It doesn't mean we don't love them, and it feels damn good to us, too. It's just the way we're wired. Thank God not as extremely as your daughter-in-law, though."

"It's as sad as the rest of the mess," Phyllis pointed out. "We may know the one idea that could turn Arlene around, but there is no way to get it across to her."

To Julie's complete shock, she did have a way to get her idea across to Arlene. One day about three weeks into Sarah's stay, Julie answered her door at 9:30 in the morning to find Arlene standing there. Her normally fastidious daughter-in-law looked frazzled and unkempt and was unable to look Julie in the eye. Fortunately, Sarah was out getting a driving lesson from Carole.

The two women stood motionless and silent for many seconds, Julie staring at Arlene and Arlene staring at the ground. Finally, Julie shook her head a little, stood back, and motioned Arlene in. "Pardon me for being impolite, Arlene. Frankly, I was so astonished to see you here that I was frozen for a moment."

After some strained social niceties, they were seated and Julie asked "Why are you here, Arlene?"

"I'm begging you to tell Dan not to leave me," Arlene managed to say.

"Why don't you want him to leave you, Arlene?" Julie had had little time to plan out the encounter, but she decided to be straightforward, blunt, even brutal if she had to be.

"What?" Arlene reacted in shock at the question. "How can you ask that? Why would I want him to leave?"

"You're not happy with him as a husband," Julie said sharply. "You must not love him?"

"WHAT? JULIE? How can you say that?"

"When you love someone, you put their happiness and their needs ahead of your own. You have not done that with Dan."

"But I have! I always have! I ... oh. You're talking about sex, I suppose." Arlene seemed to shrink into herself with that realization. Then, she said "I just don't like intercourse. There's nothing I can do about that."

"Then, if you truly loved Dan, you would let him go. He wants and needs sex, and it his reasonable expectation as a husband."

"But he's my husband! I do love him! I can't let him go!"

"I think you love having him more than you love him," Julie challenged.

Arlene did the drowning fish thing, shocked by Julie's charge, but uncomfortable at the feeling that Julie was looking inside her. In her depressed condition, it was even easier than usual for Arlene to respond with tears to any stressful situation. Julie had certainly stressed her. This was not what she expected when she came to see her mother-in-law. Her rather addled mind told her that she should just leave, but something held her in her chair.

"Arlene, is intercourse painful for you?" Julie asked after waiting for Arlene to speak. All she got in answer was silence and an increased flow of tears. "Unless you have some kind of deformity or Dan tries to enter you without lubrication, there is no reason for any pain. Do you have either of those problems? I know that Dan is not exceptionally large."

"Julie! How can you ask those things? I can't talk..."

"Oh, stop it, Arlene! You're not a prude. You just use that to justify denying sex to Dan. Your real problem is that during intercourse, you feel like you lose control. You especially fear having an orgasm because then you are totally out of control of your body, and you cannot stand that."

Arlene's amazement and chagrin increased and she could not respond.

"Control is everything to you Arlene, isn't it. When you lost your total control over Sarah, you were willing to be rid of her, to have her stay with me and just ignore her. Your fear of losing Dan is not because you will miss his presence, but because you will miss having control over him."

"Nooooo! That's not true! You can't say that!" Arlene wailed.

"Oh, yes I can. You came to me for help keeping Dan. The way to keep him is to fuck his brains out because you want to. If you can't do that, Arlene, you don't love Dan, and he is better off without you."

Before the sobbing wife could say anything else, Julie poured it on again. "You know what's sad, Arlene? You have between your legs the ultimate control device over a man. Women since the beginning of time have been controlling men with their pussies.