The Unowned Deceit

I’m not the best with words, not necessarily the spelling or grouping into a grammatical whole, but the pairing of them together into meaning. I have this sense of what holds in my heart, but then it comes out in an abbreviated awkwardness, the sounds coupled with sighs and stammerings, and I end up leaning into silence, a reluctance to own the sharing or the outcome. It is probably easier to say that I am the opposite of glib.

—

“I didn’t want to lose you,” that phrase keeps cycling through my head, a bunched heap of emotion.

She is my exception; I like talking with her. It comes out in a hurried, eager mess of earnestness, a need to impart some truth of what I know or what I’ve accumulated. I haven’t been defined completely by this small town, but I’m boxed in now, a prisoner to whisperings and rumors. I never suspected that the love triangle would morph into a square, a cage of my defining. 

When I close my eyes, I remember her laugh and how it washes over me like an autumn gust of wind, refreshing and resonating with promise. It is her smile that pins me in that centered state of being where I finally understand why I am here. I long to make it a realization.

The fundamental problem is that I have to tell her I am sorry. I’ve already told my wife and my mistress that I’m the worst human, basically rotten to the core, but I have to share this fact with Delia. I loathe myself for being the betrayer. Beauty recognized is love lost.

—

“I want to, but I’m scared,” the words choked in my throat, an admission of fear.

“Scared of what?” she asked, a disbelief in my timidity.

“Scared of falling for you,” the heavy sigh encompassed the entirety of my body.

It’s all tied to my persistent shortcomings. I can blame my devoted wife, Fran, but that would be too easy and heavy in insincerity. Thirty-eight years is a long time to watch the cracks in the foundation as they splinter into a fine mess. We married at eighteen years of age, still children ourselves, although we claimed rightful adulthood. Not having a place to live, we moved in with my eldest brother and his wife, an odd arrangement but one that worked until my plan came into vision. We built the envied life with my steady rise in the ranks of law enforcement while she pursued a legal career in the court system, our circle of acquaintances and friends narrowed and overlapped. From a position of lower middle class, we achieved more than my mind’s eye could have predicted. Ironically, I survey our material things with indifference. I’m hollowed out to the point of infinite misery. 

Fran is everything that you would want in a lifelong partner: loyal, steadfast, independent, attentive, and nurturing. For all those same reasons, I’ve come to avoid her over time, sidestepping her sheltered kindnesses. Concentrating on my career gave me purpose, and I lost contact with her during the work hours, those hours that with time, bled longer into the evening. Weekends were filled with chores and the kids’ activities, and our connection points blurred. She became the person I slept next to in our expansive bed, but I couldn’t tell you the complexities that comprise her thoughts, or anything she likes other than haranguing me.

In steps Delia with her allure and charm, a smile that blights out all my ills. I know I’ve mentioned her smile. It devours me. Working as the resource officer at the middle school, she made an entrance that stops a guy in motion. Her physical attributes leave me speechless. I crave seeing her shapely legs, ample bosom, and long, blonde hair that she tosses with ease. We would wave at each other in the car line, drop-off and pick-up. Leaning against the brick wall of the school, I let my mind race with indulgent thoughts, escaping into a series of fantasies unrealized. Until one day at the end of the school year, she sent me a message through social media, and the possibilities took form.

Delia is bold in pursuing what she wants, and she doesn’t hide intentions. When we agreed to the transgression, the rules to follow were clear and succinct, laid out solely by her with my fervent agreement. 

—

“One, we don’t fall in love. Two, we don’t tell anyone else - EVER,” and she gave me the knowing look. “Three, if one of us wants to end it, we say thank you and remain cordial. And four, we have fun and appreciate what the other offers,” it was followed by that supreme smile. Seemed like a simple plan, easy to maneuver, and I fell headfirst.

We stole away hours with text messages, emails, phone calls, and the occasional in-person chat at the school. Her aura was reminiscent of a siren’s song, drawing me in deeper with each revealed nuance. I longed to kiss her, to taste and feel and touch the essence of what drove her, to drown in her voice and the possibility of something different. I knew I was not the most handsome or gregarious, or smartest by any stretch, but with her, I was needed. The soul exists to be in that state of needful reciprocation.

The circumstances never aligned for physicality. There was no melding, simply sparks that bounced and ricocheted and left traces of that initial explosion.

—

“I know, I know, you are right,” I hid my cowardice behind chivalry.

For Delia, I created innumerable obstacles; I was busy with work and after school events, or I followed up with the premise that the town was watchful, and there were too few places to meet unnoticed. There was a litany of excuses that piled up between us. She continued with the adulation that floated me along, highlighting all the positive traits that I wanted to believe myself capable of, although I had to defer when she called me sexy. That was her title alone. She makes me feel alive, even in the depths of my self-doubt. I adore her for the effort.

The sensuality never smoldered, but I lost faith in my abilities as a fifty-five-year-old to satisfy her needs. Granted, she was a mere five years younger, but her spirit and firm body were ageless. What if she proved to be disappointed in my advances? What if the physical intimacy fell short, and she was forced to see the glaring faults of my manhood? The illusion would come crashing down in a bittersweet awareness, a conscious epiphany, no, an effectuation that I am a sham. And I cowered until the perfect scheme came by way of Sandy. Yes, you guessed it, the mistress.

Sandy is young and forlorn, an easy combination to manipulate. The idea didn’t take hold immediately, not until I realized that her eye wandered when I walked by her office. She would portray a nervousness in her giggle, letting her hair fall in front of her face to shield away the insecurities. I was coy in approach, waiting for her to seek me out, and it happened just as I predicted. At first, I thought I’d see how far I could take it, an innocent game.

With her being the school nurse, she had as much free time as I did during the day. We would stroll to one another’s offices, lingering in the doorway, a casual flirting. She confided that her husband was a louse, a doctor, but still a louse. My better judgment abandoned, I listened to her tales of heartache and disappointment. I tried to build her back up with jokes and laughter. Inadvertently, I forged a connection with her, grounded in my desires for something youthful, a recapturing of something far beyond my grasp. 

Sandy kissed me one morning, expected in its unexpectedness. I had stopped by her office tucked at the end of the administrative corridor. I saw her coming toward me with intent, and I could have avoided the entanglement. I sensed that the passion had brimmed over into action, and I let her invade that sacred space, the longing I had reserved for Delia.

—

“Do you think of me when you’re making love to your wife?” Delia’s voice inquired over the phone with all its sultry depth.

Without hesitation, the answer hung between us, “Yes.”

Sandy could be my trial run to see if I could perform, live up to some ideal. If I could fulfill this encounter, then perhaps, I could lose myself with Delia, without remorse, regret, or angst. I never thought I’d betray my own set of ethics, those heavily influenced by my faith. I didn’t know I was capable of harming my family or destroying my livelihood. I mapped out the consequences, but they were always surreal like the morning fog that holds unnaturally in mid-air.

I didn’t count on Sandy being reckless with our communications or being led by her youthful inhibitions. I was stunned when they called me into the principal’s office, the vice principal and the chief officer ever present for my hanging, the quick demise of my reputation. Sandy’s husband had become privy to the philandering and had made it known to everyone who would hold me accountable, everyone except Delia.

I’m sitting here with my career bulldozed, unemployed, having to face Fran’s emotional rage. She hates me, even though she’s grasping and clinging. Sandy is this representation of what? I can’t devise it into an explanation, nothing proper or reasonable. She was the catalyst to this point in time, nothing more and nothing less. Delia thinks it was her, that we were found out, and I let her run with that story because the details will shatter whatever outline of me that she is protecting. I don’t want to own the betrayal, my self-inflicted loss. I can’t stand the image that peers back from the mirror. What a wretched waste of brilliance. I am emptied without the possibility of being refilled, the darkest soul.

Staring at her recent text message, I know I must call Delia, an attempt at making things right, to ask for a chance at forgiveness.

—

“Steve, is that you?” I can hear the pang of hurt, a quiet desperation to her voice, “I was at dinner with friends and they were talking about this scandalous thing and how you were fired,” and she stops mid-sentence, collecting her thoughts amidst the quiet tears, “for, for the affair with Sandy…why didn’t you tell me?”

There’s the question that has bruised every recess of my brain, knotted up my stomach, and caused me to entertain the most nefarious of thoughts. I rue the fact that I can’t formulate a phrase or an utterance that will ease her pain. For whatever comes next, the words spill out, a caustic shattering of the past, a shielded hopefulness that we will endure past this moment.

“I didn’t want to lose you…”