Love Triangle: Three Sides to the Story Page 3

  When will the cycle of infidelity end?

  My family called constantly to encourage me. My father called, then my mother and, of course, my two sisters. Also my brother and his wife and Aunt Sylvie, whose main advice was to turn a blind eye since all men cheated on their wives or girlfriends at some point in their lives.

  I had to ask my disillusioned aunt if all women should then anticipate infidelity in their relationships. Didn’t fidelity fulfil the need for security in any relationship?

  I get angry when people like my aunt tell me it’s the nature of men to cheat.

  There are men who stay faithful to their wives, why not mine?

  I thought that both of us having a relationship with God would have spared me this pain.

  Why could George not control himself? It’s not as if we were quarrelling regularly or having sexual problems.

  I was stumped.

  After my two weeks of exile from all activities, except for my mind which was working feverishly night and day, I had lost a lot of weight. George kept tiptoeing around me as if he expected me to explode. The truth is, I was so disillusioned and disheartened that the emotions left in me were not enough for an explosion.

  When I tuck my baby girls in their beds at night, I look at them and wonder how they would do without their father around, if I decided that I could not stay with him any longer. Gabrielle, at seven, and Rachel, at five, were not ready for that upheaval. How could George not think about his family and their lives for a whole year, while he cavorted with that slut called Karen? What a sad excuse for a man.

  Whoever started the dog comparisons to men were not far off the mark.

  I sometimes thought of Karen. Well, not exactly. I thought of Karen all the time.

  I wondered what kind of person she was. How did she feel when she laid in my husband’s arms?

  Did she understand the pain that her involvement with him would cause his family when they found out, or did she operate in an unrealistic vacuum?

  “Have you fired Karen yet?” I asked George, when he came home from work one afternoon. The question had been nagging me for days.

  “Yes, I have,” he said, turning his face away.

  I started laughing, a crazy, maniacal laugh that had him swinging his head around.

  “I don’t believe you,” I said in my best sarcastic tone. “Why?” I continued before he could speak, “because you have taken the most beautiful memories of my life and turned them to ashes. I don’t believe a word you say. I don’t trust you, George. We need counselling if our family is to survive this trauma. I know that it will take me years to get over this, or probably never, but we have our children to think about and I would not want to disrupt their lives at this point in time.”

  George agreed readily. “Anything you say, Marie,” he said contritely.

  CHAPTER SIX

  George

  ‘I don’t trust you George’ kept ringing in my ears as I drove to work the following morning. For the first time in a year I found myself asking seriously, without the cloud of lust blinding me, what have I done?

  Everything was fine until a year ago when Karen Paisley walked into my office for a job interview. It wasn’t her looks that drew me in, or even her style, though she had lots of that. It was her personality; a general aura about her that told me this was no ordinary girl.

  I kept telling myself about Joseph in the Bible and how he ran away from Potiphar’s wife when she tried to seduce him. This girl was seducing me, and she did not even know it.

  I even spoke to my pastor hypothetically about the situation. My haphazard way of resisting temptation didn’t work. I prayed about it, but lusted after Karen.

  Her walk … her smile … her voice.

  Poor Marie had no idea that I was seriously attracted to another woman. It is unbelievably easy to have an extramarital affair, especially when you have a trusting, oblivious wife like Marie.

  Karen took the taxi to work, and I would see her in the mornings and give her a lift. It was not remarked upon at work, as I frequently gave lifts to employees I saw along the way to work.

  At first, I did not know that Karen was also attracted to me, but after weeks of wondering, I saw that she was welcoming my little clumsy attempts at romance. She did not remove my hand when it lingered a bit too long on her legs. She was responsive to my little verbal overtures.

  When I kissed her on my birthday I could not help it. I did not want to. All the talks of fidelity and trust flew out the window.

  After that kiss I felt like my conscience took a hike. Everybody did it, I told myself. In the church … out of the church. There were even some cultures where some men had two wives or as much as they could afford.

  I appeased myself with this reasoning. My own father cheated on my mother for years, and she never knew a thing.

  Being with Karen was exciting but forbidden at first. I found myself meeting her after work in the apartment that she shared with her girlfriend and just savouring those stolen moments.

  She was so new, so different from Marie. Her body texture, angles and plains. I did not think of Marie in those moments. It was as if I was a different man. I was no confident husband with Karen. I was just ardent lover, savouring the hedonistic pleasures of her body and lapping up all she had to give.

  I must admit that picking up Marie after leaving Karen gave me a guilty jolt. The guilt was always the worst when in bed with my wife. I can’t shake the feeling that I am living a lie.

  Cheating while in a committed relationship, I have discovered takes a lot of work and planning. It is incredibly stressful having to live in fear of my wife discovering my dirty little secret. But like an addict, I kept going back to Karen for more. And when prompted by her, I’d tell her that I love her.

  But the truth is, I love my wife. I can’t imagine life without her. Karen, on the other hand, was like a bright, new, undiscovered territory that my mind and body would not allow me to leave alone. I just had to have her.

  And when I did get her, I had to reassure her that I loved her in order to keep her. I even had to appease her a bit in her guilty, soul-searching moments by telling her that I was going to leave Marie.

  It was too late in the relationship with Karen when I realised that the novelty of being with her had worn off. She started to get possessive and her demands that I leave my wife became frequent. She wanted me to spend more time with her and started calling me late at night.

  Every female I spoke to was suspect. I was undergoing worse interrogations from my mistress, than from my wife. Karen wanted to meet my family. As if I would ever allow her anywhere near my family.

  Everyone, with the exception of my mother, loved Marie. For whatever the reason, Marie never told me, the two of them were in a cold war. So, I thought it would be safe to bring Karen to my mother’s house. I never anticipated how happy Karen would be at the prospect. She chatted about it until I thought I was going to explode.

  I still found Karen attractive and sweet, but she was acting like a wife, and I already had one. The star-struck days, when I thought with my lower anatomy, were wearing off fast. I found myself looking at Karen and wondering if she was worth the stress.

  She always looked so happy and carefree, enjoying the places I took her to and gushing over the gifts.

  I almost told Marie about the affair. Sometimes I found her looking at me strangely, and I knew that she was on to something. I would give her some explanations that sounded way out, even to me, and she would listen in silence, nodding her head, not saying a word. I wanted to shout at her and tell her that whatever she was thinking is not true.

  My mother was the last person that I expected to add to my guilt. She would call and say, “George, you are a good man but you have become a lousy husband.” She would not come out and say anything, but I knew that she knew, and I didn’t push the subject when she brought it up.

  A church sister of mine, who also worked at the bank, one day said to me, “George, p
lease read Hebrews 13:4.”

  Understandably, I was not in the mood to read the Bible or pray. What was I to say to God? Forgive me for my sins, knowing that tomorrow I would be in Karen’s apartment, ready and eager to slake my lust?

  I read it anyway, and I was sorry I did. The verse kept ringing in my ears: ‘Marriage should be honoured by all and the marriage bed kept pure, for God will judge the adulterer and all the sexually immoral.’

  To make matters worst, my wife started crying out of the blue—I was swamped from all corners. I told Karen that I had family business to attend to.

  I avoided her at work. I could not face the hurt expression on her face and then go home and experience the bewildered look on my wife’s face.

  I knew that Marie knew the truth from the moment she actually did. She started to withdraw from me. I felt like an integral part of my life was coming to an end, and I could not allow that to happen.

  I had to keep my wife.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  That fateful night when Marie confronted me with my indiscretion and I helplessly confessed, I wished that I had never met Karen. I wished that things could just go back to the way they were, but for one full year I was dishonest and I could not just wipe that out.

  Of course, I tried to fire Karen, but she would not listen to reason.

  “Karen, I am not able to have a relationship with you anymore, I’m sorry but my wife has found out about us, so the best thing for you to do is to leave. I’ll write a recommendation letter for you.”

  She stared at me as if I was mad. “Are you crazy?” she was yelling at the top of her voice in my office.

  Fortunately, it was after work and we were alone in the building.

  “You told me you were going to leave her, George.” Tears welled up in her eyes and she sat in the chair opposite mine, her pale skin was suffused with red and she was struggling hard to look dignified.

  “I … I … don’t know what to say, you introduced me to your mother, you told me things that you never told anyone else.” She looked up at me, tears streaming down her face. “You said that I was the best thing that ever happened to you.”

  I sighed. This obviously was not going to be easy. I told the girl things that she cherished and thought were true.

  “Karen, I never for one moment hid the fact that my wife and I had no problems, I love her and I can’t just leave her, she’s the mother of my children.”

  Her lower lips began to tremble and she was twisting a kerchief that she had in her hands. “George … please … please don’t leave me. I can bear losing my job, I can even bear losing some of my friends, but I love you. I have just invested one year of my life, how can you just ask me to give that up and walk away?”

  She got up and came to my side of the desk and gripped my hands. I could smell her perfume. It was the scent that I bought her for her birthday. I could see the tears, glistening on her eyelids.

  She stood their looking vulnerable, but I was unmoved.

  Utterly and totally unmoved.

  I just wanted her out of my life, so that I could start afresh with my wife.

  “Okay Karen, don’t cry,” I said standing up and hugging her. I seemed to be telling both my wife and my girlfriend that lately.

  I seemed to be hurting everyone, including myself.

  “I’ll still call,” I lied, giving her my earnest expression.

  “Why should I believe you?” said Karen bitterly, “you have been lying to me and your wife. As soon as I leave there will be another one: probably a Roxanne or a Suzanne. You’ll tell them the same things you told me, and when you get tired of them you'll use Marie’s finding out as a scapegoat.”

  “No, never,” I said, knowing this to be true, “I will never cheat on Marie again.”

  “Oh,” said Karen defeated. “I sold my body for expensive gifts and a sweet-talking married man. The ironic thing about this is that everyone warned me, my parents, my sisters, my friends, but I thought you were different.”

  She grabbed her bag from the chair and stalked to the door, then she spun around, her curly hair flying in all directions. She looked so beautiful and hurt standing there.

  “Thank you, George, for telling me goodbye, for not making excuses to fire me. By the way in another seven months or so I will be having your baby.”

  She gave me another sickly smile then left.

  I stood there, my mouth opened in shock. She was pregnant! Oh no!

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Karen

  “You should be thankful that you got that job before you started showing,” Shauna said from the settee as I stood at the window and gazed at nothing.

  “I know. I am most grateful.”

  “Stop pining over him. He’s not worth it,” Shauna said softly.

  “I know, I know,” I glanced at her still in her nurse’s uniform. She came home so tired that all she could manage was to kick off her shoes and to drop in the settee.

  “When last did you seen him?” she asked casually.

  “Will the answer be faithfully retold to my mother?” I asked bitingly.

  “Oh no, I have not reported anything in weeks,” Shauna said, no ounce of regret apparent in her voice for telling my mother my secrets in the first place.

  “Yesterday.”

  “Yesterday … you looked at his picture?”

  “No, I saw him yesterday. He came here to see how I was doing.”

  “You are still seeing the man, after all the two-timer did to you, not to mention his poor wife?”

  “No, I am not still seeing him, he came by to find out how I was doing and if I had an abortion.”

  “How noble,” Shauna rolled her eyes heavenward.

  “He said he would support his child,” I whispered. “I just wish he would be here for me.”

  Shauna leaped from the chair and grabbed her shoes. “You are mad,” she declared, “and I don’t know how you can be helped. I am going to sleep. Tomorrow is my big ring-shopping day with Boyd. I never imagined that I would be the one getting married first.” She looked at me with sorrow and went into her room.

  I stared mutinously into the gathering dusk. I was not going to get depressed or suicidal; I needed to stay strong for the sake of my child. I covered my tummy and felt a surge of love grip my heart. I was going to love this child despite the circumstances. I still loved his father and after an ultrasound yesterday, I knew it was a boy. I am going to call him George Junior.

  The months ahead seem so bleak. I sometimes catch myself wondering about George and his relationship with Marie. I hoped against hope that she would leave him and he would come back to me confessing that I was the one he really loved. My fantasies got more and more lurid until sometimes I found that I was not concentrating on my junior accounting job—the figures would just run together.

  I was angry with George at first. I really thought that we had a future together, but then I realised, after much bellowing on my mother’s part, that there were no guarantees with somebody who was already committed. But after four months of neither seeing nor hearing from George, his presence on my doorstep was a welcome intrusion.

  His warm brown eyes stared at me solemnly and then at my slightly protruding stomach and then he whispered, “I am so sorry.”

  I wanted to just fall into his strong arms and never resurface. The visit was short and unfulfilling. He declined my offers of food.

  “When are you coming back to see me?” I had asked him, hope shining from my eyes.

  “I’ll call you before I come.” He squeezed my hand.

  “I am having your baby, George. Can’t you just leave her and come and live with us.”

  “No, its not that simple, Karen. I love my wife and children. This thing we had between us was madness. I’ve got to go.”

  He left in a hurry.

  CHAPTER NINE

  George

  He watched as his assistant’s lips moved up and down as he mentally exited the conversation. He was
in some deep waters. His life was going downhill. All the facts and figures and the bank’s profitability were like nothing to him right now. His wife was slowly falling to pieces and Karen was pregnant.

  He still could not find the right time or moment to tell Marie the latest development. The truth was, he was afraid that once he told her it would be the end. She was already silently looking for a reason to leave him. He could not remember a moment in his life when he felt so uncomfortable and scared.

  It was useless to wish that Karen was not pregnant because she indeed was, and an abortion was out of the question for him. In the earlier days, he was hoping that she would do it and relieve him of this added problem so that he could get on with his life. But after seeing her again, he was happy that she had not done it. He would have to face the hot water somehow.

  After seeing Karen again, with her warm inviting eyes and the unspoken plea for him to stay with her, he realised that she no longer appeal to him. She was going to be the mother of his child and as such they will be tied together for life. And his wife, well, she would probably hate him for life. That he could not face.

  He remembered the first time he saw Marie. He had been doing his first stint as a lecturer with a freshman English class. She came in, breathless and late.

  “Coming from work, sorry to be late,” she said and plunked down onto a seat beside a young man who was holding a chair for her in the over-packed class.

  Her intelligent, brown eyes would follow him around the class as he spoke about composition and diction, and he would convince himself that he was not falling in love with a young woman seven years his junior, and to top it off she was a student in his class.

  The day came when he asked the class to write an exit essay on something they felt passionately about. Her essay was about a mystery man in her life, she used adjectives like longing and wanting to be closer to this man, and he was jealous out of his wits. The essay was excellently written but he could not bring himself to give more than a B—he was not pleased with the subject matter.