Sometimes we do things we can not explain. We don't understand why we do it, but we act on an incredible urge. When we act on that urge, it sometimes becomes a big mistake, one we realize as soon as we satisfy our urge. I realized my mistake immediately. My husband had been working back-to-back thirty hour shifts at the hospital where we both work. He was never home, sacrificing my needs for those of his patients. It was storming quite badly when his best friend, Mark, rang our doorbell. I was lonely again, so I invited Mark in for a drink. As I shut the door, I knew it was a mistake.
My husband hadn't touched me but once in over a year, and there was Mark in my living room. I handed him a glass of Scotch and sat next to him on the suede couch. He gently placed his hand on my knee, and chills went up my spine. It had been so long, and my body felt cold and unloved, disregarded by my husband for the last year or so.
"Addison, are you okay?" Mark asked in his concerned, gentle voice.
"Oh, Mark," I said softly, my eyes filled with tears. "I don't think he loves me anymore."
"He loves you, Addie. He's just a workaholic. Hell, we're all workaholics."
"But if he asked me on a date, to spend one night with him, I would make time for him." I choked back the tears that threatened to spill from my eyes.
"Shh. Shh. It's okay," he soothed.
"No. No. It's not okay!" I cried, anger welling up inside me. "We've had sex one time in fourteen months! One time!"
"Addie. Addie, look at me," he took my face in his strong, plastic surgeon's hands.
"I had to beg him. Do you have any idea what it is like to beg your spouse to have sex with you? Do you have any idea how bad that hurts?" my voice shook as the tears spilled over.
"Baby, don't cry," he wrapped his arms around my shaking shoulders and pulled me into his chest.
"I think my marriage is over."
"So, I guess it doesn't matter if I do this," he said, putting his finger under my chin and pressing my lips to his.
Before I realized what was going on, I was in Mark's lap, straddling him, kissing him, releasing all my pent up hurt and anger. I knew it was a mistake, but I so longed for someone to hold me and look at me the way Mark did that night. I let his hands explore my body, happy to have someone want to touch me, happy to be in the arms of a man again.
"Addie, are you okay with this?" he asked, looking deep into my hazel eyes, his hands on my hips.
"I…uhh…I think so," I stammered. "Yes. Yes, I'm okay."
I took a deep breath as he slipped my lacy purple camisole over my head. My fingers stumbled over the buttons on his blue oxford. As I trembled, he pulled my black pants over my hips and left them in a puddle of clothing on the floor of the sitting room. He slipped his hand into my panties, and I shuddered. My head on his shoulder, I finally felt warm inside.
"What do you say we move this into the bedroom?" he asked as he stood with me in his arms.
"Yeah," I whispered into his ear.
As Mark carried me through the house, he unbuttoned his pants. He lay down on the bed with me underneath him. We were so overcome by passion that I failed to hear the garage door rise. I moaned with pleasure as he entered me, his tongue caressing my breasts. By the time I noticed the familiar footsteps of my husband in his usual returning home routine, it was too late.
It had been a long day, and I was not in the mood for one of Addison's tirades. I lost a patient on the table this morning, and had to perform three emergencies in addition to those already on the board. A car crash claimed the lives of a mother and daughter, leaving a father who had a heart attack at the wheel in critical condition. His seven year old daughter died on my table. The mother did not make it to the hospital. It never gets any easier to lose a patient, and I always wonder if it was my mistake that cost the life. Looking back, was there something I could have done differently?
I knew it was a mistake to go straight home after work. I did not want to have to put up with her in one of her moods. As I pulled into the driveway, I knew something was awry. My best friend's car was in the driveway. I knew it was a mistake to go into my house, but I went in anyway. Mark's jacket was on the back of a chair in the kitchen, his shoes beside the brown suede couch in the sitting room. My wife's clothes were lying in a puddle on the floor, next to Mark's shirt.
I walked down the hallway, following the noises coming from the bedroom I had shared with my wife for the last decade of my life. As I opened the door, the first thing I saw was the backside of my best friend, my wife's legs were in the air.
"What…Why…ADDISON!" I stood in the doorway, looking at my wife and my best friend in bed together.
"Derek! Derek, wait!" she cried after me as I stormed from the room.
"Put your clothes on, you little whore. Stupid little whore."
"Derek, I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. It…we…"
"Who else, Addison? Who else is there?"
"He…I only…"
"No. I don't care. Get dressed and start packing. I don't want to see either of you here when I get back." I grabbed my keys off the counter top in the kitchen.
"Derek, please listen to me. I've never done something like this before. I swear."
"Save it for someone who cares, Addison. I most certainly do not care. You look like a prostitute, and you're behaving like a child." I gestured in disgust to my half naked wife. "You smell like sex, you rotten, dirty, little whore. How can you live with yourself?"
I had never in my lifetime raised my hand to hit a woman, but when she opened her mouth to speak, I found myself raising my hand. When she reached out to take my hand, tears streaming from her beautiful eyes, I hit her. I hit my wife so hard she fell into the breakfast table. For a moment, I stood frozen in my place. The shock on her face made me feel horrible and angry at the same time.
"I'm sorry. Addison, I'm sorry," I apologized sincerely as she began to sob.
"Me too, Derek. I'm sorry too."
Even after I apologized, I couldn't get past the fear in her big green eyes. In the years that we were together, I saw many emotions in her eyes. Anger, at me for missing dinner or canceling a date. Sadness, whenever she lost a patient and again when her father died. Happiness, the shine in her eyes when I woke her in the middle of the night, after we had just gotten married, to tell her how much I love her. Anxiety, I'll never forget the look on her face when scrubbed in to separate conjoined twins for the first time. She had no idea that the surgery she pioneered would change the odds of conjoined twins surviving. The only time I can recall fear is the time her patient's husband pinned her to a wall. His dead wife had just been taken away, and I walked in as the man held a knife to Addison's throat. Her face had gone completely white, and her green eyes were wide with fear, bright with tears. I hit the code button on the wall and shoved Mr. Spier away from Addie. A team rushed in and surrounded him as I picked my trembling wife up from the floor. I had never seen Addison that scared before, or ever again, until now. The difference this time, though, is that I, the person who promised to love and take care of her, put the fear in her eyes. I stomped up the stairs and put my fist through the wall in my bathroom.
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