Chapter 5 - Casablanca

When Bender arrived at the apartment at 7pm sharp the day after, Leela's secret love affair with the builder and all her plans for tonight were explained to the robot in detail. Although Bender was initially upset at having his evening disturbed by Fry's insistence, he was happy to escort his best friend to the Casablanca for the gossip, as he had to see it to believe it!

As Fry and Bender slyly sneaked off together to the Casablanca, the unsuspecting wife dolled herself up like an American Beauty... exactly how she had done so on her previous missed big night out. As far as she knew, everything was going smoothly this time: Fry had gone to the casino with Bender, the landlady was baby-sitting for Alison, and her dream lover had arrived at eight on the dot, to drive her to her big night out.

Meanwhile, already at the Casablanca, Fry and Bender seated themselves in a small cubicle for two, behind blue velvet curtains. They'd taken the last hidden lovers cubicle, specifically so they could spy on Leela and her new man. This meant, when the lovers arrived, they would have to sit at a table in the open space, where the two sly spies could keep a close eye on them, without being seen. They played and messed about like children for a while; opening and closing the little slit, which separated the two pieces of blue velvet, just to play I Spy with my Leela's eye...

To see the lady of their jokes with any man other than Fry seemed so unlikely, and neither of them really believed it would happen. Therefore, when Fry heard a man much better looking than himself speaking to his workmate about his date tonight, he felt he must have misheard or misunderstood something that had been said.

After they'd played their childish games till 8.30pm, Bender's binocular looking eyes made their way out of the blue velvet curtains, towards the rotating doors. "Hey Fry, I spy with my Leela's eye... something beginning with P... a purple haired cyclops, with a human male attached to her arm!"

"What! Where?" Fry shrieked, not really wanting to believe that she would ever run off with somebody else. "Good God, it's true!" he shrieked again, in amazement and shock.

"Let me see! Let me see!" Bender blurted out, wanting to get a little more of the action. Besides, he was just dying to steal a peek, in order to chatter to everybody at Planet Express tomorrow, especially Amy... she'll never believe that she's finally met her match!

"Oh Wow! Wait till I tell Zoidberg what they've just ordered... wasn't that one of his relatives I just saw arriving on a plate? This is really hot stuff man, he'll probably snap her to pieces with his claws, and eat her up. Yum, yum, juicy stuff!" Bender was enjoying this, but Fry was beginning to see his world fall apart.

The lobster-eating lovebirds began to pass their meal from mouth to mouth, edging over the top of the table. They seemed more preoccupied with themselves than worrying about getting some food on their fine clothing. A lot of their expensive delicacy, was getting everywhere but their mouths... but that didn't matter, as their mouths were occupied on other business. They held each other tightly and snogged on, and when afters came, they managed to find ways to occupy themselves other than by eating it.

As Fry looked on at the lovers, feeling angry and horrified at how his woman was holding the other man, he growled fiercely, "She's never kissed me like that!"

"I don't think you've ever kissed anybody like that," came Bender's cocky return.

"I was asking for that, wasn't I?"

"Yep!"

Fry turned to his best friend for a shoulder to cry on. "Oh Bender, tell me the truth, am I really such a loser as a lover?"

Although Bender knew that the truth would hurt Fry, his disposition said to him that this was an ideal situation to take advantage of... such was the robot called Bender! "Well, Amy seems to think so, Leela seems to think so, and judging from the amount of time you spend with your babes... I bet their none too impressed with your bedroom frolics either."

Later, after they'd finished most of their games, the two lovebirds had left the restaurant, and after spotting a beautiful romantic hotel, sitting there opposite them across the road, they went inside to consummate the evening.

The depressed Fry also left with his best friend, shortly afterwards, splitting ways, so that he could go back home and review his miserable life.

When he returned home, he felt as if he'd just been watching his wife teasing him, provocatively, exposing his weaknesses for him, and others, to see. Was he really that bad a husband, that bad a lover, that bad a father, a complete failure as a human being?

He sat in silence, on the burgundy couch, wondering whether Leela and her new man had ever made love over the top of it, while he was out making deliveries. He wondered about how long they could have been having this affair behind his back, and he'd only just found out about it!

He stopped to think for the first time ever, that it might even be his own fault, and he wasn't a real swell catch after all. If the standard model of an average man was to be a crazy, lazy, loser, who was anything but perfect, had gambled away his family's life savings, and completely ruined their lives, then at least he could be that man.

When Leela had arrived home, it was 7am. Fry had collected Alison from the landlady, and sat bottle feeding the sleeping baby in his arms, while he also lay fast asleep. After taking Leela for granted all these years, seeing her with somebody else had alerted his mind to wake up and do something to please her.

She thought she would have caught him slouching on the couch, waiting to hand her over several more IOU's, after a late night with Bender. She spoke to the sleeping father on the couch... she knew he couldn't hear her, but she spoke to him all the same. "Oh Fry," she sighed, as he lay there sleeping, "what time did you get back home from your play-date last night? Usually you wake up with a big hangover, and show up at work exactly the same way." She went closer and smelt his breath, but strangely, there was no smell of alcohol. "You didn't even drink!"

She'd taken the baby out of her husband's arms to take to bed first, but when she returned to collect him, he had already awoken.

"Good morning, Fry. You don't look like you had much to drink last night with Bender. We'll have to bring a couple of bottles to work this morning, or he'll be completely down in the dumps all day."

Fry looked up at her, with sorrow in his eyes. "Leela, there's something I think you should know... instead of going on a playdate last night, me and Bender went to the Casablanca. We saw you there... with that workman."

Leela gulped, realizing she'd been caught out, but Fry had more to say: "After seeing you, it made me wonder why you could have rejected me. You made me think harder and harder, till it finally came to me. Everything I've ever done to you over these five years we've been together, all the sorrow and heartbreak... it was my own fault, wasn't it? I'm some sort of monster." He looked down to the ground, and tears began to fall to the carpet, making wet dots.

"Oh Fry, you're not a monster... you're just a little careless, maybe sometimes a little thoughtless, that's all."

"Bender told me that he was gonna do some tongue wagging today at work, so if you start getting any dirty looks from any of the others, you know why."

Fry was acting far less hysterical than she thought he actually would, but she still managed to feel a sense of deep vulnerability inside him. There seemed a little boy lost somewhere within, which made her look deep inside her heart, to make her attempt to fish out the man she'd married. She felt she'd lost him for years, but could he possibly come back again?

Leela had to know how long he could keep his "better" self with her for, so she asked, "Will you remain this way for much longer, or will you run off with that giant tin can as soon as you get the chance? Tell me if you're only back temporarily for tonight, so I'm not left hanging on a string, waiting forever by your side in a vain hope for you to return permanently."

Fry couldn't really give her any sort of long-term, definite guarantee of any kind. "Leela, you know Bender's my best friend, you can't expect me to completely cut off my life with him. Couldn't I just say I'll do my best?"

As she sat there next to him, scratching her head, and trying desperately to find a solution suitable for both their needs, she finally came up with, "Look, I want you to spend more time with Alison and myself... we are meant to be a family, after all! Sure, you can play around with Bender... but one thing I don't want is you going off and sleeping around behind my back. After all, you didn't seem to like it when it was done to you. I don't mind you partying, now and then... but I do want to see the weekly wage before you go off and spend it... we do need stuff here!"

"But... but... I do love you and Alison... I'm your husband and her father! I know I mess around with other women, but they're just playthings to me, like pieces of meat." He noticed that Leela began to look uneasily at him, and decided he ought not to go down that route. "They're not like you, Leela. I respect and love you. You're different to me, can't you see that?"

However, that didn't seem to impress her either. Something in his voice still stressed an unwillingness to change; even a little seemed to be too much for him. All she could do was answer him in the same, unwilling way: "I wish I could believe that Fry, but after all these years of torment with you, I don't really think I could believe anything you say to me again, especially as you still can't even give me any sort of firm guarantee that you'll give up gambling, drinking or babes. I'm just getting really fed up with all your lies and all your jerking me about like this!"

She did had previous thoughts about leaving Fry, but always dismissed them due to wondering what else she could do, where else she could go; and anyway, there was Alison to think about. But, she'd found somebody to help her escape him, and his screwed-up life, and somebody who could be responsible enough to bring up Alison, too. "I'm sorry, but this is something I just have to do, probably one of the strongest and most correct decisions I've ever made in my life. I want to be free of depression, free of being taken advantage of, free of you. I want to be an independent woman, with a partner who makes me feel special, feel loved, and last, but not least, I want my partner to be able to communicate with me. You had your chance, and you screwed it all up, so now it's my turn to think about myself for a change, instead of looking after you."

Fry tried desperately to get her to stay. "But Leela, I need you, I don't know what I'd do without you, please don't go, you're all I have!" Fry's tears had now fully changed from teardrops, into heavy rain pouring over the carpet.

"Please don't try to make me stay on behalf of your sympathetic lies, Fry. You've played this trick on me so many times before, yet now looking back, I wonder whatever made me fall for it time after time. I'll never forgive myself if I fall for it again.

"Besides, I don't think you ever needed me to begin with; you only seemed to have needed my money as far as I can see! Which reminds me, all your hundreds of unpaid IOU's are sitting in the drawer next to your bedside cabinet.

"As I'm going through the heavy trauma from the effects of our past life together, I'm not sure whether I ought to see you again; whether I even want to see you again. I'm trying to tell you that I don't think I love you anymore, and I think it's best we don't see each other again. I'll leave Planet Express... besides, you always wanted to be captain didn't you?

"I'll leave it up to you to explain... if Bender hasn't called everybody up on his cellphone to do so already! Maybe I'll come and see how you're getting on in a couple of weeks, just to see how everybody's managing without me."

Fry could see that Leela had made up her mind to leave him, so there seemed to be nothing that he could say to make her stay. He felt that she didn't really know him, as if she'd never stopped to think how much she meant to him, or even why he'd never treated her like a piece of meat. Besides, she wasn't just his lover, but he felt that she was his best friend too... other than Bender.

She walked back to the nursery, put Alison in her Moses basket, and began to leave the house. "You'll get the divorce papers as soon as I can get hold of a good lawyer. But, for now, you can attempt to gain custody of Alison if you want, though I don't think you'll have that much luck, after the way you've treated her... us."

Before leaving, she packed a small suitcase, containing some belongings for her and the child, and grabbed some loose change for the NNY tube. She left the apartment still wearing the same black evening dress, as well as her favourite green coat, as it was a little chilly outside. Now she was on her way to Chuck's apartment, knowing that her lover was there to help in her desperate time of need.