I Watched Her Fall

I Watched Her Fall by Michael Brown Part 1 of 3 It was a cold, damp rainy December evening when it happened. Sudden, seemingly out of nowhere, but really not. Even now, just days later, it seems unreal, almost as though it were long ago, in a story or a dream. But my shaking hands, my knotted stomach, my lurid thoughts announce that it was no dream. The night featured one of those functions you get trapped into attending when you've got a political patronage job with the Pennsylvania Department of Commerce. A reception, a fund-raiser, what's the difference? They drop the tickets on your desk and suggest that you'll want to be purchasing a couple. Don't have to actually go to the function, of course, but you'll want the tickets. The picture is clear. So I had two tickets, and by damned, my wife and I were going. Lots of food, lots of booze and we could probably make a pretty good evening out of it, but it didn't get off to a very good start. Bonnie was unhappy about going, since she despised the politics of it all, and wasn't happy about my being mixed up in the whole process, even at the basement level where I was working. It was a continuing sore point, and Bonnie was mollified only to the point where she grudgingly accepted the fact that it was a job I badly needed, having spent 10 months unemployed after graduating from college, and already having a wife and two small children. As for me, I was unhappy about her being unhappy. We got ready pretty much in silence, but I had to admit that she did look good, as always. She wore a green dress, which matched her eyes and set off her medium length blonde hair. The short, loose-fitting skirt showed off her legs to good advantage, and the tight waist helped make the most of her relatively tiny breasts. At least she had a couple of decent dresses to wear. I was wearing a suit I had lugged around since high school, but it was the only choice I had, and I wasn't very happy about that, either. Couldn't look good if I tried, I thought. I was just zipping her up when the sitter arrived, so we said goodnight to the kids and we left, stopping by in Camp Hill on the way to pick up my friend and coworker Pat, who had bummed a ride with me so his wife could use their car to go to work. When he got in the car, Pat was ready to party, as usual. "I've got a joint rolled for the road," he announced. The three of us passed it around as we drove through Harrisburg and down to the Hershey Hotel, where the fund raiser was being held. His presence warmed our moods up a little, and it seemed like the evening might go pretty well. But it didn't. Somehow as the evening passed, every little contact between Bonnie and I seemed to produce more friction. She was a stay-at-home mom, and had the feeling that the world (which included me) was passing her by. Everything seemed to make her suspicious at times, and that night was one of those times. As she focused on who I was speaking to or dancing with, she didn't seem to notice the admiring glances she was receiving from the men present. As the evening ran its course, and we continued to party, an inebriated kind of glum sobriety settled over the two of us. Then, just as the crowd was beginning to show signs of thinning out, I made what I thought would be one last quick trip to the men's room before we headed out. When I returned, Bonnie was gone. I spotted her moments later on the dance floor with someone I didn't recognize. Suddenly, in the company of that man, she had become vivacious and friendly. They danced one song after another, staying out on the floor where he held her and spun with her and they talked and laughed, and I sat cooling my heels, wondering if she was finally allowing herself to have a little fun, or was just twisting the knife. Expecting us to be going, Pat had sat down at the table with me. He had a friend with him, a woman named Rose who was a secretary for one of the Pennsylvania senators. Could we give her a ride home, Pat wanted to know? I said sure. "Where's Bonnie?" he asked. I pointed to the dance floor. He observed for a while. "She's having a good time now," he pronounced. "You'd better look out!" That was all I needed to hear. Bonnie was young and pretty and sexy. Anybody could see that. But Pat knew more than that. He was the guy I usually confided in whenever we had too much to drink and started swapping stories. In the couple of years we had worked together, I had revealed - in little bits and pieces - not only a portrait of our struggles and problems as a married couple, but of our secret pleasures as well. I never felt really comfortable talking about the things Bonnie and I did, but in the context of everyone seeming to have a whole series of outrageous adventures, I just couldn't shut up all the time. In some of my more sober moments, I regretted both the bragging and the complaining, and I only hoped that Bonnie wouldn't find out about what I had confided. And now here was Pat reminding me that he remembered everything I'd told him. What I'd never told him, though (if I could trust my own memory), was how much my relationship with Bonnie twisted me up in knots. Probably it was partly because I hadn't had much experience with women when she and I met just a month before I went to college, and partly because she was an insecure girl in her mid-teens, tempting and beautiful and hungry for attachment. Our relationship burst out of the blocks quickly, and within a few weeks of dating we had passed from kissing to petting to incessant sex. I had never had a real girlfriend, and certainly never one who wanted to be loved as often as possible. Once she had made up her mind, there had been no games, no phony resistance for the sake of image, no guilt and no shame. She was a hungry sixteen year old beauty who had found the way to feed her appetite. God, I hated to leave for college that fall. Intoxicated with this delicious creature who only wanted to be pleasured as often as possible, I trembled with the fear of losing her to another while I was away. That was the time when she learned how to manipulate and torment me. She was young, but seemed to understand powerful emotions like jealousy and lust. Her world was centered on me, for better or worse, and she used her looks and her desires as links to chain me, as a whip to lash me, as straps to bind me. And I was firmly bound, running to her and bringing her to me, hungry to possess her and afraid to let her alone. And, despite our differences and our immaturities, it propelled us eventually to the altar. But it wasn't those fears Pat had in mind when he said "look out." He didn't know about them. I kept them to myself. He was talking about what I'd told him about how much she loved sex, the way her appetite grew when she had been drinking, and the way she feasted on the attentions of other men, who buzzed around her like flies, seemingly able to sniff the nectar of her passions. They probed, they groped, looking for the key that would unlock her for themselves. And she knew. Even through her early married years and two babies, she gained in beauty if not in confidence. Even though she knew that men wanted her, she remained painfully insecure. Much of the pain was transferred to me. Out of anger, out of jealousy, she would tease me with innuendo. She would make hints and suggestions about herself and her behavior that would frighten me and torment me with suspicions and the insecurities of my own. I remembered vividly the time I was with her when we were arguing about whether I was going out to Indiana with some college friends the following weekend. She didn't want me to go, she didn't want to be alone, she said. Then she twisted the knife. "If you knew about some of the things I've done when you weren't around, you'd go crazy," she said. All of a sudden, I went to jelly. My knees got weak, my voice trembled. "What ? what are you saying?" I implored, suddenly terrified that she had been in the arms (and the bed) of another man. It was a state of terror that she found easy to maintain, and it continued into our married years. Needless to say, I didn't make that trip to Indiana. And, needless to say, those suggestions continued to hang out there as fodder for every insecure suspicion of my own, because she would always say eventually that she had just been angry and was trying to frighten me. But I wondered. With every day at work and every road trip, with every argument or fight or every complaint of hers that she wasn't getting enough sex, I fretted and worried and spent long moments having lurid fantasies about her with other men, fantasies she continued to feed with her offhand remarks, fantasies that had attained a level of texture and detail that might have stunned her. Eventually Bonnie and her partner finished dancing, but she had to drag him over for an introduction. He was tall and handsome, of course, and had an uncomfortable countenance I've seen before, not having planned to meet the husband. And Bonnie was gushing, obviously intoxicated, making introductions while we all shuffled awkwardly. After too many experiences, I did not respond to these staged events well. I was sure it was part of twisting the knife, and I had little to say. Fortunately Pat picked up the cue and stepped in and made some chatty conversation with the guy, who turned out to be a lobbyist for a state labor organization. When her partner left, Bonnie sat down with us, and I said "it looks like you were having a pretty good time." "It could have been even better," she replied almost offhandishly, "he invited me up to his room." No wonder the guy looked uncomfortable. Pat and Rose exchanged glances, then looked at me. I tried to be outwardly cavalier, but inside the turmoil was beginning. It always, always worked. "So why didn't you go?" I asked her with feigned unconcern. "Because my husband was watching," was her flippant reply. Ever helpful, Pat chimed right in. "I told you, MB, you'd better look out," he said, laughing. "She'll be slipping around the dark end of the street before long." Bonnie laughed too, but it was more like a knowing snicker. "Before long?" she asked Pat. "Don't you mean again?" Her eyes darted towards me to gauge my reaction. I gave one of those yeah, right looks, rolling my eyes up toward the ceiling before taking another long swig of my beer. Rose looked on with rapt attention. Pat was equal to the moment. "Not that I know anything about," he retorted. "Maybe you can tell me all about it sometime." Bonnie giggled with what I thought was a tone of perverse delight, then tossed her head back with an expression of proud defiance and said, "I may just do that." While outside I tried to maintain a casual composure, inwardly I was now confused, frightened and furious. What was she doing? Why was she playing this game in front of other people? It was bad enough when we played it in private. I was ready to go, and already imagining what the drive home was going to be like after we dropped Pat and Rose off. The reception room was rapidly clearing out. I suggested that anyone who needed to should make a last pit stop while I went and got the car. We agreed to meet at the side entrance near the rest rooms. Rose looked at me with some concern, then turned to Pat and asked, "can he drive?" Pat looked at me closely. "Yeah, I think so," he pronounced. "Besides, he'll have to, 'cause she sure can't!" But Bonnie, busily scanning the room with her eyes, missed the remark. Pat leaned close to me and whispered in my ear, as though it had some relationship to the comment he had just made, "I've got a doobie for the road all ready, as soon as we drop off Rose." Somehow, that made me feel better. I got up, got my coat and headed out into what my dad used to call a "heavy dew" to get the car. I pulled it around to the entrance we had agreed on and waited, leaving the engine idling to warm things up. I was still shaken by Bonnie's provocative comments and, just as she intended, I began wondering what she would have done if I hadn't been watching, if I hadn't been there. My masochistic reveries were interrupted by a tap on the back window. To my surprise, it was Rose. I opened the front door and invited her in. "You may as well sit up here," I said. "It's warmer, and I don't know where the others are." Pat had stopped to talk to a friend, Rose explained, and added "your wife was talking to that guy she was dancing with a while ago." Well, that just figured. The knot in my stomach grew tighter. "She likes to make you jealous, doesn't she," Rose asked me. I just nodded. "Why?" I shrugged my shoulders, as though I had no idea. But there were so many reasons. Reasons rooted in history and psychology and human nature. Plus the one big overriding one: because I let her. But all those feelings of pain and suspicion and anger and fear and obsession and fascination that seemed to get all mixed up inside me when she did it left me feeling terribly inarticulate. I just didn't know how I could put all those sensations into a coherent explanation. "I guess it's just ?," I began to say, and then my voice trailed away. It was a lump in my throat this time. "Poor guy," Rose said. I've known her for a half hour, I thought, and she already feels sorry for me. Just great. I forced myself to change the subject and make small talk for a few minutes, so that Rose didn't think I was a complete loser. Soon there was a second knock on the back window, and this time it was Pat. He opened the door and got in, and I noticed that Bonnie was right behind him. Rose was preparing to get out in the rain to move to the back seat, but I told her to forget it. "She can ride in the back," I pronounced. I was not in a catering mood. Bonnie got in the back seat beside Pat and slammed the door. "Fine," she snapped. She now officially measured angry on the standard mood chart. Rose's and my eyes met. Attitude noted. While we drove Rose home, Pat brought me up to date on what the friend he had run into had been telling him about political changes in the legislature. I noticed in the rear view mirror that Bonnie had another full beer, which she must have picked up before she came out. When we arrived at Rose's and she and Pat had gotten out, I asked Bonnie for a drink. "How do you know I have a drink?" she challenged me. "I saw you drinking it in the rear view mirror," I said. "You're spying on me in the mirror," she snapped. "You're afraid of what I might do. You're afraid I'll have some fun." That got me going. "According to you, you've already had a lot of back seat fun I don't know about," I retorted. "What's one more time?" "You fucker!" "I'm honored, since that's a label you seem proud to attach to yourself!" "Shut up!" "You shut up!" So, we did shut up, and sat there in silence until Pat came back to the car. Seemingly unaware of the chill inside that easily matched the one outside, he reached in his coat and pulled out both the promised joint, and a bottle of wine. He waved the bottle. "I borrowed this from Rose," he announced. "I didn't tell her what it was for." "What is it for?" I asked, knowing full well. "To wash down this smoke." Yep. At Pat's direction, I steered through Rose's neighborhood until we came to a lot where new construction was beginning. He directed us to a spot that was out of sight of any occupied buildings and away from any traffic. "Sometimes when I come over to see Rose, I swing by here and smoke a joint," he said. "Rose doesn't really like it in her house that much." While he lit the joint and opened the bottle of wine, he talked about Rose, who he said was a few years older than him and pretty much of a straight arrow. Bonnie, of course, wanted to get to the heart of the issue. "Are you sleeping with her?" she demanded to know, although it came out more like "schleeping." She was really drunk. "That depends," Pat answered. "Can you keep your mouth shut?" She insisted she could, but Pat wasn't having any of it. While she pressed, he avoided the question until I believe she just forgot that she had asked it. We were all so buzzed that we only finished half the joint and I butted it in the ashtray to finish later. And with the consumption of more drink, I had to go to the bathroom. I had been the one who hadn't had to go when we left the hotel. Now it had caught up to me. It was so dark where we had parked that I had to turn on the low beams to light a path to where I could go in private. When I got outside the car, I realized that I was pretty well shot myself, and my pace was slow and unsteady in the headlight beams. As I walked away from the car, my tormented state of mind came rushing back. I began to wonder what the two of them were doing back in the car. He was fresh and forward enough when sober, and alcohol and hemp made him worse. And her ? who knew? Everything I had ever told him about her began to scroll through my mind, especially the things I had said about our back seat games. Even though we were married and had a bed to go home to, there were many nights when we had been out partying that we didn't make it home before we gave in to our urges. It was so delicious to act like the teenagers we used to be and go parking: kissing and touching and fondling and undressing and loving in the excitement of our cramped, dark car. I had told Pat all about it, and I was now left to wonder if he was back in that car, thinking about what I'd said, sitting so close to her, alone in the dark and wondering about whether what he had been told might be the key that would unlock her secret doors. With those kinds of thoughts obsessing me, I should have been in a hurry to get back, but for some reason I was compelled to take my time. I walked way out where the headlight beams were beginning to be swallowed by the night, and I found a place just off in the bushes to go. I was trembling. Fear, anticipation, dizziness, who knew? I walked back to the car at the same slow pace. They can see me coming, I thought. Plenty of time to straighten up and move apart and look innocent and proper. I imagined them, watching me walk away, then flying into each other's arms for brief moments of electric stolen passion. The thought made me shiver. Her taunts and veiled threats had enticed me to think about her and other men a lot, but they were mostly stick figures in my mind, constructs built out of men she had flirted with or danced with, or who she had told me about, but who I really didn't know. But Pat was very real. I knew him. That did not give me comfort, because I believed I knew his limitations. So what was I doing? Why did I leave them alone together under circumstances which could only have created the maximum of temptation for the both of them? It wasn't trust, because I couldn't imagine trust coexisting inside me with the pounding heart and trembling hands and churning stomach and lurid erotic thoughts that were coursing through me. I guess I didn't know what it was, because this was all new territory to me. Not some wrenching fantasy that distracted me at the office, or the ones I had sometimes when we made love and I imagined it was another man's arms she was in. No, this was real, and yet really nothing. My wife in the back seat with another man. My wife in the back seat with another man. That shiver coursed through me again. I must have looked like I'd been through hell when I got back to the car, because Pat said "MB, you look awful. Are you OK?" "I don't know, man," I replied. I noticed that someone had turned up the radio's volume. I pushed off the lights and the car was swallowed again by darkness. "Do you want me to drive?" Pat asked me. "I know your wife's in no shape to do it." That could have ended it if I had said yes, but what I said was "I think I just need to kick back and rest for a few minutes, and I'll be OK." For the first time all evening, Bonnie became concerned. She leaned forward and took my face in her hands. "Michael, are you going to be OK?" she asked. "You're not going to be sick or pass out, are you?" I was still with it enough to know that her interest was genuine. I also noticed that she had taken off her coat. "I think I'll be all right," I responded. "I just need a few minutes to get it together." And with that I removed my own coat and folded it into something roughly pillow-shaped that I could lean back against. With the engine running and heater on, it was very warm, almost hot, in the front seat. It would have been a few degrees cooler in the back, but still comfortable. Comfortable without coats, I thought, and comfortable without clothes. Comfortable for my wife to be undressed. Comfortable for my wife to be naked. Again that shiver, that shimmering cascading shiver. End Part 1 7572 1.39/512345