Claire Thompson - Tracy in chains

"Me? What about you, Kyle? What about all those months of coming home late, pretending you were at meetings when you weren't even at the hospital? Where the fuck were you then, Kyle? Where were you?"

Kyle's tears stopped abruptly and he looked up her, his expression sheepish. "Oh, Tracy." He sounded almost apologetic, but his expression clouded again. "So you were spying on me then, huh? It seems like I don't know you at all. The simple sweet girl I married never existed."

"Don't turn it around like you always do, Kyle, answer my question."

"Fine. I was seeing someone. But it's over. It's been over for a long time now. And there certainly wasn't any question of love. None of that disgusting blather you and your online boyfriend were puking all over each other. And that filth! All those talks of whippings and slaves and torture. And that Guy whoever he is! That you met at some sleazy hotel downtown. You make me sick. I'm physically ill over this. God, I don't even know you!"

Tracy barely heard him, focusing on her own shock, though of course it shouldn't have been a shock at all. "Seeing someone?" she said, her voice trembling. Of course she'd suspected, known even, but having him admit it point blank, threw her off balance, broke off another piece of their crumbling marriage.

"Jesus Christ, it was just a release, since you're so cold and ungiving in bed. Damn it, a man has to have his needs met, and God knows, you've never met them!"

Tracy was stung by his remarks. After all she did to placate and accommodate his constant need to rut, for that's what it was in her mind, and he had the gall to say she didn't meet his needs! What about her needs? What the fuck about her? She was ready to fight back; to respond in kind, but Kyle crumpled on the floor again, leaving her helpless.

She'd only seen him cry once before, years ago when his grandmother died. It had been a gentle thing then, where she could take him in her arms and soothe him. But this out and out sobbing – raucous and uncontrolled – frightened Tracy. She knelt awkwardly, trying to put her arms around him.

"Oh, Kyle, I'm sorry. I'm so, so sorry. I never meant to hurt you. Never."

"Don't you love me, Tracy?" Kyle whispered brokenly through his tears. He'd said her name, at last, but in such a heartbreaking way, she felt tears pricking her own eyelids, sliding down her cheeks.

"Yes, oh, yes, I do," she promised, no longer sure in her own mind what she felt about anyone at all, most especially herself.

"Don't cry, Kyle. Please, please don't cry." Together they sobbed on the floor, arms around each other, hearts breaking along the myriad of cracks they'd been hammering into each other for so long.

"You have to close all the doors, Tracy. All the doors and windows. No Exit. That's the sign you need to see in your head."

The marriage counselor she agreed to see with Kyle was a youngish man, not much older than she or Kyle. She found him, actually, a Rational Emotive Therapist, remembering Paul's recommendation early on in their relationship, before love had entered the equation.

Of course, she hadn't told Kyle how she found him, but told him she had asked a friend who had had success with this professional. She secretly felt Kyle would feel less threatened by a man than a woman counselor. Despite his protestations to the contrary, he was a closet chauvinist.

As the counselor spoke, a big red NO EXIT sign flashed in her brain.

He was referring, of course, to Paul. Kyle filled him in when they entered the room, explaining that they were there to try and save their marriage after Tracy had been having an extended online affair with a sex pervert named Paul.

Tracy didn't bother to add the detail of his own physical affair. She felt too tired, too drained to even bother.

The counselor listened to Kyle's tirade, his expression bland, then turned to Tracy. "It's your turn, Tracy. And Kyle," he looked meaningfully at him, "please don't interrupt your wife while she's speaking. Let her have her full say as well." Kyle nodded, as if offended that he would even suggest such a thing, but it was a relief to Tracy to know she had a few moments to try and get her thoughts in order.

Gently the counselor said, "And you, Tracy? Why are you here?"

"To save our marriage, I guess. If it can be saved." Kyle started to interrupt, but a raised hand from the counselor silenced him.

"What do you mean? Don't you think it can be saved?"

Tracy sighed, not really knowing herself what she meant. Surely, she owed it to Kyle, and their relationship, to try and make it work. All these years together had to mean something. To just throw it away…

It's what she'd told Paul on the phone yesterday, as she tried, tearfully, to explain that Kyle had found their emails and read them all, including things she'd thought she'd deleted, but he somehow knew how to recover.

"I was afraid that might happen sometime, Tracy," Paul had said quietly. "Are you safe? Is he threatening you in any way?" Ah, darling Paul, thinking at once, as he always did, of her safety, her wellbeing.

"I'm safe, Paul. Kyle would never hurt me, not physically." Even as she spoke, the image of her smashed laptop, lid dangling by its hinges flitted through her mind, juxtaposed against her husband, crumpled and sobbing on the floor. Swallowing, not yet ready to admit the horrible details of that evening she said, "He's never raised a hand to me. No, it's not that. It's," she paused, nervous, wondering how to tell Paul what she had to tell him.

"It's just, you see, I've, um, promised him to,"just say it and get it over with, she urged herself, "to try and work it out. To see a marriage counselor. To, um, take a break from you."

Silence.

"Paul?"

"Yes."

"Did you hear me?"

"Of course I heard you."

"Well, so, I can't call you for a while, or go online. I promised him. Two months, I promised I'd give it two months."

"Good luck, Tracy," was all he said, his voice cracking.

"Are you crying?" Tracy felt her heart tear with a ragged pain at that moment.

"None of your damn business," and he was gone.

Tracy tried to focus on the counselor's words, tried to mentally shut the door on her darling Paul. "I want to try. To try and, um, close those doors and work on the relationship. On what we have."

"Ok, then, we can get somewhere. Tell me about when you first met Kyle. What made you fall in love with him?"

Tracy talked, and Kyle didn't interrupt, and then he talked, and she listened. Remembering them as they were at the beginning, the sweetness, the shyness, the need and love they had felt for each other, helped Tracy recapture some of those earlier feelings. When they left after that first session, she felt closer to him than she had in a long time. He must have felt the same way, because he asked her, almost shyly, if she'd like to have dinner somewhere quiet. It'd been a long time since they'd gone out together.

She nodded and tried to not pull away when he took her hand under the table while they ate a fine French meal with lots of red wine. Later that night, in the shower, Tracy wept, big silent tears coursing down her cheeks. She thought of the flowers that would go undelivered to the man who still held her heart firmly in his hands, even if she desperately tried to pretend otherwise.

Tracy meant to keep her promise to Kyle that she'd give it two months. She had no idea if it'd work or not, but she was serious in her promise to at least try. To Kyle's credit, he was solicitous and gentle with her, almost as if they were courting again. He seemed especially attentive when they made love, and he actually engaged in foreplay, getting Tracy 'ready' before he plunged in. Tracy tried to focus on him, and not close her eyes and dream of someone and something else, as she always used to do.