“Oh my God,” Fiona said, “what do you mean, ‘Donna had sex with my Sweetie last night?’ ”
The lithe redhead sat motionless and maintained her composure, despite her agitation. Her curvaceous symmetry, still stunning on approach to middle age, contained some steel.
“Like I said, Honey,” Grace replied, “this is not going to be easy. I’m so sorry to be the bad news messenger.”
Grace was Fiona’s oldest friend. Her dark, earnest face, framed by black hair, twisted into a strained frown.
“I had to come and tell you as soon as I knew,” she continued, softly. “I just can’t stand some guy making a fool of you.”
They had settled in Fiona’s lean-to workshop, around her potters’ wheel, with glasses of iced herb tea. They were dressed alike in hemp cloth and cotton twill. It was a gloomy, overcast June day. A cool whisper of relief from the heat floated from the lush, green hedges on a honeysuckle breeze. They barely noticed a burly bumblebee, drunk on nectar, staggering for a moment in the space between them.
“This is crazy,” Fiona retorted, grasping at disbelief. “Vince was up North. How could they do it if she was here, and he was in
“A kind of cybersex,” Grace explained. “He contacted her on the same Internet match service where you found him. They met in the chat room. He called her. Then they talked sexy on the phone.”
Tiny, muscular Grace had never been the least bit jealous of Fiona’s stately, fresh beauty. These two women were confidantes. They held the same aspirations for relationship. Fiona knew Grace would come to her only after making sure. Grace felt Fiona’s pain, as an impending tide pooled in her sea-green eyes. The rosy flush was draining from Fiona’s cheeks.
Grace pressed on as delicately as she could, propelled by friendship.
“Then it got into self-touching with explicit imagery to get each other turned on.”
But she left no space for Fiona to delude herself.
“A
“Ho-lee shit!” Fiona ranted, half sobbing. “Doesn’t that disgusting cow know when she does this, the guy is probably cheating on someone? How do we know it was my Vince?” she challenged, without waiting for Grace’s answer.
“He posted a profile with a photo under ‘Guy2Call.’ That gave it away,” Grace replied.
She carved the numeric part of his screen name in the air with her French nails.
“Donna called to brag about how on the Internet, even a girl her size can get laid with a handsome guy. She wanted me to check out his posting.”
“Something is way off here,” Fiona objected, eyes narrowing.
“Donna didn’t know it was your Vince until I told her,” Grace replied. “When I saw his photo on Guy2Call’s profile, I inhaled a mouthful of tea. I verified it with the webmaster, once I stopped choking. He insisted the photo is posted where it belongs. It’s Vince, all right.”
Fiona let go.
“He is so sincere when he says he loves me. This man was an animal in bed with me just last weekend. Why did he do a thing like this?”
Grace shook her head.
“They say it’s an addiction that some people get into. Probably since way before he met you. And I also hear it can be treated, and sometimes the treatment is su
“Treated!” Fiona hissed. “Right now I could treat him to a Karate move.”
She wiped away her tears. Her color rose. Her voice became calm. Her tall, spare frame lost its stiffness as she began to sway rhythmically.
“Here is how the dance continues. I’m going back on the match board, under a false name, and scam him. Then, once I catch him at his game, I’m going to bust his narrow ass.”
She snatched up an unfired pot she was crafting for Vincent and slammed it against the wall. Shards scattered across the floor. Her potters’ cat had been snoozing on the bench. He left the shed like a bullet from a gun barrel.
“Then it’s goodbye with no kiss. I’m beginning to think men are way more trouble than they’re worth. Where are the nurturing providers and compatible mates, anyway?”
“Don’t forget, half the participants in these betrayals are women,” Grace said, ever logical and compassionate. “Donna said she is very sorry, by the way. She was coming from ‘no physical contact means no offence.’ But she sees the harm in it now.”
Grace -- she’s named so perfectly, Fiona thought.
They conspired together as darkness enveloped them, thickening Fiona’s plot with details.
Fiona watched her strained reflection on the dark monitor screen later that evening, in her deceptively serene, candle-lit study. Her hesitant finger touched the computer’s power switch. The usual click led to the familiar whirring whisper. Tumultuous feelings swirled up within her like scraps of a prairie homestead caught in a tornado.
She joined the match site again, this time as Charlotte69. Then she visited Guy2Call’s posting. Finding Vincent’s photo there felt like a fist in her stomach, despite preparation.
She concocted a note, armed by knowing what he liked.
“Hey, Guy2Call, how come a classy man like you hasn’t been snapped up? I would like to discuss all the places to kiss a guy who has your looks. I’ve just been to the lingerie store. They had the cutest little red teddy, and I was in luck. The top was big enough. How about a bedtime story in the oral tradition? Call if you dare.”
Around
His long, pianist’s fingers danced on the computer keyboard, despite fatigue from a grueling day at Blithe Spirit, Inc., his up-and-coming New Age venture. He was a dynamic CEO and marketing guru who leveraged the energy of his youthfulness on the fulcrum of his middle-aged business judgment. He was su
He checked the chat rooms while he nibbled a bedtime snack -- nobody interesting. He plowed through his e-mail and answered Charlotte69’s note.
“Of course, Guy2Call is glad to a
He checked his calendar, and suggested when to meet for hot chat, on an evening when he wasn’t seeing Fiona. He included his cell number in case she wanted to call during the day. He stumbled off to his waterbed to lay down his curly, prematurely graying head. Mythically sexy women, from his collection of Alberto Vargas posters, visited his dreams.
A cell call came from Charlotte69 while he was driving to work the next morning. Vincent was still drowsy as he glanced at his watch and keyed the phone. It wasn’t time to do what he really wanted to with the call, in that situation.
Oh well, just a little foreplay for now, he mused.
“Well, hi there,” his smooth baritone crooned. “Glad to hear from you.”
“Vince, can that really be you?” Fiona dropped the disguise in her voice.
“Fiona!”
He was thunderstruck.
“Welcome to
A crushing sense of doom struck Vincent as Fiona hung up. A blush scorched his neck, raced up into his cheeks, and all the way across his scalp. Thoughts plunged forward behind his faun-brown eyes.
How had she found out? If she was
Panic overtook him, distracting him from driving. He unconsciously slowed and drifted toward the adjacent lane.
“Hey, Dickless!” shouted a bruiser in a passing truck. “Hang up and drive!”
In an instant, he had lost the only woman he deeply loved, after years of trying to find the right one. Fiona was the one woman who really got who he was, and cared. He felt admired and validated to the depths of his soul when he was with her. He had clung to a shameful habit he should have stopped as soon as it had started a few years earlier. Waves of nausea rose in his gut.
He maneuvered the silver roadster to the shoulder. He sat there panting with the window down, until recovered enough to drive. He called his assistant on the cell phone, while pulling back onto the freeway.
“I must be getting some kind of flu bug,” he told her. “Call my appointments and cancel. Unless I call back, expect me tomorrow.”
Then he drove back home to wrestle with his crisis. He paced back and forth before a mirror, and spoke affirmations to his reflection. He caught himself smiling while shaking his head over Fiona’s clever, boldly assertive action.
I have never lost anything I really wanted in my life, he reminded himself. I’m not ready to begin losing now, no matter how dark the prospects, or what it might cost. Not even if the price is mortification.
He realized he would not gain the treasure without some humbling. He steeled himself to answer what was calling. By nightfall, he settled enough to make a sandwich, which he nibbled as he e-mailed Fiona.
“Fiona,” he began, “I have done wrong. You are right to be angry. I am deeply sorry. You deserve only faithfulness from me, and I betrayed you. Thank you for your response. It has shocked me awake. You are the only woman I have truly respected in my whole life. Can you find forgiveness in your heart and let me express the love I have so arrogantly sought with so many women, but have never found, until you? Please, please allow me to make amends. I want to leave behind all others, to marry you, to dedicate myself to you forever.”
Fiona read his message on her screen by candlelight. She was moved by Vincent’s plea. She was balanced on a knife-edge. She was still in love, wracked with anger and grief, and unable to gage his ability to change, or her own capacity to forgive him. It was time to consult an old friend who could help her tortured heart find the way home. She picked up her pink Princess phone and punched the numbers.
“Foster,” she began, “I’ve got a love knot. I’m with a guy who I caught messing around, and I don’t know what to do.”
Foster was Fiona’s ex-husband, and the oldest soul she knew. They had been together almost two decades. They had taken four years to settle on how to relate to each other, as they ended their marriage. They healed emotionally in each other’s company, developing a bond not unlike sibling love -- a vintage distillation from the passion that had held them together despite fundamental differences. After all they had been through together, now they were each seeking other partners. They served as each other’s secret weapons in the war between the sexes.
Fiona visualized Foster’s bright blue, amused eyes, set like sapphires in his overgrown-kitten face, and his thick, blond crew cut. She filled him in about the situation. He just listened for a while before responding.
“Well, you aren’t just blowing him off. So you must be really in love. Are you going to kill him?”
Fiona appreciated his breathy, precise diction. She liked how he wasted neither time nor words.
“What? You’re joking?” she grinned.
“No. The point is that if you’re not going to kill him, you might as well forgive him.”
Foster was right on, as always.
“But how do I know he can stop this disgusting cybersex addiction?”
“You don’t. So don’t let not knowing the outcome hang you up. You could require him to enter therapy, and reconcile only if it’s su
“Foster, that’s brilliant! Why don’t you go on to become a minister?”
“Thank you, Fiona,” he answered, with predictable humility.
“I know you value your role as a Practitioner of your belief, but as a mere Practitioner you’re hiding your light under a bushel,” she pressed him. “You could help people so much more if allowed to counsel them.”
“Guess I need to hear it a few more times from people like you, whose judgment I trust. Keep in mind this course of action won’t be easy for either of you. You’ll have to put your love life on hold for a while, and not see him or even talk to him, while he’s drying out. Are you willing to let go of the outcome and just do the compassionate response?”
“It seems so inevitable, like nothing else makes sense,” she resigned herself.
“You go, Girl. I’ll be holding both of you in the Light. Keep me posted. Call for support when you need to. By the way, what should I wear to the wedding?”
Vincent read the email that laid out Fiona’s conditions the following morning, over his coffee. He had hit a miserable, shame-filled bottom, and had been suffering bouts of panic. His whole world seemed dull, like some fraction of the color spectrum had drained away. He had already considered counseling, but was resisting. He felt strangely relieved when she demanded he face this lesser terror – going into therapy – because he was getting a second chance. He knew there would be no wavering, because her conditions included a final joint session with the therapist as a clearance.
Vincent trekked downtown to a converted wooden office mansion twice each week, faithfully keeping appointments for four months. He traveled a deep inner journey in the cool, dim space of his therapist’s office. The treatment progressed through many twists and turns in his history, with much emotional release. He discovered how his life still followed old, unexamined patterns from childhood. He learned how his relationships with his parents had set him up for what would happen later in life with women. He examined several decisions that had become unconscious, and made them over.
One change he adopted was to begin daily meditation. This helped him to quiet anxiety, to become more grounded and focused, and to gain insights. He also started keeping a journal. Eventually, his characteristic fidgeting stopped. His speech patterns slowed. The pitch of his voice lowered and smoothed out. He started listening to people carefully. He began to actively practice gratitude for the good in his life, especially for Fiona’s presence. He prayed to be released from his compulsions. He lost his driven edge and began to just be present in the moment.
Then came that day that brings the subtle shift that marks the passing of
“I know I’m not supposed to call you during therapy,” he declared, on that cloudless morning. “It’s over, actually. My therapist is releasing me. He said it’s time for us three to meet.”
“Vincent, whatever happens, I care about you,” Fiona blurted, and then caught herself.
She wasn’t sure what else to say, so she just let those words stand. There was a long pause. It was a little awkward, not knowing what to say. Vincent did not move to cover or fix this.
“I’m glad, Fiona. Let’s just talk at the session,” he suggested. “See you Tuesday, at
Fiona had surrendered to what was unfolding. It was not difficult for her to wait through that weekend. She had felt a sense of relief about taking a break from the love chase, anyway. She was feeling easier in her body, more rested, more focused on the line of slab-constructed vessels she was building for the Harvest Festival. Her feline, Catsby, loved the extra time she was spending at home. He inserted himself into whatever she was doing, sometimes leaving his signature on her work, often basking in the warmth of her attention.
When Tuesday came, the therapist had Fiona and Vincent sit closely, face to face, and speak to each other from the heart. They told how they felt about each other, and about all that had happened. She forgave him. He a
Nothing had prepared her for Vince’s response.
“I’m off the Internet, sexually, forever,” he asserted. “I haven’t done that since the day
His truthfulness was clear from his open, direct gaze and relaxed voice and posture.
“I’m proud of what you’ve done, Vince,” Fiona replied.
“In fact, Fiona, I’ve even lost my intense need to possess you, or any woman, for that matter. Love is a new kind of thing now. I don’t blame you for dumping me because of what I did. I got what I deserved. I am so grateful for the lessons you brought me.”
He took up her hands in his, gently.
“My love for you doesn’t feel sexual any more,” he told her. “I release our relationship, and hope you want to go on, just as friends.”
Her shocked heart rose into her throat. Fiona could only smile weakly and nod at Vince and the therapist. She had feared all along that she might lose him to the cybersex addiction. But she never dreamed she would lose him to recovery from it.
“I forgive you, Vince,” she said, holding back tears. “Anyone can have a problem, but it takes a real man to let one go.”
And so Vincent’s therapy came to an end.
But Fiona’s heart was lost irrevocably to this man. He had awakened a warmth deep in her flesh that she knew was for him alone. He was the one for her, now that he had overcome his fatal flaw, and she was not about to just let him go. He had everything she wanted in a guy – self-confidence, courage and drive, handsome masculinity and sex appeal, business su
Both Grace and Foster urged her to pursue him. At Fiona’s insistence, Vincent began to see her, chastely at first. They were passionately in love again within a few weeks, but more intimately, deeper than before. They were engaged within six months.
When a year had passed, on the anniversary of ‘
At the reception dinner, she reached in among the red roses, ribbons, and white lace, and extracted a gift subscription to an Internet a