Canada
It was three a.m. and Seymour was undeniably drunk. He had twelve bottles of low calorie pilsner and a few shots of tequila. He couldn’t walk straight and he’s beginning to see double. He had to piss and figure out which of his friends who had condos nearby would let him crash for the remainder of the night. Even in his inebriated state, he was still conscious of the crap they brainwashed him with against drunk driving. He concedes they have a point; it would be unfair to inflict his bad choices on innocent lives so he better stay put.
He half crawled to the bathroom, he didn’t care if it was for males or females, he just needed to piss. He opened the door and saw two girls in the heat of intercourse on the lavatory. He sobered up faster than you could say beer. One of the girls was…
“Muriel!” he ejaculated then went to the toilets to barf all the alcohol out of his system. The other half of the Sapphic sex scene scuttled, grabbing her wet underpants from under the tap they left running.
Muriel, his wife, looked in on him, her face stony. He never brought her to this bar, this was his cave. He came here during the times they fought, which was becoming more frequent. Yet here she was, under circumstances that made him sicker than the alcohol.
They had two kids, whom he was sure was becoming fucked up from all the domestic uncertainty they saw between their parents. Joan and Jett are sweet kids, they get good grades in the pre-school where they matriculate, they help Muriel out with the chores in their little way and they are wholesome, trouble free kids all round. But they left him cold.
But back to Muriel.
“What the hell was that? Why are you here? You couldn’t even get a hotel room?”
What he saw in the bathroom explained a lot. For starters, it explained why the girls in the bar have been going to the men’s room for the past two hours. He thought his mind was playing tricks on him. Either that or every female in the room was a tranny.
But it made it clear to him why Muriel constantly complains of a headache every time he makes a move on her. He’d been bone dry for almost a year now and it has been suggested in one of their fights when he accused her of keeping him on a tight leash by denying him sex that he engage the services of a prostitute.
Muriel stayed silent, he couldn’t understand why. If she really loved him, she’d try making him understand what the hell it was he saw earlier. But all she said was, “I’ll drive. I didn’t drink. I took a cab to get here.”
Seymour fished his car keys out of his pocket. He was wiping his mouth with a wad of tissues. He was choking on his tears, but he held them back. If she could be this unemotional about the whole thing, so could he. At least that’s what he thought.
They were both silent during the half hour ride to their townhouse near the central business district where Seymour worked for the family corporation. Muriel was a capable driver; he was a crybaby of a passenger. He was thankful for the dark and he didn’t know if it was just the alcohol doing away with his inhibitions. He’d wanted to cry for a long time now and he didn’t mean to but the tears just kept streaming down his face. He kept quiet though.
Muriel parked his Audi tail first into the two car garage. She switched off the engine and unlocked the doors, then leaned back against the seat as if she had no intention of getting out of the car. She stared unseeing out of the windshield into the dark street.
He didn’t get out either. His head was pounding, his heart was beating a loud tattoo he was sure he could hear it in his ears. He was tired and drunk and sleepy, but he wanted to be with her, he wasn’t going anywhere until she assured him things will work out between them.
Seymour fell asleep and when he woke up his watch said seven a.m. Muriel was still in the seat beside him; as if she didn’t move a muscle in the hours they were in the car. The sunlight hurt his eyes. He was hungry, but he wasn’t hungry.
“I’m not mad, Muriel. I just want to know what the reason was behind all that,” he tried to start a conversation with her.
“God, Seymour, when will you stop being such a goddamned saint? What would it take?”
“What would it take to what?”
“To make you realize that this is a mistake, we are a mistake. Can’t you see, you don’t love me, you don’t love the kids but you go on everyday deluding yourself that we’re this happy family? Well, we’re not!”
“Don’t say that! We’re just having problems, but we’ll work it out,” Seymour countered.
“I want an annulment, Seymour. I can’t take anymore. Let me go,” Muriel was losing patience.
“But we love each other…”
“I don’t love you Seymour. I’m in love with a girl who’s in Canada right now and where I mean to be soon. I shouldn’t have married you, I shouldn’t have had kids, I shouldn’t have spent the last ten years trying to be mommy in your Brady Bunch dream,” she said with fire burning in her eyes.
“What was I to you then? Tell me, because I’m too stupid to understand what’s going on,” he said sarcastically.
“You’ll always be the first and only man in my life, Seymour. I don’t blame you for the last ten years. It was my choice to marry you. I shouldn’t have just because you got me pregnant but I did. But I think I’ve already paid my dues and it’s time I lived my life for me,” Muriel said, a note of tenderness creeping in her voice. “You’ve always been good to me and maybe that’s why I picked fights with you and made life difficult for you, so you’d leave me. That thing about last night, I didn’t mean for you to see it. I was going to talk to you properly.”
“If you leave now, there’ll be no coming back,” Seymour said trying to but knowing his statement won’t scare her.
“I know that. God, I know that. I know I’ll get disinherited for leaving you and running away with another girl. But I’ll take my chances,” she said.
“Has it been going on for long?” he asked genuinely curious.
“Can we go inside? It’s going to be a long story and I want to be in the aircon,” Mi requested.
“Sure.” They got out of the car and into their bedroom. The kids were with his parents with whom they visit during weekends.
He took of his shoes and lay on the bed, flinging his forearm across his forehead. He had a grandmother of a hangover, but he wanted to know, get things straight from her. She’d become more difficult to live with as the years went by. She’d go ballistic over the pettiest of things then make up with him, sweeter than honey afterwards. It was enough to drive him up the wall.
“Camille and I were classmates in boarding school. We’ve known each other since we were twelve. She was my first kiss, my first fuck, my first relationship. I always thought I’d end up with her. I never thought there was anything wrong with what we had because I’d often catch my Mom with one of her women friends in the bedroom. Dad left us when I was young and Mom never dated men after that,” Muriel began.
“So why didn’t you? Why’d you get into a relationship with me?” Seymour asked accusingly.
“When I told Mom about it, she hit the roof. I couldn’t understand. She threatened to send me to my grandmother’s and stop sending me to school. I wanted to go to college badly, so I stopped seeing Camille. And she transferred me to another school, this one for boys and girls.
“I met you after college and you weren’t unattractive to me. You made me wonder what it would be like to be with a man. You got me pregnant and at first the task of raising a family distracted me. But doing the same thing everyday, it made me a little crazy. I got back in touch with Camille after Jett was born six years ago. I realized I still loved her and being with her is what would make me happy.
“I bought a plane ticket to Quebec and my bags are packed. I was hoping to talk to you last night but I couldn’t find you. My plane leaves tonight. I hope you don’t take it bad. If you don’t want the kids, I’ll take them. I just wanted to give you that choice. I leave tonight,” she said with a tinge of sadness.
A snore broke her soliloquy. Muriel half laughed. Trust Seymour to sleep through the part where she was going to break his heart. How he escaped her cruelest moments, she’ll never know, yet he did.
Love for this man swelled in her heart as she stared at him curled up in bed with a pillow. He reeked of alcohol and puke, yet she remembered now why she let him near her, why she agreed to commit herself to him for life. Seymour is a good man, she just couldn’t see past the fact that he was not Camille. But she loved her too. Muriel knew she’d have to choose eventually. But it didn’t have to be tonight. She lay on the bed and hugged her husband close.
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