Chapter 11
"Lonny, I would appreciate it if you would get dressed and leave. You see, I saw everything you two did. I'm not sure how I feel about it, but I want to talk to my wife alone, I would also like it. if you wouldn't call or try to see her for awhile-we have a lot to straighten out, and I don't think we can do it with you around," Gene calmly said.
"Yes, I know," Lonny replied, "I only hope that you two can get everything together. Don't be too hard on Gilda and listen carefully to what she has to say. Also, I think that both of you were a little at fault for all of this and it is up to both of you to straighten it out. I've already told Gilda this and she agrees. When you are ready to see me again, if ever, call-I'll be there."
Lonny quickly put on his clothes, gathered up all his belongings and left the house. He felt a strange sense of relief that Gene had finally seen the two of them together. He also felt that it was a good beginning for Gilda to tell him plainly what they were doing. Too much had gone down and too many times had they spared Gene's feelings when there were close calls. Now maybe they had a chance for a decent marriage. Lonny was pretty sure that he would get to see Gilda again, but his goal for now was to find himself someone to be with at all times.
Gene turned to his wife sitting on the bed holding a blanket up around her breasts; he wanted to yell at her, scream accusations about the sin of incest-but he couldn't do it Lonny had told him to listen to her, so listen he would. At the moment she looked terrified, but at least she had told him the truth, he couldn't say that she was lying to him or trying to hide anything from him Maybe they had been doing this right along, right under his nose, and he had been so blind and wrapped up in his business that he hadn't seen it. Maybe she had wanted him to catch them.
"Gene, if I'm going to talk to you, then you are going to have to sit down and stop looking so angry, because that isn't going to get us anywhere," Gilda finally managed to say.
"I'm sorry, Gilda, I was going through all my emotions and not letting any of them come out.. I wanted to hit you or yell at you or something, but I couldn't, so I was just standing there with this look of anger on my face and not doing anything." Gene sat down on the edge of the bed.
"Oh Gene, don't sit that way ... if you want me or want to be near me then sit with me, not on the edge as if you were afraid of touching me or rumpling the sheets. They're already rumpled, remember?" She suddenly stopped and realized that she probably hurt him with that remark.
"I didn't mean to be cruel, but maybe a lot of what I have to say is going to sound that way. You see, I've kept a lot of things to myself, too. It was Lonny that convinced me to talk to you about them. He said that we could become free if you and I only talked. If we got ourselves together, so I want to try, because I've discovered that I could really love you-not pretend, like I have been for all these years."
"I feel that I must have hurt you very much also," Gene said. "I didn't mean to, I only wanted the best for you, but in doing that, I guess I've been very blind."
"It's like this, Gene, you were following the path of your parents and mine-heading for the vegetable stage fast. Making money and having nice things is fine, but it's not the be. all and end all of life.
"You weren't enjoying life at all, and I hurt for you because of it. But after awhile when I had tried to show you other ways, I gave up. Then my heart became hard and I didn't care what happened to you. It was the last time I saw you that I felt something for you ... strange stirrings began to happen. I didn't know where they were coming from, Lonny didn't know, at that time, where they were coming from, .and I certainly don't think that you do either.
"I began to care for you, I wanted to hear from you, I missed you when you didn't call or write. I worried over you. This was all very new to me. It was even a little frightening and I wasn't sure that I wanted to feel that way about you and be crushed again when you wouldn't or couldn't change. ,
"But let me go back to the beginning, you see, Lonny and I have been making it with each other for years-ever since we were children. I suppose it was really I who seduced Lonny and not the other way around. He was just a very willing victim. But when you and I got married I stopped making it with Lonny. I didn't love you, but I wanted to give our marriage a chance to grow and maybe the love would come with it.
"I'm a very sexually oriented person, and you could also if you would just let yourself go. I tried to teach you when we were first married, but you wouldn't learn, you thought that all those things were nasty and dirty.
"You think my making it with Lonny is dirty, but that's only because you've been conditioned to think that way. Nothing is really wrong unless it physically or mentally hurts the person or persons involved or unless they aren't consenting or willing to be a part of it. You weren't willing to be a part of it, and I had to have it so I turned to Lonny again.
"I don't really care how much money we have or don't have as long as we aren't starving, but there are too many people in this world who are trapped in a tight little circle of no change. They are frightened of change, any kind of change. They reach some kind of plateau, of what they think is ultimate perfection, and they never want to go beyond that. They never want to explore the outer regions. That is the way so many people die at forty-oh maybe not physically but mentally, spiritually they're dead. No matter what they seemingly achieve to other people.
"I don't want to die, Gene, I want to live and be alive I want to explore everything, try anything. I'm not afraid to try new situations. What would happen to you if you lost your job tomorrow ... you'd be lost. I wouldn't, I'd go on living.
"I have to admit that I became very dependent on Lonny because he would bring me change and I would bring him change-but neither of us was very happy with the situation. We wanted to be able to ball in the open, we wanted to make our love known to everyone, not to have to hide it. We got trapped with each other because we couldn't find someone else who was willing to change as we changed. So, in a sense, we were in the same circle, only just on another level. Now Lonny's free, and I want to be free and I want you to be free with me, Gene.
"There are too many games going on in this world, but there are other people who think like this, I know it. I haven't met any but I know that there has to be and we will find them eventually. At least we would have the three of us and we could try and help others to see. You see, Lonny and I would like to be able to be together and I want to be with you. What would make more sense, than for the three of us to live together? I don't expect you to take to this idea right away. Just think about it.
"I'm not suggesting a commune either, but if Lonny ever found who he is looking for then I would want her to be here also. Do you understand that at all?" Gilda looked pleadingly at him.
"It is an awful lot that you have said, Gilda," Gene replied.
He sat there for a minute and couldn't say anything to her. He thought about the fact that he never told her what he was doing in his work because he thought that she wouldn't understand it. Now he knew that she would probably understand it better than most of the men that he had to deal with. He thought of how he felt about her but had never told her-how he liked having her up on a pedestal because he thought that he could never really approach her. He thought that he could never really be good enough for her.
"Gilda, I thought that I could never be good enough for you," he blurted out, "that's why I could never approach you, I could never come to you and take you in my arms and start to make love to you. I was afraid of you. I put you up on a pedestal and worshipped you from afar. I thought that even balling would defile you and I cursed myself every time that I had to do it, because I couldn't stand the pressure any longer.
"I couldn't masturbate because I had been told that that was even worse than defiling a woman and I couldn't bring myself to be unfaithful to you with a prostitute, so I had to have you. And I was miserable when I did. If I could have masturbated I would have been a lot happier, but I couldn't even when I was a child and I knew that everyone else did it.
"I thought that all those things that you would try to show me were horrible and that I had lowered you to that depth and that you hated yourself at those times so much that you were doing them to punish yourself. I couldn't understand why you would do them otherwise.
"Then this last time I was home something happened and I found myself being aggressive. I thought that you were coming to me because you wanted to have children and that was the only reason you would allow me to touch you. I always wondered why we didn't have any and then I thought it was because I had forced you to do ugly things when I hadn't learned how to control my urges and we were being punished for it. Actually, that I was being punished, because no one would punish you. That only hurt me more because you were suffering for my wrong doing.
"I don't know what happened that time, I just found myself doing things. I can see now that I was wrong all the way and that you were so happy when I began to show some interest. I guess it must have surprised you a lot"
"Honey," she said, putting her arms around him, "it surprised and pleased me more than I could ever tell you. We don't have any children, by the way, because I take the pill. I wasn't going to raise any kids in the repressive atmosphere of our home.
"But your being aggressive, or trying to be, is what led me to sending Lonny home for the first four days. Other things happened that made me call him back, but I sent him away thinking that if I only had only casual sex with men, it would give me a better chance with you. That I wouldn't be comparing you to Lonny so much, that I might even forget a little of what Lonny was like. Other men don't matter to me, but I wanted to give you something easier to deal with than Lonny."
"Gilda, you are amazing!" Gene said with awe, "But tell me, why did you call Lonny back and when did you do this? How long has he been here?"
Gilda detected a note of jealousy in' Gene's voice and was pleased to hear it. She was more afraid to tell Gene this thing, though, than she had been to tell him about Lonny and herself. She supposed that was because she and Lonny was so natural to her and the other seemed very unreal.
"The first night that I was home," she plunged ahead, "I decided to go to a bar and pick up someone. I met a lovely man named Phil. I went home with him and we had a beautiful night together. Actually, I would like you to meet him because I think that you two would like each other as people.
"Anyway, since that had been so great, I went back the third night that you were gone. Only this time was a lot different. To make it short, I was mistaken for another girl who is a prostitute, and I was raped and beaten. They caught the guy and I filed a case against him and the owner of the bar. I was shook but I was alright. The next day, though, a friend of his came and raped me at gun point, trying to intimidate me so I'd drop the charges.
"Helen heard a shot-he shot a bullet into the ceiling to prove that he wasn't bluffing, and she called the police. He got what he wanted, to fuck me, before the cops arrived, but they got him and now I have three cases. Well, I didn't want Helen to stay with me, in spite of what she did, so I called Phil but he wasn't in. The cops were stationed outside and guarding the house but I still didn't feel like being alone. I called you but you were off somewhere where they couldn't reach you.
"I remember now, I reached you after the first time, i was the second one that you didn't know about. Anyway, the only person that I could reach was Lonny. He came over and has been with me ever since. I couldn't bear to have him go-so he stayed."
"Oh my darling Gilda, I'm so sorry-are the police still there?" he asked holding her very tight.
"I would imagine so, I gave them a picture of you so that they would know that you were all right to let by," she replied and squeezed him back.
"I wish that my damned company had told me, but the deal was very important and I suppose they knew that I would have junked it right there and then if I had known, because I wasn't all that impossible for them to get hold of me. I got the deal through, but I'm not sure that I want to work for them anymore, after that. I would think that they would realize that a man's wife is more important than a damn deal!" Gene stormed, bitterly.
"Darling, that is just what I have been trying to tell you about the life you lead. To them the deal was more important. Your wife would survive and if not, well, that's too bad. But the deal may never be able to happen again and so that was much more important. Business takes priority over everything else," she very patiently explained to him.
"Now maybe you can see, more clearly, what I have been trying to show you. It is a deadly circle that you can get trapped so easily. Please, Gene, get out of it. I don't think that you have to quit your job if you don't want to, as long as you understand what's going on. As long as you don't let them suck you back into that trap again, and as long as you stand up for yourself. That's half the problem, Gene, you let everybody walk over you. And you mustn't," she emphasized.
"No more, darling, I think that I just might be on the road to recovery. And about Lonny-not yet, let's try something out first. I heard of a wife-swapping group and maybe we could join them and see how we like it. Then if that works maybe I can accept having Lonny here."
Gilda was so happy that she bounced up and down or the bed like a small kid. Gene felt good because he had brought her some joy at last. He finally felt like they could have a good marriage. He suddenly felt like crying with happiness and he let the tears flow down his cheeks in two tiny paths.