Choices (10 page)

I found our things, collected them and made my back to the foyer. Paul saw me and said, “Ahh…shit…we’re leaving? Why are we leaving? Laurel
? Why we leavin’ honey? Oh, I remember, now, you want to go home and fuck my brains out so we can make that baby you’re always yammerin’ away about. Well, alright, baby, let’s get it on!” He shifted himself in his dress pants and attempted to stand up until the gentleman pushed him back down.

“Because you are acting like a giant asshole.” I managed to say through gritted teeth and a clenched jaw.

“An sasshole! Hey, that’s no way to sssspeak to yous husband slike sthat!”  I was on the verge of tears, my face was hot, I was sweating and I was beginning to feel more like a whore in this get up instead of a vixen, when Paul’s colleague, hoisted Paul up out of the seat and told me the valet was waiting with our car. We managed to get him out of the house and into the car. He shoved Paul into the passenger side and locked him in. Paul was talking to himself and trying to open up the door. The gentleman braced his side against the door and motioned with his hands to give him my coat.

“Here, darling, let me help you in your coat.” He said sympathetically while shaking his head in disgust.

“Thank you.” I said but completely and totally unable to look him in the eye feeling nothing but shame and discomfiture. He gently tucked his fingers under my chin and tilted my head up so I had no choice but to look at him and the tears slid out of my eyes and collected in my cleavage.

“You have done nothing wrong, sweetheart, nothing. You have nothing to be ashamed of. If I were you, I would encourage your husband to get the help he needs and insist that he do it. No one deserves to be treated the way he treated you tonight. You seem like an intelligent, strong woman, don’t let his demons destroy you as well.” I was so overcome I could only nod.

“Listen to me, dear and listen good. I know an alcoholic when I see one. I speak from personal experience. Your husband is on the brink of disaster. If it wasn’t for the love of my wife, I wouldn’t be here today. I would have lost everything, my company, my home, more importantly my family. Don’t give up on him, encourage him to get help. He can be saved. He just has to do it himself.” He patted my shoulders, gave me a hug and walked me around to the driver’s side door, opened it and helped me inside.

“Good night, Mrs. Brittingham and Happy New Year. You’ll be okay to drive home also?  I hadn’t thought about the fact that you might be too distraught.” He asked anxiously. I somehow managed to find my voice as all sorts of confusing thoughts were swirling through my head and my heart…
alcoholic?
“Yes. Thank you. I’m fine. I only had a few sips.” I looked away and toward the front windshield. “You know Paul, is a very nice man, kind, loving. He’s just had a few too many tonight, that’s all. I guess you’re the president of Big Fans and this is your home?” He nodded. “Will you fire him?” I asked cautiously. “No, I won’t fire him but I don’t forget injustices and I will be watching him closely.”

“That’s sright, sfew too smany.” Paul slurred and passed out.

“We’re all nice, kind and loving when we’re not drinking. Please, the best thing you can do for yourself, Mrs. Brittingham, is to not fool yourself. He’s doing enough of that for the both of you right now. Good night, dear and be safe.” He closed the door and stepped back while I maneuvered our SUV out of the driveway. It was a very long, very quiet ride home that night with a lot to think about.

I never, really ever saw Paul angry, just once. I mean pop blood vessels angry. Paul never got angry and never, ever got angry like that. In all the time I knew him, he never even raised his voice to me when we had argument except this one time when I brought to his attention what the gentleman from last night said to me. I’ve always been a take charge kinda gal, grab the bull by the horns and don’t let go until you’ve wrestled it to the ground and got the ride of your life. So when the gentleman from last night told me I was being foolish, well, I’ll show him. Laurel Brittingham may be a lot of things but foolish certainly was not one of them, I decided as I slumped Paul onto the couch in the living room. I really wanted to just leave him in the car, the rat bastard, serves him right for doing what he did to me. But knowing how I am and not one to see someone suffer needlessly, I hoisted him up out of the car. I did slap him around a little bit to wake him - that did feel good on a totally subconscious level of course. I passed through the kitchen and said out loud, hoping he would hear me and remember what we talked about before the rat bastard lost his marbles in his drinks, “Hmmm…Paul look at the spot right there on the kitchen floor. Do you see it? Is that the spot you wanted my dress to be tossed?” He mumbled something and I kicked him hard in the shin as I dragged him through the kitchen.

“I wou
ldn’t have sex with you now, even if my life depended on it.” I heaved while I slammed him onto the couch. “You rat bastard, you! Maybe if you didn’t get so stinking drunk but now, now I’m sleeping alone and you will sleep here on the couch.” I slapped him once more for good measure. He didn’t even flinch! “You rat bastard! I hope you puke up a lung and then have a hangover for a week!”

As I made my
way up the stairs for the night and took off my emerald gown, wanting to burn it in the bedroom fireplace, I tossed it on the floor and imagined what the evening would have been like if Paul wasn’t such an idiot, rat bastard. I lay down on the bed, under the warm flannel sheets and even warmer, plush comforter and let my hands roam, seeking warmth and comfort and I thought about Paul’s assault on me.

I was humiliated, embarrassed, mortified and unprotected. I think that was the worst of it, unprotected
. Those feelings are what swirled through the top layer of my gray matter, lower and lower still underneath the deeper darker layers of my subconscious thoughts my hippocampus pulsed while I slowly drifted off to sleep.  I let my hands wander softly over my skin, stroking, caressing. I thought of Paul’s touch, rough, aggressive, masculine. His assault ignited a primal urge buried deep, deep in my gray matter, so deep it was taking over conscious activity. My hands roamed gently across my flat stomach, creating soft, soothing circles and then lower still, stroking, stroking through my silken dark red curly strands, seeking a relief to the throbbing, the ache that manifested from thinking of being taken forcefully while people watched triggering a primal urge suppressed during wakeful hours and unleashed during tension filled dreams. I was drifting deeper and deeper into sleep, mumbling, stroking, searching, hearing jungle drums beat and feeling my core beat in response to it. My fingers pressed and released, pressed and released, pressed and released. Images of Paul came to the forefront of my cerebral cortex, images of his smile and blue eyes. I could hear him whisper my name, whisper he loved me, told me he was sorry and would never do it again, told me to relax and he would take care of everything. It was Paul’s hand now, pressing and releasing, rubbing, pinching, tugging and finally rubbing so hard, so hard and fast that my stomach clenched, my thighs drew themselves up, my hips arched off the bed and my inner core exploded, pulsing, beating to the drums, clenching and releasing, wanting something, anything to fill the emptiness, each contraction looking to enfold and suck a powerful, hard and proud rod into its inner recesses but instead dragged me further into myself, further into my primitive dreams until they stopped beating and pulsing and I fell further still, spent, exhausted into my dreams so far I didn’t wake once or move until morning.

I woke
early, very early the next morning slightly more relaxed, when memories washed over me like a tidal wave. I remembered Paul at his graduation, puking his guts up, I attributed that to celebrating graduation, but we were college graduates, not high school ones, I remembered our wedding night too, he wasted that night too. I always thought that maybe it was because he was so happy. More memories flooded my mind, slamming into me with more and more force like a nor’easter coming up the East Coast; memories that I thought reflected celebrations and happiness, not drunkenness, not alcoholism, Paul at Kristy and Mitch’s barbeques-drunk, Paul at my sister’s houses and my mom’s - always drunk, even in his own mother’s house - drunk. Jesus, how could I have been so stupid, so blind. I eased back into a fitful sleep again but, before I fell asleep, I was determined, determined to fix it, determined to force it, determined to help and give until I bled because that’s what Laurel Brittingham did. She gave until it hurt.

I woke up
again to a silent, dull, gray morning, ready for battle, ready to win not just the battle but the entire war. I jumped out of bed and fired up the computer. I heard rat bastard groaning downstairs and decided to go downstairs and fix him a hangover cure. I made my way downstairs, put on the tea kettle for me and opened the refrigerator door and took out the mustard.

“Helen always said, mix a little mustard with some water, drink it and everything you ate last week will come up too.” I said out loud. I couldn’t wait to see this action.

“Here, Paul, drink this.” I shoved it under his nose and he didn’t even need to drink it. He got up, ran to the bathroom and sounded like everything from last week was coming back for a repeat performance. He emerged dazed but coherent.

“Feel better?”

“No, not really.”

“Good.”

“Good? Have you no womanly sympathy about you? I could use some right about now?” He fell back onto the couch and groaned some more.

“Womanly sympathy?” I snorted, “after what you did to me last night
pal, you’re lucky I didn’t leave you in the car.”

“What I did last night?” He looked incredulous. “What did
I do last night?”

“Of course you wouldn’t remember! Most alcoholics don’t remember anything when they black out.”

“Alcoholic?  Who are you calling an alcoholic? What the fuck are you talking about Laurel? Please, my head is killing me? What happened?”

“Well, gee Paul let’s start with what you do remember.”

He scratched his unshaven chin and mused, “hmmm…I remember you wearing that sexy, green gown and wanting to fuck you on the floor right then and there.”

“You know at any other time that would have turned me on but right now, I’m so pissed at you, it ain’t working. Oh and by the way you practically did.” I tied my
unruly hair back. It was a long morning already.

“What? What are you talking about? Fucking you on the floor of
the President’s mansion? I wouldn’t dare.” His voice sounded steady but his wide deer in the headlights gaze betrayed him.

“Oh yes you would!” The tone of my voice got his attention and he shot up off t
he couch and his eyes went wider still.

“Jesus, Laurel, what did I do?”
He gulped and slumped into a bar stool at the kitchen counter.

“Hmm…don’t remember do you?”

“Christ, I told you I don’t remember, now quit fucking around and just tell me.”

“You got so drunk that you pawed me in front of a group of people during the middle of a conversation about the worth and value of a woman.” I spat out furiously.

“What?” He looked like he was going to throw up again.

“Yes, Paul. Now, you know how I felt last night while you yanked at my breasts and squeezed my ass and groped me like I was nothing more than your personal sex toy. IN. FRONT. OF. EVERYONE. I will never go to another work function with you ever again. I can’t. I can never show my face again. A kind, older gentleman which by the way was the President of Big Fans manhandled you into the car after your very public display of affection and helped me get you home. That’s who mentioned to me you were an alcoholic.”

“ALCO-what? You think I’m an alcoholic now because I passed out?” He tried to hug me, but I moved away from him. “Listen, honey, I’m so, so very sorry I embarrassed you. I promise I’ll make it up to you.”

“Good! You can start by going to AA meetings. I was doing some research this morning before I came down and I…” He cut me off with a yell that shook the windows.

“I AM NOT AN ALCOHOLIC AND I WILL NOT GO TO ANY STUPID FUCKING AA MEETING! GOT IT?”
He screamed and I shook but managed to get out a little shakily, “Paul but think about all those times that…” He held up his hand to silence me and slammed passed me, into the bathroom and threw up again.

I waited and when he didn’t come out I talked to him through the door. “Paul, honey, listen to me. I’m sure it’s going to be hard but I’m here for you. I’ll support you while you get help. I’ll…” He swung open the door and flashed the meanest, most vicious eyes
I’ve ever seen. He really did scare me at that point. I backed away sputtering.

“Listen to me Laurel and listen good!” He backed me up against the kitchen wall. I
could smell his putrid breath, a breath that just a few nights ago was blowing softly against my nipples while we lay in bed enjoying one another and now, I wanted to scrub the feel of it off my face with a brillo pad. His eyes were so vile, so frightening. I didn’t know this man and I didn’t want to provoke him again. This wasn’t the man I married. This wasn’t the Paul I fell in love with. He didn’t hit me but I was afraid that if I pushed him any more today or ever again, he just might.

“
If you think for one flipping, frigging moment I’m going to go to an AA meeting because some old geyser you never met before tells you I’m an alcoholic you have another thing coming! Don’t ever, ever bring this up again! It’s ridiculous, ludicrous! An alcoholic! ME? What a laugh! C’mon Laurel, you’re not laughing!” He looked just that slightest bit shy of insane and was trying to tickle me to get me to laugh, I assume, but I kept slapping his hands away.