Recently, my friend, let’s call her Sophie (chuckle, because that is her name) said her gorgeous boyfriend Scott came to her distraught.
Sophie and Scott have been high school sweethearts, it has always been Sophie & Scott, Scott and Sophie. They are in their mid thirties and they have been together for 20 years, just gone.
All their friends, and brothers and sisters, have paired up, separated, and paired up again multiple times and have now got married and started having children and Sophie and Scott have remained girlfriend and boyfriend only with eyes, seemingly, for each other.
Sophie and Scott have been regarded as a sure thing by all those who know them.
Recently, it had crossed Sophie's mind that perhaps something was going on with Scott. “Oh, nothing really,” she said. But when you have been with someone for so long, "have only been with that person," said Sophie. “Even the smallest changes are obvious.”
“What were the changes?”
“Talking on the phone, kind of, um, quietly,” said Sophie.
“Quietly?” I asked.
“He has always told me who he was talking to, after any call, just because he always has, now he hangs up and is silent. Same with texts, he’d always say, that was Mike, he wanted… or Kitt just saying... or Peter, or James, or his parents calling to see how we are, now he texts and doesn’t comment afterwards. Just puts his phone down.”
“Subtle changes, hey?”
“Yes, really just very small things.”
“Have you asked…”
“And he’s still working from home, and hasn’t been so inclined to go into the office for staff functions, he has tried to get out of them, as a rule, and has always gone complaining, if he went.”
“I see.”
“Now he seems to go happily, not a peep.”
“Had you asked him?”
“No. No, I hadn’t asked him,” said Sophie. “I don’t think I wanted to know the answer. My Scott.”
“Isn’t it better to know?”
“Yeah, I wasn’t sure, really I wasn’t,” said Sophie. “There was a part of me who couldn’t blame him, who’d really understand.”
“What are you saying?”
“We’ve been together for 20 years,” said Sophie. “And while I love Scott with all my heart and can NEVER imagine life without him.” Her eyes welled up with tears, just momentarily. “Our sex life is non existent, neither of us are asking the other for any sex. We’ve really become best friends. We’re friends that’s what we are, I think to myself.”
“Oh, come on…”
“No, it’s true, it is so true, there is no use being in denial.”
“How long since you have had sex?”
Sophie smiled like she didn’t want to give away that much. Then she looked wistful. “Two years. Maybe longer.”
“Two years. Maybe longer?”
“Scott is 35. I can’t expect him not to have sex again, I think to myself.”
“What about you?”
Sophie grunted. “Oh, yes, me too. I’m too young not to have sex again too,” she said. “But, I hadn’t missed it.” Her eyes welled up briefly again. “Not really. I know that is terrible. And I know I should have, but I hadn’t. I was…” she smiled, I can only say self consciously, “kind of in my bliss, everything was perfect.”
“Perfect, with no loving.”
“Oh, Scott and I sleep in each other’s arms every night. Scott is lovely in every way that he has always been,” said Sophie. “In fact, in an odd kind of way, he’s been just a little bit more attentive, recently.”
“Guilt?”
“Just around the edges, I suspected.”
“Mr Perfect,” I said. “He even guilts in the perfect way.”
Sophie exhaled loudly. “Still my Prince Charming.”
Sophie kind of drifted off some place else, happier times with Scott, I presumed, even if she was saying times are still happy.
“And?” I prompted.
“And?” Sophie looked kind of lost at me.
“Yes,” I said. “Continue.”
“Well.” Her voice gave a tell tale squeak. “We’re both so busy with work, working late, whoever finishes first cooks dinner, or starts it, and we both finish it. We fall asleep on the couch in each other’s arms, one of us wakes the other to go to bed, we drag our tired arses off to bed. Repeat the next day.”
“We all live busy lives.” I wasn’t so sure how my input was helping.
“Scott would be out with a buddy from work seeing the latest Mario movie, or doing lunch with colleagues, well, I spend all my time with Scott, and I wouldn’t trade that for anything, but I also started to enjoy some alone time too.”
“Really?”
“It is therapeutic, being with yourself. I kind of missed it, in a sense, with all this work from home, constantly being together stuff we’ve had these last few years. Just me and Otto. I could have my thoughts.”
“Have your thoughts.”
“Yes, lately, I’d even considered buying some pot, you know on the quiet, for those occasions. I gave up having a joint at night because Scott didn’t like it.”
“Didn’t like you having it?”
“Oh, well, that too, but really it was because he doesn’t like it himself. He doesn’t cope well with smoking.”
“How often was he away?”
“No, not very often, certainly not weekly, so perhaps it just seemed something in my head,” said Sophie. “I wondered if it was something wrong with me. Was I the one who wanted to… was the rest of it in my head?”
“So, what did you do?”
“Well, ashamedly, I did nothing,” said Sophie. “The person I would talk such a thing through with was Scott, so for obvious reasons…”
“So, why didn’t you ask him?”
Sophie opened and closed her mouth. She looked off into the distance. And there was a moment of silence. “If I asked him, no matter the truth of the matter, it would all come crashing in on me,” she said. “Would I unleash something I couldn’t stop again. Could I put that genie back in the bottle, if I did that?”
“Surely, it would be better than…”
“Oh, you know, that is so easy to say. I was scared…”
“Scared?”
“Nervous. I didn’t know…” said Sophie. “I was still in the working it out for myself stage.”
“Working it out.”
“I think a part of me wanted Scott to ask me what was wrong,” said Sophie. “Surely, if I was having, what really was, when all was said and done, doubts, surely, he’d see it in me…”
“What, admit to his own bad behaviour?”
“Oh, I know that sounds pathetic when I say it out loud, but would his guilt, and you know, I wasn’t even sure it was even guilt…”
“How so?”
“Well, if it was sex, and he was just having sex, then there was a part of me that couldn’t blame him…”
“Jesus, Sophie, what about the dishonesty…”
“What dishonesty?”
“Him going behind your back?”
“Is that dishonest?” said Sophie. She shrugged. “Or honest.”
“What?”
“Maybe, I had let him down.”
“This is not your fault.”
“Oh, Josh, I know it’s not my fault as in allocating blame, but have… had I lost interest in him sexually?”
“What?”
“I had. It’s true.”
“You can’t blame yourself.”
“I was not blaming myself,” said Sophie. “I was just trying to understand it.”
“So, what happened?”
“What happened?” she repeated.
“Yes.”
“Scott had gone out to a work farewell, someone colleague was leaving. He came home later than was anticipated. Otto and I were snoring on the couch in front of the TV…”
“Attractive.”
“Yes, I know.”
“Go on.”
“Scott turned off the TV. Otto woke and start to wriggle at Scott’s arrival.”
“Bulldog wriggles.”
“Yes, bulldozed all over me, woke me up.”
“What time was it.”
“Midnight. I’d drunk the good part of a bottle of red.”
“The picture gets better.”
“Oh.” Sophie giggled. “Scott was clearly upset.”
“How?”
“How?”
“Yes, how did he look upset.”
“Oh, I could just tell,” said Sophie. “He denied it, said he was tired, but there was just something…”
“Woman’s intuition?”
“An idiot’s intuition,” said Sophie. “So, I pressed him.”
“And?”
“He broke down in tears. Cried like a baby. The other girl broke it off with him. Couldn’t have him exclusively, or something. Wanted more time with him, that he wasn’t going to give. He didn’t want her too. He wanted to continue. They had great sex. He didn’t want to hurt me. He didn’t know what he wanted.”
“What did you say?”
“This was the first breakup he’d ever had, you know, he didn’t know how to deal with it.”
“Oh, poor him,” I said sarcastically.
“He was beside himself… and confused… distraught, because I was the person he wanted to come home to and spill his guts to and to hold me and for me to tell him it would be alright as I always do… as he always does for me.”
“And what did you do?”
Sophie exhaled very loudly. She looked off into the distance again. “I… um… got…” She looked at me with a hard gaze. “His emotional distraught was…”
“Was?”
“Was… a turn on.”
“What?”
“Oh… my… god… that out pouring of…” she shook her head.” “Raw emotion from him turned me on.”
“Turned you on?” I heard the alarm in my voice.
“Yes, out of my inaction came…”
“Came?”
She looked at me. “Suddenly, I just wanted to fuck him.”
“WHAT?”
“I wanted to have sex with him.”
“I can’t believe you.”
“I can’t believe myself,” said Sophie. “But that is what I wanted…”
“And… what did you do.”
“I thought, fuck it, he’s been doing what he wants… for however long, fuck him and fuck his tears…”
“And?”
“And… I just started kissing him…”
“And what did he do.”
“He pulled away, initially, confused, I’m wondering if he thought he was misreading the situation…”
“But he wasn’t.”
“No, he wasn’t… and through his tears, and his snot and his emotional distress, he tried to stop me, looked confused, like it wasn’t appropriate, like he thought it was wrong… but…”
“But?”
“But? I pulled his clothes off and we fucked long and hard on the couch.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“I know,” said Sophie. “How about that?”
“And did that help?’
“Um…” Sophie exhaled. Struggled to find words. “No… um… no, not initially, it was confusing, for both of us.”
“Confusing.”
“Yes, like we were suddenly doing strange things.”
“Strange things?”
“Like we were in uncharted territory and we’d kind of headed off into uncharted territory.”
“And what happened.”
“It was late and I said let’s just go to bed. And we went to bed, exhausted.”
“He said it was just sex and that he was sorry.” She smiled wanly. “With the other girl.”
“Did you accept that.”
“Yes, sure, the logical side of me did,” said Sophie. “And despite the fact I had thought it through already, you know just, the emotional side of me couldn’t help but be a little bruised. My Scott.”
“And how is it?”
“Oh,” Sophie smiled. “He has said all the right things. It was just sex. He never thought she would replace me. He never ever thought he’d leave me, or that we’d split up. He didn’t know what would happen, but he never thought we’d break up.”
“What did you think of that?”
“I understood,” said Sophie. “He said he was horny.”
“Horny?”
“That I wasn’t showing any interest in him.”
“Is that true?”
“I’ve told you it was true.”
“He said he just got tired of always being the one to want sex.”
“Is that true.
“I guess it is.”
“He said he cannot imagine life without me,” said Sophie.
“Did he not think to talk to you…”
“He got cocky and said he wanted to have a threesome with this other girl.”
“What did you say?”
Sophie laughed. “I said sure, as long as we could have a threesome with Angelo from work who keeps flirting with me.”
“What did he say to that?’
“Well, he didn’t say no,” said Sophie. “But he hasn’t really asked if Angela can come around again.”
“So, what do you want to do?”
“I dunno,” said Sophie. “But when Angelo the young lawyer chats me up at work again, I’m not going to be so uptight about it, that much I know.”
“Angelo?”
“He has far too much confidence flirting with one of his seniors for his own good, let me tell you, and it will probably come back to bite him one of these days, if I did, but until then...”
“Really.”
“He really needs to be taken down a peg, or two.”
“I haven’t seen this side of you before.”
Sophie laughed. “Neither have I.”
“So, are you saying its Angela?”
“Yes.”
“And Angelo?”
“Yes,” said Sophie. “Oh yes, I hadn’t seen that before.”
“Really?”
A few weeks later I saw Sophie. She had capitulated to Scott and Angela had come over and the three of them had got together one Saturday night. There was soft music and candles and incense and flavoured lube.
“Was it strange?”
“Yes and no.”
“Yes, and no?”
“Well, not as strange as I thought it was going to be.”
“Did you feel jealous?”
“No, not jealous.”
“Well, what did you feel?”
“I felt closer to Scott than I had in years.”
“I wasn’t expecting you to say that.”
“Neither was I?”
“And how was it with Angela?”
“She’s nice, I like her,” said Sophie. “She said she was sorry about her and Scott, that while she couldn’t say she didn’t know he was married at the outset, she said she just didn’t really think it through.”
“And you were okay with that?”
“Yes, sure. She said she thought Scott and I had an arrangement, and she broke it off when she realised we didn’t.”
“And you believe her?”
“Yes, yes I do,” said Sophie. “She said it was only ever sex for her and she gave herself permission when she thought we had an arrangement.”
“So, it was enjoyable…”
“Yes.” Sophie laughed.
“Why are you laughing?”
“I never thought I’d do something like that.”
“So, what about Angelo.”
“Yes… no… Angelo hasn’t been mentioned again.”
