Adultry 101

By Margaret Kona

Emma is so busy these days trying to find her way out of the hole that used to be her marriage. And what the heck is Mona doing in there? Hey, that's my husband, you hussy, so get dressed and get out! Em has her dear son, Lon, and Joan, her best friend forever or best forever friend, whichever way that goes, and of course her mom has her back. That Sunday-only Methodist upbringing has come in handy too.
Yet another monogamous marriage bites the dust. Now what? More than twenty invested before the piano fell on her head. Moving on isn't that easy when you don't know what direction to take…or perhaps it's better to stay?
Oh powerful, mighty wizard, do I stay or do I go? Clicking those ruby slippers may take her back, but there is no place like home since that cheatin' F5 tornado blew it apart!
Not unlike falling down a rabbit hole or blowing into Oz, adultery truly is another world. Let's learn some of the basics with Emma. There she is now, bumbling around down there in that foggy dark hole. When does it go from black and white to the beautiful Technicolor?
Thank goodness she has a sense of humor! Emma has enrolled, that is has been rolled into, Adultery 101. Come on in and audit the course.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Wings ePress, Inc.
• Release date: Aug 5, 2023
• ISBN: 9781613093658

Book preview

Dedication

For Mother and Jesus and Almighty God.

One

I want to be a complete person all by myself; not dependent on somebody else for my happiness. I should just get on with it!

Gloria rolled her round bottom in the plastic chair and crossed one sturdy leg over the other. She flashed her white teeth in a quick smile; happy and confident—or at least she made me think she was.

"Emma, why are you using should? The word should makes me feel anxious. Let’s say I can do it."

I nodded and tried again. "I can get on with my life. It’s just that I don’t seem to be able to go ahead and get the divorce and I’m not happy being married to a man who would betray me like that. I’m constipated in this relationship!"

Gloria thought that was funny. There are laxatives, you know.

I’m aware deep down that being true to my inner self means getting out of this mess. I paused, knowing Gloria knew I knew what I should do. I mean could do. "I’m having a real problem not resenting the hell out of the fact he did it with Mona. Why can’t I function with him? It’s been five months!"

Gloria never lost her cool. She appeared to move her brain around to follow my thinking. She was thinking now, her private yet open expression making me feel like I was in the hands of a wise person. Maybe like Rick in Casablanca. I had recently watched it on Turner Classic Movies. Had Rick struggled with honesty? Had he ignored the truth so he could go ahead and do the things he wanted such as doing another man’s wife? Was sex so unimportant in the big picture he didn’t even have to think about it at all? I figured ignoring honesty to do something wrong was the way my own husband thought, and that had resulted in my seeking therapy in the first place. Gloria said, You mean what’s wrong with you?

"I guess so. Other women go through this, and most of them stay in the relationship, don't they? How could they stay if they feel like I do? He shared our marriage! Twenty years together! Not that the last few years have been great. We did fight a lot, and he did resent me because I didn’t want to work, and I resented the fact he resented me because I didn’t want to. And I really did want to! It was the fact he expected me to that made me not want to. Things were pretty bad, but it still doesn’t make it okay to go out on me!"

Gloria, my mother Clemma, and my best friend Joan appreciated the awfulness of what Steve had done to me. I wasn’t so sure about anyone else, especially men. Men seemed to view sex outside the marriage as a mistake—like zombies that go through with it because they have no control.

Gloria used a bowling ball theory. You are going to experience this push-pull, come here, go away, between you and Steve if you stay in this marriage. The knowledge he violated your deepest beliefs will make a working relationship difficult. Things were not going very well anyway, and now a big bowling ball has been thrown in the middle of it, and you are trying to reorganize around it.

My mother said it would be making an attempt to put Humpty Dumpty back together again. She uses Humpty Dumpty instead of a bowling ball.

I thought about the rebuilding chore ahead of me if I stayed with Steve and spluttered angrily, interrupting Gloria, which is a bad habit I have. Maybe it was because I thought people wouldn’t listen to me after they stopped talking if they could simply walk away. "Why should I have to work extra hard just to stay in my own marriage? I didn’t do anything! I didn’t ask for this! Steve was with another woman, and he still has me. Her husband and kids don’t know. I’m leaving it in God’s hands to wreak revenge upon her, and that is certainly not happening as rapidly as I would have hoped. So what if Steve says he made a mistake and he’s sorry and he’ll never do it again. So what if she came after him? He should have just said no. We expect the kids to just say no to drugs. I’m the one who gets stuck with a messed-up marriage. I’m the one who got the dirty end of the stick!"

I was on a roll now; up and moving in the small office, a mousy Woody Allen pacing around and using my hands; amazed at my new horrible life. "I had started working on our marriage, anyway. He probably doesn’t believe that, but I knew something was really wrong. Like radar—I could sense it. Sure, we had our problems, but after he started seeing her, he was so mean to me! He badgered me about being a Methodist, and the Republican stand on the environment, and here he was behaving like Bill Clinton behind my back the whole time. Seriously, I thought to myself, ‘Who does this guy remind me of?’ and it hit me he was behaving like the President of the United States. I was trying to get it together. I’d started going to aerobics and drinking lots of water. I switched from tequila to beer!"

You have a right to set your limits, Emma. Gloria would know. "By admitting things were not going well before the affair, you have taken a big step in assuming some responsibility for the direction your marriage was heading. A marriage relationship is like a big pimple—put enough pressure on it and, eventually, the pimple is going to pop. The popping may be alcohol or eating or gambling or an affair, but it will pop."

I was grossed out Gloria was talking about pimples. It wasn’t like her.

After a few moments of silence, she said, Well, when we get together next week, what is one thing you will have accomplished to help you feel closer to complete and fulfilled? Something you could cut back on you do for Steve that will further you toward being an individual... perhaps cooking less for him?

I snorted. That was cut back on a couple of years ago.

The idea of cooking meals for Steve did not appeal to me in the least. I wouldn’t dump a can of Vigo on the sidewalk and call him like a dog. The fact he had been with another woman in the most intimate way made me cry all the time. Did she bring a video camera? Were her boobs big and stayed perky without the help of cold temperature or implants? Did she wear crotchless panties and bras with holes for her nipples? Did she melt in his mouth and not in his hands? I hadn’t seen Mona Lowmons in twenty-five years, and I pictured a blurred blow-up doll: she walks, she talks, she fearlessly stands downwind—or upwind, I get those mixed up—from God, and then spews on his commandments as she lures a weak-willed, but decent man into beating the emotional crap out of his own wife.

We left the conference room. Gloria flipped the plastic In Session tag hanging on a hook screwed into the door. We walked down the hall together to make the next appointment.

I spoke, not liking the uncomfortable silence. If I could just get a lobotomy, I think I could stay with him and be happy.

Gloria smiled at me. Not a treatment option.

Two

Ifelt pretty good after the session. Steve’s actions had left me with feelings of unworthiness and failure. I knew those feelings were caused by him being selfish and not my fault. But had I made the pimple pop? A few weeks after Steve made Mona dwell in my brain, I went to my gynecologist, who has seen plenty of women and asked him, ‘would you be perfectly honest and tell me what you think of me down there as a female. Would it be good for intercourse?’ I was pretty short, yet thoroughly enjoyed eating and a drink(s). That made me gain weight and I constantly had to deal with it; having no capacity to feel comfortable the way I was, partly because Barbie was introduced when I was a kid, and she had lurked in the background as an ideal female body, plastic monster that she was. Since finding the motel receipt in November, I had lost a couple of pounds.

I hadn’t mentioned losing weight to my psychologist, Gloria. She was a bit over her ideal weight herself and I didn’t want to hurt her feelings. Just the other day, I had set myself up to be rude to another person and planned on being extra careful not to do it again. I was in the Golden Hurricane clothing store in the Tulsa University student union. That’s where I went for my counseling, Psychological Services at TU. I was trying something on. The store manager, Geraldine, knocked on the door, shaking the tiny dressing room. You could hardly move around in there to get things on and off.

You would look darling in this denim jumper, she spoke through the thin plywood and sounded sincere, not just saying what you want to hear like some salespeople do.

I was wriggling into a green and white cotton and spandex dress. Discovered in the 50% off area, it was perfect except it was a medium instead of a large—or possibly an extra-large would have been good. There was only one, so I was giving the medium a chance, hoping it had been sized by a savvy designer. I’d plucked it from the rack along with a purple washable linen number which looked like a tent dress, the style popular in the 60s because it was big like a camping tent. About the tight dress...I thought aerobics daily for the past few months must have begun to pay off, and I had cut back on fries and Fritos dipped in mustard, and beers. Plus, Gloria had been telling me I lacked confidence and was too hard on myself and that kept me from letting myself shine. Maybe I could actually fit into a medium. Maybe shine in it. The tent dress had pockets and three-quarter sleeves and was supposed to look wrinkled. It was perfect.

Replying to Geraldine through the fabric stretched across my mouth, I put my foot in there at the same time, Is it the jumper hanging on the rack? With the zipper? I don’t want to look like a college girl. You know, like I’m trying to stay young or something.

I stepped out of the dressing room, feeling kind of like an encased sausage, and stood face to face with Geraldine. Geraldine, an attractive woman at least ten years older than me, was wearing the same denim jumper we were talking about.

Playing dumb, I batted my short eyelashes and took little steps toward the mirror. My legs were constricted by the fitted skirt, and a large would have been better, or possibly an extra-large...but hey, I looked pretty good in it! The material actually touched my bottom, cupping my aerobically enhanced cheeks, and it didn’t look too obscene. I looked kind of sexy.

Looks very slimming on you, Geraldine said sincerely.

Do you think so? Would you have it shortened?

A hem’s length. You do want to keep it longish?

Yes. I began to work myself out of the denim jumper remark. "I know the style is above the knee, but I just can’t seem to get past that long skirt look. My mother’s friend, who is very stylish and spends a lot of time at The Greenery, looks great in those dresses above her knee, and she must be at least eighty, but I just