Page 63 of Drilled (Dad Bod Contracting 2)
“Ouch. That fucking sucks.”
“So I got my shit together and went to stand behind her as she was waiting for the pharmacist to complete the order. She had a drink in her hand, an iced coffee, I think. She was done up, made up, looking prim and proper as ever. She even had an overnight bag, which I guess she kept in her car and I just never realized it. So, yeah, she opened the box right there and took the pill in the store, and then turned around and literally bumped into me.”
“What did she say?”
He laughs, once again with vicious bitterness. “She was shaken, because she knew she’d been caught red-handed, and that there was no point in even trying to deny it. So she didn’t. I didn’t know what to say, so I just turned around and left. Went back to work, went home. She was there, and we got in this huge fight. She accused me of working too much, never being home, so she was lonely, what was she supposed to do, blah-blah-fucking-blah.”
“So she had the nerve to try to blame you?”
“Oh yeah. But out of fear, because her parents were even more Catholic than mine, if you know what I mean. Divorce wasn’t an option for either of us. Like, just no. Her parents would disown her if she got a divorce, and mine would stop talking to me for who knows how long.”
“So what’d you do?”
“I stayed with her.” He sets his carving knife back in its place and scoops the shavings into his palm and discards them in a nearby trashcan. “For another two, almost three years.”
“Three years? Why?”
“Divorce wasn’t an option. I don’t know how to explain it if you didn’t grow up like we did.” He shrugs. “It was three years of hell. I hated her. I got myself tested for STDs, and then refused to touch her. I worked, and I went home, slept in a different bed. Avoided her. She tried her damnedest to get me back, made all sorts of promises, tried to seduce me, every trick in the book. But I just…I couldn’t do it. I’d grown up seeing my parents hooking up with different people, and I hated that as a kid. My wife, cheating on me? Oh, fuck no. More proof that marriage was bullshit.”
“And you did that for three years?”
“Yep.”
I blink hard, thinking. “You didn’t touch her?”
“Nope.”
“At all, for three years?”
“Nope.”
“And you never cheated?”
“Fuck no. I’d have been justified, some would say, but that’s not me. So no, I didn’t touch her and I didn’t cheat.”
“So you were celibate for three years?”
“I got real acquainted with my own hand, let me tell you.” He sighs. “If you really want all the gory details, there was one time, near the end, that I let her touch me. I was lonely as fuck, and it was a weekend. She was gone, as usual, because after it became clear I wasn’t giving in, she went back to her old ways. So, Friday night, I got wasted at home alone. It was awful, and only made me feel shittier. So I went to bed. Woke up to a hell of a dream—my wife loved me again; she’d never been unfaithful. She was in my bed, sucking my cock, and it felt amazing. It was only afterward that I realized I wasn’t dreaming, that she really was in my bed. She’d gotten drunk, come home, saw me in bed and got horny or something, decided to try one more time to get me back. That, apparently, was just her way of doing it. I kicked her out, and I wasn’t nice about it either. I was…well, I was pretty awful, actually. Said some really nasty shit to her. I was still drunk, but it doesn’t excuse it. I just…I felt nasty, slimy, and just…dirty, for having let her do that to me. I just wanted nothing to do with her.”
“Oh god, Franco. That is so terrible. I don’t even know what to say.”
He nods. “I know. I’m over that. I’m just explaining how I felt then.” He pauses for a minute. “Actually, that was kind of the tipping point for me, now that I think about it. I was talking to James about it on the phone—he’d never understood why I wouldn’t just divorce her cheating skank ass, and I never had a good explanation beyond the Catholic guilt thing, and my parents.” He pauses again. “And then James was like, dude, the approval of your parents means nothing to you. You’re not a practicing Catholic anymore. You’re ten times the man your old man is, and you deserve to be happy. If not happy, then at least free. And who gives a flying rat fuck how it makes Maria feel? She’s the one who brought this all on herself.”
