Positive

"You think?"

"Fuckin' A!" said a small, meek-looking guy with a dapper mustache. "Though some slapping around is in order, first. She'll never tell a soul, I guarantee."

"The guy needs a lot more than that!" said the first one. "A baseball bat will do wonders for him!"

"Here! Here!"

"I don't know …" They were talking too fast for me to get words in.

"You can't be a pussy about this!" said a gigantic, obese man in a drab, gray business suit. "You've gotta be a man and take charge. Don't get mad, get even!"

"Meaning?"

His voice dropped low and he leaned forward. So did several others. So did I.

"I know some guys who would gang-bang her for you. For a price. You'd never have to get involved. No one could prove you ordered it, but she'd get the message."

Mostly the guys just went on about how bitches ruined your life and how the law was unfair to men. The main theme was not to be a pussy. I heard that about four times.

The bartender poured me a free drink. I remember it was a single-malt scotch, neat, a double, from a bottle he pulled off the racks of rich-colored bottles behind him. He had tattoos up both arms, and a pony tail, like so many losers. Didn't his probation require him to stay away from bars? While he poured I wondered if that was his standard way of dealing with a man done wrong, and if maybe he expected I'd buy a round or leave a big tip.

The regulars were having a great time tossing around ways to put bitches in their place. While they did that the bartender leaned across the bar, close in to me. He had a thick, pink scar at the corner of his forehead.

"You seem like a nice guy." I smelled stale cigarettes on his breath, a whole carton of them.

"Thanks."

"So listen to me. Don't do anything crazy."

"What they said?" I nodded toward the barflies. "They're just bullshitting."

"Not necessarily. Not all of them. Watch out for the ones who bring it up again."

I looked over at them again but the bartender focused on me. "Like I said, you seem like a nice guy. Just don't do anything crazy." I wished he'd stop repeating himself. Then. "Your wife, she went crazy one day. She went nasty on you. But it's over. Right? She's sorry." He looked at me until I nodded. "So, before you do anything, you should think about how you two were before. If what she did is enough to end things cold turkey, then you already had bigger problems than you're gonna get fixed in here. If not…?" He shrugged.

I stared at him. I was feeling the drinks, but they weren't helping.

"Are you a therapist?"

He smiled a tight, almost nonexistent grin that didn't hold any humor.

"Just a barkeep. One who's learned from his mistakes."

I bought a round for everyone and left a big tip.

*****

I decided to leave Judith. Yes, there were bigger problems, Mr. Bartender.

It wasn't just the scotch thinking for me. I was drunk enough, but that wasn't it. It was because of who she chose to sex. At first I'd thought she picked George because I can't stand him, but it hit me I was wrong. Not that it being George wasn't a plus for her. No, the real reason it was him was that he'd do it right away, no questions asked. She wouldn't have to wait to get back at me. She got the news, and after the shock she thought, "That bastard! I'll kill him! I'll worse than kill him! I'll cut his balls off!" Stick it to Matt by having George stick it in her. It could have been a bum off the street, as long as she could do it without waiting.

O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!'
She chortled in her joy.

The whole time she was doing it she was planning how she'd spring it on me. She should have seen my barkeep. He'd have told her not to do anything crazy, and he would have been right.

When I got home Judith was waiting for me, looking like a sad, lost puppy. At first I wouldn't say anything to her, and she followed me around the house like that little pup, asking me to please talk. While I got down a suitcase she said, "Please, Matt."

"There's nothing to talk about. I need to be away from you."

"Don't leave."

"Why would anyone stay after that?"

"Please! I was desperate. I thought you had killed me. What else could I think?"

"Oh, that maybe there was a tiny leetle mistake?"

"I know, honey, I know, but I was insane! I wasn't thinking straight. Please try to see what I was going through. Please. Out of nowhere, I thought you had given me AIDS. I went out of my mind!"

"Not so much that you couldn't arrange a fuck session with George Mathis within a couple of hours!"

"Please!"

"I bet all that good sex made you feel a lot better for a while."

Judith jerked. She stiffened, as though to get some dignity.

"I didn't come, if that's what you mean."

"Well. So all you got out of doing George was punishing me. That's so much better."

And she collapsed again.

"That's not what I meant."

"What are you going to do the next time you think I've been bad, hire a hit man? Maybe have someone go over me with a baseball bat?"

"Please! Matt. I'm so sorry. I'm so ashamed. If I could undo it I would. Please give me another chance."

"I don't want that. I don't want to go back to what we had. It wasn't that good."

"Matt…"

"Wait! There's more. I don't want to have something to hold over you. I don't like either of us like this, and after a bit you wouldn't like it either. You'd have to be oh-so-nice about everything because you sexed Mr. Dickhead. It would kill you and it would kill us."

"Not if you really forgave me."

"Maybe. But I don't know that I can. I don't know that I want to. The first things you decided when you thought you were sick. The very first! They tell me a lot about you, and about us, and none of it is any good."

"Matt. Please. If you love me – if you ever loved me – please let me try. Try to understand. I wasn't myself! Give me a chance to make amends. I love you, and I'll do anything. I won't ever hurt you again. I promise."

How did the lines go? "And what have we got on the other side?" Sam Spade asked Brigid O'Shaughnessy, before he handed her to the police. "All we've got is that maybe you love me and maybe I love you."

"Shit. I'm sorry too. You say you love me. Well I don't know what I feel toward you, but it isn't love. And I do want to hurt you. Oh shit!"

I dumped the suitcase out and began repacking.

"Here. Let me help."

"Back off, damn it! I don't think you even believe what you're saying. I don't think you like me all that much, and I don't think you particularly like being married to me."

"Matt…"

"I won't be a sap! It turns out you're healthy. Well, you can be healthy and alone."

*****

We're apart. It's been months.

There are a lot of things I like about living alone, but being alone isn't one of them. If I'm at the apartment I sit in front of the TV or my computer, and wonder where all this started. Judith is the ghost who lives with me. Suddenly there she is, standing between me and the TV, or hovering over my bed at night, and we have long arguments that I always win. It doesn't help. It could have been worse, I guess. She could have sexed someone because she fell for him. Would that be worse? I don't know. Doesn't meanness count for something?

I don't have to be alone. Once word got out, two different woman invited me over for dinner. I didn't think I'd be much in demand, but again it doesn't matter. I'm sure they're very nice ladies, but I don't have the heart to start up dating again. Not yet anyway. I couldn't face all the little games you have to play, or stand the worry that someone could get hurt, her or me.

Judith? The real Judith, not the ghost? She's about like me, I guess, though she has the house. She's seeing a counselor and she says it's helping her. I don't think I'd do that.

It's been an experience though. You folks who have gone through it know what I mean. I've learned some things. Like what? Like what it is to have the rug pulled out from under you. Like how to act as though everything's fine when you're quivering inside. Like what woman-hating jerks some guys are. I wonder what the bar denizens would do in a real situation, as opposed to their power fantasies? Me, I'm trying to following the bartender's advice. The font of wisdom. Don't do anything crazy. Hell, I haven't even filed for divorce.

All this because her test was wrong. A one-percent chance of a false positive. If it had been right, we'd have kept on the direction we were going, smooth sailing or rough, happy or tired with each other, whatever. If she'd been slower to screw George, so that we saw the doc before anything happened and got the results straightened out, things would be more or less the same. If only it had been her cholesterol!

Judith's test was positive, but I'm not positive about anything. Ha-ha. My little joke. Very little.

We see each other from time to time. You find that hard to believe? There are a lot of practical matters to consider in a break-up, and her counselor suggested it. I pick her up and we go to neutral territory to talk. "Dates," she calls them and, frankly, once the uncertainty wore off and we could get away from talking about "it," they've been fine. She dresses up for them, and she wears makeup and perfume. I'd forgotten how lovely she is when she wants to be. We begin with practical matters and end up talking about everything. It's much nicer being with her than when we were together.

A couple of weeks ago she found a leak under the bathroom sink, so I spent Saturday buying supplies and fixing it myself, because it's still my house too and, frankly, money is tight. One bit of maintenance led to another, so pretty soon it was evening. She had made a roast and insisted I stay to eat. I didn't want to be rude, and I had been fixing up her place. She surprised me by making roasted potatoes, string beans, and a Greek salad, and she brought out a bottle of Cabernet. No, she didn't stop there. She baked an apple pie.

You may think you know where this is going. If you do you're way ahead of me.

Just last night we talked about property over a pasta dinner, then on the spur of the moment we went to an old movie at a neighborhood theatre. It was Judith's favorite chick flick: "Sleepless in Seattle." Afterward, she took my hand while we walked, just strolling under the Bradford Pear trees that line the sidewalks, talking through the still of the evening. She took my hand quietly, without fanfare, without asking, and I didn't let go. She has nice hands. We used to hold hands all the time. Sure. Wuss, wuss, wuss! She grew quiet and I asked, "What's on your mind?"

"I don't know. I just didn't think we'd ever hold hands again. That's all."

"Yeah." The monosyllabic male. I think she'd like to open doors into too many subjects I don't want to talk about. "Well, time passes."

At her door—it used to be "our" door—Judith gave me a good-night hug.

"Would you like to come in? For a drink?" You know where that invitation was heading.

"I don't think it would be a good idea." Big Ben, though, was standing before the hug was over, and I'm sure she could feel it. I gave her a kiss on the forehead, to get off the hook, and went home to fantasies of sex with her, sex like it was in the early years only of course even better.

Yes, I know she's trying to win me back. I'm not as much of a mope as you think.

I don't want to think too much about us as a couple, but I'm not blind. We're both alone, and neither of us is happy that way, but what chance would we have? Even today, if I think about it too much, I feel like I'm going to explode at how nasty she was, and wish I had beaten her, and daydream about a cleansing gang rape.

It's ironic then, isn't it, that I enjoy being with her more than I did before? She seems more thoughtful and more … there. I wonder when we lost that quality to each other? So yeah, I like being with her. Next time I may accept her offer.

End.