I don’t know what he expects me to say or think or do. Lou came home in a panic asking if it’s legal for someone to tape phone calls and use it against you, and if there was a way to tell when a conversation is being recorded. I said that I had no idea and asked why he was worried.
He rambled that some woman at the local hospital where he is consulting has been flirting with him, and that they talked on the work phones during the day, and it turned into dirty sexy talk. Now he’s paranoid she has been setting him up for some kind of trap. He thinks there is an elaborate conspiracy to get him fired from the hospital gig because he will uncover some serious hidden issues. As he blithered nonsense, I looked into his glossy black eyes, and asked if he was high. He confessed that he’d just been smoking pot with her in the car in a parking lot, and that they had kissed. I don’t know which piece of information pissed me off more at first: the kissing or the smoking in our Benz.
From there, things went from bad to worse. As part of his conspiracy theory evidence trail of being set up, he admitted to lying to me about going to dinner with clients at the Hotel DuPont, and that he had actually gone alone with this woman. That is when I started to cry. The Green Room at the Hotel DuPont is the only fine restaurant we have dined at in the eight years we have been together. We made reservations there for our last anniversary, got dressed up, and had fancy food and drinks while a harpist played live romantic music. How could he take her there? I remember thinking it was weird that he came home all horny from that “client” dinner. He genuinely had no clue why I was hurt and tearful, and he had the audacity to be mad at me for getting upset and not helping with his work issue. I choked back my tears and advised there probably isn’t anything to worry about as long as the conversation went both ways, not just him talking to her, and she did not ask him to stop. He mumbled that she was a cock tease, and he was going to stay away from her. I assume that meant she didn’t put out beyond the kissing.
Since he was stoned and talkative, I asked if there was anything else I should know. He did not hesitate to offer up that sometimes on his way to his client in Pennsylvania, he stops at a place for a hand job, but assured me it was no big deal and didn’t mean anything. I know he didn’t tell me everything, and perhaps that’s just as well.
Lou fell asleep. I cleaned the house. I think when I clean, and I silently scream. I rant, vent, and obsess in my head. There is a sock that I keep in my drawer. It is a single woman’s sock that isn’t mine. It came home from Pennsylvania mixed in with his suitcase laundry quite a long time ago. He stays at a nice hotel five nights a week that has a nightclub known to be a pickup joint, and rumored to have prostitution. And because he’s such a regular, well-known guest, they upgrade him to the honeymoon suite whenever it is available.
I am so damn angry but muted because there’s nothing I can say that won’t get turned around on me. I scrub everything in sight until my fingers cramp up. My house is very clean, and I feel a little better when I am done.