“What?” Peggy asked distractedly.
“That’s the last time I’m going to try to keep you from making the biggest mistake in your life,” Kyle said. “I’ve had it. I’m full up to here–his hand measured a point on his neck–with you sneaking around, your plans and your damned arguments that you are entitled to fuck some guy because of thirty seconds of oral sex I accidentally got almost a year ago, Peggy.”
He watched her for a long moment. Neither said anything. Kyle stared intently at his wife, as if at a stranger he would need to describe at some later date.
“I’m not going to make a mistake,” Peggy said at last. The defiance was muted, but still there. “All that’s in your mind.”
Kyle snorted. He recognized spin control when he heard it.
“That’s good, Peggy,” he said sarcastically. He leaned forward and lowered his voice to force her to listen closely.
“Because if you ever do, we…are…through. You understand that? We are finished if you ever deliberately go out and have sex with another man!” Peggy looked at him resentfully.
“You mean like you did with Ann?” she asked challengingly. Kyle shook his head.
“Don’t even start. You know it’s not true. What Ann and I did was unintentional. Neither of us knew the other person wasn’t who we thought it was and we stopped the second we found out.
“That’s all there was to it; it was a bad, very regrettable error but it was a mistake. What you’re trying to do is a whole different ballgame and you know it!” he said harshly. They’d been over this so many times and he was so tired of it.
Peggy shook her head. He saw, she would not–perhaps she could not–accept the idea of Kyle and Ann’s innocence.
“Well, you better find some way to live with it then,” Kyle told her, knowing what the stubborn expression on Peggy’s face meant. “I mean it. If you cheat on me, I’ll kick your ass out so fast your head will spin, woman.”
The look in her eyes told her husband she did not believe it. The rebelliousness was there in the set of her jaw. He sighed and went to bed. It seemed there was nothing he could do to avoid the train wreck he saw coming.
Chapter 4
The coldness lasted for months. Their sex life, which had been improving, plummeted to almost nothing. Kyle had to get used to having sex only once every two or three weeks. To compensate, he frequented the bathroom late at night and masturbated when the pressure became too great.
He put all his excess energy into making sure his children saw none of the strife he and Peggy were going through. Sometimes he was less successful than others. Already distant, he and Peggy acted like they were accidental roomers in the same boarding house. He became closer to his little girl and boy, seeking refuge in their affection from the hostility radiating from his wife.
He taught Todd to tie his shoelaces and worked on improving Todd’s table manners and social skills. Somewhere, at daycare probably, Toddy had picked up the idea that belching at odd moments was hysterically funny. It was hard work convincing him otherwise.