Catherine knocked on the door of room 206 of the
Avalon Motel, half-expecting someone would answer. But no one was there, so she
quietly let herself in. Reese hadn’t arrived yet, but she knew he would; she
knew that he couldn’t live without her anymore than she could without him. She
didn’t know why he needed sex so much, but she knew why she did. It was because
of her constant need to feel loved by her man, and the only way she knew that
could make her feel like that was to have sex. Only problem was that she didn’t
seem to know the difference between making love and having sex. To her, they
were one and the same. Reese was the one who could make all the pain go away
and make her feel good, if only for a short while.
Catherine had met Reese while at work. She
worked in a bank branch serving customers at the side counter. Her main job of
counter officer was opening personal bank accounts of all kinds and helping
people with transactions that were more complicated than the tellers could
handle, such as selling travellers’ cheques and Canadian and foreign bank
drafts and certifying cheques. Occasionally, she also had to open a current
account for a business client. She liked her job and was very good at it. In
fact, she could not really see herself doing any other kind of job that did not
involve contact with people on a daily basis. Every one of her colleagues at
the branch thought of her as a model banker, and they all admired her skill at
doing her job and dealing with people so well.
When Reese first came into the branch, she
didn’t know who he was. He became her customer because he wanted to open a
current account for his business, a task that she completed for him. He ran a
paper business, selling paper of all kinds to his customers. He was the manager
of The Paper Shop and was the consummate businessman. There was no reason for
her to think that he was going to be anything to her other than a good
customer. He was an attractive man with short, dark-brown wavy hair, deep brown
eyes, a straight and classical nose and a sunny smile. When he was in the bank,
he would smile at her whenever he saw her and she would smile back and they
would flirt with each other good-naturedly.
At night, she would go home to her husband,
Harold, a man who worked at his own business managing a car repair garage. He
hired car mechanics to repair the vehicles that came in, which were mostly
foreign makes and models. He was also a qualified car mechanic himself, but
only did the actual repairs whenever there was a shortage of help or his main
mechanic was off for a day, sick at home. He was also the consummate
businessman. They had gotten married when they were only 20 years old, just out
of high school. She started attending the University of Toronto
Catherine was determined to continue with
her part time schooling and was intending to apply, eventually, for the
physiotherapy program at Queens University or the University of Western
Ontario
The idea Catherine had was that she did not
want to work in a bank all her life; she felt she was destined for better
things than just being a bank counter officer. But, her husband wanted her to
keep working in the bank full time; he felt they needed to have a steady income
because running a business was uncertain at best. If he made money in any
particular month, it was because business was unusually good, or the mechanics didn’t
raid the till while he was out, or because he’d done an extraordinarily good
job on a customer’s car and the customer actually showed his appreciation by
bringing in some new clients. Despite the fact that he turned out to be a very
good manager of his business, it was largely a matter of luck if he made money.
Unfortunately, when Harold did make money,
he spent it on various things that were not deemed to be necessary
expenditures. For example, he’d sent his mother and sister to Europe
on an extended vacation last summer; he’d invested some of the extra funds in
short term GICs and CDs; and unbeknownst to his wife, he’d treated his current
girlfriend to a night out on the town. His wife knew nothing of his girlfriend
and would not have found out anything about her either, except that one day he
decided to take his girlfriend out of town overnight but told his wife that he
was going to see a male friend in Hamilton. Only problem was, as far as
Catherine knew, she didn’t know of any male “friends” Harold might have had in Hamilton
The day soon came when Catherine finally
found out what Harold was up to. That particular day while working at the bank,
she found out that the bake sale ticket that she’d purchased from one of her
clients the previous week was the winning ticket (meaning that she’d won $100),
and she was so happy at this news that she wanted to share it with Harold. When
she found out Harold was neither at work (and wouldn’t be in for a day or so)
nor at home, she phoned her friend and co-worker, Ginny, who had also
coincidently booked off sick for the day. Oddly enough, Ginny wasn’t home
either. Catherine wondered where she could have gone when she was supposed to
be at home, sick. And she started to think—were the two of them together? At
first she thought this might actually be the case, but then she shrugged it off
as the wild imaginings of an insecure wife. Harold
wouldn’t fool around with another woman. He doesn’t have the guts to do that
and think that I wouldn’t find out, she thought. But Ginny’s another story. Ginny might very well fool around with my
husband; after all, she’s had other liaisons with other husbands. Why should my
husband be off limits?
Catherine decided to wait and see, keeping
an open mind. After all, the possibility of an affair between them was real
because Harold had met Ginny when she was at their house once for a brief
visit. As it turned out, Catherine’s instincts had not steered her wrong, even
though she wished, for once, that they had. Ginny, unable to keep a secret,
told Catherine about the date she’d recently had with Harold; that Harold had
seemed very interested in her and had
actually asked her out for a date! Catherine was shocked at this revelation but
did not think Harold was totally to blame—after all, it takes two to tango and
Ginny was definitely capable of having an affair if anyone was. She later asked
Harold about his date with Ginny, but he did not want to talk about it with his
wife, of all people. Still, Catherine knew that it was true.
After finding out about Harold and Ginny,
she no longer trusted Ginny and treated her as an ex-friend (more like a
harlot). Nor was she sure anymore about Harold’s ability to remain faithful. At
this point, she resolved that if she got an opportunity to get involved with an
attractive man, she was not going to turn it away. Though she did not want to
admit it, this incident had caused her deep and searing pain and she did not
know how to deal with it. She wanted to run away, get drunk, get laid, anything
to get rid of the relentless pain. It was horrible finding out that her husband
was so selfish that he could only think of himself. Obviously, he wasn’t
thinking of his wife at all, if he ever did. She now felt like a used and
abused wife and knew that it wasn’t at all fair. She also felt that if she didn’t
have the courage to leave Harold and start over again, she should, at least,
get even. At that point, maybe there’d be something left to salvage between
them and if so, they might be able to start afresh later.
When Reese came along, neither Catherine
nor Reese was looking for a relationship, certainly not a sexual one. They
seemed to have a lot in common and always had something to talk about whenever
he came into the bank. He took to calling her on occasion at work and,
gradually, they became close without even realizing what was happening. One
day, he asked her to visit him at The Paper Shop after work, and Catherine, not
wanting to miss an opportunity to get to know him better, accepted. As far as
Catherine was concerned, their relationship was a long time in coming and she
was not going to have any regrets about it no matter how it turned out.
The sex between them later that evening at
the Avalon Motel was fantastic; it made her forget her problems at home and
made her life more bearable. However, it wasn’t the sex between them that she
would remember most. It was their first kiss, so tender yet passionate. The
emotions they both felt at that moment were unmistakeable.
She could no longer look at Harold with the
same trusting eyes. At some point she was sorely tempted to tell him about her
affair with Reese, but quickly realized that telling him would be the worst
thing she could do. Reese was a good man, but Harold would see him, no doubt,
as an interloper. So Catherine and Reese made a commitment to see each other as
often as it was deemed “safe” to do so, and at the same time, promised each
other that they would tell no one else about the affair; this was going to be
private, strictly between them.
Catherine and Reese got together once a
week or so. It didn’t take long for Catherine to realize that her life without Reese
was going to be unbearable. She was going to have to decide soon whether to
stay with Harold under these uncertain circumstances or leave him and start
over again on her own. Meanwhile, her happiness, even for a little while,
seemed to be the order of the day with Reese. Her pain at Harold’s cheating was
slowly waning, but her joy in being wantonly sexual with Reese was worth any
price she might have to pay for it later on.
copyright - Anne Shier, 2013, all rights reserved, published by Authorhouse, Bloomington, Indiana, USA
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