“When you did have sex, who usually initiated it?” Anna asks.
“Eventually, just him. More out of desperation than desire. Maybe even frustration. Yes, frustration,” I decide.
Anna watches me, her face in shadows that deepen as the fire dies. Her elbow is propped on the armrest, her chin resting on her index finger in what has become the pose I associate with our intense time together these past few nights. Her living room has become a dark confessional booth where I can be emotionally newborn and naked and feel no shame. I don’t see our sessions as therapy, but rather as a priesthood of friendship that is sacred and safe. I have begun to tell another human being what it is like to be me.
“Let’s go back to the night he got so angry,” Anna navigates. “Can you remember when this was, exactly?”
“Just weeks before his murder.” I talk calmly, mesmerized by coals that look like glowing alligator skin. “Benton knew my space needs. Even on nights when we made love, it wasn’t unusual for me to wait until he fell asleep and get up with the stealth of an adulterer to slip inside my office down the hall. He was understanding about my infidelities.” I feel Anna smile in the dark. “He rarely complained when he reached for me and felt an empty space on my side of the bed,” I explain. “He accepted my need to be alone, or seemed to. I never knew how much my nocturnal habits hurt him until that night when he came into my office.”
“Was it really your nocturnal habits?” Anna inquires. “Or your aloofness?”
“I don’t think of myself as aloof.”
“Do you think of yourself as someone who connects with others?”
I analyze, searching everywhere inside me for a truth I have always feared.
“Did you connect with Benton?” Anna goes on. “Let’s start with him. He was your most significant relationship. Certainly, he was the longest.”
“Did I connect with him?” I hold up the question like a ball I am about to serve, not sure of the angle or spin or how hard. “Yes and no. Benton was one of the finest, kindest men I’ve ever known. Sensitive. Deep and intelligent. I could talk to him about anything.”
“But did you? I get the impression you didn’t.” Anna, of course, is on to me.
I sigh. “I’m not sure I’ve ever talked to anybody about absolutely anything.”
“Perhaps Benton was safe,” she suggests.
“Perhaps,” I reply. “I do know there were deep places in me he never reached. I also never wanted him to, didn’t want to get that intense, that close. I suppose starting out as we did may be part of the explanation. He was married. He always went home to his wife, to Connie. It went on for years. We were on opposite sides of a wall, separated, only touching when we could sneak. God, I would never do that again with anybody, I don’t care who.”
“Guilt?”
“Of course,” I answer. “Every good Catholic feels guilt. In the beginning, I felt terribly guilty. I’ve never been the type to break rules. I’m not like Lucy, or should I say she’s not like me. If rules are mindless and ignorant, she breaks them right and left. Hell, I don’t even get speeding tickets, Anna.”
It is here that she leans forward and holds up a hand. This is her signal. I have said something important. “Rules,” she says. “What are rules?”
“A definition? You want a definition of rules?”
“What are rules to you? Your definition, yes.”
“Right and wrong,” I reply. “What is legal versus illegal. Moral versus immoral. Humane versus inhumane.”
“Sleeping with a married person is immoral, wrong, inhumane?”
“If nothing else, it’s stupid. But yes, it’s wrong. Not a fatal error or unforgivable sin or illegal, but dishonest. Yes, definitely dishonest. A broken rule, yes.”
“Then you admit you are capable of dishonesty.”
“I admit I’m capable of being stupid.”
“But dishonest?” She won’t let me evade the question.
“Everyone is capable of anything. My affair with Benton was dishonest. I indirectly lied because I hid what I was doing. I presented a front to others, including Connie, that was false. Simply false. So am I capable of deception, of lying? Clearly I am.” The confession depresses me deeply.