Human Behaviour

Okay so a lot of explaining for this one, after the comments on this story I decide to write Robert's Story. I did it using quotes from those comments and it has lines from the song suggested on that thread intertwined. See the song at the end. 

‘There’s definitely no logic, I can’t explain it really, it just happened.’ Robert had been going through his own little hell since the flood episode, that damn rescue had bought a flood of comments - in person, on Facebook, in emails, not one of them complimentary. Now he was in a stuffy room answering his wife’s questions in front of a complete stranger. He wasn’t comfortable, but his wife had insisted they went to marriage guidance or she would leave him and he certainty didn’t want that. What he really wanted was to keep the status quo but that was pretty unlikely to happen now - even with the marriage guidance.

Beth offered him nearly everything he could ever want, she was his best friend, a fantastic wife, a great mother, she had given him two lovely boys. She was intelligent, pretty, loyal - everything. The only thing she wasn’t was sexy. She just wasn’t sexy.

Take what she wore for instance. The jogging bottoms and the baggy jumper, it didn’t stir a great passion in Robert. Okay she was in the house all day with the kids but she could make a little effort. Even when they went out, which wasn’t very often these days, she never seemed to dress in a way that stirred his loins. She always looked great but never GREAT!  Not that he could ever tell her this - not even in this ‘truth’ session the counsellor had instigated.

‘Is it cos of the sex?’ Robert could hear the dreaded tears in his wife’s voice.

Yes he wanted to cry out, yes of course it bloody is, but stopped himself just in time.

Sex had been boring for as long as Robert could remember. Beth gave the impression that sex was an enjoyable passtime in much the same way that playing scrabble might be. It was safe, formulaic, get it over and get to sleep type sex. He loved his wife, he loved making love to her but he’d longed to have some great, dirty sex with someone.

‘Well, don’t you feel guilty?’ another question but he really didn’t want to get involved in the exchange. He shrugged and mumbled something, he guessed he must be coming across terribly moody, like a surly child. Guilt? Interesting one that, he’d never thought about guilt. He never felt he was being unfaithful to his wife. The two women offered him completely different things. They weren’t in competition for him; they were complementary to each other. If he didn’t have Melanie, then his life with Beth wouldn’t be the same. He’d come to the conclusion long before that either he could leave Beth and chase his dreams or try to change Beth which would cause arguments and end up with them falling out. Either way he would lose his best friend, his wife, the mother to his kids, his kids even. Melanie offered the equilibrium. It made his life balanced. It made him happy which meant life with Beth was great. Melanie actually safeguarded his marriage.

‘But why a hooker, a whore? It’s so cheap, so demeaning, so unhygienic. What will they be saying - that I can’t satisfy my man so he has to pay for it?’ Beth’s voice was hardly audible beneath the sobs.

Again Robert shrugged, he wasn’t very good at this opening up lark. And again he was surprised at his wife’s remarks. He’d thought that it’d be better to go to a prostitute than start a relationship with someone in work. He loved Melanie but he didn’t know her, he wouldn’t ever get close to her, there had been no emotional exchange just a physical one. Surely it was better to invest money than to invest emotions, that would really be cheating. Was going to a whore even cheating?

‘Well there’s no map is there, and the compass wouldn’t help at all,’ he was talking but he didn’t know what he was saying, he just knew he had to fill the silence between Beth’s sobs and the counsellor’s judgemental sighs.

Finally the hour was up, there’d be more of course, they’d signed up for 6 weeks. But for now Robert could slink off and see if Melanie had any free time for him.