He moved out, taking his perfectly matched socks, shirts, ties and suits with him in our designer suitcases. He made arrangements to collect the boys every other weekend and he had the audacity to allow his floozie to mother my sons on those weekends. My three darlings turned into snotty-nosed brats. Between them and the acrimony between Harendra and me – I refused to come to an amicable agreement about dissolving our marriage – the floozie realised Harendra had too much baggage. His three boys and his even more difficult soon-to-be-ex wife were too much for her. Before I could recover from my husband’s betrayal I discovered that the hot sex had fizzled out and the floozie had packed her bags and absconded.
Naturally, I was in my element. My hopes for a family reunion soared. With the floozie gone, Harendra was sure to come to his senses and realise the value of his family. Most of all I wanted him to realise the value of me. Hoping my patience would win I kept my fingers crossed and prayed for his return. For the sake of my boys I was willing to forgive him for the pain and humiliation I had suffered when he chose a giggling, ego-stroking tart to fulfil his carnal desires while I was busy being a wife and mother and putting the needs of my family first.
I had grown up thinking that was what was required of me. I thought that was what being a woman, mother and wife was all about. After all, I had kept myself pure until I married Harendra, even though I had had ample opportunity to succumb to the pleasures of the flesh. There were times when I still thought about my first teenage boyfriend, the first man I had ever kissed, but out of loyalty to Harendra I kept him in my fantasies. Harendra was the man who taught me what sexual desire was all about. There was no one else in my life, so why had he turned his back on me and our boys?
Perhaps, I thought guiltily, in the course of my busy day-to-day life I had forgotten what it was like to be a lover and had pushed my man into the arms of another woman. There were many out there ready to stroke an insecure man’s ego and make him feel like a million dollars when he complained that his wife was uncaring, perhaps even not affectionate towards him, and did not understand him at all. I vowed never to repeat my mistakes. From now on I would be the hot, sexy lover first and foremost. It would not matter that the sheets were not laundered or that his arteries became clogged with cholesterol from takeaway meals as long as I stroked his ego and everything else that mattered and made him feel like a million bucks.
I indulged myself, buying sexy new underwear and silky seductive nightwear for I knew Harendra liked fine and delicate things. I vowed to be less demanding, less of a perfectionist and more experimental in bed. I wanted to be his dream woman. I wanted my home, my husband and the father of my boys back and if meant working on my back then so be it. I intended to fight for my family to remain together so there was no place for pride in my life.
When Harendra invited me to dinner I saw this as the opportunity I had been dreaming of. I waxed, buffed and polished my body and chose Harendra’s favourite dress to wear for the evening. Now that I had lost a good couple of kilograms the lovely deep pink chiffon dress fitted over my breasts and fell to my knees in a flare. It hugged and caressed all the right places and made me feel sexy and desirable. I completed my outfit with silver high-heeled sandals. My pearly pink nail polish made my fingers and toes look gentle and feminine. Underneath, I wore the most delicate and silkiest of lingerie which I knew he would find irresistible. I deliberately left my hair looking casual and tousled.
Harendra said that he would pick me up and I managed to get my neighbour’s granddaughter to babysit the boys for the evening. He arrived half an hour early and spent time with the boys while I nervously applied my make-up. When I finally emerged from the bedroom we had shared he looked up before returning his attention to our sons. I did not miss the widening of his eyes, though, and my heart raced with hope. Was it a flare of desire I saw lurking there? It crossed my mind that he was not looking at me because if he did he might want to take me into our bedroom. After all, he was still my husband.
He kissed our sons goodnight.
“Ready?” he asked, avoiding my eyes.
I nodded, kissed the boys and my eldest put his arms around me. “You look so pretty, Mummy, and you smell nice too.”
I swallowed my tears for those were the words I wanted to hear from Harendra, but with passion and honesty. I looked at his hands on the steering wheel and ached for them to touch me, to caress me once again. I felt dizzy with longing for him. He was polite, his voice soft and caring. He asked about the boys, my parents and about some of our friends he had chosen not to associate himself with after he left me. Why had he not asked how I was? Was I so irrelevant to him? I, the woman who had given him her virginity, never had another lover, made him the focus of her love and attention and then, when the babies arrived, strove to create the perfect family – a perfect family that no longer existed.
He was the one who had chosen to unravel everything, so why was he making me feel such a bitch with him the poor victim? When had Harendra started mastering the art of playing victim? Was it always there, I wondered, and I had just chosen not to see it? Sure, he had a volatile personality; sure, he had had run-ins with family and friends but most of the time he had been Mr Popular. I felt physically ill, as though I had been kicked in the stomach. The feeling was so strong that I almost asked him to pull over so I could open the car door and get rid of my breakfast. Instead I opened the window slightly and gulped in some fresh air.
I could not look at him. I felt nauseous, confused. What was my body telling me? Why were the questions that had haunted me on so many nights and caused me to shed so many tears filling my mind now? I wanted to know everything about what he had done with his girlfriend, where he had met her, what it was like going to bed with her, living with her. The headache that had threatened the whole day erupted and my head pounded. I suspected it had been brought on more from stress than hunger as well as the need to know everything so that I could process it all and really understand what went wrong. I prayed to my angels for the calmness and dignity I so desperately needed.
This time I wanted Harendra to beg for forgiveness, to go down on his knees and say that he could not live without me and the boys and that he regretted everything that had happened in a mad moment of lust. I took a deep breath to calm myself and let my imagination run riot as I built up this scenario of a reunion, how I would make him beg and grovel before I gave in.
When we arrived at his flat I could see that he had made himself a new home. It was lived in. I itched to straighten the place up for although it was tidy I noticed the layer of dust on the coffee table and saw that the curtains had been drawn too hastily to fall neatly in place. Harendra had ordered Chinese takeout, both our favourites, and I was momentarily touched by his thoughtfulness. He had taken the time to set the table with napkins, but minus the candles. I could barely swallow a morsel and keeping up a conversation was an effort. I wondered just when it had become like that between us. The images of him and the other woman performing acrobatics on all possible surfaces in all possible and impossible positions made me want to throw up. I knew this would be the last time I put Chinese food in my mouth.
My reaction to that evening came as a revelation to me.
It suddenly dawned on me that I did not ever want Harendra back as my husband and lover. In my heart I felt that he was soiled and even though I knew it was not right to get on my high horse and sit in judgement, for no one is perfect, my heart had turned to ice. He had taken my purity and my love and twisted them to suit his own needs. He had betrayed me in the worst possible way, taking someone else into his bed and into his life and shared what I had always, in my romantic mind, thought of as sacred, to be shared only with that special someone. Was I old-fashioned? My heart told me I was not and I believed my heart.
Still, like the gracious and helpful person I was brought up to be, I helped Harendra clear the table but he insisted I leave the dishes when I offered to wash them, so I did. Over coffee he decided the serious issue of the state of our marriage had to be addressed.
“It’s