Picture - (noun) a painting or drawing.
Email - (noun) messages distributed by electronic means from one computer user to one or more recipients via a network.
Breast - (noun) either of the two soft, protruding organs on the upper front of a woman's body that secrete milk after pregnancy.
Caption - (noun) a title or brief explanation appended to an article, illustration, cartoon, or poster.
Little did I know the above four things together would change my life forever.
Sadly, Perry and I continued to immerse ourselves into everything, but each other. He had a different secretary now, but the lies persisted. What was worse, the lies were pointless. One lie I remember precisely well was about a loan closing. We had a two week vacation planned. We were going to Orange Beach, and then on a cruise out of Mobile. I asked Perry about the loans in his pipeline at work so I would have an idea about our spending money situation. He told me at least one loan would close. Perry didn't come to the beach until later in the week. He worked while the boys and I were there with my family. Perry arrived on Friday, and had additional spending money for the cruise. He said the money came from his loan closing.
I found out later from talking with my dad, Perry never closed the loan. The borrower was a friend of my dad's. She was upset at the mortgage company Perry worked for, so she withdrew her application. Perry didn't want to disappoint me, so he sold a watch I had given him. I was more disappointed he lied, and thought more spending money was what was important to us.
Susan and I return to Miami for the second year in a row to watch the last Nascar race of the season. This year, things were different. Like before, our passes came from a friend of ours we worked with; however, they didn't include garage passes. CCNA came through for us and we ended up with "hot" passes which gave us access to the garage and pit road. We were certified pit lizards now. CCNA and I spent much more time together during this trip to Miami. He told me he had never cheated on his wife. Unfortunately, she had cheated on him, and he had not forgotten or forgiven her. When we all left Miami, he wasn't able to honestly say he had never cheated on his wife again.
To this day, I can truthfully say my affair with CCNA was NEVER physical. There was never an animalistic attraction. It was never about the sex. He was not my "type" of guy. If I had to say what attracted me to CCNA, it was the same thing that absolutely drove me crazy about him - his brutal honesty. He definitely didn't sugar coat anything, and knew nothing about Southern charm!
When the race was over, I was infatuated with CCNA. His honesty was so refreshing after dealing with Perry's lies for the last several years. The attention he showed me over the weekend made me feel like I had met my prince charming. I wanted to take him home with me, but we both had our own separate families waiting for us to return. Since I couldn't take CCNA home, he gave me several things of his to take with me, including his team sweatshirt and pit shirt. Once home, I saw my boys and knew I would never do anything to cause them pain. My boys were my world.
One morning the week after I returned, I went into work early to catch up on some calls. I was still working at the OB / GYN office. Shortly after 8am, my cell phone rang. It was Perry. His voice was very low and monotone. He simply told me I needed to come home. I asked him what was wrong. His reply was, "we miss you". I knew then he had found the email of my breasts I had sent to CCNA with the "We miss you" caption. I started crying before I left work. I cried the whole way home worried about what I had done. When I arrived home, Perry was sitting on the couch. I tried to sit in his lap, but he wouldn't let me. I started begging him not to divorce me. He asked me why he wasn't good enough. I tried to explain to him, he was good enough. I just wanted and needed attention and honesty from him. He then told me I received attention from everyone. Perry also told me he had no intention of divorcing me. We both had come from broken homes. We both wanted better for Sam and Josh.
I cried until I couldn't cry anymore. We talked until we were exhausted. I felt horrible until Perry told me he knew I was going to do it. He said he gave me enough rope to hang myself. This is when I started getting irritated. I asked him why he didn't say anything to try and stop me? All of it might've been avoided had he shown me he cared. If I meant so much, why not say something to let me know how much I was loved???
Perry finally told me, he wanted me to call CCNA and tell him it was over. He also wanted me to tell him, I never wanted to see him again. Perry told me he wasn't going to call his wife. He said there was no reason to potentially break up his family, when they had a young son as well. He said it had nothing to do with CCNA, but he didn't want to be responsible for breaking up the family of a young boy.
I called CCNA and told him Perry knew. I was very surprised by his reaction. I expected his first question to be if Perry was going to tell his wife. Instead, he asked if I was ok. He then asked if Perry had hurt me. I don't know why he would've thought this. Perry is the most laid back, non-violent, non-confrontational man EVER! I have never been physically scared of Perry. CCNA told me to call him if I ever needed anything. I said goodbye with no intention of ever speaking to him again.
We tried to go back to our life as "normal" as we possibly could. Normal was everything we weren't though. Perry was immersed in work and the boys. I did the same. I ran more to try and keep my sanity. I also joined a gym and started doing classes. I think physical exercise was the only thing keeping me from losing it completely. The boys even realized it. When I was in a bad mood, they would ask me if I needed to go run.
The biggest problem we now had besides being business partners, was our sex life. Perry and I had NEVER had issues when it came to adult playtime. We had always found a way to keep things fun and exciting, even if it meant going to Belk and "trying on clothes" in the dressing room for a long time. One time, after we had completed playtime, we heard Sam ask through the door if I was mad. I told him no and asked him why. His reply was, "Why you scream then?" We laughed about that one forever.
Sadly, Perry viewed me as an inflatable doll now. His thoughts were if I could have sex with CCNA, I could have sex with him, whenever he desired it. It didn't matter if I was tired. It didn't matter if I truly had a headache. It didn't matter if I was crying while lying on the bed motionless. I felt as if Perry was a dog marking his property. I honestly wouldn't have been surprised if he would have hiked his leg and peed on me. Worse than that, I was afraid our boys were going to think I was dying of a brain tumor because Perry always told them I had a headache and he was taking care of me.
I was in the best shape of my life physically. Perry was becoming very successful. He had left the mortgage company as a loan officer and became a sales rep for a large mortgage broker. Our boys were both perfect in our eyes. We definitely had issues, but we knew we would work them out. I was convinced Perry would eventually forgive me. No matter what happened, there was never a doubt how much we had ALWAYS loved each other and our boys. We had no idea life was coming at us full speed. We certainly had no idea what life was going to bring us when it arrived.
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