Just Another Friday Night In Memphis - Part 15

?????????..a weak wave as I pulled away.

I didn't know it at the time but this was going to be the last time I
would see her.

I drove from Southend to Danbury to see Sue and as she opened the door
to me I collapsed into her arms crying uncontrollably. She cuddled me
as a mother cuddles her child, patting me on the back and stroking my
head trying to console me. Sue had lived through, and shared, most of
my trials and tribulations and although she had suffered more than her
fair share of troubles in her life was always there to hold me together
when I needed it most. Dave has been terrific too, and a source of well
thought out wisdom, something that an impetuous person like myself is
always short of.

I had written to Thelma explaining that I wouldn't be able to do some
work for St. Johns Ambulance that I'd previously arranged to do,
(Thelma was the chair of the buildings committee and knew all about my
relationship with her sister). On Monday morning, 12th March and our
seventh anniversary, I phoned Janet at work and told her I wouldn't be
able to do some work I had promised Sarah I would do at a new salon she
and Adrienne were opening in Crayford, Kent.

'Oh no!' she cried, 'Sarah will be so upset. She's relying on you, how
can you let her down?'

'I'm really sorry Jan but I can't bear to have any contact with members
of your family knowing you don't want me anymore. I couldn't cope,
surely you can see that?'

Even now after everything she had put me through all she could think
about was what she and her family wanted, I didn't matter!

On Tuesday morning (13th), Thelma's husband John called me at home
before I left for work and said that Janet had told him I might have a
change of heart about the work and he should call me; I told him I was
too upset to even consider it and hung up. Janet phoned me at precisely
2.48pm, I was very upset and told her she had no right to tell John I
might still do the work, and I hung up. I couldn't work after the call
so I packed up and went home arriving just after 3.30, I dialled
Janet's number to speak to her again but she had deliberately turned
her phone off!

I haven't heard her voice since.

It had been exactly seven years and one day since we first went out
together!

Over the next few months Sue and Dave along with Pete and Pat propped
me up on an almost daily basis. I cried every single day for 103 days,
Janet never gave me an explanation but I know in my heart she was
cheating with Tony Scott again. She is a very sexual woman and there is
no way she is going to live without regular sex. I remember as we flew
home over the Atlantic 18mths previously, I had looked at her and asked
if she had got her moneys worth, meaning did she enjoy the
holiday.

She grinned at me and said, 'You missed two nights!'

Pat told me that before Christmas Janet had said to her that I had
become the man she had always wanted, but that didn't stop her cheating
me at every opportunity. She told Pat in January that I had gone back
to my 'old ways', by which I think she meant that I had stopped falling
at her feet at every opportunity, when in fact what really happened is
that after the outburst in the pub when she refused to stop seeing all
her ex-lovers I stepped back a bit to see if she would show me any
loyalty and commitment. This she failed to do; she wanted my undivided
attention but she treated me with disloyalty, dishonesty and at times
contempt, behaving like a spoilt child that would throw a tantrum every
time she didn't get her way. It's now seven months since she dumped me,
six since our last contact. I think about her most of every day and
still cry occasionally. I love her more than ever, even though I know
in my heart she's a cheat and a liar that could never be trusted again.
I've not only lost my lover, but my best friend, most of my social
life, ?6000 worth of work, at least 10 other friends I knew through
her, and I now feel I have very little to live for; just old age and
illness. What it was exactly that I meant to her I'll never know, nor
will I ever know what it was she wanted from me, but she led me down
the road to misery quite deliberately, all it seems, to satisfy her own
ego and convince herself that in the autumn of her years she could
still hypnotise men with her promises of sexual adventures to match the
wildest of imaginations. I fell for it hook, line and sinker! I find it
hard to believe that she is happy to settle for transient gratification
from men who don't really want anything from her but to use her body
and have her drain theirs. I offered her the deepest care and affection
I have ever felt for anyone, I would have loved, honoured and cherished
her no matter what until my last breath, but she considered me
worthless and discarded me without a thought!

I've found out in recent months, through the grapevine, that she has
misled friends and family about the reason I'm not around anymore, in
an effort to portray herself in the best possible light as the injured
party. Sarah told me that her mum still puts the black mug, in which I
used to have my tea, in the dishwasher to fool Peter into thinking that
I still come for breakfast on Saturdays so he will keep going out. I
suspect that Tony now sits in my place.

The cruellest thing she ever did to me was to not give me any kind of
explanation, but my friends all think that when I started talking
divorces and marriage she got cold feet. I think the most telling thing
she ever said to me was at the end, 'You've never got any money
anyway!' I know she used to go to a casino on Southend sea front with
Tony and others and he would, by all accounts, regularly lose ?50 or a
?100 pounds on the roulette wheel and shrug it off. Money was harder to
come by for me, and I don't gamble anyway, but I was always generous to
Janet; I would have given her my last penny. The cold hard truth is
that she never really loved me, if she had loved as I do, she would
never have cheated or contemplated leaving me! I took her to all my
favourite places, shared all my favourite music and took her to
practically every decent restaurant and pub in our area, I can no
longer go to Padstow, Amsterdam, Wales, Memphis, New Orleans, Camden or
any of the hundreds of other places we went to together because they
are all haunted by her ghost. I can't play the music or wear the
clothes she bought me, the ring is locked in a cupboard and I can't
bear to look at it. I can't bring myself to get rid of it and couldn't
give it to anybody else, it just sits there, almost as if mocking me, a
constant reminder of what could have been. As the months have passed I
miss her more and more and I'm dreading Christmas and New Year without
her.

Over the seven years of our relationship she had said from time to time
that she didn't completely trust me; that I wasn't committed to her and
at theses times she would tell me we were over. I suffered eight
'sackings' as I would refer to them as, only to be 're-employed' on all
but the last occasion! The reality is that I loved her more than life
itself, but had been let down so many times in my life that I protected
myself by not revealing the depth of my true feelings, for fear of
showing my vulnerability. Contrary to what she had said it was I that
was committed to the relationship not her, I had stood by, eating my
heart out whilst she had made love to other men and then continued to
socialise with them when the affairs ended, coming back to me until the
next potential lover came in view. I had tortured myself with visions
of her in the throes of passion with men that she had introduced to me
as her friends, I had beaten myself up on numerous occasions, even to
the point of suicide and yet I still loved her more than I could ever
tell. I had deliberately been flippant and off-hand at times, maybe
even uncaring in her eyes, but I thought I was protecting myself from
the doubts I harboured about her intentions toward me. There were times
when I admit I had been a bit insensitive to her needs and should have
been more attentive, I can also remember a few times when I wasn't very
nice to her and I deeply regret those moments, but there was never a
time when I cheated or lied to her, never a time my feelings for her
flagged or diminished, never a time that I didn't believe we would be
together until one of us died and never a time I didn't trust her
absolutely; until she started to deceive and cheat me. I make no claims
to be an angel without any guilt, as I know I have my share of faults
but cheating isn't one of them!

The events of the last three years have destroyed bits of me that can't
be put back together, the sense of loss I feel is the most awful
gnawing pain I have ever experienced and every day I curse the fact
that I have woken up. It makes my days a constant torment and keeps me
awake at nights. She was my world, utterly irreplaceable and
eventually, my destruction. She lied to me when it suited her, she used
me to act out all her fantasies and she subjected me to the most
horrible humiliations, sometimes in front of others, (as when she
openly flaunted her affection for Michael, in front of me and our
friends in the pub, knowing that she had already shagged him and I knew
nothing about it. I still go cold every time I remember it) and hurt
that only a selfish person could inflict on someone that they had
claimed to love.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Well, this has been my story, although it's only the barest minimum
necessary to convey my feelings. I have tried to be as fair to everyone
as possible, even to the point where on occasion I have been more than
charitable in describing certain events. There are numerous other
threads to the complete story that I left out, mainly just more
heartache and complications. I know that if Janet had a change of heart
I would have her back and try to forget what has happened. I still love
her so much it paralyses my mind and I am no longer able to function as
a normal person.

To write this story has cost me so many tears, so much pain and misery,
there were times when I didn't think I could finish it. It has left me
empty and drained, if I could only turn back the clock and have her
hold me and tell me she loved me the way she used to before her
over-active libido led her on the road to infidelity. To think I'll
never see her or talk to her again makes me feel my life is over. Is it
really better to have loved and lost than to have never loved at all? I
don't think so; ignorance is truly bliss!

February 2002

It is now a year since she left me and there has been a slight shift in
my feelings about her. The crying stopped a long time ago now but I
still think about her every day, although I feel as if I am suspended
in time expecting a dramatic turn of events.

Last June on a rare visit to Southend to collect a magazine and
exchange a book token I had been given in appreciation of my efforts in
sorting out a friend's computer, I accidentally bumped into Sarah. I
just happened to be passing a side street and glancing down the turning
to see if the road was clear noticed a car parked across the way. It
looked empty from the rear but as I crossed the road I saw the boot
open and I realised it was a convertible and had an electric hood. What
caught my attention was the emerging hood wasn't the regular 'rag'
thing but a hard top. I stopped on the opposite corner and watched it
unfold before walking off muttering to myself,

'They're not even rag anymore'.

I had only gone twenty yards when I heard a voice call out behind me.
Turning I saw it was Sarah, smiling and saying,

'George, I thought you were ignoring me!'

I was completely surprised by her sudden appearance after not seeing or
hearing from her in six months, and puzzled I asked what she
meant.

'You were looking at my car' she replied.

'What the Mercedes?' I said.

'Yes, it's mine, didn't you notice the registration number?' she
beamed.

'No, I didn't know it was yours, I was just watching the hood close,
that's all, I don't pay any attention to number plates. How long have
you had that?' I asked. (The car apparently had a personal number plate
that she seemed to think I should have recognised.)

'Three weeks, it's lovely isn't it, I've always wanted one of those',
she was obviously more interested in talking about her damned car than
asking after me!

'Look, I just have to go in this office supply shop for some stuff and
I'll take you for a drink somewhere' she said.

Confused and disorientated I countered, 'No no, I'm in a hurry, I don't
have time'

'Of course you have, come on' she insisted.

She drove out to a pub called The Rose, that her mother and I used to
go to occasionally, and for some stupid sensitive reason I insisted she
park well away from where we usually parked.

Over the period of an hour she talked mostly about her shops and how
well she was doing and how much money she was making and?

I eventually managed to get her to stop and tell me about her mother.
She said her mother wasn't seeing anyone but I told her she was
wrong.

'I took mum and Adrienne to London last Saturday and bought them both
new mobile phones. But she had to have a new number as her old one
wasn't transferable' she told me.

'Well she hasn't let me have it so I suppose she doesn't want me
calling her' I ventured.

Sarah chose to ignore the remark and carried on airily,
'Oh, we're going to Las Vegas for a holiday in September'

As if I would be happy about that! I know Tony's brother works there as
a croupier at a casino so I suspect he's going too. Janet wouldn't pass
up an opportunity like that if it came her way.

'What did she tell Babs about my sudden disappearance?' I
enquired.

Sarah gave a little chuckle and said, 'She told her the pair of you had
fallen out over the counter for my shop.'

I felt a little sick that once more she had told a lie to make herself
look the injured and innocent party, and I was again the villain of the
piece!

I tried to get her to tell me about her mother's feelings for me but
she just sniffed and said,

'It was always too little too late with you!'

Coming from her, the promiscuous cheating daughter of a promiscuous
cheating mother I felt anger rise in me although I didn't let it
show.

tbc.