When Love Goes Bad Read online

  She had the Lasik surgery and threw out her reading glasses. There went another couple thousand dollars, but I didn’t mind it if it kept Dreama on an even keel.

  The money she made at Lacey’s, she put right back into the store buying herself a new wardrobe. “I need some new clothes,” she said. “My whole closet is full of nothing but matronly stuff; I need some younger-looking outfits.”

  “Matronly stuff? Dreama, you’ve never looked matronly a day in your life.”

  “Well, I need new clothes, anyway, and with my employee discount, I get some really good deals.”

  Soon after the new wardrobe, Dreama decided she needed to join the health club located in the same mall as Lacey’s. “I need to tone up, get healthier. It’ll be convenient to go around the corner to the health club after work and work out.”

  Here again, if Dreama wanted something, I tried to give it to her. Let me tell you, a membership at the Ridgefield Health Club wasn’t cheap, but I didn’t gripe about the money. I simply said, “Okay, Dreama, if you like, I’ll make it part of your birthday present. The membership, I mean.”

  That sated her—a year’s worth of membership dues paid in full at the club so she could use their equipment and services anytime she liked. She started going twice a week after work. Those nights, I made it home before she did. I would scrounge around the kitchen and make myself a sandwich and eat it in front of the TV. I figured it was the least I could do without complaining, just to make Dreama happy. Even though I missed a good meal.

  Dreama would roar in on those nights tired, but in a good mood. She carried her work clothes in a tote bag slung over her shoulder; she’d change into sweats and a workout tank at the club and wear them home. Slightly mussed, with her hair damp at her temples from her workout, she did, indeed, look great. And I guess all that exercise and her new job were making her more content with herself and her life.

  “Did you get your supper okay?” she’d ask. “Good, because I’m beat. I’m going to shower and hit the hay.”

  The strange thing about Dreama at this point is that she wasn’t initiating sex much anymore. And with her better body and her job and her health club activities, I figured she’d want sex twice as much, not less. But then, it’d always been a hunch of mine that Dreama really didn’t crave sex like she claimed she did—not like a nymphomaniac would. I believed that she was only trying to prove to herself—and maybe to me—that she wasn’t getting older, that she could be just as sexy and desirable now as she was when she was eighteen.

  Nevertheless, the change in routine puzzled me, although I didn’t think too much about it at first. Then she started coming home later and later on health club nights—sometimes she wouldn’t walk in the door till well after eleven.

  “Why so late?” I finally asked her one night when she strolled in after the late news. She wasn’t wearing her workout sweats or the pantsuit she’d worn to work that morning; she had on a tight, skimpy, low-cut, black top and skintight, low-rise jeans. “New outfit?” I quizzed.

  “Oh, yeah. Got it today. I needed something cute to wear after my Pilates class. Oh—” She put her hand to her sculpted cheek. “—Gee, I’m sorry, Tony. I forgot to tell you. Some of us planned to go out and have a few drinks together after our workout tonight. I guess I was so wrapped up in wanting to look good and get an outfit, I completely forgot to tell you. I’m sorry.” She came over to where I was sitting in my recliner and kissed my forehead, kind of like she was giving an old hound dog a rub behind the ears. Then she was off to bed.

  My radar went to high alert. Dreama was not Dreama anymore; she was too happy, too content, and too cheerful. And not interested in sex for any reason, it appeared. Not with me, anyway.

  Dreama was up to something, all right. And I had a gut feeling that whatever it was—it was not going to be good for me.

  Dreama kept to her work and her workouts at the health club. She went out after every workout class with her friends. She told me little about them, other than that they were fun to be with.

  Really, she seemed to be keeping me at a distance. She clammed up whenever I asked too many questions about them. She took even more time and pains with her grooming, especially on health club days. And she bought a bunch of new workout clothes. I sensed I was drifting away from Dreama—or, rather, that she was drifting away from me. I knew I had to make a special effort to draw her back.

  So I asked her if she’d like to go away for the weekend together—someplace close, like the Delaware Water Gap. I figured she’d enjoy shopping at all the outlet stores in the area.

  The idea got her attention. Maybe she wasn’t too excited about going away with me, but she sure was pumped up about shopping, and all in all, the little getaway turned out to be good for us. Dreama shopped like crazy while I got some much-needed rest back in our room at the motel. We went to dinner at nice restaurants and caught a couple of local shows, and we made love again like we hadn’t in a long time. Mission accomplished; I was back in the saddle again.

  But it wasn’t long till she started that overhaul talk again.

  “Tony, I’ve been thinking. I’d like to get these flabby thighs of mine liposuctioned.” She was nude, parading back and forth in front of our full-length bedroom mirror when she announced this, surveying herself.

  “Honey,” I said, “the thing is, babe, I just don’t see all that much fat on you. You look perfect, Dreama. Perfect for me.” I meant every word I said, but I was sure Dreama hadn’t heard me.

  She smiled. “I’m glad you think so. But, no—I’m all cottage-cheesy in my stretch workouts. I’m going to call Dr. Glass who did my tummy tuck and see if he does lipo.”

  Ah, she’d heard me, all right. But it’d made no difference.

  “I would guess he’d know someone to recommend, anyway,” she said, plopping down on the bed to paint her toenails.

  No question about it: I’d soon be shelling out more cash for more bodywork.

  Funny thing about Dreama, she didn’t mind telling people about her many surgical improvements. She never tried to hide the fact that she’d been sliced and diced and juiced time and time again. All she cared about was that she looked good. It didn’t matter how she got that way. Whenever Dreama was asked about her procedures, she wasn’t ashamed to tell all. She often quoted Dolly Parton: “I see something baggin’, saggin’, or draggin’, I’ll go fix it.”

  But for me, I have to admit, after I’d spent I don’t know how many thousands of dollars on Dreama’s “beauty treatments,” I was reaching my limit.

  Dreama went ahead and had the liposuction, and then she wanted her breasts done. Personally, I’d always thought she had beautiful breasts. And yes, at her age, and after having had two children, I guess maybe they were “drooping,” as she called it, a little. But I still thought she had beautiful breasts. I loved her breasts. So I felt I had to say something on their behalf before Dreama let her plastic surgeon mess with them.

  “Honey, I understand you’ve got some things about yourself that you want to improve—but why the boob job? Is it because they’re all you’ve got left to re-sculpture? Jeez, Dreama—you’re not a movie star! Why do you need your boobs pulled up or whatever it is you call it?” I was p.o.’d and I couldn’t stifle any more. “You barely resemble the girl I married all those years ago. And I don’t mean because you’ve aged and you look older. You’ve been pulled and tucked and sucked so much, you look computer generated!”

  Dreama huffed and puffed and raved, but like every time before, in the end, she told me to stuff it and went right ahead and had the boob job. Naturally, I paid for it.

  It was the straw that broke the camel’s back. Or, in this case—the scalpel that severed our marriage.

  With her body all bright and shiny and new, a job she liked, and a slew of younger friends to go out clubbing with, what did Dreama need with an old codger like me?

  I had a hunch that Dreama was messing around with another guy. I figured it was some dude
she’d met at her health club.

  She got a couple of phone calls at the house from a guy named Stryker. I only heard Dreama’s side of the conversations, and she sounded nervous while she was talking to him. All I got was, “Sure thing. We’ll do it. I don’t think so.” And: “See ya tomorrow night, Stryker.”

  It sounded to me like she cooed his name, maybe forgetting I was within earshot. Then she hung up, cleared her throat, and said, before I could ask any questions, “That was a guy I know from the health club. It’s Lisa’s birthday tomorrow, so we’re putting together a surprise party for her at The Pink Zebra.”

  Lisa was one of her new friends; The Pink Zebra is a nightclub near the mall—one of the hangouts I knew Dreama frequented on her workout nights.

  “You’ve been spending a lot of time with those people,” I said contentiously. What I wanted to say was, “those lazy hides,” even though I’d never met any of them. I could tell I’d have nothing in common with them from the little tidbits of information that I’d gleaned about them from Dreama. The lot of them—Lisa, Stryker, and I think she’d also mentioned a Gino and a Bobby—seemed to be in their late twenties. To me, they sounded uninspired, vain, and hell-bent on doing whatever ticked their clocks at any particular moment, consequences be damned. And Dreama was following right along in their footsteps like a lovesick puppy dog.

  “I like them,” she said defensively.

  “So why haven’t you ever asked me to join you at The Pink Zebra when you go out with them?”

  At that, she gave me her laser-eyed stare. “You wouldn’t like them. And besides, we stay out too late for you. You have to get your eight hours every night, remember? Anyway, can we drop this already? I’m tired. I’m going to bed,” she flung at me as she trotted off down the hallway.

  That was that. Dreama stayed on her side of the bed that night, just as she’d been doing for weeks. She never approached me for sex anymore like she’d done for nearly all of our married life. And when I started in with trying to kiss her, running my hands over her body like she used to love, she pulled away.

  “Not tonight, Tony. I’ve got a headache,” she said tersely.

  Not my Dreama at all.

  And so it was. We lay side by side, Dreama hugging her edge of the mattress, careful not to touch me. I was wide awake, feigning sleep, distressed over the turn our marriage had taken.

  Could I bring us back? Could I bring Dreama back? I wasn’t even sure about what I was up against. But I sure as hell planned to find out.

  I forged a plan I hated. It involved spying on Dreama.

  But I’d do it, anyway.

  The night she went to The Pink Zebra for Lisa’s surprise birthday party, I tailed her there in my truck and parked in the farthest, darkest corner of the parking lot, hidden in the shadows. Dreama’s sporty, red Mustang convertible (she’d insisted she had to have the flashy, new car to go with her flashy, new body, and oh, yeah—I’d bought it for her) turned into a vacant space close to the front entrance of the nightclub. Dreama was driving, but a snazzy-looking guy got out of the passenger side and leaped around to Dreama. He put his arm around her shoulders and tugged her close to him. He kissed her as they hustled toward the door, laughing and having a gorgeous time.

  A Jeep pulled into the lot and parked. A girl and two guys piled out of it, joking and laughing as they made their way to where Dreama and the guy stood, waiting for them. The guy was nuzzling Dreama the whole time. Then they all entered the club together.

  Fear was now fact: Dreama definitely had something going on with that guy. My guess was that the guy was none other than Stryker himself.

  “Damn her!” I cussed, smacking the heel of my palm against the steering wheel.

  I was mad as hell. I wanted to stomp in there and pound his ass to grass. At the same time, tears filled my eyes. If I hadn’t been so polarized by love, hate, heartbreak, and vengeance, I would’ve sat there in the dark and balled like a baby. Or got out and hammered that scumbag Stryker with a tire iron.

  Instead, I took deep breaths, clenched my fists, and collected my cool. But I couldn’t just leave and drive home. I had to see more.

  I entered the club and peered around, hoping Dreama wouldn’t spot me. I had on a black jacket, a billed cap, and dark glasses. Dressed for surveillance like I was, I blended into the crowd, and in the dim room, except for the rotating, flashing lights kaleidoscoping the dance floor, I knew I couldn’t be easily recognized—not even by my beloved wife of over two decades.

  That thought pricked my heart like a spear. I pushed it out of my mind and concentrated on watching Dreama and her boy toy, even though it was killing me to do it. I hadn’t felt such pain since back in ‘Nam when I was hit with shrapnel, praying to God to let me make it home alive.

  I had, and now, some twenty years later, there I was in that dingy nightclub, watching my beloved wife love up some tattooed, pierced, hardbody and the pain was excruciating. They were getting it on on the dance floor, Dreama and Stryker. She was hot and sexy, making suggestive moves in rhythm with the music. In that smoky lighting, Dreama didn’t look a day over thirty. Her body had undergone every medical and cosmetic procedure available today to make her ageless. The chopping and cropping, the stitching, lipo, chemical peels, lasering, Botox, collagen—you name it, Dreama had had it. And I’d paid for it all. And now that Stryker crud was reaping the benefits.

  Dial it down, I told my boiling blood. I knew I had to keep my wits about me and find out for sure if Dreama was screwing the guy. Although, in my gut, I already knew she was. They bumped and slammed and shimmied and shook together, slithering their bodies in perfect gyration with the inflaming music.

  God, she was gorgeous! Dreama looked just as I remembered her when we were young.

  Young. That was the catchword.

  Dreama had stayed the same.

  I had grown older, both physically and mentally.

  I’m no book-smart intellectual. Hell, no—I’m just street smart. I got my education from the school of hard knocks. I’ve seen a lot; I’ve been there, done that.

  And, watching my wife out on that dance floor with that young gun, I felt as ancient as Moses. Weary and worn. Suddenly, Dreama seemed more like my daughter than my wife.

  Yet in my heart, she was my wife. Or she had been. I didn’t even know that revamped edition of Dreama Valentino. That person was not the mother of my children. That person was not my wife.

  I watched a while longer from my perch on a stool in the darkest corner of the bar. Dreama and Stryker hugged and cuddled. They kissed. They couldn’t keep their hands off each other. At one point, the DJ announced that it was Lisa’s birthday and bellowed out a special request for her. Then Dreama, Stryker, and the other two guys all clapped and hooted and hollered as Lisa took a bow.

  More dancing followed. The other two guys each had turns with Dreama. Even a couple of guys who were not with their group wandered over to ask Dreama for a shimmy and shake on the disco dance floor. Practically every guy in the place was fixated on Dreama; she oozed sexuality like it was vanilla soft serve pouring out of a machine at Dairy Queen. The guys ate it up; everyone wanted a piece of Dreama.

  But Stryker had her.

  I drained my Bud and shuffled out of the club unnoticed. I slumped in my truck till Dreama came out, Stryker’s arms draped over her, his lips nibbling at her ear. Bold and lustful, he pushed her up against her Mustang and kissed her wildly, running his hands under her tank top. She met every advance Stryker made with wanton touches of her own. Then they finally got into the Mustang. Soon the car was bouncing up and down like a toy boat in a Jacuzzi. The windows fogged over.

  An audible croak rose from my lungs, breaking the racked silence in my truck. I swiped moisture from my face—a mix of sweat and tears—and fingered the tire iron lying on the seat beside me.

  I was a peaceful man. But I yearned to rush the Mustang, drag that mother out of there, and pound his brains into the pavement. Then do the same to
Dreama.

  “God help me,” I gulped aloud, and laid my head on the wheel.

  What was I supposed to do?

  Kill them both?

  I’m glad I didn’t have a pistol. I might’ve already pulled the trigger.

  I’d never been so low. Torn apart with grief. I thought, If I could kill myself, the agony would end.

  I cranked the ignition, gunned the motor, and tore out of that parking lot and onto the highway.

  I stomped the accelerator to the floor and the truck took off flying into the night. I wound it out in the straight stretch on the two-lane road—sixty, seventy, eighty miles an hour. The chassis began to shimmy.

  Speed was overtaking my brain. I was in competition with the blacktop, the truck engine, and my driving skills—to hell with anybody else on the road. If they saw me coming they’d have to get out of the way.

  At that moment I thought nothing about the danger I was posing to other motorists. But it was late and few cars were on the back road I’d taken. Still, I had no sense of where I was going, no distinction. Only that I was hard driving out of hell. Or into it.

  Images of Dreama and Stryker dirty-dancing flashed through my mind like the porno from my own personal hell—images of the Mustang rocking in the parking lot; images of the woman I loved contorting erotically with another man.

  I pressed the pedal harder—pedal to the metal. Wind whipped through the open windows of the truck cab; ninety miles per hour, the speedometer indicated.

  One way or another, I’d stop the flashbacks.

  A curve in the road ahead caught me by surprise. I tried to slow down, lift my foot off the pedal, but—no. I was too close to the curve. Then my long-forgotten racing skills kicked in.

  Go faster. Lean into the curve.

  The truck hung in around the curve. No—there was an unexpected dip in the road. At that high rate of speed, the truck—and I in it—went careening off the edge and down an embankment.

  That’s the last I remember till—who knows? Two, three hours later? That’s when I finally began to come around.