Couples' Solitude

The pushy, the crap-stirrer and the traitor meet in the same editorial office

Why is it like a law that each and every office has at least one person no one can stand? Sometimes I almost think they specifically teach it to HR folks to always hire an intriguer into the teams who would keep everyone else in a check-mate. In the first days I thought the producer B. hired M. as the editor-in-chief because he wants to screw her. Later I realized it's not her in his scipe, but Sylvie. I paid a great price for my ignorance. Sylvie is 25, and as bright a mind as a starless night. When she was born, God must have given her body as a consolation prize for her lack of mental abilities: huge breasts, long legs, big, surprised baby-blue eyes, lips fuller and plumper than Angelina Jolie's. And a gaze stupid to infinity. Primitive thoughts, zero creativity, whining to no end. From the first moment I was neglecting the woman as I can't stand stupid girls. I'm not even tickled by her openly out beauties either. She wears such short skirts she can't even sit down without all her junk showing. With Mark, the other editor we've been making bets when will her boobs pop out of her shirts when she bends over for something. Like for other people's ideas. She comes in by 3pm and doesn't do anything, and still she leaves last. As it turned out, together with B. I wasn't especially concerned about her until the producer called me to his office. He wasn't making many extra laps:
- Sylvie has been complaining that you never listen to her ideas.
I almost answered because she has none, but luckily I remained silent.
- You don't let her in, you don't pass any information to her.
Nem bírtam magammal:
- Maybe if she didn't come in for the afternoon only, and showed at least a minimum interest towards the programmes in making.
- Don't be unjust! She can't yet come earlier, she spends her mornings at her old job. That's the only way I could tempt her over. In exchange she's still in when you're all long gone. But that's not important, in a few days it will all resolve. Sylvie is really talented, she has ingenious ideas.
- Pity she never shared a single one with us yet...
- Because you don't pay attention to her. Even yesterday she came to me crying that you treat her like air.
I was thinking of a snappy answer when B. suddenly leaned closer to me:
- Hey, did Mark really have a go on her?
- Nah, no way...
He didn't let me finish the sentence.
- But that's what I heard... and not from her... that he's pushing for her pretty nasty.
- Mark? That's ridiculous. He's just laughing at her... (and I almost added, me too)
- Well that's it, don't you think that he's trying to hide his primal instinct with this extreme reaction?
I protected Mark with teeth and nails. It turned out later that I shouldn't have.
- I don't want conflicts inside the office - he summed up. - There's way enough problems with the shows without weakening yourself from the inside.
I tried to say something, but he didn't let me to.
- I want to ask you not to let the crew members pick on each other.
I didn't understand why he wants me to do it. Why not M.? After all, she's the editor-in-chief, she should be holding the team together. As if he was reading my mind, B. switched to a more intimate tone:
- You know what women are like, they're always jealous of one another. And M. is not an exception either. That's why I turn to you. I want you to be my lengthened arm in the office. Combing together what goes apart. You see, no? And please do me a favor and teach Sylvie a bit. The girl's a real treasure, just she doesn't have enough experience yet.
- Of course, no problem, but could we do it in regular hours? - I tried to turn the request to my favor. - My wife is getting upset that I keep going home so late.
- We will rearrange the tasks: you go on with the shows in the morning and you teach Sylvie in the afternoon. Will that work?
I agreed, at least I agreed to deal with the bitch. Of course I did not agree to be B.'s spy.
From M. I know that B. also talked to Mark. The producer told M. that according to Mark I got hooked on Sylvie. I keep making nasty comments on her clothing to cover it up.
M. reassured me that she has faith in me, but she also warned me she doesn't like it when the employees' emotional life goes across the border with work...

There are sone couples who bring out the worst of each other. If one is up, the other is down. Their energy can never add up, one will always put the other out. Of course this has a good side too. Negative forces can't add up either, making the final, demolishing explosion impossible.

A few days ago I was praying for Peter to find a job. Now for him to work less. He comes home at night, most of the time I can't even wait for him. I have to get up early to tend to the kids, he sleeps in until eight, goes to the gym, goes to work, and everything starts from scratch. If I even mention, how much he does it for anyways, he gets angry. "Why can't anything be good for you?" That's what he yells at me. He complains that he would come earlier, but everyone else stays so late, so he can't take off because then they will work against him all night. I can ask him to arrange his life so he could see his children at least every once in a while, he just shrugs and keeps saying that as soon as the new channel takes off it will be a lot easier. I just keep hearing M. this, M. that more and more. I think they got just a bit too close. Should I be jealous? Maybe. I don't know. I don't feel anything. Just couples' solitude.

Public Service Announcement

Dear Readers,

The original series, Hűségcsapda, has reached its last post, finishing the storyline. The author, Endre Gábor is starting a new series in the same blog, entitled Nuptials of Death. The teaser he published for it:

What would YOU do, if you had to choose between the life of your disloyal lover or a complete stranger, and your decision will be watched by millions of your fans live?

The new series will arrive in weekly posts on every Friday. As not to mix up the two story lines, I will start a new blog for the new story after the first post, and I will link it here as soon as it's set up.

Thank you for your patronage of A Trap of Loyalty, and I hope you will enjoy Nuptials of Death as well!

-Nusy

Bells of Perils, When They Ring

M. is a little whore who knows exactly for whom to put those legs apart. Not for an inferior.

Like if I was learning again to walk, live, think. I have a job again, where I have to go in day by day, for that you have to get dressed every morning, shave, show your better face, think, communicate, not just spinning in one spot, by yourself, working up your brain for nothing. With M., the editor-in-chief I'm on great terms, we always wink at each other when the owner, B. starts to tell long tales. The situation is still very ductile, I can still be anything, even vice-editor-in-chief. So far they got another two editors, they are both inferior to me in skills. True, one of them is in a rather intimate friendship with the owner, but with joined forces with M. we can easily make his ideas sound ridiculous to the others. My optimistic hopes (VEiC) are based on the fact that I have to write the program structure, as the others are unable to do it. We put our heads together with M. after the others have left, and get a great job done. Sophie asks me about the contract every day, but I don't want to mention it yet. In these days it's not the best to first point at your pocket and then shine yourself. First I want to prove myself, and only send them the bill when they have to realize that they won't get around me, they won't get anywhere without me. And then I can dictate: a little more money that at my previous position, laptop, car, cell phone with a huge bill limit. If we can make that deal, I can talk Sophie into leaving the company. With her knowledge, she could be cherry-picking from the best positions, and we can finally get rid of her pushy boss. I don't even mind if she makes a few bucks less by the end of the month, at least she won't have to feel like she owes something to her boss. I would love to see his evil face when Sophie announces that she's quitting...
The phone just rung. It was M. She said the management didn't approve of our program concept. She asked me to go in immediately so we can make a new concept. I'm not happy, I was kvetching on Sophie all week because she was coming home late. Well, whatever, this one is important now, somehow I'll just talk it out. If a business gets on track... Up to work!

I can't even count how many programs' start I've been around to see. The formula is the same all the time, get an idea for the show, plan the details, make a marketing plan (sometimes you even have to fetch the money yourself), hoping that if the "movie" passes, you can make it. Problem is, maybe one out of ten will be accepted. And the rest of it was for free (in the best case, because it's not too uncommon that they shoot it without you, because Director X or CEO Y didn't believe in you....)
Anymore I won't work for free. But seeemingly Peter is not suspicious enough. Sophie's instincts ring the bells of peril already though:

I thought I arrived home, but still I feel more and more that I was wrong. The house is not my home. We live by each other like strangers. The old coziness is gone. But everything seems to be going fantastic. Peter comes more and more to life every day. His confidence is growing, we even have been to bed. Truth to be told, we were both thinking of something else during the act. Myself, I was thinking of the next day's presentation.
I'm afraid Peter's euphoria won't last long either and will be followed by a horrible crash. John, my boss knows B., the owner of the new channel well. He said he's an uninhibited worm who would sell his own mother for a cent of profit. M. is just a little whore whose whole talent is knowing exactly for whom to put those legs apart. (It's not jealousy talking of me, she only pushes upwards, an inferior can't even come to thought.) We still don't know what position Peter will fill at the channel, and for how much. I try to push him to ask it, but to no avail, he doesn't want to listen. I'm worried. If you let yourself be screwed over, they will screw you over. It's the laws of the wilderness now. And our marriage won's survive another dive. I'm not even sure yet if it did survive the last one.

Dangers, Liaisons

We open a few doors in each other, but the ones deep down will always remain locked

She didn't come to the Mátra, but we talked over the phone for hours. Finally I gave up my stances and came home a day early so I can meet her in person.
She wore black clothes, mourning. Suffering made her even more beautiful, her eyes were broken, but still emitting some sort of magic, some special force. I can't help it: I can't resist suffering women. Then I can tune to their frequency without any burdens, I can take in their femininity fully. As a writer, that's how I feed. The sexes unite in me, I become androgynous, then I separate the personalities in me and start to write their story.
With Sophie, at the beginning our love, we tuned up to each other easily, we were wide open for each other, maybe actually that was the problem, that we opened up too much, we had no secrets left. Then years have passed, we have both changed, we kept our secrets more carefully. The crisis in Sophie's family life was what brought us together again. I can feel her and she can feel me too. We open a few doors, but we don't make the same mistake: the ones deep down remain locked.
I notice I get more and more under her spell whilst I know she wants me to convince her to give another chance to her husband.
The story of us three changes directions though. I ask her, how many times did she forgive in the last months. How many last chances did they have?
- You're right – she says -, but he's still my husband.
- Who ruins your life.
- I don't know what to do – she shakes her head.
I would know it, but I can't tell it. I take her hand. I feel strong, I feel whole again.
- In there, where I can't see down, what do you feel there?
Her skin literally heats up under my touch.
- You know, that's the big thing, that I don't know myself either. I'm too afraid to open that door.
- Because you may find something else than what you want?
She doesn't answer me. I try again and again to open that door, but she won't.
Upon our goodbye - again the odd move - I kiss her. She returns it, but there's no fire in it.

On the third day, the phone rung. THAT phone. Seemingly the saying about the piper and hell is true. I went there and back. Sophie left me, took the kids with her. A horrible whirlpool took me in, carrying me deeper and deeper. I tried to fight, but it wouldn't let me go. When I had no idea where is up or down, deah or life, I was floating halfway between the two. Then I slowly started to drift towards the latter, but then I saw the kids, and I saw Sophie. I had to get them back.

I stayed.
Existence hurt. My body and my soul fell to pieces, but suffering still let me know: I'm still alive. The whirlpool still called, but I could already say no. I got stronger by the hour, and that filled me with confidence. I still didn't call Sophie. First I wanted to prove myself. I started running again, and I even pulled the dumbbells out. I decided I will lose all excess weight, I will train myself to be hard.
On the second day of my new life I took out my phone book and starting at A I systematically called all my acquaintances. The ice finally broke by D, he said he heard of some new TV channel starting the other day, he will recommend me.
The next day I already got the call:
- Would I like to...?
I didn't even listen to the whole sentence, I said yes. It's a thematical channel, the editor-in-chief is M. I have known her for quite a while, we always got along well. I didn't even ask about money or positions, it's all the same, I have to take it anyways, no other choice. That's the only way I can regain my family.
I called Sophie, but she didn't pick up. I texted her my apologies, but she didn't answer. I finally wrote her an email, telling everything. Then she asked for some time, and I asked her to meet me. I could've touched the sky when she said yes.
When I saw her, I couldn't understand how could I have let her go. She was beautiful beyond words, and I looked at her just the same as ten years ago, when I first saw her.
I have to repair everything - that's what I kept saying, so I will believe I can do it, I'll be able to. I can't lose her.

I tried to stay cool, but he surrounded me with such a genuine attention that I slowly melted up and let him court me. After all he is my husband, from him I can take it without guilt. Still my conscience was screaming, I felt I was two-faced. I think, if I didn't have children, this would be the moment when I packed up and moved a thousand miles away. But I do have them, and they ask me every day when their dad will get better. It's only for them that I declare him healed. They move home. As they jump on him and climb on his neck, all my bad feelings vanish. I think I got home, too.

It Hurts to Love, It Hurts to Hate

Till death does us apart, until yesterday.

I feel a chaos of feelings rise in me. Ten years can't just be put in parenthesis in a moment. I hate Peter for what he did. And I hate all those who did this to Peter. The hystery of recession, the downsizings, that life is no more than a mere line of a pen. And now I don't think it's a good idea to leave him. I know it sounds all sentimental, I even cry when I think of it, but I do believe in the death does us apart, I do believe you have to hold on for better or for worse... I almost turn home when I realize I'm trying to reason what he did. I pity him. But my body won't obey, I still drive the car the other direction. If I could spin time back, I would. I want the man who he was. I want a man, a strong, earnest, one who doesn't run into a high of alcohol to forget his own minority. I want the Peter who would carry his whole family on his shoulders without a thought. The one who wanted to wow me. The one who seduced me every night. The one who wanted me and was a partner for me. And my body, my guts know that this Peter doesn't exist anymore, no matter how I would command it home, the car goes another way. Maybe I should have talked about it with my father. Or my first love? I slam on the brakes. Gosh, what am I doing? Am I just looking for a reason to step out of a marriage slowed down? Maybe it's not Peter the problem but me? I don't have to go, but I want to go?

My mind comes back for the mad honking. The people behind me don't understand why I'm standing in the middle of the road. The middle of the road - I realize that from here I can still turn back. I just have to want it. But I can't want it. True enough, I can't even want to continue my journey. I stand there paralyzed. Somebody loses his head and passes everyone by, not caring about the traffic in the opposite direction. He curses with his face transforming into it. I can't start, I turn on my emergency lights. The next driver, when he sees me, brakes and stops in front of me. The man gets out of the car and comes to me. My instincts work as I press the security lock button. He leans to my window and asks something. I can't hear his words, but I see the good will on his face. I roll my window an inch down, and it surprises me as my mouth opens and I say: "I just left my husband." "Ouch" he says, scratching his head. "Why? You can tell me." He looks at me encouraging, and - another surprise - I start to list it. This can only happen to me: sitting in the middle of traffic in my car, and across a barely cracked window I lay out my whole life to a complete stranger. He offers me to continue it by a drink. This gets me back to reality. I can't just go with the first man I find. I want to leave, but he yells at me: "You can't drive like this. I live nearby, the house is big, I promise you I..." Now the alarm is ringing constantly: "You don't think I would..." - I try to jump at him, but he just waves me silent: "Don't leave him, give him another chance!" He turns around and leaves me there. I wait until his car gets out of my sight and then finally I start up my engine too.

Peter didn't write to his blog for days after Sophie left. And then it's a different person continuing. At least so it seemed. But don't go so far ahead. Roughly when Sophie was complaining to the unknown man at the road, I had this strong feeling in my guts: she's in trouble. I dialed her number, but her cell phone was switched off. She didn't want Peter to reach her, but this way I couldn't reach her either. Then.

Broken Now

Can you lie a marriage if it doesn't exist anymore?

I woke for a terrible hangover, Sophie wasn't home anymore and so weren't the kids. The images of last night start popping up: Sophie's face, she's yelling at me, but I can't quite decide if it was a dream or reality. I still remember the unemployment center. Then I called Sophie and she didn't pick it up. At that time I was already at a nearby bar. I was shooting vodka after vodka. I sent a text with the bad news, then my phone went down. A guy was sitting next to me by the bar, I was complaining to him. He said I should go on sick leave, I can still do it. I yelled all upset that I'm not sick.
- Man, just take a look at yourself! - he said something like that.
I ordered more and more vodka, then I ran out of money. The last cut I remember is leaving to look for an ATM. And there the logical line of events breaks there. I faintly remember images, but only useless, cloudy details. Like if someone used the camera the wrong way, not taking the actual scenes just the set changes.
I got out of bed terrified, fighting throwing up. I was searching through my things, maybe I can find a sign, something to start from, to find out what happened to me. But I couldn't find anything, not even the folder I took with me to the unemployment center.
All my official documents!
I kept getting the face of a furious Sophie. Well that's why: I lost everything. I threw down my clothes and not caring about the vertigo I scrubbed myself clean. It happened on the outside, not on the inside though. The worst is that I could have done anything, I won't remember. I could have killed someone or gone behind the scenes with some woman. I don't know, and the worst is, I can't ask anyone.
I went to find the papers. I hoped that the familiar spots may help me recall where I wandered. I clearly remember having them upon leaving the office.
I was lucky. The bartender at the bar was waving at me from afar when he saw me. He had all the documents

- Cure a dog's bite with the dog's hair. Want a beer?
Not a single cell of me wanted it, but I didn't want to refuse the offer of the man who saved me from hours upon hours of red tape, or even worse. And also, I was hoping that the beer may dull the furious self-blame.
I only ordered a half pint and I left all the small change I had on me for him. I finally somehow shoved that beer down my throat, but it didn't make anything better.

I wandered around a little more in the area, but I didn't find out any more about my last night.
I came home and all afternoon I buried myself into the job advertisements. I wrote myself a new resume, trying to make myself look a little more appealing. Not much luck on that. And it's especially hard when my younger daughter stands in front of me, looks at me with her eyes all wide and asks:
- Daddy, how long will you be unemployed? Lilly's mom was fired too, but she is working again already...
I try hard not to show it, but a whole world just collapses inside me. And then Sophie steps in, sends the kids to their room and softly she says only this:
- Peter, I'm leaving.

Seventeen missed calls and a text message from Sophie, all throughout a single morning. My cell phone in the hotel, strictly silenced, I'm on a vacation.
Help me! - that's all her text says.
I call her.
- I'm getting a divorce - she says and starts to weep.
I try to comfort her, to no avail. Complaints just ooze from her. When she's not crying, she's talking so fast I can barely understand her over the phone, but I can see it's deep trouble: she wants to tell her husband that night that it's all over. I try to get her to think it over once more, leave some time for herself to ripen the final decision.
- No reason to. Not anymore.
I offer her to come up to me to the Mátra mountains for a day or two so we can look through everything. I can feel she would want to, but she hardens herself.
- Now I will play with open cards - she says.
I ask her how to mean that one, but I don't get any smarter from her answer:
- Mean it as you want it.

I look into my girls' eyes, I can see they know that something horribly wrong is going on, but they still don't ask anything, they just cry silently, without tears. "Your father is sick - I lied - and I have to go on a trip, for work. You will stay with Grandma for a while.” „ But I want to be with you two... always” - begs the younger one, and her tears start to flow. On the older one's face, bitterness. „ You won't get divorced, will you?”. „No.” - I lie again. I hate myself, I hate Peter. Where did we go wrong? Who is responsible for all this?
To my parents, I just routinely dish out the lies. Peter is sick, I have to go out of town. My father offers to go over to him. I reject it angrily. "Come, girl, let's talk it over!" - he pulls me by my arm toward his study, like in the old days when they made me pay the difference between the cheapie school bag and the trendy one in my freshman year in high school. If I can't get out of my parents' house, I will cry, and that's the last think I want to do. "Thanks, Dad, but I gotta go. I have some crap going on at my office and I have to be there." Lying goes easier and easier. "Are you sure you know what you're doing?" - my father asks. He can see inside me, as always. "Yyyyyyyyyeah... I think so." "I hope you know you can always count on us?" "I know."
I say goodbye to the kids. They're crying. At that point, so am I. I try to calm then, best as I can, then I step out the door. Their teary eyes haunt me to go back and reverse all. But no, it's impossible.
In the car I ask myself the question I really tried to avoid so far: And now, where?
I think of my first love, the Mátra, where we have even been together. I almost take the highway M3 towards it, then I have a better idea.

I'm Not Even Wanted As Unemployed

If he cheated on me, I may even bear that too, but he sinned against his family and that is unforgivable.

I didn't wait until the deadline, I went back to the employment center in a few days. I decided nothing can upset me, if I have to, I will wait for eight hours straight, I'm taking something to read, sandwiches for a day. I had so many papers I couldn't fit them in my briefcase anymore, I had to put them in a separate plastic bag in a giant folder. In about half an hour I even got a seat, that made me almost optimistic. The calling numbers came in a complete mess, I couldn't find a system in it, try as I might. At least one would know how many are ahead, you could just go out for a walk, get a coffee, grab a bite to eat. Time would fly by. But system, no. They call the number ten lower, then twenty higher, then the one right before me. Then 17 after me. And I just sit there waiting, I can't even read, because I look up at every beep of the display. Maybe. But seems that my number is cursed, or just the computer forgot about it. Sophie sends me a comforting text every hour or so, at least that helps.
After three hours and thirty-seven minutes of wait, my time comes. I magically put on my sweetest smile over my worn face, and I step into the shrine of bureaucracy. I sit down at the clerk's desk, I spread out my miles of paperwork, this fact sheet, that application, another certification - she just keeps asking and asking, with no feeling in her voice whatsoever. I select the needed paperwork quickly, I don't want to waste their precious time. She pounces on the corporate papers like an attacking puma. Her experienced eyes point a mistake, she busts the verdict: not eligible. I try to argue, I ask her to show me the law, governmental order, anything. She's just shrugging and changes tone:
- If you really want it, we can put in the application...
A spark of hope shines up.
- ...but it will be rejected anyways.
My brain just explodes. When I was there for the first time I wanted to ask about that point that she doesn't want to accept now. After several hours of waiting I would've deserved at least the answer from the info desk clerk, but all she could say was that all cases are different, the appointed clerk will tell everything. Another several hours of wait gives me forty seconds of answer time.
When I mention this, she just shrugs, she can't do anything, it's the rule. I groan, that I'm not holding her responsible for the rules but for the humiliating and inhumane process of letting me know this.
I curse her. I wish her to be fired too and have to go begging for financial aid, just like I have to. Now all other clerks are watching us too. And me in particular, rather offensively.
Finally the released pressure is not sitting on my brain, I can change tones:
- Ladies, I have a simple favor to ask you! - I raise my voice.

I leave a pause of attention.
- More humanity! People who come here are in trouble, have been hurt, a lot of them have been humiliated. Please treat us like people too!
Air just froze.
- See you later, ladies – I say, storming out of the office.
I hear some groans of disrespect, but I don't react. I grab the door to slam it behind myself, but in the last moment I change my mind and just close it quietly.
At the information desk I stop for a second. It's the same lady staring at me the same stupidly who didn't answer me last time. Anger fills me, I would just love to smash her fat head into the counter.
Then I gather my strength and walk out without even saying goodbye.

Of what happened immediately after this, neither of them ever wrote anything. Sophie told me a lot later what happened.
She was in the middle of a super important meeting when Peter called her. She couldn't take the call, her phone was on silent mode, so she just hung up and tried to secretly write a text message that she will call him back ASAP after the meeting, but her husband's message broke it in half. "I was denied, I'm not even good enough to be unemployed." Roughly that's what it said. Sophie felt that she can't not talk to him. She excused herself out with a lot of awkward sorry's, but she couldn't reach Peter anymore, he turned her cell off. She sent her a text message and went back to the meeting. She was hanging on the edge of her seat, but her peers just couldn't finish their discussion. She got a new text message, but not from Peter but the bank: all their bonds have been freed. Her boss looked rather annoyed, but still she went out once again. Her husband was still not available. She sat back on her place, but in a moment came the next message. All money was withdrawn. Sophie lied that her kid got sick and ran away. She drove like a madman to the bank branch where the money was taken up, but Peter wasn't there anymore. She ran home, but no use, her husband wasn't there either. He just disappeared. She called all the friends and family, but nobody has seen him.

He only got home in the early morning, drunk out of his brain. He lost all the papers, but he did have the money, at least most of it. He spent seventy thousand forints. (translator's note: about 355 USD, roughly a month's minimum wage earnings) Sophie was yelling, but the words didn't even reach Peter's brain, he just collapsed into bed still in his clothes. He never told what he wanted to do with the money. She thought he wanted to take off abroad. That night, Sophie only wrote a single sentence into her diary:

That he makes no money, I will survive, I can bear his jealousy, if he cheated on me, I may even bear that too, but he sinned against his family and that is unforgivable.