Conversations of Despicable People NonErotic

CONVERSATIONS OF DESPICABLE PEOPLE

“Peyton, why did you make me read this @#$%^?”

© 2024 by the writer using the pen name Jalibar62

This is one possible aftermath of PeytonMirabelle’s short tale, “The Last Acts of Despicable People,” about a damaged couple who caused each other incredible pain. You should probably read that one first because I’ve provided no backstory, except by accident.

At the end of his story, PM said, “If anyone would like to pick it up and take it from here, feel free.”

I figured, what the heck. So, this is merely my attempt to… not complete the story, but at least move it forward. If it matters, I didn’t try to mirror PM’s writing style except this is nearly all dialogue, like his original so any other similarities are a happy coincidence.

No editors were harmed in the creation of this sequel. Also, there are no y times. This one picks up in the hospital, when Veronica wakes up from her nap.

~*~*~*~*~

Veronica sighed and opened her eyes after her fitful, unsatisfying attempt at a nap. She looked over at David and saw that he was awake. She tried to shift to a more comfortable position, and made a sound as she grimaced in pain.

“Want me to call the nurse,” her husband said quietly. A statement more than a question. He wasn’t looking at her.

“No, she’ll just tell me it’s not time for my pain meds yet,” she replied a little sardonically. Looking at the clock, she added, “Besides, it’s Nurse Ratched’s shift. The less I see of her the happier I’ll be.”

Despite himself, David snorted in mildly amused agreement. He’d had the same thought about Phyllis, their evening nurse.

Sobering quickly, thinking about their last conversation, he finally looked over at her. Veronica, his partner for ten, wife for eight mostly good, years.

“You feel like talking?” he asked.

A little resignedly, she nodded. “Might as well.”

“Okay.” He let out a breath. “I wanted to ask you what you meant when you said, ‘you’ll move on’. To me, it sounds like you’re already thinking about it. And I know you say it’s not, but to me, it sounds a hell of a lot like an ultimatum, Veronica. If you can say that, it means you’re already preparing yourself for it.”

Veronica reeled at the bitterness in his voice. “David… I’m sorry about the ‘moving on’ comment. I guess I was thinking, ‘Hope for the best, prepare for the worst’. That’s about all I can tell you. Other than… I am just saying that I believe I want this… us… to work, but I can’t wait forever. But I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have put a time limit on it. I can see how that sounded like I was pressuring you.”

He nodded. “Okay, I hear you. Not sure if I buy it, but I do hear you. I’m trying to understand where you’re coming from, but honestly, I’m struggling. Especially when you say you don’t love me like you used to. How am I supposed to deal with that? To me, it sounds an awful lot like you don’t love me, and you’re prepared to leave me.

‘So leave.’ It was right there, about to spill out of his mouth, and in the anger of the moment, it was so close to happening. So close. But he realized that was what was behind most of their issues both of them so quick to anger, so quick to strike out. And he remembered her plea could they try counseling before making any decisions? He put his face in his hands and tried to stop the shaking.

Taking one slow breath after another, he calmed. Then he managed a smile of sorts.

“You don’t have to answer that yet. I’d say we need some time, Veronica, but look at us.”

She glanced at his face, chuckled, then winced. “Ow, don’t make me laugh.”

“Sorry.” Then almost desperately, he asked, “What are we gonna do? Not even talking about our marriage, just… physically recover? Can we take care of each other? Do you even want that? Do we hire a nurse? It’s probably cheaper if we’re still living together.”

“You were thinking about a separation?” She looked at him, badly startled.

“It crossed my mind. But then… I’d just be wondering what you were doing all the time. No, not like that. I believe you when you say you’d never cheat again,” he continued, when her face tightened, “Just… wondering. And anyway, ‘absence makes the heart grow fonder’ sounds like a crock to me. How do we figure things out if we’re not communicating?”

She didn’t exactly smile, but her expression brightened when he said that. “Do you really want to try?

He sighed. “It’s gonna take a lot of work. The things you’ve said… no, not the angry screaming, I know you were just trying to hurt me. It’s what you’ve said since.”

When she opened her mouth, he raised his hand. “Not yet, I don’t want to get mad again. I do want to talk to a therapist or a counselor about it first. You were right about that. We need to, if we’re going to have a chance.”

“And I need to figure out why I ignored you so badly and for so long, and never realized. If we stay together, I can pretty much promise that won’t happen again, but I want to understand how it happened, so I’m sure I never do it again. Veronica, I’m so sorry about that. That, and… well, I’m sorry.”

“Then… I need to get over the cheating. You need to figure out why you did it; why you felt you had to hurt me so fundamentally, after knowing what Adrienne did to me. I heard what you said. It was about anger. Fuck, Veronica, take a 9iron to my car, if you’re that mad. Why go straight to cheating? Unless, as you said, you wanted to hurt me as badly as you possibly could. Which… for you to want to do that… it says something. But that’s for you to work out. If you want to,” he added sadly.

“Finally… even if you’re able to forgive me, I need to figure out how to forgive myself for hitting you. Because right now, I don’t know if I can.”

~*~*~*~*~

David scowled at the doctor. “You’re kicking us out now?”

“Yes. Your injuries are stable and mending. And we have more and more COVID patients coming in, and frankly, we need the beds. I know you’re still struggling with mobility, but we can assist with making your home more, umm, userfriendly? As well as provide some parttime assistance.”

And that was that. The following afternoon, David and his stillmarriedforthetimebeing wife were back in their home, staring at each other from their respective wheelchairs.

“Fuck, my hip hurts,” Veronica griped.

David couldn’t help himself. He started to laugh. When his wife’s face began to redden, he shook his head and held up a hand. “Sorry, sorry… I’m not laughing at you, it’s just…” he waved that same hand around helplessly. “Ain’t we a pair?”

She slowly started to grin, then chuckled. “Yes we are, raggedy man,” and it was his turn to grin.

Sighing, she shifted in her chair, trying to get comfortable, then winced again. She had a dislocated hip, a broken foot, and two broken ribs from their car accident.

David’s laughter tapered off. “I’d offer to help you into bed, but…” and he started snickering again, waving at his plasterencased legs, both broken. He’d also suffered some internal injuries from the crash.

“At least my foot and hip are on the same side, so I have one good leg,” she pointed out.

All the better to kick me in the balls, he thought, but decided saying it out loud would probably not be helpful.

“If you’d be more comfortable lying down, we can try to figure it out. Maybe the couch?”

She waved him off. “I’ll just take a pain pill. I think it’s time anyway.”

Nodding, he wondered grumpily, “When’s the nurse supposed to be here?” The hospital had given them a schedule, but he’d paid no attention to it.

“Umm… fucked if I can remember,” she admitted, and he was off again.

She stared at him, a bemused halfsmile on her face.

“Sorry. Sorry,” he repeated as he slowly calmed down. I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I mean, I do know, but… must be the meds.”

His face grew contemplative, and she grimaced at what she thought was coming, but he surprised her.

“V… can we have a ceasefire, just for a little while? I think it’s clear from what and how we’ve discussed, uhh, recent events, that we’re likely to do more harm than good right now, if we continue to fight.”

She looked at him a little oddly when he called her ‘V’ instead of ‘Ronnie’, but didn’t comment.

“I think,” she said slowly, “that makes sense. I’m gonna look at the list of therapists the hospital gave us and start making some calls.” Then she realized what she’d done. “Sorry. Would you like for us to agree on them before I call? Or would you like to call?”

He recognized that she was trying.

“Thank you. Yes, I think maybe we could look them up online together, but I’m fine with you calling. If we’re both in agreement, we probably have a better chance of success. Do you think we should ask if we need marriage counseling and anger therapy? Like, two different therapists?”

“What do you think about first finding a marriage counselor, then ask what they think?”

“Okay, makes sense.”

~*~*~*~*~

They had narrowed the list down to three without arguing when the home care nurse arrived. She checked their injuries, redid their bandages, and then showed them how to best utilize the various bars, rails, and lifts that had been installed in the house, primarily in the bedroom and bathroom.

“Does it make sense for us to be in the same bed?” David wondered aloud.

“It’s a kingsize, and neither of you will be moving around much, so it should be fine,” the nurse opined.

After the nurse left, Veronica said, a little sharply, “What was that crack supposed to mean?”

“What crack?”

“About sharing the bed.”

He winced. “Truce, remember? It was an honest question; I wasn’t trying to say I didn’t want to share a bed with you.” ‘Only partly a lie,’ he thought to himself, and by the look on her face, she knew it, but she subsided.

“Oh. Okay, sorry.”

“Speaking of bed…” he said, yawning.

~*~*~*~*~

They tiptoed, figuratively anyway, around each other for the next few days, until the marriage counselor they’d agreed upon was able to visit. Due to their injuries, he agreed to come to their home.

“Good afternoon, Mr. and Mrs. Russo, my name is Gordon Fremont. Wow, how are you two doing?” he asked, glancing back and forth at them.

“If you’re asking about our injuries, we’re recovering, Doc.”

“Oh, I’m not a PhD,” he said. “Just call me Gordon. I do have a Master’s in Marriage and Family Therapy, and fifteen years of experience, if you were wondering about my credentials.”

“Oh! Sorry, I just assumed. Umm, I’m David and this is Veronica.” The counselor noted that he did not introduce her as my wife.

“A pleasure,” he smiled. “So, shall we jump right in?”

At their nods, he continued. “Okay, let’s get one big misconception out of the way first. My job is not to save your marriage.” He paused, giving them time to react. They glanced at each other, but stayed silent, so he mentally hitched up his pants and went on.

“My role here is to assist you in deciding if you want to save it, and although the fact that you called me is a good indicator, I don’t ever want to assume. So, that being said, if the answer is yes, then I will try to help you understand what happened to get you to this point, and how to proceed with repairing your relationship. If the answer is no, I will try to help you work your way through your separation with as little acrimony as possible. Make sense?”

Still no verbal response, but Veronica again looked at David, and he nodded at her. Gordon was pleased to see that they seemed to have a good level of nonverbal communication between them, and they both appeared to be considering his words carefully. As he jotted a note, Veronica finally spoke. “One thing we did agree on is that our anger at each other was the cause of most if not all of our issues. Justified or not,” she added, with another glance at her husband.

“So, we wanted to ask your thoughts on additional personal counseling; anger management, perhaps? Either with you or a separate therapist.”

Gordon nodded. “That’s an excellent question, and I’m happy to hear that you’ve begun to try to understand the causes of your current situation. But it’s a little too early for me to make any recommendations however, I’ve noted your question, and I’ll let you know as soon as I have an opinion. Sound good?”

David answered, “That’s fair,” and Veronica nodded.

“Okay. So, who wants to go first?”

~*~*~*~*~

An hour later, Gordon looked at his watch. “Okay, I think that’s a good stopping point for today. I think I have a good understanding of what happened. David… Veronica… thank you both. I appreciate your candor and honesty, and for doing your best to keep your emotions in check. I know that wasn’t easy. Also, thank you for letting each other speak your minds without interrupting too badly.” He eyed David, who flushed.

Turning to Veronica, he said, “Getting back to your earlier question, now that I have a better feel for what happened between you, I do agree that anger management sessions could prove useful. I can recommend a specialist if you like?”

They both nodded, and the counselor continued. “For next time, I’d like to give you some homework. Of course, there’s still the issue of whether you both want to save your marriage, but first, I’d like you to think about what you would like to get out of our sessions, and then, write a list of questions that you’d like your spouse to answer. We’ll spend the next couple of sessions going over those. After that, perhaps you will both have a better feeling of how you want to move forward together or separately. Any questions?”

They both shook their heads.

“Okay. I think maybe a week is too long before our next session; I’d like to see you when things are still fresh. How does the day after tomorrow sound, same time?”

Veronica answered this time. “Not going anywhere!”

“Great. I’ll let myself out.”

After he left, they sat quietly, lost in their thoughts.

~*~*~*~*~

That evening and over the next day, they restricted their conversations to inconsequential things while they worked on their lists.

~*~*~*~*~

“How are you both feeling this morning?” Gordon asked.

“Nervous, mostly,” Veronica replied, and David nodded.

“Fair,” the counselor replied. “I won’t sugar coat things; we’re gonna really start getting into it now, and I hope you can stay as… umm… calm? Maybe? As last time.”

“Oh great, now I’m MORE nervous,” Veronica griped.

“Yeah, your bedside manner is terrible,” David added.

Gordon chuckled. “Sorry. But you already know this is gonna be hard. I promise I’ll help guide you through it, though. Shall we get started?”

When they both nodded, he continued, “Okay, Veronica went first last time; so David, would you like to start with your list?” Gordon suggested.

“Uhh, sure. Okay, here goes,” he smiled weakly at Veronica then looked down at the yellow legal pad in his lap. “Sorry, these are probably not in any kind of order, I just wrote them down as they occurred to me.”

“That’s fine; there’s no right or wrong way to do this,” Gordon said, and Veronica tried to smile encouragingly at her husband.

“Okay. Umm… Why did you insist on coming to that party, and then getting blind drunk?

“Oh, wow, okay. Jumping right in.” She took a deep breath. “First, can I ask… can we be brutally honest with each other? I just don’t see how we can get through this otherwise.”

“Wow,” David said. “That’s, uh… well, sure. I think that’s a great idea, actually.” He looked at her with grudging respect.

Then her words jogged something in his own brain. “Umm… can I make a suggestion too? And maybe Gordon can help us with this. I, uhh… I don’t want us to be walking on eggshells around each other, afraid of saying or doing something wrong.” He stopped, started to speak, then stopped again. After a second, he did resume.

“Sorry. I was going to say that we need to feel comfortable with being able to disagree with each other, but I just realized that it’s more than that.”

Gordon was nodding, but Veronica Just looked at her husband.

“It’s more than just being able to disagree,” David repeated. “We have to try to start trusting each other again, to know that… well, that it’s okay for you to yell at me if I do something stupid, but without blowing it up into a federal case.”

Gordon nearly applauded. “That’s brilliant, both of those suggestions. You’re doing my job for me. What do you think, Veronica?” He turned to her, but she was already nodding.

“I agree,” she said simply. “Yell, but then discuss. Not escalate to screaming and throwing things. Might be easier said than done, but I agree.”

When David nodded back at her, she gathered her thoughts.

“Okay, so. Back to your question. I really did want to support you. I thought if I showed you… that if I could prove I was interested in your work, maybe you would… well, maybe it would help. Why I drank so much? I… I think it was because I was so nervous. We had barely spoken since… and we didn’t talk in the car at all. I didn’t know what to do, and I got more and more upset with myself, and it just got out of hand.”

“Okay, I guess I get that. But at the time, I felt like you were going out of your way to embarrass me. I mean, I knew that it was my working for that goddamn promotion that made you cheat in the first place; so I didn’t understand why you’d pretend like you were supporting me? How is that supportive?”

“I thought… I thought if I went with you, it would prove that I knew how hard you were working and what it meant to you, even though I screwed up so badly. I wasn’t pretending. I don’t know why I drank so much. I could see how much you were struggling, and I didn’t know how to fix it, and I felt terrible, so I just… tried to make it go away. I swear, it was never my intention to embarrass you.” She paused.

“Then in the car… like I said, I was only trying to make you happy. I was drunk and I wasn’t thinking clearly. I can see what a mistake it was now.”

David nodded. “Are you really giving me an ultimatum with a time limit on deciding what I want?

“I already apologized for that. I know what I said, and I know how it sounded. I didn’t mean for it to sound like an ultimatum. I just… I don’t to be dangling on a string waiting. That’s all. I guess that as long as we’re making progress, that’s enough of a sign.”

“That’s fair. As long as we both feel like we’re making progress?”

She nodded.

“This one… this one probably hurts the most. Veronica… did you mean it when you said you didn’t love me like you used to?

A tear slipped from her eye. “Here’s where I’m gonna regret our ‘brutal honesty’ plan.” She smiled sadly, then looked her husband in the eye. “Yes, in the moment I said it, that’s what I meant. But I think it was because of the physical abuse. As much as I provoked you, and I admit that I wanted to get a reaction out of you, I don’t think I ever believed you would hit me. And when you did… well, I realized what I had done, but it still hurt me tremendously. I mean emotionally more than physically.”

“Yeah, me too,” he said sadly.

“But I am not ruling out the chance that we could get back there to what we had.”

Gordon interjected, “Wow, that’s huge, Veronica. Did you hear her, David? Please, I want you to consider that, and ask yourself if you feel the same. Not looking for a response right away, but eventually. Okay?”

ero