MYSTERY OF THE TEXAS TWOSTEP

CHAPTER NINETY EIGHT:

LOVE IS BLIND

Written by Rick Archer 

LIMBO MONTH TWENTY THREE
MAY 1981

THE NEW MADAME X
 

In May, a new Madame X appeared.  Hey, don't be surprised.  I already warned you I had been looking.  So was it Jann?  No.  Ammonia?  No.  Crazy Jane?  No.  Jennifer?  No.  Oddly enough, I never even met the newest Madame X.  Why not? 

That is because the new Madame X belonged to Michael.

One word of warning.  Put on your seat belt.  This is the start of another crazy story. 

One night I received a phone call just as I was getting home from the dance club at 11:30 pm.  It was Victoria.  She was sobbing hysterically.  Apparently Michael had come by the house earlier that evening to visit Stephanie.  When Victoria noticed Michael was acting different than usual, her keen sixth sense sent a warning message.  Ordinarily Michael was sullen and beaten, angry and bitter.  Tonight Michael was cheerful.  That's what gave him away.  How ironic.

Victoria grew suspicious and began the third degree.  Trust me, Victoria could interrogate like no woman I ever met.  Finally Michael broke down and confessed.  Michael not only admitted he had a girlfriend, he added it might be serious.  They were planning to take a romantic trip together. 

Victoria gasped.  In her book, that of course meant they had slept together.  Victoria lost control on the spot and threw a titanic tantrum, the kind that sinks ships.  Victoria started screaming at Michael which of course scared poor little Stephanie half to death.  Michael realized he had made a colossal mistake by revealing the woman's presence.  Oh well, too late now.

Victoria demanded that Michael reveal everything down to the final detail.  He refused to say her name, but he did mention the new Madame X was very attractive and that he liked her a lot.  Michael's confession sent Victoria reeling.  However, Stephanie was crying hysterically, so Victoria went to her.  Saved by the bell, Michael slipped out the door.  This was a shrewd move.  It likely spared Michael from great harm. 

Victoria had been crying ever since.   She had spent the past three hours awaiting my return home so she could share her agony.  I let Victoria talk as long as it took until she calmed down a little.  Then I tried to explain a few things to her. 

'Victoria, I don't understand why you are so upset.  That's what people do after a divorce.  They find someone new and try to cure their loneliness and damaged self-esteem.  What Michael did has to be expected.  Why throw the book at him?  Michael didn't do anything wrong.  Besides, didn't you do the same thing?  Aren't you dating Vincent for the same reason?'

Victoria did not see it that way.  No surprise there.  Victoria had a way of seeing things through her own special perspective.

'Michael isn't like you, Rick.  At least you were sensitive enough to understand my pain following the divorce and had the kindness to stay with me while I healed.'

Oh, great, so now I'm 'sensitive'?  Good grief, if Victoria only knew the truth.  What about Jennifer last Christmas?  Furthermore, if Victoria ever discovered how close I had come to undressing Jane and Ammonia, my life would be over.

Victoria continued. 

'I asked Michael to do the same thing as you, to take things slowly.  I said I still had feelings for him and pleaded with him to not rush into anything while I recovered from losing him.  Michael is such a jerk.  He laughed at me and said he would damn well do whatever he wanted.  Now I want to know how long he has been seeing her.  I bet he was sleeping with this woman before our divorce.  I am going to have a long talk with him and explain how disappointed Stephanie will be when she finds out what a tramp her father is.'

I was very uncomfortable with Victoria's mindset.  She and I had slept together again several times earlier this year.  If it was okay for us, why shouldn't be okay for Michael.  Furthermore, what good would it do to talk with Stephanie?  Everyone knows the worse thing you can do is bad-mouth your ex to a child after a divorce.  Surely her therapist Charlotte had explained this.  I was filled with contempt.  This was one of the times when I wondered if Victoria had an ounce of decency left in her. 

'Victoria, this isn't like you.  You absolutely cannot make Michael the bad guy to his daughter even if that is how you feel.  Think about the lessons you learned from Kramer versus Kramer.  You have no business hurting Michael like that.'

Victoria reacted like I had slapped her.  She was extremely touchy about that movie, so the mere mention brought on a massive pang of guilt.  To her credit, Victoria backed down.

'I know, I know, I shouldn't have said that.  I'm sorry I said that.  I was just angry.  Michael's love affair has me in such a tizzy.  Michael seems to really like this woman whoever the hell she is.  I mean, Michael REALLY likes her!!  I can just feel it.    The worst part is I don't know her name.  Michael refused to tell me.  I bet she's good-looking.  Probably a blonde like me.  He has a weakness for blondes.  I don't know what I am going to do about this.'

It crossed my mind that Victoria should do nothing at all.  However I kept that thought to myself.  Oh, the irony of it all.  Michael had a Madame X of his very own and Victoria wanted her scalp.  Too funny.  Shades of Jennifer.  I was unable to suppress a grin now that the shoe was on the other foot.  Earlier this evening Michael had watched in horror as his wife went Snarling Tiger Woman on him.  Did Michael know about my Madame X experience?  Victoria might have told him something, but I doubted he knew the full story.  Otherwise he would have never said a word to Victoria earlier today.  I recalled how Victoria had run off Michael's former girlfriend Lucy over a year ago.  What was wrong with Michael?  Why didn't he learn his lesson the first time?  Clearly Michael had not learned to play Nice Kitty yet.  But he would learn soon enough.  Rule #1, do not awaken the Snarling Tiger Woman. 

Right now I was sorely tempted to call Michael and invite him to have a beer.  If ever Michael could have used my help, this would have been the time.  One of curiosities of the Limbo period is how much I yearned to contact Michael and compare notes.  In Hindsight, my failure to do so is one of my great regrets.  Right now I wanted to warn him in the worst way what to expect.  But of course I hesitated because I was certain Michael hated my guts.  If so, who could blame him?  Instead I remained silent.

Based on my experience, Victoria had a way of magnifying the threat of her rivals unnecessarily, especially when she knew little about them.  Her screaming match with Michael was the same behavior Victoria had displayed at one of our coffee shop meetings in September two years ago.  That memory evoked one of those eerie déjà vu Groundhog Day feelings.  Things just seemed to keep repeating in my life, probably because the Universe realized I was a slow learner who needed extra tries.  At least this time it wasn't me in the torture chamber.  It was my turn to watch, so I sat back and enjoyed the show.  My Madame X episode had created Doorstep Night.  Would there be a repeat of something similar with Madame X the Second?   Would Victoria show up on Michael's Doorstep?  I probably shouldn't admit this, but Victoria's pain was a source of considerable guilty pleasure for me.  I still could not believe Victoria's nerve in demanding I sit at home while she dated Vincent et al.  Yes, I continued to kowtow to her expectations for cynical reasons, but what I really wanted to do was tell her to go to hell.  Victoria did not seem to have a clue how much I despised her for insisting on this crummy Master-Slave relationship.  Now she was trying to pull the same crap with her ex-husband, but he wasn't buying it.  Good for Michael.  At least one of us is willing to stand up to her.

Given my pent-up bitterness, I took great delight watching Michael give Victoria a taste of her own medicine.  How could I forget those awful days of yesterday when Victoria had been desperate to hang onto me and Michael at the same time.  In September 1979, Michael and I had been so fed up with Victoria that a game of hot potato developed.  'Here, Rick, you take her.'  'No thanks, Michael, you can keep her.'  It was that kind of nonsense which had led to Doorstep Night and ultimately the divorce.  Now, two years later, I was witnessing an instant replay.  How would the Sequel unfold?  Given Victoria's frenzy, there were bound to be repercussions.

In the ensuing week, I observed Victoria's utter sense of hopelessness.  She looked completely beaten.  I was treated to a revival of Victoria's 'Woe is Me' period from September 1979, except that this time she was worried about losing Michael, not me.  The thought of losing Michael to this other woman was more than Victoria could bear.  I shook my head in wonder.  If Victoria loved Michael this much, then why she did let him walk in the first place?  I doubted I would ever be able to figure this woman out.

Sad to say, Victoria's premonition was correct.  Michael was just as serious about his Madame X as I had been about Jennifer.  Michael quickly wised up and kept total silence about his Madame X.  This drove Victoria to the edge of madness.  In my case, Victoria had used the threat of destroying my dance studio to keep me in line.  No such luck this time.  Now that her divorce was final, Victoria had nothing to blackmail her ex-husband with.  Left in the dark as to the identity of Madame X, Victoria felt helpless to intervene. 

As May rolled into June, Victoria entered a terrible tailspin.  Paralyzed with depression, Victoria leaned on me heavily.  What Victoria needed was a strong dose of Reality Therapy.  She needed to take responsibility for the choices she made which had led to this crisis.  However, this type of counseling involved confrontation, so I decided to leave the heavy lifting to Victoria's therapist Charlotte.  Instead I concentrated on being sympathetic.  And so I returned to my role as Victoria's crying towel.  This had a strange effect on me.  Forced to listen to Victoria's endless lament, I found myself revisiting the details of my own Madame X experience on a nightly basis.  This caused me to ask a very serious question.  Is Love Blind?

LIMBO MONTH TWENTY FOUR
JUNE 1981

LOVE IS BLIND
 

As we shall see, the appearance of Madame X the Second will prove to be a serious game changer.  Not just for Victoria, but for me too.  In my case, the arrival of Michael's Madame X plunged me into a renewed meditation on the existence of Fate.  Listening to Victoria's tales of woe night after night, I could not help but revisit the memories of my own Madame X predicament.  At this point, I had been in Limbo Captivity for two years with no end in sight.  What made my situation ridiculous is the fact I could have walked away at any moment, but chose to stay.  Why?  They say Love is Blind.  Was I blind?  Perhaps.  But I doubt it.  At this point, all I was trying to do was hang around until Victoria came to her senses.

On Doorstep Night, Victoria and I collaborated to commit the single worst mistake of our lives.  Two years later we were still dealing with the serious consequences.  There were two questions regarding our Affair that I had never answered to my satisfaction.  Question One: Why did my better judgment desert me that night?  Question Two: Why did Victoria's better judgment desert her that night? 

For the past two years, the only explanation that had given me any satisfaction was my belief in Cosmic Blindness.  To refresh my Reader's memory, at the time I was unable to think of a single good reason to explain my behavior that night.  Discarding one explanation after another, I decided the only way I could have ever committed such a stupid act would be if all my objections were removed.  Given that I am not stupid, given that I was in love with a different woman at the time, given that I was cold sober, given that I was no longer sexually attracted to Victoria, given that I had vowed to God that I did not want to do this, why was I unable to think straight?  I had ultimately decided my judgment had been temporarily suspended by the Force of Fate to allow me to unwittingly make the worst mistake of my life.  This moment became the birth of my belief in the existence of Cosmic Stupidity/Cosmic Blindness. 

Here we were 21 months later.  If anything, my conviction was even stronger. 

My theory of Cosmic Blindness suggests there will be times in every person's life when they do something so preposterously stupid they will regret it for the rest of their lives.  My favorite example was Captain Smith, the man who ignored warnings of a massive ice field to drive the Titanic straight ahead to certain doom. 

One of the features of Cosmic Blindness is uncharacteristic behavior.  Captain Smith was chosen to pilot the maiden voyage for one reason only.  Thanks to 50 years of exemplary work, he was widely considered the finest Captain in the fleet.  In particular, he was known for his sense of caution.  And yet in one blinding moment of absolute insanity, Smith recklessly drove the ship into the ice field at full speed even though the pitch black night rendered the iceberg invisible.  No Realistic explanation existed to justify his behavior. 

So how does Cosmic Blindness work?  I have come to believe God (or a representative) temporarily suspends our judgment, then telepathically plants an idea that compels us to act in a self-destructive way.  However, that is just a guess.  So far no angel has bothered to show me how the pulleys and gears of Fate work.  What matters more is the decision to agree or disagree with my theory.  Since the appearance of the new Madame X forced me to take another look on my original conclusion, I have chosen this point as the best place to make another pitch for the existence of Cosmic Blindness/Stupidity.

Fatalistic:  relating to or characteristic of the belief that all events are predetermined and therefore inevitable

First of all, I don't think 'All' events are predetermined.  But I do think some are, Crazy Jane and her immortal teeshirt message for example.  The word 'Fatalistic' describes my sentiment towards the Curse of Victoria.  What do I mean by 'Curse'?  In my mind, 'Curse' can be another word for 'Fate'.  In previous stories, I have referred to four Curses that had caused great suffering in my life. 

Murphy's Curse.  Mr. Murphy was a high school administrator who strongly disliked me because I defied him at every turn.  One week before I graduated, Murphy pulled me aside and delivered Murphy's Curse. 

'Archer, your continued insolence is disgraceful.  You should be ashamed of yourself.  You think disobeying me is amusing, but I have something to tell you.  You have brought dishonor to this school.  Your continued disregard for the rules is unforgivable.  Let me add your ongoing impertinence towards me has demonstrated a total lack of respect for my authority. 

You do not belong at this school.  If I had my way, you would have had your St. John's scholarship revoked long ago.  You don't deserve it.  Your lack of discipline makes it clear you do not respect this gift.

I am disgusted by your glaring absence of gratitude.  You think of no one but yourself.  As far as I am concerned, you should have been sent packing years ago.  Fortunately, you will be gone soon.  Mark my words, I predict you will one day regret you failed to learn your lesson.  You will leave here thinking you are too superior to follow the rules, but I have news for you. 

Someday you will learn the hard way that you aren't as clever as you think.  You will argue with the wrong person and it will cost you more dearly than you can ever imagine.  At that time, you will remember what I said today.'

Sad to say, Murphy's prediction was accurate.  My character flaws were so serious they caught up with me in Graduate School.  Dr. Fujimoto was so disgusted with my tendency to question his authority and my lack of social skills that he threw me out at the end of the school year.  

My appalling lack of social skills doomed me in another way.  Thanks to the Curse of the Epic Losing Streak, as of May 1981 I had suffered through 17 consecutive years of bad luck with women.  Whatever could go wrong, did go wrong.  The craziest development of all took place in 1979, Year 15 of the Losing Streak.  Just when I had finally begun to overcome the social handicaps which had plagued me since high school, Victoria had placed her hand on top of my mine and uttered her immortal words: 'I love you!'  Ever since then, every move I made to cope with her interest had backfired horribly.  Here is the irony of Limbo Captivity.  It had taken me 15 years to overcome the problems of my youth.  At the exact moment I was finally healthy enough to search for a woman to love me, I found myself yoked to a crazy married woman who refused to let go.  Thanks to her, my Epic Losing Streak still had no end in sight. 

Victoria was also involved in my Dance Curse.  At the moment, I had seen five dance exhibitions in a row fail due to bizarre circumstances totally beyond my control.  Victoria was so convinced that Fate was involved, she named it the Dance Curse.  I agreed with her.  I was so spooked by this series of accidents that I decided never to perform again.  I would stick to teaching from now on.  There's an old joke.  If you want to understand paranoid people better, try following them around.  Yes, of course I believe in Curses!  If you had undergone the same experiences as me, I contend you would be paranoid too.

So that brings me to the Curse of Victoria.  I say Cursed because I once told God in a prayer I did not want to have an Affair with Victoria.  Just then I was hit with an instant premonition it was going to happen anyway.  I was determined to prove my instinct wrong, but failed.  I have told this story before in great detail and now I will offer the condensed version to refresh our memory.

To me, it all goes back to Oedipus.  Here was a guy who knew right from wrong.  When the Oracle prophesied he would murder his father and marry his mother, Oedipus indignantly proclaimed, 'I will do no such thing!'  Oedipus loved his parents dearly, so to protect them, he left home and hit the road.  Only one problem.  Oedipus had been tricked.  He had no idea the people who raised him were not his real parents.  Left totally in the dark, Oedipus fulfilled the terrible prophecy against his will.  The story of Oedipus serves as the perfect example of how Cosmic Blindness might work.

Why was I dead-set against having this Affair?  My life had been ruined by my father's affair with the office secretary.  After divorcing my mother, he abandoned me.  Meanwhile my mother fell to pieces.  She couldn't keep a job and chased men incessantly.  An only child, at age 10 I became an orphan of sorts.  No wonder I was so screwed up!  Well aware of the damage caused by my father's affair, when Victoria kept hinting at an Affair, for the sake of her daughter I vowed never to let this happen.  So much for good intentions. 

Victoria showed up on my Doorstep with a suitcase and said she had officially separated from her husband.  I did not want her in my house, but based on her threats, I feared she would destroy my studio if I defied her.  It was a trick.  When she drove home the next morning, I suddenly realized her claim to be living with me was as empty as her suitcase.  Totally against my will, I had broken my vow and committed adultery.  And so the Epic Losing Streak entered a strange new phase: Limbo Captivity. 

What upset me the most was the certainty that my mind had been tampered with by the power of Fate.  Of course I didn't expect anyone to believe my claim, but in my heart I felt my intention to avoid this affair had been deliberately sabotaged by an invisible entity greater than me.  Somewhere down in Hades, Oedipus grinned at my downfall.  Like me, Oedipus had made his mistake because he was Blind to the truth. 

'Sorry, pal, I tried to warn you.  So much for Free Will!'

As I said, I do not believe 'All Events' are predetermined.  I prefer to say that 'Some Events' are predetermined.  For example, I firmly believe the Curse of Victoria was a predetermined event.  No doubt I will have my critics.  There are those who will say that when I slept with her that night, I did what deep down I really wanted to do.  So let's start there.  No, I never wanted to have an Affair with Victoria.  I resisted her pressure as hard as I possibly could because I did not want to harm her family.  However, when Victoria threatened to harm my dance studio, she made it difficult to walk away like I wanted to.  Since the Dance Studio was equivalent to being my child, I would do anything to protect it, even if that meant sacrificing Jennifer, aka Madame X.  I slept with Victoria for the same reason a woman unwillingly sleeps with her boss.  She has children at home and needs to keep her job to protect them.

Under the right circumstances, I would have pursued a committed relationship.  In fact, I tried to do that very thing.  When Victoria announced she expected to be free soon in July, I told Victoria that if she left Michael, I would commit to her.  But she would have to move in with me.  Victoria was not willing to go that far.  She clung to her highly secure marriage until it was well past the point of rescue.  After three months of driving Michael crazy, he was too fed up to stop her from leaving.  Victoria showed up on my Doorstep, announced she had left her husband and reminded me it was time for me to live up to my promise to commit.  I assure my Readers I did not want her there.  I only let her through the door because Victoria promised me Michael knew about her decision to leave him.  Although I knew letting her in was a Very Bad Idea, my July pledge to let her live with me if she left her husband is what got her through the door in October. 

Some will say I didn't try hard enough to avoid this.  You know what, IF I HAD KNOWN VICTORIA WAS GOING TO THROW HER MARRIAGE AWAY LIKE A BLIND FOOL, yes, of course I would have handled things differently.  However, I refused to use more forceful measures because my hands were tied by the Wrath of Victoria.  'Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.'  Criticize me if you wish, but I wasn't going to risk losing the studio by talking tough and sending her home. 

I did the best I could given the hand dealt me.  The idea of letting Victoria tear down what we had built was unbearable.  The studio was more than a job.  It was my child, my reason to exist, my mission in life.  I was convinced God had gone to great trouble to get me this far.  Moreover, I felt like Victoria was part of God's plan for my studio.  Given that I believed Victoria and I were linked by Karma, rather than tell her to take a hike, I tried to reason with her instead.  Lot of good that did me.  How do you talk a madman out of madness? 

There's a Rodney Crowell song with the lyrics, 'She's crazy for leaving, but you can't stop a woman when she's out of control.'  That was my theme song during the Limbo period of my life.  It impossible to talk reason to an unreasonable person.  In July 1979 Victoria initiated talks about a committed relationship, but quickly got cold feet.  Considering her life was comfortable the way it was, I understood.  However, she refused to set me free.  Her actions suggested she was far more interested in luring me into an affair.  That way she could enjoy her life of leisure and have me on the side.  When I said no, she said not so fast.  Let's just keep talking about this.  As if things weren't complicated enough, that is when the Dance Curse struck.  Craving attention, Victoria had dreams of performing, so I agreed to work towards this.  After many months of training, her dreams were about to come true.  We were really good with three performances lined up and more to follow. 

It was all for naught.  There is a term known as 'Freak Accident'.  Two times Victoria narrowly missed getting her neck broken and the third time she nearly broke the neck of a spectator.  Since each accident was just as mysterious as it was serious, I did not blame Victoria for saying she was too terrified to continue performing.  Trust me, I was just as upset as she was.  What bothered me was the sense that things had gone wrong in a distinctly Supernatural way.  These accidents had been by caused by things that were out of my control, like the Invisible Man was deliberately causing us to fail.  I interpreted this ominous chain of events as an unmistakable Divine warning. 

'Do not touch this woman!' 

To me, the freak accidents were a clear indication that God did not bless a committed relationship between us.  If we didn't break this off, the next step would be birds falling from the sky, crops dying, locust invasion and plague.  Hoping to talk some sense into her, in early September I sat Victoria down at a coffee shop.  Once I had her full attention, I pointed to the writing on the wall.

'Victoria, wake up!  Read the signs!  These dark omens are Biblical in their intensity!'

Maybe now Victoria would listen.  After all, Victoria was almost as superstitious as me.  I pleaded with her to work out her differences with Michael.  Unfortunately, Victoria did not agree.  She shook her head in defiance. 

'Look, Rick, I agree things are weird right now, but I don't agree with your interpretation.  My instinct tells me we are meant to be together.  I believe in Fate just like you.  Even though the reasons are not clear right now, I am very drawn to you.  I am certain someday my feelings will make more sense.  For this reason, I refuse to give up hope that we can find a way to be together.'

I left the coffee shop shaking my head.  I thought about the Tarot Card known as 'The Fool'.  The Fool is so Blind to Danger he is about to walk off a cliff.  Meanwhile his faithful dog sees the danger and is desperate to stop him.  The dog barks at the Fool and bites his foot in a useless attempt to warn his master.  I was no better than that dog.  I begged Victoria to stop pursuing me before it was too late.  Victoria did not listen.  Her refusal to pay attention to the omens scared me to death.  Victoria scared Jennifer too.  When I told Jennifer, aka Madame X the First, what Victoria had said about tearing down the studio, she turned white. 

'Rick, you need to take Victoria at her word.  When she said she is acting on Instinct, she means that.  Something is driving her that defies understanding.   I believe you when you say you will stand up to Victoria and ask for your freedom, but it will do no good.  There is obsession present and you are powerless to resist it.  No matter what you do, I fear you will never be able to get rid of Victoria without great harm to the studio.  She is cursed.' 

Jennifer was never the same.  From that point on, every time we discussed Victoria, Jennifer became the Voice of Doom.  She was so convinced that something was going to go wrong, I called her the Soothsayer.  'Beware the Curse of Victoria!'   At the time I dismissed Jennifer's attitude as overly pessimistic, but privately her hopelessness reinforced my growing alarm. 

Meanwhile, the clock was ticking.  Michael was so frustrated with Victoria, he was practically shoving her out the door.  'If you want Rick so goddamn much, then leave!'  I doubt that Michael really meant what he said, but he had a right to be fed up.

Shortly after our September coffee shop talk, Victoria pulled me aside at the studio. 

'Rick, I don't know what is wrong with you.  Why do you ask for permission to move on?  Does your love just die on your command?  I've made so many mistakes, but I won't stop trying.  I have to follow my heart and see where it takes me or I will go crazy.  I have made mistakes, but you have to give me another chance.  You can't just close your mind and quit.  We have a future together, I am sure of it.'

I was very shaken, so shaken I did not know what to think.  Is Love Blind?  Is Victoria Blind?  Is she hypnotized under the same spell of madness as The Fool?  When I relayed this possiblity to Jennifer, she shook her head in despair. 

'I told you so.  You can try as hard as you can to extricate yourself from Victoria, but it will do you no good.  Victoria will never give up.  She is so blind that she will self-destruct if you defy her.  I am certain of this.'

I hated it when Jennifer talked like that.  I felt like she did not think I had the guts to stand up to Victoria.  I asked Jennifer to knock it off, but she never wavered in her fatalistic assessment of Victoria's power over me.  Insisting I belonged to Victoria whether I liked it or not, Jennifer predicted there was no hope for us.  Victoria was so far out of control, there was no way this story could end well.

I have long wondered if Jennifer had a premonition of her own.  Unfortunately, Doorstep Night proved Jennifer was right all along.  And here is what makes it stranger.  Shortly before Victoria moved back home following Doorstep Night, she left a letter on my kitchen table.  This letter could just as easily have been written by Jennifer.   

'Rick, I know too that our relationship hasn't always been easy, but I have always felt that our being together was Destiny.  It's like no matter what happens, the Universe keeps pushing me in your direction and I can't seem to let go of you.' 

I turned cold.  When Victoria stated it was our 'Destiny' to be together, it was like she had taken the words from Jennifer's mouth.  With Jennifer and Victoria singing like a Greek duet, they got no argument from me.  No matter how hard I had tried to sidestep this oncoming train wreck, nothing I said, nothing I did could prevent Victoria from jumping off the cliff and taking me with her. 

'You can't stop a woman when she's out of control...'

Victoria did not stay long.  After she moved back home, I begged Jennifer to forgive me. 

'Listen, Rick, given the circumstances, I can see why you did what you did.  I also think I could find a way to forgive you.  But I cannot fight Fate!  If you were to defy Victoria, you would lose your studio.  Victoria's threats are real and I am certain she would know if we continued to see each other behind her back.  If you lost your studio over me, it would ruin everything.  The bitterness would doom all chances of making our relationship work.  I know what the studio means to you and I cannot let you take that risk.'

Convinced we were star-crossed lovers, Jennifer surrendered.  Unable to take the pain of losing me, she found a job in another city and left town.  That left me alone to my thoughts.  One thought in particular dominated.  I obsessed over my Vow that had failed and the Premonition that had warned me this Affair was inevitable.  Victoria clearly believed Fate was responsible.  Jennifer felt the same way.  And so did I.

Sure enough, Victoria had driven her car straight over the cliff just like the Blind Fool in the Tarot card.  And so I began to think about Blindness and Free Will. 

I Reach a Startling Conclusion: Cosmic Blindness

I want the Reader to forgive me for retracing the details of Doorstep Night.  Before I reveal the startling events that resulted from the entrance of Madame X the Second, I am determined to make the strongest case possible for WHY I BELIEVE IN COSMIC BLINDNESS.

Why would be the purpose of Cosmic Blindness?  It is a tool used to enact Fate.  How do you make people do things against their will and better judgment?  First you make them stupid, then you plant a Very Bad Idea in their mind.  Then you temporarily remove their common sense.  For example, I find it very disturbing that not once on Doorstep Night did I think about Victoria's daughter Stephanie or my sacred vow to avoid this affair.  Mistakes occur when the obvious warning fails to cross one's mind. 

So when Victoria undressed and climbed under the covers, what did cross my mind?  A Very Bad Idea.  'If Victoria wants to do this now, what difference does it make?'  How stupid could I possibly be?  In the immortal words of Jennifer, all I had to do was keep my pants on. 

Despite my reluctance, I felt compelled to participate.  Victoria had told me she had left her husband for me.  She pointed out that she had made this incredible sacrifice due to her love for me.   She made it clear Michael knew she was here to stay and had given her permission to leave him.  Since she had me convinced we were officially living together, I assumed having sex was inevitable sooner or later.  That was the one and only thought present in my mind at the time.  Unfortunately I knew this was a mistake the moment her body went rigid at my touch.  We should have quit right there, but Victoria gritted her teeth and ordered me to continue.  This ordeal was conducted with the solemnity usually reserved for a funeral.  The moment we finished, Victoria burst into tears of grief.  Overwhelmed by a sudden tidal wave of guilt, Victoria began to moan 'What have I done?' over and over again.

And what was my reaction?  I was livid.  I was so angry, I yelled at her.

'So NOW you feel guilty?  Why the hell didn't you think about that before you insisted we go through with this?'

Victoria did not reply.  She was crying so hard I had to go to the bathroom and get her a towel.  Not the most propitious omen to celebrate our thrilling new living arrangement.  Neither of us slept a wink and neither of us said a word to each other.  However, Victoria was far from silent.  'What have I done?  What have I done?'  All night long.

I was disgusted.  I could not believe I had just thrown Jennifer away for this.  Unable to sleep, I watched Victoria suffer.  I had feared this gut-wrenching regret was a possible outcome, so why didn't I stand up to her before we went through with it?  Victoria was in agony over betraying her marital vows to Michael.  She was curled up in a blanket with her face buried in the crying towel.  Torrent upon torrent of tears streamed out.  Listening to her grief-stricken laments, as much as I hated Victoria for taking me over the cliff with her, I could not help but also feel sorry for her.  She was the Forlorn Banshee wailing in the forest over a lost love. 

There was something about Victoria that troubled me deeply.  It was the instant transformation that overtook her the moment we completed our ritual suicide.  Victoria had been adamant we go through with this, but once it was over she went straight into mourning.  If I didn't know better, Victoria was just now waking up to the magnitude of her stupidity. 

How was this possible?  Crazy as it seemed, it struck me Victoria had been in a trance.  It was like she was under some sort of Evil Spell which had rendered her oblivious to the full consequences of her reckless action.  Forced to witness her throes of remorse, it upset me to think Victoria had walked into this fiasco due to some sort of Blindness of her own.  Her tears suggested that once it was too late, an Invisible Blinder had been removed to allow Victoria to experience the full implication of her colossal mistake. 

Oh, great.  Now that Victoria had me, she did not want me.  Moments before we had sex, I was the Grand Prize.  Now she could care less.  Having vanquished Jennifer, a woman Victoria had never met, foremost was her guilt over betraying Michael.  Was it worth it, Victoria?  Based on her reaction, obviously not.  Victoria must have been out of her mind to go through with this.  So what kept her from seeing this ahead of time?  This had to be the most confused woman I had ever met.

Staring at Victoria, it seemed to me the oppressive enormity of her guilt had come as a surprise to her.  Based on what I knew of her, I doubted seriously she had ever betrayed Michael before.  When Victoria was in her right mind, this was not her style.  In other words, betraying Michael was UNCHARACTERISTIC, the hallmark of Cosmic Blindness.  In other words, Victoria had done something against her will, something against her better judgment.  I concluded her judgment had suffered a serious malfunction.  Did Victoria have some kind of blind spot which allowed her to go through with this?  And did someone remove that blind spot the moment she crossed the cliff?  Seriously, if you could have seen the pain she was in, you would understand that she would have done anything to undo this mistake. 

So I asked myself what caused Victoria to go through with this in the first place.  Why would Victoria toss away her marriage to a good man for a guy like me?  I did not love her, I could not support her, I had a failing career and minimal savings?  Why would she swap her beautiful home for a broken-down 40-year old house riddled with termite damage?  Victoria despised my house, so what possessed her to declare she was moving in?  Did Victoria seriously think her daughter would be happy living here?  Victoria had flipped her lid.  There could be no other explanation.  I suppose for a moment she thought she could not live without me.  However, the moment we had sex, she realized she could definitely live without me.  Ouch.  No doubt you will see the dark irony.

Temporary Insanity.  Hmm.  Whoever said that Fools rush in where wise men never dare sure got that right.  Perhaps the answer was psychological in nature, but my instinct suggested a far more disturbing possibility.  Maybe they say Love is Blind for a reason.  What if someone had deliberately rendered Victoria's mind blank?

For that matter, what about me?  My judgment had gone missing too.  If I had behaved like the adult in the room, this would have never happened.  BUT NOT ONCE DID THE THOUGHT OF SAYING NO CROSS MY MIND.  Although I felt morbid about participating, it never occurred to me to hesitate.  That made me just as Blind as Victoria.  The strange disappearance of my better judgment troubled me greatly.  For some reason, the moment I saw that suitcase (which was empty), I was convinced Victoria was serious about moving in.  Michael had to know she was here, so I did not question her sincerity. 

Stephanie never crossed my mind.  Good grief, not once tonight did I think of Stephanie.  That was a real shame.  One direct question about her daughter moving in and Victoria would have been hard-pressed to continue her pretense of moving on. 

Furthermore, whatever happened to my sacred vow never to allow this to happen?  Not once did the memory of my vow cross my mind. 

Suitcase.  Stephanie.  Vow.  Keep my pants on.  Had any of these thoughts come forward, I would have put on the brakes and asked a few questions.  However, without these warnings, it was like someone had removed the Danger Sign in front of the cliff. 

There were several ways I could have sidestepped this.  A simple request to explain what Victoria intended to do with Stephanie would have done the trick.  Why didn't I think of that?  A simple phone call to Michael would have done the trick.  Why didn't I think of that?   There was a third simple solution.  After Victoria drove home the morning after, I called Jennifer to tell her what happened.  Maybe there was a chance she would forgive me.  Jennifer listened in silence to the bad news.  The first words out of her mouth left me stunned. 

'You are stupid fool!  Don't you dare tell me you had no choice.  A woman cannot rape a man!  If you wanted to avoid sleeping with her, all you had to do was keep your goddamn pants on!'     

Then she slammed the phone down.  My mouth gaped in astonishment and my eyes grew wide.  Jennifer had delivered a wake-up call with the power of a sledge hammer.  Jennifer was absolutely correct.  For some reason, I had felt obligated to sleep with Victoria.  But that was crazy.  What was wrong with my mind last night?  Yes, based on Victoria's woeful condition, I was obligated to let her spend the night at my house.  But what horrible, incomprehensible lapse of logic made me think I was obligated to have sex?  Just because she took her clothes off didn't mean I had to do the same thing.  I went into shock.  For lack of clear thought, I had just made the worst mistake of my life.  As I stared out the window, I was at a loss to explain why I felt I had no choice but to do Victoria's bidding. 

Not once did it occur to me to wait a while. 

Jennifer's tongue lashing cleared my mind.  Now that her harsh words had exposed my fuzzy thinking, I was forlorn.  The realization I had missed a simple way out made me sick in my stomach.  If Victoria had 'insisted', I could have offered to hold her, but said I preferred to be cautious.  If Victoria objected, I had the right to say her marriage was  too important to rush into things.  Good grief, it was all so clear to me!  Delay, hesitate, postpone!  Let's talk about this more in the morning.  Drag my feet, play for time!  Keep my pants on at all cost!  

I shook my head in despair.  I was pathetic.  Angry at myself, very angry.  What kept me from thinking clearly last night?  Where were all these useful thoughts when I was screaming for a way out of my predicament?  Why is my mind working today but not last night?  I had been desperate to say no.  But try as I might, I could not think of a single excuse to break my promise to Victoria without causing her to go scorched earth.  It made me sick to know if I had just used my wits, this fiasco could have been avoided.

This was my Casey at the Bat moment.  I believed in my brain.  I graduated from high school with honors.  I graduated from college with honors.  I was a good chess player, a skill that requires logic and careful analysis.  Based on factors like these and many more, I had 30 years of proof that I was intelligent.   So far my intelligent brain had saved me 100 times in a row from doing the wrong thing with Victoria.  But when faced with a crisis where I needed my intelligence the most, it failed me in the clutch.  Mighty Casey struck out.  So what did I conclude was the reason?  I don't like to use the word 'Blame', but I held God responsible.  If this Affair was predestined, then it was likely my brain had been rendered inactive to allow it to proceed.  Once my Fate was sealed, my Judgment returned to allow me to see with great chagrin that I had three ways out, but never saw one of them when it mattered.   In my heart, I believed the only way I could have made a mistake of this magnitude was if God had removed my common sense.  My theory of Cosmic Blindness was born.