A Simple Syntax Error

Over the Late Summer months of August and September 2009, I was consumed with work, the pool, and him. He acclimated himself to my environment, engaging with everyone, becoming comfortable in the surroundings. We were rotating days at his place and at mine, Archie, Loki and I traipsing our gear to his house every few days. Typically our weekdays were spent at his house, our weekends at mine. It worked out well and allowed me to have other friends over as well as use the pool & Jacuzzi on our days off. We only parted to go to work, and when we were together we were naked. It was pure hedonism between us. There was only raw sexual energy, and lustful passion. The idea of love was non-negotiable, it was Summer.

The basis of this affair, the genesis to the lost love, was that he had been looking for the wrong woman for 18 years, until he saw me at the Wynn IT Shop. My plan was to screw around until October 1st, then prepare for the Age of Chivalry, when he returned to his wife.

Being an Information Technology Program Manager by profession, everything usually goes by the plan and the schedule. Very little slips. So on that late August Desert evening, when he leaned forward and put his head down as he asked me "Is this love?"
 The alarms went off in my head because it was a process out of sequence – a syntax error which slipped past the error handler.

 A syntax error occurs when information is unrecognizable or an improper format. The term "syntax error" is also frequently used to refer to semantic errors, where the information is in a recognizable but incorrect format. A syntax error sometimes can result in more subtle problems, causing a glitch or allowing a program (romance) to run with incorrect data (lies). Most common syntax and semantic errors stem from misspellings and incorrect punctuation.

Throughout September 2009, we talked of our past, and he noted each time our paths had crossed, with us missing each other by mere moments. He asked questions about my periods of illness, and the subject of my decision to refuse all treatment for my condition became central to our conversations.

He was insistent that I cancel the Do Not Resuscitate (DNR). At the time, we was telling me on a daily basis that he was leaving his wife, divorcing so we could have the life we were robbed. I finally told him that when the divorce & custody were finalized, I would cancel the DNR. Not surprisingly, he was frustrated by this response. Everyone knew by then that he was lying. 

As our conversations progressed, I discovered that part of his motivation for the affair was to fill in the blanks. 

The period of time he focused, as we talked, was on areas of my life that were missing from his extensive background of me. The entire affair was about completing the picture he had created over the years. For a man who declared he had been searching for Aurora for 18 years, he certainly had quite the knowledge base of my life…. Presumably not the woman he had been chasing. 

He continued to talk about divorcing his wife. So many plans to make, and things to put in place before he could file papers. Obstacle after obstacle surfaced for him to "work through" in order to be ready with papers when she returned from her summer trip to Europe. Over and over the tales of horror continued – how vile she was, how terrible she was to him, how she abused him physically and blackmailed him emotionally, how she neglected their child to the point of abuse and drank her life away. He lamented the coming custody battle and worried about what his child's life would be like with his mother, a drunk who couldn't feed her own child each morning or cook dinner each night for her family. More often than not, the conversation turned to how she trapped him by purposely getting pregnant, tricking him into having sex with her without a condom. Repeatedly he displayed bouts of anger at her for stealing "our life" – it should have been us that married and had a family, not her. The more he spoke of the obstacles, and the angrier he got at his wife, the more I realized it was all for show. The only purpose these conversations served was to keep the charade alive. 

Leaving his wife was a central part of the Summer Fantasy, it was the only way to ensure that the intimacy and the "love" would develop between he and I, without it, we were just screwing, and he needed more, he wanted more. Of course I could not waver in my belief. That was the one thing which drove everyone around me mad – how could I not see the charade? How could I believe that he would leave his wife? 

Well…. I didn't believe. 

To compensate for any chance of my performance being anything but genuine, I dove head first into all the lies and the deceit. I assured him daily of my love and loyalty, cooing my encouragement each time he spoke of the divorce process. It was easier than I thought it would be. 

It was also quite shameful 

– if anyone knew what I was doing, really, they would be shocked – 

...closing my eyes when I was with him so I could feel Dan, 

...smell Dan. 

...and yes, taste Dan. 

My goal was to discover how this man knew so much about me – I already knew by this point in late September 2009 that the mistaken name was all a ruse – he simply had too much intimate knowledge of me, the woman who was not Aurora. No, what I was doing was emotionally dangerous.

It was easy to love him – it was as if the universe decided to give me one last Summer Fling with the Audio Thief. I told myself that it was the same

– the Audio Thief breezes through my door for a few days or weeks and then leaves, disappears for years at a time.  This was no different, in a few months the Audio Thief replacement would leave to return to his wife

 – despite her drunkenness and inability to care for her own offspring. 

In the meantime, I fell in love, allowing him to manipulate my emotions, my memories, my body. 

My reward at the end would be answers. The only subject which ever brought strife between us was his wife. The one statement, I and my closest friends could make, drove him to rage, 

"All bets are off until the wife comes home." 

He hated my saying that. He told me I was accusing him of lying (true), 

He told me I had no faith in him (true), 

He told me he would prove me wrong (false, he proved me right). 

I was so surprised when he told nearly everyone I knew,  he had met with an attorney and the divorce papers were in process. By this time he had stopped using the term "separated" because the teasing and mocking got to him, 

"Yea he's separated from his wife while she is in Europe." 

The week of October 1st changed everything. My schedule needed to move along, and to that end, I stopped spending weekdays with him and remained at home, working during the day, sewing at night. I had miles of stitches to sew, and only 10 days to do it – the Age of Chivalry was upon us.
He surprised me first by finding a dress form for me to finish the costuming.
Next, he delivered a futon to the garage while I was at work.
Lastly, in front of 20 of my good friends, on the pool deck under the lights of the Portico, he announced the divorce was in process and the papers had been drafted – he was officially separated.

He changed his routine to be with me at my house full time, only going to his own home every few days to change out clothing. We sat in the garage, he reclined on the futon, me sitting at my sewing machine. I sewed and we talked, we took breaks to make out and cuddle, but mostly it was all work, and it was all within our bubble. For the next two weeks he talked of our future together with his child. He told me his child needed my influence that I would be a model step-mother. My friends were equally surprised,

"Poof, you're a Mom" 

He told everyone even remotely associated with me that I was his dream love, that we were meant to be together, that the universe was righting a wrong. We began looking at houses close to his child's school and large enough to accommodate the three of us and all of our "stuff". He involved a few of my closer friends in the housing search around Las Vegas, asking opinions and looking at pictures and floor plans. The Age of Chivalry came and went.

Three days after the faire was dismantled and placed back in storage, I gave my notice at the Rochelle house, two days later, on a Saturday afternoon, I signed a new lease on a 1200sqft Condo near his child's school, in a community over-populated with children from the nearby school – all children who knew his child, and their parents who attended the same PTA meetings.
Everything had to be moved ahead of schedule by several months because he was ready to serve her with papers when she got off the plane – I would be settling into my new place as he was acclimating her to the reality of a divorce and custody arrangement.
Sunday morning we spent alone at the very little house, our last free night together until he joined me ten days later at the new Condo. The wife's plane was landing the next day and he was preparing to serve her the day after, on a Tuesday. Ironically, on that very Tuesday, it was I who was served, not the wife, in the form of a shocking discovery at the very little house.

The only evidence of my existence left in plain sight was Archie's sweater on the dining table. While I was gone, he collected all of my belongings, all of Archie & Loki's belongings and hid them in various locations around the small dwelling. It took me nearly an hour, searching in the closet, in drawers, under the bed and stuffed into the laundry room all of my clothes, make up and jewelry.

Code Red you're staring
Code Red staring
Code Red staring at me

The simple Syntax Error of a misspelled name had grown in size and mass to encompass my very life. When I reflected on the previous 60 days of lies and deceit, I found that my internal error log was filled with one long continuous Syntax Error generated by him, for him.