What happened last weekend (when you rigged a rope through a nylon webbing anchor, instead of a carabiner, and the rope split as you were rappelling down a cliff) has left you in four casts and a near-coma. My visit to your room this morning proved awkward. There was much left unsaid on my part (and obviously on yours) and much remains to be resolved. Nonetheless, I believe we can move forward. As a sage once remarked, "It's not how you fall down, but how you pick yourself up."
Issues of mutual doubt have swirled around our marriage since the honeymoon. You have always questioned my two-hour absence from the Temple of Karnak during our tour of Luxor. My reappearance, dishevelled, winded, and in the company of Sharif, a 23-year-old tour guide with limpid green eyes and a washboard stomach, has always been a sore point. You will believe what you want to believe, Ted, and batting your eyelids angrily at me this morning will bring us no closer to peace.
As a newlywed, I felt your suspicion as a palpable presence. I found you following me in the supermarket or sitting behind me in the darkened cinema when you were ostensibly at work. The resulting erosion of trust coupled with your loss of income hardened my heart.
The knowledge that you were routinely monitoring my phone calls and reading my SMS's was more than hurtful. You were vehement in your denials until I confronted you with a charge from "Mobile Phone Spy." Though I never found the actual device (you've always been good at hiding things (except American Express statements)), I continued to mistrust your mistrust in me.
While listening to the Ravi Shankar album you thoughtfully gave me for my 33rd birthday, I unearthed an ear-cam microcamera in the headphones you had less thoughtfully given me. I can only liken the revulsion and sense of violation I experienced upon that discovery to what I imagine you would feel if I sliced open your pet iguana, Igor, from end to end, surgically implanted a camcorder in his belly, and then sewed him back up. One word raced through my mind: "Why?"
I grew to dread birthday presents: the handsome pen set which contained an audio spy camera perfect for discreetly filming me; the stylish Bakelite, 30s-era radio housing a high-quality wireless color camera; the elegant bluetooth GSM wristwatch equipped with a micro earpiece.
When I came upon you reviewing surveillance footoge of me taking a shower, I was titillated and flattered. Less so when I realized your archives also included hundreds of hours of me baking, cleaning, and napping.
I began to spend my days roaming the house with a wireless camera hunter (scanning all commonly used video frequencies), and then graduated to a hand-held camera lens detector. I discovered cameras hidden in a photo frame, shower head, and, yes, even in an entirely unconvincing flower head.
I know you couldn't possibly afford what you were spending to monitor me and consequently became suspicious of you, installing my own cameras in air freshener, shower gel, toothpaste, foot ointment, and ultimately, Igor. In retrospect, I was unwise to make the incisions myself and regret his demise.
But you drove me to it, constantly phoning to verify my whereabouts. Yes, I countered with a CVX-II Voice Changer to mess with your head, but only after I learned from the mechanic that he'd unearthed a GPS spy bug in my car. The key ring bug detector I carried was insufficient so I upgraded to the cumbersome Sweepmaster used by professionals.
One day I mistakenly left this state-of-the-art spy device on the coffee table, but when you arrived home, you didn't even notice. You were too eager to don your headphones, put your ultrasensitive mic in place, and listen to me through the bedroom wall. Shouldn't you have been spying on me when I wasn't alone? Because that was the one fact you overlooked during your hundreds of thousands of hours of undercover work: my solitude.
Whereas my hunch proved true: your costly exploits were underwritten by a third party: a slag named Marian who holds an associate's degree and has no taste in clothes or (apparently) men. I did screw Sharif (twice), but according to the visual and audio evidence in my possession, that still leaves us several dozen times behind you and Marian.
If you emerge from your near-coma, I hope we can put the past behind us. Let's dispense with the cell phone downloads, covert filming, and gifts given for the wrong reason. Otherwise (like that carabiner you reached for last Saturday) when you really need me, you'll find I won't be there.
