Allison reminded me of a time when she was heading up to go rock climbing in the gunks but decided to turn around before she got there.  I vaguely remember this. I don't remember where or when this was.   Allison says its when we were living downtown.  Who knows.  I'm sure the trip was in the context of her needing to clear her head, get out of the city, get some exercise or any of the other euphemisms that were regularly used. What I do remember is feeling relieved when she came back.  Originally I thought I was happy.  But sitting with it, what I felt was relieved.  So now I  start to think back, how did it feel all the other times when she didn't turn around.  How did it feel to have your girlfriend (wife) running off every chance she could get under the premise that it was something she needed.  That I was too serious.  Didn't like to have fun.  Wasn't really into climbing.  And again I come back to humiliation.  Knowing that she was going up there to hook up.  Or at least tell anyone she was trying to hook up with about what a loser I was.  Explicitly or implicitly.  The very act of going to the gunks wasn't just a thing to which I was a bystander.  I was an integral part of it.  Would there even be rock climbing in Allison's life if it wasn't for me?  I was the perfect dupe.  And it seems all this time the gunks has been almost synonymous with humiliation.   It didn't have to be climbing.  Could have been dancing.  And it was!   How many nights did Allison go out dancing. Hippy dancing.  Dance clubs.  R&B clubs.  Always had the same feeling.  You stay here Phil.  I need you to stay here.  And it always ended the same.   Making out.  Jerking off.  Sucking dick.  Getting fucked.  And I'm right there in place so when she decides to come home she's got me as a cover.   She can still see her family.  Her friends.  Her co-workers.  Classmates.   And when it's time to seem human, she talks about me and how great I am.  And then she punches the clock and the gimp goes back in the hole.  And how sad that the one time she turns around I take it to mean those days are behind us.   But really.  Those days never ended and continued on even more unabated.  And here we are again.  With such clarity.  With such noble intentions.  Full of sound and fury, signifying nothing. Again.  And again.