Beyond the end

Mistakes

It was two in the morning. David got off the taxi he had stopped in the back of his house. The lights were off, except for the night light that was usual on in the little one's room. And above all, there were no crying or various noises to denounce the presence of someone awake. Maybe he would get away with it, even if he didn't hope so. He entered the house quietly and headed to the bathroom. He undressed all his clothes, opened the water and took a hot shower. The temperatures in LA were low even at that time of year but the night dropped mercilessly; and then he needed to relax and take a local mind. What had happened? Donna had left him at Kelly's barbecue and Valerie sat next to him. They had talked about more and less, nothing worrying. Neither had Valerie made any equivocal allusion, as, and if she remembered it well, she was able to do. At dusk, Steve finished his last beer and rushed home. At that point David had jumped the ball and rushed to Brandon.
"Hey man, the Hilton is near my house, can you give me a ride?"
Brandon looked at Kelly, who sipping a glass of water looked at him through the glass: "Um...no Silver, I'm sorry, I think I'll have some more fun, I have a basketball class with little Sammy on hold"
"Yeah! – screamed the young McKay – I'm going to get the ball!"
Kelly placed the glass on the bench with an absolutely happy face, for several reasons.
"But you can ask Valerie to accompany you, she goes back to the Hilton too. Is it a Val problem?"
"Absolutely," the girl said, with a smile that clearly foreshadowed her intentions. David was ending up in the spider's canvas. And what a spider...
"On David, let's go, I have to go to the gallery early tomorrow morning."
David rewound everything as in a film under the luscious water of the shower. He saw herself on the sofa of Valerie's suite, bare chest, with the girl riding.
"I missed you David."
"Me too Val" and continued in a whirlwind of arms, hands, legs crossed, on the couch, on the ground, relentlessly. David made love with her as it hadn't happened to him in a long time, with an animal fury unleashed all the tensions accumulated since Donna found out she was pregnant, since she had accepted the job on the radio by giving up following an emerging Los Angeles band on a star and stripe tour, to be close to his wife; since he had chosen the owner of a children' He felt alive again. Now, in the shower, he was thinking about the Hilton room, Valerie, Donna, Ariel, the Limousine, the Babyface concert several years before, Ethan, his father, how many times he had blamed him for his continuous betrayals; to find out that, evidently, they were not so different. The thing that surprised him the most was not having a great sense of guilt. Of course, he was sorry for what he had done to Donna, he still loved her. But he also thought he had done well, that he felt like it and for once, damn it, for once he had gone all the way; he wanted it and had it.
"Hi David, I have a work commitment tomorrow; call me and remember that I'm still waiting for your news about the villa that you should help me find" and she had dismissed it this way. To Valerie, David had been one night's shot, a pleasant dive into the past. It was evident that she was too focused on herself, on her career, on her dynamic life, to get involved in an extramarital story. After all, he didn't want to leave Donna and Ethan either; despite the tensions and misunderstandings of the last few months, he still loved his family. So why did he do that? Was he really that selfish? Was he really the trivial copy of Mel Silver, genetically infidel? That was the thing that made him most uncomfortable. A sense of helplessness in the face of the call of genes, which determine the choices and therefore life. And the fear of being discovered. Yes, the fear that everything could go upstream for a sex night. And with Valerie it was absolutely possible for it to come out. And it was. He knew it well. What if he had acted earlier, confessing his weakness? If he had prevented Donna from discovering him and kicking him out, as she had already done with Ariel? He would not hold that humiliation again. But how to tell her? His head began to hurt under the weight of those questions. He came out of the shower, put a bathrobe and the knuckles knocking on the door brought him arrogantly to the bathroom, while his heart threatened to come out of his chest.
"David?? But are you taking a shower at 2.30 in the morning? Tell me the truth, are you drunk?"
Better alcoholic than traitor, he thought.
"Yes My love – he spread his voice slightly – I raised my elbow a little and took a shower so the hangover goes by. You know what Steve is like, you can never say no to him."
"But you don't just say it to me, so Steve mustn't have struggled to convince you to raise your beautiful elbow; oh well, I'll go back to bed, tomorrow I'll take Ethan to the pediatrician, I don't like this serene sleep, both day and night; I want to make sure he's okay" "O
"Do what you want," Donna said between if and if, and went back to bed.
He had escaped her. But how long did he have before Donna found out Valerie had taken him home? It only took a call to Kelly and a normal chat to find out. And he certainly couldn't justify the time lost between leaving Taylor's house and showering with marital chat. He could have invented that he had been home for hours; but who guaranteed him that that was the only time Donna had gotten up in the night? The headache was riding and he already felt poached.