The Towel

It was a Monday, and I was working from home because I had a 4:00 in the morning conference call with our partners in England. The call required me to wear a tie and dress shirt and now that the call was over, I could switch into some sweats. My wife Jesse was in the shower when I was changing. As I was heading back downstairs to my home office, I realized I had left my phone in the master bedroom. Jesse was dropping her towel as I walked in, she screamed, picked up the towel and covered herself.

"You scared me Jack, I didn't know you were home."

"I told you several times this weekend I had a call with London and would be working from home today." While I talked, I had put my phone in video mode.

"Drop the towel Jesse," I said. She looked scared.

"No Jack."

"Why? Is it not okay that I see my wife naked Jesse."

She was stammering for an answer, but I quickly grabbed the towel and pulled it away. It confirmed what I thought I saw, love bites on both her tits, her pussy was shaved and there were some love bites right above her pussy. The love bites were not from me and with the exception of our honeymoon twenty users ago, Jesse always refused my requests to shave her pussy.

Jesse was busy wrapping the towel back around herself when my admin called. I answered her call and started heading back to my office.

"What's up Jack," Cheryl asked. She was the admin for my group, and we had been friends for decades.

"Well, my wife has love bites on her breast and pussy, and they are not from me, that's what's up. Can you please clear my schedule for the rest of the week and tell our boss I need emergency vacation for the week."

As I was talking, Jesse came chasing after me now wearing a robe, "Please Jack, it's not what you think."

Cheryl burst out laughing, "Did Jesse just say it's not what you think, how unoriginal."

"Please Jack, stop and talk to me, we can fix this."

Cheryl burst out laughing again, "God, is she using the cheaters handbook Jack. I know a good divorce lawyer; do you want me to set up an appointment?"

"Yes please Cheryl, as soon as possible."

"Who were you talking too Jack? My god, did they hear what I said?"

"I was talking to Cheryl, yes, she heard you and she's probably still laughing. She's also making an appointment for me with a divorce lawyer. I suggest you do the same."

"I don't want a divorce Jack, can we please talk about this first."

"Ok Jesse, but answer one question first, did you also give him your ass?"

Jesse burst into tears and collapsed on the floor. Her betrayal was complete and unforgivable.

"You should head back to your sister's Jesse, or did you ever go there last weekend, was that just another lie?"

In times of stress, I jogged, and this morning was calling for some serious jogging. I grabbed my stuff, donned my running shoes and headed out the door. Jesse was calling my name as I left.

I decided to check the trunk of her car and found her overnight bag, inside were some fuck me heals, a pretty dress and some sexy lingerie. There was a used butt plug and half-used tube of anal lube. The lube stuff had trashed the dress and lingerie. There were no panties. I took pictures of everything.

Mentally I wanted to run, emotionally I wanted to cry or kill somebody, but physically I couldn't do any of the above and after a few miles I found myself at a coffee shop.

There were some missed calls from Jesse, a text from Cheryl with an appointment with a lawyer and several texts from Jesse wanting to talk.

Jesse's final text said she was on her way to her sisters and maybe we needed a little space before we talked. A slew of sarcastic responses went through my head. There was no doubt in my mind that this was going to end in divorce and that any text messages may become discoverable, so I reined in my sarcasm.

Jesse's sister Donna went through a nasty divorce about ten years earlier after she caught her husband cheating on her a second time. Jesse was dismayed that Donna had given her husband a second chance and Jesse made it clear to me that any kind of cheating was one and done. Which I strongly agreed to at the time.

What did Jesse really hope to get from talking.

While I was enjoying my coffee and contemplating life without Jesse, Cheryl called me back.

"Jack, I just wanted to let you know that I spoke with our boss, and he's cool with you taking the week off and don't put it as vacation. You also have an appointment with my lawyer for tomorrow at eight in the morning. I'll send you the address."

"Thanks Cheryl. I am at Starbucks right now. I went on a run, but the enthusiasm left me. Jesse's on her way to her sister's; she still wants to talk."

"Well, I'm glad you went on a run instead of a bar. I'm sure you remember my divorce. Eventually you will have to talk to her, Jack. Ain't no way to paint a pretty picture on it, your life is going to suck for a while, so keep running. And once word gets out in the office, I know a lot of women who will be lined up at your desk every morning."

Since Jesse had left, I jogged back home, went to my office and started closing joint credit cards and splitting our bank accounts. While looking at the joint credit cards, I saw the transactions during the prior week for the lingerie store, the shoe store and dress shop.

The bank was making me come in to open the new account. After opening the new accounts, I transferred half the balances of the joint accounts to my accounts.

Trying to be nice, I sent a text to Jesse telling her what I did.

In her response she said, "Please Jack, you're overreacting to this."

I sent her the list of transactions and the pictures from her overnight bag, "I am assuming the lingerie, dress and shoes were for your lover and therefore you are responsible for these."

"Please stop Jack"

Wednesday was trash day and when I took out the cans, I saw the overnight bag and all its contents in the trash. She had spent a few hundred dollars on that stuff.

Sarcasm and anger were having a waging battle inside me as my thumbs typed one text after another before being quickly deleted. Instead, I said, "Will you tell our boys or should I."

Jesse was still in denial when she texted, "We don't need to tell the boys anything Jack."

"You are wrong Jesse, I'll let you try and explain to them why you cheated on their father. You have until Friday and then I'm calling them."

There was a bar calling my name around dinner time, I knew how to cook, my mother insisted on it when I was young, but I just didn't feel like cooking. I played darts in a league at that bar so there would be some people I knew and they might cheer me up a bit, but I forgot about Rosa. She usually pretended to be just a bar maid but secretly owned the place. Rosa looked at me as I sat down and asked me to come into her office.

Rosa closed the door behind me and said, "What's going on Jack, did someone die?"

She was excellent at reading people, so I said, "Just my marriage Rosa."

"God fucking damn it," she yelled. Then she reached into her desk, pulled out a very expensive bottle of scotch and poured two glasses.

"Talk to me Jack, the more you talk about it, the less it will hurt. I know from personal experience."

I told her what I knew, it wasn't much, and it didn't make me feel any better. Then she went into a series of questions, when was the last time I ate, what did I want to eat, what were my intentions, did I have a lawyer, and on and on. As we discussed those things, the cook brought in my burger and fries.

When I finished the burger, she asked me if I cried yet. I shook my head no.

"Jack don't play macho man and think you don't have to cry. Go home and find the most sentimental thing that reminds you of Jesse and cry over it. It could be a wedding photo or a family vacation picture or a souvenir. And find something new to cry over every day."

I thanked her and headed home. I had no intention of following her advice but when I came out of the shower I saw our wedding picture on her nightstand.

The meeting with the attorney went as expected. No fault divorce state, everything split 50/50, since I had been paying the boys college tuition, I probably wouldn't have to pay Jesse support payments, The bad news was my legal standing for telling Jesse to leave was pretty weak. The house was paid off but there were still property taxes, utilities, lawn care and other services that needed to be paid. It was a joint asset and would have to be sold or one person buys the other out. So, what she was telling me is that we would have to cohabitate until one of us decided to move out or the house sold and since the housing market was in a massive slump it wasn't going to sell anytime soon.

Tuesday went further downhill when I received a text from Jessie's sister Donna.

"I'm sorry Jack, Jesse told me you guys were having a little disagreement when she asked me to stay here. It was only this morning that she told me that little disagreement was that she cheated on you. I told her she was a slut and to get the fuck out of my house. Our brother basically said the same thing but not so nicely. I think she's on her way to your house."

Double fuck.

As expected, Jesse was sitting on the front steps when I got home. I had already changed the locks.

"What the fuck Jack, it's still our house and you changed the locks. What were you thinking?"

"Jesse, I advise that you should not ask me open ended questions about like, 'what was I thinking,' because I might tell you. Now let's go inside and discuss this without putting on a show for the neighbors."

Once inside I said, "I just came from my lawyer who reminded me it's still a joint asset. That also means the taxes, insurance and utilities are a joint liability. My lawyer has prepared this agreement so you can have your lawyer look over. I am proposing that you can move into the in-law suite above the garage, and I will be solely responsible for the joint liabilities. There's also verbiage in there that neither one of us is allowed to invite guests of the opposite sex and also outlines use of some common areas."

"Jack no one as lived in there since your mother passed and that was almost ten years ago," she said.

"Yes I know. But it should have the basic things either one of us will need to live. The joint liabilities run about $2,000 per month. It would be a bitch to move my home office to the suite. Let's go look at it."

It was dusty, but it had a small bedroom facing the street, a common dining room and living room area, a small kitchen and a smaller bathroom with just a shower stall. Jesse agreed to take the in-law suite, but she would need to take a bath occasionally and it would be a bit before she could afford a TV. On my way out, she reminded me that she still wanted to talk. I ignored her.

Jesse moved her stuff into the in-law suite and finally found a lawyer. The divorce proceeded at a snail's pace. She did call the boys, said she fucked up and cheated on me and we were getting a divorce. The boys called me, said they were sorry and wanted me to know they were there for me. There was a little bit of Jesse bashing but I cut that off.

I had decided to refreshen the interior of the house by painting all the rooms and hopefully when the market switched, we could sell the house. The real reason was the wedding picture that had sat on Jesse's nightstand wasn't the only picture that made me want to cry, there were dozens of others around the house that had the same effect. Anytime I was getting ready to redo a room, I had Jesse take whatever pictures she wanted to keep, anything left behind got stored in the attic. It didn't take long for Jesse to see I had been erasing what had been 'us' from the house.

I rarely saw Jesse over the next few weeks. We worked different schedules so we didn't see each other coming and going. A couple nights a week, Jesse would be watching TV down in the den and Saturday nights she would take a bath in the master bathroom. There was also a gym in the main house that she began using. I rarely saw her go out. Once I saw her get in her car, dressed up while I was heading off to my dart league. When I came home, the car was still sitting in the same spot. Jessie was sitting in the car, staring at the garage crying. I felt sorry for her but not that sorry.

On a Saturday, a month after Jesse cheated on me, I was out for my morning jog and Jesse came up to run alongside me. I looked over at her. She smiled and said,

"It's a free country Jack, I can run wherever I want."

I increased my pace and put some distance between us.

That Monday, I was throwing darts and would normally take my dinner there before the match. Rosa came over to me and pointed out that Jesse was sitting at one of the tables.

"Jesse, why are you here?"

"It's a free country Jack. I can eat here although judging by the look Rosa gave me, I'm a little concerned that she might poison me. I'm assuming you told her I cheated on you, does anybody else here know."

"Not that I know of, and I really doubt that Rosa would tell anybody. And I don't think she would poison your food." I went back to my match. On my way home I looked over my shoulder and saw Jesse a few paces behind me. I called my lawyer the next morning who told me there was little I could do as long as she wasn't threatening me.

Six weeks after Jesse cheated on me, she was routinely jogging the same path as I did, and it was getting harder to put space between us. I threw darts three nights a week and Jesse was always there. She still wore her wedding and engagement rings and whenever any male came up to talk to her, she would tap them on the table, twice if the guy was dense.

I would like to point out that Jesse hadn't joined me on a morning jog in at least ten years and never watched me throw darts before and never used the home gym before.

Jesse was still taking her Saturday evening baths, but as the weather warmed up, she was wearing less and less clothing on her way back to the in-law suite. I tried not to look but she was a very attractive woman and had slimmed down a lot. What she wore after her bath was only slightly less than what she was wearing in the gym. What she wore when she came in to do laundry was always a surprise and of course she had to let me know she was using the laundry or the gym or the bath and let me know when she was done.

Jesse was becoming a standard fixture when I took care of myself in the shower.

Nine weeks in and my lawyer called me, everything was settled, and they could shortchange the divorce proceeding by using a 'mutual separation agreement' approach. Basically, as long as we agreed to everything, we could avoid all the court room bullshit and save some money. The only stickler was Jesse's insistence that she talk to me. Jesse could demand counseling which would require at least six weeks of sessions. Or, I could agree to one session with her and a counselor present and we could be done.

I caved. There was no pressing reason to be done except the longer things went on the more my lawyer was charging me.

Ten weeks in and Jesse was already sitting in the counselor's office when I arrived. Jesse introduced me to Judy, the counselor.

"Jack, I want to thank you for agreeing to talk to me and there are benefits that you put this off for so long. I have been seeing Judy every week since the night I cheated on you and she helped me understand that all my reasons for cheating on you were bullshit. I had taken a bunch of stupid shit and twisted it into reasons to cheat hoping cheating would release in me a nirvana like I never imagined. Of course it didn't. I knew I fucked myself and us over that night and cried myself to sleep. My lover bailed as soon as he saw the tears. The stuff you found in the trunk was only sitting there until I could put it in the trash, because that was where it belonged. I don't expect you to forgive me, but I will always love you."

The room was silent except for Jesse's sobbing for an uncomfortably long time.

Judy asked if I wanted to add anything.

"Only for your benefit, Jesse and I had the opportunity to discuss infidelity about ten years ago when her sister caught her husband cheating on her for the second time. We strongly agreed with each other that any infidelity would be a one and done event. Is there anything else?"

Jesse was openly sobbing, almost hysterical. Again, I felt sorry for her, but I caught myself before I did anything.

Judy said, "I saw that Jack, you may have your rules but you're a man with compassion and you're human, like all of us. And like all of us humans, we make mistakes. Jesse said you have been removing all the pictures of you guys from the house, is that because when you look at them you realize what you lost."

"What Jesse threw away," I shouted back, much more angrily than I intended. I was clearly losing control of my emotions and stormed out of the room.

I was sitting in the living room of the main house drinking scotch with the lights off when I heard Jesse's car pull in. Instead of the in-law suite, she came into the main house and walked right past me. The sound of the ice in my glass scared the daylights out of her.

"Are you oaky Jack?"

"I will never be okay Jesse."

Jesse knelt on the floor before me and put her head on my knee. "Neither of us will ever be okay Jack. I remember telling you that Monday that we can fix this, maybe I believed it then, but I was fooling myself, unwilling to face the reality of what I did. It doesn't mean shit but I am sorry, it's like that line from the song, 'you don't know what you have until it's gone.' I will always love you Jack and I'm going to do whatever I can to be near you, it's the only reason why I get out of bed in the morning. So, I will continue to jog alongside you every Saturday and I will continue to watch and cheer for you at your dart matches. I fear someday you'll move on, but until then I will pray every night that you'll find it in your heart to forgive me."

The divorce was finalized a few weeks later. Several times Jesse told me she was going to see Judy and invited me to come along but I declined. I wondered what she would do if I said yes.

Jesse continued to jog alongside me every Saturday and I had to give up trying to outpace her. Every week she would invite me out for coffee when we were done, and I would decline. I wondered what she would do if I said yes.

And Jesse continued to attend my dart matches. Rosa was softening up to Jesse and would often spend several minutes chatting with Jesse. I don't think Jesse was afraid of being poisoned anymore. Rosa was also putting a reserved sign on the best table to watch the matches so Jesse would have a clear view.

One night, Rosa pulled me aside.

"Jack, do you think I read people really well."

"I know where you're going with this Rosa and my answer is still no."

"Men are so fucking pigheaded, suit yourself Jack but you are the person suffering here. Jesse has accepted her fate in life and is happy with what she has. You are the only one coming in with a frown."

Sometimes I could hate Rosa.

Sixteen weeks after Jesse cheated there was a big darts match. The winner would be declared the best in the county and awarded the ugliest trophy in history. The base was 100 years old and had to be broken down into three pieces to be moved. I breezed through the early rounds and made it to the semifinals which would be played at Rosa's tavern this year.

Rosa's was packed that night; Jesse still had her reserved table, and her sister Donna was with her. Even Judy was there. I was stunned when I realized I won. Men were coming up and shaking my hand, women were giving me hugs and a few kisses. To be honest, I couldn't tell you whose hand I shook or who hugged me until someone was hugging me, and that hug felt so different, so different that I had to hug her back.