EDITED BY:
Miriam Belle
CREATIVE CONSULTANT:
Simply_Cyn
***
"THE WAY IT STARTED"
I paced around the apartment, heart thundering as my face burned with hot blood. I hadn't been this nervous in a long time and it showed. I suppose deep down I knew what I was doing was wrong. All my life, I had been the guy who was the straight shooter, the Boy Scout to the end no matter what the cost. But, my body was at odds with my mind, a battle of flesh versus morals, lust versus knowledge. My wife and I were only separated, not divorced.
Not yet anyway.
Still, as I recalled the events leading up to this I couldn't help but feel excited. It seemed rather ironic to me that my wife's constant accusations of me cheating on her were seeing truth only now, after the fact. The whole time we were together, I remained loyal to her. Sometimes, especially on days like this when I felt so horny I thought I might cream myself at the drop of dime, I wondered at the validity of my blind devotion. It wasn't that I ever wanted to cheat on her, it was that she had never known anything else.
The first year of our marriage had been one long boat ride down a murky river of neurosis and insecurity. At first, I thought her jealousy and worrying was cute, maybe even flattering. But after a month of it, I began to wonder what happened to the woman I dated and fell in love with. When she began to try and tell me I couldn't leave the house alone, I became angry. When she began accusing me of cheating on her, I became livid. Finally, when she began believing her own wild thoughts about my supposed infidelity, I grew detached.
Mind you, I never cheated on her. Her insistence amazed me to no end, despite all my attempts at soothing her and reassuring her. When her fear grew to a point that I couldn't stand to be in the same bed with her anymore, it only reinforced her belief that I must be fucking another woman. Separate bedrooms did little to help her wake up, and a brief physical separation did nothing but add fuel to the fire.
I felt lost and unsure of myself during the months that followed. While my wife engaged in her baseless witch-hunt, I slipped into a depression. Had it not been for one woman, a friend of my wife, I might not have come out of it. Shelley provided me with a sounding board, and clued me in that my wife wasn't just shouting "infidelity!" to the heavens for no reason at all. I found out that early on in our marriage, my wife had cheated with an old boyfriend. When I confronted her, she denied it completely.
But I trusted Shelley, and considering I believed her over my wife said a lot to me as far as the marriage went. We separated shortly thereafter. Now, I was living alone, married but not. The ring had come off with the revelation of her betrayal, and the truth was I no longer felt loyal to her. I knew that my sudden hunger for other women was a direct breaking of my vows, but I couldn't help it. Five months had passed since I had had sex, and my body was screaming for attention.
A knock rapped on the door. I held my breath and looked at the shiny brass knob. I knew Shelley was on the other side of that door, looking beautiful and irresistibly alluring. The air conditioner rumbled mutedly in the corner of the room as I straightened out my t-shirt and shorts', making sure my budding erection wasn't going to escape me. We both knew why she had come here today, and our thinly veiled flirting over the phone to each other suggested nothing else but sex. My wife had always suspected Shelley, though until a few weeks ago we had never considered each other before. She was as unhappily married as I was, her husband the male counterpart to my wife.
But when we began talking about my wife's suspicions, we suddenly found ourselves revealing more than we expected.
"I think she thinks we're having an affair," I told her grimly.
"Of course she does," Shelley had replied, "She suspects everyone."
"That's why I haven't been calling much," I said to her, "Or been friendly when you come over. She starts thinking too much..."
Shelley had laughed, "Well, she probably thinks us saying 'good bye' is code for 'hey, let's go fuck.'"
"No shit," I had smiled and ran a hand over my short-cropped blonde hair, "I seriously think she expects to come home and find you riding on top of me, both of us bare ass naked and fucking like rabbits."
Shelley was oddly quiet at that moment, and I thought maybe I had offended her. But then, she sighed thoughtfully and said, "Now there's a thought."
I laughed nervously, suddenly very curious and aroused, "Part of me just wants to go do it."
"I know what you mean."
"You do?" I asked dumbly.
"Sure."
I remembered breathing so hard as my mind raced, months of sexual isolation coming back to bite me in the ass, "Seriously?"
"I can keep a secret..." her voice lowered, the scarring from years of smoking barely audible in her sultry tones.
"So can I," I managed.
It went on like that for weeks, shortly before I moved out and then every night after. We slowly built up our need for each other, letting ourselves soak in the idea of sex like meat marinating in a fine sauce. Each conversation became more and more erotic, our questions and suggestions more personal. I knew better than to try and justify sleeping with her. I was still married, and right or wrong my wife was still my wife.
I grasped the knob and opened the door.
Shelley stood there in the afternoon light, her shoulder length dark hair pulled back into a ponytail from her dark Italian features. She stood half a foot shorter than me at 5' 7" as she smiled up at me. In her arms was cradled the television set she had offered to let me borrow until I found my own. She asked, "You gonna grab this thing?"
"Yes," I smiled and took the 19" T.V. from her, "Thank you. Please come in."
We walked into my small living room, a far cry from the spacious interior of my former accommodations. I had yet to put up any kind of décor and as such, the walls were barren. Many non-descript cardboard boxes lined the bottom of the walls in stacks of varying sizes. I sat the T.V. down on the counter in the kitchen as Shelley eyed my new home.
"Definitely smaller," she nodded her head, her arms cross over her large breasts. The orange tank top she wore did little to hide her generous bust line, serving only to accentuate and display her cleavage. She wasn't a thin woman by any means nor was she fat. She was one of those women who walked the fine line between the two extremes with voluptuous grace. Her white shorts were cut at mid-thigh and showed off her tanned, muscular legs. Even her toes looked sexy atop her sandals, the nails painted red.
"Small price to pay," I shrugged and joined her in the living room, "It was either this or marital unrest forever."
Shelley sat down on my plush green couch, her legs crossed casually, "You heard from her?"
I shook my head as I flopped into my recliner, "No. She's been staying at Megan's for awhile now, getting her head together."
"That's funny," Shelley said dryly, "Considering it was Megan's boyfriend she slept with."
"I tried to explain that Megan," I said, "But she wouldn't believe me. Right now all three of them hate me for exposing it, though they all have their own angles on the matter."
Shelley looked at me, her black eyes intense and sharp like a sliver of smoky obsidian, "You holding up okay?"
"I'll be fine," I breathed and leaned my head back, holding my left hand up and wiggling the third finger, "I don't wear the ring anymore..."
"That's good," she agreed. I looked at her from the corner of my eye, admiring her olive colored skin. I wanted to touch her so badly, to run my fingers over her arms and neck and face. "You're settled on divorce then?"
"Yeah," I nodded, "The moment she cheated that was it. The marriage was over before it could even start I guess."
"It's going to be hard," she said and then reached into her small purse, pulling out a pack of Camel Lights, "But divorce does end eventually. You two don't have any kids together, so it won't be as messy as mine was."
I looked at the cigarettes.
"You mind?" she raised her brows, the cigarette loosely pinched between her rosy lips.
"Only if I can bum one off you," I replied.
I pulled a cigarette from the pack as she lit up. Curls of phantom smoke jetted from her nostrils as I ignited the lighter and burned the tip of my own cancer stick. I had quit smoking two years before, but considering the circumstances I felt a couple drags wouldn't kill me. Besides, I had never been a heavy smoker anyway. As the living room filled with the essence of smoldering nicotine we shared a silence that was both appreciative of the experience and curious in the underlying sexual tension.
"You look good," I said after a moment, leaning forward and resting my elbows on my knees.
"You do too," Shelley shifted her weight and then looked around for a moment, first at the coffee table and then to me.
"Oh," I said, "We need an ashtray."
I went into the kitchen and pulled one of my small glass cups from box nearest the fridge. Once placed on the coffee table it began to fill with ash. As I sat down, I noticed Shelley looking at from the corner of her eye. Her gaze fell across my torso and then lower to my crotch and then my legs. An electric burst of excitement jolted through me as she appraised me.
"So," she said.
I looked at her as my cock began to swell, "So."
She took a deep breath and then said, "I know we've been talking about a lot of stuff on the phone, but I'm wondering if you're serious about it?"
"I'm very serious."
"Because we'd have to keep it a secret," she said.
"Oh, I know," I nodded and sat back in my chair, trying not to look eager.
She took another deep drag on her smoke, "You sure you want to fuck an old woman like me?"
"Old?" I laughed, "You're thirty-five for God's Sakes."
"And you're twenty-five," she added, "And at the beginning of divorce."
I listened to her, my mind fearful of her hesitation.
"I'm only saying that I don't want you to do something you'd regret later," Shelley told me as the afternoon sun streamed in through the living room window, making her shorts glow against her tan skin, "You're going through a lot right now."
"Shelley," I said, "This has been one of the worst years of my life. I really think she was hoping I would cheat on her so could somehow justify what she did. That's why she was always accusing me and suggesting it all the time."
"You still love her?"
