A Different Punishment

For the BTB crowd hit the backspace key now. You will be disappointed if you don't. Does the lover get his just rewards? You will have to read it to find out. Remember this is a work of fiction and has no bearing on real life.

Chapter One—Suspicion

As I sat down and contemplated how to even begin my tale of woe I even tried to figure out how I would separate the events into some kind of order. Do I start with how I solved my marital problems and then go back and give the back story? Do I start when I realized I was being cheated on? Or do I begin at the very beginning of our relationship?

Now, if this was in the Romance section I would start with how we met and fell in love, our first kiss, first sex, first everything but I guess I should start with how I started to suspect her of cheating since I intend to post this in the Loving Wives section.

As I write this I hope to impart some of my sadness, my anger, my need for retribution, and my frustration in dealing with this whole episode in my life.

First I guess I will start with my complete and utter astonishment at the fact that I found my wife of eight years stepping out on me. Like so many others who post on this site I started out with a suspicion that something was going wrong in my marriage. Our interpersonal relationship had started to gradually change.

Erica, my lovely wife, at least in my eyes, didn't have much of an education in the real world. She had gone to a very liberal arts university and had gotten a degree in English literature. She didn't want to teach so her education did not help her in her career choice, if you want to call being a cashier in a convenience store a career.

I know she hoped to be promoted to supervisor and then maybe to manager of the store someday but she really wasn't qualified to be promoted. She was not a natural leader. In fact when asked a question on how to solve a problem she would usually defer to others.

I suppose you would like a description of my wife and how hot she is. Sorry to disappoint but she is not a hot babe. She stands five foot five inches tall, not too short and not too tall. Her hair is a light brown but it is kind of limp and she wears it in a pony tail all the time, even when she sleeps. I don't know how she does that.

She doesn't wear much makeup so her features are kind of bland. She isn't ugly by any means and I do really love her. She is just kind of plain. Her breasts are not "D" or bigger or even "C" like in so many stories, no she is probably more of a "B". They do sag a little so she wears a substantial bra most of the time because, as she puts it, "They ache after a while if I don't support them."

Since I don't have breasts I can't really pass judgment on that. Her hips are wider than her chest. Not a lot but it is noticeable, like so many other women I know. That makes her butt a little wider too but it has never bothered me in the least and I didn't think it really bothered her much.

Her waist doesn't pinch in much either. All in all she is just an average sized, and looking, woman.

While she isn't some kind of pushy or take charge personality she is her own woman. She has her likes and desires and she isn't some kind of mouse. When her dander is up she lets you know right now how she is displeased. In our dating time I accidently made her angry a time or two and she let me know how upset she was. Maybe in a way that is why she started cheating on me. After doing something that made her angry I would try to never repeat that mistake again. We haven't had a real argument in years.

She wasn't a virgin when we met. Just saying, in case someone cares to know.

She had graduated and had taken her job at the convenience store where I stopped to get gas and a cup of coffee. We chatted, I left. A few days later I stopped for a cup of coffee and we chatted again. I left. This went on for weeks before I finally suggested we go out after work and have some supper. She accepted.

We dated, became exclusive and then started to have sex. At least on my side it was great. She never really said how I compared to her former lovers. She also didn't complain, either.

Oh, I suppose I need to describe myself. Picture Tom Cruise, only three inches taller. Are you laughing yet? I am taller than him but no, I don't have his good looks. While in my Walter Mitty dreams I am a dashing hero who does wondrous things such as being on SEAL team Six or being an Army Ranger, or a super spy, my real life is a little more boring. I am an insurance adjuster for crop damage.

Yep, that is a career to write home about. I get up at dawn and sometimes have to drive a couple or more hours to get where a storm has damaged a field. During the summer I am sometimes away for a couple of days at a time. In the winter I teach Ag classes at a local high school. We don't really have to get into a discussion about whether I am a liberal or not since there isn't many liberal leanings in the agricultural world but there are a lot in the education field. I do have to discuss the political side of things to students as agriculture, or Ag as we call it, is very invested in how the government treats the farmer and rancher.

Oh, I guess I should introduce myself. My name is Stan Marks. I am thirty-three years old. Erica is thirty-one. I stand five foot nine inches tall. I can buy clothes at Wal-Mart and Target. I pity those who are too short, too rotund, or too tall since they have to pay a lot more to get decent clothing.

I carry a little spare tire around my middle. I try to work out but some weeks just don't allow the time. Yes, I know I could make the time but I try to be home with my wife when I can be. It is important to me.

Maybe that is part of the problem. A lot of responders to Loving Wives stories make the comment that the guy can't be that good of a person if his wife ends up being a bitch but why not? I don't drink more than a six pack a week. I make sure the lawn is mowed even when I have to be gone so much in the summer. I plant and weed the garden. The house is painted as needed without me being begged or told to do so. (Yes, I hate to paint.)

I don't leave the seat up on the toilet. I learned quickly when we got married that that was a big no-no. I help with the dishes. I learned how to wipe my ass so there were no skid marks to be dealt with in my underwear. As a matter of fact Erica refused to wash any pairs if there were any skid marks. They went into the trash and I had to go buy new ones, she refused to shop for me. Like I said, if she was displeased I knew about it immediately.

I like football but I miss the game if there is a film on that she would like to watch. Yes, we could DVR the film but she gets bored watching football so I get to watch the game live if she is busy doing something else. Erica quilts so she does spend a lot of time in the sewing room which is a converted bedroom.

I don't have a lot of drinking buddies. There are a couple of guys in the neighborhood that like to throw parties but we seldom attend. We both dislike falling down puking drunks.

Maybe the old saw of "familiarity breeds contempt" fits in here. I have always tried to be a thoughtful partner to Erica and her needs. I don't demand she give me blowjobs. I don't just pop my cock out and face fuck her. I don't hesitate to give her oral sex. In fact, I love when I make her orgasm on my tongue.

My cock is average at six inches long and I suppose it isn't too thick either. Erica has never complained so I didn't think she wanted or needed something bigger.

Up until a month or so ago we made love at least a couple of times a week. There was no real planning. We usually would finish the evening with the news and then get ready for bed. I suppose it was getting a little monotonous. Neither of us was attempting to seduce anymore. We would come together in the bed and leisurely stroke each other's body as we kissed good night. If there was any slight signal that one or the other was interested in play time we would continue to kiss and fondle until Erica was ready.

Since I am a guy I am usually ready in a heartbeat but I understand it takes a while longer with women, in general, and is significantly more satisfying if foreplay is extensive. Erica had been very frustrated at times when she was just getting wet enough for penetration and I would climb on and start to hammer away. She finally told me one night that she wanted more than just a little pleasure and demanded an orgasm each time we made love. I couldn't argue against that thought as I don't want to make love and be left hanging.

We practiced a lot and grew to know each other so well that sometimes I gave Erica an orgasm while still in the foreplay mode and then another one after my cock got into her nice and warm wet pussy.

In other words I try not to be an egotistical asshole to my wife. She is my friend, my lover, and the love of my life, not some back street banger. She deserves my respect for her moods, her wants and desires and, until very recently, I felt that she respected my moods, wants and desires.

Here's a question for the reader. Can you get so used to your partner that you lose respect for him or her? I mean I try to respect Erica and her job but I know it is hard. Her job seems so inconsequential in the scheme of things. I think I still respect Erica as a person, my wife and my lover but her job doesn't seem so important to me.

On the other hand, I take pride in helping develop kids and also in trying to do the right thing for both the farmer whose crop I am adjusting and the company I work for. But I don't know if Erica holds my jobs in the same view. Maybe we both lost respect for each other.

Again, my job isn't something to write home about. Maybe I also don't respect my own place in the scheme of things. Could that have contributed to Erica looking for fun outside our marriage? I really might not ever know.

There was no sudden eureka moment that told me she was cheating. I didn't come home and find her boyfriend in the saddle. There weren't unexplained late nights. Erica didn't have many girl friends and they never went out clubbing. No, instead they gathered on a Saturday afternoon monthly to have a coffee klatch at one of their houses. As a matter of fact, Erica hosted just last week.

Instead there were the little things. Over the past few months we kind of stopped talking about our days. I must have just lost interest in asking about her day. We used to laugh at all the squirrelly regulars she had to deal with. She also got out of the habit of asking about my day. During the school year I would usually have multiple stories of the antics of high school kids. The gamut would run from pranks to which of the girls were flirting with me at the time. No, I am not a player but sometimes adolescents might get aroused by an authority figure or just maybe a young woman might need a better grade and would think that a little flirting of the "old" teacher might get that grade up.

Even during the summer we used to talk long and lovingly about our days. I would tell her about the different farms and farmers that I had to go to and she would be my sounding board if the insurance company seemed indifferent to some of the claims I submitted.

We used to laugh about all those little daily things but lately we didn't even hardly say hello to each other. Kisses used to be long and lingering and now were just quick pecks.

Then the lovemaking became less and less frequent. When I finally started to suspect Erica of stepping out it had been at least three weeks since we had last swapped body fluids. Even then it was more sex than lovemaking. There had been very little cuddling after we were done.

I guess the final nail in the coffin of our relationship was finding Erica's journal on the coffee table one day when I was home and she had to work a Saturday shift.

Now, just for clarification, I knew Erica kept a daily journal. It was not a diary and certainly wasn't locked in any way. Some readers might scold me for reading her personal story but, and this is a big but, Erica had never forbid me from reading anything she had ever written. As a matter of fact she occasionally asked me to give my thoughts about things she had documented. Remember she was an English major. She might harbor thoughts of getting her journals published or making a blog of them.

I was bored and her journal was just lying there so I opened it at random and started to read. The first few pages were just about her day at work. She did mention that it seemed that I no longer cared to discuss her day with her. Then there was a comment about a new customer and how he flirted with her when he bought coffee and a donut every day.

I stopped reading and thought about how similar she might have written about when I started to get coffee daily and would shoot the breeze with her for a few moments before heading off to class or down the road to the next damaged field.

A few pages later and I had a name. She documented that Glen was back in again and how he had a great smile and a sharp wit. I had to read on now.

A couple of pages later she mentioned him again. Glen asked her out for coffee. To her credit she refused him that time and explained she was married. She noted he didn't seem to be put off or even discouraged but just wished her a good day and left.

He must have figured out her entire shift including when she was due to clock out as he started to appear each day at about her clock out time. Erica documented some of his cheesy lines but she didn't seem to recognize them for what they were.

Finally I found the page where she succumbed to his constant offers for an after work coffee. Her normal shift is from 7:00 to 3:00 so she has free time before I get home. I suppose that she figured a coffee date was easily accomplished and I would not be the wiser. She also wrote that it was an innocent get together with a new friend who just happened to be a man. She felt that if she talked to me about it that I would not have any real objection since she had no intention of cheating on me.

The following pages outlined how much she liked sitting and talking with Glen Rogers, her new male friend. As a matter of fact she constantly addressed him as her male friend. I sat and wondered if she was trying to deny her growing attraction to this asshole by constantly referring to him as a friend.

Over time her attraction to him started to show in her writing. She described him as twenty-six years old, about six foot tall, with blonde hair and blue eyes. She also felt he was in excellent physical shape and I quote, "He has a great sense of humor." She also seemed to love his take charge attitude and how he would order for her. Their coffee klatches were turning into supper when I was busy out of town.

Then I read about their first kiss. She was wowed by his ardor and seemed to feel the same way. Each and every date after that led to more and more kissing and then petting and necking.

Finally, about a month ago, she let herself be talked into getting a room and they "made love" as she put it. She was immediately enamored about his chiseled chest and his six pack. His eight inch cock seemed made for her weeping pussy. She even wrote that she felt his tongue was like a snake when he was going down on her.

What was missing from any of her musings was any feeling of regret or guilt concerning me. It was like I didn't exist anymore.

I gave up reading her journal after that page. It didn't matter anymore. She was a cheating wife who had no guilt or remorse on how she was treating our marriage. Either she was living in a fool's paradise or she was already done with our marriage. I guess the next move was on me.

As I sat and thought a minute I realized that she had not written about her plans with him. Maybe it was too soon in their relationship. I had to find out more so I perused her writings until I found something she had written only a few days ago. Glen was telling her he loved her and wished she was free to be with him full time. Erica didn't express her feelings on the subject but she didn't tell him no either.

Erica did write that she was very happy with the fact that Glen always set the pace for their dates and their sex. He would demand a blowjob and she would comply. She described a couple of sessions where he had her lie down on her back with her head off the bed and he had fucked her face hard but that she had loved being used that way.

The same thing happened when he wanted anal sex. This was something she had always told me that would never happen but here Glen told her he was going to fuck her ass and she must have just rolled onto her stomach and pulled her cheeks apart. She professed to have loved it, even the pain at the beginning.

Now, I believe most readers would want me to go ballistic on her and kick her to the curb. At least that is what I usually find in these stories but I knew of a couple of friends who had tried just that way to get rid of a cheating wife and they had regretted it later. Over half of their net worth had ended up in their wives' possession in each case due to the separation of assets in the divorce decree. Most of the guys had even been forced to pay all of the legal fees.

No, I needed to do something different and quickly. I had to protect my assets and my peace of mind.

I left the journal where I found it and tried to make it look undisturbed. I then did something I had not done for years. I left the house and went to the bar I used to spend time at before I got involved with Erica.

It had been years and the clientele were different but the owner was the same. I didn't expect him to remember me but he did cast a look at me as though I seemed to be familiar somehow. I drank a beer as I tried to think of my first and then next move concerning Erica.

I also thought about all of the times I could have fallen off the fidelity wagon. There had been quite a few opportunities over the years. Usually when out on the road I was too tired after trudging through fields all day, especially the wet fields, to go out hunting for strange pussy. On occasion I would not be too tired so I would go to a local bar and play a couple games of pool and have a beer or two before bedding down for the night. In each bar there always seemed to be an unattached female present who might have been open to a one-night stand with little encouragement, hell maybe with only the cost of a couple of martinis.

I had never been tempted by those females or any of my students or fellow teachers. I only wanted Erica but it seems my idea of fidelity was one-sided.

I had another beer. I know, alcohol doesn't solve any problems, usually it creates problems and ingestion of a mind altering drug usually doesn't help with the creative process, acid rock stars not withstanding. But I did come up with a sprout of a plan.

Erica should be home by now so I drove home. I didn't try to disguise the fact that I had been out and what I had done. Right at the moment I didn't really care if she was a little put out by the fact I was out when she got home. Of course she should have been home about 4:00 p.m. but she must have just gotten home a few minutes before I got there as my phone pinged with a text asking where I was just as I pulled into the driveway. It was about 7:00. I suppose she had a date with Glen. I didn't ask and she didn't try to come up with an excuse.

We danced around the question about the menu for supper and finally decided on pizza to be delivered. While we waited she took a shower and I sat with my tablet and made a list of what I wanted to do on Monday.

When we went to bed it was the usual perfunctory kiss and then roll away from each other to go to sleep. I suppose I was disappointed but I decided to not confront her yet. I wanted all my ducks in a row first.