Since I usually write about some of the things that have happened to me in my life, this is a bit of a departure. I have tried to put myself in the mind of a man and deal with the problems of an unfaithful wife from that perspective. There's a third part still in the writing stage, but I'd like to know what you think so far.
Chapter 01: Dwight, the Postman, Rings Her Bell
The meeting at the district office broke off a few minutes before noon. I had a substitute in my classroom for the rest of the day so decided to go home. The garage door was open and Amy's little blue and white Mini was parked on the left. She'd said she was going to visit her girlfriend Megan in Pasadena and take her out for lunch but, knowing her friend, I guessed the plans had changed.
It was a warm day and the sky was bright and cloudless. I figured she'd be out by the pool tanning herself, topless, on a lounge chair with a cold iced tea in one hand and
The New Yorker
in the other. I came out the back of the garage onto the patio but the lounge was still folded up. I walked out to the Jacuzzi on the side of the house, but she wasn't there either. The sliding glass door was open so I walked into the living room.
Crumpled on the carpet just off the front door were a powder blue short sleeved shirt and a pair of matching denim shorts with the tell-tale red stripe running up the seam. Like a trail of breadcrumbs leading down the hall were his black shoes and socks, her pink tennis shorts, her pink and white candy striped blouse, his black briefs, her beige bra and, wedged in the door of the guest bedroom, her matching silk thong. If the trail of clothes hadn't told the story, the thong did. She usually wore lace Victoria's Secret bikinis but, when she wanted to seduce me, when she wanted sex, she wore one of the silk thongs we'd bought on a lark at an adult toy store in Vegas. It was almost a Pavlovian thing between us when she wore them.
They were fucking now. I could hear the bed rhythmically groaning and her sensually moaning. She was almost ready for an orgasm to take her away. She always moaned in a low, guttural purr when she was ready to cum. Soon it would change into a series of high pitched chirps, almost like a bird, then a long deep wail with expletives about thick cocks and deeper and more and harder peppered into the carnal song.
I walked down the hall as quietly as I could, but I figured any noise I made would have been cloaked by the sound of her lovemaking and the cadence of the bed heaving up and down with the movement of their bodies. I wasn't really certain what I was doing, or what I was going to do. Here was my beautiful wife fucking another man and I was angry, in a state of complete mental turmoil. Yet here I was also, the lyric of her lusty song drawing me toward that door, now held slightly ajar by her discarded thong, like a sailor to the Sirens.
When I say Amy is beautiful, it's not just braggadocio- she's a knock-out. I had been her AP Literature teacher during her senior year in high school- no, for those of you with smutty minds, nothing happened then- but when she came into the classroom that fall she literally took my breath away. Brown eyes, wavy shoulder-length blond hair, tall and beautifully proportioned. Long slim legs, full hips, narrow waist, tight abs, and a full firm bust- she had the whole package but you would never know it by her shy demeanor. She dressed casually with no hint of vulgarity, sensually but not provocatively; her clothes accentuated her curves but were always tailored on the conservative side. I didn't know if her parents were rich and she shopped at Nordstrom's or whether she just knew how to pick up stylish things at Marshall's. It didn't matter.
My infatuation with her physical beauty, of her as eye candy for a 30 something guy, eventually dissipated but never completely disappeared; she was always a presence, an awareness, in my classroom. What especially made me take notice of her as a person, however, was what went on behind those dark brown eyes as the school year progressed. She was really bright. At first I thought I was thinking of her in Teacher's Pet terms: good grades because I think she's cute. A quick look at her other grades brought that notion to a quick halt. Straight A's since junior high school. Probably in elementary school, too, but those don't get cycled beyond 6th grade. As a general rule, kids that are good at English and history usually suck at math and science; she did not at all fit into that general rule. Usually kids that are good at algebra don't do well in geometry; she got A's in both- at the AP level.
Her boyfriend Greg had been in my class as a senior and was now in his senior year at West Point. An all-around athlete: baseball, track, football, and basketball, and lettered in three. When I was in school, a black senior dating a white freshman would have caused a few whispers- as much about the class as about the race. In this new century it didn't even warrant the whispers. They had met during her freshman year and had been going together ever since. She'd been kind of a trashy dresser when they first met but later she told me that she'd started grooming herself so that she "could comport herself as an officer's wife." Her words, not mine.
Having her in my classroom also reminded me that I was a man. I'd been numb, a ghost, a non-entity, for almost a year. My wife and 4 year old daughter had been killed the summer before by a truck driver arguing with his girlfriend on his cell phone- ran a red light and killed them in the crosswalk. We'd been married for six years and she was 7 months pregnant with our second when she died. There were his lawyers and my lawyer and insurance company lawyers, depositions and trials, recriminations, anger and despair, but there was mostly incredible loneliness. That first year back in the classroom I had been a robot on autopilot, a zombie, going through the motions of teaching but not really being there. All of my seniors that year knew the cause of my depression and were most supportive- or at least as supportive as 17-year olds can be- but they had all graduated and few beyond that class knew anything. And I had withered mentally during the summer, haunted by echoes of my daughter's laugh and the rustle of soft cotton sheets when I spooned next to my wife as we drifted off to sleep.
I had thought, actually believed, that the zombie me would be the thing that walked into the classroom; by the end of the day I knew otherwise. I have to say: I never once fanaticized about sex with Amy. I was still to raw to think much of sex at all. Seeing her for a few minutes every day, hearing her talk, watching her smile and laugh with her friends, reminded me that it was time to think about living again. My wife and family would always be close, but I was still here in this cruel joke. I could either laugh at the cruelty or succumb to it. I chose to laugh.
Early May came and she sat for all of the AP tests; neither I nor any of her other teachers had any concerns about her passing, only about how high her scores might be. Then came June and graduation. We hugged, she told me she was going back to West Point for Greg's graduation and commissioning ceremony, and that was it. She was gone and our lives went on. She became an officer's wife, or so I heard, and the pain of my past continued to recede like the colors of a beautiful tapestry left too long in the sun. I started dating again and got lucky a few times but nothing serious ever came of it.
So here it comes, the new school year; the summer of 2007 passes and I saunter into my old classroom. I test the old familiar key but, to my surprise, the door is already unlocked... and who is sitting on the edge of my desk but Amy! Almost nothing about her has changed. She is still dressed as if from the cover of Vogue and her body is still as fit and toned as it was when she graduated. Her face has matured, filled out, no longer girlish but with the blush of youth still flushed in her cheeks.
I stand at the door, shocked. She starts to laugh, a quiet, subdued laugh, when she sees the astonishment on my face. "What are you doing here?" I ask, probably in a stammer. "I thought you'd be in some far off exotic locale touring in a sedan chair while your husband..."
There is a subtle change in her composure. She slides herself gracefully off the corner of my desk and glides toward me. She's happy to see me- that much is obvious- but a pall of sadness momentarily creases her brow. We hug quickly then separate. She looks at me, our eyes meeting for a second, but she says nothing.
"I am so glad to see you again, Amy," I say, now with a little bit of composure in my voice. "Are you back here for a while? Did Greg get stationed here?"