Chapter 1
I've been married for almost twenty years. In all that time, I thought we had the perfect marriage. However, recently, I came to learn that all was not as I had imagined. Much to my shock, apparently, my wife Natalie wasn't satisfied with our sex life. It was too dull for her, too vanilla, and I was too mundane, too gentle, and loving. My wife, it turns out, wants to be treated like a whore and fucked by a badass.
That's her word, not mine. I've heard her use it a lot over the years, always to describe other men. Not once has she ever thought me or anything I've done as "badass." Stable. Loving. Considerate. Caring. Those are words she uses to describe me. The hot guy at the gym, with the bulge in his shorts, he was badass. The slick-talking car salesman who kept flirting with the ladies, he was badass. The lead singer of a European metal band we bumped into at a bar one night, he was badass. Not me.
I have never fucked my wife; I make love to her. We have great sex, but it is loving and gentle. I always make sure she cums two or three times each session, and I never go for the wham-bam-thank-you-ma'am approach. Sex is always long and filled with passion. I love her so much that after cumming, I have occasionally cried as I held her close in the warm afterglow of our love-making.
Clearly, I'm not a badass.
Badasses fuck, they don't make love. They are aggressive and take what they want. If the woman gets hers in the process, that's fine, but the goal is his satisfaction. That's what a badass does. That's who a badass is.
And, according to the post that Natalie recently made in the #cheatingwives forum, that's what she wants: to be fucked mindlessly by a badass.
Yes, I've been spying on my wife. I'm not proud of it, but I'm not one of those guys who will just sit back while my marriage falls apart, and my wife starts fucking other men. If she ever had sex with someone else, our marriage would be over, right that minute. So, instead of ignoring the tell-tale signs and burying my fat head in the sand, I took action. I hacked her computer and her phone.
Call me a shit. Call me a prick. It doesn't bother me; I deserve it. But, I believe if you value something, you fight to keep it, and I don't share well.
So, for the past couple of months, I've been monitoring Natalie's emails, the websites she goes to, the chats she has, the porn she watches or reads. I've learned more about my wife and her desires in this short period of time than in the entire time we've been married. At first, I was hurt. Then, I got pissed. At no point did the idea of her fucking someone else turn me on. I hated it.
I decided that I had to stop her. I had to do something to snap her out of it before it was too late. I would confront her and have an interdiction, as you see on TV. I would demand that she get counseling, or we get couples counseling. Something. Anything. I wouldn't give her up so easily.
And then Natalie met her badass.
His name is Carl. He and I are nothing alike.
Carl rides a Harley. Of course, he does. Natalie never let me get a motorcycle. She told me it was too dangerous and that it didn't match my personality. I told her I had a hog before we met, but she refused to believe me. She just chuckled at the possibility that I had done something manly.
Carl works in construction, whereas I work at a desk designing software. He plays in a rock band in his spare time, whereas I play Magic the Gathering. He does MMA and lifts weights, whereas I watch WWE and lift beers.
Surprisingly, when he described himself to Natalie, we sound pretty similar. He was about my height, about my weight, and had a cock about the same size as mine. Eventually, he sent her pics, and he didn't look so different. There was nothing super special about him that I could see.
In his writing, he came across as macho and somewhat arrogant. He was the kind of smug prick I've always hated, not the type of guy I would have ever expected Natalie to find attractive. I guess his cockiness struck a nerve with her. She seemed to get turned on by it.
Ironically, it wasn't all the macho-shmacho bullshit that seemed to seal the deal with her. It was when Carl showed his sensitive side by reciting Shakespeare to her, something I used to do! Not only that, but his chat nickname is CaviarIsAGarnish, which is a line from You've Got Mail, which has always been OUR movie.
I couldn't win at being a badass, and now he was beating me at being sensitive, too! I felt like I was completely losing her, but I would not go down without a fight.
I wasn't sure how to proceed. Should I confront Natalie, reveal what I knew, and demand she stops all correspondence with Carl? I tried to imagine how that would turn out. Knowing my wife, I don't think it would play out well. First, she would be shocked and embarrassed by being caught. That would quickly turn to outrage at having her privacy violated. In the end, she would resent my ultimatum, and I could see her continuing to see Carl just to spite me, just doing it more carefully.
Instead, I decided on a subtler approach. Instead of confronting Natalie, I would do everything I could to remind my wife why we married in the first place and win back her affection. I would change and try to be the kind of man she seems to want. I would become a badass.
That evening, I was home when Natalie walked in the door from work. As she came in from the garage, she called out, "Mark, are you alright?"
I stepped into the kitchen, smiling warmly. "I'm fine, honey. I just came home a little early as a surprise. I know I've been so busy lately that I've neglected you. I want to make it up to you."
She dropped her keys and purse on the table and smiled. "That's sweet, Mark, but you don't have to do anything. I understand you are a busy person." She was clutching her cell phone, so I stepped up and took it out of her hands.
"I have something planned for tonight, and you won't need this," I said as I put it in her purse and zipped it shut. "I made reservations for us at La Taverna, and the Uber is on its way here now. It'll be here in five minutes."
"Five minutes?" Natalie asked. "I just got home, can't I have some time to rest?"
"Nope, not right now," I told her.
"I should change," she argued.
"You look lovely," I countered.
"Really, Mark," Natalie said, more strongly, "it's a Wednesday. Why don't we go out on Friday, instead? I have things I wanted to do tonight."
"Yeah, like Skype with Carl," I thought.
"Do them tomorrow," I insisted. "Come on; we need to go out front." I took her hand and pulled her through the house and out the front door, making out way down to the curb just as the Uber Black, luxury SUV pulled to a stop. I opened the door for her, then walked around and got in next to her.
We rode in silence. Natalie seemed fidgety. "I wish you had let me bring my phone," she said.
"Your boyfriend will have to get by without you. Tonight, you belong to me," I said with a wink. Natalie had a guilty look on her face.
"I don't have a boyfriend," she replied quickly.
"Even better!" I said with a slight laugh.
When we arrived, the hostess led us to a private table in the back. I pulled out Natalie's chair for her, like a proper gentleman. Natalie smiled but appeared nervous as she sat down. I ordered a bottle of Sauvignon Blanc, and Natalie seemed surprised.
"A bottle? On a work night?" she asked, head tilted to the side, staring at me. "Are you sure you're ok?"
I assured her I was and made small talk, asking her about her day, being as attentive as possible. She was hesitant, at first, uncomfortable and not interested in opening up. As I persisted in listening, however, Natalie began to relax and discuss her day. It made me realize how out of practice we had become at sharing the simple parts of our days.
When the wine came, the server poured our glasses. I raised mine and spoke softly, "When I saw you, I fell in love, and you smiled because you knew."
Natalie stared at me, unsure whether to smile or to run in panic. I could see the pulse throbbing in her neck. I had quoted Shakespeare to her. Did she suspect that I knew about her online lover? She chose to smile.
"I love you, too, Mark," she replied, taking a sip of her wine.
"You say you love rain, but you open an umbrella," I said, quoting more of the Bard. "You say you love the sun, but you find a shadow spot. You say you love the wind, but you close your windows. This is why I am afraid when you say you love me too." I looked hard into her eyes, trying to will her to abandon her lover.
I could see her gasp slightly in response to my words, and her brow furrow slightly. "That's an odd thing to say," she said, setting down her glass of wine. "Do you doubt that I love you?"
I forced on a smile. "No, Natalie, I know you love me. Though, at times, I feel like we live more like roommates than lovers. I sometimes feel I'm losing you, and that would destroy me. I want us to remember why we fell in love, and all the wonderful years we've had together. I want us to be like we were when we were young."
"You're not losing me, Mark," Natalie said, trying to sound sincere. "I know I've been distracted lately, but I've just been trying to deal with getting old. In case you haven't noticed, we don't act like we're young anymore because we aren't young."
"Yes, I see that more and more every day," I admitted, "like when I look in the shower and see large clumps of my hair going down the drain."
"Or when I look in the mirror and see my breasts sinking lower and lower," Natalie responded, with a grin. "It sucks. I don't want to be old. I want to be young and pretty, and wanted."
"You have no idea how beautiful you are to me and how much I want you," I said, taking her hand.
"You have to, you're my husband," she retorted. "It's your job. It's nice sometimes when other men still look at me like they want to ravish me. It's different. It makes me feel better about being me."
"They can look all they want," I told her. "So long as they don't touch. If you ever were to let another man..."
"Is that what all this is about?" she asked defensively, cutting me off mid-sentence.
"What?" I asked, looking up to meet her gaze.
"Is that what you think? That I'm cheating on you?" Natalie asked, holding her breath.
"No, I don't think you are," I said quickly, as Natalie slowly exhaled. "Yet." I let the word hang in the air for a moment, "I think you're not happy with our relationship, and you're possibly wondering what it would be like to have an affair."