th
. I guess my "fragile male ego" wanted to know the answers to several questions: chief among them why. I thought we had a great marriage, a real connection and the sex seemed to be wonderful and plentiful. What the fuck had gone wrong?
They say the opposite of love isn't hate, it's indifference, but at that moment as I descended the stairs, I would have said the opposite of love is rage--a quiet, seething rage. I again considered getting my cleaver from the knife drawer.
I wasn't blind or naïve. I knew Maci was a beautiful woman and probably got hit on all the time. She had a mop of shoulder-length, dark brown curly hair, bright blue eyes and dimples, with a lithe runner's physique. She was intelligent, well-read and flirty, the latter which had been a problem from time to time as several guys thought her playfulness was geared directly at them, and I had to occasionally "rescue" her from an uncomfortable situation.
While I wasn't a "10" like her, I didn't think I was exactly chopped liver, so unlike some men who are married to beautiful women, I didn't feel like she was out of my league. I was a design engineer, so I tended to be reflective, and I made a good wage working for a national aerospace firm.
I wasn't impressed with the physical specimen with whom Maci had chosen to cheat. I was a fit 6-1, 185 pounds, and this guy didn't look to be maybe a buck-50, at about the same height as me, I guessed. It was a runner's body, and I wondered if my wife had met him through her running group.
Nobody is ever going to rate Waffle House highly among chain restaurants, but in my opinion it's a good place to get a solid breakfast meal at almost any time of the day. I had a Belgian waffle as I felt sorry for myself and wondered how my life was going to go forward as a single man. I felt as if I wasted the past five years of my life.
It was after midnight when I walked out of Waffle House. I slept in my car for a few restless hours, then went over to my work and put in a few hours to stay out of sight, even though it was a Saturday and I usually didn't work on the weekends. I changed out of my rumpled clothes, had a nice meal and then went home, pulling into my empty garage spot at about the time I would have gotten home had I stuck to my original schedule.
Knowing what I now knew, it took every ounce of my restraint not to scream at her or even push her away when she came over to give me a big welcome home kiss. We didn't have our usual welcome home sex that night, though, as I begged off saying I didn't feel well.
As much as anything, I was completely blown away by how normal she acted that night and the next day, Sunday. I had no way of knowing how many times she fucked her lover over the weekend, but if I hadn't seen them at least once, I wouldn't have had any clue based upon her acting ability. Meryl Streep had nothing on my wife.
Two days later I told my wife that I had another trip in just two weeks. It was total bullshit, but it would give me a chance to do a little reconnaissance. I supposedly left on Wednesday of that week, like usual, but in reality, I checked in at a hotel just one town over.
I had installed a couple of small video cameras in my house, one pointed directly at my bed, when Maci was at work, and I also had my Ring camera. I was sitting in my hotel room Wednesday night when my wife's lover pulled his car into my empty spot in the garage. While I knew it was going to happen, it still didn't feel good. I didn't watch the footage from the video cameras. I knew what they would show me. I just checked to see that the two lovers hadn't left the house from the time he showed up Wednesday night until he left early Saturday morning. I wondered if they got together every time I went out of town, and how long this had been going on. It wasn't going to change my future actions, but I just wanted... no, needed to know. You know, the fragile male ego thing.
I was busy for the two days that I sat in my hotel room. Since I paid the bills and did our financial stuff at home, Maci wouldn't have any clue that I separated accounts and lowered the credit card limits. I left the hotel long enough to meet my attorney and get her going on the divorce paperwork. Before she dropped it on my wife, though, I had some revenge to get. I knew my revenge wouldn't make me any better than her from the moral standpoint, but fuck it, I was going to get my pound of flesh on my cheating, lying slut of a wife. Fuck this shit about being a nice guy. That guy died: what was left was a guy with a very rusty moral compass.
As I said earlier, I was not exactly a troll, and through the years I've heard my share of come-ons and teases. I never once acted on any of them because I was a happily-married guy and I believed in my wedding vows. Again, as I now knew, that combination just made me a chump. Well, chump no more! If a good-looking woman wanted to play, I was in! Hell, as long as she wasn't hideous, I was in! I wasn't going to wait for playmates. I was going to hunt for them.
It felt incredibly wrong to be looking for bed partners on my next trip away from home three weeks later, but it also felt... thrilling and empowering. I had to wonder if this was part of the attraction for my wife.
One type of woman that was definitely off my list was those with rings on their left hands. No matter how pissed I was at my wife, I wouldn't do to another guy what had been done to me.
I struck out Thursday night when I went out on the prowl, but I hit the jackpot Friday night with a pretty secretary who was out with several friends for a night of drinking and dancing. We spent a lot of time talking and dancing, and when I asked her up to my room for a nightcap and more, she didn't hesitate.
Sex with my first new partner in about eight years was a revelation of sorts, but I'm not going to say it was life-affirming... or even amazing. It was fun, it was good... but much of that was because she was a new and different partner... and it was illicit. Maybe I was being too analytical and just should have let go. I don't know. Fun--yes. Great--not hardly.
If it wasn't for the revenge thing, I could never see cheating on the woman I love for just some random sex. Maybe my libido wasn't high enough... or maybe I just believed that my vows meant something that lust just couldn't trump. Apparently, though, my wife didn't share that last sentiment.
I scored good-looking women on two of my three nights out on my next business trip out of town, and enjoyed myself with both women. The first woman was about my age, I guessed, and the night was purely about lust: we fucked twice and used a half-dozen different positions--two of which she taught me. The second night was a little more than "just sex." The woman, a very hot 45-year-old, was more worldly, and she knew something in my life wasn't quite right. I told her my story of woe as she listened intently. She was also the victim of a cheating spouse, whom she divorced. We connected a bit, and our sex was both soothing and emotional. That gave me more insight into what my wife might be experiencing, which would have further added to my woes if I hadn't already made the decision to divorce the cheating bitch.
Allison Wainwright left me with several things to consider in my revenge plan: chief among them was that maybe I needed to be more personally involved with my partner... like my wife apparently was. I thought about this for several days before I made what I considered to be an out of the box phone call.
Evelyn "Evie" Langston had been my wife's best friend in town since we moved to Cincinnati right after we graduated from Michigan State University. Evie and my wife both belonged to a Shakespeare club in town, and bonded quickly. Evie was a year older than Maci and me and was a nurse at a doctor's office. She was also a divorcee.
Evie was almost an opposite of Maci: long blonde hair, big boobs, curves everywhere, bright green eyes. She was not as bubbly and flirty, but was smart and thoughtful.
I told her I was cooking up a surprise for Maci when I invited her to lunch, so I knew she wouldn't say anything to my wife. We met at a restaurant way away from Maci's workplace.
I was seated at the back of the restaurant when Evie walked in. She smiled brightly as she walked up to my table. I rose, we hugged. Although she was Evie's best friend, we had become friends as well... to what extent, I was about to find out.
"So what's this surprise you're cooking up? Her birthday and your anniversary are both months away," Evie said.
I pulled out a photo of Traci's lover from a folder I had on the table and laid it in front of Evie after our waitress took our orders. She gasped and jumped back slightly, which told me she at least knew who Traci's lover was.
"Umm... ohh... umm," she started.
"Yeah. That's what I thought," I said, trying my best not to growl. "Spill. Who is this fucker?"
Evie looked stricken. For a second, I thought she was going to bolt from the table.
"Ohh... umm... that's Eric Johnstone. He's a friend of Traci's, from her running group," she said barely above a whisper. "Umm... what do you want me to say?"
Evie's breathing picked up, and small drops of sweat broke out on her forehead, despite the restaurant's air conditioning working perfectly.
