Tammy went home shortly after making her proclamation of revenge, but only after extolling promises from both Laura and myself to help. "What do you intend to do?" I had asked Tammy with a gulp. She didn't know, but she said she would need our help once she had formulated a plan.
"I can count on you, right?" was the last thing Tammy asked both Laura and I separately before she left. We had both assured her we would help although I had some trepidation. An asshole he might be, but Dave was still my friend, and he had been so long before he met Tammy. There was certainly no way I was going to sleep with Tammy just so she could back at her husband. If it came to that I already knew what my answer would be.
As I closed the front door and latched it Laura commented from behind me. "That was certainly interesting!"
"You're telling me!" I agreed. "That is not how I thought today was going to turn out at all!"
"Oh, and just how did you think today was going to turn out?"
Uh oh, I thought, the ice just got really thin out here where I'm standing. I decided I was just as likely to put my foot in my mouth if I beat around the bush, so I just came out with it. "Well, I thought one or two things might have occurred. After what happened last night and the fact you put off talking about it until today I thought perhaps you had been the person Dave cheated with." I paused for a second or two to see how big of a crater that bomb made.
"And?" Laura asked in an even but frosty tone.
"I also thought you and I would be having a conversation about what took us to Cancun last year," I added, sighed, and then waited.
"You were right about one thing," Laura said after a few seconds without any sense of anger in her voice.
"Dave?" I asked with a lump in my throat.
"No."
"Oh!" was about all I could muster. I think the lump in my throat got bigger instead of smaller.
"Tim," Laura began, "I will not cheat on you. In the last year I could have done it a dozen times with a half dozen men you know nothing about. If I was still in my college years I probably would have had steamy affairs with most of them. I was attracted and very tempted. But I am not in my college days. I am happily married to you."
"Furthermore," Laura continued, "Dave is the last person I would have an affair with for any number of reasons, but you and Tammy are the biggest of those."
"But you and Dave always..." I started to say, but Laura cut me off.
"Dave and I have chemistry. We flirt and we play. I knew he wanted to fuck me since the first time I met him. He was imagining me naked under my clothes when you were introducing us, in fact."
"He was?" I asked more or less oblivious to all of this.
"He was pathetic!" Laura laughed. "It's why I have had so much fun teasing and tormenting him over the years."
"That's funny! I never thought of him being jealous of me."
"Oh, he isn't jealous. He knows the same as I do that the two of us wouldn't last a week as a couple. I'd kill him before then," Laura joked and chuckled to herself. "He just wants me!"
"And you?"
"Well..." Laura reflected, "I know it would fun to actually fuck him, the problem is I am not sure I would ever want to give up the advantage I have over him. He is bad enough as it is. I can't imagine having to deal with him being able to say he fucked me. It would change our whole dynamic! As it is the only way I ever get any cooperation out of him is because he doesn't want to take the risk of losing his opportunity to have sex with me. I have had him on a string for so long that it's become a part of our relationship."
"So would you do it if Tammy asked you to? She might you know!"
"I don't know," Laura replied after a moments consideration. "Maybe. She'll probably ask the same thing of you!"
"I'm not going to have sex with Dave! Tammy can just forget that!" I said with a grin.
"Silly! You know what I mean! What will YOU do?" Laura asked and then after a pause for emphasis she raised one eyebrow. "Hmmm?"
"I don't know, Laura. I've always been attracted to Tammy. You know that! It would not be a chore to make love to her, and that is what it would be, making love. I can't see having casual sex with her. The dynamics of the relationship I have with Tammy is different than what you share with Dave. Tammy and I are friends, maybe more so than with any of the other wives in the group. If we have sex it will be an very intimate experience."
"You are right. There would be emotions involved. I have never told you this, but Tammy admitted to having a crush on you once a couple of years ago."
"Really? Why didn't you tell me?"
"I promised her I wouldn't. Besides, you didn't need to know! Your head is big enough as it is!" Laura said and she flashed me a radiant smile.
"I love you, too, Bitch!" I joked back her. "Seriously, what are we going to do? We promised we would help her and I would hate to go back on our words to her. I don't want to have sex with Tammy any more than I want you to have sex with Dave. I don't want to ruin our relationship while trying to fix theirs, and I'm not convinced it will do any good anyway."
"You may be right about it not doing their relationship any good, but I think getting even with Dave is exactly what Tammy needs. Based on everything she told me today there is no way she will leave Dave. Knowing Tammy as I do, I know that if she doesn't feel as though she is on an even footing with Dave it will gnaw at her. Their relationship will have no hope until she feels the playing field is even."
"So what do we do?" I asked.
"Let's just wait and see what she comes up with. Agreed?"
I nodded.
"In the mean time we can figure out what to do with the elephant."
"What elephant?" I asked clueless as to what my wife was talking about.
"The elephant that is standing in the middle of the room that no one wants to talk about: Cancun. We really do need to talk," Laura said seriously.
"I know. We have probably needed to talk since we got back from Mexico except everything was going so well there didn't seem to be a point after a while. I thought you were happy." I said.
"I am," replied Laura quickly. "I'm very happy. If I learned anything in Cancun it was how much I loved you." She put her arms around my neck and kissed me hard for a few seconds then looking up at me she said, "I am so lucky to have you."
"Then what's wrong?"
"There is a part of me that isn't as happy and I'm not sure you can change that part me." Laura replied carefully. "It's not a part of me you have ever really seen."
"And what part of you is that?" I asked. I was now very curious to see where Laura was headed.
"My inner slut," Laura whispered.
