As clearly set forth later in this piece ALL names, and all other identifying information in this story, are FAKE; and there are no email addresses, URLs or anything of the like.
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I, Amy Calvert, at age 34, had been working as a freelance writer for five years, after a career change from my boring accountant's job, before I got a chance for my first plum assignment. The bigwigs at Cosmopolitan Magazine, after reviewing thousands of letters (by email) to the editor and to an advice columnist, had come up with the general concept of an article that they were sure would be a blockbuster. The broad idea, as it was relayed to me, was anonymous interviews with wives all over the United States that had physically and/or emotionally cheated on their husbands, with the results and the feelings of both the wives and (if possible) the husbands (or ex-wives and ex-husbands, as the case may be) chronicled in detail. The magazine wanted the article to report the details of the cheating, the reasons for the cheating, whether or not the cheating was discovered, the effects on the participants and others that resulted from the cheating, and any retribution that had been exacted.
The editors of Cosmo also envisioned two versions of the story, one that they would print and the other - which went more into the actual sexual details of the betrayals - would be published in an erotica book using a publishing house partially owned by Cosmo.
I was very excited about the assignment - until I was told that it was unlikely that I could complete it just by phone or Skype interactions alone. I was told to confirm that with some of the less juicy looking scenarios, and if confirmed then set up personal interviews all over the country.
The reason why I was reluctant to travel all over the country was because my husband Jason had been acting a little squirrelly lately. I thought that at 37 he was too young for a midlife crisis - both my friends Beth and Cindy heartily agreed - but that lately he was a little daffy and secretive regardless of the reason. I wondered how he would react if I left for a month especially since he was non-plussed (although he never made a big deal out of it) when I had quit my accounting job to pursue my dream of becoming a writer.
The first thing that I did - as suggested by the Cosmo editors - was to determine whether I could get everything that I wanted by phone and/or Skype. I found that I could not. I realized that even though the potential participants indicated some interest via the letters to the editor or advice columnist that they had written, that there needed to be some sort of trust before they would be forthcoming with the real information that I was after. That meant that I had to tell Jason that I would be "On The Road Without Charles Kuralt."
Jason actually took the news a little better than I thought that he would. One reason was that there was a week-long combined golf outing and tournament that he wanted to go to that fell right in the middle of the roughly one month time period that I would be gone; another reason was because I would make and freeze enough of his favorite meals to last him three weeks; and the third reason was because I told him that he could do anything sexual that he wanted to do to me in the ten days before I would leave for the road.
"I see lots of anal and blow jobs in my future," he chuckled as he smiled and rubbed his hands together when I relayed the "anything sexual" sweetener to him. His squirrelly actions the last couple of months did not include a reduced libido. While I was no big fan of anal or blow jobs, it wasn't like I hated them either; it was just that I liked my pussy eaten and fucked more than either one of the others.
After informing Jason of my plans I spent the next ten days making dates for my interviews with twelve different women - and hopefully sometimes the men relating to their situations too - over the next month. It was an ambitious schedule, but I had planned it properly geographically that I thought for sure that I could accomplish it, especially since some of the women had very flexible schedules and I could easily reschedule with them if necessary.
One thing that I had to keep in mind was that I could not be judgmental. Personally I hate adulterers, but if that came through during my interviews I could not get what I needed.
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From New York City I drove a rental car to my first interviewee. [All of the names and locations, and some details (although not the sexual ones) are fake "to protect the guilty."] Cheryl in Cherry Hill, New Jersey, was my first candidate for a salacious story. Cheryl owned her own small business and had a degree in business administration from Rutgers, was 35, and had two kids. Cheryl is relatively ordinary looking, and in my humble opinion about ten pounds overweight for an ideal BMI, but she does have a very pronounced chest, maybe even a DD. She is very intelligent and personable. She had an affair starting about three years ago with a salesman for one of the suppliers to her business; he lived about twenty miles away.
I gained Cheryl's trust within about a half hour after which she became very willing to talk since her correct name, exact age, and exact location would not be used. Within about the second half hour after meeting her I felt almost like her therapist - at least one willing to listen though not give out advice. She showed me photographs of both her lover and ex-husband. They looked remarkably alike to me (although from her descriptions she apparently didn't see that). Both are also relatively ordinary looking and about as overweight as Cheryl is.
In Cheryl's mind the apparent main reason - although I had surmised just from my reading on the subject that the issue is usually complicated - that she started the affair was lack of attention from her husband, Jack. Jack was deeply involved with the kids and his own business so that after nine years of marriage (when she started the affair) she felt starved for attention. While Jack wasn't mean or abusive, her attempts to get him to relate more to her were fruitless.