He couldn't find her. She wasn't at their table, and he didn't see her on the dance floor. It kept going through his mind, who else is she fucking? Maybe she was pulling a train. Maybe she'd lined up some of the senior partners? He wanted to kill her. It really pissed him off. But what could he do? They had three kids, three teenaged girls. He felt lost out on the dance floor. He felt like everybody knew what his wife was doing. He felt like they all knew what he had in his pocket. He had to get away.
He found his way to the front door, went outside, and drifted over to some shrubbery and vomited. He walked a little further out, and sat down on the curb. The concrete was cold and damp, but anything was better than going back inside. How the fuck was he going to get through the rest of the night? How was he going to handle this with Jessie? If it was just him he knew what he'd do; he'd take her home, drop her at the front door, and leave her. But God damn! He had three girls!
He pulled the panties out of his coat pocket, they definitely were hers. He sat there on the cold damp cement holding them in his hand. A few hours ago he'd watched her put them on. A few hours later a shithead lawyer pulled them off and fucked her. Never a violent man, he felt violent now.
~~~V~~~
Jessie despised the philandering Jeffrey Snyder, but she knew the son-of-a-bitch was after the same thing she was, a partnership. The problem was Snyder had the inside track; he had something, she didn't know what, but she knew he had at least one of the senior partners over some kind of a barrel. She figured if she could find out what Snyder had she could use it, a quid pro quo as it were. Her bad luck, the prick had managed to turn the tables on her. He knew she was ashamed of her husband. Somehow he used that to finagle a stupid bet, a bet that she now had to make good, giving Snyder a little sex was just a part of it, the rest would come later.
God, she loved her husband; he'd always been there for her, he was the best. He was smart, the smartest man she knew. He was sure good to her, good with their three girls, good in bed, and good to her parents, but he had no ambition. Poor Gary could be anything, but no, not him, he was just another "do gooder", a candy assed school teacher, at a public school no less, not even a high school, a middle school!
That bastard Snyder had come inside her, something she hadn't wanted. She wasn't worried though; she had her 'morning after pill'. Still, she felt cheap. She'd never done anything like this before. No, not her, until tonight she'd been Mrs. Faithful. She just had to get that partnership!
Jessie, Mrs. Gary McGowan was inside the hall trying to find her husband. She asked her personal secretary, a youngish woman named Gail Honeycutt if she'd seen her husband, but she'd said no. She walked all about; she checked the bar, the lounge, the dining area, no Gary anywhere. He had to be around somewhere!
~~~V~~~
Jessie, Jessamine, his wife, mother of his kids, was now the corporate whore. Shit, twenty years, eighteen married. What a waste. He sat there on that cold concrete curb and thought back. They'd met while he was in his junior year at one of the state's better public universities. She was approaching high school graduation working part-time, thanks to her mother's influence, at the local public library. She was pretty and got hit on a lot. He recalled how he played his cards pretty close to the vest. She was irritable and indifferent at first; it took him quite a while to get beyond her defenses, but once he did she proved to be one of the most delightful ladies he'd ever met.
Jessie was pretty, with blond hair she kept in a tight bun, fitting for a young lawyer. She was tall, maybe 5'6", sky blue eyes; not real sexy, a little on the thin side, smallish breasts, but she'd always been, for the most part, a real sweet kid.
He recalled how they dated through his junior almost to his senior year, but over that summer a little something came up. That little something was a baby, Dorothy. Jessie said she was on the pill, but he guessed not. Back then money was tight. He was the only child of a poorly educated single mom. Jessie's parents were well fixed, but that didn't do him any good.
Gary hadn't wanted to get married, at least not back then, and not to Jessie. He loved her, but to him she just wasn't marriage material. When they first met he thought she'd been sweet, maybe a little irritable; but the sex had been so good he thought he could put up with an occasional tantrum. The problem was her tantrums were more like category five hurricanes. If something went wrong she could really go off. She even smashed his windshield once, used an aluminum bat to do it; said she was trying to get at him. That was what led him to suggest they see other people. At first she panicked, even cried. Then she said she was good with the idea. Things went along for a while, like a couple months, and then she dropped the bomb, she was pregnant.
He had been just barely getting by. His mom worked at a Walmart and was struggling. He worked two part-time jobs to help his mother and to pay the costs of college. He was caught in a trap; his father, whoever he was, had skipped out when his mom got pregnant. Even though Jessie's parents had money, he knew he could never run out on her.
That first year had been awful. Jessie's parents never said anything, but he knew they blamed him for her pregnancy. No one wanted an abortion so her parents took them in. He still worked at a Fed. Ex. washing trucks at night, but her parents paid for his college. They even picked up all the medical bills.
The very next year, their second, Melanie came along, and two years later Katherine showed up. After that, with three girls, he and Jessie got exponentially more careful.
Meanwhile Gary got a job teaching math at one of the local public schools. He started at a middle school, decided he loved it, and had been there ever since.
Jessie had always wanted to go to college, and after Katherine came she was more determined than ever. Her mom and Gary's mom covered the daytime babysitting so Jessie could go to college. Gary taught during the day, and took care of the kids most nights when he wasn't working.
Money was tight, but Jessie was smart and a hard worker. She finished undergrad in three years, and went straight to law school. Two years later she took and passed the bar; then she got herself an entry level lawyering job at the downtown firm where she still worked.
They worked hard; they scrimped and saved, and managed, with her parent's help, to put aside enough money for a down payment on an older mid-sized house, a split foyer in a 1960's era neighborhood.
Jessie's success at law school, and her subsequent new position put her on track for some good money. Gary quit the night work, and started to spend more time, including summers, with the girls. As the years rolled by Jessie's legal work took up more and more time so Gary picked up most of the domestic chores including the cleaning, laundry, and meals. Several years on, what with the recession and resultant suppressed teacher salaries, and Jessie's hard work she was pulling down almost twice what Gary was earning so he took up all the remaining home responsibilities, and that included getting the kids off to school, the ironing, and all the other duties that needed to be done.
For Jessie her work was never done: it seemed like the more she succeeded and the harder she worked, the more ambitious she became. Three daughters, plus Jessie's growing ego, meant finding a bigger house, exclusive private schools, clothes galore, an in-ground backyard pool, lavish vacations, more and more frequent travel for Jessie, and lately a new car for Dorothy. It worked out great for Gary, or until recently he thought so, Jessie was pulling down so much money his income landed on the back burner; Jessie picked out the new house and worked out the mortgage, she chose the schools and paid the bills, and of course the clothes and cars all fell to her too.
Meanwhile, his salary only covered insurances, groceries, utilities, and the occasional toy for dad and the girls, like a small sailboat, hunting rifles and shotguns, a pram, and a nice safe, and slow, motor boat. For sure, he wasn't a loafer, with his math background he understood a little about finance, and started quietly setting aside money in mutual funds in just his name. He wasn't hiding anything; he just believed he should have a little something that was his alone.
Jessie's success also left him the job, not a job really, of seeing to the girl's social life. That meant dance, swimming, and Karate lessons, as well as drama and sports activities. He had to admit it wasn't hard being the dad who got to go to the dance competitions, swim meets, hockey, volleyball, soccer, and baseball games, not to mention caddying girls around for sleep overs, parties, and field trips. He was Mr. Mom, and loved every minute of it!
So much for the back story, that left Gary with an attractive over-achieving, and now adulterous wife, three wonderful daughters, all the spitting image of their mom, and yes himself, a moderately well-paid teacher, financially alert if not overly smart, a modern house mom, and to some, maybe a near-do-well, wife dependent, lazy loafer, it was all a matter of perspective.
To be a little more explicit about the money; he paid Social Security all year, but Jessie's "freedom threshold" has been repeatedly pushed back, from once New Year's like his, to Thanksgiving, then Labor Day, next back to Flag Day, and most recently, he suspected back as far as Mother's Day. He was never sure as she kept her income and expenses to herself. He wasn't sure, but he believed they were rolling in the gravy!
Well there it was, he came back and took his place at their table. He still had his wife's panties stuffed in his coat pocket. It was a flat out fact he had to do something. He'd heard some war stories where men, and just as often women, knew their spouse had been cheating but either pretended it wasn't happening and did nothing, or they came up with some elaborate scheme involving electronic surveillance or secret agents working night and day to catch the schemer outright. Gary was neither a hider nor a schemer, but he knew he had to do something, he just wasn't sure what.
He asked the person next to him what time it was; they said nearly 11:30, almost time to go home. Jessie had decided that, since Dorothy was seventeen, soon to be eighteen, the girls didn't need a babysitter, but tomorrow was Saturday and he had his chores, things like the vacuuming and laundry. Besides neither wanted to stay too late, it was December, Christmas season, they had the house to decorate and a tree to put up. The girls and he had gone to the tree farm and cut their tree a week ago, and he figured either tomorrow night or Sunday they'd put it up and decorate.
