[If you hate stories where a man is made a cuckold, don't read this story. If what you hate about those stories is that the man is a wimp, you might like the way this story progresses. It's in Loving Wives because the wife in the story cheats. There are aspects of the story that would fit in other areas, but that is a lot like life.]
"Enough is enough!" Bob had heard people say those words hundreds, maybe thousands of times. He had never said them, never thought them. Until the weekend three weekends before his tenth anniversary.
On that Saturday he mowed the grass, trimmed the big hedges that surrounded their back yard, washed his car and Brandy's and did their laundry. He washed their clothes, dried them and folded or hung them up. Clothes that needed ironing, Brandy ironed.
They had never talked about the division of labor. Over the years things had just fallen into place. The last task of his Saturday had been Brandy's car. He took it to a semi-automatic facility about twenty minutes from their home. For a fist full of quarters he got a few minutes of high pressure wash, with him aiming the nozzle. For a few more quarters he got a vacuum to suck any and all debris from the inside. The revelation came when he was preparing to vacuum the car.
He checked under the seats for things she might have dropped. The week before, he found her Chevron credit card under the driver's seat. His hand went under the seat and he felt something and his mind didn't instantly identify what it was. When he pulled it out, he was instantly both angry and depressed. It was a used rubber.
His mind looked back, reviewing the last few weeks for signs that Brandy might have given that she was cheating.
He remembered unkind remarks she had been making, but she had been making those kinds of remarks for months. He finished up her car and drove it home wondering what his best course of action might be. Dinner was nothing special. Brandy was in a sweatshirt and sweat pants, barefoot, with her hair wrapped in a scarf. She looked more like a cleaning lady than a woman who hadn't done anything around the house all day except make dinner. Her nails were freshly done, however.
During dinner Bob asked, "Our anniversary is coming soon. What would you like as a present?" She looked up from her plate and said, "Someone to fuck me senseless."
Bob knew she didn't mean to say, "I want you to fuck me senseless." She meant exactly what she said. She wanted someone else to fuck her.
Rather than start a fight, Bob said, "I'll see what I can do."
Brandy laughed and said, "Like that'll happen!"
When she was finished eating Brandy got up and left the kitchen. Bob finished eating and cleaned up. He heard the TV come on. He shut off the kitchen light and joined her in the living room. She was stretched out on the couch and didn't move. The available chair had an angled view of the TV.
"I'd like to sit on the couch by you." Bob said.
"I'm already comfortable. Sit in the chair."
He shuffled over to the chair and sat down. When the show she was watching ended Bob got up and left the living room. He showered and went to bed. Using the bedside lamp for light he read three chapters of a novel by James Patterson before Brandy came into the bedroom. She went into the bathroom carrying her nightgown. She showered and came out of the bathroom in the nightgown.
Bob watched her do her ritual and when she came to bed she said, "Shut off the light. As long as it's on, I can't sleep."
He rolled toward her for a kiss. She rolled away. "If you wanted a kiss you should have done it before I got ready for bed." He rolled back the other way and shut off the light. Two hours later he was still thinking. She was asleep.
Bob had been raised in the quietest family in Chicago. At least that was what he believed. He'd never seen either of his parents raise their voice. Never saw or heard an argument. He remembered his Dad saying, "Fighting and arguing doesn't solve anything. It's easier to go along."
When he and Brandy had met and dated they seemed to get along well, in his eyes. He remembered her saying how easy going he was. He was surprised when she said yes to his proposal. He was surprised again when she gave birth seven months after they were married. It was a still-born little girl. He was depressed for months. Brandy didn't sleep nude anymore after that and didn't initiate sex any more either.
Bob didn't say anything to provoke her, which meant he didn't ask her why she wore nightgowns and why she stopped initiating sex. He made her behavior mean that somehow she blamed him for the death of their child. When he didn't insist she made it mean that he didn't care. He didn't fight for their sex life. He must not like sex as much as she thought. She turned him down more and more often when he did attempt, hoping he would become assertive and jump her bones. She wore nightgowns and stopped being around him unless she was fully dressed.
Bob thought about his side of what was going on. He had no idea what was going on inside Brandy.
Connor Estridge knew something was going on with Brandy. She worked just down the hall from his office and had been coming on to him for months. As he sat in his office on the first of May, three months before Bob found the condom, Brandy brought three files to him. When she entered his office she closed the door. She had never closed the door to his office before. She stepped to the edge of his desk and said, "I've done everything I could think of to let you know I'm interested. Nothing worked. Ok, I'll be blunt. Name the time and place, I'll be there. I'll strip for you and do anything you want, as long as you'll fuck me!"
They met at a motel that afternoon. An hour of wild sex that just seemed to make her want more. Connor liked how wild she was. For a couple weeks he worried she would ask for a raise, or cash or something. What she asked for was more sex.
