Notes: This is a cheating wife story, and there is no hot sex. It is more an adult fiction, psychology story in this tale of people who probably live next door to the reader. Thank you for reading my submissions, and I appreciate constructive feedback. All errors are mine.
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Eve and Jerry's New Baby and Their New World
Another Cheating Wife Story
Jerry Bass waited in the hospital room with his wife, Eve Bass, soon after her recovery from anesthesia. She was awake and now clearly aware that she had just given birth. Eve evaded the real possibility that her newborn had not been fathered by her husband as they were waiting for a nurse to bring the baby to Eve's room. There was an equal chance that her that her husband, Jerry Bass, was the father. In a few minutes, a nurse walked in holding the crying baby and said, "Mrs. Bass, here is your healthy seven-pound-six-ounce boy, and he is ferociously hungry." Both Mom and Dad, who were in their lower twenties, beamed with happiness at the news as the nurse transferred the fussy newborn to his mother's arms as she lay in bed and the father looked on with love. The room grew silent as soon as soon as the infant found her nipple.
Jerry Bass was quiet and watched his wife gently brush the long matted blond hair using the sterilized brush designed for that purpose. He was not emotional about the arrival of his wife of five years' second baby - and almost nothing else as well - but was happy today mainly because his wife was happy. Jerry, for the most part, was laid back and took life easy because the young Mister Bass knew he enjoyed life and accordingly radiated self-confidence.
Several 1099s accompanied Jerry's April 15th IRS filing each year, and the taxpayer and his tax man were summoned for an IRS audit most every year. The audit was because the very high ratio of his income to expenses on Schedule D automatically tripped the IRS computers. He was a finish work subcontractor installing exotic woods - his favorite 'medium' as an artist was Brazilian hardwoods for certain walls and floors in luxury high rise condos under construction. No one else did, but Jerry considered himself an artist, rather than a carpenter.
For example, a particular subcontractor who had kept Jerry busy during the previous year was fond of the 'artist.' The General's Sub said at a Christmas party awards ceremony, "When finish work has to be done right, first time, every time, Jerry is our main man..." He handed a bonus check to the twenty-one-year-old, and continued, "Literally, his eyesight is good enough to see even microscopic misalignment or lack of symmetry on a wall... Thank you, Jerry," as fellow employees clapped politely.
In high school, Jerry was an average student who played trumpet in the marching band and a coronet in the concert band. Five years later, Jerry still jams with friends and sometimes plays a gig blowing his 'horn' - though it's mostly rock dance music, which is not his favorite. His high school girlfriend was in both the marching and the concert band as a flutist. Eve Ann Nash and he started going steady in the eleventh grade, and by spring, both were no longer virgins.
Eve was pixie-like and bubbled with energy. She also was well liked in high school, and dozens wanted to be her friend. Her body language broadcasted that she was an 'ordinary,' home grown girl happy with her life. Eve laughed very much and was loved by her parents. Jerry thought she was the cutest girl in high school. For example, her fun antics made band-trips enjoyable for everyone. After high school, her father paid her tuition at an office skills trade school. She and Jerry were married at 18 the day after she graduated from the office skills school.
After the simple wedding ceremony, she submitted many resumes and applications. One interview was for an entry level position at Ballard and Son, known publicly as a local chemical company. During two more interviews for the same job, she learned that Ballard was, in fact, not a local company but a super-secret government agency. She was made an offer and accepted a temporary entry level clerical job as a GS-7.
She learned on her first day of work the that the site was not a local company but was a DoD facility so secret that everybody but her knew about it. 'Ballard and Sons' was that sprawling company behind a cyclone fence with Constantine wire coiled on top of it that people drove by without seeing. The only cars parked in the 200-car parking lot belonged to employees - as no customers ever came. The only visitors were Fedex and UPS vehicles.
After she began work as a Clerical Tech She came home and told her new husband 'I am an administrative assistant at Ballard and Sons,' and then recited the learned explanation of her job she was to tell her immediate family. She then changed the subject. Each day Eve dressed down and wore baggy lounge pants and sweatshirts to work, but one Monday she came to the kitchen very well dressed. Her husband looked at her asking for an explanation with his body language. She said, "There is a Site Visit by the D.C. office the week of each quarter. Several teams come and stay about a week. I will dress up for their visit and work late. I can not tell you any more than that I draw time and a half for overtime. Please work with me and understand that getting promoted requires dressing for success, Darling."
Jerry had been in the National Guard since he was 17 and knew about IG site visits, so he never thought about the quarterly event again. Both Eve and her husband were pleased in that she never traveled or worked overtime except for one week each quarter. The extra money padded her salary handsomely. Eve never did happy-hour drinking with colleagues, etc. but did tell her husband later that she had a fat lady co-worker. And, that they would never 'talked shop.' The only thing Jerry knew about his wife's colleague was this woman was fat and did exist.
Today in the hospital room, the new Daddy took the now sleeping and satiated baby into his arms to place him gently in the bassinet beside the new mother's bed. Eve forced herself out of the bed to go to the toilet. When she closed the bathroom door, the father looked carefully at the sleeping infant only to see long blond hair and narrow cheekbones. He felt real angst for the first time in their marriage and said to himself, "Our three-year-old has Mack Truck cheekbones - as does all his cousins on my side - plus cold black hair. Hey! Could something be wrong here?"
He turned on more light to study the infant. In the silence, he heard his wife retching in the toilet. He called out, "Do you need any help dear?"
She said, "No, Dear."
Jerry walked to the night table by Eve's bed and grasped the strands of hair from the new brush his wife had used to untangle the baby's hair while the newborn fed. He placed the small cluster of hair in a tissue. Then, just as the commode flushed, he stuck the tissue in the watch pocket of his Jeans and returned to his chair. His wife slowly came out and looked at their sleeping child, and her face forced a smile as Mark Bass calmly slept in his bassinet. She then clasped her husband's hand as she made her way back to the bed.
After Eve lay back down a hospital employee brought in lunch for the patient and then cranked up her bed so she could eat the salt-free food. She put a spoonful of soup in her mouth and said with a frown, "Perfectly awful stuff. Darling, why don't you go to a salad bar and have lunch and then come back. I want to take a nap after I eat anyway as long as our baby sleeps, and the nurse fetches him. Apparently Mark will be quite comfortable until he gets hungry again, and you can not help there. Besides that, the nurse will take him to the nursery on schedule."
Jerry said using his best acting skills, "O.K. Darling, you talked me into it." He kissed her on the cheek and said, "Sleep well. I will check on you later, and if you or both are asleep, I will just go home and pick you two up in the morning for discharge as scheduled."
Jerry got to the parking garage and by this time was shaking with anxiety. He asked himself, "Is it possible that Mark is not your child? He probably is mine because of recessive genes that show up at rare intervals like now, but it won't hurt to check." He asked Siri the locations of area Paternity Checking Labs that analyzed DNA of hair. The second one listed was less than a mile from the hospital, so the anxiety-ridden father-of-record drove directly to it.
The older lady dressed in lab whites who stood at the counter asked, "How may I help you, sir?"
Jerry reached into his watch pocket and pulled out the tissue and opened it. He said, "I may not have fathered my wife's newborn. This hair is from the baby's brush, and I will yank my sample out of my head as I stand here for analysis. How much does that cost and how long will it take to get results back?"
The older lady stood there indifferently and looked at the upset man as he forced back tears. Her expression said to the Artist that she had heard this request before. The counter clerk read the steep price off to Jerry and said, "Hair, as opposed to, swab specimens is more expensive and takes about two calendar weeks. It's cash or a debit card in advance and give me your cell phone number and I will text you when the report is ready for your pickup."
Afterward, Jerry went to a bar to drink his lunch and started an introspective conversation with himself. He thought, "O.K. Mister trumpet player how are you going to play this? He answered himself, 'pretend that it is your baby until you know for sure. After all, there is a chance that I fathered Mark. Until I see the results, it wouldn't be fair to unload on Eve so she must see no difference in my attitude.' How will you play your role for two weeks? ' I will still try to Jam with my friends weekly and practice my ballads most every night because my trumpet brings me peace. And, if there is a gig, I will play it.' Then he asked himself, 'what are you going to do if you are not Mark's sperm-donor?' He answered himself, 'get a divorce.' Then he said to himself sternly, 'Wait! You cannot get a divorce because there is Melissa in your life.' He asked, 'are you going to throw her to the wolves?' He answered, 'God! I don't know what to do. The stats I have read say that twenty percent of new babies do so when the sperm donor is not the father of record. I refuse to accept myself as just another statistic!'"
