9/11. 2020. The day that GeorgeAnderson launched "February Sucks" onto the world.
There had been stories with multiple spin-offs before. "Law of the Heart" was the previous champ, with about 10 adaptations. "One Slip" and "How High a Price" are a couple of the others.
Obviously, the "February Sucks" phenomenon dwarfed them all. Maybe 15-20 years on, Literotica just had that many more writers. Or it could be the poignancy of the story itself. And almost certainly, dissatisfaction with how it turned out. After all, what Linda did was so heinous, so unforgiveable.
And Jim forgives her.
The list of authors who jumped in to take a crack at this reads like a veritable who's who of LW: Harddaysknight, Hooked1957, saddletramp1956, carvohi, MattblackUK, Just Plain Bob, Skippy47, Kalimaxos, laptopwriter, sbrooks103, PKenny5860, GTO_Racer, Just_Words, satindesires, 012Say, demander, and Farmers_Son, just to name some.
And then, a little over a year later, along came GodivaFan to move the goal posts.
Before, all the FS re-dos were just that. Alternative versions. Moving the story ahead by twenty years, "February Sucks - Aftermath" was so perfectly consistent with the original that Legio_Patria_Nostra eloquently referred to its "artisan touch." Though there have been over 100 more FS's since, all have ignored the updated world GF created.
Until now. To know the context of my tale, you'll need to read the original ( https://www.literotica.com/s/february-sucks ) and GodivaFan's sequel ( https://www.literotica.com/s/february-sucks-aftermath ).
This story begins on the day after Dee and Linda's meeting at the coffee shop, and is told from Jim's POV.
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I woke up, a little groggy, to the sound of excited voices. I could hear that Tom and Grace had already arrived to join us for today's look at another college, and they were talking with Linda in the kitchen. Michael was probably still sleeping in, after his date last night. Since we had a half hour drive ahead of us, I thought it'd be OK for him to get another hour of sleep. Hoping that the coffee was on, I stretched out after a night on the lounger, and went in to join them.
Linda saw me come in and asked "coffee, honey?" while pouring me a cup. "Thanks," I replied, and gave her a quick kiss on the cheek. Then we all talked about the day ahead. Our private college visit could be thorough, and still get us back home by mid-afternoon. The plan was to host Emma and family to dinner, along with the 5 of us, or go out if Linda was too tired to cook.
After pocketing early acceptances from several schools who wanted him on their baseball teams, Michael had decided that visiting only the most likely prospects made sense. We'd already visited the state university campus nearest us, and today we'd be looking at a private college even closer by. The plan was to check out another state campus, this one about four hours away, over Thanksgiving weekend, and then sometime during Christmas vacation make a trip to Tennessee to look at the Division II school offering him a free ride. The state campus where both Emma and Tom went, and where each was finishing up masters, was out of consideration, as it didn't have a baseball program.
When I'd finished my coffee, I went upstairs to shower and change, and figured that once I was ready to go, I could also see if Michael was awake and getting ready. I was certain that he'd already planned the morning timeline, and would be good to go around the same time as me. Still, Linda was anxious about it, so I promised to make sure.
Ah, Linda. Alone in the shower, which I made nice and warm to help me shake off the effects of a night on the recliner, my thoughts turned to why I'd fallen asleep there last night. The fact that Dee was back in town certainly threw me for a loop, and although Linda explained that she had firmly shut the door on any revived friendship, it was still too close for comfort. So I had retreated to the den, and wound up missing dinner, having dozed off in that easy chair.
Although her night with Asshole was over 20 years ago, anything connected with it could still drive me into a mood. I hated myself for that, but couldn't help it. Yes, I had forgiven her, and together we raised a wonderful family. But forgiving isn't forgetting, much as I'd like it to be.
I'm not proud of it, but I became a different man. If my loving wife could do what she did, then anyone can do anything. So my guard has been up ever since, except with our children. That circle of fair-weather friends became history, mostly at my insistence. This cost Emma and Tommy their best friends, Phil & Jane's kids.
And my relationship with LW, bless his soul, was never the same. Although he meant well by his ploy with that beautiful escort, Ellen, I couldn't help but feel that by not paying her to take it all the way with me, LW cheated me out of a chance to equalize Linda's transgression with one of my own. And there is no doubt I would have followed Ellen out of that club, just as Linda had followed Asshole out of Morrison's. The awareness Linda and I gained from this incident would have been no less if Ellen had gone all the way, instead of merely showing me how easy it could have been for me to do what Linda did. As a result, there's always been an imbalance between us. Had I had a "leap night" of my own with Ellen, I might have been able to forget as well as forgive.
Be that as it may, I certainly don't regret my decision to work with Linda to rebuild our marriage. After all, if we hadn't reconciled, there wouldn't have been Michael.
Although I completely love all three of our children, Michael and I share a unique bond. Mostly because by the time he was old enough to play, my promotion (thank you, Ann) had given me the freedom to spend time with him that I didn't have available for our first two. Also, Michael is close to a "mini me." We share a cautious approach to life, usually having a backup plan for everything, and can communicate wordlessly with ease.
Still, I must admit that Linda's third pregnancy was a shocker. It wasn't long after she had offered me a divorce during one of our counseling sessions, which I turned down for the same reason we hadn't two years earlier - I didn't want to disturb Emma and Tommy's lives. But we certainly hadn't discussed having more children, and I wondered if this was a ploy to ensure that I couldn't reconsider. Although I was all in, especially after Michael was born, I couldn't still the voices in my head. So I swabbed him and got a DNA test, which happily showed he was definitely mine.
Anyway, these ruminations ended when I noticed the water cooling off, so I got myself dried and dressed. And I was right about Michael. His bedroom was empty, and he'd even made his bed.
So off we went. Michael sat up front with me, and although we exchanged some knowing looks, we were silent for the most part during the drive, while Linda, Tom and Grace chattered away in the back seat.
One has to drill deep to see the differences between college campuses. They are almost always green and lovely, whether as an oasis within a busy city, or one consistent with the small town surrounding it. This campus was more of the latter, and Michael was clearly impressed, while still asking probing and relevant questions. While going here would be a bit more expensive than the nearby state school, or the fully-funded scholarship in Tennessee, that wouldn't have to be a consideration, as we'd saved more than enough to pay for any school he chose.
By the time we were done there, it was indeed only mid-afternoon. Which got us home in plenty of time for Grace and Linda to head over to the market to buy the fixings for a big dinner. Linda wasn't at all worn out; in fact, I think seeing Michael so excited about a college so nearby energized her, since she was obviously hoping he'd stay near so we could continue to go watch him play.
Not that she said as much. But frankly, Linda is no genius, and I can read her like a book. Especially since I had learned the hard way to pay attention to my instincts. So though she might have thought otherwise, she wasn't too subtle in encouraging Michael about the nearby schools, and expressing little enthusiasm for the faraway one.
In the meantime, while Linda and Grace were out, Emma arrived with Chase and little Nancy. At 16 months, Nancy was beyond delightful. Clearly a bright girl, she could walk now with assurance, and even say a couple words. And as good a job as Linda and I did with our three, I was still impressed with how easily both Chase and Emma interacted with Nancy, encouraging and teaching her. They make a good team.
And our family dinner was, as always, a joy. Looking around the table, I couldn't help but think that despite everything that happened a little more than twenty years ago, my decision to stay with Linda was the right one.
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Michael wound up choosing the school in Tennessee.
Pretty shrewd of him, since he convinced me to parlay some of what we were saving in tuition into a new car for him to use down there. Meanwhile, Tom finished up his masters, and instead of getting an immediately high-paying job in big tech, decided to form a startup with a couple of his friends. They all moved to Silicon Valley, where not only the competitive action is, but also the venture capitalists.
So now only the Scotts (Chase, Emma and little Nancy) remained in town. And outside of visits with them, our nest had become empty.
Looking back, I can see that this was a bigger loss to me than for Linda. After all, she still had me. But although I still loved her, admittedly the love of my life had become the children, and having both sons (and our daughter-in-law) miles away, and our daughter fully occupied with husband, baby and MBA, left a gap that Linda just couldn't fill. Especially since there were still those walls around me.
I didn't see any of this at the time, even though I should have been aware and honest enough to realize that we had been the cliché couple who "stayed together for the kids." And although it now being just the two of us could have been an excuse to ramp up the intimacy, that didn't happen.
One reason is that over the past twenty years, sex with Linda was, least for me, mostly to relieve my needs, while giving her enough attention to "keep her on the reservation." The free and easy love we shared before that awful night was gone. Oh, don't get me wrong, she tried. But it was no longer just the two of us in bed, at least in my mind. Sometimes during, or right before, the actual fucking, my dick would go soft. And she was much less attractive to me now, and I could hardly bring myself to lick the cunt which on that February 29th had overruled any love for me. Sure, I gave her just enough to make her think my desire for her was back in full. But it wasn't, and now at 53, my libido in general had probably slowed down, anyway.
And another problem hit, coincidentally with the boys leaving. Linda's menopause had begun a year or so earlier, but really began taking a toll that fall. Not only did she get more moody (which at first I misinterpreted as sexual restlessness, a la Assholery), but she also needed a lot of lube for penetration. So much for spontaneity.
She did her best to overcome all this with shows of love (and blow jobs), and I think she often responded to me, or initiated sex herself, to make me happy, despite her lack of real desire. But there was now an emptiness inside me that her best efforts couldn't fill.
I also felt stagnated at work. I'd been department head for eighteen years now, but the only way up from there was to run the whole place, and my boss wasn't going anywhere.
