February Sucks Until It Blows

Yep, another take on 'February Sucks.' I read the original when it was first posted and it was pretty much a "meh" experience. It seemed reconciliation was intended from the jump with nary a deviation along the way. Then, alternative versions started showing up - many taking a harder stance and a few going totally BTB. Some of the alternatives were good, some even compelling, and then there were the neithers.

So I thought 'what the fuck' why not? C'mon in, there's plenty of room in the pool. Dive in and see what you come up with.

I have chosen not to recap the lead in. We're picking this up the morning after the infamous night before. Linda is trying to convenience Jim that nothing in their marriage has changed.

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"Marc (Marc LaValliere) could never love me the way you do. You do that better than I ever imagined it could be done. My body melted for him, it's true, but my body and my heart both melt for you, always."

"Do you even listen to what you're saying?" I shook my head in equal parts amazement and disgust. "You just said my love, the way I love you, the way I have loved you, is you being loved better than you could ever imagined. That's what you said. And you added 'my body and my heart both melt for you, always.' That's how you described the way I love you - right?"

"Yes. I said that and I meant it, every word."

"So by your own heart-felt statement, encapsulating all the love I am capable of giving you and the love you have for me in response to that - in your own words, and certainly by your actions!" Her eyes widen and she took a deep breath. I beat her to the climax. "My love will never be enough to keep you from cheating again. The best I could do, my best effort - it's not enough. On a night that expressed the height of my ability to love you - our special night, a night we planned for and anticipated. It wasn't enough, was it? It wasn't even close, it didn't take him the time needed to finish a drink for Miracle Marc to make you disappear from our marriage. Poof!"

"NO. No Jim, you're wrong. That's not what I meant!" Our argument went downhill from there. I answered her every declaration of love, of commitment, of 'renewed' faithfulness, and of her intention to making every effort she could to prove it with the same simple response, "Linda, I'm saying this based on my own experience, I was there with you and then I was here alone. We were prepared for a night to remember, it was to be OUR special night, and then without a glance back, you went away with another man, you fucked that man, and by your own actions and everything you've said today. It's really quite simple. Linda, I can NEVER trust you with my heart again."

In the days and weeks that followed, she came at me from every possible direction and angle. So I adapted and added to my response, "Yes, in time I can see myself coming to grips that you cheated on me, thereby destroying our marriage." She didn't like that statement. She hated it when I sometimes used, "There may come a time when I can forgive you," But, each and every answer ended with the same sentence, "I can NEVER and will NEVER trust you with my heart again."

What caused her the most trouble was how quickly I learned to state my position in a very calm, and quiet manner. I spoke simple statements of fact. And it did not help the situation that I stopped arguing against her perspective. Apparently she truly believed that her 'one night and let's not forget the next morning stand' fell under the heading; NO HARM, NO FOUL. It was clearly A ONE-OFF, a "fantasy night" one that will never happen again. So I should quit harping on old news, we're good. Let's move forward.

When she declared I will love you forever! I would agree with her and then add my simple statement. If she said, there was never a moment I did not love you. I'd say absolutely, I have no doubt you feel that is true. And then I'd throw in my simple sentence.

Sometimes she would jump in halfway through 'can NEVER and will NEVER' bristling with ferocity "stop saying that! I love you, how can you not understand that? I LOVE YOU!"

Once I really threw her for a loop. She was declaring her love - always and forever, when she asked why couldn't I accept that? And I was just about to reply when she added, "and don't say anything about trust. I get that. Well, get this - I love you - why can't you get that?"

"I do." I paused just long enough for her to react to my matrimonial reference. "I do get that. You love me - past, present, and future. Well Linda don't think for a moment that I don't love you."

Oh man, talk about cueing up the sound of a needle scratching across a vinyl record. I watched hope bloom in her eyes. "Linda, of course I love you...I will always love you. Love is not something that you can turn off. So I can say to you with sincerity and honesty, I love you Linda. I love you. But here's the problem, I'm just not IN love with you anymore. The uniqueness, the specialness that was us - that's gone, it's dead. You kill it. That love that you and I had as man and wife, that love that we vowed before God, family and friends - that love was killed, it's dead and buried. That specialness is gone. So what are you trying to do, resurrect some twisted zombie love? That love couldn't help but be a stinking, rotting corpse of what we once had? Sorry, I'm not interested."

That statement devastated her. It was more than a body blow, it looked like a deep soul smackdown. Linda was a good person, she was a good mom, she just wasn't a good wife. A part of me tried to rein myself in, because the next blow was a killer. I went for the coup de gras, "If I'd been given this script the day we were married, that after a few years of faithfulness, you'd cheat on me without even the slightest concern or consideration..."

"No...no...no...don't say it. Please don't say it..." there was a visceral, terrifying horror in her eyes.

"I'd have turned around and walked away. Not counting the kids, there is not enough good left in our marriage to balance out the evil you brought into it. Our marriage is dead Linda. Period, end of story, our marriage is over. All of this is, all of my efforts since that night are focused on one thing and one thing only - protecting the kids. We owe them that. They are the only future that concerns me. As far as you and I go, we're done."

I suppose the word 'catatonic' best describes Linda's reaction. Unmoving, unblinking, unresponsive.

What didn't surprised me was how my clearly stated position apparently cut the last strings of friendship within our group. Sure, ever since that night those friendships had been strained for many, many weeks. Once this last statement of mine made the rounds, I became persona non grata. I half expected to find my photo on the wall of the local Post Office. I was public enemy numero uno.

The women, many who had flirted with me in one way or another over the years looked at me with undisguised loathing. And I say with no small degree of sadness that the husbands - to a 'man' - meekly toed the line. Friendships were severed, once dynamic relationships withered quickly. Curiously I did not mourn the loss.

Okay, that last part was bullshit. It hurt at first. These were my friends (or so I thought), guys I trusted, yet they casually cut me loose. Over the days and weeks that followed I learned to live without their support. In the passage of time I learned how I could look at them and find myself less than impressed. The simple truth was this, within days of Linda's one night stand I had seen many of the friends who had been with us that night as less than worthy of my friendship or any other consideration. That I looked on them with undisguised disdain was fuel for the fire. To the wives I was a horrible, selfish husband. To the husbands I was at best an unlucky man, at worst a cuckold, and by all someone to be kept at more than arms distance to avoid any chance of contagion.

Because I was such a bad husband, I made little effort to change that perception. If I was so lacking, why invest my time and energy in a losing perspective. I countered their ire by being the best dad I could be. I bent over backwards to be a good dad to my kids as well as an exemplary example of 'a good man' to my kids friends, teammates, and classmates.

Two months on and I was still the horrible husband among people I no longer care for or thought about. Amongst a great many more I was a great dad and fine man, "giving so much of his time to his kids activities."

I will tell you something in strictness confidence, though it probably plays both ways. When you no longer care about your spouses point of view, about their feelings, it frees up a huge amount of time and emotional energy. I focused on the kids, Linda was no longer a concern, except where it might affect the kids.

Well I shouldn't leave you thinking I never thought about my wife, I did think about her. But it was more of, how to work around an obstacle, how to make things work best for the kids and myself rather than how to I bridge this gulf between man and wife.

When the kids were around I would tease Linda, touch her, even hug her. But if the kids were elsewhere, our relationship was more akin to a workplace interaction with me being careful to avoid potential harassment issues.

To that end while all this was going on we finally resumed having sex. Yeah, yeah, yeah I know this doesn't mesh with the sentiments expressed in the previous paragraph, but I'm a man, I have needs. I mean why not have sex, Linda was desperate to prove her love for me. I was in this for the kids, why not take advantage of available pussy. She had complained for weeks about having to get a blood test, but when she saw I was adamant, it was presented to me a couple of days later. Oh man was she in for a surprise.

That Friday night after the kids were in bed, she practically dragged me to our bed. She was naked in record time and was climbing into bed when I placed on my nightstand a small square box with a strip of three condoms sitting on top.

"What the fuck are those? I gave you the damn test results, I'm clean! I'm on the Pill. You are not wearing a condom!" She was as furious as I had ever seen.

"AIDS...HIV can take six up to months before showing up on a test." I said it quietly and calmly. "So I got some condoms and dental dams. Until you pass the HIV test - "no glove, no love."

The play of emotions across her face was astounding, from incandescent rage to the first inklings of true remorse, and then from remorse to profoundly shocked. Finally, she laid down in bed, turned away from me and pulled the covers over her. I left the 3-strip of "ribbed for her pleasure" condoms and the box of mint-flavor dental dams on the nightstand and walked out of the room.

It was after the kids were in bed the next evening that Linda sat down next to me. She placed the strip of condoms on the coffee table, then she added the unopened box of dental dams. "I didn't even know what these were. No idea, I had to google them."

I sat quietly.

"This...all of this means you won't actually be touching me during sex. No real contact." She sniffled, "There will always be something between us."

"That's right, I need to protect myself."

Linda said nothing. Just staring at the items on the table for a couple of minutes. Then she picked them up and walked toward our bedroom. I spared her the indignity of waiting to be asked to join her.

We had sex that night, successfully too I might add. There were orgasms for both of us, which curiously enough really pissed Linda off. It had been weeks since we had been intimate and my dick was crazy hard. She rolled a condom on and gave me a thorough though strange feeling blowjob. Even stranger was that I came fairly quickly and filled the condom. Linda looked at the bulbous cum-filled tip of the condom, and it was clear as clear could be that my successful and abundant ejaculation really bothered her. She just looked at it until I took it from her, tied it off and tossed it in the trash.

Linda noticed that I was hard enough to keep going and urged that we use the second condom and do some serious fucking. I wanted to try the dental dam. She tried a couple of half-hearted arguments against the 'damned dam' but finally acquiesced.

I opened the box, unwrapped the dam and scooted between her thighs. Then I got down to it. There had been no kissing up to this point and I consciously ignored playing with her boobs (yes, I was being an asshole in minimizing any physical contact.) For reasons unknown and doubtlessly irritating to her, Linda came pretty quickly. More surprisingly and likely even more irritating, she came again, and with some persistence on my part she ended up having a third huge orgasm. She thrashed about, grunting and groaning before finally crying out "Enough! No more!"

What Linda didn't know was that while I was getting the dental dam ready, I'd rolled the second condom on. Checking to make sure it was still in place, I lifted her legs hooking her heels on my shoulders and pushed inside her. She appeared to be deeply conflicted (heels on shoulders had always been an 'only sluts have their heels up like that' position.) She really didn't like it. For my part I ignored her expression and fucked her as hard as I had ever fucked her. She came again and again eventually going boneless. I kept fucking her until I came. I happily disposed of the dental dam and the second condom.

When I came out of the bathroom she was still spread eagle on the bed, just staring up at the ceiling. I paused and watched her for a handful of minutes. She had the proverbial 1000 yard stare.

She must have felt my observation, her eyes shifted to me, then turned away from me. She moved under the covers and turned away from me. I just got into bed, said 'good night' and quickly fell asleep.

Saturday night was a repeat of Friday as far as sex except that the oral sex was reversed in order. I went down on her until she came multiple times. We fucked, once again a good hard fucking. We ended up using three condoms that night. The third being a brutal pelvis to butt cheek pounding that took her to a state of near passed out oblivion. I even had to cover her up after I cleaned up. Sunday we rested. Tuesday and Wednesday nights were a little less vigorous (on my part) we were both satisfied. At one point Linda even bucked against my cock during the fucking.

When Friday rolled around, during our fucking I rolled onto my back letting her go cowgirl. She had always enjoyed the position and confirmed that enjoyment by cumming twice. And damned if I didn't come too. When she got off, the condom was almost pulled off resulting in a gooey mess of cum covering my crotch. She didn't notice at first, not until was compelled to scoot sideways to get out of bed without dripping and making a mess. Once again I cleaned up in the bathroom.

I returned to the bedroom and was just about to turn out the bathroom light when Linda spoke in a voice so quiet I barely heard her, "I miss the mess. Sometimes you would fall asleep so quickly, that I didn't want to disturb you by cleaning up. It would drip out of me during the night. I miss your arms around me. I miss that feeling of being..."

I came within a whisker of saying something shitty like, "So Marc's arms were the last that held you as you slept?" But I didn't. I just lifted the covers, moved towards the middle of the bed and held my arms open. She scooted into them, her back to my chest. I feel quickly asleep as she cried quietly in my arms.

Unfortunately as good as Friday night was, Saturday night ended up a disaster. We even started with some kissing and I have to confess to really enjoying it. As the night unfolded everything was more tender, more loving. We had some thoroughly enjoyable oral sex. With condom number three in play she initiated cowgirl this time. I asked her to spin around into reverse cowgirl as it was a position we had both found enjoyable. She declined at first, but I said 'do it' because I needed to spank her on her naughty bottom.

She turned around, but her up to that moment enthusiasm waned and her resultant movement was greatly diminished. And she kept doing little surreptitious glances over her shoulder. I didn't spank her, choosing instead to just stroke her bottom. I did some thinking though.

I started to tell her she could turn back around when a very uncomfortable thought occurred. Where our sex life concerned her butt hole, Linda was an adamant 'exit only' girl, or at least she had always been an 'exit only' girl with me. Darkness enveloped my thinking. Early in our relationship(definitely pre-marriage) during some vigorous, booze fueled sex, she was in reverse cowgirl and my hands were busy stroking her butt because she really loves having her butt stroked softly. This particular time she leaned forward more than usual clearly revealing and presenting her little brown starfish to me. I'd had a previous girlfriend who loved having her ass played with. We never went full on anal sex, but she would do this same move when she wanted a little digital penetration and stimulation.

I wet my pinkie and placed in in the center of her starfish and pushed gently. I wasn't even past the first knuckle on my pinkie finger when Linda went crazy, and not in a positive way. "What the fuck are you doing? Don't you ever touch me there again, got it?" I though our relationship might end then and there on these rocky shoals, but a few minutes later it was in the past. And I never, ever tried it again.

What was going on here. Why the concern that I would do something I hadn't done since that day.

Ah fuck.

My hands slid off her butt and I just laid there looking up at the ceiling.

She stopped moving and started to turn around with an expression that was anything but guilt-free.

"You gave him your ass, didn't you." I spoke in such a flat monotone, the question mark never made it.

"No. I did not have anal sex with Marc." Which was not the appropriate response to my initial inquiry.

"You gave him your ass, didn't you Linda." I was coldly calm.

Linda rose up releasing my cock and turned around kneeling between my legs. "I did not have anal sex with..."

"I'm not saying you had anal sex, you're saying that. I'm saying you gave him..."

"I didn't give him anything. He stuck his thumb in my butt..."

I just stared at her.

"We...he and I were doing reverse cowgirl, and I was really into it, he was rubbing my butt. His thumbs were on each side of my butt hole going up and down, and then he just pushed it in and started sawing back and forth and...and..."

I watched Linda's rising enthusiasm in the recounting falter when she looked down at me. That was the moment the evening slowly deflated like a leaky balloon. My dick followed until it lay flaccid and limp. She noticed and mumbled, "I'm sorry, I'm so sorry." again and again.

We were back to square one.

Summer arrived, school was out, but there was no discernible progress toward being closer or having closure. It was the unspoken elephant in the room.

The annual 4th of July party invite came. I told Linda I was not going under any circumstances. We didn't go.

As the weeks passed our sex life returned to mutual satisfaction. Mid August came with a circled and starred August day marked on the calendar. On the next day I was presented with Linda's blood test. No sign of STD's including HIV. We celebrated with the ceremonial tossing out of the remaining condoms and dental dams. (I didn't care for them either, no that I ever said that.)

Surprisingly the next couple of weeks were fairly positive. We appeared to be finding solid ground. But just when you begin to think things are falling in place - they fall apart. The unlooked for upheaval came not at home, it came at work. Our company was bought out by a much larger competitor in an unexpected and unforeseen semi-hostile takeover. Talk of layoffs was rampant. Fortunately I was not in the first wave of notices, or the second. Mostly they carved through the moribund top layers of management until most were gone along with some lethargic middle management types.