SBrooks challenged people to do a rewrite of his flash story, so I'm taking a whack at it. I've made only a couple of minor changes to his original, but fleshed out the story. I hope that people like it.
*****
'What a miserable day,' I thought as I dragged myself in the front door after another shitty day at work.
As if my hot flashes weren't bad enough, I didn't get the promotion to Assistant Manager that I was expecting. They gave it to Betty Bowman, or Betty Boobs, as we called her. I swear if she had unbuttoned her blouses any further she would have been showing her navel. I'm surprised that she hasn't been sent home and told to change into something more appropriate for the office before, but it never happened. All the other women in the office talk about her behind her back, and now she's going to be the boss of us. Ugghhh!
I had five years' experience on her, and did my job better, but our manager, James Brooks, couldn't get his mind out of her cleavage long enough to form a coherent thought. I would have thought that our affair would have counted for something, but obviously not.
Our affair. God, that was so long ago! I was so fucking stupid to have done that, even though it was fun. I mean, Henry was just clueless, and it didn't seem like he even cared anymore. Oh, he was working hard, too hard, putting in too many hours working to get his own promotion, and it worked for him, but him being tired all the time was leaving me high and dry.
Sex had been so perfunctory, really, not like it had been when we were dating. James was always a flirt around the office - I wonder if he's fucking Betty Boobs now - and he just caught me on a morning when I was frustrated and horny, and I got stupid and went along with it. It was just plain nice to have a man paying attention to me again.
That was the big problem with Henry: it wasn't so much the tailing off of our sex life as it was that he wasn't paying any real attention to me anymore. We were more like friends with benefits, and not even that many benefits. But he was working so hard, trying to get ahead, that there was no way I could even complain.
I never really expected that having kids would have taken so much of a toll on our sex life. Our bedroom was right next to Adrienne's, and I sure didn't want our daughter to hear us. I know that I clammed up during sex with Henry. I'd been a bit vocal before we had kids, but once they were there, I always kept my mouth shut. Maybe he missed that encouragement so much that he just figured I wasn't into it anymore.
With James, I could let go. Oh, not that first time, in the storage closet; that was just so naughty, and such great fun. Once that first fuck was out of the way, and I didn't have to be coy around him, he was able to get us a motel room, and I could let my inner banshee out.
I still couldn't believe I got away with it. Poor Henry just wasn't holding up his end, and I simply needed more than he could give me, and I made sure that he never went without and was careful to never bring back any "surprises."
Of course, James didn't get away with it; his wife found out that he was having an affair, and I guess I am really lucky that she never figured out with whom. She took James back, but he had to break off the affair. In a way, it was strange, like I was getting dumped, but I knew that it couldn't last. We had ten months of fun on the side.
Then there was Michael. He was just a one-night stand, of course, and he didn't really do much for me. One-night stands are easy to get away with, unless you're just plain unlucky, and he just wasn't inspiring enough to even want to try it with again.
That was when I missed my first period. Oh, God, I was so scared, but missing that period didn't mean I was pregnant; it was the start of menopause, and I started that early. Hell, I was only 46!
Menopause was awful! I was moody, I had hot flashes, and damn it all, I still have them now, seven years later! That's just plain not fair. At first, menopause got me cranked up for sex, for weeks at a time, and then, for more weeks, I felt nothing. In the end, it tapered off into just not being interested in sex, period.
Period. Hah, what a fucking joke on me!
Henry was such a love, and never gave me any crap about my lowered libido. At least with my desires being killed, I quit cheating. I'd dodged a bullet with James, and with Michael, and now, seven years later, I've been a good, faithful wife. I guess that's a whole lot easier when you aren't even tempted anymore. I tried my best to be there for Henry once a week, although even with a gallon of lube it was not very comfortable. I couldn't help but wonder if he noticed my lack of enthusiasm, but if he did, he hid it well. I know that, even with his age getting up there too, he still wanted sex.
But the worst part of the affair was that James and I still worked together. Yeah, he'd dumped me, as I knew he had to, but seeing his face, five days a week, forty-eight weeks a year, was a constant reminder. It decreased from a raging reminder to more of a nagging remembrance, but it did make it difficult to put the affair behind me. I think for him it was easier; I was just another conquest along the road. But, other than staring at Betty's boobs, if he was still sniffing around after other women, he was doing it away from work.
I was shocked when I went into our house and saw Henry, freshly shaved, wearing his best suit, and I could smell the cologne I gave him for our anniversary.
"Henry, I didn't know we were going out tonight."
"We're not," he said.
"We're not? Then why are you dressed up?"
"
We're
not going out," he said, "
I'm
going out."
