House of Cards

I sat and thought for a few minutes before going downstairs. How was I going to face her? I wasn't ready to talk about her cheating—I needed to know the details. But I've never been good at lying, either, and Marianne was quick to pick up on any little look on my face. I have always loved her sensitivity to my feelings, and those of others. She notices other people, their moods, their preferences, better than anyone I have known. That is surely part of why I loved her so much.

Unable to decide what to do, I headed down to the kitchen, vaguely thinking I'd just smile a lot and keep her from noticing how I was feeling. Well, THAT plan lasted all of about ten seconds.

"Hi sleepyhead", she greeted me with a warm smile and a mug of coffee. "I was afraid you'd miss this beautiful day! But I know you must have gotten in very late last night. How was the meeting?" Having just handed me the coffee, she took it back from me, put it on the kitchen table, and hugged me tightly to her, kissing the side of my neck. I hugged her back mechanically, aware of her warm body under the robe, having no idea what to say. I wanted to cry.

When we broke the hug I turned away, grabbing my coffee, and pretended to gaze out at the back yard. "Yes, it is a gorgeous day. I was thinking we might go down to Forbes Lake, take our swimsuits and a picnic, and spend the day down there."

"What a great idea!" she replied. "I've got lots of stuff for sandwiches, and it's too lovely a day to spend all of it indoors. However," she went on with a smile in her voice, "I think we have some unfinished business from last night to take care of first!" I knew what she meant—we always made love when either of us came back from a trip, but she had been asleep when I came upstairs the previous night.

At that moment all I could think about were her panties, covered with someone else's cum. The idea of fucking her unfaithful pussy filled me with anger and despair. As she started to draw me back to her, taking my hand and leading me towards the staircase, she saw on my face some of what was in my mind.

"You know you owe me at least two or three orgasms, and .... Tom—what is it? You look as though you've just seen a ghost in the yard!" Marianne stopped, let go of my hand, and looked carefully up into my face. "Are you not feeling well?"

"I'm sorry," I said. "I picked up a stomach bug on the trip, and I'm still feeling a little queasy. Perhaps we could postpone that debt I owe you until later?" I tried to make my voice cheerful, even teasing, but I could see from the look on Marianne's face that I had not completely succeeded.

"OK, honey. I'll pack some nice simple food, nothing fancy or spicy. Maybe a day in the sun will help you feel better." She still looked a bit doubtful, but she didn't question me any further. I took a quick shower, she packed us a lunch, and we drove down to our favorite lakeside picnic spot.

That afternoon was wonderful—and unbearably awful. We spent the day just as we would have if nothing had been wrong. We sat together on a blanket, sharing our lunch and talking about the children and about my trip. We put lotion on one another and lay in the warm sun working on our summer tans. We swam across the lake and back, then rested on the floating raft for a while before swimming in to shore. In late afternoon she took a nap, with her head resting on my chest, as I pretended to read the Sunday paper but actually suffered with thousands of painful thoughts and feelings. If I hadn't been in agony about her infidelity, it would have been a lovely, relaxing day spent with the woman I loved most in the world.

As we drove back towards town she asked, "Are you feeling better? You certainly seemed fine when we swam today."

"I'm still a bit tired, but I guess my stomach is a lot better."

"That's a good thing," she said with a laugh. "I'm planning to wear you out tonight!" She took one of my hands from the steering wheel and pulled the back of it to her lips, giving it a big kiss while smiling at me.

Her warmth and attention felt like a knife in my ribs. How could she possibly treat me with such obvious affection when she'd been getting banged by somebody else? Was all this warmth and love just a show, to keep me in the dark? Was it her way of dealing with guilty feelings? Was the wife that I had known for so long such a monster that she could be in love with someone else, yet act as though she were still in love with me?

At home we had an informal dinner, then cleaned up the kitchen together. We didn't talk too much—that was unusual for us, but I found it far less painful to be near Marianne if I didn't have to fake interest in some conversation while masking how I was really feeling. She clearly sensed that something was bothering me, but didn't press me on it.

Once the dishes were done, Marianne took my arm and with a broad smile, led me towards the bedroom. "Now it's time for what you owe me," she said.

I couldn't bear it—absolutely couldn't bear the thought of trying to make love to her, of caressing her body, of licking her or fucking her, while thinking about who else had been doing that to her.

I stopped partway up the stairs. "Actually, Marianne, could we talk for a minute first? I've got something on my mind." I hadn't meant to say anything, but I just couldn't keep it in.

Seeing from my face that the "something on my mind" was serious, Marianne just said, "of course, honey". We went back down to the living room, she sat on the sofa and I in a chair across from her.

I sat in silence for several minutes, having no idea how to begin. Finally I said, "Marianne, you know how much I love you, right?" "Of course," she replied, looking a little perplexed.

I went on. "I want you to know that our relationship is the most important thing in my life. I put it ahead of everything, except our children. It comes ahead of my career, of anything else. And I would never do anything to jeopardize it."

"Yes, honey," said Marianne, now looking a little suspicious. "I feel just the same way about you—you know that."

"Anni, if I had ever made a mistake about something that threatened our marriage, I would come to you and tell you about. I'd beg for your forgiveness, and do whatever it took to make up for it. I would never allow a secret to poison our relationship. And I hope you would feel just the same."

By now she looked—I don't know, impatient? Or was that a slightly worried expression? "Of course I would, Tom. What is this all about?"

I paused again for a moment, unable to go ahead. Then finally: "Anni, I found your thong panties in the laundry room, covered with cum. Are you having an affair? Please tell me the truth!"

As I blurted this out, in my agony, Marianne never moved. But she seemed to stiffen almost imperceptibly, and her face became very pale. Then, after no more than a few seconds, she smiled broadly and cheerfully spoke. "Oh, honey, is THAT what this is all about? How silly! Don't you remember? We made love on Thursday, the night before you left for Chicago. I put those on the next morning, after you left, because I missed you and wanted to think about you while you were gone. I guess you must have really filled me up, because I could feel myself oozing into them all that morning!"

I just looked into the smiling face of my wife, absolutely aghast. I remembered quite clearly—we had NOT made love that Thursday night, because I was up late preparing some documents for the meeting and she had gone to bed. The last time we had sex was a couple of days earlier. Marianne had just looked me right in the eye and lied to me! Pretty convincingly, too—it frightened me that the story she told, with complete composure, was so plausible that I might very well have believed it! Did she really think that I was so easy to deceive?

Full of pain and hurt, and absolutely staggered by her bold-faced lie, I didn't push her any further. What would be the point? Instead I muttered, "OK—I must have forgotten." And then, making a supreme effort to seem convinced, "I'm sorry to have accused you of such a ridiculous thing."

"Sweet darling," she replied, looking relieved. "What an imagination you have! Let's go upstairs and let me give you all the reassurance you can stand."

If you had told me, even two days earlier, that there would be a night when I dreaded fucking my wife, I would have said you were crazy. And yet there was nothing I less wanted to do at that moment. I silently gritted my teeth and said to myself, "OK, you lying bitch! If you can look me right in the eye and deny you're screwing someone else, then I can look you in the eye and pretend to want to fuck you!"

And it turned out I could. What I couldn't do was enjoy it. We did all of the things we usually loved doing in bed together. Lots of kissing and stroking, then me between Marianne's legs licking her to an orgasm or two. I went at her grimly, glad that she couldn't see my face, and determined to lick and kiss and bite her into a frenzy. "You bitch!" I was thinking. "Does that asshole you're fucking get you as hot as THIS?" I made her come quickly, then went right on, stroking inside her with two fingers on her G-spot while I licked and sucked on her clit, until she had two more orgasms and was pulling me up to her, saying. "Please Tom, no more! Come up here and get inside me quick!"

The fucking was much the same. I stroked into her smoothly, regularly, determined simply to fuck the hell out her. I didn't hurt her, but I didn't linger for gentle changes of speed and pressure—I gave her the robot version of fucking, building steadily up and up until I came like crazy, shuddering as I shot into her over and over. I didn't even bother to notice if she came again while we fucked. It was enough that for a few moments, I was able to banish from my mind the image of her lying in ecstasy while some other man pumped on top of her.

After a few quiet minutes, me lying with my head on her shoulder, still not looking at her, Marianne spoke. "My God, Tom, nobody else gives me orgasms like that!" Then, seeing the look on my face, she laughed (she laughed!) and said, "Oh, honey, you know what I mean. There isn't anybody out there who ever COULD give me orgasms like that."

I lay awake long after Marianne had happily snuggled her back up against me and gone to sleep. It was beyond my comprehension that she could have lied to my face like that. Of course, it was also beyond my comprehension that she could be cheating on me, so what's one more lie on top of that?

As I thought back through the preceding weeks and months, I searched for any sign that things were different between us. Any coldness or evasiveness from her; or, on the other hand, any excessive or unexpected affection. At first I didn't remember a single thing—then I thought about our most recent anniversary.

The grimace on her face as she sat down in that fancy restaurant: that was the "honeymoons". Of course it was, I'd seen that look before and knew exactly what it meant. Good God. Had she been fucked into soreness on the day of our wedding anniversary? I got quietly out of bed, grabbed a robe, and headed downstairs, making sure that Marianne was still sleeping soundly.

I sat in the den with the lights off, recalling our sex after our anniversary dinner. My wife, usually so delighted to have her pussy licked and not so interested in sucking my cock, had given me the blowjob of a lifetime, while not letting me lick, or even so much as touch, her cunt. The reason for that was obvious: her pussy was sore, and she didn't want me to irritate it further. Even more important, she surely wouldn't have wanted me to notice that it was sore and swollen.

Her solution to the problem was as creative as my wife was shrewd: distract me with the sight of her in that nearly transparent new nightie, then say "tonight is for you, honey" and blow me to Kingdom come! (Pardon the pun.) If it hadn't been for my finding the panties several days later, I would have forever been in the dark—the typical clueless, cuckolded husband.

It was clear that now I'd have to begin the dreary and banal job of proving that she was cheating—of catching her in the act, or finding something incriminating that she couldn't explain away. What depressed me, and infuriated me, was thinking about what would come after that. One hell of a yelling match, obviously, but then what? A bitter divorce? Months of apologies (from her) and bitter recriminations (from me)? Was I supposed to go out and find myself somebody else to fuck, which I had no interest in doing? How could our marriage possibly survive, not only the cheating, but all the lying that must have gone with it? And for how long now had it been going on?

I put my head in my hands, and I wept. After about an hour, I washed my face with cold water and quietly went back to bed.