Thank you to Nora Fares for her editing skills.
Most people don't have any idea about how long forever is. They think it's a concept like infinity.
I know that's not true. Forever for me lasted 15 years, two months, 27 days, and some odd hours.
It ended much the same way it started: with my wife, Traci, looking lovingly into her partner's eyes before a passionate kiss. The one difference, however, is that I was that partner the first time, and the kiss came right after I asked her to be mine forever on the night I gave her an engagement ring. This time I was a mere witness in a restaurant two towns away from where we live, as she and an apparently new lover stared adoringly into each other's eyes, then leaned in for a most passionate kiss.
How I came to be in the same restaurant as the pair doesn't matter. It was obvious from the fact that they had traveled an hour away from our hometown that they were taking precautions not be seen by anyone who knew them. My first reaction when I saw them was one of curiosity, then quickly changed to shock, disgust, and anger as the scene played out in front of me. I immediately thought about getting up and slugging her date, but then again I had always been taught to never strike a woman. So I just sat there, completely dumbstruck.
Since the two of them only had eyes for each other and apparently felt safe they wouldn't be seen by anyone who knew them, they took their time eating, playing kissy-face occasionally. I ate very slowly and had a dessert, so I watched them throughout their meal. My feelings alternated between rage and helplessness. When they finished, they got up, took each other's hand and left.
I sat there in silent rage and felt like the biggest clueless schmuck in the whole world. I had been married to Traci for more than 14 years, and we had been an exclusive couple for two years before that, yet I never had a clue she was bisexual. She had never looked twice at another woman that I ever saw and never gave me any hints in any conversation we ever had. I thought -- apparently way wrong -- that I knew her inside and out, and we were going to grow old together someday.
But the fact that she was bisexual wasn't even a blip on the radar to the anger I was feeling about her apparently cheating on me. Another man, a woman ... it didn't make any difference ... she was giving her love away to somebody else ... and that's not what we had promised each other all those years ago when she accepted my ring. Forever was ... forever. It was supposed to be timeless. Who knew that some forevers had an expiration date?
I paid my bill, got in my car, and drove home slowly. I had a lot to figure out.
Traci wasn't expecting me to be home for another day from my sales trip for work, but I had gotten lucky and was able to see a couple of tough calls early. So I was heading home on a Friday evening rather than Saturday afternoon as was the original plan. I had been gone since Monday morning, and not only did I miss Traci and the kids, but it was not usual for Traci and me to go more than three days in a row without sex, so I was feeling some pent-up energy that needed to be released ... at least until I saw what happened at the restaurant.
I was an hour outside of our hometown and I easily could have just driven straight through, but since I was ahead of schedule, I was just going to grab supper at the restaurant to take a break from windshield eyes. And the rest, as they say, is history.
Our kids are 12 and 10, so they were old enough to be left alone for an evening if Traci wanted to go out, so I had no problem with that. I wondered, however, if they knew what was going on because neither of them had ever said anything to me about Traci doing anything different. Maybe they were just as much in the dark as I was, I wondered. Either way, I knew they weren't going to be happy with what was coming next.
Yeah, I did the usual introspection bit on the ride home: what had I done wrong, how long had this been going on, etc. At least I didn't have to worry about her lover having a bigger dick than me, I chuckled to myself. Gallows humor.
I walked in the door at 9, and Traci still wasn't home yet. Lisa, the 12-year-old, and Ariel, the 10-year-old, gave me a big, happy greeting, and I watched for but didn't see them being nervous or hesitant about me being home early. Such was not the case for Traci when she walked in about two hours later. She obviously had seen my car in the garage and done some straightening up, because I noticed there was about a two-minute lag from when the garage door went up until Traci appeared in the kitchen, not looking quite as happy as she had the last time I saw her.
"What are you doing here today? I thought the trip wasn't over until Saturday?" she asked me first thing with a slightly worried look on her face.
"Well, I'm happy to see you, too," I said, making a big deal out of her greeting.
"Well, had I known you were coming home early, I would have fixed us a nice meal," she continued as I watched the vein in her forehead twitch slightly. "I ordered in a pizza for the kids, and Kate and I just grabbed a vino and a sandwich downtown. You remember Kate, from my office, I've told you about her before?"
She didn't quite look me in the eyes as she lied to my face.
"Oh yeah, you've talked about her before. Blonde, big boobs, has a string of guys falling all over her."
"The very same," Traci said. "I swear that woman could get a football team hard just by walking in the room."
"And get a married woman how wet?" I wondered to myself.
Kate was a looker and had the boobs of a goddess. She was about 26 and started working at the insurance company where Traci worked last year. The two had become instant friends, and obviously, somewhere down the line ...
At 39, Traci could still turn more than a few heads. She was also a blonde, with a nice rack and curves in all the right places. She was only about 10 pounds heavier than when we first met, and it was still a great package. And at least until recently, it had been my package exclusively.
Despite the troubled look on her face, Traci played it cool. For my part, I was barely hanging on to cool, so I just told her I was tired and was heading for bed. She gave me a very quick peck on the lips as I walked past her and headed up the stairs. I may have been mistaken, but I was pretty sure I tasted pussy on her lips.
I went to bed, but I didn't sleep. The kids had gone to bed before me, so when I heard quiet talking a few minutes later, I knew Traci was talking to Kate on her phone. It was a short conversation, and a few minutes later I heard Traci climb into the shower in our master bath --another first. Either I had spooked her enough that she was off her game and wasn't being quite as careful as she had been, or she thought I was asleep and wouldn't know it. My heart sank even lower.
Between kid stuff and home chores, I didn't have to interact too much with Traci for the rest of the weekend. She wanted to go out for dinner as a family on Saturday night, but I said I wasn't in the mood and just walked out of the room, effectively ending that conversation. She had to know something was up because it's rare for me to be rude to her.
Monday morning at work I asked my boss for some time off that afternoon for some personal problems I was having. John had gotten divorced about 10 years ago and remarried about five years ago, so he at least had a clue that something was not right in the Mason household. Considering how well my sales trip had gone last week, he didn't even flinch when I asked for the time off, but as I was getting ready to leave his office, he handed me a business card. It was the card for his divorce attorney.
"I'm sorry, Ron. I always thought you and Traci were a good match and were going to go the limit," he said.
"Yeah, me, too," I responded. "I appreciate the thought."
With my boss as a reference, I got in to see the attorney in two days. Although she could have been much more business-like since she's probably done this several hundred times, she was very solicitous of my feelings and gently led me along. She was surprised when I said I didn't want to hire a private eye to get solid evidence of Traci cheating.
"I saw the light in her eyes," I told the attorney. "Besides, since this is a no-fault state, there doesn't seem to be much reason. The only real advantage it might gain me is if she is going to be a hard-ass about visiting the girls, but I'm pretty sure that's not going to happen."
Despite how hard I tried, I just didn't have any spirit around Traci and the girls when I was home. Traci apparently figured it out, I guess because we didn't talk much. I think the girls knew something was going on by how quiet we were. I gave Traci every opportunity to talk, but she never took it.
The shit hit the fan when Traci was served at work the following week. Call it petty on my part if you will, but I wanted Traci to experience a small fraction of the pain I had been feeling. I'm guessing she was served at 11:03 in the morning, because at 11:05 my phone started blowing up. I ignored all 15 calls from her, then I ignored a few from phones I didn't recognize, figuring she was trying to reach me by borrowing a friend's phone. Amazingly, I felt energized for the first time since I caught her and Kate, and I had a really good afternoon selling on the road.
Traci's car was already in its place in the garage when I pulled in at 5:30. She made her presence known rather quickly.
"You lowlife bastard! You don't even have the balls to confront me face-to-face, but you have me served in front of my friends and co-workers," Traci screamed at me as soon as I shut down my car's engine.
I didn't say a word until I got into the house and put my stuff down. The girls were in the family room, judging by the sounds coming out of the big screen.
"I thought I was being very considerate. I wanted to make sure you were served with your lover around so she could comfort you," I calmly said.
"You know about Kate? But how could you? H-h-how? We were so careful."
"Not careful enough, apparently," I responded. "Just tell me two things: how long, and when were you going to tell me?"
"Uhh ... six months maybe," she squeaked out. "We were going to tell you soon, soon."
Traci's attitude had shifted from venomous to gut-punched in under 30 seconds. She staggered over to the kitchen table and sat in a chair.
I walked over to my liquor cabinet above the fridge and grabbed my bottle of Buffalo Trace bourbon. I poured myself a double and sat in the chair opposite hers.
If looks could kill, she would have died within the first two seconds as I glared at her. For her part, she couldn't lift her eyes from the table.
"How did I not know you were bisexual after all this time?" I said quietly.
"Because I didn't know myself until recently," she responded. "I just sort of found out little by little. I swear to you, this wasn't planned. It just happened."
