Again I need to thank blackrandl1958 for her editing and encouragement.
It was a joke. It was always a joke. A fucking joke. For the 17 years we were together, including 15 years married, it was a joke. Hell, many of our friends knew it was a joke.
"You know one of these days, I'm going to grab one of these guys off the dance floor and take him home," Traci would say to me on nights we would go dancing.
I hated dancing. She knew that. All of our friends knew that. Yet at least once a month, our group of eight to 10 would wind up at a dance club. I would go out on the floor for two dances, then head back to our table. My wife would then spend much of the rest of the night on the floor dancing with the other four guys in our group, other women and yes, with my approval, other men from outside our group. As long as the other men were respectful and no one guy dominated her dance card, I had no problem with her dancing with other men.
Although... I felt lately she had been ramping up the contact. She seemed to be letting her partners get a little freer with their hands, and I thought she was tweaking me by dancing a little closer to her partners. I mentioned it several times over a few months, but she and her friends would smirk at me like it was some sort of game.
"You know one of these days, I'm going to grab one of these guys off the dance floor and take him home," she'd repeat, sometimes winking at me while I'd shake my head in aggravation.
She'd turn me inside out sometimes with that shit, but I completely trusted Traci. She was my other half, my wife, my lover, my soul mate, the mother of my two kids. At 39 and still a head-turner, she could be a flirt, for sure. But ultimately, before we made our vows, we had agreed that we were all in on fidelity.
Until, apparently, she wasn't.
******
The meal at Mario's, as usual, was very good. All five couples were in attendance. We skipped the desserts and headed over to Givenchy, a fairly high-end bar/dance club that catered to a crowd that was probably in the range of 30 to 50. We had been there several times in the past and always had a good time.
We got a large round table in a corner of the club and we all ordered drinks. The conversation was flowing for a while until the live band started up at about 9 PM. At that point, all the women in our group rose en masse, which meant we guys had to get up and follow them to the dance floor.
I stumbled through my usual two dances. I had to admit Traci looked fantastic in her short, low-cut club dress as she bounced around on the floor. I knew I was a lucky man. As the second song ended, Bob, one of the guys in our group, slid a few feet over to where Traci and I were dancing and gave my shoulder a small shove, effectively giving him my spot in front of my wife. We both chuckled as the next song started and I turned back toward our table.
It was a pretty normal night, with the women all coming and going from the table to dance with various people, including their husbands occasionally, throughout the evening. The women wouldn't always come back to the table before dancing with a new partner, which wasn't out of the ordinary, but what was out of the ordinary was the fact that my wife hadn't been back for at least a half-hour, and at first glance I couldn't find her on the crowded floor.
In the five years or so we had been going out together as a group, there had been only a handful of times where some overzealous patron needed to be "advised" that he was crossing the line with one of our women. Usually, the husband of the woman did the advising, although we were usually all on alert in case someone was to get out of hand.
Dave Allen was the only other guy at our table, so I leaned over to him and told him I needed to find Traci. I shook my head when he asked if I'd like company walking around.
I found my wife and her dance partner within five minutes, because the first place I headed was to the far end of the dance floor from where our table was. A slow song was playing, and the two were wrapped around each other... like a pair of lovers. I had never before seen my wife dancing that close to another man, and my immediate reaction was rage, which was probably not my smartest move considering this guy looked to be a Norse god. He had to be 6-4, 250 pounds of blonde sculpture pretending to be human.
Reacting without thinking, I walked straight up to the couple and grabbed his arm, telling him to let go of my wife. He also reacted without thinking, shoving my 6-foot, 180-pound frame hard into the couple next to me. I bounced off the guy next to me before being slammed to the floor by a huge white fist to my face.
Two minutes later, we were both surrounded by other people, a bouncer and a manager. Someone was holding a towel filled with ice to my swollen, painful left cheekbone.
"Big bastard had his hands all over my wife," I grumbled to the manager when he asked me what happened. "I don't care if this guy is soccer star Erling Haaland on steroids, that can't happen."
The manager, Erik, knew our group because we were there occasionally. I could tell he felt bad about the incident, and offered to comp drinks for our table. I thanked him but turned down the drink offer for Traci and myself because we were going home to have what I was sure was going to be a very deep discussion.
I went back to our table and said good-night to our friends, all of whom looked shaken up. I nodded to Traci, pointed toward the door and followed her outside.
I waited until we were driving home before I started in on my wife.
"What the fuck was that all about, Traci?" I screamed. "You two were practically fucking on the dance floor, he had his hand squarely on your ass and it looked like you were jacking his dick through his pants! Would you have fucked him in the bathroom if I had gotten there five minutes later?"
"I've been telling you forever I was going to take one of these guys home someday because you wouldn't dance with me," she said in a tone I took to be as serious as a heart attack.
"That's been a joke forever, Traci. Everybody knows it's just a joke. You know damn good and well I would never let you carry that out," I snarled.
"What if I finally decided I didn't want it to be a joke anymore? What if I finally decided I wanted it to be real?" she asked.
That was one way to get me to shut up. I never saw that coming. We drove the rest of the way home in complete silence.
Our kids, who sit up and stream movies while we go out, were surprised to see us walk in the door at just about straight up midnight, with neither one of us looking happy with the evening. They took the hint, said their good-nights and headed up to their rooms after first asking me how I bruised my face. Needless to say, I didn't answer the question of the bruise.
Twenty minutes later, both of us were dressed in casual clothes and seated in our family room, the room farthest from the kids' rooms upstairs.
"What's going on in your mind, Traci? Where did tonight come from?" I asked quietly.
She wrung her hands and pursed her lips. She looked to my left, then to my right, but never directly at me.
"Josh, you do remember I'm going to turn 40 in just a few months? I'm not getting any younger, and I know things are going to start going south pretty soon. Right now, I can still make almost any man hard just by smiling at them. I just want to take advantage of my wow power one more time before I grow old. You know I haven't had sex with anyone else since we started dating. This wouldn't be anything more than something physical. Pure lust, no love involved, no emotional connection."
I suddenly realized my balls were aching like somebody had kicked me.
"So you would have taken that big boy home with you, or gone to his place, if I hadn't interrupted you?" I said hesitantly.
She colored instantly.
"That big boy... really
is
