Janey Yle's Brief Affair

Author's Notes: This is a cheating wife story - BTBers, please read someone else's submission. If your taste in stories are for hot sex or are of the 'strange car in the driveway' genre, you won't like my submission.

For those who do read my stuff, thanks. Thanks also for private feedback and, for some of you, marking my stories a favorite. The actual category of this story should be 'adult fiction.' I state my POV and all errors are mine alone. Thanks to Literotica for this platform.

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Janey Kyle's Brief Affair

"...The more I love, the more I am afraid

That in your eyes, I may not see forever..."

(Tony Bennet Lyrics)

It was late morning in early spring and the sun shined on Janey Kyle, warming her as she sat on an almost comfortable park bench. She felt relaxed now after the morning chill. The black crows had formed a choral society in the trees over her head. She watched the squirrels running up and down the trunks while tiny birds hopped freshly mowed grasses searching for insects. Janey snickered to herself, "Some creatures are already busy preparing for their future - while I am busy throwing mine away." The 'Blahs' that had attacked Janey while cooking her solitary breakfast this morning were less intense now but remained unrelenting, and would not go away even in this idyllic park setting. She had power walked and then had sat looking at her cell phone, whose screen was blank, as if she were looking for a meaning to her life. No one called and there was no one for her to call. A giant tear formed on each cheek and had begun their roll downward. At this moment she felt alone in the universe.

Janey put the phone away and then opened her sketch book and began outlining an unusual elephant ear leaf she had found during her walk. It was such a beautiful leaf until she studied it for a moment to prepare to capture it in an eye-catching pencil sketch.

Joggers, hikers, bikers and stroller-pushers moved along the sidewalk four feet in front of her. Two of the males slowed way down to study the shapely female sitting on the park bench - making it a point to pass as close as possible hoping in vain to make eye contact. The men noticed that she was a good looking 30ish woman dressed in sports clothing suitable for the morning's chilled air. But, Janey barely was aware of the passers-by as she was now sketching the detail of her one-of-a-kind elephant ear leaf as it lay beside her. She smiled, liking what she saw, as her art mini-project neared completion.

She felt better now as she stood to look at her sketch from a distance. This light feeling was opposite the heavy one when she had first sat down. Art was her therapy, and she often drew with her pencil to calm her confused and troubled mind, rather than just sit and cry.

There was an aging senior lady (Janey learned later that she was 93) with deep lines in her face who routinely pushed a grocery store cart loaded with bags of empty soda and other trashed drink cans to the nearby grocery store for redemption. These two nodded 'hello' in recognition to each other, routinely. During the winter both women's routines were still to wrap up while the senior citizen redeemed her drink cans and Janey sketched on certain Sundays - often holding her pencil with a gloved hand. The two hadn't spoken but got used to seeing each other, and neither had given the other further thought.

Today, Janey heard a little old lady's voice say, "Would you consider a little darker hue in the upper half of the leaf because that part is in the shade while the remainder is not?"

Janey looked at her sketch for a moment and then at the person who interrupted her and said, "Actually, you are right." The senior walked over prompted by the young lady's smile and began talking. That question provoked about 15 minutes of art-talk between the two ladies.

The 30ish lady said after a while, "My name is Janey Kyle, what is yours?

The senior replied in a clear, lucid (but weak) voice, "Lillian Felt, glad to meet you finally after our passing by you all these months."

Janey asked, "You must be going to the Kroger machines to redeem your cans so may I treat you to coffee and pastry in their food court after you finish - say in a half hour?" She watched the lady smile and shake her head, 'yes.'

As soon as Lillian sat down to the hot tea and bagel that her new found friend had purchased and placed there for her later, the young woman said, "I teach elementary school art for the county's five schools. There is a renown artist with your name who appears in about three of the children's textbooks I have used over the years..."

The old lady forcefully interrupted and said, "Guilty," as she produced an old crumpled business card showing 'Lillian Felt' as an artist associated with a French Art School. She continued, "That was long ago, however, so thank you for remembering."

Janey said, "My children's father will be bringing them home in a few hours after their weekend bi-weekly child visitation with him is over. So visitation Sundays are always a down day for me. To fight the Blahs, I just walk in the park and afterward sketch to calm myself."

Lillian said, "Good therapy, young lady. I live with a great grandson, Lucas, and his wife in their housekeeper cottage. Most of my progeny visit at least one or two times each year and they are all waiting for me to die so they can divvy up my estate - except for Lucas who has already made his fortune. I collect cans as a means to keep busy - rather than to make a living."

After chatting, both women realized that they lived a short distance from each other and had found an instant friend in the other person. They began talking about art at first and then life, in general, getting to know each other when Janey's phone dinged indicating a text received. She said, "Excuse me, that's probably my ex-...," and after glancing at her cell and standing she continued, "Lillian, how nice to meet you and I must leave as my two youngsters will arrive home in about 30 minutes weak from hunger. May we meet again in this food court two Sundays from today, Nine A.M.?"

Lillian said, "Yes!This meeting has made my day, Ms. Kyle, and yes, I look forward to meeting you, and I will buy the tea next time."

!!

Richard Kyle hugged his youngsters 'goodbye' after delivering them to their Mom, Janey, and they flew out of the car. He then quickly returned to his car so his longing and desire for his ex-wife would not visibly show in his crotch. By habit, he asked himself, "I wonder how many men she is fucking now? Dear God, I ache to hold her in my arms, but I wouldn't take a cheating wife back even if she wanted me. But, I don't like this empty, aching feeling that haunts me after leaving the bed of my you'll-do fuck buddy!"

Richard and Janey had met in College - Janey was a Fine Arts major while Richard was near graduation as an EE. Both were coming off previous passionate affairs that left each looking for someone, and later they considered themselves lucky for having found each other. Their love was instant, red hot and, so it seemed at the time, forever. Janey became pregnant with their ten-year-old at the time just before her graduation ceremonies. The civil wedding that followed was small with close family and friends only in attendance and happened after Richard had started in a position a technical recruiter found for him following earlier graduation. While Janey was pregnant, she had earned her teacher's certificate and found her first teaching job at a parochial school in a poor diocese. It was with meager pay, and the diocese didn't have the funds for a robust art program. Two years later the second child came, and she landed her current job with the county school system when she went back to work.

Janey drove to the five school locations in the county and spent classroom and counseling time with her young students as their art teacher. She was in a comfortable situation during the next three years. In time, at one of the campuses, Janey and a School Principal became very close friends. On the day of the week she traveled to that school, she began to dress better than the other days.

Janey and the Principal began to spend more time together because the image he portrayed to her was of a man lost and in need of someone to help him build his self-esteem. Their friendship morphed into a secret affair though she started out, honestly, with her only trying to 'help' him. After they had stolen away for seeking privacy the first time, it was pure lust that drove them together on that day of work for the next week.

Janey felt crushed with guilt after making the first trip home from a no-tell-motel. Her circling, rationalistic thoughts were usually, "I love Richard, but here I am fucking around. Mister E. Does nothing for me but getting it on is everything to him. It is as if he has a fixation on me and couldn't even have sex except with me. Fucking to help someone get a grip is an insanity, and I must stop this nonsense."

Giving credence to the idiom, 'Hell has no fury like that of a scorned woman,' another teacher, but who was single, had been the previous lover of the mendacious Principal. Unfortunately for the head man, the scorned teacher still carried a torch for him after he abruptly ended their school term long affair.

His Rejected Ex- then accidentally learned about the Principal's affair with the married art teacher after overhearing the conversation of two lesbian faculty members in the Teacher's Lounge that were popular between classes. The two kept up with the hated Principal's love life because for them it was great sport.

So, the scorned lady was plenty pissed off, but at least she now understood why Mister E. had unceremoniously dropped her. So, the Discard had followed the Principal to their motel and then saw the art teacher drive up 15 minutes later, and go into the Principal's motel room. She snapped a photo of the two exiting it an hour or so later, and another of them kissing goodbye on the back row of the seedy motel parking area. The rejected lady was on fire with anger and vowed revenge after witnessing the two lovers kissing goodbye.

Unfortunately for the Principal, the scorned teacher had family friends in high places in school board politics. So, she launched a ruckus over the art teacher and the Principal's affair. The threatened publicity led to the school board's dismissal of the Principal midway in the term year during a closed-door session. The scorned woman's attorney didn't report the name of the art teacher - or that of the head man's previous lovers - because it would publicize his client's affair she had had with him. But, wanting to do something to get back at the woman who had 'stolen her man,' she made a plan.

The scorned teacher sat in a Peet's Coffee at a table across from the Art Teacher's husband, Richard Kyle. After several minutes of chatting with the impatient Cuckold, she said, "Here are proceedings of the school board where they summarily dismissed Principal Edwards for conduct that would jeopardize the good name of the school district. I happen to have a picture of him and your wife coming out of a motel room and here is one where both have the temerity to kiss each other goodbye in public." Richard had only paid half-way attention until he saw the snapshot and then became livid with anger.

!!

Richard Kyle sat in his car today two years later, outside of the children and ex-wife's home with a phone to his ear. Still upset as he always was when he took the eight and ten-year-olds home, the Cuckold Ex- was pretending to be in a phone conversation, but the reality was that he remembered their breakup while trying to get a grip on his emotions. He recalled the event of two years ago:

/////////////

Janey, "Here is a photo of your fucking around taken by a peer of yours, and I want a divorce," as he placed the enlarged photo on the table in front of her.

She froze, and her face turned white, and the lady appeared about to faint. The room began spinning, and the distraught housewife wavered as she held on to the table. Richard jumped up and brought her a cup of water.

After she finally regained composure, she said, "It's not what you think, Richard. My initial impression of the man was that he had balloon-sized personal problems with his self-esteem. I became his friend to try to help him - you know how I go out of my way to help anybody I can.

"This photo was snapped after our second visit to the seedy motel. We then went to a cafeteria to lunch. Principal Edwards said to me, 'Janey, I am a pathological liar, and none of what I told you is true. I ache to get back on stage where I was a star in college productions. I don't like children and hate my job, and you are the fourth teacher I have taken to our favorite motel.' I almost threw up in the restaurant, Richard, but didn't and walked away from the man forever.

"When I returned to that campus a week later, the buzz in the teacher's lounge was about the board dismissing Edwards. I was pleasantly surprised that no one connected me with the former Principal. So I thought the one-time event was out of my life and over forever, and I could spend all my future energy making you happy until you presented this photo.

"Again, Richard, he and the sex meant nothing, and I love only you - only once did I foolishly feel 'naughty' in that I was 'getting some strange cock' like some of the other teachers talk about day in and day out. I plead with you to get past this and let's go on with our lives together - we love each other and desperately need to focus on educating our children in our world as civilization collapses around us. I love you, and I never stopped, and that one-time affair meant and means nothing. If you reconsider, there will be no more secret affairs - or secret anything - on my part, as that is the lesson I have learned - along with being very careful when I set out to help someone. And, that is my promise if you can just get passed this."

Richard said, "No, Janey. I insist on a divorce. Cheating spouses, of all stripes, disgust me and collectively, they are a tiny part of civilization's wrecking-ball. Will you negotiate terms with me now so that we can have an uncontested, rubber stamped divorce?"

She had sat for five minutes willing herself to get a grip. After considering all of her options, she then had agreed. After two hours of negotiations, Janey and Richard had hammered out the terms of a divorce and penciled the results on an artist's sketch pad. Janey copied the sheet and gave the original to her husband. She had said after signing the sketch pad sheet, "I repeat, I thank you are making a mistake, Richard, but it's an oft-made one if it makes you feel better to be like Mister Everyman. As a sidebar, in the future, when you use your workshop in the back yard, please enter from the alley. But, could the children spend some extra time with you there ever so often? Their visiting would be in addition to the twice-monthly weekend visits."

"Yes, Janey, I would love to do that and will install a green light on the back of the shop when I am there and would welcome their visit." Her husband was distraught on the inside because their relationship was over, although he displayed a stone face on the outside. He began assembling his personal items as an excuse to leave the table and help to retain his composure. While she watched him pack Janey was also screaming in anguish inside of her, "What have I done?"

/////

!!

Two years later the estranged couple had established a routine where visitation was on alternate weekends, though sometimes the kids spent time with their Dad in his shop as well. This arrangement was the best possible one for Richard, under the circumstances, because his co-worker roommate's children's visitation never conflicted with his own children's visitation. Sometimes the ten-year-old would hang out with their Dad doing his homework and trying to learn something about what his Dad was doing while Richard worked in his shop. The estranged Dad would finish a task and lock his workshop, and then deliver either or both children to the back door of his former home before he drove down the alley to the street and back to his apartment.

Every day they came face to face, the couple desperately wanted to talk to each other, but neither would break the ice and initiate a chatting session. Their conversations were limited to the children, and only in rare instances, did they discuss a topic unrelated to them. Silence, however, was the norm when they happened to be together.

!!

Twelve Sundays later after Janey met Lillian in the park - their sixth meet-up - the two ladies had found a kindred Soul in each other and became laid back and comfortable around the other - Janey even began to laugh sometimes. Lillian shocked her friend today and asked, "Janey, why are you so unhappy?"

The question hit the young woman with an aching heart like a fist. Thinking how to respond, the former Cheater considered protesting that she was happy, but then privately concluded, "I can not fake anything in the presence of this woman." She then said, "I want my husband back, and he is not interested because I had an affair and he divorced me when he found out - he is of the old school that holds for a woman, 'once a whore, always a whore.'"

"Why do you pine for your ex-, why not someone else, Janey?"

She said, "I have tried several times. For example, I had a typical dining and dancing date last night, and the Stud didn't even have the savvy or the desire to find out who I am or what I did, except that I am a teacher. He could only talk Movies and TV and news broadcasts when he wasn't talking about himself. Ha ha. When I told him some detail of what an art teacher does for a living, I may as well have said that I built castles on the moon. Then he wanted to go to my home and drink a bottle of wine and make out - yes, on our second time to be alone privately. What happened though is that after he had stopped in front of my house, I said, 'This is goodbye! You don't need to walk me to the door. Goodnight.'

Last night was my final meeting with him, and the five other men I dated before him over the past year or so that I have been dating were measurably more disgusting. Moreover, I paid big money for a reputable firm - who advertises nationally - to find me a wonderful man...ha ha, ha. It hasn't happened. So I have concluded that there are no such men for me."

Lillian said, "Well, I certainly can relate to the slim-pickings in the 'meat' market, except now it's much worse than when I was young. Two generations of progressive education have completed its mutilation of the minds of students - so that they become 'terminus anus' types unless they educate themselves and ignore the guidance of the school system. I am quite convinced that your ex-husband feels like a piece of feces after he crawls off a 'fuck-buddy,' as you called his current robot. Have you approached him about reconciliation?"

"Lillian, I may as well talk to the wall, because of his set-in-concrete mindset."

The senior replied, "Hmm. That may or may not be. You said Richard takes the children to the Museum of Fine Arts, and you two share login ids and passwords for the same music source. You are still so close in world view, but yet so far apart. And, all he has got to look forward to is another wet fuck of a body with a poorly programmed and thus muddled mind."

Janey interrupted, "Why is the shared view of the world with one's spouse so important, Lillian?"

She replied, "You two share the same view of the world in the same way, and that is priceless, let me assure you. After sex, both partners have to share what is important and live with each other and with themselves - and an artist can not do that talking football. My first husband took me back after five years, and I became the best partner I could imagine. He did this because he grasp just how important to the world view compatibility is to both. Until the day he went to sleep at 92, never to wake up again, I thanked my lucky stars for him."