Just Once: a Sequel

Kalimaxos published a Loving Wives story called "Just Once...If you don't mind." The author left the story open and encouraged readers to write their own version of it so I am taking that as permission to attempt a continuation.

I am breaking my own promise, I promised myself after continuing another writer's story for my first attempt at writing on here I wouldn't do it again until I had an original story done.

I highly encourage people to read the original story,

https://www.literotica.com/s/just-once-if-you-dont-mind

, It gives a much deeper understanding of the situation. Story begins at the end of Kalimaxos' story, where he is given a letter from his wife by the woman she agreed to let him fuck while she is away, and he has read her explanation.

It is a long story, in two parts, to make it more readable. I apologize for the length, there is a lot of dialog in it both in terms of Rick coming to grips with what happened and what he needs to do and how Marcy handles it. If you prefer short, to the point stories, you may want to skip this.

* * * * *

Rick had finished reading the letter, and by the end he was a combination of heartbroken at the cold way his wife had treated him ever since planning this trip, and at the tone of the letter. It was harsh, almost businesslike in its coldness, and it was not written by the woman he thought he knew.

This wasn't the warm woman he had fallen in love with, this was someone else, someone he really didn't know and wasn't sure he wanted to any more. Her attitude on the phone mirrored the letter, if anything it was worse. His own guilt over what happened with Deirdre tempered his response to the idea of her fucking another man, but the coldness of this, the way she tried to buy him off by using another woman, was just too much. At this point his marriage was hanging by a thread, and in his mind would take a miracle to save it.

Rick noticed Leslie was at the kitchen island filling her glass again.

"Are you OK?" she asked.

"I will be," he replied.

She nodded and came back with the bottle and her filled glass. Sitting next to Rick this time, she refilled his glass, and turned to look at him with those doe-like eyes he found attractive.

"So, Rick? What do we do?" Leslie looked at him, eagerly, like a puppy ready to play.

Rick managed a smile. "Leslie, you are beautiful beyond words but for now there can't be a we, not under these circumstances. You don't know how flattered I am you would find an old battered war-horse like me attractive. However, given the circumstances it wouldn't be fair to you and it wouldn't help the situation I face with my wife."

Leslie suddenly didn't look like the doe eyed innocent she had seemed a minute before. A look came across her face that was wise beyond its years and sympathetic. "I am not surprised, Rick, that you would say that. You are a decent guy, more than a decent guy, and finding out you weren't part of the deal with this, well, it was kind of obvious what your response would be. "

Rick nodded slightly. "Do me a favor and read the letter she left for me. I am curious what you think as a woman."

Leslie initially seemed to want to defer but then changed her mind and read the letter with full concentration. When she was done, she shook her head in anger.

"I can see you felt the way I did about this without your saying anything," Rick commented in response to the shift in her energy.

She spoke angrily. "She claimed to love you and I bought it but holy shit, this is cold. This sounds like the wife of a guy who tomcats his way through life...is that you?"

Rick's eyes glowed. "No! Not at all, there was one small slip years ago," and he explained about his tryst with Deidre in Iraq, how it just happened after a terror attack and how horrible he felt afterwards.

Leslie shook her head. "Look, Rick, as bad as that made you feel the fact is it was a slip, a very human one, and you immediately felt bad and shut it down. Marcy didn't even know for sure and yet she is doing what she is."

He sighed. "I try to convince myself of that but in the end it is hard to judge someone for what I have done."

She shook her head. "It doesn't even come close. This is the action of either someone who actually hates you or loves you and has some really deep shit. Look, Rick, whatever you think about my and Vincent's relationship there is nothing hateful in it. If tomorrow he told me we had to stop I would. If he wanted me to sleep with other men and humiliate him I couldn't do that to him. It may be different but it is loving and consensual. This is not consensual, it is is basically cuckolding you in a vicious way, it is designed to humiliate you whether or not you slept with me."

His stomach dropped. "The other problem is I have guilt because of the military life and the loneliness when I was deployed. There was at least one time when Marcy may have strayed and I never confronted her about it, figuring it was circumstances. It had to have been rough on her."

Leslie stepped over to him and grabbed his hand. "See, again, you are a decent person but Marcy signed on to being married to someone in the military. If she was having problems she should have talked to you about it, maybe gotten counseling. Look, if Vinnie came to me tomorrow and started giving me a hard time about sleeping with other men I wouldn't feel guilty, because he was part of it, we had both agreed. I would stop doing it of course but if he kept bringing up the past, it would be on him."

He shook his head. "I don't know, right now I am a combination of hurt, angry and numb all at the same time and trying not to blame myself for all this."

The other woman got mad. "Rick, stop it! Okay, so you got a blowjob and ate some chick out after you both were nearly laid to waste by an IED, it is not the same thing! If you had spent your time fucking everything from Taiwan to Timbuktu then you should be guilty. For this? This is on the bitch."

As hard as it was, he had to laugh. "Leslie, you have to be one of the more amazing people I have met, you are gorgeous as hell yet you in some ways have the soul of an old soldier."

She shook her head. "Nah, I don't look good in camo or olive green." She continued on, "Rick, this is going to be a rough time for you and I am going to suggest something that may stick in your craw. You don't have a lot of time to decide, you are going to have to decide to fish or cut bait in less than 6 weeks. Do you know someone you can talk to about this, maybe a counselor or therapist? I know military types hate shrinks but I am serious. Take it from me, you need it."

He looked at her. "Have you...?".

She nodded. "Yep, how do you think Vince and I have stayed together? When he first proposed an open marriage or rather me sleeping with other men, it shocked me. I was fine with having sex with him alone and it took a lot of work for us to understand each other and to figure out how we could make this work. Believe me, we had a lot of tense times and among other things I thought he was cheating on me and was trying to pull what Marcy did with you to make himself feel better by getting me to sleep with other men. I originally did it because it was his fantasy and of course I was curious, but it wasn't easy, initially I was furious at him for even mentioning it."

Rick shook his head. "I didn't even think there were counselors for that kind of thing, live and learn. I have to think about it but there is someone I know who I think may be able to help."

Leslie got up, smiled and gave him a kiss on the cheek. " Rick, you have my number, I am a good sounding board and if you do decide to drop the bitch...call me. Vince would be thrilled with an older military guy seducing me." She winked at him, it was said in a joking manner. "Seriously, whatever you decide, it is on her, don't beat yourself up and that is coming from a member of the all estrogen club." She patted his arm, and left.

After Leslie left Rick got to thinking. Of course there was nothing from Marcy, he shouldn't of expected it but deep down he hoped she would realize they were in trouble as a couple and reach out to him.

He thought about perhaps flying to Colombia and confronting Marcy and shithead but he quickly realized that would likely end up with him in some shitty jail there. Doctors without Frontiers certainly were going to avoid any issues involving a top neurosurgeon working with them. After all, Cardozo was a godsend to them in their view and he would be just an irate husband.

He poured himself a good tumbler full of bourbon and started thinking about what he should do. Being an analytical sort of guy he put together a mental list of things to do over the coming days with the assumption he would be splitting up with Marcy.

The first was he decided to check with an attorney and start the work towards filing for divorce. If in the end he decided not to file the only thing lost was the attorney fee and it was good to have it as an ace in the hole. Given their finances and family circumstances the split could be pretty much 50-50 with them either selling the house and splitting the proceeds or Marcy buying him out. They had their own credit cards and accounts so cancelling the joint ones would be easy to unwind and their retirement accounts would likely end up split as well.

He also decided to ferret out anything he could on Dr. Trey Cardozo, long experience said an enemy unknown is more dangerous than one you know. It wasn't so much that he cared about him as a threat to himself but rather to determine what role he played in all this and what his angle was. He assumed it was he was a guy who got off on having an older attractive woman be attracted to him and probably getting off on the fact she was married.

Most of his thoughts, though, were about Marcy and whether he thought their marriage could survive this. He was not really a black and white kind of guy and he actually felt pangs of guilt at some of what Marcy had said. Mostly that for years she sacrificed a normal family life for his career and that she lived with knowing he could be dead or hurt at any moment. He knew it had been a tough life and while she knew being married to a military person is hard going into it, he still did feel guilt and was willing to cut her some slack.

As much as he tried, though, he couldn't see how that justified her having an affair with Dr. Trey or throwing it in his face the way she did. He realized that he never, ever deliberately set out to hurt her and his one brief fling was just that and under difficult circumstances. Whereby Marcy's actions appeared to be designed to hurt and humiliate him as if it was a revenge fuck or something.

As he thought more his anger grew, there just was nothing that he could see that excused her cruelty. The letter troubled him for other reasons. At the end of the letter when she told him about meeting her at the hotel, she didn't seem all that cut up at the prospect of a the loss of her marriage if he didn't show up. She said she would mourn the relationship and what it had been as if it had been nothing but a summer romance that ended, not a 20 something year marriage she felt anguish at the thought of losing.

As an analyst he was taught to look at things and find a pattern and Marcy's writing and actions contradicted themselves. She claimed to love him and yet basically forced him to try and accept a massive breach of their relationship. Worse at the end of the letter she makes it sound like if their marriage ended she would mourn it like the loss of an old pet rather than something more tragic.

He got himself another bourbon, which could have been food color in water for all he tasted it. He thought about what Leslie had told him and he almost had a half laugh thinking that a woman whose own marriage was based around her having sex with other men could understand his relationship. He quickly realized though that this was his prejudice talking and he shouldn't dismiss what Leslie said or her and her experience.

While he could never totally understand her relationship with Vince, he could not fathom how her husband got off on it, he nonetheless could tell from the way Leslie talked that she wasn't lying about her love for Vince and that she would do anything to protect her husband. He assumed that would include her giving up the lifestyle if it was hurting him or their marriage. He could tell sincerity and it was the one thing missing from Marcy's actions. Leslie served as a proper foil, ironic because her relationship was so out of the norm, because it was obvious how much she loved her husband and would do anything not to hurt him or their marriage.

He also realized she was right about another thing in that this was too tangled for him to sort out himself. The kids were not an option and he didn't think his friends would understand, they would likely just tell him dump the bitch and move on.

Rick did have the reluctance many in the military have with asking for help. They are taught to be self-reliant and to overcome. However it is also a wise person who realizes they are in over their head and in this situation the potential to drown was huge. He realized he didn't have the luxury of time, that in less than 6 weeks he had to decide what to do with a marriage of over 20 years and deal with all the tangled emotions around the situation as well as the logistical ones.

That night he did something he couldn't remember ever doing; He fell asleep while crying.

The next morning he woke up with a head that felt like it was made of dried up old clay and a mouth that tasted like sour patch kids that had been marinated in Ripple wine 3 years past its due date. He didn't think he had drank that much but when he looked at the bourbon bottle he realized someone had taken it from nearly full to almost empty. Since it was the poltergeist's night off, it must have been him.

He got up with a groan, and managed to get upstairs to where he took a shower and got ready for his day. As he had been doing frequently he checked email and his phone but the radio silence with Marcy continued.

As he was shaving, he looked in the mirror and said, "Is this what they mean, that every day is the first day of the rest of your life? I just hope they aren't all as shitty as this one."

He called into the office and talked to his boss, explained the situation and his boss understood and told him to take the week off. His boss told him they could re-evaluate at the end of the week if more time was needed.

After breakfast he turned his running list from the prior day into action. He called a lawyer he knew and was able to get an appointment later in the day. Just calling the lawyer took a lot of effort on his part even though he knew it wasn't irrevocable.

He did the other things he thought he should do, he took out half of their savings and checking accounts and opened another one in his name and he cancelled their joint credit cards. Marcy had her own cards and she had her own bank account, besides the half in their joint account, so he wasn't worried she wouldn't have funds if she needed it. As angry as he was he wasn't looking to burn bridges yet.

He also looked up local real estate brokers as he realized he couldn't stay in the house if they broke up. In taking this step it became apparent that in his mind and emotions the default position had shifted from staying married to ending it, something he had not felt even as late as last night. He mused that it is true that when you sleep on something you often find the answer.

The hard part was going to keep leaving that as the default since he realized he still loved Marcy, still loved being married and that it would be easy to take the path of least resistance even if it wasn't the better one for him.

He put in a call to Dr. Angela Bassett, formerly Major Angela Bassett of the Army Medical corps. He and Marcy had gotten to know her on one of his stateside deployments and became friends with her. She lived in the next town over now, having since gotten out of the military. He called with some trepidation, not that Angela wouldn't be glad to hear from him but rather because there was a part of him that was afraid of what would come out of it if he talked with her.

She did in fact seem glad to hear from him. "Rick! We haven't talked in a long time, how are you doing? How is Marcy?"

She must have heard him exhale when she said Marcy. "Uh oh, Rick, I am sorry, is this about you and Marcy?"

Rick responded slowly. "Yep, I am afraid it is. I really need someone to talk to about this, someone I can trust, and your name came to the head of the list."

She sighed. "Rick, you know it isn't a good idea for me to work with someone I know personally. I could refer you to someone else if you want."

"Angela, I am not really looking for treatment per se, I just want to be able to bounce things off of you and see what you think about things I am experiencing. I realize it may still be somewhat frowned upon but I don't trust people easily and I trust you as both a friend and also quite frankly, as a woman who has a shared background with me in the military, to try and sort out my feelings. Honestly I don't think a conventional approach would work given the time I have and who I am."

Angela's response took a little time. "Are you and Marcy separated, Rick?"

He half snorted. "You could say that. She is on a trip to South America with a medical team and she basically is shacking up with one of the doctors and the situation is ugly."

Angela made a sympathetic sound. "I am sorry, Rick, I am really surprised, Marcy didn't seem like the type to do that. I always got the feeling she really loved you. I tell you what, tonight why don't you come to my place? You bring the Pizza and the wine and we can talk."

Rick laughed. "You haven't changed much, I would take you out to anywhere you wanted to go, and you want pizza and wine."

She laughed with him. "That's me, a cheap date. I will see you tonight at 6," and gave him her address.

He spent the rest of the day inventorying things around the house he wanted and didn't want. This was a further step towards walking away from the marriage and he noticed there was less hesitation, less guilt with each step he took.

He next called up an old friend, an ex spook like himself, who had his own security firm. He asked his friend to look into Dr. Trey Cardozo. He also asked his friend to check more closely into what Marcy had been doing while he was in Korea. He figured it was time to find out the truth about his marriage and he had the gut feeling that Korea was a key to understanding this mess.

He realized he was falling into old habits here, he was getting background to fill in the details before making an assessment and it made him feel better as this was territory he knew. It didn't make him feel better overall as he still was in deep sorrow at the thought that this was the end of 20 some odd years of a relationship. Despite his change in feelings there still was an element deep down that didn't want it to end.

That afternoon he was able to take a look at some apartments in the time before his lawyer's appointment and found a condo sublet that suited him. It was conveniently located and also was gated in case the fallout from his marriage turned nuclear.

By just before the time of his lawyer's appointment he realized had fallen into another old habit, he hadn't eaten; when he was busy he often forgot to eat. He grabbed a sandwich and a can of soda and ate it on a park bench near his appointment. The weather was nice and it was pleasant to watch people go back and forth, especially the younger and prettier ones.