Man Plans
"Man plans, and God laughs." Old Yiddish proverb.
Mike:
I had plans. I had dreams. Hell, I even had a secret savings account for the special around the world dream trip we were going to take in just a few years.
I watched my wife of 23 years blush deeply, then just continue to glow pink while she talked with a couple of co-workers during the annual employee get-together put on by her small college employer in mid-September. I was standing about 15 feet away from my wife at the time I spotted her reactions, ostensibly talking with another group of her co-workers.
Traci was talking with Rafe Searcy, whom I was introduced to earlier as a new English lit associate professor, and Janet Barnes, who worked in administration, as did Traci. Considering it was a Christian college, I doubted one of the other two told an off-color joke, meaning there was only one reason for Traci's coloring, especially her continued hue: she was very sexually aroused.
Now I possibly had an answer to a question I hadn't asked.
When you are married to someone for 23 years and together for 25, you get to know pretty much everything about that person, even if you are not paying much attention. If you are paying attention, well...
As a gambler would say it, I knew all of Traci's tells... her sexual tells. Ten minutes before, I thought I had a perfect marriage to a practically perfect woman. Now I was piecing together the puzzle of some of my wife's recent strange behavior, behavior that until that moment, I hadn't realized was strange.
Traci and I were best friends, lovers and parents of two great children. Unlike many couples, we could spend days together and never tire of each other's company. We could talk about anything from sex to history, and we shared laughter on many of those discussions. I had always joked that the best way to test marital compatibility was to take a long car ride with your potential spouse, and if you didn't kill that person, you should marry them immediately. Traci and I fit that profile to a "T."
In my opinion, our sex life was great. Yes, it had cooled off from the white-hot lust of our courtship and early marriage, but it had picked back up when the younger of our two daughters left for college a year earlier. Being empty-nesters for most of the year seemed to re-ignite our more lusty urges, and we alternated between making slow, passionate love and hard physical fucking three or four times a week.
Being gym rats, we were both still in good physical condition at 45. Traci had long blonde hair, big boobs and curves galore. Yes, she was probably 15 pounds heavier than before having our kids, but it was still put together well.
I was actually 20 pounds more muscular than when I graduated. Plus, I had 25 years of experience pleasing my wife with my dick, fingers and mouth.
Something changed two months ago, and since it mostly changed for the better, I wasn't going to look a gift horse in the mouth. I never gave it a second thought. While Traci was always a willing and active participant in our sex, she rarely initiated. Suddenly, she was initiating as much as I, and the physicality was through the roof. However, we weren't making love anymore, it was all fucking. It was great, but our focus had changed. I didn't question it then. In hindsight, that was a mistake.
Except when I was with her mingling, Traci and Rafe were never more than five feet apart during the outing. Now that I knew what I was looking at, I was able to determine that Traci's "glow" came on every time she was in proximity to Rafe, even when I was around. He would usually disappear quickly when I showed up, but as soon as Traci left my side, she would acquire a mingling partner.
I surreptitiously kept my eyes on the pair throughout the event, although I didn't have to try very hard. Traci seemed to forget everybody else when Rafe was around. I never once saw her look around, as if she might be checking to see where her husband was. Throughout the evening, she made sure to lightly touch him at every opportunity.
My emotions ran the gamut, starting at nervous and scared at first, to full-on rage after I was sure what I was seeing. What I was seeing sure looked like the end of my marriage.
I practically had to prise my wife away from Rafe at about 11. She didn't look happy when I showed up and told her it was time to go. For a brief moment her eyes flashed anger, then she dialed it back, but it wasn't quick enough for me not to have seen the look. Again, the 23 years of marriage thing.
Normally, the discussion on the evening would have flowed freely on the ride home, but I intentionally sat quietly, waiting for Traci to start. She seemed to be preoccupied for a while, staring out the passenger window until she realized that it was uncomfortably silent. Then she quickly jumped into the void with some inane conversation about how poorly dressed the college president's wife was. I wasn't very responsive.
"Wow. I'm really beat. I'm going to head up to bed," Traci said when we got home. "You coming?"
I wasn't sure if she was just trying to avoid talking the rest of the night or if she was trying to get me to go to bed so she could work out any frustration from being aroused all evening. Either way, I wasn't biting, and told her I was going to watch television for a while. I think she looked disappointed.
The next day was Saturday, so I was able to spend the whole day outside working in the yard, which gave me enough time to calm down and think things through. If Traci had any idea that things weren't golden in our universe, she did a good job of not showing it.
Things seemed a little strained around the house the next week. For my part, I tried to play it cool, but I used the Find A Phone app on my iPhone about six times each day, and in every instance Traci was where she was supposed to be, so to speak. At night, she seemed more than willing to have sex. She seemed a bit restrained the first night, but after that she went back to her recent pattern of physical fucking. As usual, I made sure to please her by providing her with several strong orgasms.
Nothing was changed the following Monday, but on Tuesday the Find A Phone app told me Traci went home at lunchtime. Fifteen minutes later, I quietly walked into my house and confirmed my marriage was toast. They weren't exactly being quiet up in our bedroom, so I didn't need to sneak up the stairs to confirm that Traci's partner was indeed Rafe.
"Ohhhh God, Rafe! Fuck me hard!" Traci screamed out at one point during the festivities. "Ohhh God, Baby! You are the best!"
That last bit REALLY hurt. It took all my self-restraint not to run into the bedroom and kill the bastard. I didn't go into the room, though, because I knew if I started beating on him, I wouldn't stop until I killed him. Neither one of them was worth a jail sentence.
******
Traci:
I am fully aware that saying I love my husband more than anything sounds self-serving, but it's completely true.
I'd loved him for a quarter of a century. I hoped to love him for at least another quarter of a century.
In the interest of full disclosure, though, I've also had to admit that I have a lover on the side: a lover who was so wonderful that I couldn't give him up, although I know sooner or later I would have to because it would be the only way I could keep my marriage.
Mike, my amazing husband, would be devastated when he found out I had a lover. That's why I was doing my best to hide my affair. However, I wasn't stupid enough to think I would never get caught. I knew the longer it went on, the more my odds went up of getting caught.
