Chapter 1 – A little bit of background
After ten years of dating I finally decided to, as her parents would say; make an honest woman out of Marin. We had lived together for nine of those years we dated and even had two beautiful daughters together that took after their mother in looks. Marin was about 5'6", blonde hair, brown eyes and the prettiest face I'd ever laid eyes on. It was her hips that first drew me to her though. They were just so inviting and helped to accentuate her perfectly shaped ass.
Her parents were deeply religious and seemed to pressure her around every corner. They did not approve of me from the start, claiming since I was from the larger city to the North I would bring her nothing but trouble. But, as it would turn out this beautiful shy farm girl would fall for me harder than I could have ever dreamed.
I proposed in front of all her coworkers, walking into her office as I usually did on my days off to take her to lunch. Then, in what must have seemed like complete spontaneity I got down on one knee and asked if she would do me the honor of being my wife. Even though I had spent months planning this, I feel I played it off rather well and surprised not only her, but her wrangling parents in the process.
The next few months became about nothing else. The wedding was all her and her sister thought or talked about. It was going to be a huge wedding as my opinion to go to City Hall was quickly shot down. Fine, they had the reigns and would make this the most wonderful day of her life.
I should premise this with some back story otherwise the following will not have the same effect as it did on me. Marin was from a very, very small town about forty miles South of where I grew up. When I say very, very small; I mean it. There were exactly three police cars and one fire truck. The biggest crime the community had seen in the last quarter century was a bike thief that seemed to ruffle everyone's feathers. I couldn't imagine living in such a Podunk place back then.
I was twenty and diligently searched the internet for viable sexual partners. The internet was still in its infancy as it was the early 90's and the whole "online dating" was still thought of as weird or creepy. I did manage well, as several of the young ladies I would correspond with wound up one night stands without much effort. Then along came Marin. I met her through "Love at AOL" and we talked longer than I usually put in with other girls. She was different. She seemed fun, funny and surprisingly smarter than the others. We clicked immediately before even having a face to face.
Finally she agreed to meet and I was surprised that she agreed to come to my mother's house where I was living at the time. This was common for most of my hook ups but Marin did not seem like the type to have sex on the first date. I was all too right. She came and we watched a movie and wound up talking until the wee hours of the morning.
She drove home and called as soon as she woke up the next day. We hadn't even kissed let alone anything more but, it was fun. Actually the most fun I'd had with someone I met online. We would continue to spend every waking moment that was not spent working together. I never tried to make a move, as just talking to her was more than enough at the time. There was something absolutely remarkable about this girl. When we finally had sex we'd been dating for about three months, which was highly unusual for me. I tended not to stick around that long, but with Marin it was different and I never wanted to be apart from her.
Within the next six months we tried her moving with me to my brother's apartment but she couldn't take the 'big city' life and would eventually go back home. I tried living with her at her parent's house; but both the very boring small town and her parent's judgment didn't allow for that to last long either.
After about a year of meeting her she came up North, like usual to ride along with me on a Friday night at the pizza shop I worked. She acted differently that night not allowing much conversation as she usually did and staring out the window a lot. She waited in the car, like every Friday while I mopped up the shop and prepared to close up.
I noticed her standing by the front door and motioning for me to talk to her. As I walked out my life began to change for the first time as she proceeded to tell me she was pregnant. My reaction obviously surprised her and later I would find out she'd known for a few weeks just couldn't tell me for fear I would leave her or worse.
I then buckled down and found a job at a pizza shop near her hometown and within a few months we got an apartment as I convinced myself I was destined to be in a town of less than one thousand. Our first daughter came and brought the two of us much joy and happiness. It wouldn't be long until we had two and the four of us looked to buying a house. Of course, in the small town she called home.
Fast forward to where I was when I began...
It'd been three months of planning and preparing and the guilt of coming clean was getting to me more and more. I spent most days thinking of how I would tell the woman I loved that I had a moment of weakness and slept with a woman at the office I used to work at. It had been years since my indiscretion and I no longer worked at the same place. The woman was never even brought up, but I couldn't help but still feel the sting of guilt the closer the wedding got.
I started dropping hints to her in lunchtime phone conversations between our jobs. Continually asking her if she had anything to tell me before the big day, asking if there were any secrets she wanted to share before we made the plunge. She always said no, she had nothing to share but I could tell she was expecting me to drop a bomb on her and could feel her preparation grow each time.
Finally, one night while we lay in bed I rolled over and looked at her. "I slept with Sylvia."
The silence was unbearable at first and her countenance was not at all what I expected.
"When" was her first question?
"When I worked at MH Industries" I told her.
"That was like, five years ago." She said, still not showing any change in her expression.
"Oh thank god' she exclaimed as she leaned over and kissed me. I was taken aback.
"Huh?"
Her expression now began to change, to a sort of relief and reprieve. I began to soon realize she did have something to hide as well, and out of fear or whatever she didn't want to be the first to come clean.
"I had sex with Jack." She finally admitted.
It was even now, but that didn't stop my feelings of disloyalty. She was the love of my life, the mother of my children and now she was telling me that she had sex with an ex-boyfriend (who was a bit of a wanker) behind my back.
"When?" I asked her, as I was now beginning to show my trepidation of her answer.
"Around the same time you fucked Sylvia." She responded with a halfhearted grin that was clearly not meant.
I thought for a minute with the realization that we were both actually guilty. I tried to reconcile the backlash in my mind. Back then, we were having a bit of a rough patch and both found release elsewhere. It was after our kids were born and her schooling had concluded but, still it stung. Why Jack of all people? He cheated on her all the time when they dated in high school. She hated him, I thought.
"Was it just the one time?" I asked as I started to gently brush my hand over her forearm. She nodded and showed equal disappointment in her actions as I had.
