Marriage Goes Heels Up

Like most men, I will never understand women's fascination with shoes.

My wife, for instance, will insist to almost anyone who will listen that she hardly ever goes shopping for shoes. Yet there were probably 30 pairs of shoes in her closet the last time I glanced in, and I don't think any of those had been in that closet for more than two years.

That's 30 pairs that were bought sometime in the past two years, replacing probably 30 pairs bought in the previous two years. For comparison sake, I've got a pair of black dress shoes, a pair of brown dress shoes, a pair of boots and a pair of sneakers. I've had the brown shoes and the boots for about three years.

It was one of those 30 pairs, a rather inexpensive pair of Jimmy Choo heels costing

only

about $800, that was the beginning of the end of my 22-year marriage.

As was explained to me earlier, my wife, Staci, was walking off the elevator at one of her favorite clothing stores when the heel of one of her shoes got caught in the small opening between the elevator and the floor and snapped off, causing her to fall to the floor and bump her head, knocking her unconscious for several hours as she suffered a concussion.

When I got to the emergency room about 15 minutes after Staci, having been called by one of the friends who was out shopping with her, my wife was out cold on a bed with several lines running to her body from an IV machine and a doctor and a nurse checking her. I stood quietly at the door and watched the two work for several minutes before they noticed me. They both grimaced, which I took as a bad sign, even though the only outward problem I could see was a bandage on her forehead by her hairline.

"Uhh... doc... what am I missing here? I'm looking at a small bandage, an unconscious wife and two grimacing medical professionals," I said nervously.

The doctor looked down, then looked the nurse in the eyes before turning to me. He cleared his throat.

"The good news is that she should wake up any time now; she took a nasty fall on her head and her midsection. The bad news, however, is that she lost the baby."

"What baby?" I queried in a voice that was several octaves above my usual bass tone. "I had a vasectomy 17 years ago after our second child was born."

Both the doctor and the nurse absolutely gawked at me. Neither one had a very good poker face.

"Ooh," the doctor murmured while the nurse nodded agreement. "We're... sorry, Mr. Blackburn."

I stood silently for several seconds before replying quietly, "Yeah, me too."

The doctor explained to me that they had run several tests on my wife while she was unconscious, including a blood test that indicated she was pregnant.

I staggered over to the lone chair in the room, which was several feet away from the bed so it wouldn't interfere with the medical pros doing their work. I don't know how long I sat and watched as several people moved in and out of the room. I knew I should have called my kids and told them about what had happened, but I was stunned into inaction.

It was sometime later when I saw Staci's eyes flutter and finally open.

"Welcome back, Mrs. Blackburn," the doctor said calmly. "You're at Methodist Hospital, in the emergency wing. You had a nasty fall and suffered a concussion. You've been out for a while."

"M-my baby? How is my baby doing?" she asked barely above a whisper.

"The baby didn't make it. I'm sorry," he said quietly as Staci burst into tears.

I rose out of my chair at that point. Staci caught the movement and looked over at me, her eyes growing huge and her mouth opening wide. I never said a word as I silently exited the room.

I spent the next half-hour informing my children about Staci's accident and losing her baby as I drove home.

"Her what? What did you just say, Dad?" our son, Rob, practically screamed over the conference call. "I thought you said you..."

"I did have a vasectomy, Robbie. Obviously, it was not my child," I snarled.

"So... she's been having an affair. With whom?" our daughter, Lainey, yelled.

"How the hell should I know?" I yelled back. "Obviously, I had no clue she'd been having an affair, or I would have been divorced by now."

There was silence on the line as both kids digested what I just said.

"You're saying then that there's no chance of reconciliation?" Lainey asked.

It was my turn to be silent for a bit.

"I have no clue as to how long this affair has been going on, or if she's been sleeping with I don't know how many men. But getting pregnant when I've had a vasectomy; incredibly stupid and disrespectful. She knew this couldn't be undone, and that there was no way I would raise another man's bastard. The doctor said the baby was about three months old, which means she would have started showing any day, so I just think she was waiting until the last minute to tell me. Something is up; I mean, besides the pregnancy, but I don't yet know what.

"Still, I'm not going to hang around and be a wiling cuckold. She's history. She can be somebody else's problem in the future."

"That's cold, Dad, but I... I think, we... understand," Rob said.

Thirty minutes after getting home, I had done all the cliché financial chores leading up to a divorce and called my friend, Quincy LeGrand, a damn good attorney, even if he couldn't hit a 15-foot jumper to save his life when we played hoop together at the local YMCA. He agreed to meet me in his office at 7 AM, technically before his day started, the very next day, if I agreed to stop ragging on him for his lack of shooting prowess. Seemed like a good deal to me.

The necessaries taken care of, I made myself a salad, sat at the kitchen table and tried to put into perspective what I had learned earlier in the day. My first reaction was one of shock. I never had a clue that my wife--my best friend and soul mate--could betray me so completely and callously, and just act like nothing was different in her life while she was doing it. Since I made very good money, Staci didn't work, but served on several volunteer committees in town, so she had the time to screw around if she had the inclination. Either I was a completely clueless moron, or she was a very convincing actress, because I never thought she'd ever cheat on me.

Damn, I never saw it coming! We always had a great relationship, both emotionally and sexually. Yes, we weren't having sex every day anymore, but we were still making love two to three times a week, and I know for a fact that she still responded well to my ministrations. So what the fuck happened?

Quincy assured me the next morning that the divorce could be done in six months if my wife didn't fight it. Considering that she was cheating on me, I couldn't see why she would.

I was barely off the phone with Quincy before my father-in-law rang in. I was close to my in-laws because both of my parents had died in a car wreck when I was 30, and Staci's parents had stepped into my life to fill that void as best they could.

"How are you holding up, Matt?" my father-in-law asked. "I would imagine that today's been quite the shock for you."

"You have no idea, Dad... and I hope you never do, really," I answered. "I never thought Staci could ever do something this heinous to me. If she ever cared for me, the least she could have done was ask for a divorce before cheating with... whoever... like a common slut."

"Careful, Matt, she's still my daughter," John Olson warned. "Even if she's done something sketchy, she's still my daughter."

"I get that, Dad, but even if she's your daughter, you certainly can't tell me what she did wasn't incredibly low. What would you do if Mom had pulled that shit on you?" I asked.

I heard his breath catch in his throat. He was probably hoping I wouldn't ask him a question he'd have to answer honestly.

"I'd probably boot her ass as far away from me as I could get her. But I'm hoping you'll be a better man than me and try to reconcile with her," he said.

"Since you were honest with me, Dad, I'll be honest with you. Right now, I don't ever want to see her cheating ass again. I did nothing to deserve the disrespect she's shown me. Hell, I don't even know if the fucker who knocked her up is the only guy she's been fucking... pardon my French, Dad.

"Everything has been going along fine, at least that's what I thought up until today. Then I find out she's been cheating while smiling in my face every day for the last several months. I don't have any clue how long the cheating has been going on, but a good guess would be this was more than a one-shot deal."

"Yeah," he practically whispered. "I think you're right about this being more than a one-off. I don't know what to tell you. I'm incredibly disappointed in her.

"I guess if everything checks out, they will discharge her the day after tomorrow. They want to hold her for a bit since she suffered a concussion and was unconscious for several hours. If you want, Mom and I can get her at the hospital and bring her to your house... as long as you promise me you won't do anything to hurt her physically. Mentally... up to you, I guess. I can't tell you in good conscience that she doesn't deserve it."

I promised my father-in-law I wouldn't hurt his daughter physically. She was sitting on our sofa wrapped in a blanket when I got home from work two days later.

"Well, the prodigal slut returns. Have a nice mini-vacay?" I asked, sarcasm dripping off every word.

"How can you be so mean to me? I lost my baby, you bastard!" she yelled at me.

"Exactly. Your baby. Not mine and yours. Why the fuck should I care about

your

baby? What the fuck were you thinking?" I answered, doing my best to control my temper and keep my promise to my father-in-law.

"I didn't mean for this to happen... but after it did, I didn't feel guilty. I felt aroused, powerful, that I had something over on you. I've been cucking you good for the past six months. Hah! Cucking you! Owning you! You've been my cuckold bitch. You've had sloppy seconds, eaten another man's cum and I'm sure I could have manipulated you into raising another man's child if I hadn't tripped the other day," she said.

"I've been your good girl wife for more than 20 years. This felt empowering."

I felt more nauseous the longer she talked. I'd had sloppy seconds... worse, I'd eaten another man's cum from my wife's pussy. I retched right there, but fortunately nothing came up.

"Who the hell are you? What have you done with the Staci I married?" I asked, honestly in shock at this woman's attitude; not to mention sick to my stomach at the same time.

"I have never treated you any less than as an equal partner in this marriage. Where is this bitterness coming from?"

"Have you really treated me as an equal, Matt? Did you sacrifice your career to raise our kids? I think not," she remarked hotly.

It was my turn to be angry.

"We talked about this before we got married. My career had the bigger financial upside, and you got to be a stay-at-home. You always told me you enjoyed being able to come and go as you pleased, not being chained to a desk, so to speak," I said.

She looked smug as she sat there. I don't think she realized how much I was struggling with my lifelong commitment to never strike a woman. It came to me then that my wife was an actress of epic skill: she hadn't loved me for quite some time.

"So who is the new love of your life? Who has replaced me in your heart?" I asked, trying not to let my anguish show too much.

"Derek. You know, Derek from next door," she answered, her smug smile getting broader while my stomach felt like it was being pummeled from the inside.

Dr. Derek Strong was a professor of anthropology at our local university. He was one of those guys who felt his doctorate made him the smartest guy in the room, despite what subject was being discussed and who else was there. He was only 32, 15 years younger than both my wife and me, and, I had to admit, was a handsome son of a bitch with curly light brown hair, blue eyes and an ever-present three-day growth of stubble on his face. He was one of the university's bright lights and was highly-regarded despite his relative youth.

"Derek has convinced me that you're just a shallow, self-centered man that views me as little more than his property. So I decided to make you my cuck to get even with you... and get one over on you. And you've been so secure in your mistaken superiority that you never even noticed..."

"I never noticed because I trusted you completely. I loved you, you psycho bitch. That's a mistake I will no longer make," I rasped.

"No surprise, but divorce papers will be coming in the next day or two."

"Won't be any fight, as long as I get my half of our stuff and several years' worth of alimony. You can keep the house or sell it immediately, again as long as I get my half. I'm just going to move my stuff over to Derek's," she said confidently.

"Lainey will be going away to college next year. You can live in the house until then, if you don't mind the neighbors knowing you've been cucked by Derek. Then you can sell it and we can split the proceeds on that."

She got up from the sofa and went to what had been our bedroom to pack. I was blown away by the fact that she seemed to have all the answers... or at least the ones Derek had given her. It seemed to me that she was very much under his spell. I was most definitely history.

I don't know how many of the neighbors knew about Staci's affair with Derek, but I got a lot of sympathetic looks from many of them over the next few weeks. A couple of the bolder ones who apparently weren't in on the neighborhood gossip actually asked me what was going on, since Staci had been seen coming and going from Derek's house now. Several of the men on our block expressed... condolences, I guess, over the situation, and disdain for Derek.

I'm not sure why Staci was surprised when she tried to get into what was now my house and she found that her key no longer worked two weeks after she moved in with Derek. I received a phone call at work bitching me out for her not being able to get something of hers from my house.

"On the sage advice of my attorney, I changed all the locks and the garage door code. Since you abandoned the house to me and no longer live there, you don't have the right to enter my home whenever the mood strikes you. You can get whatever is yours left in the house when I get home from work, and not a minute before. And before you ask, Lainey doesn't have permission to let you in... nor would it be smart for you to challenge your daughter the way she feels about you right now," I said.

Staci was obviously pregnant again by the time our divorce become official six months later. Lainey was furious with her mother as her school mates gave her no end of grief over Staci being a "pregnant slut."

"Darn it, Dad!" Lainey whined one evening as we ate dinner. "Couldn't she have waited until after I was gone to get pregnant. I don't need a baby brother or sister. All everyone wants to know is if she's going to whip a boob out and feed the kid during graduation ceremonies."

I didn't answer my daughter because I really wasn't sure if Staci would do that or not, since I no longer had any clue what was running through my formerly demure wife's head.

"I can tell you one thing, I'm not babysitting the brat," Lainey growled.

Lainey's relationship with Staci thawed a bit as my ex-wife's pregnancy went on, and she was even invited to Staci's baby shower thrown by a friend from the neighborhood. My daughter practically apologized to me when she told me she was going to attend because she felt like she was betraying me somewhat, but I told her not to worry because Staci was still her mother and the two needed to keep their relationship.

"I don't suppose you'll even be buying a baby gift when the kid is born?" Lainey asked me a few weeks before Staci was due.

"Not a chance in the world," I answered flatly.

Rob was less sanguine than his sister about his mother's actions and pregnancy. A sophomore in college, he didn't even come home when Staci gave birth. When he came home for his sister's high school graduation, he stayed at my house and didn't walk next door to visit his mother and his new half-sibling. He finally saw the baby right before the graduation ceremony when Staci and Derek walked up to where he and I were sitting and introduced him to the baby, named Derek Jr.

"He's a smug bastard. How come you haven't punched his lights out yet, Dad?" Rob asked me when the three left for their seats.

"Because he's waiting for that, so he can have me arrested," I answered. "I'm not falling for that. He can keep the slut and their baby."

Rob was way more into the revenge thing than I was, I found out. Where I had no immediate plans to date, waiting for the sting of Staci's betrayal to eventually fade, Rob practically insisted I jump into the dating pool with both feet... and another body part or two.

"Don't you dare be pathetic, Dad. You've got to show her that she gave up a vital, impressive stud for... for a pompous asswipe. If you can't beat him with your fists, beat him at his own game... and show Mom she bet on the wrong horse," Rob explained.

The more I thought about it, the more I liked my son's plan, although I knew I needed someone to teach me how to be a manslut. That meant I had to call one of my old college buddies, Spencer Fydrich.

Spence was the same age as me, having graduated the same year, but he had never to this point been married. If you looked in the dictionary under "manslut," his photo would right next to the definition.

He wasn't the best-looking guy in the world, nor the most fit, but Spence had something that made him irresistible to women. He was practically a legend when we were in school, and things hadn't changed too much since, both from what I saw and what he said. He would come stay with my family once or twice a year, despite the fact that he was far from Staci's favorite person. She always worried that he would corrupt me. It never happened then, but now...

Spence spent a week with me, and I felt like I was having a college flashback. I took a week of vacation, because I knew there was no way I could keep up with Spence and still be productive at work. That was probably the last smart decision I made that week... in addition to making sure I had a brand-new box of condoms available. After not having used a condom in forever, I didn't enjoy using them, but there was no way I wanted to deal with the possibility of an STD.

Spence and I went hunting--his phrase--four nights out of the week he stayed with me. To say I got an education would have been a grave understatement. I found out that there were a lot of women out there looking for either Mr. Right or Mr. Right Now, although I made it a point to stay away from married women, even if Spence didn't.

Chasing prey after being married and out of the game for a quarter-century was quite intense and tiresome. I had new respect for Spence at the end of the week.

"Damn, Spence, how do you keep doing it? I'm exhausted both mentally and physically," I said to him when I dropped him off at the airport at the end of the week.

I had been an empty-nester since Lainey left for college in mid-August. Spencer's visit was the week after she left, so from late August on my house suddenly became a haven for unattached females, many of whom were quite attractive, if I say so myself. I didn't try to hide the parade of women from my ex-wife and neighbors, but I at least tried not to be too overtly obvious... like hell I didn't. I know Staci and Derek were witness to several women coming or going at various times, as were several other neighbors. I no longer got condescending smirks from the neighbors; it was more like looks of envy and surprise.