Again, this story is vastly more readable because my wonderful partner, CreativityTakesCouraage, wielded her magic on it. Thanks, Sweetheart.
Thanks also to Ian for the critical review, and to Mr Baggins for helping me with a smokescreen. I've met some fantastic people through starting writing.
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"Oh my god, darling. I'd no idea that I'd hit you so hard. How bad is it?"
"Seven stitches, Julie. And, really, what did you expect when you hit me on the back of the head with a heavy lamp base? You could have killed me."
If I was expecting Julie to show remorse, I would have been disappointed. She stared at me with chin tilted, eyes defiant.
"Well, what did you expect me to do when I came home early and found you in our bed, I mean, IN OUR BED, screwing that... that... woman?"
I forced myself to look into the eyes of the woman I'd betrayed so badly. The emotions her eyes reflected back at me were many. I recognised defiance, anger, shock, and confusion, all battling for dominance on one face. Defiance retreated briefly and a tear trickled down the cheeks of the woman I'd loved above my own life for fifteen years. I felt I owed it to her to keep silent and braced myself to face her justified anger.
"Who was she?"
"Um, Karen."
"What! Your new secretary? The one you told me not a month ago was, and I quote; plain, unquote?"
I didn't deny lying to my wife. I had. Through my teeth. My gaze dropped back to the wooden surface between us. With her next words, the croak in her voice revealed Julie was obviously choking back a sob.
"How old is she?"
"She turned twenty-eight yesterday."
"You know her birthday?"
At the sound of shock and hurt obvious in her voice, I chose to remain silent. No point in making her feel worse.
"Oh, my god. So, what was it that I witnessed? A thirty-nine-year-old man giving a birthday present to a psycho bitch with daddy issues?"
Again, I chose to remain silent. What was the point of telling her that Karen had been subtly but persistently pursuing her boss, me, since shortly after she was employed? Ever since my faithful old secretary, June, retired six months before. It was June that interviewed and ultimately recommended Karen. Her flirtations had been so subtle that naïve old me hadn't even noticed. It took Karen pointing it out to me a couple of weeks ago for me to finally see all the incidents, moments, with a new filter.
"And how long has it been going on?"
"That was the first time, Julie. Honest."
Julie eyed me critically. I returned her gaze, unafraid of being caught in a lie. Yesterday
had
been the first time Karen and I physically crossed the line.
How unlucky were me and Karen? We'd only just got naked and were rubbing against each other in the awkward way only two people nervous and unfamiliar with each other's body can when there'd been an offended shriek from my wife just before the lights went out. One minute I was in Julie's and my marital bed with a raging hard-on, the next I was in an uncomfortable hospital bed with anything but a hard-on, unless that's what you call a god almighty headache.
Julie's eyes searched mine for the truth. I did her the courtesy of holding eye contact until she was satisfied. I spotted the moment she accepted I was being honest as the anger quickly faded, to be replaced by, what? Insecurity? The feeling that must be almost automatic to every cheated-on spouse. One day you think you know your spouse, your world, and, to an extent, your future. The next, the rug is pulled out from under you and nothing is as you thought. The word quicksand comes to mind -- anything but solid and a whole lot of shit trying to drag you under and drown you.
Followed instantly by questions. What was I doing wrong? How was I inadequate? How did I fail? Those feelings must be crushing her, and I'd caused it. The questions torturing her; also my fault.
I let her lead the conversation, later would come the apologies I thought were her due.
"I know I've been bitchy for a few months, Steve. Moody and withdrawn from you and the kids, but it was because of the promotion coming up at work, you knew that."
Oh, I knew all right. Julie and three of her peers were being pitted against each other, competing for the one vacancy, a sizeable promotion. The other three were unmarried and didn't have children. Julie had explained that the new role would have work hours that weren't as regular as those of her current position. She might be expected to stay back for thirty minutes to half the night when the need arose to meet a deadline. She wanted to impress the manager and show him that being a wife and mother wouldn't be an obstacle, even though I pointed out it should be. Pig-headed Julie couldn't accept that, of course. Instead, she threw herself into impressing the boss, despite the damage it was doing to her relationships with myself and her children.
It was now the new norm for Julie to stay back at work for an hour or two, stumble in to eat whatever I'd prepared, then retreat to the study to do 'homework' until the kid's bedtime. Fuck, quite often I was asleep before she finished. Most Saturdays, Julie either went to the office or worked from home, meaning that every Sunday she needed to rest and was as grumpy as a cat that sat on a wire brush. If all four of the hopefuls were working to the same degree Julie was, then the boss was getting a crap-load done for free.
"I know I neglected you and the kids, Steve. I know that apart from a few quickies when you nagged me, we haven't been, er, intimate, for a while, but it was going to be over soon, you knew that. The promotion is being announced at the end of the month. If I get the job, I'll only have to work back a couple of times a week and go on the occasional trip away. If I don't get it, I'll be telling Mark where he can stick his fucking job. With your business booming, I can afford to take my time looking for something else."
Silence returned and we stared at each other for a moment that seemed to last for hours rather than seconds. Throughout, Julie grasped both my hands in hers. At the break of eye contact she glanced over my shoulder and released my hands as if they burnt her and quickly placed hers back in her lap under the table.
I was briefly distracted by my pounding headache and without conscious thought reached up and felt the bandage around my head. I simultaneously wanted it wound tighter and looser. Anything to relieve the pain.
"Was I that neglectful that I drove you into the arms of another?"
I stayed quiet. I'd already tried and failed to match my recent behaviour to the belief system I'd held since I was old enough to make my own arguments--that there are no excuses to betray those that deserve your trust.
Julie's thoughts and emotions were obviously flitting from pillar to post if the expressions crossing her face were to be believed. She was a woman betrayed, with all the pain and insecurity and anger that inevitably comes with that. The silence dragged on between us.
"Do you have any idea how I feel, Steve? To come home early to what should have been the safe haven of my home, the comforting arms of my husband, to find him in my bed with his fucking secretary? I mean, he's too tight to fork out for an el cheapo motel room and too unfeeling to fuck the slut in some other room in the house. You had to destroy our sanctuary with your disgusting behaviour. Your... your betrayal. You know I'll never sleep in that bed again, don't you?"
I just kept my expression neutral and my eyes downcast. I knew that tears again sprang from Julie's eyes by her sniffle and the roughness of her voice.
"It's not fair, Steve. How can I compete with her? I saw her boobs are bigger than mine. You always told me mine were fine. What did you always tell me when we were newlyweds? That more than a handful was a waste? Were you lying? Did you want to handle some D's on the side? Get bored with my B's? Or was it that her nipples still point upwards, whereas, after breastfeeding our two children,
your
children, Steve, mine point down and are riding the rollercoaster towards my navel? Hmmm?
"Or was it her tight little tummy? Yes, I saw that too when she leapt off the bed to stop me hitting you with the lamp again. What was that shit she used on me to pin me down while she called the cops?"
I was about to say, 'Krav Maga, a mixture of boxing, martial arts, and street fighting developed by the Israeli defence forces. Karen is an expert. It's the same fighting technique Matt Damon uses in all those Jason Bourne films. That's why she wasn't afraid of you after you knocked me out', but Julie was on a roll.
"Yes, trim and slim, not like me, huh? Me having a soft belly after carrying your kids. Your fucking kids, Steve. I know I've put on a little weight recently. I haven't been eating right and I'm too tired to go to the gym. I'll fix all that when this is over. And don't tell me, her pussy was as tight as mine was before it got permanently stretched in childbirth."
Julie stopped, panting. I debated whether to defend myself at this point. Should I tell her that she'd interrupted Karen and I before I'd made an actual entrance, so to speak? I decided against it. We were naked, and the intent was certainly there which was as good, or bad, as the act in my book. I decided to let Julie vent her spleen until she was done.
It might have been some comfort to her to know she was wrong. None of the things she'd mentioned regarding her appearance versus that of Karen's were a factor in my decision to bed Karen, although she was correct. Karen did sport the smoothest skin, the juiciest tits, equally inviting to nuzzle or squeeze together so a guy could fuck the cleft. And her taut belly did lead to a neatly trimmed pussy that just ached to be tongued while the muscular legs either side squeezed a man's head and rendered him deaf.
Hindering my defence was what Julie must have heard just before she busted us, "God, Julie, you're so tight." Julie wasn't to know that conclusion was reached from the evidence of my probing middle finger while my thumb massaged the younger woman's clit.
Julie must have been reading my mind.
"You used to say that to me," she said, as her unfocused eyes looked back fifteen years. She rapidly focused again and the determined Julie was back.
