REBIRTH
It was supposed to have been a surprise for her. In a way, it was, although it ended up being more a surprise for me. All in all, I'm pretty sure I can say it wasn't how either of us had planned on celebrating her thirtieth birthday.
You hear about it happening, you know? You hear tales. You read stories, and you think 'Aw, that's sad.' But you never really expect it to happen to you. You don't expect to have your whole world drop out from underneath you to leave you with this damned aching emptiness where your heart used to be. It's always about some older guy who's ex-armed forces, or a cop, or a lawyer, or an accountant, or some guy who spends a lot of time away from home. It's never about some geeky IT guy with no authority or powerful friends to bail him out. You never hear it happening to a guy who just commutes to work, doesn't spend more time at the office than he has to, and plays some D&D on the weekend.
You never hear about it happening to a guy like me.
But it does, and it did, and as I stood there in the doorway of our bedroom looking at her and her lover, my universe came crashing down around me.
I'd left work early that day, taking a few hours off to come home and surprise her. That morning, I'd wished her a happy birthday with kisses and breakfast in bed before heading out to work. Gwen, my wife of six years, had seemed subdued but I had chalked that up to sleepiness. I mean, breakfast in bed. Who wouldn't enjoy that, right? We had exchanged 'I love yous', and off I went, smiling to myself because she had no idea that I was coming home early with luncheon reservations for that high-end bistro that she loves but we can rarely afford.
She had said that she was taking a few days off of work for her birthday. I had asked before setting up my clever plan in motion with each bit of information that I had subtly gotten out of her. Was she going anywhere? Nope, Gwen had told me that she had simply wanted to chill, maybe watch some Netflix. Did she want to go out later to meet up with some of our friends? Sure, she was excited about that! A chance to go out on the town, she was always up for drinks and dancing!
Chill. Netflix. Netflix and chill. Damn, I was an idiot for not catching that. Maybe it was a slip of the tongue on her part, but I was so fucking trusting that I didn't think about it.
I had casually mentioned that there might be a surprise for her later on, a little something to celebrate her birthday. But I did my best to make sure Gwen wouldn't guess that I was coming home early, that I was taking her to her favorite restaurant, and that I had the choker that she'd been drooling over for the past four months in my pocket.
If she had been aware of any of that, especially the fact that I would be home early that afternoon, I might not have been the one who ended up all the more surprised.
Because how could I have expected it? As I stood in the doorway of our bedroom, seeing how the sunlight from the window fell across her heart-shaped face and bared breasts, I asked myself that. How could I have expected it? I couldn't. There was simply no way, no indication that anything had been wrong. Nonetheless, the same rays of afternoon light that illuminated the features of the woman I loved so very much also shown on the very naked body of her lover.
Gwen naked was no big deal; she usually slept in the rough, much to my delight. Hers was a small frame, delicate, her breasts the perfect handful, her pale skin so soft and kissable! She wasn't supermodel, big-tits, huge ass beautiful. She was small and pale and dark at the same time and to me? Perfect. Mind you, it was her eyes that always excited me the most; Gwen's eyes were big, dark, expressive, I could get lost in them for days!
But Joe? No, I had never seen him naked before, and by God, I hoped never to see him naked again! He was shorter than me, five-nine to my six-foot height, although we were about the same build. Neither fat nor muscular, not ugly or a stud. Joe Eisenberger was an old friend. He was even a groomsman at our wedding. Much like me, he was an average guy.
An average guy in bed with my wife in a room that reeked of sex. The raw stench of it hung in the air. Gwen and Joe both were asleep and disheveled, and the sheets were twisted all about the bed. Her long, black hair was mussed; his short brown locks stood up tangled spikes from where her long fingers had tangled into them. The two of them were spooned tight to one another as though cold despite the warm July afternoon. Gwen's lithe little body curled into Joe's broader one, his arm thrown around her narrow hips.
And I just stood there, looking at them as they slept. I stood there trying to process that my wife, the woman I loved, the one who had vowed to forsake all others for me, had been thoroughly fucked by a guy I would have never suspected was stabbing me in the back. I felt sick to my stomach. As many times as I closed my eyes and took deep breaths to will the sight of them away, I always opened them again to find that same nightmare in front of me.
I became numb. In an instant, I stopped feeling anything. My movements felt stiff to the point of being robotic as I took my phone out of my pocket and snapped several pics of the two of them together. Then I turned, softly closed the bedroom door, then trudged away.
A beer. I needed a beer. And a smoke. I hadn't smoked for years, but right then I needed to. Gwen still smoked clove cigarettes on occasion, part of her goth background that she never had left behind. I dug the pack out of her purse, grabbed a beer from the fridge, and plopped myself down into the recliner. The bottled stout was cold and the clove smoke was sweet and harsh in my mouth as I rolled it around my tongue. Between sips and puffs, I kept looking at the proof of betrayal on my phone, lies exposed by digital magic. Seeing it on the handheld screen instead of directly in front of me did nothing to ease the shock.
The numbness started to fade into an ache that radiated from the pit of my belly.
What was I going to do? That was one question. Why she had done it, that was another. How long, that, too, was on my mind. And... Why Joe?! Had there been others? Oh, God, I didn't want to go there! Every question made me sicker. The hollowness in my chest kept getting worse as I sat there and brooded.
They were both heavy sleepers. Neither had stirred when I'd come home to a seemingly empty house, and they had continued to sleep unaware of me standing in the doorway. As far as I knew, they were still asleep all that time while I sat in my armchair, wave after wave of depression washing over me. It was a tide that pulled me deeper and deeper into an ocean of black despair. I must have sat there for close to twenty minutes, nursing cigarette and beer before some dark, devilish part of me woke up.
With a swipe of the thumb, I closed the photo app and brought up the text message app. Another draw from the clove cigarette, another second to firm up in my mind what I was going to do, and then to do it. My thumb tapped rapidly across the tiny screen before hitting send to Gwen's phone.
JACK: Hey, Lover! Left work early. Home in 20. Go out? Or stay in? *wink*
I waited. Ten seconds, thirty seconds... In the bedroom, I heard Gwen's phone chirp loudly. She was always scared of missing texts in case it was something important, so the ringtone volume was always at its loudest.
Soon enough, I was rewarded with the muffled sounds of two people frantically scrambling about in the bedroom.
I heard the bedroom door open and caught a brief glimpse of Joe's bare ass as he hustled through the hallway to the bathroom. He hadn't seen me sitting there in the living room. That was good. More time for me to twist the knife.
My phone vibrated. Gwen had messaged back.
Gwen: Yay! Stop and get wine?
I looked over towards the kitchen where the just-purchased bottle of Merlot sat in plain view on the table. I wanted to bark out with laughter. She was trying to buy time to get her lover out of there and get cleaned up.
JACK: Merlot, ok?
Gwen: Perfect! See you soon!
JACK: I love you, Gwen!
She didn't reply. She didn't say that she loved me back. It added salt into a wound that was already stinging and widening every second.
More bumping around could be heard in the bedroom. I set the phone aside for a second to pick up the beer again. The chill of the stout helped calm my beating heart even if it did nothing for the churning knots in my belly. I started on my second cigarette when I heard the toilet flush and the bathroom door open again. Joe was on his way back.
I timed it. I waited until he was almost past the doorway connecting the living room to the hall, waited until he was almost to the bedroom before softly calling out to him with: "Hey, Joe. How's it going?"
I sounded remarkably calm, I thought. But the look on his face as he took a step back to look into the living room was exquisite. It was a look of such utter dumbfounded shock that I wished I could to preserve the moment forever. So I raised the phone and took another pic, this one of Joe in all of his thirty-something, naked glory with the stupidest expression on his face.
"Jack," he started, "Wha-"
I raised a finger to my lips and shook my head. I didn't want to give the game away yet. Was I being cruel? Probably. But I didn't care.
Another quick swipe of the thumb brought up the text app. I texted two short, separate messages to Gwen's phone.
JACK: Gwen, honey?
I then sent the second text, the picture of her and Joe sleeping together attached.
