Author's Note: This one is dedicated to goodhusband.
*
THAT SATURDAY AFTERNOON
Putting the last of the grocery bags on the counter, Suzanne set her handbag down and collapsed into a chair. It was hot out!
She savored the cool of the kitchen as she slipped her sandals off; then she quickly sorted through the groceries and got the things that needed refrigeration into the fridge.
Leaving the rest, she headed down the hall, savoring the feel of the cool thick carpeting under her bare toes. Rich's car was in the garage, so he obviously hadn't gone off to play golf today. He'd been asleep when she left an hour earlier, but his dirty dishes in the sink meant he'd gotten up and eaten breakfast already.
Suzanne heard an unfamiliar sound as she approached the open door of Rich's study. It almost sounded like crying? She took a step inside and was astonished--frozen--by what she saw.
Her husband was sitting in his desk chair and he was crying violently, his face in his hands, his shoulders heaving with his sobs. On the computer screen in front of him she saw a photo of the face of an attractive dark-haired woman, a man's large erect penis stuck deep in her mouth. The woman was wearing a sleep mask but Suzanne instantly recognized herself: the small birthmark on her right cheek was clearly visible in the photo.
She gasped, disbelieving. Before her brain could even begin to process what had happened, Rich lifted his head to look at her. His eyes were red and his face was streaked with tears.
"How could you?" he said quietly, almost whispering, his anguish apparent in every syllable. "Suzanne, how could you?"
********************** **********************
BEFORE THAT SATURDAY AFTERNOON
They'd met, actually, while Suzanne was still married to her first husband. Arnie had taken her along to rent a bulldozer--he had plans for a backyard pool and wanted to do the digging himself, save some money. Rich had been the manager of the heavy-equipment rental facility.
They hadn't done much more than smile at one another and exchange a few polite sentences, but Rich remembered her. He approached her, a little shyly, in a Starbucks nearly five years later.
"I'm sorry to disturb you," he said with a hesitant smile, his coffee cup in his hand, "but is your name Suzanne?"
She looked up and felt sure she knew him, though she had no idea from where. "Yes, but I'm afraid I don't ..."
He said, "no reason you should, actually. Your husband rented a bulldozer from my store--it must be several years ago now. We met then."
They looked at each other, assessing. Rich thought she looked fantastic: more mature, shapely, with beautiful dark eyes and an intelligent face. He also noticed that she wasn't wearing a wedding ring.
Suzanne started to remember, a little. Rich was older, but he was tall and strong-looking and had a lovely smile.
"Ex-husband, actually," she said. "We ... well, let's just say we never got that pool built."
"I'm sorry," he said, not feeling sorry at all. Then she smiled and said, "would you like to join me?"
"If I'm not intruding ..." He sat down and they started to talk. About nothing much, at first. Heavy machinery, then her job at an insurance agency. Baseball--it turned out they were both Cub fans though they lived in southern Ohio.
They talked for nearly two hours. Rich asked her out to dinner that weekend and she accepted. On their fourth date she asked him to stay over in her apartment, and they made love pretty much all weekend. Three months later he asked her to marry him; eight months after that, just before Labor Day, they were married.
**********************
The age difference was an issue--for Rich more than for Suzanne. He brought it up several times while they were dating, and they had a long talk about it a couple of weeks before he surprised her with a ring. (Though she wasn't really all that surprised.)
That day at the Starbucks she had been 29, and Rich about to turn 42. He worried about it in his own head, and knew he had to discuss it with her.
"Honey, if we were to ... well, if we were together for a long time--"
Suzanne was sitting on his lap, on his couch. She kissed him and said, "why Rich, I can't POSSIBLY imagine what you might be talking about!"
Grinning, he said, "wise guy! It's just that, well--look, I'm nearly 13 years older. That doesn't seem to bother you now, but in the future it might.
"I'm going to get old first, going to slow down first, not be as energetic as you are. You're such a fireball, and ..."
He stopped talking because he found a tongue in his mouth that wasn't his. They kissed passionately, and before long he was on top of her in the bedroom, riding her hard, Suzanne's legs pulled back up and pressed against his waist, and she was gasping and moaning beneath him.
It was a fast, exciting fuck, and when it was over and they'd caught their breath she said, "are you going to stop wanting to do that to me, five or ten or twenty years from now?"
"No baby, never--" And before he could continue she kissed him again and said, "then there's nothing to worry about."
Rich sat up and took her in his arms. "It's not that simple, Suze. I'm always going to want you--but my sex drive is going to go down, sooner or later, no matter what I do. My dick isn't going to be as hard, and it's not going to be inside you as often.