Spicing or Icing
Part One (of Four)
Chapter One
The Background
Rob was worried about his wife. Mica was a beautiful woman he counted himself lucky just to know. Rob believed winning her heart was the greatest of many testimonies that he lived a charmed existence. Now he wondered if that mystical force had abandoned him.
Rob graduated near the top of his class from a highly thought-of university that he attended because of his hard-won and well-deserved college scholarship. As always, he found his niche and excelled. Simultaneously he wooed, won, and after graduating, wed the lovely Mica. He landed a good job with a prestigious New York based brokerage and moved there with his lovely bride. He was rising rapidly having just captured a promotion to upper middle management. His next step would be as a specialist with his own team, a division head, or possibly, if his luck held, a Vice Presidency. Rob was only twenty-seven.
Now though, it seemed his luck had failed. Practically the entire contingent of other mid-level managers didn't feel unbridled joy at Rob being one of the youngest to ever win the rank. Former mentors who faithfully guided him evaporated now that he was in position to become their boss. Those who could show him the ropes and shortcuts of his new position were no longer inclined to do so.
Rob hadn't stepped on anyone on the way up. His rise was fueled by good advice, hard work, and genuine talent. Now, however, he found himself alone trying to play a team sport. Those already on the next level wanted to push him to see how he held up. Suddenly Rob had no allies and no one to watch his back. It no longer mattered that he was a good man or a nice guy, he was guilty of doing too well too quickly, and reaping the rewards faster than those around him.
There was an added complication. Rob was an attractive man that had accrued a modicum of success and power somewhat unusual for his age. Even if he stumbled now, anything short of catastrophic would only delay a superlative career. As such he was now prey for every female administrative assistant looking for a top notch M.R.S. degree. Even some of the VP's above him saw Rob as a tasty morsel; a toy for their amusement that could help both their careers, as they made beautiful corporate music together. It didn't matter that Rob didn't want this sort of attention, he still had to prove himself all over again.
Though he'd always worked hard, Rob had never met this much opposition in life before; people were actually rooting against him! He felt like he was in the middle of a minefield, expecting calamity in every direction he traveled. Having no refuge at work, Rob came to believe his promotion may not have been a good thing.
Then something far worse and far more concerning surfaced. Mica, his lovely wife, wasn't acting like herself anymore.
Rob wondered about his mental state. He understood being paranoid didn't mean your problems weren't real, but were his eyes deceiving him? Rob swore he'd seen Mica at his workplace. In fact, he thought he'd seen her more than once. He broke away from his tasks as quickly as he could, but she was never there when he reached the spot where he thought he'd seen her. When he inquired upon returning home, Mica denied being anywhere nearby. Worse, she looked anything but innocent making her denial. If she was there, but hadn't come to see him, who was she seeing? And why would she lie about it? Rob hated what he was thinking. Had his new position introduced her to some powerful man? Every facet of his situation was troubling.
Mica was a beauty with just longer than shoulder length dark brown hair, both glossy and luxuriant. She had very nice curves, though nothing ridiculous; she was a classic not a cartoon. Her large eyes and small nose made her face perpetually beam. When coupled with a somewhat incongruous yet cute mouth the combination made her unforgettable. She looked great in a swimsuit or lingerie. She didn't have the proper height or weight to be a model. For the same reasons she would win the eye test against one in person. The unholy wonder of her was that, until recently, she was completely genuine. While Rob could recite a long list of Mica's accolades: real, innocent, concerned, conversational, caring, warm, and much more, he normally summed her up in a single word: wow!
Rob hoped some power jockey wasn't trying to make inroads with his wife! She might be naïve enough to fall for the opening salvos. Rob also couldn't completely discount his wife deciding against her nature that she needed to know more about one of the men she met at one of the parties they'd attended because his recent promotion. That notion was hard to believe, requiring a side to Mica he'd never known. However, if she wouldn't admit being at his workplace, she was in no position to set his worries to rest on other scores.
Rob prayed another man wasn't the reason Mica was acting odd. Whatever the cause, her strange behavior was real. The once occasional strange quirk was now regular. When Rob tried to talk about the troubling changes he'd picked up on, Mica's answers reminded him of dancing: a twirl here, a sidestep there. He never got an answer he was comfortable with. Never fully defining what the situation was, Rob couldn't form a plan to deal with it. He didn't even know enough to ask Mica other than "what's wrong" or "what's changed". In a perfect example of what troubled him, instead of her helping him define his misgivings, he got responses like, "Don't you love me?" While he always directly answered in the affirmative, her responses seemed evasive. 'Why won't she answer?' he wondered over and over.
Mica became very physical amorously while simultaneously becoming less affectionate. She ducked his questions, was nervous, and sometimes irritable. Obfuscatory was the perfect term, though Rob wasn't sure it was a real word. He needed her. He was in trouble and his rock was going missing.
Rob knew very well that career was a huge thing, but he would never trade his wonderful wife for a great career. The priority was very clear to him: job supports family. Rob was not going to lose family for a job.
Rob noticed Mica was tentative upon her arrival home. This was a two-fold problem. She used to be home when he returned from work, always welcoming and warm. Now there was a background tension to everything they did. Lovemaking didn't happen as frequently. An air of awkwardness grew when they did couple.
Rob's job grew worse. The pressure was crushing him, and Mica used to be his escape valve. Suspicion grew in place of his dimming support. Rob sensed their time together beginning to feel oddly adversarial. The feeling spread to their bedroom, cutting him to the quick. Their lovemaking ground to a halt. This had simply never happened to them. The hours grew into days, which in turn grew into weeks. Having no refuge, Rob felt it all crush in. He didn't think he could last much longer.
Chapter Two
Spicing
Mica sat on their comfortable couch in their nice condo and once again took stock. She couldn't go on like this. She hated the changes. She reassured herself that at the very least blowing things up would restore a modicum of honesty. She reviewed her plan. Would her sudden reveal shake Rob up enough? Would it destroy the status quo she'd grown to despise? She was committed now, convinced that as bad as her plan was, it was going to be a change for the positive. Mica cringed understanding a lot of bad was going to happen before things got better.
Mica was extremely worried about the effect on her husband. Rob could take the initial shock. Surely, he'd come to see the change as the proper way to run things, and they could still be together! She was going to offer him a way forward. If he didn't take it, she was sure they were done. She wanted, wished really, they could go back to before his promotion. Things were simpler then. Looking the other way wasn't working, so she'd blow them up. Not them hopefully, but the awful new normal. She wanted to blow that sky high! Then replace it with a newer better normal.
How would Rob react? Mica knew he'd be shocked, probably hurt, but she thought she could take that particular pain away as soon as he realized she would still be there. She was his special good girl he'd placed on an alabaster pedestal to honor. How would he react to her being a slut, in effect a personal whore? It was so different, but also their way forward. If he could make the change, they still had a chance to be together.
Mica felt she could manage the double life, both a corporate manger's whore and a devoted wife. If she was going to do this it was paramount to keep those lives and roles separated, she'd insist they be kept separate. Her plan was certainly like nothing she'd ever considered, like nothing she'd ever done. Mica knew she'd been very protected and was very naïve. She fell for Rob, and he was going places, so she had to go too. This world was new to her, but she'd taken it on. Rob was doing all he could, it was killing him, and that was destroying them. So, it was on her now. Mica considered her looming problem again. Just how do you tell your husband that he needs to change his perception of his wife to save his marriage?
Mica had come up with a unique way to break things to her husband: she was going to be explosive. Mica figured her best chance was to come out blazing and quickly sever his strained last ties to a past normalcy. Then she could attack the new horror that had become their lives. Finally, she could set up their new roles and establish their newest normal. The sooner she established their new lives, the sooner Rob could adjust, and the sooner they could settle in and enjoy the road ahead. She was sure the changed role she proposed wouldn't be a long-term change, but she wasn't sure exactly how much they could ever go back. Although she fervently wanted to go back, her main mission was to ensure a mutual future. That was worth anything to her, even being a whore to a corporate executive. Everything hinged on Rob wanting to have her in the future, if he didn't, their present would already be over.
Mica thought, 'Let him see the worst of it. Then dial it back. Let him know that it won't be like that full time, unless he's actually into that sort of thing.' Mica reinforced herself by hoping when compared to the worst case, that the newest normal wouldn't be so bad for Rob. So strangely, she wanted to throw her "cheating" in his face. Would he believe she cheated? She needed him to be angry. Angry enough to fight for her, to want her in some primal way going forward, even if it was very different than what they had before. Mica shook her head at her own idea: purposely making Rob angry to reveal her offer. How had things gotten this twisted?
