[Author's Note: This story is dedicated to Just Plain Bob, with thanks for all the enjoyment his stories have given to his many readers.]
*
Over dinner, while Julie was getting Tim more macaroni and cheese and I was wiping some of the ketchup off Will's face, I asked her if we could talk later.
"Just for a few minutes after the boys are in bed," I said.
"Sure, baby." She smiled at me from across the room. "What's up?"
"I don't want to get into it now," I smiled back, glancing at the boys.
So it wasn't until about 8:30, after Tim and Will had been bathed, put into pajamas, and had "Goodnight Moon" read to them for the 300th time, that Julie and I could sit down together in the living room. I brought in a couple of glasses and poured each of us some wine.
"You know how much I love you, right?" I began. Julie smiled and squeezed my hand affectionately.
"Of course, baby—and I love you. We are both pretty lucky."
"Okay," I said. "So, well—listen. Just, please, hear me out, okay? Let me say all of it before you jump in, so I can really explain."
She nodded, looking curious.
"I want to take a lover." Julie's mouth dropped open, and I could see she was about to say something, so I hurried on.
"Please, let me finish—not really a lover, just someone I'll be having sex with. It's Andrea Walden, the new assistant in Edward's office. We've gotten to be friends, had lunch a couple of times, and it turns out she's been divorced about eight months and is horny as hell. We both think we'd be great together, and she understands completely that I'm married and committed to you. So it wouldn't be a romance or anything like that.
"And the fact is, she's really hot. I think that fucking her will be great, and I'm looking forward to doing a lot of it."
Julie looked like she'd seen a ghost. I went on.
"Here's the thing, Jules—it would really be just for sex. I love you, you know that. And we have a great sex life. I love making love with you and I won't be giving up on that at all.
"It's just that, well, I'm feeling the need for some variety. I think it could help us, actually—maybe bring back some of the spark that we had when we first got together, that's been lost a bit after ten years.
"Whatever happens, you will always have my love—I will always be here with you, always fully committed to you and the boys. You won't be losing a thing, I promise.
"And I just couldn't do this behind your back—that would be cheating. So I figured the right thing was just to come out and talk to you about it. I felt sure you would see it my way."
I sat back. "So, honey—what do you think?"
I'd never seen Julie more at a loss. She looked shocked and disoriented, and I waited while she tried to figure out what to say.
"Dan, I—is this one of your jokes? You know, that dead-pan thing you do?"
Julie was referring to a frequent occurrence in our marriage: the times when she can't read my expression. I perfected a poker-face growing up, and in fact I won a great deal of money playing poker in college. So it's kind of a joke between us that she can't always tell if I'm angry, if I'm happy, if I'm kidding about something.
"Not at all, Julie," I said, "I'm completely serious."
"Well, I--wait, have you already...been with her?"
"No, sweetheart, I would never do that! I needed to talk to you first. But she and I are looking forward to spending Saturday afternoon together; I'm going to fuck her brains out!"
Another silence. Then she said, hesitantly: "Honey, I—I just don't...I mean, what about our wedding vows? You know, 'forsaking all others' and all that?"
I nodded my head. "Of course, Julie, we did both promise that. But this won't be like replacing you or anything. You will always be my wife, my lover, my partner, the mother of my children. This will just be a little fun I have on the side, something to keep me young, put a little spring in my step.
"And I promise, it will never affect anything between you and me."
Julie looked as uncomfortable as I'd ever seen her—pale, shaken, very uneasy.
"Dan, I—I just...Jesus, I have no idea what to say to you."
"How about if you think about it, sweetheart? Give it a day or two, and we'll talk about it again, okay?"
She nodded doubtfully. "That's...I guess that's all right," she said.
"Terrific!" I leaned forward and kissed her on the cheek. "Thanks, Jules—you're the best. I'm going to go see if I can catch the end of the Cardinals game. I'll be up to bed in a little while."
And with a smile, I got up and left the room.
****************
It was only a bit at a time that I had learned that Julie was cheating on me. Probably a good thing, because if I'd discovered it suddenly I might have just beaten the shit out of her, put Will and Tim in the car and gotten the hell out of town.
But as things happened it was gradual: a little doubt, a hint of suspicion, some looking around, more bits of evidence, and then finally the awful day when there was no longer any doubt about it.
I'm not even sure what first made me wonder. Was it noticing a couple of times when Julie came home from work and headed straight for the shower before even starting dinner? Or was it a subtle lessening of her interest in bed—not less frequent sex, but less enthusiasm?
In any case, once I started wondering I began seeing more things I wasn't happy about, and my wondering turned into worrying. One day she came into the house and went straight to the bedroom without taking off her coat. When she came back out a few minutes later she had changed her blouse.
So I waited until she was in the middle of cooking, then went and checked the laundry hamper in our bedroom. She'd pushed her blouse way down to the bottom, and I could see why: it had several stains on the front, droplets of what might have been vanilla milkshake but which smelled like semen.
Even then—and I guess I'm a cautious person—I didn't confront her. Julie and I had been happily married—very happily married—for eight years. Our two boys were five and three, and we both adored them. Julie was a terrific, loving mother; and I would have said a terrific, loving wife as well.
So I didn't confront her, not then, but I did invest in a small recorder for her car and a discreet tap for our home phone. I didn't have to worry about Julie using her cell at home, because our reception was terrible.
Within two days my worst fears were confirmed, and after another week of listening I pretty much knew the whole story. She'd been fucking Thomas Attlee, one of the other fourth-grade teachers at her elementary school, for about three months. And she'd been telling her best friend Ruth all about it.
It was easy for her and Attlee to arrange some motel time a couple of afternoons a week, because school ended by 2:30 and she didn't need to pick up the boys at day care until 5:00. Julie routinely stayed after school to work in her classroom a couple of days each week, so I had no reason to wonder where she was. And on the days they were off bouncing on a bed somewhere, the other teachers just assumed she'd gone home a little earlier.
From the phone calls between Ruth and Julie, it appeared that Attlee had pursued her, though she hadn't fought him off too hard. Within about two months of starting to flirt with Julie he'd gotten in her pants. Since then they'd been screwing regularly, with no sign of ending it.
And the excuses Julie made to Ruth for her behavior were classic—all the bullshit justifications that I suppose cheaters have been using since the dawn of history.
"It's not anything about Dan, Ruth, you know that—I adore him. And our sex life is great! It's just, I don't know, a little something extra for myself. Just for me—like a secret hot fudge sundae.
"What I'm doing will never hurt him. Dan knows how much I love him, and we make love just as much now as before. In fact I make sure of that. There's no way Dan could say I'm depriving him.
"Above all, it's just sex with Thomas. It's hot—really hot!—but it's just fucking. There's no romance, no 'darling let's run away together'." She giggled. "I just want his hard cock, and he just wants my pussy—" she giggled again, "or occasionally my ass, and that's fine. So there's no way it's a threat to anything between Dan and me.
"In a way, it's probably even good for us! Because being with Thomas is, you know, it's exciting. It makes me feel young again, and sexy, not like a schoolteacher-housewife who's getting up into her mid-thirties. And Dan gets the benefit of that."
I won't even try to describe the kind of pain I went through, listening to all that. She didn't say those things all at once, but in different conversations I recorded with Ruth. (Apparently she didn't talk on the phone with Attlee at all—they must have made all their arrangements in quick conversations at school.)
The worst was the happiness in her voice, the laughter and pleasure, the fun she was having: I have a great marriage, a great husband, and fucking another guy on the side just makes it all that much better!
I did want to kill her. I wanted to confront her at Thanksgiving in front of the whole family—or get pictures of her and Attlee fucking and give a slide show to the PTA. I wanted to drive away with Tim and Will and leave her in an empty house, wondering if she'd ever see us again.
I had some truly miserable days, and I couldn't entirely conceal my feelings. Even Julie noticed—she kept asking me why I was so down in the dumps, and trying to cheer me up. She made me a peach pie; she got a sitter and took me out to the movies; she even arranged for her mom to take the boys for a sleepover one Saturday night, and she bought a sexy black nightie and a bottle of champagne and gave me a night of seduction and sex.
My sore and angry heart didn't prevent me from enjoying the three rounds of fucking we did that night. I don't know what was in her head--what was in mine was "this is my whore of a wife, but she seems to still love me and want me to be happy, so I might as well enjoy what I'm getting."
But did it make me feel any better about what was going on? About being cuckolded? Fuck no.
****************
When I came down to breakfast the day after telling her about Andrea, Julie was a changed woman. She'd gotten up extra early and not only made the usual breakfast for the kids, but cooked eggs and bacon and pancakes for me.
She smiled at me when I came into the kitchen, brought me a cup of coffee and gave me a long, loving kiss. But the look in her eyes was tentative, even frightened.
"Morning, Julie--thanks for the coffee. What's with the big breakfast? It looks great!"
She smiled happily. "Oh, I just thought you needed a little fattening-up; I don't want you to waste away to nothing."
I thought she'd head upstairs and get the boys out of bed, but instead she plopped herself down on my lap and twined her arms around my neck.
"Got time for a quickie? I think you might like what's under this robe."
