The Coward – an Alternate Ending

Thanks to Just Plain Bob for his permission to expand upon his story. I recommend reading his story The Coward for better understanding of this version. There is no sex in this story.

For some reason the ending of JPB's story The Coward bothered me. I am not one of these to blast an author for ending a story with the husband as a wimp but I am also not one who would subscribe to a cuckold lifestyle. My ending will not please everyone particularly those who prefer macho endings but perhaps it will allow for others to add to it, with JPB's permission of course. These are just stories and it takes all types.

Let us also face the fact that there are probably more NAVY SEALs, Special Forces, Marine Force Recon, martial arts bad asses, understanding bosses and millionaires inhabiting the stories of Literotica than inhabiting the real world. There are different types of courage. There is the battlefield type of courage exemplified by the men who flew bombers through the flak over Germany or the Marines who engaged in house to house combat in Fallujah. There is common everyday courage as displayed by the man who not only seeks out and accepts the responsibility of being a husband and father but continues to meet those responsibilities day in and day out. He could take the cowards way out and abandon the family rationalizing his cowardice however he can. There is the courage of the woman who goes through pregnancy and childbirth instead of seeking an alternative.

Then of course there are the different forms of cowardice.

The story picks up with main character waiting at home like a "good boy" for the phone call to come pickup his wife.

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I was sitting on the couch in the living room thinking about what Simpson had told me. In my mind I had known what Glenda was doing on Tuesdays and Thursday, even if I wouldn't admit it to myself, but I had never even begun to think that it was anything but one lover. Gangbangs? Sweet Jesus Christ! I had wisely (and cowardly) left my meeting with Simpson and come straight home. True, I had abandoned Glenda, but why should I risk lifetime employment for a slut who had been fucking around on me? I had considered that Simpson might have been lying to me about Glenda, but then how would he have known about Tuesday and Thursday? No, Simpson knew what he was talking about.

I also thought about the last thing that Simpson had said to me before I left the bosses house:

"We need for her to have a certain degree of respectability old boy, so do not do anything silly when you get her home. Work it out as best you can, but divorce is quite out of the question. Now be a good boy and run along. I must be getting back to the party."

Was I just going to sit back and let Simpson and the company higher ups dictate to me how I was going to live my life? Yes I was. Why? Because I'm a coward. All that's left for me to do now is wait for the phone call telling me to come and pick up Glenda.

It was still early in the evening so I figured I might as well change out of the suit I had worn to the party. I walked upstairs to the master bedroom in doing so I passed what was now the guest room. When we had bought the house our plans were to turn the guest room into a nursery when we decided to start a family. It hit me that there was more at stake here than the job, an excellent job but it was only one consideration.

A whole bunch of questions began to rattle around in my mind and churn my stomach. Would we ever start a family? Would the child even be mine? Would I even be sharing the same bed with my whore wife? Would the guest room become my room? If we had any children how would I explain their mom's nights away when they asked? How would I face my child or children if they ever found out the truth? How secure was my career once the lifestyle and time took its toll on Glenda's looks?

Mr. Simpson said I could not divorce Glenda but did that preclude her divorcing me? What if I meet somebody who would love me for me and be faithful as unlikely as that might be? Was the job worth forgoing having a real family and any future emotional happiness?

Mr. Simpson said work things out with Glenda but what was there to work out? Knowing how my marriage had gone up to this point I would bring Glenda home and she would tell me how it is going to be.

I finished changing clothes and went downstairs to the den and turned on the TV. It provided only back ground noise to my thinking. Yes, I was a coward and I remember all that had it had brought me. My attempts to avoid confrontation in school only made me a bigger target for teasing and harassment. It got so I hated every day of school. The harassment and ridicule was nonstop and I have few good memories of my childhood as far as school was concerned. College was only marginally better. Would work become the same as school? Would I be treated in a professional manner or become subject to ridicule?

It was now obvious that I was not hired because of my skills but my wife's slutty behavior. It also would seem I was not very good at my job to begin with given how long it took me to find another job.

Lord knows I did not want to return to my school years. My cowardice had made me a cuckold and wimp in my personal life and now it seems my professional life also. As a child home was a refuge of the hell that was school. More recently work was a refuge from home. Now I would have no place of refuge. My thoughts returned to Glenda. With tears in my eyes I could no longer just pretend to not notice my wife's infidelity and obvious contempt for me.

There was an old detective movie on the TV and the main character uttered the line "A man's got to know his limitations." I considered that. My limitations? I knew them well. I was a coward and I could not handle confrontations. A man with courage would tell Simpson to shove the job, confront his wife and those banging his wife. Was my only option then to accept it as my wife and Simpson seem to assume I would? Only an hour had passed since I got home and I figured I had till morning before the call would come. I quickly drew up a list of what I needed to do in those few hours. First I went online to see what was in our bank accounts. I could not and would not move any money around. Our accounts were still recovering from the lean times of eight months prior so there was not much in savings and we each only had one credit card in our own names.

I typed out two letters, printing out two copies of one and single copy of the other. I then put them in envelopes.

I went to the garage and got some boxes and a roll of trash bags before going up the bedroom. I never realized just how much more stuff Glenda had than me or more accurately how little the space was that I was allocated in our home. From the style of the furniture to the color of the paint it was all what she wanted. There was very little in the house that said I lived here. I had two paintings in the closet that my mother had done. Glenda did not want them displayed as "they did not go with the rest of our stuff." In reality there was no "our stuff" just hers. I started filling boxes and bags not forgetting items from the den. All these I moved out to the garage.

I then drove over to work. The offices were normally closed for the weekend but it was not unusual for people to come in and put in some OT. I took the elevator to my office. There were no personal items in there that I wanted. I was there to drop things off.

I got two interoffice envelopes. In one addressed to Human Resources I put in my company cell phone, company credit card and an envelope containing my letter of resignation, effective immediately. In the other envelope addressed to Mr. Simpson was another copy of my letter of resignation. I left my company laptop on my desk. On my way out of my office I dropped the envelopes into the central distribution bin. They would be on the appropriate desks first thing Monday morning.

I gave my company ID/access badge to the guard on my way out, knowing it would be turned in to the main security office Monday morning. When I got back home I was relieved to find there were no missed calls on the home phone and nobody had tried to reach me on my personal cell. Of course they could be calling the company cell phone about now and I would not have any idea. I made one last sweep through the house making sure I was not forgetting anything. The last and final envelope contained a letter to Glenda. I placed it with my wedding ring and personal cell phone on the dining room table. I then started to load the boxes and bags I had packed into my car. All this time fear was clawing at my gut. I was afraid that Glenda or my boss would discover what I was doing. I had started to cry, both out of fear and sadness.

With the car loaded I drove off, stopping at a couple of ATMs to get some running away money before I got on the highway, westward bound. You see it was not Glenda's items I had packed up but mine. I did not have the courage for the confrontation with her had I remained, I lacked the courage to face down my employers much less look them in the eye day to day so I did what I have been doing almost all my life , I avoided it. In this case my cowardice was not to passively take what was inflicted on me. Instead I was running away, just as I ran from bullies in school. My fear was of being caught before I could get away. My letter of resignation simply stated I was resigning because of a need to take care of personal matters that would not allow me to continue to work for them.

My letter to Glenda was apologetic. I wrote her that I was sorry that I could not be the man she wanted or more importantly needed and that I hoped she would find somebody that she could love and respect. Somebody who could accept her and the life she had chosen to live.

By 8:00am I had crossed into the Mountain Times Zone and had pulled into a small town looking for a place to get something to eat and get some sleep. I did not have a whole lot of money and knew I would need to find a job. I believed Simpson would keep to his word and I would never find a job in the industry again. The fast food place I was in had a help wanted sign for an assistant night manger.

I was just getting to bed Monday morning after finishing my first shift as the assistant night manger of the local fast food joint. Of course being an assistant night manger meant you spent more time flipping burgers than any actual managing. I was living in a partially furnished single wide trailer.

I did not even bother getting undressed as I curled up into bed. As in the previous night sleep would not come easily because I kept reliving each and every act of cowardice in my life. As William Shakespeare wrote in Julius Caesar: "Cowards die many times before their deaths; The valiant never taste of death but once".

A taxi delivered Glenda to her home about 5:00 AM the Saturday morning after the party. Both Glenda and her husband's employers were surprised that he had failed to answer the phone when they called him to come fetch his wife. Glenda was even more surprised to find him not home when she got there. Simpson had told her of his talk with her husband and she fully expected him to accept the situation and for her it was good one. She would be getting all the sex she wanted and her wimp husband would be making enough money that she would be able to quit work. All she had to do was make herself available to Simpson and the others at his job. The need for discretion would mean an end to her Tuesday and Thursday nights out but Simpson promised she would have plenty to do for them.

Though she had been surprised when Simpson first confronted her with the fact that she would be the night's entertainment she found the terms agreeable. Considering that all she had to do was what she had been doing all along and the fact that her husband was now fully knowledgeable of the situation made the decision an easy one. Her husband having little choice but to accept it made it even more appealing.

Glenda stripped down and ran herself a bath to soak away the remains of the night's activities. She lay back in the tub rereading his letter as she sipped on some tea. She hoped that the letter was more of a bluff and that he was off sulking like a child and would return home. Without his job she would have to continue to keep working and even at that she did not make enough to keep the house. Most certainly the sex would not be as enjoyable for her without him to cuckold. Mr. Simpson had also made it clear that part of the appeal in gang banging her was the cuckolding of an employee. Her lack of a husband would certainly cause her to lose some of her appeal to Simpson and his cronies.

Glenda decided if he was not back by Sunday she was going to have to track him down and force him to return. She was sure in a face to face confrontation she could make him see reason and return home. She only hoped he would not do anything stupid in the meantime and lose his job. Her affection for him was similar to what she might feel for a household pet or maybe a sibling at best. She loved him in a way but she was not in love with him.

Glenda received a call from Simpson Monday morning informing of her husband's resignation. She explained that he still had not returned home and had been unable to locate him. She had been sure he had been off sulking and hiding and would have returned home by now despite what his letter said.

"As I explained to your husband Glenda, we have a need for a degree of respectability. Without your marriage you are not of much use to us. However your considerable charms and talents will be missed and I am willing to help you to an extent. Our company has plenty of resources and I will use them to locate him. However it will be up to you to convince him to return. I will sit on his resignation till the end of the week. After that the company will have to make other arrangements."

Mr. Simpson called in his V.P in charge of Human Resources. "We need to review our psychological screening. It seems we have misread our most recent hire. Instead of quietly accepting his situation he appears to have run off. Our screening and testing should have revealed this possibility."

It was Monday evening when Glenda received a phone call from Simpson's PA. An hour later she was on the highway heading west.