(Author's Note: All rights reserved. No sex with persons 18 or less. This is not a wimpy cuck or BTB story although one wife gets a second-degree burn.)
The SUV
Joey
We were five couples with children: Manuel and Maria had six; Mark and Trish had five; Both Missy and I, and Jake and Babs had four, and Sammy and Ellie had three. Manuel and Maria had the oldest child, Elena, at fifteen; Sammy and Ellie had the youngest child, Sammy, Jr., at two.
Almost every Saturday we would do something as a group, even if it was just a backyard barbeque. Occasionally, we'd caravan an overnight trip. We always had ready and willing babysitters if a couple wanted to have a night out, or if we all wanted to have an adults only night, we'd pool our resources. There were eight houses on our cul-de-sac, the other residents were a much older couple whose kids had long ago left the nest, and a younger couple who didn't have any children and had their own circle of friends. The eighth house was a rental, and the occupants seemed to change two or three times a year.
I was a beginning homebuilder, serving as both salesperson and subcontractor supervisor. With four kids, Missy was a stay-at-home mom, but occasionally helped out with the bookkeeping or with home walk-throughs. I thought our life was great, and it wasn't until things started happening to tilt our wagon that it finally went off the tracks.
The first thing was that after dinner, Missy wanted to talk. She began with, "Joey, the girls and I need a night out."
I asked, "What do you mean, sweetheart?"
She explained, "I mean a girls' night out, where the five of us can go clubbing and dancing on our own. You guys can babysit and play poker or watch football or whatever you want to do. If you don't want to babysit, everyone can chip in to pay for it."
I inquired, "When were you thinking of having this girls' night out?"
She replied, "We decided we would like to go out every Friday night, starting this Friday."
I commented, reluctantly, "We haven't decided anything!"
She calmly responded, "I meant that we girls decided that's what we wanted to do. If there's a problem we can change the plan."
I suggested, "Missy, I think this is a big deal. I'm not saying no, but maybe all ten adults need to get together and talk about it. Missy, I love you. The idea of a girls' night out isn't necessarily bad. I just don't like you being away from me and your children one out of every seven nights."
She didn't seem happy with that, but said, "Let me get back to the other girls. Maybe that's what we'll do. I can see that this Friday night might be too soon."
I answered, "Probably not if it was a one-off, but we're talking about establishing a tradition here. That's what I'm uncomfortable with."
She seemed reasonable, "Point taken. Let me get back with the girls, and all of us can decide the next step."
I assumed that all of us meant both girls and guys. It turned out that I was not the only husband with reservations, so we got a two high school senior girls plus Elena, which gave us a three-girl team of babysitters to sit all twenty-two kids at our house, while the adults had our big confab at Sammy and Ellie's house.
Missy
I couldn't see what the fucking bid deal was all about. The five of us had all been moms at least three times; if we wanted to kick up our heels with some dancing, drinking, and even a little flirting, we had earned it. At least all of our husbands weren't being hard asses like Joey. Even after four children, I had kept my looks, and I wanted to have some excitement before I was old and gray. I had joined in the early struggles of Joey getting his business of the ground; I was ready for my pay-off.
The meeting went fairly well. We managed to get all the husbands on board by allowing them to set some conditions. None of the conditions were that serious: No going to private places like hotel rooms or apartments; no exceptions to being home at a reasonable hour; no parking lot rendezvouses with others than our husband; and everybody going home together with rotating designated drivers.
I felt the rules weren't necessary and were somewhat condescending, as if after ten or twelve years of marriage, we still didn't know how to behave. It was as though we were still teenage girls and needed a curfew. At least the husbands didn't impose a hard curfew.
Joey
I thought the whole idea of a weekly girls' night out was counterproductive to the happy marriages we had so far. I think some of the guys felt that after twenty-odd kids, the girls deserved a break, so long as they kept things under control. I was sure we had made a mistake by not imposing a hard curfew; however, the first few girls' nights out went okay. Missy was home by one o'clock and I received the dividend of a passionate wife, once she was in bed. It had been a while since she had been so hot.
Overall, it didn't seem so bad. Even though we had frequent interruptions from the kids, we got to do some male bonding over poker. We rotated and played pool when we went to Sammy's house. When it was warm enough, we sometimes let the kids swim in our pool when it was my turn to be the host.
The every Friday night girls' night out did become a tradition for our five couples and the only times the girls would skip would be when we were able to swing a romantic weekend getaway, a couple of times a year.
The next bump in the road was when one night after supper, Missy told me, "Joey, we need an SUV." I thought we were doing fine with a sedan for adult and business use, and a minivan for hauling the kids around to soccer games and other important kid things.
She responded to my, "I don't know about that," with "We don't like going to clubs in a minivan and besides, it will be more professional when you are showing clients potential building sites."
The latter was a more cogent argument than the former. Hell, they were soccer moms. What was wrong with showing up at clubs in a minivan. They weren't going home with anybody, were they? I did love Missy, and I wanted her to be happy. I did have a good last year, selling eight homes, five of which were closed. The three remaining plus one spec meant that I had four homes under construction at the same time, which was keeping me busy, since they weren't colocated. It was a big help when Missy could do a showing, and she was right that it wasn't professional to be driving a minivan around on raw land. I thought something like a RAV4 would check all the boxes.
I'm not sure exactly how it happened but somehow the RAV4 costing around 40K was converted into an Escalade at over 100K, but nothing was too good for the love of my life, and the mother of my children. I was almost in consensus with Missy on that point, but even with my business becoming more and more successful, one hundred thousand dollars was a healthy hunk of change!
The only other sign of a growing ennui in our marriage was that the Friday night girls' night outs seemed to be creeping more and more into Saturday mornings. Three AM was becoming a too frequent occurrence.
Finally, Jake called a husbands-only meeting. The news was not good. Jake told us, "One of my workers told me that I needed to check out the Purple Cow Club. He hinted that my marriage might be at risk. I am planning to check it out this Friday night. I'm thinking that you guys might want to join me."