Howard's story
The rain had mostly quit when I set the first of Shelley's logbooks aside and tried to compose myself.
I was shocked at what she had done, shocked, hurt and angry. How could she do this to me, to us? How could I have not suspected anything? Was she that good at deception or was I just willfully blind and blissfully ignorant?
I was completely flummoxed, because I had no idea any of this was going on. At home, Shelley was as loving and attentive as she'd always been, and I'd thought we still had a good sex life for two people of our age.
Actually, I should back up. At that point, I still had no idea of how bad it was. I had only gotten through the first year of her business travels, and there were still six more books to go through.
As of the end of 1998, she had only just been seduced by this Louis Bertelli. I was quickly to learn that he was only the first.
I also struggled to make sense of why she had done this. I don't think it was to spite me. I hadn't done anything to her that would merit that kind of response, and she had never acted angrily, bitterly or sarcastic toward me.
The logs were no help in that regard. They were almost clinical in their brevity. A typical entry usually went something like this:
"Date, place. Met w/So-and-so 3hrs on contract. Had dinner w/So-and-so at hotel, had steak w/wine. Talked about baseball. Went to room and he fucked me 3 times, at least 8 orgasms. Wow!"
That was it. No descriptions, no explanations.
But if the logs gave me no clue as to why Shelley was cheating on me, they told me in breathtaking clarity that whatever I was doing for her sexually wasn't nearly enough.
I was beginning to get a glimmer of understanding that my wife had a far deeper sexual urge than I had ever imagined, and that she got from her lovers what she wasn't getting from me. I needed answers, and I thought maybe the rest of her logbooks might provide some clues.
They didn't, but they did give me a very clear picture of just how far Shelley had gone in pursuit of whatever sexual urges were driving her. It was a lot further than I could have EVER imagined.
Working on the basement was forgotten. I gathered up the logbooks, walked upstairs and started reading about how my wife of 31 years had been betraying me on a regular basis for the past seven years. It was painful reading, but over the next three days, I forced myself to wade through them all.
I began again with the logbook from 1999, and any hope that her fling with Louis Bertelli might have been a one-time thing was dashed right from the start. A trip to Chicago the first week in January confirmed that.
There were a couple of other rendezvous with him in Chicago, then another name began to appear quite regularly, a man named Darrell Poston, who was a client of Shelley's in Washington, D.C.
It was the same as before only much, much quicker - a couple of meetings in his office, a lunch date, then a visit to her hotel room.
There were a couple of things about Darrell Poston that made me pause, however.
For one, he was black, which isn't necessarily bad in itself; I just never thought Shelley would be attracted to a black man.
For another, some of the things he and Shelley have done together are positively outrageous...
Shelley's story
They say that once a spouse cheats on their partner that it becomes easier and less painful.
That is certainly true in my case. Once I crossed the threshold with Louis and cheated on Howard, it was ridiculously easy for me to do it with someone else, in some other town.
Before I did, I forced myself to do some soul searching. I do have a conscience, even though it hasn't always seemed like it. But I knew in my gut that I needed to set some ground rules for myself, some parameters with which to work.
The big thing was, I knew I still loved Howard, no matter what, and I wanted to maintain my marriage, both for his sake and that of the boys.
I thought I could have the best of both worlds, a stable, loving marriage at home and a wild, uninhibited sex life on the road. I know, I was rationalizing and I was being stupefyingly selfish, but that's how my thought processes were working at the time. I didn't want to just throw myself at any man who came along, for several reasons, mostly to do with health and safety, and I didn't really want to throw any of my actions in Howard's face. Like I've said, he's a kind man and the only man I've ever truly loved.
I believed I could compartmentalize my life to the extent that I could love Howard at home, but cheat on him when I traveled. It was a fool's game, and I got away with it for a long time. But lately, it's started falling apart on me, and now I have to face the music.
At any rate, I was no bar pickup girl, and I have tried to be selective in my partners, or at least I was initially. Lately, some things have happened that have made me think I'm losing control of my situation, so perhaps getting caught was a blessing in disguise.
But I'll get to that some other time.
I said the last time that there were several reasons why I started doing this, and why I have kept on for so long. And one of those reasons was the ability to live out some of my long-standing fantasies.
And I've encountered some partners in the course of my travels who have been very willing to help me act out my deepest, darkest desires.
As I became more comfortable in my job, and as I became better at it, I started getting some of the company's bigger accounts. I'm good at my job, and the company values my effort.
One of these big accounts that came my way was a big contract that we have with the Army. It's one of our most profitable accounts - your tax dollars at work - and it requires at lot of attention.
We have a regular liaison with a mid-level bureaucrat in the Secretary of the Army's office that we deal with, and there is also a congressional committee that we periodically report to.
When I first got the account, our liaison at the Department of the Army was a Mr. Crisler, a 50ish gentleman who didn't do the least bit for me.
