No-sex alert warning. Also, if you're looking for a feel-good ending, move on down the line. Life isn't always pretty. It's just life.
*****
"You think that's a slut story?" asked Helena Bonham as a group of Perriman Financial execs sat around a Logan International Airport bar in Boston waiting out a snow delay. "How about this: I know this woman who was such a sneaky whore that she used to fly to Norway once a year for annual company meetings and spend much of the week on her back with the CEO's son between her legs. She did this for like 20 years, and her old man never suspected a thing.
"I mean in the office she was prim and proper and for 51 weeks of the year you would have thought she was just the nicest, most conservative, quiet woman you'd ever met. But she'd go over to Norway for corporate meetings once a year and turn into a slut. She didn't think the rest of us knew what was going on, but come on, woman, when you leave the hotel every night with the same hunk, and don't sneak back into your hotel room until time to shower and change clothes for the next day's meetings ... Nobody's stupid, well ... except maybe her husband. But I guess you really can't fault him. Why would he think his practically "Goody Two-Shoes" wife would be whoring around him for one week a year?
"I worked with that woman for like 15 years. I left there about two years ago. I wonder if she's still fucking him over ... What was her name ... Traci ... Traci Shondell. Yeah, that's it. I bet that poor bastard's going to go to his grave never knowing that his wife was cuckolding him."
"Hey, wait a minute, we've got a guy in our group named Shondell," Claude Whisenhunt whispered to me. "You don't think she's talking about Shondy's wife, do you Herb? You've met her. She does kind of come off like an ice queen, but she is one hot MILF."
"That's the story, Bryan, as close as I can remember it," Herb Mangold said to me over the phone. "They went on to talk about somebody else hooking up after that, but I knew I had to call you as soon as I heard it. I hope it's not your Traci, Bryan, Jesus, I really do, but if it was my wife I'd want to be told."
"Thanks, Herb. Really, I mean it. I hope it's not her, too," I said to my co-worker. "Hey, could you do me one favor and not mention this to anyone else. If Claude brings it up again, just douse the story as quietly as you can, and I'll tell Claude myself if I have to ... but only if I have to."
I have worked with Herb for 15 years at Perriman, and I'd trust the man with the lives of my children, so I knew he could be trusted to keep this quiet. I also trusted the fact that he got the story straight, which means I had a world-flipping problem.
My wife, Traci, is in management at Johannsen Ltd., a financial services firm based out of Norway. And yes, for the last 23 years now, she has been flying to Norway as part of the management crew for one week of corporate meetings. And yes, she is conservative and prim and proper, in addition to being one hot MILF. But my Traci would never cheat on me, could never cheat on me. Could she?
Helena Bonham's words came back to haunt me.
"I bet that poor bastard's going to go to his grave never knowing that his wife was cuckolding him."
Sitting around wishing it wasn't so was not an option. This "poor bastard" was going to know the truth.
Traci and I have been married for 25 years. We met in college and dated for three years before getting married. We both work in the financial services field, and are both in management and have done quite well for ourselves financially. We have three beautiful children, one who has graduated college, one a college junior and the baby is a college freshman. So we've become empty-nesters this year, and although it took some getting used to at first, being alone together again has rekindled an already-good marriage ... or so I thought until a few minutes ago.
I sat at my office desk and pondered the situation for a while. I truthfully didn't know where to start.
Traci had started at Johannsen right out of college, about a year before we got married. It took her three years to earn her way to Norway for the corporate meetings, and she's been going every year since. Doesn't usually have much to say about them before or after; they just seem to be a necessary evil. Thinking back, she did seem a little perturbed about going while pregnant with our first child, but I assumed that was because she was five months along and starting to get uncomfortable. Now, of course, I'm wondering if she was perturbed because she was pregnant while seeing her lover.
I went to my Firefox favorites and clicked on Johannsen's website. It was a beautiful, fast-loading site befitting one of the world's top financial firms. Since it was Traci's company I would occasionally peruse it, but until today the only corporate officer I knew about was the CEO, Gunnar Marquist. Marquist had brought three of his family into the company - two sons and a daughter - and I found their photos and biographies on the website along with several other top officers. I read the kids' bios in chronological order, so I didn't get to Henrik Marquist's until last. When I opened the bio, however, and got a photo bigger than a postage stamp, I almost gave up my lunch: I was looking at the faces of my two youngest children, Jason and Marilyn. Holy shit!
Traci is of Norwegian descent herself, with long blonde hair and sparkling blue eyes, so I never gave it a second thought that the last two kids were blonde and blue-eyed, the same way I never gave it a second thought when Amy came out with brown hair and eyes like me. But after looking at Henrik Marquist's photo, there was no way those kids could be mine. I quickly did the math, too. The corporate meet's usually in August, and both of their birthdays are in May. Fuckshit!
I desperately needed to talk to someone, but who could I really trust with a secret this delicate, and who would have the strength of character to advise me well. Next to Traci, my go-to in situations like this was my father-in-law, Alf Schlagel. He had been my closest trusted adviser since my dad died when I was in my late 20s. He was just a solid guy, never forced himself into any situation, and because of this he became my life consigliere on the few times I needed to talk to someone other than my wife.
But I couldn't go to Alf. How do you hit a guy with, "Gee, sorry, sir, but I think your daughter is a cheating whore and has been fucking somebody behind my back for more than 20 years."
It quickly became obvious to me that I don't have a lot of close, personal friends when I took stock of the situation. My next closest advisor was my favorite bartender, the night manager at a small bar near my house named simply, "My Place." It was an old-fashioned type pub that I occasionally dropped into for a quick drink or two on some nights or took Traci with me for a quick dinner on other nights. Through the years I had become somewhat close friends with January "Don't ever call me Jan" Sparnakle, the feisty but level-headed daughter of the owner. She was a few years younger than me, but had been working at the pub her entire working life, and as such had developed a real feel for people. She had given me her thoughts and advice on a number of subjects through the years, but never anything of this magnitude. I hoped she was up to this challenge, although I wasn't sure I really was.
I took a couple of personal hours off work and headed over to My Place. I got there about an hour before January came on. I sat at the bar just shooting the breeze with her father, "Slats" O'Koren, while I put down a pair of JD over ice. Since I rarely got to the bar this early, I hadn't spoken to Slats in a while, because he usually headed home as soon as possible after his shift was up. "That's how you stay married to the same woman for 50 years," he would often brag.
"How's that pretty wife of yours, Bryan?" Slats inquired.
Being lost in deep thought, I guess I didn't hear the question, so Slats repeated it from just a few feet away, at a louder volume this time. I heard him that time, as did most of the bar, I think. I stammered, honestly not sure how to answer what should have been a simple question.
"She's fine, Dad. Sheesh!" January answered for me, coming up behind me from my left, having just entered through the employee entrance.
