Everything was great with Cassie and Dillon until it wasn't. I guess that how divorce always looks from the outside, but it was weird seeing it with family. The weird part is that everyone assumes that "faking it" looks like a perfect little suburban, two and a half kids and a dog family. Faking it, in their case, meant minor problems instead of major ones. Keeping family out of the picture as much as possible. And I get it. Who wants their parents to think they're a fuck-up?
Cassie was my sister-in-law, my wife's sister. And we saw them mostly at the holidays, or when their parents were in town. We lived in the same city, not even a far drive, but had never been all that close. Maybe Dillon was more of that than Cassie. By the time I met them, they were newlyweds. Maybe he'd been different when they were dating, but I sure as hell knew that she could do better. Cassie was tall, beautiful, and one of those artsy types. Her hair had been about ten different colors in the few years that I knew her, and she pulled them all off well. Her right arm was covered in colorful tattoos, and she had a few others on her right leg from what I had seen. Just the right side though- she was funny like that.
Dillon was quite the opposite, but not the opposite that would have worked. If I had just met her, I would have pictured her with one of those "opposites attract" pairings: an ambitious, hardworking, square. That would have kept her grounded, and maybe helped with some of their tensions- life seems to go smoother when the bank account is full. Dillon was none of those things. Although he did have a stick up his ass, he spent more of the years I knew him on the couch than at a desk, and rolled more papers than he pushed. None of that is terrible on its own, but for some reason when he finally got a reasonable job, he chased the wrong skirt. It was pretty cliché to sleep with the secretary. Even worse if it was the boss's daughter, home from college for the summer. And even MORE stereotypical to get caught in bed when your wife comes home early from work... but I guess they're stereotypes for a reason. Last I heard, Dillon was fired and back on the couch, although the rent was coming due; he might even lose the couch.
Which brings us to today. I had just finished helping my sister-in-law grab the last of her things from their little apartment, and we were driving back to our place in my truck. Cassie had called Samantha, my wife, a week ago in tears. When she asked if she could stay for a while, I'm not sure my wife even saw me nodding before she said yes. She and Cassie had been very close when they were little, and even before this she had felt guilty about how far they'd drifted apart. Now I'm sure she felt like she hadn't been there for her sister, and the chance to do something tangible was an automatic "yes". We made up the guest room, cleared some space in the garage, and started moving her in. A week later, we were finally done, and although there would surely be some paperwork to sort out, it was finally a real possibility that none of us would ever have to see Dillon again.
It was going to be nice to have Cassie around the house. In the short week while we'd been moving, she'd cooked a little and kept mostly out of the way until dinnertime, which was frankly perfect for me. And honestly, it was nice to have a little more eye candy around the house. My wife was beautiful, don't get me wrong. She and Cassie shared the same build, tall and slim, but she had blonde hair and freckles. Hell, maybe Cassie had blonde hair too- at this point I wasn't even sure what her real color was. At the moment it was a light purple, which somehow still looked elegant enough to not seem silly. I loved the way my wife looked, even if she glared at the mirror occasionally. It was just nice to have a fresh set of legs around the house too. Obviously that wasn't why I was okay with taking her in, but hey- sometimes a guy likes to look.
It didn't take long to unpack, since the last load had really been more like half a load. When the three of us finished, my wife went to put the finishing touches on dinner while Cassie headed to the guest bathroom and I headed to the master, to shower off the sweat from moving. We seemed to mutually decide, unspoken, that tonight was dinner in front of Netflix, and so we ended the night with a bottle of red wine on the couch and the TV in the background.
You'd be surprised how difficult it is to find a show without infidelity these days. The girls both liked these stupid adult dramas, and sure enough, it wasn't long before so-and-so was flirting with so-and-so instead of her husband. (I teased the girls about them being "modern soap operas", but just got a pillow in the face for my insight.) I snuck a glance at Cassie to see if the show was going to hit any scars, but to my surprise she was giggling instead of... I don't know, whatever I expected.
"What's up, Cass?" I asked.
"Oh, it's just funny," she replied, "that girl talking about... butt stuff."
She giggled as she said it. Now, I was no prude, but I had always assumed that based on her appearance and her clothing choices, that I was the least experienced of the three of us.
"Yeah, I guess it's kinda funny." It didn't hit me the same way as it did her, apparently, but whatever. A few glasses of wine in, everything is worth a little giggle.
"Yeah, like any girl likes that."
Now, I had been the only guy around my wife's friends in a few situations. Our house was pretty good for hosting get-togethers, and I liked to play chef and bartender. Again, a little bit of eye candy is a fun thing, and when you get a group of 30-something girls together and a bit of alcohol flowing, well... let's just say that although I never crossed any lines, I knew some intimate details about quite a few of Samantha's friends. Now obviously I knew a lot about Samantha too, and she did indeed like "butt stuff", as my sister-in-law had just put it. But when her friends were over, she was always embarrassed to mention that. So if the topic came up, she played the part every time- "ewwww" or something like it. So I was extremely surprised when my wife responded to Cassie,
"Well... SOME girls like it."
Cassie laughed, "Well sure, I guess nymphos or whatever. But no real girls."
My wife was feeling bold from the wine, I guess: "I like it."
Cassie laughed again, but when Samantha didn't join in, she looked at me to see if my wife was fucking with her. I just raised my eyebrows and sipped.
"Wow," Cassie said, "I guess I just never thought that you... or that you two, ya know..."
"What, that we fucked?" I laughed this time, trying to soften the little tension in the room.
We all giggled a bit, and I got up to fetch another bottle of wine for us. When I came back, Cassie was unloading to my wife a little. Apparently, she and Dillon had had sex often enough, but not the kind I would have expected. Maybe he was more uptight than I thought, because apparently it was always missionary, under the covers, and even the lights were either dim or off. Every time. I walked in as my wife was questioning Cassie, almost in shock.
