An adult stories – Heroine Addiction by Choppedliver,Choppedliver Just a hopefully amusing four parter before life gets terribly busy again. All parts are written and should be posted on subsequent days. Thank you so much for reading, I hope you enjoy!
Heroine Addiction
Part 1
My name’s Barry. My wife is Kari. Yeah, cute rhyme, right? I can’t help it; those are our names. We live in a nice neighborhood. It’s not a gated community or anything, but a good number of couples in our mid-twenties found this charming forgotten neighborhood of older homes and have come together to make it our own little corner of the universe. It’s like everyone there was “pre-qual’ed” because we were all drawn there for the same reasons.
For the price of a regular starter home, we got a house with much better bones and an actual yard. Our corner of the neighborhood is also quite close to a large old municipal park. With a lot of elbow grease and TLC we’ll have something much better than a starter home, in a few years we’ll be even further ahead as these are great houses for starting a family.
There was a neighborhood party coming up. They were great fun, as we all got along. Well almost all of us, there’s always an outlier, right? That one jerk who sees to it he becomes the standout bad memory in an otherwise perfect day. We’re a group of young married couples in our mid-twenties who have in our midst a still young, but five-year older, single guy. He’s already a rung or two ahead of most of us career-wise as he was unhampered by career-hindering considerations such as a spouse or family.
Our particular snake got a whole rung higher by accepting a quick transfer from his hometown to our fair town. He moved five hundred miles to fill an unexpected vacancy. He could make up his mind on the spot not having to worry about his partner’s job or his kid’s school. As far as any other familial entanglements, he’s so loathsome surely even his mother disowned him years ago.
Our pestilence is named Lewis, he tries to lord it over us that he’s slightly older, which he thinks means wiser, more experienced, and better positioned. He disproves his first assertion every time he opens his mouth, which is normally to tout his third assertion. He boasts about his past fast sports car and present lux SUV. And the vacations… you’d think Zeus himself is this guy’s vacation planner. He makes every little trip to the mountains or the beach sound like his personal ascension to the lofty heights of Olympus. He’s not sure which to rub in more, the decadently luxurious nature of his vacations, which the rest of us can’t yet afford, or his six weeks of annual vacation, which he reminds us, is more than the rest of us have accrued.
If our neighborhood is a body, then Lewis is our asshole. He thinks way too much of himself. Oh yeah, he always hits on the wives. We all hate him, wives included, but he doesn’t seem to notice. It’s hard not to notice that the ladies don’t seem to stay for his entire tale, which he spins eloquently about some gold encrusted trip, or the ambrosia and cornucopia he sustains himself on, or the views from the lofty heights he frequents. Sometimes he comes on as so worldly I want to interrupt his tale to ask him which kids are naughty and nice this year.
So why was I wasting my time fretting over the neighborhood’s designated asshat? Precisely because there was a neighborhood party coming the next weekend, and I couldn’t be there. I had to travel for work. The ladies walk away from Lewis’ stories when they’re almost over, but they actually listen until that point. Which is more than any man in our group does. That was how my wife, Kari, used to be too.
Except at the last get together I was shocked to see my wife not only in the group assembled for story time, but hanging on Lewis’ every word, even asking follow-up questions like a White House Press Corp member. She seemed impressed by his tale, in fact, overly impressed. I also noted the two of them came together occasionally the rest of the evening. When this occurred Kari would talk to him like she actually wanted to, more than merely exchanging a nicety. Lewis is not a guy you mix with, and no nicety applies to him. Once you’ve talked to him, to do so again that same evening is asking for punishment, like coming across a rattlesnake while hiking, and after circumnavigating the hazard deciding to go back for a second look.
Worse was Kari’s response when I gently prodded her about it. I think my exact words were, “Why the hell are you giving numb-nuts the time of day? Especially several times of day?”
My wife gasped as her eyes went wide. She seemed guilty as hell. Her shock seemed to stem from the notion that I wasn’t supposed to notice. Worse, that I’d picked up on the fact meant there WAS something to notice.
Kari saw the dismay on my face at her reaction. For a second, I thought she was going to run away or maybe cry.
My reaction was directly tied to hers, “Oh shit,” I said starting to become angry.
Kari shook her head rapidly back and forth, in a small arc of stiff upset. Then she did something that twisted my tail feathers even more tightly. She purposely looked around the party to see who might have noticed our exchange.
“What Kari? Are you afraid your beau might not like you spending time with your husband?” I thought her eyes were going to roll back in her head and pop out of her mouth like a skier on a downhill jump ramp. She seemed unsteady, which seemed damning.
Kari noticed my reaction to her every move and that my reaction was getting worse as her shock was increasing. Now my anger had shown up at the punch-bowl-of-emotion for a quick drink, and it too was growing. The cascade we’d started was building a damn big snowball, pretty damn quickly.
My wife took me by the arm, “Please take me home. We need to talk.”
Wow, the “We need to talk” phrase. I felt the ground fall out from under me.
Kari saw my dismay multiply, and frankly I’m sure she saw some hurt I couldn’t hide. Her face blanked in shock. She thought about what could have caused my sudden onset heart attack and remembered what she’d said.
“Oh my God, no. No Barry! Take me home honey and I’ll set your mind at ease,” Kari clarified quickly with genuine affection and concern.
We went home and she proceeded to screw my eyes out, which seemed very suspicious. I called her on it… after we were finished. I swear she shivered, saying, “No honey, I have NO romantic interest in Lewis. He’s, he’s repulsive.”
“Oh yeah? I could tell that by your asking him many rock-salt crystals he put on his deep-sea grouper filet with cuttlefish imperial.”
“Cuttlefish imperial?”
My wife suddenly no longer being my firmament in this world had discombobulated my entire interface with reality. I was full of fragments of ideas loosely strung together in a stream of consciousness that had become a roiling rapid of frenetic confusion.
“Never you mind that. You acted like a young girl at story time in front of him. I was waiting for either of the phrases “Tell me another tale, Grandpa” or “Yes, I would love to go for a drive with you Mr. Kennedy.” Neither are appropriate for you Kari, or probably safe.”
She gasped, “I-I… you really think I have a thing for him?”
“Well, let’s see, Kari. You acted like a schoolgirl with a crush.” Her eyes widened again. Distressingly, she almost seemed happy at my revelation. “Later you put yourself in front of his path so he would eventually come across you again; don’t think I didn’t see that little trick. You did it several times, and when you first arrived on station you searched for something to do, so you could “look natural.” And when he showed up, you flirted with him.”
“Oh!”
“Yeah. You were sending out the signals and frankly were sending them out with flares and spotlights attached.”
Now she was almost angry, “I do not telegraph my flirtations like that!”
“Oh, so you were doing a better job of covering your flirting?”
Poor Kari started to respond in the affirmative. Sheesh! At least she caught herself before admitting it. Didn’t matter, I already knew it. Her reaction confirmed that this was a serious problem. I got out of bed, she called out for me. I stopped. I knew I should make some tough guy ultimatum. I was too focused on trying to keep my heart beating.
“I couldn’t believe it happened, Kari. Now I realize it’s worse than I thought; it’s still going on; it’s still happening. You brought it home and are still trying to cover for it, even knowing your cover is already blown. It must mean a lot to you for you to protect it with this level of energy, and to be desperate enough to do it this clumsily.” I didn’t continue down the listing of accusations; I got to the point. “You’ve called my whole world into question. I was so sure about you. I never thought you’d be interested in cheating on me. And most of all, if you were going to cheat on me, I can’t believe it’s with HIM.”
Her container of sturm und drang repellent was broken and draining.
“Nooo, no cheat, no romance, nooo. You can’t believe that!”
“I know what I saw, Kari. Your every motion and expression since just seems to emphasize the horrible fact of it. I know we need to talk this out. I can tell this isn’t a silly thing, it’s serious. I need some space and time to salve my warped continuum. This isn’t leaving you or running away, I just need to compose myself before we get into this. You’ve done a real number on me Kari, I can feel myself losing it.”
Kari evaluated me with a few quick looks. Her lower lip trembled. This was a first for us. She wasn’t scared for herself; I wasn’t a threat, I’d always been her protector. I was hurt and she could tell I didn’t want to break down in front of her. She sounded heartbroken asking, “Don’t you want comfort from me?”
“Comfort? Hell, love of my life, you caused this.”
Kari’s eyes were wide now and with none of that damn happiness lurking. Her mouth had also fallen wide open.
I walked away quickly, speeding up as I went, trying to reach my home office as I was breaking down; Kari was my world. She said she didn’t care for Lewis, but she acted guilty as hell. I’m a typical man that believes actions speak louder than words. It took a half hour to calm down and walk back out into a world that didn’t seem as happy or familiar.
Kari’s worry magnified as my discomfort didn’t lessen. It grew as we failed to clear the air. She kept telling me there was no problem and I kept telling her a wife doesn’t have to convince her husband there’s no problem if there really is no problem. She’d stare back at me at those times like we had a big problem. I’d stick my finger in the air and say, “See!” She all but nodded her head.
Although she didn’t convince me there was no problem, she did manage to calm me down over the next week. The neighborhood parties were frequent in the summer, we skipped the block party the next week and she was happy to stay with me and be romantic; actually, she was down-right bawdy. Yet at times she seemed overly occupied by something; something she wasn’t sharing with me.
* * * * *
For two more weeks I kept bringing up the party that would occur while I was gone. I told Kari it might be a great time to stay home and catch up on her reading. She said she’d probably go out and socialize with the other ladies. So help me, she knew I was suggesting she not go and was deflecting my concern. That’s not what you do to put a suspicious hubby at ease. We kept dancing around it. I don’t really care much for dancing.
It was finally time for me to go. I wished my wife well, figuring she might blow off the party just because Lewis might be there. But I wanted assurance, so I said as much.
“Reconsider going to the block party. You should NOT be around Lewis.”
Kari looked at me trying to close her lips slowly so her jaw dropping open wouldn’t appear so obvious. There wasn’t much wiggle room in what
I’d said, so much for her deflection. I’d just gone right at our problem. I wasn’t letting the matter slip or slide.
She nervously returned, “Oh Jim and Debbie have vouchsafed my time.”
She saw damn well both the disappointment and anger in my face because she couldn’t hold my gaze.
I snarled, “Ah well then, there are no worries. Have a good time.” I turned without kissing her letting my sarcasm pat her cheek instead. I heard her squeak in alarm. Without looking back, I warned, “Don’t play games Honey; not with me and not with love.”
“I’m not!” She called after me sounding sincere, although most of her actions concerning the block party and Lewis were inconsistent with sincerity.
Perhaps I should have held my council, but I loved the girl, “Kari, please keep in mind I’ve done nothing to make you question my sincerity. I love you more than life itself. Even if you don’t care about how I feel, I care about you. That guy is a slime, and he will hurt you.”
“I won’t let him hurt me.” Her voice dripped with worried concern.
I guess she’d wanted to sound reassuring, she’d failed miserably. She saw that she’d failed too. Instead, she’d sounded cocky; like someone convinced they could transmute the poison in their veins to wine, which I point out still isn’t healthy even if successful. My Kari seemed a person too willing to walk where angels feared to tread. Recoiling she closed her eyes seeing now she’d told me she was indeed planning to play with the snake oil salesman.
I didn’t try to conceal my disappointment and anger; it would have been inappropriate.
“That’s fucking great Kari! You shouldn’t go near him, yet you plan to do just that. “Don’t worry, husband, I won’t let him hurt me,” isn’t what I wanted to hear. Now that you’re convinced you can juggle chainsaws make sure neither of you hurt me. Got it? You know exactly what you should and should not do.”
I slammed the door as I left. My point was made; Kari could never say she didn’t understand where I drew the line.
* * * * *
When I got back Sunday evening from my business trip my wife was talking on the phone. I’d made a point to get home early, it killed me physically, though staying away with an overactive imagination was worse. This way I could say I was being proactive. A little dose of self-deception helps the sugar go down, or something like that.
Kari was giggling happily when she suddenly realized I was there. Seeing me changed her whole demeanor. I stood there, crossed my arms, and waited for her to get off the phone. She did, but in a manner no one would ever end a normal phone call.
Kari stopped talking and stared at me. When I crossed my arms, her eyes widened, and her mouth went dry. She made faint raspy whistles instead of forming actual words. Soon she was making an almost humming noise which I think it came from her chest. She may not have known she was making it. The person on the other end must be wondering if she was trying to hum out a tune. She suddenly looked at the phone unsure what to do with it. For a moment I thought she might try to simply hide it behind her back.
“Oh no, Kari, that wasn’t suspicious. So how is he?”
“What? Who?”
“Lewis. You were just talking to Lewis, right?” It wasn’t a question. I was telling her I wanted confirmation of what I’d just told her I believed.
“What? No. No… really.”
I took the phone from her hand. Kari sat immobile, like a hypnosis volunteer demonstrating waxy catalepsy. She went pale too. I star 69’d to redial the last number the phone had been connected to. Phyllis, one of our neighbors answered, “Oh so hubby came home, eh? Were you able to avoid telling him?”
I waited long enough to be dramatic, “No, she wasn’t and congratulations on not being Lewis. Why don’t you tell me how everything went with him and my beloved wife, while I was away slaving to better the life she said she wanted to make with me.”
My wife started to stand up, apparently wanting to grab the phone away from me. She suddenly realized that would be a bad move, trying then to adopt an “everything is normal” stance after her rapid, awkward, and abortive motion towards the phone.
“W-What do you mean, Barry? Why Lewis? What’s going on?”
“That’s my line, Phyllis. All I know is my wife and he are acting awfully cozy. Now this phone call is exactly what I don’t need to find out: that my wife is hiding something big from me. Something you know about but are not a good enough friend to tell me about.”
I heard both women gulp in stereo.
“So, Phyllis dear, what exactly does my wife need to avoid telling me?”
I heard my wife make that dry squeaking sound again, wondering exactly what her friend might say.
Phyllis called me by name, “Barry, this is not what you think.”
“But there IS something going on I need to think about though.”
I heard both my wife and Phyllis say, “No”. The two seemed to be a verbal version of a synchronized swimming team.
“So, there’s no information that I’m allowed to know about my wife and the human cesspool? At least I now know the two of you know about it. And that you’re keeping things from me. And further you are the arbiters of what I can and can’t know about what’s going on in my own Goddam life!”
That last was said with a controlled but raised voice. I was pretty good at it; you could have heard a pin drop.
“So, Phyllis, and you my little, loving, trustworthy, snuggle bunny, listen closely. Phyllis has just declared war on our family. She is no longer welcome here and we do not socialize with her in any way shape or form. I will be discussing the fact that Phyllis thinks it’s okay for wives to sneak around on their husbands and to keep secrets about doing it, with her husband tonight. I will then join him in discussing it with the other husbands in the neighborhood. Right after I check in to see how well Jim and Debbie vouchsafed my wife’s behavior.”
Kari could barely speak; her eyes actually bulged. She’d never done anything to incur my wrath. Clearly our relationship was changing. She was beginning to see that her changing our parameters wasn’t a one-way street.
Phyllis sounded scared. Her voice was a quiet astonished rasp, “Oh Shit. Listen Barry, don’t…”
I hoped I deafened the bitch with how hard I thumbed the “end call” button on Kari’s phone. Sometimes advances in technology are not progress.
I tossed the phone on the table in front of Kari asking, “I just gave you a huge vote of confidence, I didn’t go through your call list. Would I find Lewis’ number there? Would I find any other man’s who shouldn’t be there? You’re the most important person in the world to me. Tell me, are you still worthy of that display of trust?”
Kari was shaking as she looked up at me. “Y-You would not find any inappropriate number on my phone at all… except Lewis’. H-His number has been on there for years. I have everyone’s number from the entire neighborhood.”
“Then why is it inappropriate?”
Kari closed her eyes, she was petrified. She opened them as she began to speak, “Barrrry, I love you.”
“Would I find recent messages from him?”
She looked down, “They wouldn’t be long.”
“Let me guess; just long enough to confirm you’d be at the block party.”
“Y-Yes.” She stared at the floor.
“The same block party that I asked you not to attend.”
She couldn’t answer verbally this time she just gave a quick nod.
“The party I didn’t want you to attend specifically because I didn’t want you to have anything to do with Barry, which in my mind includes messages, emails, and phone calls.”
She couldn’t look at me.
“Did you respond to his message Kari, just long enough to tell him you would meet him?”
Her shiver increased.
My next question was not voiced as strongly, “I was away, did you have him to the house, Kari?” She looked up and gasped. If the power in my voiced had waned, my face displayed even further weakness. It wasn’t an angry question but perhaps the saddest I’d ever asked, “Did you have him, Kari?”
She fled screaming, “Never!”
I stood there for a moment. I was the injured party, why did I have to take charge like this? This fucking around business is so unfair. I trudged down the hall towards our bedroom, my legs feeling leaden. I admit when I walked in our bedroom, I first looked at Kari face down crying on the bed and then I surveyed the room. I’d become a suspicious man, that’s only one step up from wounded animal. I was looking for signs that the big bad wolf had been in grandma’s house, and dammit to hell, I realized I was probably grandma. I admit that finding no signs of a tryst or another man’s presence I let out a rather huge exhale. I hadn’t known I’d been holding my breath!
I sat on the bed beside Kari’s prostrate form and put my hand on her head.
I knew she was crying because my last question was whether she’d slept with Lewis. Although I believed her answer of “never”, this didn’t add up. “But Kari if that’s true, why all the drama?” I asked it tenderly. She rolled over seeing if it was alright to approach me. She told me in a heartfelt sob that she loved me, then scrunched around until she could put her head in my lap and her arms around my waist. I made room on the bed, pulling her head up to my chest, and lay down too.
“Kari, I don’t know what you are doing but it has to stop, girl. You’re tearing us apart.” That made her sob worse. At least she knew where she stood with me. I had no idea where I was, except out in left field somewhere.
* * * * *
I talked to all the guys that night on a conference call. I was back to being cold and controlled on the outside, when it was obvious I was flaring red-hot with anger inside. This gave Kari a tremendous opportunity to come clean, she didn’t. Instead, she just kept saying she loved me. That’s all fine and good but without fidelity it really doesn’t go very far. Even love has to bow to some form of practicality. How much good was a woman’s love if she wasn’t true and caused you blinding pain instead of happiness? We weren’t there yet, but we were trending.
I made my wife sit and listen to my rant and how I expertly stirred the other husbands up, adding a little spike at the end. I surmised that maybe now that the ladies knew I was on the warpath they might try to “manage information skillfully” to their spouses. I was doing an end run on them. And I didn’t shrink from letting the guys know how worried I was. This was not a time for manly pride; we were trying to preserve and protect manly pride, dammit!
I said to them, “Lest you think I’m the only man who’s a potential cuck in the neighborhood you need to understand that if my wife has gone rogue and yours knows about it, it reveals there’s now a club of conspirators in possession of a blueprint for cheating. I may be the first to get divorced, but surely as the night follows the day, I won’t be the last.”
After listening to the call my wife was shaking and crying and telling me it wasn’t so. I cut her off coldly saying, “Something sure as hell is going on. As opposed to you keeping me in the dark, I’ve been up front with you. Yet all I get in return are denials and stonewalling. You know where I stand: to continue to keep the truth from me is risking our marriage. So get real. Fess up or destroy both our lives. Or perhaps you just don’t give a rat’s fanny about my life and somehow think you’re trading up with that piece of rancid cobb salad.”
I know that cobb salad line wasn’t great, but it was from the heart. Kari’s eyes flared with fear, knowing I hated cobb salad.
I added, “If that’s what you think it will break my heart, but I won’t want to be in your life any longer.”
At that Kari actually fell off the sofa she’d curled up on. She wanted to reach out to me, though she didn’t, apparently fearing doing so would lead to some revelation. She didn’t want me to have such acute heartache, telling me it was misplaced that she loved me sincerely. Yet she wouldn’t tell me what was going on. She saw my anxiety and anger ratchet up each time it happened.
Kari knew things were nearing the tipping point. I wasn’t sure exactly what my biggest problem was or how advanced it might be. Kari knew exactly what her problem was: that I was completely sincere. Sincere in what I was saying now and sincere in what I’d said in the past. She knew that I didn’t often go around comparing myself to others, but that I took a lot of things on the nose trying to be a good man. I found those that didn’t lacking. Lewis was something else, he openly pissed on the notion of being a good man and thought he was a better man for it. My wife knew what I thought of him. Once she had agreed with me.
If my wife was thinking she was making her bed with him, she was going to find out that he was the biggest bedwetter of all time.
* * * * * *
The next dramatic moment didn’t take long to dance across the vaudevillian stage my life had become. There was a tremendous tension in the house that week. Kari was clearly torn. She was beside herself that I was hurt but she still wasn’t coming clean. She could see I no longer had faith that she wasn’t involved with that mangy opossum, Lewis. She’d watch me when she thought I wasn’t watching her, but she often snuck a peak and caught me looking at her with a hangdog she-done-me-wrong expression. Kari could tell my outlook on the world had changed because of her and it hurt her, but not enough to try to fix a darn thing. We tried to look at each other without being caught all week, both of us downhearted.
I was young and low-level management; I was good though, and took every opportunity, even dirty jobs, trying to prove myself. I often worked weekends to that end. I worked again that Saturday though I was so upset and distracted that at lunch I decided to go home and have it out with Kari again.
I was halfway in the backdoor when I caught her on the phone again. Jeez, couldn’t she at least come up with a new plot device to fiendishly destroy my heart and sense of well-being? As she didn’t hear me – again – she didn’t know I was there half-in and half-out of our house. I decided to play out this serio-tragic act once more.
“No. No, Barry’s not happy, but I don’t think he knows. He’d be a lot less happy if he knew now. No, I can’t stop now, I need a little more. It will all be over soon, and I can come clean then.”
Whatever the person on the other end of the line said to her, Kari hesitated really seeming to think something over before giving an answer. “It comes down to ‘if I have to’ or ‘if I should’. And I should, so I will. I’m going to tell Barry everything, I hate having secrets from him. I’m sure I can make him understand after the fact. It’ll be pretty obvious then; he’ll see the matter as it truly is then. The problem is not to hurt him until it’s all over. But damn, he already is! I don’t want to hurt Barry! Never.”
Kari sounded sincere. I just wasn’t sure what that word meant in relation to my wife any longer. I mean was she sincerely cheating on me? She seemed to be waiting for the person on the other end of the line to finish speaking. What she said next made my head swim. Every time I thought I was finally homing in on the facts, something spun me around again such that I just didn’t know what to make of matters.
“I’ll find some way to make up any anger Barry feels over it. It’s his suffering that has me beside myself. Once he sees the finished product his anger will turn to laughter. He’s going to love the outcome. But now he’s hurt and questioning me, my actions, and my motivations. He’s never questioned me before: he’s never had reason to before. He loves me, so I can say to him “trust me,” except at the same time I AM keeping something from I him.
“We’re not living in a balanced relationship anymore, and I’m the cause. I thought I was the only one that would be soiled and compromised. I was willing to do so for the outcome. Barry losing faith in me, and his anguish over it, is something I never ever accounted for. I’m not sure ending with a result he will like and having his wifey back home and all his again, will completely mend this. If he sees this as I wasn’t completely his for some time, and additionally that he was made to suffer without his consent, then I can’t imagine this being completely fixed, even when he’s happy with the result. I was sure at the start of this thing with Lewis, but I’m no longer sure that Barry will look at the price he’s paying and think this was a worthwhile plan. He wasn’t supposed to pay a price. He was never supposed to know until it was over, then he would see it was over and see the positive effect. Those were key dominoes, with the first one gone I’m no longer sure the second will fall into place.” Kari fell silent when she finished.
Now I was back to the possibility of an affair, I’d been thrown by her belief I would be happy and laugh at the outcome, then she intimates that I may see her actions as her no longer being completely mine. Well, that’s either a zero or a one, isn’t it? How could we possibly interpret that, little less differently? Now she mentions she’s started something with goat-demon Lewis. Further that she doesn’t want to tell me until this thing has run its course. She can’t possibly mean an affair! Kari knows I’d be even less likely to forgive an affair that she admits to only after she’s had her fun. Perhaps the pick of the litter is that she feels I may never forgive her already, except still doesn’t want to stop or tell me. Kari’s not stupid. I could never reconcile her continuing an affair after she knows it’s hurting me, that sort of thing is spousal suicide.
Kari continued talking, “Barry won’t be mollified just because everyone else is happy. He’s going to look at his own household, which is just him and me, and wonder if our household came out ahead. He’s already not happy, his time spent unhappy will still have happened even if his condition improves at the end. He’ll ask if we paid too much; and he’s got a point! I’m not able to give him a good answer to that question now. I can’t really know until I finish this. I hope a solid answer occurs to me then. Yet I know the answer will be much, much, worse if I stop prematurely. If I toss all my plans away now, I’ll have compromised myself for nothing, and Barry wouldn’t be happy about that at all!
“Additionally, to quit now means my dear Barry will have been made to suffer for nothing. To quit now also means the main problem that set all these plans in motion will still be out there unabated and undeterred. In fact, the problem would most likely be worse. It really will have been “all for less-than-nothing” as the bad guys go untouched and the good are made to suffer.
“So, I need to keep going. It was something I wanted to do originally; I simply must pull it off now. I’m going to have to face the music at some point and I must be able to reach out my hands and show Barry what I got in return for my being soiled in his eyes, and his being hurt in the interim.”
None of what Kari said sounded good, but the last part of that sounded somewhat better. The next part didn’t.
“I just don’t want Barry interfering until I’ve had the time I need. Just a little while longer, then I’ll stop living this double life and be all his again. I think he’ll like the new things I’ll have added to my biography. I really do. It may not seem it right now, but there are very few things that mean more to me than the complete good will of my husband. That’s why I’m trying so hard to manage the situation.”
I never heard her finish saying, “In the end I think I can rebuild that good will. And I think he will be very proud of me.”
I’d turned away looking outside while Kari had still been talking. I didn’t hear what she said. I fuzzed over when I heard her say there were things more important to her than my image of her. What the hell?!
Wow, that was a roller coaster. Just when I was thinking she was mine, she put herself back with him. Just when I thought she was telling me the truth, she makes it clear she isn’t.
What I got was a mixed bag that came down to the love of my life loves me more than anything… except just not right now. However, when she’s through cheating on me, she plans to be all mine again. The problem was I was pretty sure being all mine had been her plan for a lifetime when she agreed to marry me. It now appeared that promise of fidelity had already gone by the wayside. So, even if she came back and flew straight, why wouldn’t her fidelity go by the wayside again? Why would I want to put up with a situation like that at all… even just this once? Especially as I’d never signed off on her vacation from matrimony and she’d gone out of her way to make sure that I didn’t get the chance to put in my two cents. The other big side of the coin, as mentioned previously, Kari was the love of my life.
I was still only halfway in the house, at this point I tried to finish entering. I must have closed the door too quickly. I felt Kari more than saw her. She’d spun around in her chair and was looking at me like I was Frankenstein’s monster. Her eyes were the proverbial pie plates. She was shaking. Her breath was very shallow. She stared at her phone for a few moments transfixed as if it had become a serpent, then looked back to me ashen.
“W-What did you hear? I swear it’s not what you think. Honey, I… honey it’s all going to be alright. It’ll all be okay in the end. You’ll see. Please don’t lose faith in me. Just a little while longer and it will all make sense.”
She had her great big, scared, puppy dog, eyes fused to mine. She took a huge inhalation as the tears finally overwhelmed her lids and flowed down her cheeks. She shook her head in dismay with the situation or perhaps disgust with herself. I think it was occurring to her that I’d added up what I knew, and it did make sense to me, and I just loathed the sum. Like a tornado destroying a small town makes sense to you, though you hate it!
“Baaarry, I-I’m going to ask a big favor of you. Be-be-cause I love you. I… want you to trust me right now. I know it’s a terrible request, especially with what you may think.”
I had no idea what she thought I thought. I thought she may very well be screwing the unsavory pile of dog vomit named Lewis. I admit I was shaken. I’d thought it out before, though it all seemed more clear, more real, now. This couldn’t really be happening, could it? Kari saw my foundations crumbling.
Kari was up and to me in a flash, guiding me fully inside our house, wide eyed at my state of mind and body. She drug me right upstairs and lay me down on our bed.
“Baby I love you. Let me show you.” She was worried and pleading.
Now here’s the thing, any man would want my wife. Especially, the breath of the kraken and neighborhood wife stealer, Lewis. Kari is a fox; a hot fox, 5′ 6″ 36-23-35, nice C cups, California bronzed with shimmering blond drapes that match the sparse curly carpet and toned everywhere. Hell, not just toned, tuned to perfection. Kari actually does some low-level clothes and fitness modeling. For me, the best of all her assets were her deep blue eyes that I’d just fallen into and never bothered looking for a way out. Now I felt I may drown in them.
How did I get her? I’m not ugly, though I’m sure not in her class of attractiveness. I’m pretty sharp. I don’t tend to take bull, and I know what I want. So, my approach normally cuts through a lot of folk’s natural defenses in a non-threatening, natural leadership, sort of way. Folks fall in with my plans. It’s been that way since I was a kid, I’ve tried like heck to not abuse it. At the moment my conclusions about my wife’s behavior were cutting through my own defenses and ripping out my heart. I was in real trouble.
Before I realized it Kari was naked.
“Let me prove it to you Barry. Then, if you want, I’ll tell you everything.”
Kari looked guilty as sin. I could visualize her soaking in Lewis’ sperm; a full hot tub of jizz. No, it was a pond, and she was diving in headfirst, then porpoising to the surface and back-stroking around the little volcanic caldera of splooge.
I felt the vomit rise in my throat. Kari started to hover above me wanting no doubt to impale herself. In an attempt to escape the situation my mind raced back to a favorite childhood cartoon. The Fantastic Four would save me. But it all got mixed up. My brain was a blender. All I saw was a heaping pile of dog vomit invaginating my Baxter Building and Lewis as the Mole Man; he was just the type of guy to love those hideous sunglasses! He suddenly tripped the switch making my proud edifice fall below ground into his villainous lair.
“Nooo!” I said spinning and sitting up. I was so unexpectedly athletic, even I was impressed.
Kari looked at me startled. We both noticed my inflatable canoe was still very much deflated. And there was no sign of the oars either. I hoped I wasn’t crying, but I don’t know for sure. I looked at her, shaking my head in despair unable to touch her. I sang softly, “I gave my love a cherry that had no stone. I gave my love a chicken that had no bone.”
Kari looked stricken, as well as startled, then confused as the old children’s tune seemed to ring a bell.
“They’re playing our song,” I added trepidatiously, while trying to navigate away from my nervous breakdown already in progress.
“What does that mean?” Kari asked growing hysterical. The impact of my not being aroused and even repulsed by her was, unlike me, sinking into Kari deeply. No doubt that reality was followed by the reasons I’d be having this problem. She knew me and I’d been upfront, my thoughts revolved around her behavior and Lewis. That my fears were making me deranged and impotent impacted her like hundred and fifty-five millimeter Howitzer shells.
I answered her query about the song honestly, “I don’t know!”
Kari seemed to think I was being sarcastic. The part about the boneless chicken seemed to apply to me at present, especially in context. Especially if said chicken was a cock. I tried to run with it though half of my brain had been blasted away by her Howitzer first.
“Why would your giving Lewis your cherry make my chicken boneless? And if your cherry is not sans stone what does that tell you?”
I had no idea what I was talking about. But it sounded like I did, and THAT confused Kari just long enough for me to reach the bedroom door. I turned and left, not just the bedroom, the house.
Kari pursued me a few steps outside in her glorious birthday suit, calling my name, “Barry no, you don’t understand. It’s not like that! Please, please come back. I’ll tell you everything. Pleeease, I’ll confess!”
That line broke my heart. I slumped right there in the driveway outside. I heard her gasp at my reaction. It was all too obvious to both of us then. I had been right, dammit; there was something hidden, something to confess.
I took a quick glance back: Kari was on her knees in the middle of the grass. I think she’d tried to run after me and fell, perhaps seeing my reaction in the driveway. Her eyes were huge; as large as I’d ever seen them. Everything she saw about me filled her with more horror. She realized exactly what confessing a need to confess would tell me. Both her hands were tightly clasped over her mouth to keep her from speaking more of her husband shredding evil, all respects to saint Bartholomew. I pushed myself through the door of my car and was gone.