Just Once… Who Wouldn't Mind? by Astordatair,Astordatair

This is my first attempt at writing a story in English, my second language, and of course my first contribution to Literotica. I was thrilled by this invitation from Kalimaxos to write an ending to his excellent “Just Once… If You Don’t Mind?”. I have not read all the endings published on the site. But I did read some, and I guess I am choosing the least frequented path. I wish to thank Kalimaxos for his writing and for giving us this opportunity.

When I finish reading it, I noticed Leslie was at the kitchen island filling her glass again.

“Are you OK?” she asked.

“I will be,” I replied.

She nodded and came back with the bottle and her filled glass. Sitting next to me this time, she refilled my glass and turned to look at me with those doe-like eyes.

“So, Rick? What do we do?”

******

******

******

The Shock

I could hear her, but it was like my brain had disconnected from the rest of my body. I was stunned, knocked out, unable to move or think, let alone articulate anything meaningful.

“What the f…?” I muttered to myself.

“What?” Leslie asked.

All I could think at that moment was that I had just read the death sentence of my marriage. I had not even recovered from the shock of the phone call, but I had managed to put it in the “to be dealt with later” paper stack. Now though… a letter was strongly hinting that the person who had written may not be my wife any longer.

“What is it, what does it say?” Leslie insisted.

It was just too much. I had to have misread. I had to read this letter again. There was clearly something that I had missed in there.

“Rick, hello?! What is it?”

One of the personality traits required to become an Army officer is the capacity to quickly get back on one’s feet after a traumatic event. On many missions during my postings abroad, I would surprise myself by how fast I was able to get back in control of a chaotic situation following an attack or an accident. The “act now, whine later” state of mind saved my skin and my fellow soldiers’ on quite a few occasions. I may have been in shock after reading Marcy’s letter, but it did not take long for Colonel Weston to kick in and assume command. This came in handy because poor old Rick was dumbstruck, unable to think clearly.

As my brain switched to problem-solving mode, the priorities lined up in my head. Priority number one was to send Leslie home, without sounding too rude. After all, she was not to blame for this. This was strictly between Marcy and me.

“Rick, I would…”

“Leslie, listen”, I cut her. “Thank you very much for coming over here tonight. But as you can probably figure out, the content of this letter was like a bomb dropped on my life.”

I was apprehensive, but I had to ask… “Did you read it, Leslie?”

“NO!!! Seriously, Rick, I never would have dared read it!” she assured me, a bit upset that I even had considered the possibility.

“Ok then. Well, please, as much as I appreciate your company, I have a lot of thinking to do. Can I take a rain check on whatever you had in mind to do with me tonight?”

It was clear from the expression on her face that she had not expected that turn of events. I was relieved to see only sadness and worry in her eyes, and not anger or hurt.

“Ok Rick, I understand. You won’t do anything stupid will you…?” she asked, taking the recorked bottle of Moscato that I had handed her back.

“Not to worry. And before you say it, no, I won’t hesitate to knock on your door if I need anything!” I answered with a smile.

I guess I had managed to sound reasonably cool, because she gave me a warm smile before she left in the dusk, her sundress revealing the wiggling of that wonderful little ass of hers as she walked away, but at that moment, my mind was just not into that.

Priority number two: keeping my shit to myself.

I called the office and left a message in my secretary’s voicemail to inform her that I would take the rest of the week off. Family emergency, e-mail only. She knew me well enough to know that I had serious reasons. And on top of it, she also knew better than to ask about it.

Priority number three: anesthetize the pain.

I went back to the kitchen and literally engulfed the content of my glass of Moscato, and then what was left of Leslie’s. I then saw the letter, that I had not put back in its envelope. In a burst of anger, I tossed it off the table like something too filthy to even look at.

With Leslie and logistics taken care of, my composure just dissolved.

I grabbed the bottle of Jack Daniels from the cabinet and headed for my recliner. Fuck the glass. And fuck the manners. I dropped to the recliner and raised the bottle: “To the Bitch! Go ahead, fuck your Doctor Dildo, you crappy slut…”

I swallowed, directly from the bottle, two gulps of the amber liquid that I liked so much. But at that very moment, it tasted acrid.

God, was I mad.

“…playing soldier…yeah… Fucking whore!”

I must have spent a couple of hours bitching alone about my wife, downing the JD. Then I guess I fell asleep, the level of ethanol in my blood possibly approaching a very concerning level.

***

The Storm

I must have seriously passed out, because the sun was up in the sky when I finally woke up. Jeez… 12:20… Last time I had slept that late was, what… in my teens? The bottle of JD was laying empty on the floor. Conscience clear: it was way less than half full when I took it out of the cabinet the night before.

Getting up from the recliner was quite an undertaking, first because one is not supposed to sleep fourteen hours in a recliner when drunk, and second because at 48, my back no longer was what it used to be. One reassuring (or frightening) thing was that my skull and stomach were perfectly in phase with my back… JD was my best friend the night before, Advil would indeed be my new best friend that morning.

I went out to the patio to have my coffee, and I suddenly felt very grateful than the fence between my backyard and the Nielson’s was hidden by a hedge thick enough so that no one could sneak through. I was not in the mood for neighborhood chit-chat, let alone with them. They knew too much not to ask questions that I did not feel like answering.

The thought of locking the little gate came to my mind, but I did not want to send the wrong message: I was not mad at them, I was mad at my slutty wife. And on this topic, no, things were absolutely not going better.

As soon as my G.I. track sent the signal it was ready to resume food reception, I fixed myself some breakfast and went back outside to eat it. The only thing I could think of was plotting twisted schemes to go to Bogotá, creep into the Bitch’s and her Doctor PerfectDick’s hotel room and snatch them the cruelest way possible. And then move on to another bloody scenario.

Playing soldier. “You want to know what a soldier does when he plays, you cunt?! How about saving his skin and everyone else’s!? Would you call THAT playing!?”

What little control I had over myself was barely enough to prevent me from yelling.

I could not believe that she dared compare what had happened during 15 minutes between Diedre and me with her perfectly planned 6-week affair in South America. A bird house next to a mansion. A chipmunk next to a tiger. Did she really think I would buy this? If so, then she was a blinking idiot on top of being a tramp! If someone accidentally walks into you on a street, do you bring them down with 3 bullets to their chest? If this was Marcy’s idea of making things even, she was in for a surprise.

At the end of the afternoon, I received a call from our son Kyle.

“Hey Dad, how you doin’?”

“Hey son! Well, not too bad. Taking advantage of your mom being away to bring more stuff home to try and get back on track with all the paperwork backlog at the office. What about you?”

“Oh, same old stuff with school. Hey, how’s Mom? Any news? She didn’t even text me to say she was ok.”

Marcy made a point of trying to call to her children at least twice a week. Kyle was ok with this, but I knew Rhonda found that a bit too much. Anyway, Rhonda was generally so hard to get in touch with that trying was the keyword, here.

“Well, she’s ok, son, don’t worry. She texted me to say she had checked in at the hotel. She also said that we should not hang by our cell phones for updates: it is a humanitarian mission, and they would not always be in cities where the signal is good. Some of the locations on their itinerary are a bit remote.”

Fuck, I HATE lying to my kids. But I did not want to have to give updates I would probably not receive. And I did not want to tell him or Rhonda the detailed circumstances of their mother’s escapade. Above all, no matter how mad I was at my so-called wife, badmouthing her to Rhonda and Kyle was something I simply could not do. She was their mother. My peeves against her had nothing to do with the relationship she had with our children.

“Well, ok Dad. Please keep me informed if you get updates. I’ll text her now and then.”

“You take care son. And don’t forget to watch the game this Saturday!” I said jokingly. As if Kyle could miss a football game.

“No chance, Dad! Love you!” He hung up, laughing.

I put down my phone, sighing in relief.

With some luck, he would not call again for at least 2 weeks. That would give me some time to come up with an action plan and a communication strategy. Rhonda was much less of a concern. She was on assignment on board a military vessel in the Austral Ocean, and communication was infrequent at best. Since chatting over the phone was not her cup of tea, I did not expect a call from her for at least three weeks.

My preoccupation of the moment switched to the fact that the bottle of JD was empty. I would not drink water or milk all evening, for sure. As I rummaged through the cabinet to find what could help me ease my pain that night, I stumbled upon a bottle of Amarone della Valpolicella 2003 that my doctor-fucking bimbo had set aside for a supposedly special occasion that I had no clue about. I decided that the special occasion was tonight! A celebration with myself of the end of 24 years of marriage with a lying cheater!

I poured myself a glass. Out of the corner of my eye, I spotted the framed picture of Marcy and me that she loved so much propped on the mantelpiece.

I closed the distance between the kitchen island and the mantelpiece in two long strides and picked it up from its perch.

“FUCK YOU, BITCH!!!”

I took a sip from the glass I was holding tightly and threw the frame onto the stone wall above the fireplace.

Then back in the recliner for another round of profanities.

“Playing soldier. Far too many kicks to the ass fail to reach their destination,” I thought.

I had spent my whole career making sacrifices. And that was where it had gotten me. Tomorrow, I would call Diedre. My only mistake in Iraq was to not have gone all the way with her. After our too brief sexual encounter, I took the attacks as a sign that I should not go there. Stupid idiot. I should have taken it has a reminder that life is short, and that life rarely offers you a second helping of the good things.

I raised my glass: “Marcy, you want a revenge on something? Well, I’ll give you a real reason to be mad at me! Cheers!!”

I still remember I finished the bottle and went to bed. Clear improvement on the night before.

Thursday morning was a bit better, or should I say a bit less bad. The headache was a little more manageable. But I was still fuming. I had not bothered to pick up the broken glass from the frame I had crushed the night before, and I cut my heel on a shard of glass. I spent most of my day in the recliner, lining up the empty beer cans where the picture of my wife used to be.

I heard Leslie’s characteristic knock on the backdoor at the end of the afternoon. Perfect. How do you make an already bad day even worse? By having someone question you about it…

I limped to the back door. Leslie’s luminous smile faded in no time when she saw the state I was in.

“My God, Rick, you look like a wreck, why don’t you let…”

“No! I need nothing. Go home Leslie, and leave me alone, for fuck’s sake!” I almost shouted, slamming the door.

I waited to make sure she was walking away before going back to my recliner. The next cans of beer were of much better company: they would not ask any questions. And they would not think of setting me up with the neighbor’s wife to clear their conscience.

That night, I finally came up with a plan: tomorrow, I would go to the hospital Marcy worked at, and I would pay a visit to the President to show him the letter she wrote. I remembered that Marcy’s employment contract clearly stated that the hospital had a strict policy forbidding intimate relationships among its employees. So much for enforcing it! I would threaten the President to sue the hospital unless they fired Marcy and her Doctor Pussylicker.

Ok, I would get no real benefit out of that, but it would be sweet revenge.

But before that, I would call Diedre. My slut of a wife was not the only woman on Earth, after all. I didn’t depend on her for sex. There were certainly other women who would find me attractive. I too could make a woman pussy drip and squirt! I too could have a weekend of wet dirty fuck with one of them!

And… one that ‘I’ got to chose.

GO FUCK YOURSELF MARCY!! Cheers!

***

A Diversion

I was awakened by the distinct ringtone of my secured job cell phone the next day. It took me a few seconds to understand what was going on.

A quick glance at the clock on my bedside table left me puzzled: 5AM. Who would call at 5AM, for Christ’s sake?

“Rick Weston”

“Bonjour Rick, Laurent Duchemin, Ministère de la Sécurité à Paris »

Ok, I was quite fluent in French, but this early in the morning, and with the ethanol still coursing through my veins, I was not up to it. I knew Laurent a little. French and American intelligence services worked together on several projects. He was a nice guy, but not very keen on small talk. Rather straight to the point.

“Bonjour Laurent, to what do I owe the pleasure of such an early conversation?”

“Early? Well, I did wait until 8 AM to call you?”

“Well, I live on the West Coast. It’s 5 AM here”

“Oh, sorry Rick, my mistake. I thought you were in Washington,” he replied

His Parisian accent was so thick that I briefly considered asking him to speak French to make things easier.

“It’s ok Laurent, I am up now. What is the issue?”

A sticky situation had arisen that would involve the intelligence services of several countries, and to which my company was a main consulting firm. And it was a major issue. Not uncommon, but this was a behind-the-scenes event that nobody wanted splashed on the opening of the 5 o’clock news. After three minutes, I was completely awake, and I had switched to full Colonel Weston mode.

We talked for almost an hour. When I hung up, I knew what the rest of the day and following week would look like for me.

I was still mad at Marcy, and I still intended to call Diedre and to pay a visit to Mr. Pufferfish (the nickname that I swear absolutely nobody uses at the hospital to talk about their President), but all this would have to wait. I now had much more pressing issues.

After the most thorough shower in a week, and the most nutritious breakfast in the same period, I was ready to do something more useful than yelling at the walls. But then maybe not as satisfying.

I spent most of the day reading preliminary reports, calling my colleagues in London, then Washington and Ottawa, and getting up to speed with the strategy that was being defined for the following week.

I dialed Diedre’s number, but I got her voicemail. I didn’t feel like leaving a message that would certainly be unexpected and would end up raising unanswered questions.

4:30 PM, already. Clearly too late to take the 40-minute drive to the hospital. This one would have to wait until the following week, I guessed.

I sent an email to my secretary confirming that I would be at the office the next Monday, then I finished reviewing and wrapping up everything and called it a day.

I decided that I had enough of the four walls of my house, so I headed to a nearby restaurant. Better to have dinner in my own company than in the company of pictures of my cheating wife. Fish & chips might not be the epitome of healthy food, but at least I managed to keep the ethanol at a distance.

I went to bed early that night. The mental burden and the ethanol abuse of the week had taken their toll on my body. It took a certain time for the fish & chips to figure out the road to take, but hey, they were worth the enthusiastic piping noises.

***

Feeling the Ground Again

I woke up somewhat fresher on a beautiful Saturday morning. The phone rang as my coffee finished brewing.

“Hello, this is Rick”

“Since when do you call an old friend and don’t give a shit leaving a message, Ricky boy?” said a cheerful and teasing voice.

“Dierdre Kiel! Hey, long time no see!”

I gave her the headlines of my week of hell, and she was floored.

“My gosh, Ricky, I don’t know Marcy a lot for sure, but this clearly doesn’t sound like the girl you described when we were in Iraq,” she replied.

“Nope, not at all. I guess the changes were too subtle for me to notice,” I sighed.

“Hey, why don’t you come over tonight, I’ll fix us something a bit better than the canned spaghetti you probably had all week long?”

I learned that Diedre had moved from Boston to a nearby city a month ago, in a brand-new house. She gave me the explanations on how to get there since her neighborhood was recent and had not yet been entered into the GPS apps. It was a 90-minute drive, so she suggested that I bring everything to spend the night, which was more or less part of the plan I had been brewing up all week.

But before everything else, I had to apologize to Leslie for making an ass of myself when she came over two days before.

I crossed our backyards early in the afternoon. I did not even have to knock. Leslie saw me coming and opened the door with a subdued smile.

“How you doin’, Rick?” she asked with an uncharacteristically neutral voice.

“Much better, thanks! Leslie, listen, I want to apologize for how I treated you on Thursday evening. I guess too much beer does not suit well with me on bad days… I’m truly sorry.”

She lit right up.

“Apology accepted Rick. And I’m glad to see you feeling better!”

“Hey Colonel! You have time for a drink? Come on in!” called Vincent, coming down the stairs.

“No thanks, guys. The invitation is appreciated, but I have other plans for the rest of the day.”

“You want to have dinner, our door is always open, you know?! And I’m sure Leslie will do everything to make sure you have a great evening,” he winked.

Leslie was blushing.

“Guys, I will be honest with you. I perfectly understand where you’re heading, and where you want to bring me. I would lie if I said that I’m not at least intrigued. But now is just not the time for this. I really don’t think having revenge sex with my neighbor is a sensible way of cleaning the mess I’m in. And no matter what Marcy said before she left, I don’t think this would contribute to sound backyard relationships in the long run.”

“I understand,” Leslie said, clearly disappointed.

“But I may take you up on your offer to just talk over dinner about all this, the… lifestyle. As I said, I am genuinely intrigued.”

“That will be our pleasure, Colonel!” Vincent replied, with a wide grin.

I left them and went back home to finish preparing my overnight bag. I debated with myself whether I should bring Marcy’s letter with me. The letter was still on the kitchen floor; I had not bothered to read it again. I finally decided to put it in the bag. If I was to indulge in some side fun with Diedre, a letter of justification might come in handy.

A few minutes later, I was on the road. To say that I felt like a teenager going on his first sex date did not even begin to describe my state of mind.

*****

Diedre

One of the first words that would come to anyone’s mind to describe Diedre Kiel was… absent. Not there. Away. She was always on assignment or traveling. She was always the first to apply on overseas postings. It’s like no matter where home was, she hated being there.

Hence my astonishment when I saw the two-story house she had bought on a gigantic lot in a wealthy new neighborhood.

She almost ran out when she saw me parking in her driveway.

“Sooooo nice to see you, Ricky!”

She gave me the warmest peck on my lips, to which I replied by a big and long hug.

And then it hit me. On the driveway, hugging my friend that I had come to with the idea of fucking like crazy, the gates finally opened, and a flood of emotions rushed all over my body, and I started to sob like a baby.

“Come on in,” Diedre whispered, “let’s talk about this.”

We sat on her patio, and she brought us some homemade sangria. It gave me time to calm down a bit.

“Ok Ricky boy, I’m all ears. Shoot from the beginning.”

And I proceeded to tell her everything from the last few years, what happened when I came back from my last posting in Iraq, my second career as a consultant, Marcy’s ascent to being the top nurse of the neurosurgical team at her hospital. And then I told Diedre about the last couple of months until the day Marcy left for Colombia, including her affair with Doctor Trash, erm… Trey.

I was grateful for the tissue box she had put in front of me. Diedre listened without interrupting, only to ask me to clarify a few things.

“…so, Leslie gave me a letter that Marcy had asked her to give me. Here it is.”

Diedre did her best not to show any emotion while reading the letter, apart from one comment: “Oh yeah, we were playing soldiers, indeed…” She put the letter back in its envelope and looked at me for a few moments.

“Before you ask, Rick, I swear on my mother’s life that the day I visited her, I never told her that I had ‘taken care of you’ in a way that could be interpreted as ‘I had sex with you’. Ok, yes, I remembered what happened. And frankly, I am NOT proud of it. And I would most certainly not have bragged about it.”

“Tell me Diedre, why did you visit her that day?”

“I just wanted to reassure her. I knew she was worried like crazy, and that she would not tell you because you said she was never a very talkative woman. And frankly, Rick, you’ve always been a champ at catching combat strategies or tactical issues, but you have the emotional intelligence of a cactus when it comes to expressing your feelings or understanding others’. So, I figured you hadn’t done a great job at reassuring her.”

“Ok… thanks for the vote of confidence…”

“Actually, I shouldn’t say that… No, it’s not that you don’t understand others’ feelings, it’s more that you don’t bother trying to understand. For you, those are variables that you can just throw out of the equation, if they get in the way. Well, that’s not how life works, buddy.”

Life has its constants, and Diedre is one of them. She is what she is, no matter the circumstances. If you want the naked truth to be thrown in your face, call Diedre Kiel. She will never fail you.

The sun was already setting. Diedre rose and headed for the kitchen. I followed her with the empty glasses and pitcher. I hated to admit it, but Diedre was right. It seemed that I still had a lot of thinking to do.

Diedre had prepared everything ahead. The only thing left to do was to grill two wonderful tuna steaks that had marinated all afternoon. I took charge of the grilling part.

“Overall, sounds to me like a late bloom,” Diedre concluded, bringing everything to the patio table for an outside dinner.

“A late bloom, what do you mean…?”

“Marcy was essentially a single mother for years while you were in Korea or in Iraq. Ok, she had her nursing job, but it was no more than a job at the time, because her family duties were just too much. She couldn’t do more. She could really take off only when you resigned to finally come home.”

“I understand that, but why all the fucking around? Is this some sort of revenge?”

Diedre had to ponder that one a bit.

“Yes and no, I would say.”

“Ok, could you please elaborate?”

“Yes, that could be revenge, because of what she thinks we did in Iraq; because clearly, you never took the time to explain things to her, did you?”

“She wouldn’t listen.”

“Classical male answer. Did you try again, and again?”

I had to be honest, if only to myself.

“Not really.”

“My point, exactly. She was never proven otherwise, so she still thinks that you and I screwed like bunnies over there. Honestly, I don’t think what we did was very dangerous to your marriage. And I’m not even talking about the circumstances.”

“Ok, and what about the no?” I asked, a bit bemused.

“No, because I think there is more to it than revenge. You see, the true, interesting part of her career started late in her life. And that’s what she’s finally living and enjoying right now. It must be thrilling to her. And now you say she’s part of a specialized mission abroad. For the first time in her life, she feels that she has some power.

“See, for a lot of people, reaching a position of power or success often comes with a sense of entitlement, as if they feel that they finally deserve to take whatever they want, because they’re at the top. Listen to the news. Not a week goes by without a politician or corporate officer being caught in a scandal, just because they thought their position of power gave them the right to do what they did. To a lesser extent, I think this is what happened to Marcy. She thinks that now that she is where she is, the world opens to her, and all the doors are suddenly unlocked. She feels unstoppable, and she doesn’t even think that you could seriously consider dumping her.”

I was dumbfounded.

“I hadn’t seen this, I admit. Well, Diedre, you’re truly giving me food for thought. Thank you.”

“I’m certainly not against feeding your thoughts, but what if we fed our stomachs as well? You’d better take a look at those tuna steaks before they turn to rock in there, big boy!”

Dinner was amazing, and the bottle of wine I had brought was perfect with the fish. The rest of the evening was fun, and much lighter. It was Diedre’s turn to tell of her life.

“By the way, pretty big house for someone who always seems to make it a point to never be home?” I teased her.

“Ah, well, ya know… I’m not getting any younger either. Time to try and settle I guess.”

“I cannot grasp the concept of ‘Diedre’ and ‘settling’ in the same sentence”, I joked.

“Oh, you’d be surprised!” she replied with a smirk.

“Ok, what’s his name?” I asked, with a large grin.

“Well… there are a few of them, I should say. There have always been a few of them. But if I want my shot at being in a real relationship someday, I guess I need something that looks like a home base,” she said with an unusually nostalgic tone.

“The last years have not been so kind to you either, have they?”

“Nah… I’ve been living for my job. Now I want to work for a living. I know this sounds like a cliché, but that’s how I feel right now.”

She told me the details of her last posting in Afghanistan. She was not in a combat zone, but the assignment turned to be grueling because she was surrounded by “certified idiots who could not tell a tank from a firetruck”. Listening to her was soothing, and her laughter was contagious.

When came the time to turn in, I went to the guest bedroom, and I was perfectly ok with this. I knew that Diedre had a thing for me, but I guess she felt it would not have been a good idea to engage in anything sexual with me tonight. Nor did I think of joining her in her bed for some fun. The fantasy I had nourished over the last few days was just no longer there.

I woke up before Diedre the next morning. I checked my text messages. Kyle had texted to say how happy he was that his team had won the championship. But nothing from Marcy.

Coffee was about done brewing when Diedre entered the kitchen, all smiles. I offered to make some real French crepes. Knowing my legendary culinary talents, or lack thereof, Diedre gave me an unconvinced look. I unexpectedly managed to come up with a smooth batter, and the crepes came out just as perfect as my gloating about her lack of trust.

We ate breakfast like an old couple, reading the newspapers in silence. I finally broke it.

“Do you think Marcy and I are done, Diedre?”

She took the time to fold the newspaper and put it on the table. She took a sip of coffee.

“I may be wrong, Rick, and I hope I am, but I don’t really see a future for the two of you.”

I was startled by the coldness of her answer. But then again, that was Diedre in front of me. No bullshit, no sugar coating, ever.

“Ok, I appreciate your honesty.”

“See, Rick, the lack of respect that she shows about your marriage and her contempt for what we did as soldiers just tell me that she no longer has any consideration for you. Add to this her not saying goodbye before she left and her not texting that she had arrived. So yes, I’m afraid that in her mind, you two are history.”

I gave Diedre another big and warm hug before we parted. I thanked her for everything and promised to stay in touch.

*****

Digging for Answers

The road home was made of what-ifs, if-only-I-hads, maybe-I-shoulds. But I could not go back in time. And even if I could, what would I do?

I got home by mid-afternoon. Passing in front of their house, I saw that the Nielson’s weren’t home. I took advantage of their not being around to do a bit of yard work without risking a downpour of questions.

I did not know if I was happy or not at the perspective or returning to the office the next day.

I had a hard time finding sleep that night. I just could not accept that my marriage was over. There was a solution, somewhere. Something I had missed. I still had five weeks to figure it out.

I spent most of Monday morning planning my week, and it appeared that even if I was definitely not in the mood for this, I would not be able to avoid a trip to Ottawa at the end of the week.

If Ms. Matthews was curious and concerned about my absence the week before, she did not mention anything and respected my privacy. But since there were probably severe turbulences ahead in my private life, I figured putting my PA up to speed about the events of last week was the sensible thing to do. I took her to lunch and gave her the Reader’s Digest version. She was obviously shaken, and she assured me of her support. But true to herself, she did not volunteer any opinion about what was going on. And I knew that seeking her opinion would have made her uncomfortable, so I did not ask either.

Yet, I realized that talking about it was a great way of sorting my thoughts out.

***

I was lost in my thoughts on the flight to Ottawa. What could I do to save my marriage? Was doing as Marcy asked me the right approach? If I did what she wanted me to do, would she see it as a proof of faith? At the same time, if she truly had no respect left for me and I blindly obeyed her directives, would this make her see me with contempt and give her one more reason to disrespect me?

And what about Leslie? Wouldn’t it be non-sensical to have sex with her only to please Marcy? The truth was, yes, I did find Leslie aesthetically pleasant and attractive. Thing is… I have never had any interest in having sex with someone just above half my age.

I was glad I had not had sex with Diedre. It would have been revenge sex. And considering the friendship and affection I had always had for Diedre, I would not have been able to look at my face in the mirror if I had used her body to relieve the anger I had toward Marcy.

And I did not want to do that to Leslie either. I did not judge my neighbors for their outlook on marriage and life, but I would not take advantage of it in troubled times.

Those thoughts kept running around my mind all evening as I was alone in my hotel room.

The other issue that I had not resolved was Josh. Should I call him and tell him what I heard over the phone? I was torn. I considered Josh a friend. Not a close friend, but a guy who could potentially become one. I know that I would expect a friend to tell me what they knew, rather than leave me in a so-called ‘blissful ignorance’. Would Josh see things the same way?

And the truth was, I had absolutely no idea what to expect if I showed up one month later in the lobby at the Ambassador, as Marcy had asked. Would I see a wife eager to rekindle with her husband? An estranged wife coldly announcing me that she was now happy with someone else and ready to file for divorce? Would she even show up at all?

I got lost in the preparation of my trip early that week, and I simply could not find the time to pay a visit to the hospital to discuss the situation with the President. Was it still time to call him and put an end to this circus? Marcy would be mad at me if I did that. Would that stop any real romance from budding between her and her fuckfriend?

And above all, did I want to stay married with a woman who felt forced to be with me?

I had to go to Washington on a side trip for a couple of days for a general meeting with the federal agents and our Canadian colleagues that I had worked with the week before.

I returned home at the beginning of the third week of Marcy’s trip. To my dismay, I still had more questions than answers. And I was still unable to figure out what to do with the rest of my life.

***

Sitting in my recliner later that Friday evening, I was still trying to figure out why Marcy was so mad at me for what she thought happened with Diedre in Iraq, considering that she had had her own affair while I was in Korea. Clearly, she did not think it was tit for tat, and her revenge was not complete. I had to know more about this.

When Lydia e-mailed me at the time to let me know about Marcy’s whereabouts, I simply thanked her for the information, but I never got to ask her for more details about all this. She had told me that she saw Marcy in the parking of the Red Roof Inn, and I got the explanation for this from the PI I had hired. But I never counterchecked with Lydia about the fact that Marcy arrived at the parking more than an hour before her shifts began.

I did not want to start an e-mail conversation with Lydia about this that would stretch over days. I wanted answers right away. I had no phone number to call her, but I knew where she lived. I would pay her a visit the next day.

The house was in a middle-class neighborhood, built in the 80’s. I parked in front of the house which was still surrounded by a tall fence made of concrete blocks. Lydia grew up there, and she had bought the house from her parents after her first marriage ended. That is why I was confident she was still living there.

I had to ring twice. A man my age finally opened the door.

“Yes”, he asked.

I was almost troubled by the intensity of his look.

“Good morning Sir, I am an old friend of Lydia’s. I was in the neighborhood, and I figured I could drop by and say hello. Haven’t seen her in quite a few years.”

He glared at me for a few seconds, with a kind of despair in his look.

“No one told you, I take it. My wife was killed in a car crash about 6 months ago.”

I was taken aback. Our eyes locked for a few seconds. I offered my hand.

“Whew… I was not expecting this. Sir, I am very sorry for your loss. My deepest sympathies.”

“Thank you very much,” he said.

I could not think of anything more to say. I gave him a discrete smile and I left.

I drove a few hundred feet to be out of sight, and I pulled over to pull myself together. Even if I had not seen Lydia for over 5 years, she was someone whom I had been close to, and the news of her death shook me.

I drove home still a bit lost in my thoughts. So much for learning more about what my wife was doing back then.

***

“Rick Weston”

“Hi Rick, Josh Washington speaking.”

“Good morning Josh! How’s he coping with the forced celibacy?”

“Well, Rick, I wanted to talk to you about that, as a matter of fact. Down to have a beer at O’Grady’s?”

“I’ll be right there! Half an hour.”

I got there before Josh, sat down and ordered a pint. The place was almost deserted on that Sunday afternoon.

Josh arrived a few minutes later. He had a kind of enigmatic look. I had a pretty good idea what he wanted to talk about. He sat down and ordered. Once we were done with the small talk, he spit it out.

“Rick, Penny skyped me last night, crying. I had never seen her face so puffy. It took her probably two minutes before she was finally able to speak. She told me that the day following their arrival in Bogotá, she had sex with one of the doctors on the team, a Doctor Evans.”

“Oh… ok… and, what was your reaction?” I replied, awaiting his take on this.

“I managed to stay calm. I asked her if it was a one-night or a true affair. She told me it was a one shot, and that she regretted it so much the next day that she wouldn’t even think of doing it again. She told me she had been crying for two weeks, and that she just couldn’t live with this any longer.

“I thanked her for her honesty, and I told her to enjoy the rest of the trip, that we would calmly talk about it when she got back, and that I was not mad. I surprised myself for staying cool about that.”

“Ok,” I replied. “So what are you going to do? Stay cool on the phone the time she is there and wait for her at the airport with a petition for divorce?”

“Nooo! Nah… I’m not gonna do that. See, I must admit that I did have my own flings over the years. Well, maybe, what, two or three? Snapping at her would not be very legitimate of me. That’s one of the reasons for my call for a beer. Any advice?”

“You mean, if you should tell her about you, so that she knows she just made you two a bit more even?”

“Yeah, kinda. There’s a risk she’ll get mad at me for never having told her before she told me of her own tryst.”

“I guess it is possible, Josh, but you know Penny more than I do.”

Josh’s look became somber.

“Yeah. But there is something else, Rick. Penny told me that she was not the only one enjoying horizontal workouts over there. It seems that Marcy has had the same kind of travel activities.”

I took a few seconds to answer.

“I know, Josh. But in the case of Marcy, it is a full-blown affair that she has with a certain Doctor Trey. She told me in a letter she wrote before she left. It is some kind of revenge, for an affair she thinks I had when I was in Iraq.”

“Did you?” Josh asked.

“Nope. Not an affair. A 15-minute blowjob slash pussy-licking session while the girl and I were still in shock after a bomb exploded a few meters from us an hour before. You’re a fireman, you know the feeling.”

“Totally!” Josh replied.

“So, I don’t know what to do. Everything tells me that the only logical thing to do is to have a divorce. I am slowly but surely coming to terms with this conclusion. But to think that this will be a divorce on a misunderstanding just destroys me” I said, making a gigantic effort not to start crying.

“Penny talked to me about Trey, a few weeks ago. All nurses or female doctors at the hospital are head over heals about him. Marcy must feel that she got the jackpot.”

“Yep, she must”, I said, a bit miffed.

Having nobody waiting for us at home, we extended the beer to a light dinner. Changing the subject did us both a world of good.

*****

Facing Reality

The following Monday set the tone for the rest of the week. The various government agencies we had as clients would work my ass off all day to find a solution to the current situation, and the nights would be spent moaning, and more and more crying over what my life had suddenly become.

It was clear that the next move had to be mine. One evening that I was more on the solution mode than on the whining mode, I carefully considered my options.

Option 1: do as Marcy requested, which meant meet her at the Ambassador, wait to see how the situation had evolved on her side and what she had to say, and then see if there existed a way of working things out.

That option made me feel very uncomfortable, since it gave her total control on the situation. It could potentially give her the satisfaction of waiting for me there with Doctor Lover to tell me that they were now a thing and that my time was over. I felt I had been humiliated enough as it was.

Option 2: pay the balance on all joint credit cards, cancel them, open a new bank account in my name only and transfer 50% of what was left of our joint accounts in it. Rent an apartment and bring all my belongings there. Have Marcy served with divorce papers at the Ambassador and wait for her at home for the discussion/confrontation that would inevitably follow. Then let my attorney take care of the rest.

That was a pretty straightforward approach, and I had the feeling that this was probably what most people would have recommended me to do. Clean and efficient. But just thinking of doing this would unfailingly make me burst into tears.

Yeah, this one would hurt a lot, but hopefully, the pain would not last too long.

Option 3: since Marcy did not want to receive calls (that would end in Doctor Lover’s room anyhow), send Marcy a text message or an e-mail explaining that I would not meet her at the Ambassador because I wanted a divorce and the petition had already been filed and she was to be served at the Ambassador.

That was not a very good option. First there was no guarantee that Marcy was even taking her text messages or her e-mails while there. And second, if she did, she would probably try to contact me to work this out and I did not want to start a fight across two continents over my marriage.

Option 4: go away without leaving her a trace.

This would have the same final outcome as a divorce, since Marcy would probably file for abandonment after one year. I really did not like this option because it meant that, on top of everything, I would have to live at least a part of my life hiding from someone. Not the kind of life I wanted.

Option 5: the day before she was scheduled to arrive, send a copy of Marcy’s letter to our children, her parents, mine, our friends and then call them to explain the situation. Then leave for a two-week stay in an all-inclusive somewhere in the Caribbeans and let her deal with the shit fallout.

This was the vengeful, scorched-earth approach. At first glance, it was very, very appealing. But doing this would simply not be like me. Our relatives and friends did not need to know what we were going through in our marriage. And frankly, I did not very much feel the need to come out as a cuckold to the rest of the planet.

And the problem with a revenge of that scale was that after the few minutes of expected solace, the crisis would still be entirely unresolved and even harder to get out of. Prolonged torture? Nah…

Frankly, all those options were revolting. Unfortunately, there was no Option 6, in which the previous month would simply never have existed.

In a nutshell, I estimated all 5 options had way over 90% chance of ending in a divorce. The more I thought of it, the more it became clear that filing for divorce was logical. And probably unavoidable.

I knew a few attorneys. No one handling divorce and family issues, though. But I could certainly get a recommendation.

I would make some calls the next day.

***

I got an appointment with Doug Atwater, attorney, the next Monday. The guy had a reputation for expediting things, which was what I wanted.

I found him very aggressive and rude. It was a clash of personalities between the two of us as soon as I sat in front of him.

I gave him a summary of the situation and handed him a copy of Marcy’s letter.

“How long do you say she has been gone now?” he asked, after reading the letter.

“It’ll be four weeks this weekend,” I replied.

“What the fuck?! Are you telling me that it took you over three weeks to figure out that divorcing was the only thing to do?” he asked. His expression was a mixture of surprise and contempt.

“To figure out my options, yes,” I replied, calmly.

“Ok, humor me here. What more proof do you need that she doesn’t give a flying fuck about you and that she’s moved on a for quite a while?”

It sounded to me like a tactic to make my mind shift from resigned sadness to fighting fierceness. I told him my objective was not monetary. I did not care so much about the house or the bank accounts. I just wanted to end this agony by making it a quick deal and not let things linger. I asked him to prepare a petition that my wife would likely not fight, so that I could get all of it over with in a flash.

I was clearly asking him to get out of his usual combat zone, and he was not the least at ease with that. But he would do as I instructed.

Mr. Atwater told me the papers would be ready the next Friday. He would send a copy to my office, and he would have Marcy served in the lobby of the Ambassador hotel, two hours after her flight was scheduled to arrive.

The following week was one of the busiest in my career. I would arrive at the office at 6 am and would not be home until 10 pm. Most of the day was spent on phone calls with Europe and the East Coast, and I would take advantage of the quietness of the evenings to do some paperwork.

Kyle texted once or twice. When he told me he was preparing his final exams, it struck me that we were already approaching the end of the semester. He had planned to come home after the finals, which was four weeks later, or two weeks after Marcy’s return. Not a lot of time for the dust to settle. The odd thing was that he still hadn’t received any news from his mother. But he said that after I had explained the situation down there to him, he was not really expecting a sign from her before her return anyway.

I also got a call from Rhonda. She just wanted to touch base with me. She had not talked to Marcy either, to no surprise since Marcy had told her that she would be incommunicado for most of the trip.

With all the work at the office, I got home worn out every evening of that week. The guy at the takeout three blocks down was quickly becoming my best friend.

I obviously had no time to look for an apartment and no energy to start packing. This would have to wait. I could not find the time to set up a meeting with the President of the hospital either. But what was the point anyway, considering that Marcy and I would soon be divorced?

I had to work all day Saturday, and my Sunday was devoted to house chores and yard work.

I was watering the vegetable patch when I heard Vincent calling to Leslie who was inside the house. I opened to gate and went to say hello. Vincent welcomed me with a large grin, asking how everything had been.

“I feel better. More at peace than I did 4 weeks ago, let’s say,” I replied.

“Oh, I’m glad to hear this! Any news from Marcy? How is she doing?” he asked.

“Well, not really. She and her group travel to areas with no signal, so she can’t really stay in touch. Hey, Vincent, erm, can I take you up on your kind invitation for dinner?”

“Sure! Of course! I thought you’d never ask! What about this coming Friday? I’ll finally get to grill those steaks!” he said cheerfully.

“Alright then, it’s a date! See you this Friday!”

*****

Another Perspective

The week that followed was more or less a repeat of the previous week, with a workload that would not give me any breaks.

Just after I sat at my desk on Friday morning, a courier showed up at the office to hand me my copy of the divorce papers. I handled the envelope as I did Marcy’s letter, treating it as biohazard. I did not want to open it. It could wait.

Then just before lunch, all my carefully planned schedule went out the window. I received a call from Laurent Duchemin, who wanted to inform me of the situation we had been trying to resolve for weeks. Things were not looking good. I called my other colleagues, and it did not take long for me to realize that I would have to go to Europe the week after, and that I would be gone for at least ten days. This meant I would be away the day Marcy was scheduled to return, the following Friday.

So much for meeting her at the Ambassador. Option 1 was out. Since I had never really considered options 3, 4 and 5 viable, the only remaining choice was option 2.

Except for the fact that I would not be home to discuss things with her after she was served. She would have to find answers by herself, awaiting my return.

Just like I had been doing for five weeks.

I grabbed a couple of good bottles of wine on my way home. Took a quick shower and off was I to the Nielson’s.

Leslie gave me a warm welcome, but I was pleased that there was no sexual innuendo in her demeanor. Vincent was heaping praise on the new butcher’s shop that had just opened near our houses, where he had found the steaks we were going to have.

It was a great dinner. The food was delicious, and both Leslie and Vincent were of very pleasant company. We exchanged the last bit of news, and I gave them more details about Marcy’s letter. I did not want to tell them I was going all the way for a divorce. Perhaps this was part of the revenge: since Marcy created this mess, it was only logical that she got to tell everybody that we were splitting and to explain the reasons.

After dinner, I helped them both to clear everything, and we sat on the patio with some port wine.

Since we were already a bit tipsy after two bottles of wine, I figured I would do no harm addressing the elephant in the room.

“So, guys, I’m curious. Tell me how this started, I mean sharing Leslie with other men?”

They were both nonplussed, but Vincent made a 10/10 recovery.

“Well, it started like a common fantasy. We were watching a TV program, one night, many years ago. It was actually a series about uncommon sexual practices in North America. We were both fans of that series, and we used to comment on everything about it. That night’s program was about swinging. And I could see that Leslie was totally enthralled, even more than usual.

“After the show, I teased Leslie a bit about how she seemed fascinated with the topic. And she admitted that group sex had always been a fantasy, for as long as she could remember in her life. I was also very interested by all this. We talked about it for, what, nearly a year before we jumped in? Erm… no pun intended here!” Vincent winked.

“Ok, but do you do, how can I say… ‘complete’ swinging, or is it always only Leslie having other men taking care of her? Do you have sex with other women as well?”

“It happens, occasionally. But this is not my primary fantasy. At first, we had sex with other couples. But it did not take long before I realized that I am basically a voyeur, and that most of my pleasure comes from seeing Leslie with someone else. I have met different women, and I have also realized that almost none of them give me the chills as much as Leslie does.”

He continued, in a whisper: “See, Leslie is A-MA-ZING in bed. Her body is downright perfect, and she has the energy of a nuclear bomb.”

Leslie’s face was now flashing as red as a railroad crossing.

“Ok, so for you, there is no real incentive to have sex with other women?”

“Nope. Ok, it happens, from time to time. But the occasions are fewer and fewer.”

“And what about jealousy? You were never jealous seeing Leslie being erm… banged by another man? – sorry for the word, no offense!”

“None taken!” Leslie said, laughing.

“Nope, I feel no jealousy at all,” Vincent replied. “I guess I don’t feel jealous because I know that Leslie does not meet those guys in secret. It’s all in the open. And when they leave, at the end of the evening, Leslie and I make love, and we talk about the experience, sometimes joking about it.”

“Ok, so this is really something that you share. Neither of you feel compelled to do anything they wouldn’t like or feel left out. You have learned to make it something that you experience together.”

“Exactly. You’re right on. We experience this together,” Leslie said.

“If I understand well, you treat this as a… erm… hobby? Completely separated from your wedding vows?” I asked tentatively.

“The way we see it, Rick, love is love and sex is sex. I never broke my wedding vows because I never cheated on Vincent. What we both decide to do together with our bodies has nothing to do with our vows,” Leslie added.

“We think it’s normal that, after having been married several years, someone may want to see how things are elsewhere. So what were my options? Cheating on Leslie, or taking the journey with her? The first option was a disaster waiting to happen. The second option was full of promises,” Vincent added.

“Well, I find all this very intriguing, as I said. But I for one don’t think I’d be able to see Marcy having sex with another man. I know it did happen and I’ve been having nightmares about it for over a month. I just can’t imagine what it would be to actually see it happening right in front of me,” I admitted.

“Oh, but your situation is very different, Rick. See, what Marcy is doing is in total opposition to our values. She decided to have sex with someone else without discussing it with you before. She gave you a hall pass, thinking it would make up for the one she allowed herself and get you on board, but this cannot replace an open and honest discussion BEFORE the fact,” Vincent explained.

“This being said, I don’t think she did that because she no longer loves you, Rick. I truly think she did that because she needed to explore, to discover something else. But the way she did it was pretty lousy, I think,” Leslie offered.

“Totally. She did not make sure she had the most important, the single really essential thing: your buy-in,” Vincent insisted.

After a long hug to both of them, I took leave of my friends and went home. That was a very… different discussion. Different, but amazing. And for the life of me, I had to recognize that there was indeed a logic to their madness.

My flight to London was scheduled for Tuesday afternoon, and I still had a lot of things to do. I wanted the house impeccable for Marcy’s return. It was more a matter of personal pride than a desire to please her. I cleaned everything. The only thing I left unattended, on purpose, was the frame with a picture of the two of us that I had thrown on the wall and that had been lying on the floor in a thousand pieces for over a month. This was a strong symbol and a powerful message.

I made myself a gin tonic on Monday evening, to celebrate what was probably my last evening in this house. My bags were packed, all my documents were ready for the trip, everything was settled. It had been a very long day.

I was in my recliner; I could not figure out how come I was still so agitated while everything in my life was wrapped up. I was expecting some peace of mind now that all the major decisions had been made. But there was still something off.

I returned to the kitchen to pick up my cell phone, and then I saw the big envelope with my copy of the divorce papers that I had not even bothered to read yet. I sat down and started to review them. Everything was as instructed. Marcy would probably find no reason to fight. That was it. 24 years moved to the ‘history’ column.

I must have stayed absent-mindedly sitting at the kitchen table for several minutes, when I had a flash: the letter, Marcy’s letter, where was it? I found it in the bedroom, still in my overnight bag from the trip to Diedre’s place. I suddenly realized that I had not read it again since that fateful evening after Marcy had left.

I went back to my recliner and read the letter a second time. And a third time.

And the whole thing finally started to take shape: sometimes, a cake is just a cake…

*****

Holding On

“Hello, Doug Atwater speaking.”

“Hi Doug, Rick Weston here. Sorry to disturb you in the evening, but it can’t wait until tomorrow.”

“No problem Rick, I told you to call me any time. What can I do for you?”

“I want to you to put a hold on the divorce. DON’T have my wife served this Friday.”

“Rick, this is unexpected, I thought we had agreed that this was the only possible course of action,” he retorted.

“Listen Doug, I will be leaving for Europe tomorrow, and I will return at the end of next week. I’m thinking more and more that this divorce is a headlong rush. I don’t want to precipitate things before I leave.”

“Rick, this is just wilful blindness. Don’t you think your wife has shown sufficient disrespect and disdain to even consid…”

“Doug, stop,” I cut him. “You are my attorney, not my psychiatrist or my life coach. Believe me, I have very good reasons to ask you to put things on hold. Will you do it please?”

After a loud sigh, Doug Atwater agreed to put things on hold and await further instructions from me.

I sat at the desk in my home office and wrote a long letter to Marcy. Quite a few sheets of paper were torn in the process, and I had to redo several portions over and over because I wanted it to perfectly explain my thoughts. It was way past midnight when I decided it did.

On my way to the airport on Tuesday morning, I stopped by a courier service that I used for work and dropped them the letter with detailed instructions to deliver it to Mrs. Marcy Weston at the Ambassador Hotel on Friday at 4 pm.

*****

Marcy

When she realized that she had been stumbling over the same line again and again for almost ten minutes, Marcy Weston finally figured out she was not in the mood for reading. She had slept almost all the way in her flight from Asuncion to Bogota, from pure exhaustion. But the rush at the Bogota airport to catch her connecting flight to the US left her totally keyed up, and now, she could not sleep a wink.

Things were clearly different for Penny Washington, who was sitting at her side, sleeping like a baby since a few minutes after take-off. Penny’s trip had been a roller coaster. She shared Marcy’s excitement when they first arrived in Bogota. And she left herself be dragged in the flow and had sex with Mark Evans, who was notorious at the hospital for being a huge fan of the horizontal position. After she had Rick over the phone the evening he called for Marcy, her life turned into a guilt trip.

When she finally had to guts to confess her fling to her husband Josh over the phone, and seeing that he reacted cool about it, she felt happily relieved for a few days. Then Josh admitted to her that he had no reason to be mad at her since he too had a few extra-curricular activities a few years before, but after they were married. She was a fury for a complete week. But things cooled down and she was now eager to go back to her husband.

But Marcy’s mind was far from peaceful. When she had signed up for that trip a few months ago, she wanted to prove herself that there was more to her than being Rick Weston’s loving wife. She needed to do something on herself, by herself and for herself. And it seemed to her that she just could not do that if her husband was constantly watching. She needed a parenthesis in her life, where neither her husband, nor her kids, her parents or her friends would be there questioning her or being affected by her choices or actions.

She was at ease with what she had done, but the more the trip went, the more worried she was over what she had left behind. She went through the trip with an ever-growing guilt about not calling her husband or her children. She came close to calling Rick at least two dozen times, but each time she would hold back. She had told him she wanted a vacation from them. She had to walk the talk, even if only to avoid losing all credibility in her own eyes. She would just not give Rick reasons to think she was unable to go by herself for a little month and a half.

And at the same time, she wanted Rick to realize how much he needed her. Not that she had many expectations about this. Rick was probably a bit mad after the call. Then Leslie would give him the letter she had written, and he would understand everything. Knowing Rick, he probably took advantage of her not being there to visit their son on weekends and catch a few baseball games, or chill with his friends, or do his little things, oblivious to her being around or not.

Or bang Leslie. Leslie… was that a mistake she had made by giving him a hall pass to fuck Leslie? How would Rick feel about making love to her after six weeks of wacky sex with the athletic young neighbor? Would he still find her interesting? And most seriously, what would she do if Rick wanted to keep on having sex with a woman living a few tens of feet from their home?

She missed her husband like crazy. She kept fantasizing about sharing a romantic dinner with her husband. She just hoped Rick missed her a little.

All those questions were well enough to keep her awake, as they were passing over the Gulf of Mexico.

***

The flight landed on schedule. Soon, she had cleared customs. She was relieved not to see Rick nervously waiting for her outside the glass doors as she and the rest of the passengers were gathering around the baggage carousel. Rick was not really one to take orders from anyone who didn’t have a military rank and, somehow, she was half expecting to see him at the airport. After hugging Penny and saying goodbye to the rest of the group, she was finally sitting in her car on her way to the Ambassador.

Still no sign of Rick either when she entered the main lobby at the hotel.

“Rick following instructions to the letter, now that’s a first…” she thought smiling to herself. Unless…

She hit the shower less than 5 minutes after arriving in her room. She had been up for nearly 16 hours and she needed the soothing energy of some warm water running on her body.

She was still wrapped in a towel when she heard a knock at the door.

“Rick Weston, you will never change!” she muttered, smirking.

A young woman was standing in the corridor.

“Are you Marcy Weston?” the woman asked.

Marcy’s face turned into the palest white possible.

“Yes, it’s me,” Marcy replied, barely able to articulate.

“Here is an envelope for you. Have a nice day”.

Marcy took the letter with a shaking hand. She closed the door and sat on the bed. She took a few deep breaths to try and calm down before she opened the letter.

Dear Marcy,

As you certainly have noticed, I respected your wish to have a vacation from “us” and I did not attempt further communication with you for the remainder of your trip. Not that it has been easy. Those last six weeks were probably the most painful of my life.

But the purpose of this letter is not to make you feel bad. I am not writing it while in an aggressive mood. I am actually grateful that you took the time to write me a letter to explain where you were in your life before you left. Your letter has indeed allowed me to understand several things that had completely flown under my radar during all those years. I admit that when I first read it though, my initial reflex would have been to fly to Bogota, beat the shit out of your Dr Trey, and bring you back by hook or by crook.

Fortunately, six weeks is a long time, long enough to ponder things, and to decide what the best course of action is. Of course, things would have been easier if we could have had at least a weekly conversation, but I humored you and accepted to play by your rules. So, I got to reach my own conclusions, which possibly won’t mirror yours.

Let me first address a topic that has clearly bothered you much more than I thought over the years: the issue of Diedre Kiel and me having sex in Iraq. Was there anything sexual between Diedre and me? Yes, there was. Sort of. Was it premeditated? No, absolutely not.

Marcy, what really happened is that after we had survived a roadside ambush and we were still in the aftershock, Diedre cornered me in an empty office and gave me a blowjob. I did not try to dissuade her. I even returned the favor by giving her a tongue job. Did we go all the way? No, that was it. We never got there because the sirens went off announcing an incoming attack, so we had to run the hell out of there.

Now, why did it happen? You know, when you just narrowly escaped death, you sort of feel for a while like you live on borrowed time, and this will make you do things you would never have considered otherwise, because at this very moment, what counts is not the promises you made or the engagements you have to honor, but the necessity to seize the moment, to fully live like there is no tomorrow.

That is what truly happened back in Iraq, Marcy. Nothing more. Nothing premeditated. It was not an affair. And we never did it again.

For your information, I went to Diedre’s place the weekend after you left. I slept there. Not with her. In the guest room. Nothing sexual happened between us. But she helped me understand things that were happening in my life that I just couldn’t grasp by myself. I was happy I could count on her. I am not in love with her, but she is a good friend that I am fond of.

The second thing I need to talk about is that six-month mark of my posting in Korea when we met in Hawaii. You tell me that I was smug and that I dismissed your home issues. You are right, I was not in a good mood, and I was not very interested in sharing anything with you. I should have told you what was on my mind, rather than acting like a jerk.

A few days before you arrived, I had received an email from my ex-girlfriend Lydia Steele asking if you and I had split, because she saw your car parked at the Red Roof Inn (she was the manager there) when she got in every morning, which means that you had made a habit of getting there over an hour ahead of your scheduled shifts.

What were you doing there? I don’t know. I learned later that the parking lot at the hospital was a construction site at that time, and that most employees had to park elsewhere. The Red Roof Inn was a nice nearby alternative. But this did not explain the early arrivals. I can no longer obtain Lydia’s version, because she was killed in a car crash a few months ago. The only version I may get to have some day is yours.

But this explains my bad mood back in Hawaii. For some reason, I got it into my head that you were having an affair while I was in Korea. Once again, yes, I should have said something.

The final elephant in the room that I wish to address is Leslie. I understand that you wanted to me to ‘fuck her until she’s crosseyed and babbling’. Well, sorry to disappoint you, but it didn’t happen, for two reasons. First, I’m 48 and she’s 30. You should know that I have always preferred women my age. Leslie is quite attractive for sure, but she is just too young for me. The second reason is that this would have been revenge sex. I associate sex with fun and pleasure, not with revenge. And I certainly would not have ‘used’ her as a revenge tool.

I had dinner at Leslie’s and Vincent’s last Friday. We had nice steaks and nice port wine, and we talked a lot. Yes, we talked about swinging and wife sharing. But that was just it: talking.

This brings me to your trip and to some elements of your letter.

This will surprise you Marcy, but if you had told me that you felt the need to have sex with someone else, to feel another body, to be touched by other hands, I would probably have been open to have a heart-to-heart discussion with you about this, over a bottle of wine, say. I would have thrown in my own feelings and fantasies, and maybe we would have found something fun to explore together.

But you chose otherwise. You left home without saying goodbye. You never texted me that you had arrived safely and that you were ok. You left a letter for me that I received two days after, and in which you basically told me that you wanted me out of the picture for six weeks, so that you could live your life and enjoy your affair. You set me up for sex with a neighbor, for what? To alleviate your own guilt? And all those subtle insults sprinkled over the letter about my career and my not being there. As if I was ‘playing soldiers’… This one stung, Marcy. It still hurts.

Marcy, it will have taken me this trip, and your affair to fully understand how much you resent me for the time I was away.

So, I’m asking, what are the factors that lead us to this foul situation? Three things come to my mind. I think the first is the resentment that you feel toward me, for having been the man with the successful career while you had to raise the family. While I was out there, you had to take care of the kids, the house, the bills, etc. and because of that, you did not have either the availability nor the energy to boost your own career.

The second factor is a result of the first. When I resigned from the army, you were finally able to give your own career a real take-off, and now you are recognized as the top nurse at your hospital. Life gave you a new set of wings, you could finally fly and it was a thrill. And you felt like you deserved to fly anywhere you wanted, after years of being held back. I can’t be mad at you for that since I would have felt and done exactly the same. As I said, I would almost certainly have been on board and given you a high five on the send off, but I guess you resented me too much and chose to keep me out of if.

This brings me to the third factor, probably the biggest contributor to the mess we are in. Over the years, we have done but a pitifully lousy job in terms of communicating with each other. Marcy, I have always been extremely grateful for everything you did for me and for our family. I guess my mistake was to tell it to everybody but you. Over the last years, I have been especially proud to be married to such an accomplished professional. I guess I managed to make the same mistake again, though. I always talk highly of you, but much less highly to you.

And if you had told me about your feelings, and if I had listened, things would have been very different.

I am afraid it is too late, Marcy. I see the clear possibility that we have drifted apart beyond repair. That is why I contacted an attorney and had divorce papers prepared. I was to have you served today, at this time.

But I found things written between the lines in your letter that gave me hope that there were still embers underneath the ash. So, I changed my mind and decided that no, I was not going to let everything crumble without opening the door to a sincere and honest conversation.

You will have figured out at this point that no, I am not going to meet you in the lobby later today. There are two reasons.

First, I too am a coward. When you wrote your letter, and when I called you at the hotel, you told me that Dr Trey was a fuck toy, that you didn’t love him. I believed you when you said so. But how do things stand now, after six weeks of living with him as wife and husband? Have you fallen in love with him? For all I know, he might as well be sitting next to you on the bed in your hotel room while you’re reading this letter.

Those six weeks of not knowing have taken a big toll on me, Marcy. I feel drained, empty. And the possibility of meeting you in the lobby and being told that you and I are history, that you were now moving on with Dr Trey, is just more than I can handle right now.

The other reason I won’t meet you today is purely logistical. I am currently in Paris. Yeah, I still have some traveling to do… Foreign affair security issues. I had to leave last Tuesday for a two-day stop in London, and I flew into Paris today. I will be returning next Thursday. My flight schedule is in the envelope.

When I arrive next Thursday, I will go to the Ambassador. I suggest that we meet in the lobby, just like you wanted us to do today. If I see you in the lobby when I get there, I will know three things. First, you still want to be married with me. Second, your affair with Dr. Trey is over. Third, you are as committed as I am to take lessons from the past and make our marriage better. Please do not come if any one of those three elements is missing.

Also, please do not attempt to communicate with me in the interval. I want your decision to meet me or not to be based on your own reflections only. If I don’t see you in the lobby within two hours of my arrival, I will understand and accept that we are done. I will not be mad, I will not resent you. I will just keep crying for a while, then try and move on with my own life.

No matter what happens Marcy, I wish to make amends and apologize for anything I have done that contributed to this very sad situation.

I remember the last thing you wrote in the core of your letter, and the last thing you said over the phone, that you love me. I still do too, Marcy. I love you madly. And I hang on to that.

Love,

Rick.

Marcy let herself fall on her back on the bed. She watched the ceiling for a couple of minutes before she could shake herself back up.

“My God… was I expecting this…” she thought out loud, as tears fell down her cheek.

She had always considered that she loved Rick much more than he loved her. In her mind, she was one element among others in Rick’s life. His career had always been more important than his wife or his family. And she had always felt that Rick resented her for having forced him to stop flying. Their life was ok. Not perfect, but ok. With all the usual ups and downs that all couples go through.

She never thought Rick would embark on a such a journey of self-examination regarding her and their marriage. She thought her trip would give him a wake-up call, at most. She was half-joking when she talked in her letter about Rick wanting to divorce her. She never for the life of her thought for a moment that Rick would seriously consider this option. Unless Rick was joking. But no… not like him at all.

And above all, she was light-years away from imagining that Rick would be that devastated by her actions, and that those six weeks would be a living hell for him.

She called room service and got herself dinner and a bottle of red wine. Rick would not be joining her, but she did not yet feel like taking the one-hour drive to go back to her empty home.

*****

Welcome to my World

I have always hated flying to and back from Europe. Sitting for over eleven hours in a flying tin can is just nerve grueling and back wrecking. I was beginning to feel grumpy when we finally landed after an eventless flight.

I was happy with the way we had finally been able to repair the security breach that had been discovered in Europe. And even happier that we were able to do it before it got unwanted public attention. Now, I was finally allowed to go back to the most pressing issue in my life: Marcy.

Apart from not meeting her at the hotel the previous Friday, I was able to do things pretty much like she wanted me to do. I even got STD-tested in London the week before. I was smiling to myself at the oddity of the whole thing while I was sitting at the clinic in London. I had not had sex since maybe a month before Marcy left for Colombia, and it was with her. And there I was, looking at a nurse growing impatient at not finding a good vein in my arm.

As I was driving to the hotel after landing, it came to me that my only regret was that I had not been able to work on a plan B in case Marcy did not show up.

I was a bundle of nerves when I got into the elevator from the parking lot to the main lobby. I was right on time. And I had not received any message from Marcy announcing that she was delayed.

I got out of the elevator and walked to the couches in the middle of the lobby. The lobby was empty, apart for a woman sitting there, anxiously watching the main entrance door.

“Hello Marcy,” I said softly, standing behind her.

She stood up in a flash, literally throwing herself into my arms.

“Rick, my God, I missed you so much…” she said, and started sobbing.

We remained there, standing in each others’ arms for almost a minute. She wouldn’t let go of me. I broke it and smiled at Marcy.

“Rick, I’m so sorry for everything…” she said, taking my face with both her hands

I kissed her forehead.

“Shall we take a room, beautiful lady?” I asked with a wink.

We got the key to our room and ordered lunch and some wine served half an hour later.

I asked Marcy to hold on when we got to our room, because the first thing I wanted to do was to take a quick shower, that felt almost rejuvenating after that endless flight.

“Sorry for the interruption, but I needed that!” I said.

“Yes, you did!” Marcy replied with a mocking laugh. She was waiting for me with a glass of Pinot Noir and a sheet of paper. I gave her a wary look.

“It’s my STD test. Clean!” she smirked. I laughed and showed her mine.

“Marcy, can you confirm that Dr Trey is no longer part of the cast in this play?” I asked, hesitantly. “This has been eating me away for seven weeks…”

“Trey?!” Marcy almost burst out laughing. “Rick, I gave Trey Cardosa his notice the night you called me in Bogota. After I hung up with you, we went back to what we were doing, no further details needed, and then he started to gloat and make disparaging comments about you. That did NOT sit very well with me. I stopped everything, glared at him for a few seconds, then got out of his bed, gathered my things and went back to my room. He almost didn’t talk to me the rest of the trip. The ambiance was glacial, even in the ORs.”

“Marcy, I spent seven weeks dreading that you would be falling for him, and that you and he would come back here as an item,” I admitted.

“Rick, that was NEVER a possibility. You know what, I’m glad you called that night: his reaction to your call made me realize how much of a jerk he his. And I was not the only one reaching that conclusion: he managed to alienate everyone in the group in less than two weeks.”

I took Marcy’s hands in mine.

“Marcy, you cannot begin to imagine how relieved and happy I am to be sitting here with you today…” I said, my eyes tearing up.

“Rick, Love, you and I have been living in two different worlds, two different realities for the past two months. It’s time we reconnected.”

We talked for hours. Nothing was tossed aside. She came to be at peace with what happened between Diedre Kiel and me in Iraq. She admitted that she felt like shit that she had premeditated an affair in reaction to something ‘so meaningless’, to use her own words.

She gave me an explanation about her early arrivals at the Red Roof Inn while I was in Korea. A colleague and good friend of hers, Carlota Jimenez, was “hiding” her sister Juanita who had entered illegally in the US. She could not keep her at her place, because her husband was an asshole. So, she managed to get her a room at the RR, with the complicity of the hotel manager, Lydia, who was a friend of Carlota. Carlota had asked Marcy to drop by Juanita’s room in the morning to help her while she was working the night shift, and Carlota would go visit her sister in the evening. The crazy thing is that Marcy did not know that Lydia was the manager of the RR, and it appears that Lydia never made the connection between Juanita, Carlota and Marcy!

And we talked a lot about the problems in our relationship, our failings as a couple that lead to the series of misunderstanding that almost got us divorced. For the first time in years, we were able to speak calmly, and constructively about everything. I felt Marcy was totally transparent. And I held nothing back either.

The lovemaking that night felt like a second first time. We reached orgasm our eyes locked into each other. This was probably the most intimate moment Marcy and I had ever lived.

“I have a gift for you, before we go to sleep,” Marcy said, with a mysterious smile.

She handed me a gift bag. In there was the picture of Marcy and me that she had picked up from the living room floor. She had gotten it a new frame.

“Thank you, Marcy,” I replied with a soft smile.

“Look at the back,” she said.

“It says ‘Made in China’,” I replied

“No, the other tag, Mr. Smartass!”

There was a small tag reading “Unbreakable”.

My love for her was intact. My trust in her was back.

*****

EPILOGUE – One Year Later

As Winston Churchill once said: “Never let a good crisis go to waste.”

Marcy and I were able to learn from that dark period of our life. We learned to talk to each other, to express our fears, our doubts, our appreciation, our gratitude, and yes, our fantasies. I am happier than I have ever been. And judging by the shining smile that I see first thing every morning, I can say that Marcy too is happier than ever.

Our kids never got a clue that their parents came close to a split. And that’s a good thing.

Penny and Josh Washington were able to work out their problems as well. They have become our closest friends since then.

Dr. Trey Cardosa was not promoted leader of the surgical team, for attitude reasons. He resigned from the hospital two months after the DWB mission. Nobody was particularly sad to see him go.

Diedre started seeing someone a few weeks after Marcy returned from South America. At first, she was very skeptical when she heard that Marcy and I had been able to get back on track, but she eventually cooled down about it. I haven’t seen her since my visit a year ago. She is coming over with her now fiancé to our place next weekend. Not only is Marcy perfectly ok having Diedre at our place, but she is the one who extended the invitation in the first place!

Leslie and Vincent Nielson moved out to the Midwest after Vincent was transferred there. We exchange emails and phone calls every now and then.

Jenny Harshly and Chuck Marston are now an item! It seems that the little trick I played on them that afternoon at the Goldstein’s was not a bad call after all. Marcy called Leslie in Chicago to tell her that. They must have laughed a good 10 minutes over the phone!

Doug Atwater almost lost his temper when I told him to throw the divorce papers away. He called me a wimp, an idiot, and several other similar terms of endearment. I threatened to file a complaint with the bar. That was the end of it.

Marcy got promoted to chief nurse of the whole hospital. She works better schedules, at a much higher salary. She is just glowing!

As for me, I am still given the stickiest assignments at my job. But I was able to rekindle my first love, and with Marcy’s blessing, I got myself a Cessna 162. I bought it… on the fly!